Capitol Hill

Stand still for a moment and feel the ground under your feet. It rises gently, almost lazily, toward the east. That slope is the whole reason you are here. Long before there was a city, this was a modest wooded rise above a marshy river plain. Today the white dome sits on top of it, and on a clear morning the painted iron catches the sun before almost anything else in Washington does.

The hill once had a plain local name, Jenkins Hill. When the French-born engineer Pierre L'Enfant began planning the new capital in the early 1790s, he looked at this rise and saw something more. In a phrase that is still quoted, he called it a pedestal waiting for a monument. He placed the legislature here, on the high ground, not the president's house. The message was deliberate. In this republic, the people's representatives would sit above everything else.

Here is a detail most visitors walk right past. The building behind you is the centre point of the city's map. Washington is divided into four quadrants — Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast — and those four lines meet at the Capitol. Every address in the city carries a quadrant tag because of this spot. So when you read a street sign later today, you are reading a direction measured from this hill.

George Washington laid the cornerstone in 1793, in a Masonic ceremony on this ground. The original design came from William Thornton, a physician and amateur architect who won the competition. The building grew slowly, wing by wing, and it was far from finished when Congress moved in around 1800. For years, members worked in a half-built structure, surrounded by scaffolding, mud and construction noise.

There is a harder truth inside these walls. Historical records show that enslaved people did much of the labour on the early Capitol. They quarried stone, sawed timber and laid brick. Their owners were paid for their work, and the workers themselves were not. In recent years, Congress has formally recognised this history. It is worth holding in mind as you look at the building's clean white surfaces. The marble and sandstone were shaped by many hands that history did not name.

Then came the fire. In 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops captured Washington and set the Capitol alight. The interiors burned, and a sudden rainstorm is often credited with saving the outer walls. Rebuilding took years. If the building looks seamless today, that is partly because so much of it was put back together, extended and refaced over the following decades.

Now look up at the dome. It is not stone. It is cast iron, painted white to look like marble. The earlier, smaller dome was made of wood covered in copper. As the building grew in the mid-nineteenth century, that old dome looked far too small. The architect Thomas U. Walter designed a much larger one. Construction ran straight through the Civil War, and President Lincoln wanted the work to continue. He saw a rising dome as a sign that the Union itself would hold together.

On top of that dome stands the bronze Statue of Freedom, a robed female figure in a helmet with an eagle's head and feathers. The sculptor Thomas Crawford designed it, and it was raised into place in 1863, in the middle of the war. The casting involved Philip Reid, an enslaved man who worked at the foundry and helped solve a key problem in assembling the statue. By the time Freedom stood on the dome, Reid had gained his own freedom. That is one of the quiet ironies of this skyline.

Inside, the Rotunda sits directly under the dome. Look straight up and you will see a fresco called The Apotheosis of Washington, painted by the Italian-born artist Constantino Brumidi in the 1860s. It shows George Washington rising into the heavens, surrounded by classical figures. From the floor the figures look natural, but they are painted very large, because they are so far away. Brumidi spent much of his later life decorating this building, and his work fills many of its corridors.

Just south of the Rotunda is National Statuary Hall, the old chamber of the House of Representatives. Each state sends statues of notable figures, and many stand in this room. The curved ceiling creates an odd acoustic effect. A whisper at one point in the room can carry clearly to another spot across the floor. Guides love to demonstrate it. Legend has it that John Quincy Adams, who served here after his presidency, used the effect to overhear his rivals. That story is popular, but it is best treated as folklore.

Walk around to the West Front, facing the long lawns of the National Mall. The terraces and grounds there were designed in the late nineteenth century by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect of New York's Central Park. Since 1981, presidential inaugurations have usually taken place on this western side. Look out from here and the view runs down the Mall toward the Washington Monument. The whole city plan points back at this building.

Capitol Hill is also a neighbourhood, not just a building. Cross First Street to the east and you reach the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. Walk a few more blocks and the marble gives way to brick rowhouses with small front gardens, iron railings and painted doors. Eastern Market, a working public market, has served this area for generations. Many congressional staff live in these streets. On weekday mornings you will see them walking fast, lanyards around their necks, coffee in hand.

One common belief deserves a correction. Many people say no building in Washington may be taller than the Capitol. There is no such rule. The city's height limits are tied to the width of the street a building faces, under a law passed in 1910. The effect is similar, though. The skyline stays low, and the dome stays visible from far across the city. Few capitals have kept their legislature in plain sight like this.

Before you leave, turn around once more and look at the dome against the sky. Notice the small flags above the north and south wings. When a flag flies over a wing, that chamber is in session — the Senate to the north, the House to the south. Right now, people may be debating laws a few hundred metres from where you stand. As you walk away, listen to the traffic, the voices, the birds in the trees. This is still a working hill, and it is still busy.