Like much in the District of Columbia, the Hotel Dupont Plaza has undergone change. For one thing, it is now called the Dupont Circle Hotel. But it looks much as when it was completed half a century ago. Beige brick dominates, with corner-turning strip window systems conventional in the 1950s, and only one new floor — a penthouse (styled “Level Nine”) set behind a moderately snazzy wraparound balcony of glass.
Near the northern edge of Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the nation’s capital, Pacific Circle was renamed for Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont in 1882. Nine years later, the department-store magnate Levi P. Leiter built a mansion designed by Theophilus Chandler. It was demolished for the Dupont Plaza in 1947.
Its most recent incarnation, the Dupont Circle, where Victoria, Billy and I stayed on vacation last week, has doubled down on chic. Now part of the Doyle Collection, of Dublin, the Dupont’s swanky interiors feature an unabashedly contemporary style that belies the sober midcentury modernism of its “historic” exterior.
Read the rest of the column at The Providence Journal
About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally.
I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002.
I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato.
If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457.
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