Hinckley Hilton Developers Seek Landmark Status

Map It:  Dupont Circle   L'Enfant Plaza 

THE WASHINGTON HILTON stands out. Not only does massive brutalist structure dwarf the historic Kalorama Heights and Dupont Circle buildings in the blocks that surround it, but it's got historical heft as well: It's the spot where, in 1981, would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan.

Now, a development group led by Magic Johnson's Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds and Lowe Enterprises is seeking to begin $100 million worth of renovations — and it will also seek landmark status for the 42-year-old hotel, the Current newspapers reported this week.

Even if you're not enthralled with the Hilton's hulking design, it's hard to argue that it isn't a distinctive building. It's one of only two notable giant curved structures in a city of square modern boxes. The other is the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development at L'Enfant Plaza, characterized by its double curved-Y formation, raw concrete design and the translucent doughnut structures on its 7th Street SW plaza.

It's noteworthy that an effort to grant a building like the Washington Hilton landmark status would come as the old U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters is having its streamlined modernist marble skin torn off. It's being replaced by — what else? — the kind of glass-and-steel exterior that K Street corridor developers adore.

To put all of this in perspective, a century ago and just two decades or so after it was finished, the building now known as the Eisenhower Executive Building, was so hated for its out-of-fashion ornate Second Empire design that most everyone wanted the building replaced with something a little more neoclassical. But it endured the criticism, and nowadays the edifice, also known as the Old Executive Office Building, is held in high regard.

Will the city's loathed concrete federal office buildings eventually be trumpeted once tastes in architecture shift? Could the reviled Department of Labor headquarters even get a warm reception some day?

Photos courtesy D.C. Department of Transportation and General Services Administration