Shipyard to Stoneyard: The Capitol Stones at the Intersection of Material and Memory

The Capitol Stones in Washington DC's Rock Creek Park were a delight for urban explorers, a curiosity for historians, and a tangible connection for descendants of enslaved laborers who quarried, transported, and shaped them into the United States Capitol. Banished from the East Front of the Capitol in 1958, they have spent the last third of their existence "not quite dumped, but not quite preserved either" (Banville 2009). To the National Park Service, they are a liability; to the Architect of the Capitol, a resource. At the time of writing, the stones are being relocated to a secure government storage facility where they will be permanently locked away from public view. This thesis proposes an alternative: relocate the Capitol Stones to an adaptively reused factory at the Navy Yard, where they can be stored, visited, and studied in a cavernous daylit atrium. In addition to housing the stones, as part of this thesis the WWII era naval weapons factory features retail at ground level and residences on four stories above. To the north, the atrium recalls the park-like setting of the stones' recent past, while the southern end is a working space for masons training to preserve historic buildings constructed of the same Aquia Creek sandstone. Due to the Anacostia's shifting shoreline, the site of Building 202 is also a likely location of the wharf at which the Capitol Stones first arrived in the District after being floated upriver from their Stafford County quarry. This crucial moment is marked by a contemplative memorial which stands in memory of the enslaved laborers who, across various levels of skill, built the Capitol. On axis with the memorial, the Capitol's East Portico - the origin of the Capitol Stones - is remembered at full scale.