Architecture
Since the site of the Kennedy-Warren slopes steeply from Connecticut Avenue down to the National Zoo, the lobby level is designated as the third floor. The two residential levels below that have apartments that face the zoo. Below those are four basement levels, including a large parking garage. The building is an imposing sight on Connecticut Avenue because of its massive size and fine detailing, which includes tan and orange variegated brick, limestone carvings, and the extensive use of aluminum. The Kennedy-Warren was the first building in Washington, D.C., to use aluminum extensively; applications include the entrance porch, spandrels between the windows on the façade, balustrades in the lobby, and even an aluminum-leaf arched ceiling in the ground-floor corridors, unique in Washington, D.C. The stone carvings are in the Aztec Deco style, influenced by the carved stonework of ancient Mexico, and include griffins, eagles, and a frieze of elephants and starbursts and they rise three floors above street level.
An unusual feature of the Kennedy-Warren when it opened in 1931 was its air-cooling system. Three enormous fans drew cool air from Klingle Park at the back of the building and forced it through the public corridors. Residents could then open metal louvers above their hallway doors to cool individual apartments. Cross-ventilation during temperate weather was so effective that doorstops were required to prevent doors from slamming closed if left ajar. Advertisements for the Kennedy-Warren showed that the air was at least ten degrees cooler than on Connecticut Avenue. The fans were removed during the 2009–11 renovation after central air conditioning was installed.
Read more about this topic: Kennedy-Warren Apartment Building
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)