When the State Department Extension was completed in 1960, it was intended to fulfill a number of uses, one of which was to house a reception area for the U.S. Department of State. “They planned it as a space to invite dignitaries and entertain at a scale that was very important for the time period,” says Virginia Hart, curator and director of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State, a job that entails maintaining the rooms and exhibiting their collection of more than 5,000 furnishings and decorative arts objects.
There was just one problem. “When they opened in 1961, the buildings were largely unfurnished—and provided via General Services Administration (GSA) schedules,” Hart says. “It was the same furniture you’d see in an airport.” When Mary Caroline Herter, the wife of Secretary of State Christian Herter, saw the original rooms, she declared that “she had never been so mortified in her life” at the thought of playing host in the surroundings.
Luckily, at that very moment, historic architecture and interiors were enjoying unprecedented patronage via the country’s first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. She embarked on an ambitious project to restore the White House interior to its 19th century origins, “and the idea at the time was that the colonial and federal periods would be told by the State Department, so there’d be no overlap,” says Hart.
So began a multidecade project to turn 42 rooms of the State Department extension into a lavish, vivid projection of American history, taste and power for use as both formal and informal reception rooms for visiting dignitaries. Period rooms were carved out of the existing building, with paned windows effectively overlaid onto the existing International Style facade. (The building’s facade remains unchanged.)
These rooms, which occupy a swath of what’s now known as the Harry S. Truman Federal Building, have been documented in America’s Collection: The Art and Architecture of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State, ($100, Rizzoli Electa), a book featuring contributions from luminaries including John Kerry, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Stacy Schiff, and Carlyle Group co-founder and Americana collector (and Bloomberg Television host) David Rubenstein.
“It’s the first book in over 20 years, and for us it was the ability to invite new scholarship in, to reappraise the collection, and talk about the architectural transformation and fine and decorative arts,” Hart says. “The goal was to reintroduce this collection here in Washington, D.C., and share the story of what Americans have done. It’s quite extraordinary.”
The initial project was spearheaded by the rooms’ first curator, Clem Conger. He had the first lady’s blessing, but no tax dollars were allocated for the project. Everything had to be funded by donations.
“He began by asking Americans for gifts” of furniture and historic objects, Hart says of Conger. “He was surprised by the outpouring when people began to understand that this would be used for welcoming diplomats from around the world.”
Conger kickstarted donations by soliciting “notable antiques dealers from New York and Philadelphia to lend furnishings,” writes the editor and writer Carolyn Vaughan in an essay, thereby “showing what the Rooms could look like and priming the pump for donations.”
Conger wasn’t just after furniture. He wanted paintings, porcelain, carpets, chandeliers and decorative objets, and he combined considerable charm with what the book describes as relentless persuasion. Vaughan writes that “he believed three things encourage people to contribute their belongings to the nation: “tax deduction, patriotism, and family pride.” Somewhat more optimistically, Hart says: “I think people were quite taken with the fact that it’s not just a museum but a working collection and service to our nation.”
Even now, she says, all funds for the rooms come from private donations. At this point they have an endowment of $27 million, $20 million of which was raised by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The pieces themselves are spectacular. They include the desk on which the Treaty of Paris was signed (thereby ending the Revolutionary War) and a circa 1838 anti-slavery coin about the size of a penny that reads “Am I not a woman & a sister,” which the book says was designed as a subversive way to further the cause of abolition “by being passed from hand to hand as pocket change.” Pieces from Martha Washington’s so-called States Service china came to her as a gift from an ambassador named Andreas Everardus van Braam, their probable designer; the service was subsequently dispersed by Washington, who “gave them out as gifts to people who’d visit Mount Vernon,” Hart says.
With the objects, though, came an increasing need to house them in an appropriate setting. After enlisting a series of architects starting with Edward Vason Jones, Conger raised money to create historically appropriate floors, walls and ceilings in the mid-century office building. The first room, the Gallery, was completed in 1969, followed by one after another. “By the time he retired in the 1990s, the architectural work was largely complete,” Hart says. “The last spaces were done in 1985, with the Franklin Room.”
Hart’s remit is now to “come back to those spaces and work with new interior designers and some wonderful architects to modernize them,” she says. It’s her job to “open up the walls and make sure there’s the modern infrastructure to serve 21st century needs.” The recent renovation of the Franklin Room required $3 million in contributions, for instance; former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is thanked for his support in funding the efforts in the book’s introduction.
It’s a testament to the rooms that they’re still much in demand for a range of uses. “When the rooms first began, people were very interesting in using the spaces,” Hart says. “There wasn’t necessarily a time before they were used or not—they’ve been in continuous use.” There are some days, Hart says, “where we have events in the morning, afternoon and evening.”
In his forward to the book, Kerry writes: “When I was secretary of state, we held dinners and meetings with visitors from every corner of the globe in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms.” Often, he continues, “to the dismay of my staff who were hoping to keep my schedule running on time, I would encourage foreign leaders and other guests to take their time to absorb this magnificent collection.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
