We have built no national temple but the Capitol," U.S. Rep. Rufus Choate of Massachusetts said in 1833. "We consult no common oracle but the Constitution."
Now America's "temple" has a new front door, just in time for the millions of visitors expected to descend on Washington for the presidential inauguration and related festivities.
The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center will open Tuesday as the starting point for guests touring the Capitol, the seat of the legislative branch of federal government and the place where Barack Obama will take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States.
Planners say they expect more than 3 million visitors a year to visit the Capitol, up from 1.5 million in recent years.
The visitor center's opening comes at a time when people are "riveted on government" because of the recent elections, said Terrie Rouse, the center's CEO for Visitor Services. "Interest is very strong."
"The visitor center is a treasure in itself," said Stephen Ayers, acting architect of the Capitol and chief operating officer. "We have built a modern, 21st-century facility, while at the same time preserving and enhancing the historic features of the Capitol and its grounds."
Located on the east side of the Capitol, with its main entrance near First Street and East Capitol Street Northeast, the underground visitor center is one of three recently completed attractions all within easy walking distance of each other. The others are the refurbished National Museum of American History on the Mall, which reopened Nov. 21 after an $85 million transformation, and the relocated Newseum at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
The new Capitol attraction is also part of a national trend in which many historic buildings and places are opening new visitor or interpretive centers, including Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, in Virginia, and Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
The new visitor center is not meant to be a destination unto itself but a supplement to and extension of the Capitol, which was built beginning in 1793.
Constructed over six years at a cost of $621 million, the center is the largest single addition to the Capitol since its dome was completed in the 1860s. It was placed underground, planners say, to preserve historic views to and from the Capitol.
