Hart Senate Office Building - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

Following a recommendation from George M. White (then the serving Architect of the Capitol), the plan submitted by the architectural firm of John Carl Warnecke & Associates was approved by the Senate Committee on Public Works on August 8, 1974. Construction proceeded, and the building was first occupied in November 1982.

Rather than adopt the neo-classical style of the first two office buildings, the architect gave the Hart Building a more distinctly contemporary appearance, although with a marble façade in keeping with its surrounding. The architects sought to design a flexible, energy-efficient building that would accommodate both the expanded staff and the new technology of the modern Senate. The building's design also deliberately spared the adjacent Sewall-Belmont house, a historic structure that serves as headquarters for the National Woman’s Party and a museum for the woman suffrage movement. As construction proceeded, however, rapid inflation in the 1970s multiplied costs and caused several modifications of the original plan, most notably the elimination of a rooftop restaurant and a gymnasium.