Library of Congress Archival Drawings

April 11, 2016: Henri and Motoko Lezec visited the Charles Goodman Archive at the Library of Congress. They discovered that our community could purchase digital scans of the fragile Rock Creek Woods architectural drawings. There are approximately 4 to 5 blueprint-size documents for each home. The four unit types are the BC-1D (Starview), BC-3U (Woodview), BC 2U (Brookview), and BC-4D (the three-story Goodman home on Rickover). For instance, there are five structural drawings for Unit BC-1D (Starview model) and a group of seven design drawings, which show elevations, sections, ground floor and first floor plans. There are crayon on trace paper drawings, which indicated the original exterior color scheme for the houses. There is also a site plan. Once documents are scanned they could be printed out full-size and to scale. Some ideas: cards could be made from the digitized architectural drawings and sold to raise funds for the project; tickets to the House Tour could be sold to raise funds for the project; and homeowners may want to donate to the project. A resident already plans to display the drawings as art in his home; another expects to use the drawings during a renovation; someone else suggested they would be an interesting offer to make to prospective buyers when a house was on the market. The drawings could be a part of the new website which might help to draw buyers to the neighborhood. Access to the digital format could be on request. Next steps are under discussion.