the Pentagon

the Pentagon building accommodating the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Located in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., the Pentagon is a vast five-sided building designed by Los Angeles architect G. Edwin Bergstrom. It consists of five concentric pentagons connected to each other by corridors and covering an area of 34 acres (13.8 hectares). Completed in 1943, it was intended to consolidate the various offices of the U.S. War Dept., now the Dept. of Defense. One side of the vast building was damaged by a terrorist attack (Sept. 11, 2001) in which a hijacked airplane was intentionally crashed into the Pentagon. As a result of the crash and subsequent fire 189 people were killed, including the passengers and crew of the jetliner. The attack was coordinated with a similar one on the twin towers of the World Trade Center .

Bibliography: See S. Vogel, The Pentagon: A History (2007).

The Pentagon is the building that houses the U.S. Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. As the name indicates, it is a five‐sided building, composed of five concentric pentagons interconnected by corridors.

The Pentagon was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1941 and 1943 to consolidate various offices in the War Department, which was expanding rapidly during World War II. Covering an area of thirty‐four acres, with four stories aboveground, the reinforced concrete building was designed to provide 5 million square feet of floor space for 40,000 employees. When completed, the Pentagon was the world's largest office building. In 1947, it became the headquarters of the newly established Department of Defense. The term “the Pentagon” often refers to the Defense Department.

Bibliography

Lenore Fine and and Jesse Remington , The Corps of Engineers: Construction in the United States, in Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army in World War II: The Technical Services, 1972.

John Whiteclay Chambers II

pentagon n.
1. (the Pentagon) the pentagonal building serving as the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, near Washington, D.C.

2. the U.S. Department of Defense: the Pentagon said 19 soldiers had been killed.