Welcome!

I love the architecture of Washington DC, and I thought it would be fun to look up images of the buildings and artwork mentioned in The Lost Symbol while I'm reading the book.

Click a chapter on the left; if the chapter's missing, there wasn't anything (or anything new) I felt like showing — or I haven't gotten that far yet!

Please feel free to leave a comment, but please don't leave spoilers for those who are still reading the book! It's okay to talk about the current chapter, but don't discuss future chapters on that post. Thanks!

Chapter 82

Washington National Cathedral Nave

Robert Langdon and Katherine proceed down the 400-foot-long aisle, and one can only imagine what an eerie experience this would be in the immense, unlit nave. See also: National Cathedral online video tours an excellent video tour of the Cathedral's nave, and an interactive view of the nave.

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Langdon mentions reaching the great crossing, the point where the arms of the cross meet.

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The rood screen, the symbolic divider between the public area and the sanctuary, is seen here. (Here's a wonderful photo showing this area in the nave.)

Chapter 79

Washington National Cathedral

Mt. Sinai Stones

Space Window

The National Cathedral features over 200 stained-glass windows. The Space Window commemorates the moon landing, and includes a fragment of lunar rock at its center.

Darth Vader Grotesque

It's really there. Click for a great photo of the Darth Vader gargoyle on the Washington National Cathedral.

Main Entrance

The main entrance at night, surmounted by a beautiful rose window.

Cross Shape

The cross-shaped layout of the Cathedral. Directly south of the entrance, you can see the gazebo-shaped Shadow House frequented by Dean Galloway, part of the Bishop's Garden.

Chapter 78

George Washington Masonic Memorial

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Photo: Ben Schumin

The bronze statue of George Washington in Masonic regalia in the Masonic Memorial.

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Photo: Ben Schumin

The replica of the Ark of the Covenant.

Chapter 77

Moloch in Milton's Paradise Lost

John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) is an epic poem about man's fall from grace: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan, and their expulsion from Eden. Moloch is the great warrior demon.

Chapter 76

Freedom Plaza

Chapter 74

US Botanic Garden

The US Botanic Garden is adjacent to the Capitol; the Jungle room is part of the enormous Conservatory, shown here.

Chapter 71

Ourobouros

Chapter 70

Melencolia's Magic Square

It wasn't very hidden, was it? From the style of the engraving, I had expected something at least as difficult as the Highlights hidden pictures, where a ball of yarn is hidden in a bowl of spaghetti, or a drinking straw is hidden in a straw broom.

Chapter 68

Albrecht Dürer's Melencolia I Engraving

"A brooding figure with giant wings, seated in front of a stone building, surrounded by the most disparate and bizarre collection of objects imaginable." (Click image to enlarge.)

Chapter 64

Library of Congress John Adams Building

Sitting directly behind the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, the Adams Building is the ugly stepsister no one bothers to photograph.

How far did Robert Langdon and Katherine travel underground? The straight-line, center-to-center distance from Jefferson Building to the Adams Building is about 160 yards.

Chapter 63

Shadow House

The view from within the gazebo-like structure called "Shadow House".

Chapter 49

Moses with Horns

Michelangelo's Moses (1515), with horns. Awkward.

Chapter 47

Pod 5

Darkness.

This is going to be difficult to film for the movie...

Chapter 46

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress, located across the street from the east side of the Capitol building. Although originally called just the Library of Congress Building, as the Library now comprises three separate buildings, it was christened the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1980 (and Langdon sometimes refers to it thus).

The white building just behind it is the Library of Congress John Adams building; the third building, the Madison building, is just out of view to the right.

The Library of Congress Tunnel

The tunnel connecting the Capitol Visitor Center and the Jefferson Building opened in December 2008, at the same time as the Visitor Center. Construction of the $10 million tunnel was controversial, due to the already large cost overruns on the Visitor Center. Langdon wonders about the tunnel's length: at about 600 feet long, and curving around underground obstructions, the tunnel route is actually longer than simply walking aboveground from the Capitol to the Library.

The Library of Congress Great Hall

Photo: David Iliff (License)

It's no wonder Dan Brown spends several paragraphs describing this overwhelmingly opulent room, which is but the entrance to the library. He mentions the stained glass skylights, the pillars lining the second-floor balcony, the curling staircases, and the giant bronze figures raising torches of enlightenment.

Great Hall Stairway Banister Putti

The "cupidlike putti portrayed as modern scientists". To me this looks like cherubs on some bizarre theme-park ride.

The East Corridor

Proceeding through the arched opening, the Gutenberg Bible and Giant Bible of Mainz are displayed in the East Corridor (you can see the Bible displays in the photo above).

The Giant Bible of Mainz is one of the last great handwritten Bibles in Europe, and signifies the end of the era of the handwritten manuscript.

The Gutenberg Bible is one of the first printed books, and represents the beginning of the printed book era.

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A panel from John White Alexander's six-panel The Evolution of the Book, which surrounds the Bible displays.

The Reading Room

Perhaps the most striking room "in the whole world," thinks Robert Langdon. As for me, I think, if I am very very good, perhaps when I die, I will go here.

You may recall that the Reading Room was the setting for a pivotal moment in the movie "National Treasure: Book of Secrets".

Chapter 38

Chamber of Reflection

Chamber of Reflection artwork by Greg Stewart.

Chapter 37

Giant Squid

Matt Lauer in the Smithsonian Museum Support Center Wet Pod, checking out Architeuthis — the Giant Squid.

Chapter 33

The Architect of the Capitol

The Architect of the Capitol is, as Langdon notes, not an actual "architect" in the sense of a designer of buildings, but is the head of the agency charged with maintaining and administering all of the buildings in the Capitol complex. These include the Capitol itself, the Botanic Garden, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court building, congressional office buildings, and more.

The current Architect is Stephen T. Ayers.

Chapter 30

The Great Seal of the United States

The Great Seal of the United States featured on the $1 bill. The obverse (front) is on the right, and the reverse of the seal featuring the eye-and-pyramid is on the left.

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The strangely cartoonish official version from the Department of State of the Great Seal's reverse.

Chapter 28

The Capitol Crypt

Chapter 23

Runic Alphabet

A codex written in a runic alphabet.

Gold Masonic Ring

Gold Masonic ring with a double-headed phoenix; the Mason symbol is on the bird's chest. Click image to enlarge, or buy this ring.

Chapter 22

Kalorama Heights

Perhaps Dr. Abbadon's mansion is this $5.3 million abode in stately Kalorama Heights.

The Three Graces by Michael Parkes

The Three Graces by Michael Parkes. Parkes' work is highly recognizable because many of his paintings have become popular fantasy art posters (like this one). Dr. Abaddon says the Parkes artwork in his home is the original oil. (See also: Raphael's Three Graces.)

Chapter 21

The U.S. Capitol Rotunda

Looking up into the Capitol dome, as it would appear to Langdon standing below. The top soars 180' overhead, more than 15 stories high; Langdon mentions that the Statue of Liberty could stand here (with 30' to spare). The catwalk (which Langdon has no desire to visit) can be seen here.

The distance to the mural at the very top makes it hard to grasp its enormous size: the painting is over 65' across, covers over 4,600 square feet, and each figure is up to 15' tall.

The Apotheosis of Washington Mural

The Apotheosis of Washington mural on the dome's canopy (larger image, high-resolution image).

Can you find George Washington? I couldn't.

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Close-up of the center of the mural. George Washington is at the bottom wearing a purple coat and, er, pink skirt, with a rainbow at his feet. By his side are the goddess Victory (in green), and the goddess Liberty. The other 13 maidens in the circle represent the 13 colonies (rather than vestal virgins) according to Wikipedia.

Click to see the detail and symbolism for the other figures in the mural: War, Science, Marine, Commerce, Mechanics, and Agriculture.

Saint John the Baptist

Leonardo da Vinci's Saint John the Baptist (~1514), who is clearly gesturing at something.

Enthroned Washington Statue

The fearsome Enthroned Washington statue (click image to enlarge). The status was modeled after the Zeus Olympios statue, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Zeus statue was destroyed in ancient times, so we don't know exactly what it looked like; but though all of the drawings do show Zeus seated and bare-chested like Washington, none show Zeus doing the hand thing.

Enthroned Washington was commissioned for the Capitol, but it was just too darn hot, and was removed.

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After being removed from the Capitol building, EW spent some time out of doors, before being relocated to a Smithsonian museum.

So many funny captions I could add here...

Chapter 20

The Washington Monument

The 555-foot tall Washington monument — an Egyptian obelisk. (I took this photo in 2000.)

The Temple of Vesta, Rome

The remains of the Temple of Vesta in Rome, inspiration for the US Capitol.

Photo: http://karolina-dejnicka.deviantart.com

The Capitol Crypt

The US Capitol Crypt, which lies just below the Rotunda. Despite the name, no one has ever been entombed here; it was planned as the burial place for George and Martha Washington, who were buried at Mount Vernon instead.

Chapter 15

The Global Consciousness Project

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) has distributed 65 random number generators around the world, which are monitored via the Internet. Researchers claim that during events which engage the emotions of large numbers of people, the data to becomes less random, and believe that this shows the existence of consciousness. According to the GCP, data anomalies were observed the day of Princess Diana's funeral (reportedly watched by 1 billion people on TV); during the September 11 terrorist attacks; and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Although reports have been published in peer-reviewed journals, other researchers did not agree that the random data had, in fact, shown the claimed effect.

A nice article about the GCP: Can this black box predict the future? (Redorbit.com)

Random Event Generator

A random event generator (REG). The devices are nicknamed "eggs", and the GCP is also called the "EGG Project".

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See the detailed explanation of 9/11 data from the GCP

The Intention Experiment

The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World by Lynne McTaggart