The Architecture of Thomas Wisedell

While Thomas Wisedell was designing the lampposts for the East Plaza during the fall of 1874 and spring of 1875, he was also tasked with creating two bronze flagpoles.  These were shown on the plan of the Capitol grounds rendered by Wisedell in September 1874 and were to be located on the triangular plots near the edge of newly designed Capitol terrace and just near the park entrances at Delaware Avenue on the north and New Jersey Avenue on the south.

The flag poles were to be about 60-65 feet tall, high enough to be seen over the house and senate wings of the Capitol building.  The 9-foot high base was designed in sections with diameters of 8 1/2 feet at the bottom, 6 1/2 feet in the center and 4 1/2 feet at the top.  The 30-foot shaft was also 4 1/2 feet in diameter and ornamented with a decorative band.  The shaft terminated with a second decorative band and with a 15-foot tall cap which tapered into the flagstaff at the top.

The drawing of the flagpole was clearly a preliminary study and even with its decorative features being loosely rendered, it was still obvious that this was intended to relate to the bronze lamp posts with their Indo-Islamic and Native-American influences.  No other images of the flag poles have surfaced, and it is not known whether working drawing were ever created. 

Within the archives of Frederick Law Olmsted, there is almost no information regarding the flag poles except this copy of Thomas Wisedell’s rendering which was actually in two pieces and have been spliced together for this blog. The link to those drawings is below….

https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/olmsted/subject-file/mss351210421/mss351210421-12/

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