Limestone government buildings in a matched neoclassical style, and the archive building where National Treasure stages its Declaration of Independence theft.
What Federal Triangle looks like
Limestone government buildings fill the wedge between Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue, their facades running unbroken along the block in a matched neoclassical style. Most of the complex went up between 1928 and 1938. Two older buildings, an earlier post office and a former city hall, were kept standing inside the new construction rather than replaced.
The buildings run mostly six storeys, with one exception reaching eight. The 's own corner, at 7th Street, is seven storeys behind a curved colonnade. Its triangular footprint follows the shape of the site. Columns and porticoes mark the entrances along Pennsylvania Avenue. Arches connect several of the buildings to their neighbors, a covered passage running from one block face to the next.
The Ronald Reagan Building opens onto , its columned arcade hung with banners above a sunken courtyard facing Pennsylvania Avenue. The and the close out the wedge toward Constitution Avenue, both faced in the same pale limestone over steel frames.
Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue converge at an angle here, and the complex's own block is a triangular wedge between them. The , with its clock tower, stands just outside the wedge at 12th Street. A Metro station named Federal Triangle sits beneath the complex, its platform running under a coffered concrete vault.
Shot in Federal Triangle
For National Treasure in 2004, the production filmed the National Archives Building's own facade around the theft of the Declaration of Independence, though the interior break-in was built as a studio set rather than shot inside the real Rotunda. No Way Out's 1987 subway chase concludes outside the Old Post Office Pavilion, a few blocks north on Pennsylvania Avenue, though the chase's tunnel interiors were shot in Baltimore's Metro rather than Washington's own.
National Treasure, 2004
The National Archives Building
National Treasure sets a sequence around the theft of the Declaration of Independence, kept here in the Rotunda alongside the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The building's limestone and granite exterior appears as itself, undressed, but the break-in interior was built as a studio replica in Los Angeles rather than filmed in the real Rotunda. Street View
What Federal Triangle can double for
Civic Center in San Francisco, California
San Francisco's Civic Center groups Beaux-Arts government buildings in cream granite and limestone around a plaza. Most went up between 1912 and 1932, in the same uniform civic style as Federal Triangle, with columned porticoes and repeated cornice lines giving it the same institutional scale. City Hall's dome and the wider surrounding streets are different from Federal Triangle's tighter wedge, so tighter framing along one building face holds the match best. Try searching Beaux-Arts government plaza now.
Foley Square in Manhattan, New York
The Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse at Foley Square is clad in pale granite with a ten column Corinthian portico, built between 1932 and 1936, the same decade as most of Federal Triangle. The stone is granite rather than limestone, but the scale and the columned entrance are a close match to the Federal Trade Commission Building's own corner. Manhattan's taller surrounding towers show in any wide shot, so the match holds only at street level looking at the courthouse's own colonnade. Try searching granite courthouse columns now.
The Ministry of Defence Main Building on Whitehall, a government office building faced in pale Portland stone, runs 570 feet along the street with a columned portico at its Horse Guards Avenue end. It went up between 1938 and 1959, work paused through the war, close enough in period to Federal Triangle's own limestone buildings. The building's heavier Portland stone and British street furniture, red phone boxes and black cabs, would need dressing out of any wide shot. Try searching Portland stone government building now.
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