Freedom and The Symbolism of Washington DC’s Doric Columns
"Freedom always has a cost, and that cost looks a lot like an unseen yet very real responsibility."
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If you’ve spent time in Washington DC, you’ll notice the meaning literally built into the buildings themselves. The symbolic architecture.
Throughout Capitol Hill, columns in the dignified Doric style stand as enduring symbols of strength and tradition. At the U.S. Capitol’s Crypt, forty smooth sandstone columns support arches that uphold the Rotunda floor above, forming a steady foundation.
In the Old Supreme Court Chamber, Doric columns designed by Benjamin Latrobe echo the robust, short columns of the ancient Temple of Poseidon, the most resilient of Greece’s classical relics.
In the Supreme Court Building, the Great Hall, a vast, 30-foot-high corridor, welcomes visitors with double rows of fluted Doric columns reaching up to a coffered ceiling, creating a sense of solemn grandeur.
Both the House and Senate Office Buildings, display thirty-four fluted Doric columns along their colonnades, facing the Capitol. Pilasters continue the Doric rhythm, extending the stately order along their secondary elevations, enhancing the harmony of these historic structures.
Doric columns typically have a simple, rounded flourish on top; a heavy, fluted or smooth column shaft; and no base. And if there’s no base at the bottom of what is perhaps the most obvious architectural element in the World’s most powerful capital, it should tell you something about the ideology of its foundations. Something symbolic. Something true.
Not all foundations rise up from the dirt. Just like the top of those Doric columns, timeless power comes down as a flourish descending from above. To draw our eyes, minds, and dreams higher. And never lower.
In Talmudic Judaism, the stones on which the Ten Commandments were written, forged from blue sapphire, serve as a celestial symbol—a reflection of the sky, the boundless heavens, and, at their heart, the very throne of God. The building blocks of the basis of law called for the same response as those columns.
Just like the Doric columns which not only call our eyes up to the same blue sky, the Platonic heavens, and the very God who judges the world, so too do the laws that foundation the power of the entire World sit not on men made of breathed-out dirt. But they hang on an eternally bloodied man who is enthroned above.
"Blood is the lubrication of freedom."
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Freedom always has a cost, and that cost looks a lot like a responsibility. A responsibility to hold up the structres of civilization: our families and rule of law, while ornamenting the work with worship.
Credit: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/doric-columns
