Inaugurated 72 years ago, in January 1943, the Pentagon is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, which houses employees of the Army, Navy and Air Force. The idea of building it came up in 1941, during World War II, when the US government concluded that, for strategic reasons, it was necessary to centralize the defense agencies in a single place, close to the White House. The shape and name came from the original structure of the terrain, also pentagonal. An 18-year renovation, completed in 2011, redid the building from scratch and completely reconfigured it from the inside, as well as shielding and reinforcing all structures. Of the original Pentagon, only the shell remains.
– (Filipe Campoi/)
1) LORDS OF THE RINGS
Army, Navy and Air Force each own a third of the complex, which is architecturally divided into five «rings». The outermost one concentrates the commanders’ offices, while the following houses the smaller hierarchies of officials.
2) MAKING ROOM
The Pentagon has five floors and two basements, adding more than 2 thousand rooms. Most are cubicles and small rooms for bureaucratic activities, which include accounting, veterans’ retirement paperwork, and even weather processing. With a useful area of 620,000 m² and 431 m of façade alone, the base is one of the largest office buildings in the world: 23,000 employees work there.
3) ABSOLUTE CONFIDENTIALITY
At the Pentagon, they are taken important decisions for war operations, like those that happened in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. There are also rooms with confidential files kept by the military. These areas have extra protections, with armored walls and doors and permanent guards outside. But it doesn’t always work: problematic documents have leaked from here, such as photos of US soldiers torturing detainees at Guantánamo.
4) ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
There are four large entrances, the main one being to the southwest, through which visitors arrive. There, there’s a mini-road which serves the roads built especially to give access to the Pentagon. There is also a metro station, which, until the last decade, had a direct connection to the building.
5) ESCAPE ROUTE
In case of attacks and earthquakes, there are underground entrances, with elevator, leading directly to the commanders’ offices – which can be removed from the building in a few minutes. Employees manage to escape via ramps and elevators connected to the four entrances.
6) MINICITY
Working there has a number of advantages: from nurseries and schools for employees’ children to a complete hospital and a gym, both in the basement. In the center, there is a square with a cafeteria, Also pentagon shaped. In addition, the main entrance houses a shopping mall. To provide comfort to so many employees, the building also has 8,770 parking spaces, 691 drinking fountains and 284 restrooms.
7) ELITE TROOP
All rooms are monitored by cameras. and security guards and all visitors are searched. After 9/11, a guard of more than 100 men was trained and is ready to act in any suspicious situation. All walls and windows were reinforced with special shielding after the renovation.
THE WORST OF DAYS
9/11 shook the foundation
Several have already rolled small attacks to the Pentagon, but none that come close to September 11, 2001. The plane dropped by the terrorists of Al Qaeda killed 189 people – 64 in the ship and 125 in the building. Even with the impact, the construction was so strong that two rings were still intact. Websites and documentaries, however, raised the theory that the building was, in fact, hit by a missile from the Americans themselves.
SOURCES Pentagon Renovation Project Bulletin, Websites The Renovator, washington post and the United States Department of Defense and the Pentagon