Temple of the Scottish Rite, Washington, D.C.

TitleTemple of the Scottish Rite, Washington, D.C.

Architect John Russell Pope (American, 1874 - 1937)

Delineator Otto R. Eggers (1882 - 1964)

Date1911

MediumPen and ink with wash, graphite, black crayon and watercolor on paper

DimensionsSheet size: 45 × 31 1/2 in. Image size: 45 × 31 1/2 in. Mat size: 48 × 36 in.

SignedSigned in black ink at lower right: "John Russell Pope Archt."; and in graphite and black crayon at lower left: "O.R. Eggers - 1911" (additional faint 1 between the 2 1s).

SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 6, 1924

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY

Object number38-A

Label TextJohn Russell Pope graduated from the City College of New York in 1892 and he was the first recipient of the American Academy in Rome's Prix de Rome in 1895. In Europe, Pope entered the Atelier Deglane at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he worked from 1897 until 1899. Following his return to New York in 1900, he worked briefly for the architect, Bruce Price, before establishing his own architectural practice.

Pope achieved success early, was especially favored with commissions for major institutional buildings, and is perhaps the architect most responsible for carrying the Beaux-Arts style of classical revival well into the twentieth century in America.

A Masonic temple of cut stone masonry, built at 1733 16th Street, Washington, DC, constructed between 1911 and 1915, the Scottish Rite Temple was built to headquarter the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry. Pope used the Greek tomb of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as his model for the Temple.

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