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Construction
Construction of Independence Hall
historic building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- 1753
- North America
Construction
historic building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were debated and adopted by the Founding Fathers of the United States. The building, which is the centerpiece of Independence National Historical Park, was designated a World Heritage Site in 1979. It is an example of American Georgian architecture, which is characterized by symmetry, classical proportions, and exposed brick with stone masonry accents.
Independence Hall, which was initially called Pennsylvania State House, was completed in 1753. It was the first capitol of the colonial era Province of Pennsylvania and, even then, was seen as "the greatest ornament in the town". The building became a symbol of liberty, democracy, and the founding of the United States. During the American Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress convened in the building from 1775 to 1781. They founded the Continental Army there on June 14, 1775, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted there on July 4, 1776. From May 25 to September 17, 1787, the Pennsylvania State House hosted the Constitutional Convention, where the U.S. Constitution was debated, drafted, and ratified.
In 1824, the building was renamed the Hall of Independence when it hosted the Marquis de Lafayette.
In 1915, former U.S. president William Howard Taft presided over a convention at Independence Hall, where the League to Enforce Peace was formed.
The National Park, of which Independence Hall is a part, surrounds it and acts as a buffer zone between the building and the modern urban fabric. Independence Hall is being protected by security screening building entrance. The most significant pressures on the authenticity of the property relate to the large number of visitors, the degradation of the building due to air pollution and acid rain, and commercial development in the vicinity.
Both the Declaration of Independence, 1776, and the Constitution of the United States, 1787, were discussed, adopted, and signed at this building. As a result, it became a symbol of American freedom and democracy and a very important step in the American history that later had significant impacts on lawmakers, political thinkers and governmental charters around the world. This fact gave the building a direct association with events and ideas of outstanding universal significance fulfilling the criterion (vi) and designating it into a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
The site is managed, as a part of Independence National Historical Park, at a national level by the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, which united the individual national parks' management and aims for the preservation of historic sites for public enjoyment and education for future generations.
The 1948 law, by President Harry S. Truman, created the Independence National Historical Park consisting of the Independence Hall, Congress Hall, the Liberty Bell, and other historic buildings important to the nation. This inclusion increased the protection level and the World Heritage Status of Independence Hall to the highest level as the National Park system is maintained by the federal government.
The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 provides a framework for the preservation of historic properties and encourages federal agencies to consider the effects of their undertakings on historic sites. "Access at all reasonable times to all public portions of the property," and that "no changes or alterations should be made in...its buildings and grounds... except by mutual agreement between the Secretary of the Interior and the [City of Philadelphia]..."
The comprehensive General Management Plan for Independence National Historical Park, developed by the National Park Service, addresses interpretation, visitor management, conservation efforts, carrying capacity issues, and the maintenance of the site's historical integrity. They organize the balance between public access and the protection of the building's physical and historical resources.
Sustaining integrity, authenticity and the outstanding universal value of the building, as UNESCO also indicates, will require managing the degradation due to environmental factors like pollutants, and anthropogenic factors like the number of visitors, urban development plans and the level of interventions which are limited to structural stabilization.
In spring 1729, proposals were submitted to build a state house in Philadelphia, then the capital of the Province of Pennsylvania. Approximately 2,000 pounds sterling was committed to the project, and a committee including Thomas Lawrence, John Kearsley, and Andrew Hamilton was charged with selecting a site for the building's construction, acquiring plans for it, and contracting a company for its construction. Hamilton and his future son-in-law William Allen, who was later chief justice of the Province of Pennsylvania, were named trustees and were authorized to purchase land for the proposed state house. By October 1730, they purchased lots on Chestnut Street for the building. The site was originally a slightly sloping, vegetation covered site at the outskirts of the city which used to be a camp for American Indians. The State House was more suburban than urban.
By 1732, Hamilton acquired the deed for Lot no. 2 from surveyor David Powell, who was paid for his work on the lot. But tensions began arising among committee members. Kearsley and Hamilton disagreed on a number of issues concerning the state house. Kearsley, who designed Christ Church and St. Peter's Church in Philadelphia, had plans for the design, but so did Hamilton. The two men also disagreed on where in Philadelphia the building should be located; Kearsley sought to have it constructed on High Street, which is present-day Market Street, and Hamilton favored Chestnut Street. Lawrence said nothing on the matter of its location.
The disagreements escalated to the point where arbitration was needed. On August 8, 1733, Hamilton brought the matter before the Provincial Assembly, where he explained that Kearsley did not approve of his plans for the state house's location and architecture and argued that the assembly did not agree to these decisions either. Three days later, Hamilton appeared before the assembly, where he showed his plans for the state house, which accepted them. On August 14, the assembly sided with Hamilton, granting him full authority over the project, and the current site on the south side of Chestnut Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, its current location, the site where it would be constructed. Ground was broken for construction soon after. A foundation of rubble stone and lime mortar was done into the sandy clay soil. Then the interior frame and roof trusses were constructed with wooden girders and beams. They used reinforced joints and iron plates and pins. The outer shell was built from a hard-burned brick of 22 to 23 inches thickness.
Independence Hall has a red brick façade, designed in Georgian style. It consists of a central building with belltower and steeple, attached to two smaller wings via arcaded hyphens. The highest point to the tip of the steeple spire is 168 feet 7+1⁄4 inches (51.391 m) above the ground.
The State House was built between 1732 and 1753, designed by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton, and built by Woolley. Its construction was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature which paid for construction as funds were available, so it was finished piecemeal. It was initially inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania as its State House, from 1732 to 1799.
In 1752, when Isaac Norris was selecting a man to build the first clock for the State House he chose Thomas Stretch, the son of Peter Stretch his old friend and fellow council member, to do the job.
In 1753, Stretch erected a giant clock at the building's west end that resembled a tall clock (grandfather clock). The 40-foot-tall (12 m) limestone base was capped with a 14-foot (4.3 m) wooden case surrounding the clock's face, which was carved by cabinetmaker Samuel Harding. The clock was removed about 1830. The clock's dials were mounted at the east and west ends of the main building connected by rods to the clock movement in the middle of the building. A new clock was designed and installed by Isaiah Lukens in 1828. The Lukens clock ran consecutively for eight days, "with four copper dials on each side that measured eight feet in diameter and clockworks that ensured sufficient power to strike the four-thousand pound bell made by John Wilbank." The Lukens clock remained in Independence Hall until 1877.
The acquisition of the original clock and bell by the Pennsylvania Colonial Assembly is closely related to the acquisition of the Liberty Bell. By mid-1753, the clock was installed in the State House attic, but it was six years before Thomas Stretch received any pay for it.
While the shell of the central portion of the building is original, the side wings, steeple and much of the interior were reconstructed much later. In 1781, the Pennsylvania Assembly had the wooden steeple removed from the main building. The steeple rotted and weakened to a dangerous extent by 1773. By 1781, the Assembly had it removed and had the brick tower covered with a hipped roof. A more elaborate steeple, designed by William Strickland, was added in 1828.
The original wings and hyphens (connecting corridors) were demolished and replaced in 1812. In 1898, these were in turn demolished and replaced with reconstructions of the original wings.
The building was renovated numerous times in the 19th and 20th century. The current interior is a mid-20th-century reconstruction by the National Park Service with the public rooms restored to their 18th-century appearance.
During the summer of 1973, a replica of the Thomas Stretch clock was restored to Independence Hall.
The second-floor Governor's Council Chamber, furnished with important examples of the era by the National Park Service, includes a musical tall case clock made by Peter Stretch, c. 1740, one of the most prominent clockmakers in early America and father of Thomas Stretch.
Two smaller buildings adjoin the wings of Independence Hall: Old City Hall to the east, and Congress Hall to the west. These three buildings are together on a city block known as Independence Square, along with Philosophical Hall, the original home of the American Philosophical Society. Since its construction in the mid-20th century, to the north has been Independence Mall, which includes the current home of the Liberty Bell.
The lowest chamber of the original wooden steeple was the first home of the Liberty Bell. When that steeple was removed in the 1780s, the bell was lowered into the highest chamber of the brick tower, where it remained until the 1850s. The much larger Centennial Bell, created for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, hangs in the cupola of the 1828 steeple. The Liberty Bell, with its distinctive crack, was displayed on the ground floor of the hall from the 1850s until 1976, and is now on display across the street in the Liberty Bell Center.
The Assembly Room is the heart of Independence Hall, and is the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.
The history of the Independence Hall can be divided into four periods: first construction and function as the Pennsylvania State House from 1732 to 1799, used as a museum from 1802 to 1828, became a municipal building from 1818 to 1895, and turned into an important historical landmark from 1898 to present.
From May 10, 1775, to 1783, the Pennsylvania State House served as the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress, a body of representatives from each of the thirteen British North American colonies.
On June 14, 1775, delegates of the Continental Congress, gathered in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington. The Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General of what later became the United States Post Office Department slightly over a month later, on July 26.
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted on the Lee Resolution and declared independence from Britain, and two days later, on July 4, the final wording of the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted and signed in present-day Independence Hall. The Declaration was read aloud to the public in the area now known as Independence Square. This document unified the colonies in North America who declared themselves independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained their justifications for doing so. These historic events are celebrated annually with a national holiday for U.S. Independence Day. There are 56 signatures on the Declaration of Independence, including John Hancock who signed first, writing his name in very large letters. The prominence of this signature led to the term "John Hancock" or "Hancock" becoming a colloquial term in the United States for one's signature.
The Congress continued to meet in the Pennsylvania State House until December 12, 1776, when Congress was forced to evacuate Philadelphia during the British occupation of Philadelphia. During the British occupation of Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met in Baltimore, Maryland from December 20, 1776, to February 27, 1777. The Congress returned to Philadelphia from March 4, 1777, to September 18, 1777.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Independence Hall”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.