| The Lincoln Memorial is an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The monument is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Approximately 6 million people visit the memorial annually. It is open to the public 24 hours a day.
The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. The monument measures 190 by 118 feet and is 99 feet tall. The ceiling of the Memorial, 60 feet above the floor, is composed of bronze girders, ornamented with laurel and oak leaves.
The exterior is Colorado white marble, interior walls and columns Indiana limestone, sculpture Georgia white marble, chamber floor Tennessee pink marble, and skylights Alabama marble.
It has 36 columns represent the states in the union at the time of Lincoln’s death. The columns stand 44 feet tall with a base diameter 7.5 feet. |
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The statue is composed of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble and rises 30 feet from the floor, including the 19-foot seated figure with armchair and footrest upon an 11-foot high pedestal. Lincoln’s arms rest on representations of Roman fasces, a subtle touch that associates the statue with the Augustan theme of the Washington Mall. The statue weighs 175 US tons.
Under the Lincoln Memorial is a massive, darkened basement where steel-reinforced concrete columns are decorated with construction workers’ 90-year-old graffiti. Mutt and Jeff are here as is a man smoking a pipe. The National Park Service used to give tours, but no longer. “It was never designed for people’s safety,” according to the resource management for the area that includes the memorial. |
