U.S. Tax Court

About this property

The United States Tax Court Building is a courthouse located at 400 Second Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Judiciary Square neighborhood. It serves as the headquarters of the United States Tax Court. Built in 1972, the building and its landscaped plaza occupy the entire block bound by D Street, E Street, Second Street, and Third street. Government officials selected architect Victor A. Lundy to design the building in 1965. They awarded Lundy the contract without competition. The design follows the "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture" issued by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space at the request of President John F. Kennedy in 1962. In an attempt to improve federal buildings, the committee recommended architecture that would convey the "dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government". Designers and officials were encouraged to pay special attention to site selection and layout, including landscape development. In the 1930s, the U.S. Board of Tax Appeals, later renamed the Tax Court of the United States, was housed in the Internal Revenue Service Building in the Federal Triangle. By 1956, overcrowding and the desire to separate judicial and executive powers led to initial attempts to relocate the court. In 1962, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon appealed to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to incorporate funds for the design of a new building in its upcoming budget. GSA subsequently allocated $450,000. In 1966, GSA approved Lundy's concept for a building with strong end masses, a central cantilevered courtroom block, and a landscaped plaza. Despite enthusiastic support for the project, the Vietnam War triggered funding cuts that delayed construction until 1972, when GSA secured a site and held a groundbreaking ceremony. The completed building was dedicated on November 22, 1974, the fiftieth anniversary of the Revenue Act that created the court. Employees occupied the building on January 20, 1975. Due to escalating construction costs, the plaza was not completed until 1981. Lundy's design won a GSA Honor Award in the first Design Awards Program held in 1972. Describing the building, Lundy stated, "What I've done is taken a monolithic block and broken it apart". The building displays the culmination of Modern design principles coupled with technological advances that allowed for a new type of building. Hailing the design in 1967, New York Times architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the plans for the U.S. Tax Court Building as "a progressive, sensitive, contemporary solution fully responsive to Washington's classical tradition and yet fully part of the mid-20th century - a period of exceptional vigor and beauty in the history of structure and design".

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in District of Columbia County

Historic places, battles, and census history across District of Columbia County.

More historic places in District of Columbia

Browse all historic places in District of Columbia.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

District of Columbia history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.