Cairo Apartment Building
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Cairo Apartment Building
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| Location | Washington, D. C. |
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| Coordinates | 38°54′41″N 77°02′15″W / 38.911326°N 77.037546°WCoordinates: 38°54′41″N 77°02′15″W / 38.911326°N 77.037546°W |
| Built | 1894 |
| Architect | Thomas Franklin Schneider |
| Architectural style | Moorish and Romanesque Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 94001033 |
| Added to NRHP | September 9, 1994 |
The Cairo apartment building, located at 1615 Q Street NW in Washington, D.C., is a landmark in the Dupont Circle neighborhood and the District of Columbia's tallest residential building. Designed by architect Thomas Franklin Schneider and completed in 1894 as the city's first "residential skyscraper", the 164-foot (50 m)-tall brick building spurred local regulations and federal legislation that continue to shape Washington's cityscape.
Today, the Cairo is a condominium building, home to renters and owners of apartments ranging in size from small studios to multi-level two- and three-bedroom units.
The Egyptian theme of the building is stamped across its Moorish and Romanesque Revival features. Gargoyles perch high above the front entrance; some are winged griffins staring down from cornices, and others are more lighthearted. Along the first floor are elephant heads, which look left and right from the stone window sills of the front windows and which interlock trunks at the corners of the entrance arch. On the fourth floor are dragon and dwarf crosses. The carved stone façade hints at more exotic Middle Eastern origins.
The U-shaped building surrounds a Zen stone garden courtyard. The stone front steps lead up through a glass foyer into a marble-floored lobby with Egyptian columns and a lounge. A large mirror and photographs of the building's construction and other contemporary scenes adorn the lobby's eastern wall. Two square columns of red-orange marble anchor the space in front of two elevators, which serve the tenants of the 12 floors above. Between the elevators is a stairway that leads down through double glass doors into the central courtyard.
At the two interior southern corners are wide staircases of marble and wrought iron that span the height of the building. Some sections of hallways are marble-floored, and each apartment's outside door handle is a marble orb. Apartments have exposed red brick walls. The AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C. summed up the design: "For all its quirks, the awkward tower reigns as one of Washington's guilty pleasures."
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Wikipedia