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Mr. CAMPIOLI. I have followed this report very carefully and the figure for architectural and engineering services, administration and contingencies is $69,500. The factor that makes this fee expensive and high is the fact that there are numerous miscellaneous items that have to be detailed and specified, in many of which instances the architectural service will be out of proportion with the work done. In other words let us put it this way. At 10 percent, in many cases the architect's fee would not come out correctly because the work upon which the fee is based would not cost enough. There is not enough repetition here. There are too many diversified items, each of which will have to be measured, drawn up, and specified.

Mr. KIRWAN. I agree with every word you said but I still say it would be cheaper if you hired a couple of architects and let them get into every hole connected with this Capitol. I remember when I was in the old Mills committee somebody found a room nobody knew existed and came up with a box of papers that were written in Ben Franklin's time.

Your staff is probably very, very busy, but perhaps it would be much cheaper if you had a couple others on your staff the year around.

Mr. CAMPIOLI. You will notice that the architectural work is the smallest part of the estimate.

When the architectural and engineering team we had surveyed the entire building, they inspected more than 1,500 rooms and other spaces. and the minimum crew used was one architect, one mechanicalˇengineer, one electrical engineer, one structural engineer, and one estimator. The maximum used at one time was 15 men.

If this work is authorized, the architects will again have as many as 15 men-architects and engineers-engaged on this work at one time.

Mr. KIRWAN. If you want to put something new in the Capitol Building again, you will have to go through this same process of getting a group of architects to come in here and go through all of this detail again. However, if we had a couple extra architects they could do it and it wouldn't be so expensive. This is an expensive job. Mr. THOMAS. I think you are exactly right.

What is the present professional staff of the Architect's Office? Engineers, architects, and so forth?

Mr. STEWART. I only have one professional architect on my staff. That is Mr. Campioli who is my first assistant.

Mr. THOMAS. How many professional engineers and other people do you have on the staff?

Mr. STEWART. We have a limited number of professional engineers, specializing in the several branches of the engineering field.

Mr. THOMAS. What does that total, six?

Mr. STEWART. Five to six.

Mr. THOMAS. That lends more credence to what Mr. Kirwan says. If you had two more engineers and another architect or two, you could pay their salary for this year and have them in addition.

Is this figure of $525,000 firm contractual competitive bid estimates or just office estimates?

Mr. STEWART. Just office estimates.

Mr. THOMAS. Can you reduce them 10 or 15 percent by competitive bidding?

Mr. STEWART. Everything will go out on competitive bidding except professional services.

Mr. THOMAS. When you get those bids can you not reduce this amount by 15 or 18 percent?

Mr. CAMPIOLI. I think there is a very good likelihood that there will be some reduction-but certainly not more than 10 percent. Mr. THOMAS. That is the answer.

Mr. Kirwan, excuse me.

Mr. KIRWAN. Mr. Jensen, do you have anything?

PAINT HAZARD

Mr. JENSEN. How many coats of paint do you have on the area that you plan to fireproof?

Mr. STEWART. How many coats of paint?

Mr. JENSEN. Yes.

Mr. STEWART. Do you mean the fireproof paint?

Mr. JENSEN. No, how many coats of paint are there now applied to the walls and ceilings and the floor of the area that you want to waterproof and put in the sprinkler system, I presume.

Mr. STEWART. There are a good many of those areas that have no paint at all.

Mr. JENSEN. And some have 10, 12, or 15 coats?

Mr. STEWART. They could very well have that many on them. Mr. Bow. Or 30 coats?

Mr. STEWART. Yes.

Mr. JENSEN. That is the greatest fire hazard we have. If a fire gets started and the paint comes into the fire then we are in real trouble, are we not?

Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir. I might say, that about 5 or 6 years ago I was able out of some of the savings that I had in my maintenance appropriation to put in a sprinkler system in our paintshop in the Capitol. I have them also in the House Office Buildings. That is in the paint shops, but not in other critical areas.

EXTENT OF FIRE HAZARD

Mr. JENSEN. But you feel we do have a rather serious fire hazard problem here, do you not?

Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir; a very serious fire hazard problem. I came here 26 years ago last May. At that time I walked around this building with Mr. Lynn, my predecessor, and I was amazed and startled at some of the things I saw then. Some remedial measures have been taken in the interim, but it is not until now that we have had an actively receptive committee, made up of Mr. Steed, Mr. Bow, and other members of the Legislative Appropriations Committee, who saw the dangerous conditions that exist as a result of very close personal examination of the building.

I might point out to you, that the Architect of the Capitol has not the control of all of the spaces in the Capitol. Take the House side. I have certain areas insofar as storage is concerned. The Clerk of the House has some. The Doorkeeper has some. On the Senate side, the Sergeant at Arms has some. The Secretary of the Senate has some, and I have some. Other areas are under the control of committees.

So it is a divided responsibility and this year was the first time that we have ever been able, through the combined efforts of the House and Senate subcommittees on Legislative Appropriations, to get together representatives of both those groups and to go into the problem thoroughly.

Many places were overcrowded with stored materials, accumulated over many years. It seemed to me useless to clear out the doors and old benches removed from the Supreme Court chamber and the old doors and trim, marble and bronze that were removed from the House and Senate chambers, when they were remodeled, and after cleaning the areas, to put these items back in storage again in the Capitol.

Back in 1942 we granted the Navy Department permission to use 7 to 8 acres of ground comprising part of the Botanic Garden nursery at Poplar Point. This area was supposed to be returned to us at the end of World War II hostilities, but never was returned.

Fortunately, the Navy has one quonset-type building down there which, upon request, they immediately turned over to us. That is where we are now storing the materials that we removed from the basement of the Capitol. This is the first step we have taken to eliminate fire hazards in the Capitol.

PRESERVATION OF OLD MATERIAL

Mr. JENSEN. What are you going to do with that old stuff?

Mr. STEWART. It is like Mr. Kirwan just said about Ben Franklin's papers somebody found some of those. No one has yet determined what disposition is to be made of these materials. Some of them are very historic. The old mohogany doors on the House chambers were in there for nearly 100 years. Ninety-one years.

Mr. JENSEN. Well, they are doing no one any good right now.

I suppose you have an inventory of everything you have in there. Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir.

Mr. JENSEN. It would bring a lot of money.

Mr. STEWART. Undoubtedly.

Mr. JENSEN. If it was put on sale and properly advertised.

Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir.

Mr. JENSEN. And right now we need that money in this Treasury of ours.

You have millions of dollars worth of stuff down there I suppose, haven't you?

Mr. STEWART. I do not know just how I could put a price on it, Congressman, right now, but there are historic materials of considerable value down there.

Mr. JENSEN. There are people who would give a lot of money for one of those doors you have down there.

Another thing, it appears to me that it should be sold.

Mr. STEWART. Insofar as periodicals, hearings or old Congressional Records or similar documents stored in the basement were concerned, the Doorkeeper of the House, who had charge of much such material has discarded extra copies of certain years and saved only a specimen from those years.

Mr. JENSEN. Do you have that material stored down there too?
Mr. STEWART. That material is still stored down in the basement.

Mr. JENSEN. Where?

Mr. STEWART. In the basement?
Mr. JENSEN. In this building?

Mr. STEWART. In this building, yes.

We have not undertaken to destroy any of the papers down there until such time as we can find out from a check with the Library of Congress and with my own art and reference department as to what materials should be saved for historic purposes and what should be disposed of.

TOTAL COST OF REMODELING

Mr. JENSEN. Now coming back to this remodeling job. What is the estimated cost on the completed job as you envision it now? Mr. STEWART. Including the east front?

Mr. JENSEN. No, exclusive of the east front.

Mr. STEWART. $525,000 which under most favorable competitive bidding would not be more than 10 percent high. I would say possibly 10 percent might be saved under maximum conditions, it all depends on the market at the time we let our contracts. The market varies from time to time. If there is not much doing, we usually get a better price.

Mr. THOMAS. I think Mr. Jensen had in mind the total cost, including legislative authority for your larger figure of $825,000 rather than the smaller figure.

Mr. STEWART. The whole job was estimated at $815,000.
Mr. THOMAS. $325,000 will call for legislative authority.

ITEMS FOR WHICH LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY IS REQUIRED

Mr. JENSEN. Legislative authority for what purpose?

Mr. STEWART. There is a 1902 statute on the books which requires that any architectural changes to the Capitol must be passed on by Congress.

Mr. JENSEN (reading):

No change in the architectural features of the Capitol Building or in the landscape features of the Capitol Grounds shall be made except on plans ap proved by Congress.

and that language would then eliminate 300-and-some thousand dollars from your total request.

Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir. That item provides for cutting exit doors where there are now windows in the House and Senate wings and the House and Senate connections, first floor, at 12 different locations.

Cutting through terrace railings at the west side, central portion of the building, to provide flights of steps leading down to the courtyard levels. That brings me up to one point that the fire marshal and the underwriters brought up: We do not have enough exits at the present time. That is, enough exits to get a large crowd out of the building in a hurry.

Mr. JENSEN. What building?

Mr. STEWART. This building. The Capitol Building.

It might be of interest to you to know 5 years ago we averaged about 22,500 persons a day in the Capitol, 365 days a year, from 8:30 in the morning until 4:30 p.m. I made three spot checks and one regular check this year. One day when there was no activity in the

House Chamber or the Senate Chamber when it was an off day, the count ran about 20,000 persons. But during the cherry blossom time it was over 40,000. We counted one door, an exact count of 14,900 people who came through one door, the old door that I had to renew on the west side. In case of a fire, all those persons would have to get out of the building in a hurry. That is why more exits are recommended. The $300,000 also provides for installation of fireproof doors and frames, with wire glass, in various corridors and at open stairways throughout the building.

Enclosing stairways at the basement level with fireproof construc

tion.

Reconstruction of stairway in Senate wing to eliminate winders and to provide an enclosure at the basement level.

Construction of new stair in west court of central section.
Cutting exit doors to terrace walls, for evacuation.

Construction of swinging doors adjacent to revolving doors. Those are the principal items that have been eliminated under the $300,000 estimate.

Mr. Bow. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to have this report before us. As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Honorable Tom Steed, chairman of the Legislative Subcommittee and I have been very much interested in this and our subcommittee toward protecting this Capitol.

Mr. THOMAS. You more or less personally inspected every nook and cranny in this building, too.

Mr. Bow. We went through every nook and cranny of the whole building and, gentlemen, what we saw was devastating. This building could go up in almost an hour. There are paints, unprotected areas, no firewalls, drafts throughout the building where fire could get started, no way to cut off air conditioning, and there is a number of things. As the Architect has said, you cannot put the responsi bility on anybody who has control of the building. It is separated. Here we found papers stored that had been there for years, with old scaffolding and wooden partitions. Places where the wiring-How old is some of that wiring down there?

Mr. STEWART. It is hard to say; 1900, probably.

Mr. Bow. There were places where you could see burned spots where there actually had been short-circuited wires and the wood had been scorched. This exists in the building and I am delighted that the Architect has moved as fast as he has to bring this in.

Mr. KIRWAN. I agree, for these improvement have been needed for years.

Mr. Bow. I agree with the gentleman it should have been done. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kirwan, and I are very much interested in seeing that we stop building wooden partitions in here. We think they should be steel, do you not, Mr. Kirwan?

I am delighted. I am not going to ask any questions because I am satisfied. We want to do it as cheaply as we possibly can but we want to do it right. I certainly hope the committee goes along.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. THOMAS. The committee is in receipt of a letter from Repre sentative Tom Steed, chairman of the Legislative Subcommittee. which refers to this subject and without objection we shall include the letter in the record at this point.

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