Why pentagon

So as not to obstruct views of the city across the Potomac River, the structure could not be more than four stories high. He also wanted something that would require very little steel in the construction, according to Vogel, because that precious material was needed for weapons and ships. The pentagonal shape could meet all those demands in the most efficient manner possible.

But the five-sided plan still had its detractors, especially from members of the U. Commission of Fine Arts , a quasi-governmental body that weighed in on design throughout the capital city. A member of the Commission argued to Roosevelt that not only was the building ugly, but that it would make a huge bombing target.

In the end, the President said he preferred the shape for its uniqueness, and gave it the go-ahead. In January of , after 17 months of construction, the Pentagon was completed.

With about 6. It has shrunk considerably since the end of the Cold War, she says. The Trump Administration in its budget blueprint , however, plans to grow the Defense Department.

Initially, the building had just 13 elevators, and they were reserved only for freight. Instead of steel, the building was built primarily of reinforced concrete, , cubic yards of it. Much of the filler for this concrete was dredged from the grounds around the Pentagon itself, including the Potomac River.

Concrete was also used to build a series of ramps throughout the complex, which eliminated the need for steel-enforced elevators. Additional concessions to the war included the lack of bronze doors, plaques and any other touches that were deemed purely decorative.

The Pentagon was built on land occupied by the descendants of former slaves. While Somervell was officially in charge of the Pentagon project, it fell to one of his subordinates, the then Major Leslie Groves, to make it a reality.

Groves oversaw the day-to-day construction of the site, successfully dealing with a series of strikes and managing the many strong-willed military figures exerting pressure on him to complete the project ahead of time. Groves was involved in nearly every aspect of the top-secret project, selecting and constructing clandestine sites for the research facilities and its workers across the country.

There are twice as many bathrooms as necessary. However, in June President Roosevelt issued Executive Order , which prohibited segregation among federal employees. Above all, it was architect George Edwin Bergstrom who championed the five-sided form, Vogel noted. However, Gilmore D. Clarke, then-chairman of the U. Would the late architect no longer be able to gaze upon his creation, however metaphorically? If the Pentagon were built on Arlington Farm, the answer would be no, and that, according to Clarke, would be a problem.

Additionally, Frederic A. Delano, then-chairman of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission and also uncle to then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, opposed the plan mainly out of concern about the traffic it would create across the Potomac.

In response to these pressures, Roosevelt wrote a letter to a Senate subcommittee, expressing reservations and asking for the building to be smaller.

But Congress didn't listen, and passed the original bill — for the War Department headquarters to be built on the Arlington Farm tract and at its original size — anyway. Disappointed that Congress had not taken his advice, Roosevelt ordered the construction team to put the new building south of Arlington Farm in what was then a somewhat seedy neighborhood called "Hell's Bottom," Vogel wrote in his book.

Because the Pentagon property technically overlapped with Arlington Farm, it was still in accordance with the bill Congress had passed. The Pentagon was built inland from the high-water mark, so it is located within Virginia. The dredge spoils used to create Columbia Island are within the District of Columbia.

Near the Pentagon, Boundary Channel marks the location of the shoreline and the border between Virginia and the District of Columbia. Virginia ceded exclusive jurisdiction over the Pentagon to the Federal government in , and it became a federal enclave.

As a result, car thefts from the parking lots at the Pentagon are treated as Federal crimes, processed in US District Courts, not in the Arlington Circuit Court within the Virginia state court system. Virginia and local jurisdictions have arranged for Federal law enforcement officers to have concurrent jurisdiction for enforcement on approximately acres around the complex.