The Federal Presence

Robert Mills is well represented in this magisterial survey of U.S. Government architecture from the colonial period to 1977, first published by MIT Press and reissued in 1984.  From the early 1830s until 1851, Mills "served more or less officially in the position he described as 'architect of the public buildings.'"  

In 1836, the year after New London's custom house was finished, President Andrew Jackson appointed Mills to design a new Treasury building, famously telling him in a fit of pique to "build it here," forever interrupting the view between the White House and the Capitol envisioned by Pierre L'Enfant in his famous street plan for the new capital city.