Security measures diminish Capitol grandeur

Security measures around the U.S. Capitol such as barricades detract from the beauty of the grounds, tourists, architects and even security experts say.

From Kate Snow
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If visitors step back from the U.S. Capitol, the famed monument to neoclassical architecture, what do they see? Sewer pipes, concrete barriers, chain-link fencing and a slalom course of planters, all strategically placed for security.

"You have to be careful when you take a picture that you don't get the barricades in it," a tourist says.

"It's kind of sad," says another tourist, "because when I was here before it was so beautiful, and now it's as if, because of the terrorists, we've lost a lot of our beauty."

Visitors to Washington said they understand the need for added security at the Capitol after September 11. But even security experts acknowledge that it's not the look Frederick Law Olmsted was going for when he designed the Capitol grounds in 1874.

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"I think they've gone way overboard," said Roger Lewis, a University of Maryland architecture professor who argues that security doesn't have to be ugly.

"What we need is a designed system of security barriers that become part of a landscape aesthetically, that make our landscape and buildings look good, rather than look bad. And I think what you see here feels like a fortress."

Though security was beefed up after September 11, the look of the Capitol landscape has been evolving for decades. As late as 1969, there weren't even guards posted at Capitol entrances.

Less intrusive changes planned

The barricades -- essentially sewer pipes turned into planters -- were installed nearly 20 years ago after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. And they stuck around.

"The nature of the place is once we put security into effect it's difficult to back down from some of the physical barriers we put up, just on the chance that we're going to have the same concern in the future," Capitol police Lt. Dan Nichols said.

The Capitol's official architect, Alan Hantman, acknowledges that the barricades are aesthetically incorrect so he's getting rid of them.

The new look, planned well before September 11, involves less intrusive steel posts called bollards.

"I think it's much more compatible with the landscape," Hantman said. "We're trying to have them essentially be here as security elements but kind of disappear in the background."

The bollards eventually will encircle the Capitol, and officials said they hope they will replace most, if not all, of the concrete barricades now in use.

Construction also is under way on a new visitors center. Designers said they hope the beauty of the grounds finally will be restored when the center is completed in three years.

In a bow to the times, however, the people's house may never look or feel quite as open as it once was.