The architect of the capitols office is responsible to the United States congress and the Supreme Court for the maintenance, operations, development, and preservation of more than 17 million square feet than 553ngs and more acres of land throughout capitol hill, including the u. S. Capitol , senate and house Office Buildings, the library of congress, and many others. Ayers was named the 11th architect of the capital after being nominated by president obama and confirmed by the senate for a 10year term. After studying architecture at the university of maryland and, he joined the air force while earning his architectural license in california simultaneously. Following five years of active duty with the air force, he went into private practice. He then joined the voice of america, where he led design and construction efforts in greece and in germany. After five years abroad, he and his family moved to washington, hired asd mr. Ayers was assistant senate superintendent. He subsequently served for 13 years in a variety of roles until he was tapped to be the acting architect of the capitol 2007 to the role of architect of the capitol is one that requires a leader who is mindful of both the grand vision of american democracy, that these important buildings represent, and the nuts and bolts response abilities of their maintenance and preservation. In many cases, such as the current restoration of the capitol dome, those nuts and bolts are literal, rather than metaphorical. As you will learn how the challenge is being met, ladies and gentlemen, please joining joined me in welcoming the architect of the capitol, stephen ayers. [applause] so much, elizabeth. What a great introduction. That was absolutely perfect. I cannot have described my job better than you did. Errific let me turn things on here and see if we can you started. I thought this evening i would speak a bit about who the architect of the capitol is and what we do. I bet there are not many of you ant know that we are organization that kind of works behind the scenes to enable the congress and the Supreme Court do what it does every day. I will speak a little bit about that. Then i will focus in on what we do to be good stewards of these beautiful treasures that have been entrusted to our care, the Capitol Building and the United States botanic burdens and the beautiful Supreme Court building by cass gilbert and many others on capitol hill. May beto also teach you something you did not know about capitol hill and what we do. All right . Fair enough . All right. Hill, what ipitol like to call my little area of responsibility. This little city within this larger city of washington, d. C. , and what a unique city this is. I love this photograph coming up. First, let me just point out , you seen your right you the Senate Office buildings. Then the Supreme Court, library of congress on your left. The buildings for the house of representatives am of course, and the Capitol Building in the center. These are the main holdings, functioning buildings of the congress. But we also have a number of properties in maryland and virginia, as well as throughout the district of columbia. I will show you one or two things about those. First, what makes this city great question mark to me, it is the beautiful skyline, the beautiful layout of. He city and what that photographer wrote to George Washington when he picked the site for the Capitol Building, he said he placed at the top jenkins hill and said ais is a pedestal awaiting monument. Then he took every street and radiated it to and from the Capitol Building. What a way to make iconic architecture, and what foresight he had to place the Capitol Building their top jenkins hill and to create an layout this city the way that he did. Let me show you kind of what it in our area ofy responsibility on capitol hill. It of course starts with union square there and we are approaching the west front of the capital. And then we traverse over to the. Orth side next to Union Station, congressional property extends down to right next to Union Station there, building we built about 20 years ago through a publicprivate hardship for the partnership for the Supreme Court designed by Edward Larrabee barnes. These are the buildings for the next, theice, and beautiful roman temple design of cass gilbert for the u. S. Supreme court. Of course, the Thomas Jefferson building and the john adams and madison buildings for the library of congress. The Jefferson Building widely acclaimed in 1897 as the most beautiful building in america. And many people still think it is today. You saw there a capitol power plant where we make the steam and chilled water to heat and cool all of the 70 million square feet of space across capitol hill. ,nd then berthold the park recently renovated, and the u. S. Is beengarden which part of our inventory and part of our Hidden Treasures on capitol hill for many, many years. Back to the capital. These are my 10 predecessors in office, and many people ask, how can you be the 11th architect of the capitol when we have been in this wonderful capital city for, what, 202 to four years or so . It is interesting, and someone asked me earlier, the first nine architect of the capitol were appointed by the president for a lifetime terms, and many of them served 20, 30, or more years in office. Of then after the retirement the ninth architect of the capitol, the congress put term limits on the architects appointments. So my immediate predecessor there on the bottom right from new york city served as the first architect under that 10year term appointment. And he chose not to reapply, which opened that job up for me as the 11th architect of the capitol. Of course, you can see on the top left the first architect. Thurnored dr. William with the title as the first architect of the capitol. He was an amateur architect and won the first competition for the design of the Capitol Building, and what a wonderful story that is. As elizabeth mentioned, the architect is appointed by the president. I was appointed by president and sworn in by chief Justice John Roberts in my favorite place in the Capitol Building, the old senate chamber. A beautiful place designed by benjamind architect, henry latrobe. You can see the beautiful the temperature above it, and the sweeping arch above and the beautiful skylights. Imagine the Natural Light that used to come into that space during those early years of the 1800s. So my journey, elizabeth i wented much of that to Architecture School at the university of maryland. In theve any terps here audience tonight . Right, i think terps dominate tonight. What a great Architecture School that is paired when i graduated from Architecture School, like many architects today, i had no idea what i wanted to do, whether follow in my fathers footsteps who was a marine, and certainly the military life was important to me and a sense of service was important to me. I considered law school. Not toe lsat but decided do that. I thought, boy, what a wonderful career that would have been, to be an architect and an attorney. Come to find out, the ninth architect of the capitol was an architect and attorney as well. I decided to go into the military. I really wanted to travel and see the world. That is what i wanted to do when i was of that age and graduating from Architecture School. Then i thought, what better way to see the world stand to join the military . That is with the military does, travel all around the world. That is what i did. I was shipped off to texas and when two Officers Training school, stationed in california, and i had a great job. I worked as an architect. And for any of you that work as an architect, i was also under an architect, which is really important for young architects. You need four years under a licensed architect before you can apply to take the licensing exam he read there is a significant Internship Program that you need to go through before you are eligible to take the licensing program. So i really got lucky that there was a licensed architect stationed at edwards, where i was, and i was able to work under his leadership for a number of years. Enough, of course, after a few years in the military for those of you that may be in the military, you fill out your dream sheet of the wonderful places you want to get transferred to next. It is called the dream she. Of course, i filled out of yarn no air base italy and greece and spain, and i got orders to alaska [laughter] that is not quite what i had out,ioned, so come to find i did retire from the military at that point and said, coleman dorff, alaska is a wonderful place. I have been there, but it is just not for me. It is not the path that i want my career to be in. So i resigned and then went into private practice. A year later, i joined voice of america. Just a few months after that, i moved to greece and lived on an island. It is just so interesting how one door closes and another door opens. And that is the way life is, you know . You cannot really plan it. But i have been so blessed and was so excited to be able to work in europe. That was my dream, and i was able to work in greece and germany and albania and turkey and travel around the european theater, working and visiting, and it was just what i wanted. It really worked out well. And nearly 18 years ago for my after six years overseas, i responded to a job at with the architect of the capitol. I had an interview over the telephone and got a call the next day off a telephone interview that i was hired to wo of the managers in this and Office Buildings, and 18 years later, i am blessed and honored to be the 11th architect of the capitol. So let me tell you a little bit. Bout what the architect does many of you know that General ServicesAdministration Provides facilities and infrastructure and support for the executive branch of the government. It is really the architect of the capitol that does that for the legislative branch of government. That is basically what we do. I like to use these four images to describe that. First on the left, we manage the Capitol Grounds. Elizabeth mentioned these 500 acres on capitol hill. But most important are the ones around the capitol square. The historic grounds that were designed by Frederick Olmstead in 1874 and constructed through the 1890s. Preeminents the landscape designer at the time, and what beautiful grounds they are. What a beautiful time of year. There is no better place than washington, d. C. , in springtime ban on capitol hill. What an honor it is to be able to carry on olmsteads original thoughts. We have his original drawings, and we continue to plant today in design today following olmsteads original work. Congress when the wants to commission a piece of example,a statue, for as you see here with rosa parks, they turn to the architect to enable that on their behalf. So we would hold a Competition Among sculptors to produce Something Like this beautiful sculpture of rosa parks thomas and we maintain as that judgment of what comes into the judgment and what does not and advise the congress on those kinds of matters. So whether it is the National Statuary hall collection where two statues from every state come into the collection, and now in recent years there is the ability to change those statues in and out, so we have had an increase in statuary work in the National Statuary hall collection in recent years. Or whether the Congress Wants to the mission a rosa parks or sojourner truth. Or lastly, when there is a Vice President responsible we are responsible for carving a white marble bust of every Vice President and office. Today we are working with Vice President gore and Vice President cheney on the white marble busts for them, and were looking forward to them coming into the collection. Many of them are displayed in the senate chamber, and others are displayed in the corridors surrounding the senate chamber. Of course, the beautiful frescos that are throughout the Capitol Building and many of the other buildings on capitol hill, whether it is the frescoes or the beautiful paintings and portraits in the building. We are responsible for the kind of work on behalf of the congress. This photograph and our moniker would tell you, we are responsible for all of the design and construction of New Buildings and renovation and modernization of existing buildings on behalf of the congress and the Supreme Court. The last photograph on the right, we are responsible for visitor services. What an important part of our mission that is. With 2. 5 Million People coming to the front door of the Capitol Building every year, so many of them for the first time and so many of them for the only time, to make that experience welcoming and informative and inspirational is something we think we are really, really good at, and we pay a great deal of attention to those visitors. Not to mention the over one million visitors that come to the United StatesBotanic Garden every year. We spent a great deal of time focused on creating positive First Impressions and positive memories for our visitors. It is a really important part of what we do, and we have several hundred employees that are dedicated to that part of our business. Certain parts of our business have a regular battle rhythm. What happens every four years . [inaudible] a president ial election. So when there is a president ial election, we work behind the scenes to enable the congress to put on this peaceful transition of power that is so wonderful to this great country we live in. And we completely transform the west front of the capitol during this period. We will close it down in september and work and build that in nonneural platform gural platform. We outfit it and do a dry run and we install security. Protective measures, among many other things. You can see that the west front is completely transformed every four years. And that inaugural platform changes a little bit every four years, depending upon the desires of the Congressional Committee or the president that has some say in oversight in these matters. Tell me how the flags are arranged on the west front during this particular in many of the other president ial inaugurations is to mark this is your second test for the evening. [inaudible] hand onive you a the little flag is the current flag of the United States. Then the two outside flags are the flags of the original 13 colonies. So your test is what are those two flags in the middle . [inaudible] someone say the president and s estate. Dent that is the closest i have ever heard. Flags of flags are the the president s home state when that state came into the union. [inaudible] [laughter] it was. W i believe you. I do not think anybody else does, but i believe you. Good gas. Good guess. So we are excited to work with the congress and help them put uralhis wonderful inaug ceremony every four years, and that is a regular process for us. It virtually never stops. An immense amount of planning goes into a president ial inauguration. And once we finish one in january, we are to work doing a hogwash and Lessons Learned and anything we can possibly do to make that ceremony and make our part of that even better four years from now. We capture all of that and bring it back out just a year later as we begin to start that inauguration planning again. Here is what it looks like former the president stands. Isnt that amazing . This is president obamas first inauguration, and you can see president obama and his family standing there on the platform and the media tower is in front where the tv cameras are pulled from one or two joke cameras that are one or two cameras that are out there. The30,000 feet we place on west front of the capital. And then, look out at the people down the mall. What a special day that is. Here it is a little closer. You can see many of the folks all the way down the mall, past the washington monument. This is a big day for us. This is bigger than the super bowl. [laughter] test number two for you here and you will see here on the west front and you can see the flags a little better now. You will see here on the west front, on the lefthand side of this photograph am a we have the print media, your newspapers and magazines. Closer to you, you see all the Digital Media. We call these our media towers, but they are separate. Why would they be separate . Any photographers in the room . [inaudible] yes, it all has to do with where the sun is on that january day and as the sun comes over the capitol, you get much better photographs from the south side than you do from the north side.