Architecture
At the time it was completed, the J. Edgar Hoover building was reported to have 2,400,000 square feet (220,000 m2) to 2,535,000 square feet (235,500 m2) of interior space, of which 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) were usable office space. (According to more current information provided by the FBI, the building contained 2,800,876 square feet (260,209.9 m2) of interior space in 2010.) Its internal amenities included:
- An amphitheater
- A 162-seat auditorium
- An automobile repair shop
- A two-story basketball court
- An eighth-floor cafeteria, with access to a roof garden
- Classrooms
- Cryptographic vault
- Developing laboratories for both still photography and motion pictures
- Exercise rooms
- A film library
- A firing range
- 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) of laboratory space
- A medical clinic
- Morgue
- A printing plant
- A test pattern and ballistics range
- A 700-seat theater
The structure had three floors below ground. Originally only two below-ground floors were planned, but a third was added during the review process. The top two floors of the northern (E Street) structure housed the fingerprint bureau. Special features of the building included a pneumatic tube system and a conveyor belt system for handling mail and files. A special, reinforced, extra-thick "protection slab" existed beneath the second floor to help protect the building from street-level explosions. A gravel-filled dry moat ran along the building on E Street NW.
The building's corner piers contained the mechanical services (elevators, HVAC, etc.). A dual elevator system was installed, one for use by the public and one for use by staff. A dual set of hallways also existed in portions of the buildings. The smaller set of dual hallways was for public use. The public elevators connected only to the public hallways, isolating the public from FBI workers. Several portions of the public hallway contained glass partitions through which the public could see FBI personnel at work.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building is in an architectural style known as Brutalism. The term is derived from the French term béton brut ("raw concrete"), which is used to describe the unpolished concrete surfaces which still exhibit marks from the rough wood used to create the forms into which the liquid concrete was poured. The exterior is constructed of buff-colored precast and cast-in-place concrete. The intent was to attach sheets of polished concrete or granite to the exterior. The exterior walls were built to accommodate these attachments, but this plan was abandoned as the building neared completion. The windows were of bronze-tinted glass. The cornice line is 160 feet (49 m) high on the E Street side. The interior, as built, consisted of white vinyl floor tiles, and polished concrete ceilings and floors painted white. The open-air courtyard was paved with grayish-beige stone, and contained an arcade to shelter employees as they moved around its edge.
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