The Keystone Building

skyscraper
art-deco
DC
Washington DC

About the The Keystone Building in Washington DC
1. Building Catalogations
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The The Keystone Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Robert O. Scholz, and built in 1931 in Washington DC, DC.

The Keystone Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The The Keystone Building is also known, or has been known as, H.B. Burns Memorial Building, or Medical Faculty Associates.

Its precise street address is 2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington Dc, DC. You can also find it on the map here.

The The Keystone Building is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Washington DC and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Art Deco style. Because of that, the The Keystone Building was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places on June 18^th 2010.

Building's timeline

Construction completed

1931

Added to the NRHP

2010

years ago

2024

Architect and team

Robert O. Scholz was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the The Keystone Building a reality:

David A. Baer, and Robert O. Scholz as the Main Contractor
Baer & Scholz as the Main Developer

Architectural Style

The The Keystone Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The The Keystone Building was completed in 1931, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The The Keystone Building reaches an architectural height of 121ft (37m). It has a total of 12 floors.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1931, the The Keystone Building was primarily used as Residential space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Education space, with other complementary uses such as medical space.

Materials & Structure

The The Keystone Building's strucutre consists of brick load bearing walls.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features limestone and variegated concrete bricks in an American bond pattern. The building has a cut corner the width of a bay where the decorated metal spandrels are located under the windows. This metal decorations are also is found over the main entrance, which is covered with limestone Art Deco details and centered within the facade. The main entrance itself are double-leaf, single-light metal doors. Windows throughout the building are 1/1 metal sash with lug limestone sills. The flat roof of the building is covered with slag.

Other materials found at the The Keystone Building include, marble, found in ornamental columns, architectural cornices, and lobby decorations, and glazed tile, used in decoration details.

Sources

neighborhood.gwu.edu