Meeting place of the U.S. Congress.
In 1792 a competition for its design was won by William Thornton (17591828); his revised Federal-style design of 1795 was executed as the exterior of the wings adjacent to the central rotunda . Benjamin H. Latrobe , as Surveyor of Public Buildings (1803), followed Thornton's conception of the exterior but used his own interior designs; perhaps his best-known contribution was his invention of tobacco-leaf and corn-cob capitals . After the British set fire to the Capitol in 1814, Latrobe began its reconstruction, but resigned in 1817. By 1827 his successor, Charles Bulfinch , had joined the two wings and built the first dome and the rotunda. In 1850 Thomas Ustick Walter (18041887) won a competition to expand the wings; he also designed the 287ft-(87m-) high cast-iron dome (185566), which was based on Michelangelo's dome for St. Peter's Basilica . The marble and sandstone building contains about 540 rooms and stands in a 131-acre (53-hectare) park.