WASHINGTON — Standing in the middle of Emancipation Hall — the expansive lobby of the new Capitol Visitor Center that opens here on Tuesday — you can see why the construction of this underground addition to the United States Capitol ran so heftily over its budgeted time and money. The center’s 580,000 square feet cost $621 million — more than double the planned amount. The ceremonial groundbreaking was in 2000
The hall itself is a vast 20,000-square-foot marble-floored plaza with statues standing at its sides, an eccentric collection that includes the gold-draped figure of Kamehameha I (an 18th-century Hawaiian warrior and king) and the space-suited figure of John L. Swigert Jr. (a Colorado-born astronaut on Apollo 13). A towering plaster model for the bronze Statue of Freedom that was mounted on the building’s dome 145 years ago on Tuesday stands ceremoniously at the entrance to a 16,500-square-foot exhibition about the history of Congress and the Capitol.
In Emancipation Hall everything seems as oversized as the 19-foot-tall Rococo Statue of Freedom. This has been the largest project in the Capitol’s long history of expansions, many of which were accompanied by their own budget overruns and controversies. This one grew to incorporate additional security requirements and Congressional offices, under the direction of the Architect of the Capitol, Alan M. Hantman, who retired in 2007
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