The secret architecture of our nation’s capital : the Masons and the building of Washington, D.C.

597 Pages·2012·12.7 MB·English

by  David Ovason

The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s
Capital
The Masons and the Building of Washington, D. C.
David Ovason
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Century Books Limited, London THE SECRET ARCHITECTURE OF
OUR NATION’S CAPITAL. Copyright © 1999, 2000 by David Ovason. All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the
non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this
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HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 9780060953683
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062194008
00 01 02 03 04 WB/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Foreword by C. Fred Kleinknecht
THE SECRET ARCHITECTURE OF OUR NATION’S CAPITAL
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Postscript
Appendix
Black-and-White Figures
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
Other Works
Copyright
About the Publisher
Foreword
“As above, so below.” These words, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, lie at the
heart of the Western esoteric tradition. In brief, they mean that the universe and
all it contains is reflected in some manner not only on Earth, but also in man and
his works. The chief quest of all ages has been man’s attempt to understand the
mystery of existence and to find his place in it. He keenly observed the
movement of the stars, as we read in Genesis 1:14, “for signs, and for seasons.”
Not only have the stars guided the traveler on the earth and seas, but their
constellations are archetypes that have been viewed as guides for the lives of
men and nations.
In this fascinating and well-researched book, David Ovason presents the
remarkable thesis that Washington, D.C., is a city of the stars. He demonstrates
that there are over 30 zodiacs in the city, and that the majority of them are
oriented in a meaningful way. Even more astonishing is it to learn that these
zodiacs were designed to point to the actual heavens—thus marrying the Capital
City with the stars. This discovery parallels the recent finding in Egypt that the
three Great Pyramids correspond to the three stars in Orion’s belt, while the Nile
River occupies the same relative position as the Milky Way. It is still debated
whether this was intentional, yet the correlation is undeniable. Similarly, the
assignment, position and meaning of Washington, D.C.’s zodiacs bespeak a
relationship between heaven and earth.
Recent scholarship, such as Steven C. Bullock’s Revolutionary Brotherhood:
Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730–1840
(University of North Carolina Press, 1996), demonstrates the undeniable
influence Freemasonry exerted on the American system of government and
lifestyle. Aware of these influences, David Ovason discovered what may be
Masonic influences in the architecture and layout of the city. He does not assert
that all his correspondences or discovered secrets were laid down by Masons,
but there is some support for his argument in documents preserved in the
Archives and Library of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction. As in
other Scottish Rite Blue Lodge (“Symbolic” or “Craft”) rituals, Albert Pike’s
Book of the Lodge contains recommendations for decorating the lodge ceiling
with constellations and planets. The star map, which is to be painted on the
ceiling, is replete with Masonic symbolism that was influenced by French
designs in the early 19th century.
The astonishing thing is that Pike’s ceiling design reflects precisely the same
mysteries observed by David Ovason in this book. These mysteries relate to the
constellation Virgo. Pike’s map is entirely schematic—which is to say that it
does not reflect the actual positions of the stars in the heavens (Leo could in no
way be represented as following Ursa Majoris, for example). Even so, Pike is
very clear in allocating his symbolic placing of planets and stars. For example,
he places the full Moon between the constellations Scorpio and Virgo. This
means that the full Moon is in the constellation Libra, and the star Spica is just
above the lunar crescent.
What does this mean to us? The star Spica happens to be the one that David
Ovason has shown to be symbolically linked with both Washington, D.C., and
the United States as a whole. As the reader will learn, Ovason also suggests that
this star may be the origin of the five-pointed star that adorns the American flag.
He also suggests that Spica may have been the origin of the Blazing (or Flaming)
Star of Freemasonry.
Certainly, it would be far-fetched to draw too many conclusions for a
schematic map, but it is evident that Pike visualized his star map as marking the
setting of Virgo, along with the constellation Boötes, to its north. This is
precisely the cosmic setting that David Ovason suggests represents the secret
star plan of Washington, D.C. While Pike engineered a schematic time for his
star map, Ovason shows that it relates to a number of days centering upon
August 10 of each year. The significance of this and other “mysteries” is fully
explored in this work. In view of the meanings that may be traced in Albert
Pike’s map, we can only wonder if he observed the same correspondences of the
city, noted by Ovason, yet for reasons of his own never divulged them.
In any case, David Ovason presents us with a fascinating work that will be
sure to captivate and entertain readers interested in architecture, esotericism,
Freemasonry, and our nation’s capital. His thesis may be controversial, but it is
well thought out and presented.
—C. Fred Kleinknecht, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander, The
Supreme Council, 33° (Mother Council of the World), Southern
Jurisdiction, U.S.A., Washington, D.C.
Chapter One
Come let me lead thee o’er this second Rome
… This embryo capital, where Fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which second-sighted seers, ev’n now, adorn,
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn…
(Thomas Moore, “To Thomas Hume, from the City of Washington,”
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1804, in The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore, 1853, vol. II, p. 296)
The shrouding mists have gone, and with them the frogs and the mud turtles, yet
their presence still lives on in the name. Foggy Bottom is the area where the
western reaches of Washington, D.C., used to meet with the Potomac River to
the southeast of Rock Creek. In modern times, it includes the once-infamous
Watergate Complex, and its evocative name has survived in a Metro station,
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south of Washington Circle.
If you were to walk or drive from this Metro, down to the Watergate
Complex and on to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, even as
far as the western edge of Constitution Avenue, you would be unlikely to
discover the reason for the name Foggy Bottom. The drainage engineers, the
landfill experts and the architects of the late 19th century have done their work
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well, turning pestilential mudflats into habitable land.
Foggy Bottom was originally called Hamburg by a Dutch gunmaker named
Jacob Funk, who had settled the area in the mid-18th century with grandiose
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plans for its development. However, Nature proved intractable, and the plans he
had drawn up for a township came to nothing of real substance. The place
remained almost uninhabited because of its deafening frog choruses and cough-
inducing mists: settlers were deterred, and only duck hunters and fishermen
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found the mudflats of use. Incredibly, when, almost 100 years later, in 1859, a
gasworks was built in the area, the few householders of Foggy Bottom were
delighted: they imagined that the gas fumes would disinfect the muddy land, and
somehow make the fogs kinder on their throats.
Although officially Hamburg, it was called Funkstown by the early residents
for a considerable time, yet it was scarcely even a village, and certainly not a
town. Only a few wood-frame buildings and even fewer brick houses are
recorded at Foggy Bottom, as late as 1800. Surprisingly, a pair of red-brick, two-
story houses have survived from this time, to the southwest of George
Washington University. These were built originally by John Lenthall (who was
in charge of the construction of the U.S. Capitol) on 19th Street. At that time,
they must have been near the northern edge of the ancient Foggy Bottom. In the
1970s they were moved, brick by brick, to their present location on 21st Street,
and in spite of this enforced reconstruction are sometimes said to be among the
oldest surviving dwellings in Washington, D.C.
About 1800, a large glassmaking factory—essentially for the windows of the
new city buildings—was constructed on the southern edge of Foggy Bottom
from bricks kilned in Holland. This factory was located on the square sold as lot
89 in the sales map of 1792 (I have marked this position in black on the map
below) which had been drawn up at the behest of George Washington to attract
capital and speculators to the new federal district. For a while, the site proved to
be an excellent one for a factory, as it faced directly on the Potomac and offered
useful wharfage for unloading glassmaking materials.
By one of those curious coincidences with which the history of Washington,
D.C., is punctuated, this is exactly the site where, nearly 200 years later, a
bronze statue of the mathematical genius Einstein was erected, outside the
National Academy of Sciences (plate 1). The great man is shown contemplating
a star-spangled marble horoscope for April 22, 1979, which is spread out at his
feet: he is casually resting his right foot on the stars of two cosmic giants—
Boötes and Hercules. As we shall see, this is probably the largest marble
horoscope in the world.
The surprising link forged between Foggy Bottom and the stars does not end
with Einstein. Behind his statue, in the National Academy of Sciences building,
are 12 signs of the zodiac, along with their corresponding symbols, which have
been built into the structure of the metal doors (plate 2). In the adjacent building
to the east—the Federal Reserve Board Building—are two other zodiacs, cut by
the great glass designers Steuben, as decorative flanges for lightbulbs (plate 3
and figure 12). These zodiacs—the marble floor of the Einstein statue, the metal
doors of the Academy and the glass light fixtures of the Federal Reserve—are
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just 4 of the 20 or so zodiacs in central Washington, D.C.
At a later point, I shall examine each of these zodiacs more closely, but even
at this stage we must stop and ask the obvious question: why do we find zodiacs
in the formerly unhealthy stretches of Foggy Bottom, where frogs croaked night
and day, and where young boys would hunt for mud turtles?
Today, the air around Einstein is fresh and wholesome, and even the River
Potomac has disappeared. The silting of the waters, and the extensive landfills of
the late 19th century, explain why the Potomac wharfage has been moved, and
why, from the windows of the Academy, one looks onto a greensward extension
of the Mall, landscaped with trees and dotted with a variety of war memorials,
including that of the Vietnam Veterans. In many ways, this extension of Foggy
Bottom, born of the waters of the Potomac, has witnessed greater change than
almost any other part of Washington, D.C.
It would be pleasant to think that Einstein would know that behind him there
had once been a site called Observatory Hill. Had perhaps the earlier inhabitants
—first the Algonquins, and later the early settlers from Elizabethan England—
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studied the stars from this rise? The reality is probably more prosaic, for in
1843 the site had been taken over by the U.S. Naval Observatory (next page),
and an enormous viewing-dome was constructed with a movable frame that
swung easily on bearings of huge cannonballs, mounted on greased cast-iron
grooves.
Fifty years later this same site, which had been earmarked by George
Washington not for an observatory but for a university, would be proposed for
an extraordinary museum by a scarce-remembered architect named Franklin W.
Smith, whose highly original architectural ideas would help revolutionize the
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