雙語+MP3|美國學生藝術(shù)史85 首都和國會大廈

 
法國殖民風格 
85 AL AND OL首都和國會大廈
 
“HE LOST his head completely.” You’ve heard people say that about some one who got so excited he didn’t know what he was doing. But the people didn’t mean exactly what they said. No one could really lose his head without losing his life with it. Which is just another way of saying that every living person has a head. 
Like a person, a country has a head—a chief ruler, a president, a king, a prime minister, a dictator. And where the chief ruler rules is generally the capital city. “Capital” comes from a word meaning head. 
After the American Revolution the new republic of the United States had to have a capital. After trying out both New York and Philadelphia, it was decided to build an entirely new city as a new capital for the new nation. 
A place on the Potomac River was chosen, a place of fields and forests. It was named Washington. Frenchmen had helped the Americans in the Revolution and now a Frenchman helped them with the new city. He was Major L’Enfant, who drew a plan for Washington with wide avenues and streets and parks. With L’Enfant’s plan to go by, the new city was started. But Washington wasn’t much of a city at first—just a few houses in the woods, with “streets” of mud connecting them. 
A capital city of course needs a capitol building. You would think both the city and the building would be spelt alike. But “al” means the city, “ol” the building. So a big competition was held to get the best design for a capitol. Many good designs came in. The one chosen was by Dr. William Thornton. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson said they liked the Thornton design very much, and so the Capitol was begun. 
If there was to be a capitol, there certainly ought to he a special house for the President. So a president’s house was begun the same year as the Capitol. For the first twenty years or so the President’s House was always called just that—the President’s House. But suddenly the name changed and became the White House. Do you know why? 
It was on account of a fire. Some soldiers burned both the new Capitol and the President’s House. They were British soldiers who attacked Washington in the War of 1812. After the fire the President’s House still had the walls standing, but the stones were blackened and scorched. The building was repaired and the walls painted white to hide the fire stains, and since then the President’s House has been called the White House. 
The Capitol luckily had not been finished when it was burned. It too was rebuilt after the fire, but it wasn’t finished for years and years. At first this Capitol of ours had a low flat dome over the central part. Then this part was outgrown and an addition was built on each end of the old building. These new ends are called wings—the Senate wing at one end and the wing for the House of Representatives at the other. When the new wings were added a larger dome was designed for the center. During the Civil War President Lincoln kept work going on this dome even though workmen were scarce. He felt the dome stood for the Union of the States and that people on the Northern side would be encouraged by seeing this dome growing day by day. 
The new dome is almost as big across as the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome. It was made of a new building material—not wood or brick or stone, but iron. To keep iron from rusting, it must be kept painted. Try to think how many buckets of paint forty-three thousand pounds of paint would make. That is more than twenty-one tons, but that’s the quantity of paint it takes each time the dome of the Capitol is painted! 
One room in the Capitol is called Statuary Hall. That is where each of the forty-eight States is invited to put two statues of famous men from that State. It’s not safe to tell a secret in Statuary Hall, for your whisper can be heard’ way across the room if you whisper from a certain spot that’s marked by a metal star in the floor. Strange to say, the star was not put there for the whisper, but to show where the desk of John Quincy Adams used to stand when he was a member of Congress after being President. 
 
No.85-1　THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON（華盛頓國會大廈） 
Courtesy Of The University Prints 
The whisper is heard across the room because the waves of sound from that spot all seem to be reflected off the walls and ceiling so as to meet at another spot on the other side of the room. 
The Capitol is full of interesting things. One of these is a subway or underground railroad. The trains are pulled by electric engines and they run from the Capitol to the Library of Congress and to the Senate Office Building and the House Office Building. These three buildings aren’t very far away, but the subway trains save the members of Congress time in getting back and forth. 
The more you see of the Capitol, the more seems to be left to see. It has often been called the most stately government building in the world. It is important in architecture for another reason, also. It has been such a good building for a capitol that many of the forty-eight State capitols have been made to look something like it, only smaller. It is a building to be proud of, and it is pleasant to think that the corner-stone was laid by our first President. 
 
No.85-2　THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON（華盛頓林肯紀念堂） 
Courtesy Of The University Prints 
There are many other splendid buildings in Washington. One of these is the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial is built in the Greek style and yet differently. It is Greek and yet it is American. That is because it uses the old Greek forms of columns and other details, but uses them in a new way to fit the kind of building it is. You will notice it has no pediment, or triangular space, above the columns as a Greek temple has. 
We wait for the train that takes us home from Washington in a huge building called the Union Station. It is so big inside that it makes us feel very small, as the stars do at night when we lie on our backs and look up at them. 
New buildings in Washington are now always put up according to Major L’Enfant’s plan for the streets and avenues. This makes Washington one of the most magnificent cities in the world. It is almost the only capital city planned as a capital before it was even begun as a city. If you feel like being proud of your capital, go right ahead. It is worth being proud of.