Kinda odd u would build something that big..........in downtown DC.............as a shrine to two old documents....................and not to even store them................i.e. the Nat. Archives..............nothing else makes sense around here........so why should that??



When the building was completed in 1937, the Rotunda did not hold the documents now nearly synonymous with the National Archives: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Pope had designed the National Archives Rotunda as a shrine for these documents, but both documents were still housed at the Library of Congress.