Scope and Content Note
Charles Bulfinch's involvement in the field of architecture began when it was practiced by gentleman amateurs and spanned its transition to professional architects. A representative sampling of the drawings he produced, spanning his entire career, are represented in the Charles Bulfinch Archive (Library of Congress), the principal repository of his work.
This archive primarily includes architectural drawings by Charles Bulfinch, Architect of the Capitol (1818-1829), for and of residential buildings, government buildings, monuments, and churches in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Maine, and unidentified locations. Among the designs represented in the archive are the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and the First Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. and the Maine State House in Augusta, Maine. Materials document various phases of the design process, from preliminary and presentation drawings to working drawings. The archive also includes some landscape drawings, engineering drawings, design drawings, study drawings, and perspective studies, as well as architectural drawings formerly attributed to Bulfinch.
Specific media or processes represented include ink, watercolor, wash, graphite, colored ink, photomechanical print, and stat.
Some ADE UNITs have additional materials to the drawings that are filed separately. If present, these series are noted at the end of the ADE UNIT's summary with the following options: specifications, photographs, and/or miscellaneous supplementary materials. These materials are not item inventoried but can be requested from a librarian while doing research in the Reading Room.