DC -- North Cleveland Park -- Intelsat building (3400 Connecticut Ave NW):
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 52.14.8.34 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
- Wikipedia Description: Intelsat headquarters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3400 International Drive (also known as Intelsat Headquarters) is an office complex in the North Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. by the Van Ness metro station designed by the Australian architect John Andrews and built by Gilbane Building Company. Formerly used as the U.S. headquarters of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat), it is known for its futuristic, high-tech architecture.
\Structure
John Andrews won the 1980 International Union of Architects international competition to design the complex. The competition had taken place in 1979 with nearly 100 firms from 23 countries competing for the contract to design the complex. Ground was broken on the project on July 20, 1982 in a rather unusual manner. Using a network of four satellites and five earth stations, a signal was radioed around the world two times before it triggered a pre-set explosion at the building site. The complex was built in two phases, with Phase I being completed first in 1984 and Phase II following in 1988. While Andrews' contribution was positively cited as that of a creative professional, the project was marred by the embezzlement of five million dollars by Intelsat's director general and deputy.
The complex consists of fourteen interconnected rectangular "pods" clustered in groups of four around taller glass and stainless steel atria. The circular stairwells external to the pods are constructed of glass bricks and concrete. Unusual for the time, the design incorporate environmentally conscious elements that contribute to energy efficiency, such as the use of tinted-glass sunscreens and the open-air atria that admit sunlight while reflecting direct sun. Also, the complex incorporates interior and exterior water features for cooling and terraced roof gardens to complement the large trees preserved by the site plan.
While the building is 917,000 square feet (85,200 m2), only 546,000 sq ft (50,700 m2) is usable office space, with the remainder being taken up by the lengthy corridor down the center of the building, the atria, and other public spaces.
Intelsat was the initial occupant, but after its privatization in 1999 and its later mergers with PanAmSat, COMSAT and parts of Loral, its continued presence at the site has been uncertain. This is partially as it is looking for a smaller complex. Other occupants include the embassies of Belize, Botswana and Swaziland and formerly included WJLA Channel 7.
Reception
Andrews said his design expressed "a spirit of openness, of optimism, of faith in cooperation between peoples and groups of people, and the use of modern technology." However, since its construction, reception has been mixed. Some consider it "a Connecticut Avenue landmark and a must-see for futurists touring the nation’s capital" because of its unique high-tech design and energy efficiency. Early in its existence, it was noted as being a positive repudiation of architectural conservatism, however, its style was not duplicated and therefore it stands out from the surrounding city.
Other critics also note that it does not interact well with the surrounding buildings and add that it can be difficult for visitors to find the entrance given its odd shape and placement. As of 2005 it had been studied by the Historic Preservation Section of the D.C. Office of Planning as a potential landmark of Modern architecture, but a 2011 architectural-historical review of the area as part of the University of the District of Columbia's student center construction planning found that Intelsat was not old enough for landmark status and was a "visual shock" to the neighborhood, given its arguably inappropriate design and sitting for an urban area. The review did indicate that this opinion could change as the building aged further.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].