The destruction of Washington in 1814 by the invading British challenged President Monroe & Benjamin Latrobe with the task of rebuilding the edifices which had been destroyed. As did Washington and Jefferson earlier, they understood that the principal buildings of the government were not mere offices but symbols of the aspirations of the Republic. They had to be more than functional they had to be beautiful. As classicists, their notions of beauty were derived from the ancient Greek and Roman Republics. Like the Greeks and Romans, the preferred building material was marble. The question was, where was such building material to be found? Our speaker is Paul Kreingold the Conservation Director of the Loudoun County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League and the author of “Potomac Marble: The History of the Search for the Ideal Stone.”