the Watergate Building

This guide to the Watergate Building in Washington, D.C. opens on a stretch of Potomac riverfront that sat empty for seventeen years after a 1946 sale, until the city rewrote its own zoning code just to allow what was proposed here. It follows architect Luigi Moretti, an Italian modernist with no American buildings to his name, and the mixed reception, from broken zippers to the last gasp of art nouveau, that met his curving concrete design. Look up at the tooth-edged balconies curling toward the river as you walk the grounds.