An architectural declaration of independence

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has piqued my obsession with the architecture of its birthplace. Of prime appeal for me is how Independence Hall in Philadelphia (built 1732-1753 as the Pennsylvania State House) was not only designed to create the breathing room, elbow room and room to grow for Continental Congress to debate, shape and ratify this pivotal parchment, followed by the Constitution in 1787, but also conceived with the foresight of America's future expansion and the architectural user-friendliness it would require.

This 1752 drawing shows that the State House had its hip-roofed wings, linked to the headhouse by arcaded hyphens, from the beginning. This civic symmetry touted the edifice's central significance as the seat of the local government.

Independence Hall about 1776. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

The Pennsylvania State House was originally planned with this tripartite arrangement (by 1776, the wings were extended with wooden sheds, most likely for storage of firewood, ammo, animals and such) with the logical intent to distribute and compartmentalize its various bureaucratic functions into separate entities for the sake of efficiency of operation, clarity of location, and hierarchy of social standing. In the central headhouse sat Pennsylvania's Legislative Assembly, Executive Council and Judicial Courts, as well as the Long Gallery the colonial governor used for banquets and public events. 

Independence Hall Tower (1750). Photo by Greg Balfour Evans.

All these government entities were solemnly topped, thereby unified as one architectural composition, around 1750 by the cupola-crowned tower, which landmarked the Pennsylvania State House in a way that signified its supremacy and clarified the carillon of its bells throughout the land of Philadelphia. 

Yes, it was in this tower that the Liberty Bell rang, until its crack reduced it to a sculptural relic of its age, but emblazoned it with its own Mark of Zorro of the justice the founders fought for and the rebellion by which they won us our country.

The West Wing, as its houselike form suggests, housed living quarters for doorkeepers of the Pennsylvania Assembly and books for the Library Company of Philadelphia, which Benjamin Franklin had founded in 1731 to make books accessible to all.

Today the West Wing proudly displays the Great Essentials, original printed copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, paying homage to those founding charters that were debated and drafted in the great room next door.

The identical East Wing stored public documents and governmental paperwork, so that the governing bodies would not be buried in paper as they politicked. Today the East Wing houses the America's National Parks store, a gift shop that sells historical books, 250th-anniversary souvenirs, and mementos such as magnets, postcards, and miniature Liberty Bells. Proceeds from their sales directly fund education and preservation programs at the Independence National Historical Park.

The central foyer, bridal stair, and Palladian window clue us into the Hall's sheer expanse by ushering us up to the grand rooms. We see how architects Andrew Hamilton and Edmund Woolley distributed the Hall's load-bearing columns to create free-flowing space. 

Palladian window, Independence Hall. Photo by JG Photography.

This space was brightly illuminated with a Palladian window and double-height side windows. This composition of space amd light expressed the freedom the Hall's Founding Fathers envisioned for the colonies that were represented there.

The ornate woodwork – banisters, scrolls, wainscoting, pediments, Palladian window, fluted Ionic pilasters, cornices, crown moldings – gave historical framework to the Liberty Bell until its 1976 relocation to accommodate more tourists.

Today the bell hangs solo in the ultramodern Liberty Bell Center, in plain window-wall sight of its old home but bereft of its historical milieu. Yet this new setting sheds new light and space on the bell's fortes and flaws.

Now we clearly see the wood yoke, its metal ties and bolts, the relief lettering of its recasters' names (Pass & Stow), the clapper, the braces, the rim frayed by souvenir  hunters' pinching fingers, and the crack – which was not caused solely by ringing, but mainly by repairs gone awry. In 1846, to ring the bell for George Washington's birthday, the existing hairline crack was drill-widened to retard it and reduce its buzz when rung. (Forty drill-marks can be seen along the seam.) This worked at first – the ringing was "clear as a bell" on the Founding Father's anniversary – but soon the fissure spread, silencing the chime for good.

Nonetheless, the crack has become symbolic of the struggle and strain with which our Founders fought for our freedom, emerging scarred and cracked but largely intact. The crack is also a distinguishing mark of recognition that sets this bell apart from others, much as how the Leaning Tower of Pisa derives its tourist appeal from its tilt.

The bright, spacious Assembly Room supplied the requisite sunshine, elbow-room and elegance for Pennsylvania Assembly meetings, ratification of the Declaration on July 4, 1776, the signing of it on August 2, and the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Congress Voting Independence (1784-1801, Robert Edge Pine & Edward Savage)

The room's ornamental restraint and high coved ceiling lent a sense of civic grace and spatial openness to those occasions (as shown here in Congress Voting Independence (right), a painting begun in 1784 by Robert Edge Pine and completed in 1801 by Edward Savage) without excessive visual distractions...

Assembly Room, Independence Hall, shown in 1856, by Max Rosenthal.

...though at one time there were more of those, as shown in this 1856 painting by Max Rosenthal (left)
and in the 1905 photograph (below), both done after the room was redone in 1833.

Assembly Room, Independence Hall, 1905. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

At that time it received an elaborate crown molding of triglyphs, triple wall panels, wider fluted pilasters with carved capitals, and a lavish crystal chandelier. In the mid-1900s the room was restored to a semblance of its original appearance to boost its tourist appeal. This was a mistake, because the 1833 remodeling had historical value of its own and was compatible with the Founders' vision for a democratic but civilized society. The rows of triglyphs nobly symbolized the peaceable meeting-house assembly of multiple delegates and citizens our democracy was founded on, and the triple wall panels served as handsome display frames for pictures of past presidents.

Photo by Corlia van Wyk.

Photo by R. Wallace.

The open-scrolled pediment (left), carved with a scallop-shell surrounded by a leaf frieze, crowns the central seat of the President of Continental Congress (right). 

This was the perfect regal mitre for John Hancock to enscribe his famed signature on the Declaration, and for George Washington to preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It is the only feature of the room's 18th-century woodwork to survive the 1833 remodeling. The "Rising Sun" chair, at which Hancock and Washington sat for those milestone episodes, is an English Chippendale chair carved on its crest with the appropriate images of a half-sun, a Liberty pole, and a Phrygian cap, aptly symbolizing the liberty gained through the Revolution.

Also here is the Syng Inkstand, made of fine silver by local silversmith Philip Syng in 1752, into which 56 Continental Congressmen dipped their quill pens to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" by signing Timothy Matlack's scribed parchment of the Declaration.

Declaration of Independence (1786-1818, John Trumbull).

But most of all I can hear the strains of "Sit down, John!" and "Someone oughta open up a window!" echo through the chamber in the movie 1776 as John Adams implores a reluctant Congress to "Vote yes! Vote for independency!" and rants, "We piddle, twiddle, and resolve, not one damn thing do we solve!" in his perpetual plaint about the political inefficiency Independence Hall's architects sought to curb.

To minimize piddling and twiddling and maximize resolution, they conceived the Committee Room. Pedimented doors provided a tasteful setting for the Assembly's committees to resolve conflicts and for local militia to store ammo.

The Governor's Council Chambers provided wood-panel warmth and fireplace radiance for colonial governors' meetings with the Council to green-light or red-light legislation the popularly elected Pennsylvania Assembly had passed.

The Supreme Court Chamber was an incubator for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's growth in, well, supremacy, as a model for the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Fluted pilasters, triglyph friezes, pediments, turned-baluster rails, and a painting of the Pennsylvania Coat of Arms (replacing King George III's in 1785) lent learned solemnity to the chamber. The trio of arches signified the open democracy to come...

...as did the Long Room, a 100-foot chamber spanning the entire northern front of the Hall's headhouse, carefully designed with no obstructing columns or walls, so that the colonial governor of Pennsylvania could pack it to capacity for his receptions and banquets. 

The Artist in His Museum (1822, Charles Willson Peale).

This floor-through space came in equally handy as a hospital/jail for wounded colonial prisoners of war during the British Army's occupation of Philadelphia in 1777-78, and, from 1802 to 1827, an exhibit space for Charles Willson Peale's (left) collection of fossils, shells, rocks, minerals, insects, 700 American birds, painted portraits by Charles and Rembrandt Peale (his son), and a massive fossilized mastodon skeleton. This was one of America's first natural history museums, giving rise to New York's American Museum of Natural History and Boston's Museum of Science. And to think that it all began where it all began!

Independence Hall in Philadelphia was the bastion of many beginnings – architectural, social, political, scientific – and provided generous, open, well-designed space for the American experiment in participatory democracy to develop, flourish, and inspire other nations.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!