Longworth House Office Building

The original House Office Building was severely overcrowded by 1925. In desperation, the House hired the Allied Architects of Washington, DC, to present designs for a new office building. Though the smallest of the three house office buildings, it houses 251 congressional suites, five large committee rooms, seven small committee rooms, and a large assembly room now occupied by Ways and Means.

In 1929, Congress appropriated $8.9 million for the building of a neoclassical revival style building. Congress appropriated an additional $400,000 for the building’s interior design, a job undertaken by New York architect Barnet Phillips. In 1962 the building was renamed the Longworth House Office Building after late Speaker Nicholas Longworth, who authorized the building during his term as speaker.

On June 25, 1932, Speaker John Garner presided over the cornerstone laying ceremony for the construction of the seven-story, 600,000 sq. ft. building. Photographs of Garner and Longworth, members of the House Office Building Commission and Capitol Architect David Lynn, who supervised the project, were all included in the traditional cornerstone time capsule. Less than a year later and more than $1 million under budget, the new House Office Building opened on April 20, 1933.

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