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Once home to prominent New Deal lawyers, the building had declined over the years — with a grimy exterior and an equally dark 1950s interior — when nearly ten years ago, The Kaempfer Company, a prominent local developer, retained Cesar Pelli & Associates to design a new Investment Building. Washington-based Shalom Baranes Associates was the restoration architect for the facades and architect of record.

Pelli gutted the interior and reduced the original 11 floors to 10 to augment the 1920s floor-to-floor heights. He created a taller "superfloor" at the new sixth level and added two stories above the cornice.

Concerned that the original fenestration would not provide adequate natural lighting, he designed a central atrium, which brings light, open space, and activity to the center of the building. "It is its heart." Pelli says.

The Atrium at the Heart

To avoid the effect of a "deep well," Pelli divided the atrium into three segments: from the basement to the first floor, from the first floor to the sixth floor, and from the sixth floor to the skylight. At the underside of the sixth floor, the atrium narrows to a small opening encircled by polished granite voussoirs.

As seen from the lobby below, radiating out from this "stone ring" are three rows of truncated glass panels, and beyond them another four rows of smaller, more translucent glass panels — reminiscent of the overlapping, nearly clear, shells of a shrimp — creating what Pelli calls a "sculptural illuminated ceiling."

From the lobby, one's view is drawn up through the narrow opening surrounded by the illuminated ceiling to the distant circular skylight at the top of the building. From the sixth floor, one looks up and sees only the enormous skylight and supporting truss, often showing blue sky and fast moving clouds. Looking down the atrium one sees John Dreyfuss's whimsical stone sculpture of an owl.

Each section of the atrium consists of four projecting bays with four receding corner bays between them. Pelli varies the number of glass and wooden panels for each section. The horizontal bands of figured anigre wood panels and glass panels lining the atrium demonstrate Pelli's characteristic sense of proportion and visual tension, as seen in the exterior glass and metal skins of his much larger projects.

Modern on the Inside

The major tenant of the Investment Building is the Washington office of the law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. The firm signed a lease in 1998 after a methodical analysis of its needs (current and projected) and the Washington real estate market.

Robert Rubenstein, director of administration for the firm, explains that they liked the building even before it was built. One reason was that, he says, "it epitomized our firm — venerable on the outside, thoroughly modern on the inside." Sidley Austin moved in August 2001 when the building was nearly completed, and a few months after Sidley Austin had merged with Brown & Wood creating the country's fourth largest law firm.

The firm now occupies the floor below street level, part of the fifth floor, and the sixth through the tenth floors, occupying 190,000 square feet (18,000 square meters) or approximately half the building.

The taller sixth-level "superfloor" is the lobby floor for Sidley. A glass-walled law library demarcates one end of its elevator lobby. The other, far end terminates in a convex reception desk in front of the high, concave granite partition announcing the firm. Beyond the partition is a seating area set off from the corridors and conference rooms by curved partitions of anigre panels.   >>>

The Investment Building as seen from MacPherson Square, home to a statue of Civil War Union Army General James B. MacPherson. Photo: William Lebovich A new atrium brings light into the heart of the historic Investment Building. Image: Cesar Pelli & Associates Architects0 Looking up at skylight from 6th floor. Photo: William Lebovich View up from the ground floor of the atrium. Photo: William Lebovich View toward rear of the ground floor of the atrium. Photo: William Lebovich At the base of the atrium, an owl sculpture by John Dreyfuss. Photo: William Lebovich Entry to the Gensler-designed law offices of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Photo: Nick Merrick/ Hedrich Blessing Conference room of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Photo: Nick Merrick/ Hedrich Blessing   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.