The House of the Temple Sphinx
by Stuart Litoff
Title
The House of the Temple Sphinx
Artist
Stuart Litoff
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The House of the Temple is a Masonic temple, museum, and library in Washington, D.C., United States. It serves as the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A., and is located at 1733 16th Street, N.W., in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
Noted architect John Russell Pope designed The Temple. Pope is noted for also designing the National Archives and Records Administration building, the Jefferson Memorial, and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. Pope modeled The House of the Temple after the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Construction began in 1911, and the building was completed and dedicated four years later. The building's design won Pope the Gold Medal of the Architectural League of New York, and in the 1920s, a panel of architects named it "one of the three best public buildings" in the United States. The Temple also holds one of the largest collections of materials related to Scottish poet and Freemason Robert Burns in its library, which was the first public library in Washington, D.C.
This photo shows the head of one of the two sphinxes, representing wisdom and power, that guard the front entrance.
Uploaded
August 25th, 2014
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