Location: Wilbur J. Cohen Building, 330 Independence Ave, SW, Washington, DC 20037
Registration ends on 4/27/2026
Event Description
Join DACOR for this member exclusive tour of the New Deal murals in the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building. As the building is now for sale, this may be your last chance to see the murals!
There are limited spaces available for the tour, so be sure to register as soon as possible. Registrations will be accepted until COB 4/27. Details of where to meet will be included in the confirmation email you will receive upon registering. Please note that you must bring a government issued photo ID and will go through a security screening (similar to an airport) to enter the building.
Ben Shahn’s The Meaning of Social Security is the most prominent of the murals. Shahn built his expansive, multi-panel mural around the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, giving pictorial form to the president's June 8, 1934 address on the Social Security legislation:
"This security for the individual and for the family concerns itself primarily with three factors. People want decent homes to live in; they want to locate them where they can engage in productive work; and they want some safeguard against misfortunes which cannot be wholly eliminated from this man-made world of ours."
The Social Security Act was passed on August 14, 1935 as part of the New Deal program of sweeping social reforms that responded to the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Shahn's mural vividly captures the ambitions of the New Deal programs and also serves as an example of government efforts to extend patronage to the arts in the 1930s. The growth of the arts was encouraged and administered by the federal government. As a result, original works of art grace many federal buildings in Washington, D.C. Other murals in the Cohen Building include Seymour Fogel's The Security of the People and The Wealth of the Nation. Find out more at https://www.insidevoa.com/a/historic-murals-at-voice-of-america/1364570.html.
The Wilbur J. Cohen Building, formerly the Social Security Administration Building, is part of the modern architectural movement of the first half of the twentieth century, while harking back to nineteenth century revivalism in its organization and detailing. Charles Z. Klauder (1872-1938), consulting architect under the supervision of then Supervising Architect of the Treasury, Louis A. Simon (1867-1958), designed the building with features that are reflective of classically influenced modern styles that dominated the design of public buildings during the 1930s and 1940s. The interior of the building falls more clearly into Art Moderne characteristics. The Social Security Administration Building was constructed between 1939 and 1940. For many years, the building housed Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Find out more at https://historicsites.dcpreservation.org/items/show/119.
