The National Building Museum occupies the former Pension Building in Washington, D.C. Montgomery C. Meigs, the U.S. Army quartermaster general, designed it, and it was completed in 1887. Rather than using the Greco-Roman models common in Washington, he based the design on Italian Renaissance precedents, notably Rome's Palazzo Farnese. The building required more than 15 million bricks.
It was built to house the Pension Bureau, whose staff grew to over 1,500. The central Great Hall measures 316 by 116 feet and is surrounded by high columns. Several presidential inaugural balls were held there. Caspar Buberl sculpted the exterior frieze, a continuous 1,200-foot parade of more than 1,300 figures.
It became a National Historic Landmark on February 4, 1985. Congress created the museum in 1980 as a private, non-profit institution.
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