The Pentagon

The Pentagon looks to the northeast, with the Potomac River and the Washington Monument in the background.

The Pentagon (in English, The Pentagon) is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington D.C. The building is shaped like a pentagon and employs approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees, and nearly 3,000 support personnel. It has twelve floors, five of which include five corridors; the rest is unknown. Construction of the Pentagon began on September 11, 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II, and it was inaugurated on January 15, 1943. It is, to this day, the largest office building of the world.

The Pentagon owns between 700 and 800 bases in sixty-three countries, with a total area of 120,191 square meters. Statistics from 2006 show that the Army controls the majority of Defense Department property (52%), followed by the Air Force (33%), the Marine Corps (8%), and the Navy (7%).

The Pentagon includes twice as many restrooms as necessary, because at the time of construction there was a law requiring one restroom for whites and one for blacks. It also has facilities for eating and exercising, as well as meditation and prayer rooms. Visits for the public were suspended after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The architects and designers devised a unique pentagonal plan for the building to maximize the odd dimensions of the site and fit within the expanse of land.

View from the south.

Attacks of September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, sixty years after construction began, a team of five Al Qaeda hijackers seized control of American Airlines Flight 77 en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport and deliberately slammed it into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. as part of the 9/11 attacks. All 64 people on the passenger plane died, as well as 125 people who were in the building. The impact of the plane seriously damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was undergoing renovations and several offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Contractors already helping with the renovation were given the additional task of rebuilding sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named Phoenix Project and was responsible for the restoration of outlying offices damaged by the attack on September 11, 2001. After the incident, the staff resumed work on August 15. from 2002.

When the damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt, an interior memorial and a chapel were included at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the attacks, 184 beams of light shone from the Pentagon's central courtyard, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, a United States flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and that part of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After 9/11 plans were drawn up to build an outdoor memorial, construction began in 2006. The Pentagon Memorial, consisting of a two-acre (8,100 m²) park with 184 benches, one dedicated to each victim. The benches are located along the line of Flight 77 according to the ages of the victims (from three to seventy-one years). It opened to the public on September 11, 2008.

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  The Pentagon after the impact of American Airlines flight 77.

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  The Pentagon in mourning.

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  American Airlines flight crash.