Overbeck Lecture: The DC Row House – A Capitol Hill Perspective (Reservation Opens 9-26-23)
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Row houses, Washington’s most dominant building type, line Capitol Hill’s streets and characterize the neighborhood. Alison K. Hoagland will present October’s Overbeck lecture with a look at the evolution of row houses, sorting them by types of floor plans, from the 18th century to the present. Reasons behind their distinctive appearance include the constraints imposed by building regulations and the city plan. Speculative builders took several different approaches to constructing rows of houses and three Capitol Hill builders who characterized these approaches will be highlighted. This examination of Capitol Hill row houses will offer new insights into why our neighborhood looks the way that it does.
Alison K. (Kim) Hoagland is the author of the recently published The Row House in Washington, DC: A History (University of Virginia Press, 2023) as well as five other books on various aspects of vernacular architecture of the US. She first moved to Capitol Hill in 1977 and has lived here for a majority of the years since then. She was the Senior Architectural Historian for the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service, and then taught History and Historic Preservation at Michigan Technological University in Houghton MI, where she is now Professor Emerita.
This illustrated presentation on the changing face of Capitol Hill’s streets will be held Monday, October 16, 2023 at 7:30 pm at Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.
As always, admission to Overbeck lectures is free but a reservation is required due to limited seating. Reservations can be made after Tuesday, September 26, through the Hill Center web site or by phone (202-549-1172). Please note that seating will begin at 7:00pm for those who hold reservations. We suggest that all guests arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the event. Available seats wil be released to guests on the wait list beginning at 7:15 pm. If you are unable to attend, please notify Hill Center (202-549-1172) so that another person may attend the lecture.
