The Pentagon and Roosevelt

Today, Slate Magazine has an interesting article on the role played by FDR in the siting and design of the Pentagon. The author takes the publishing of Steve Vogel's The Pentagon: A History as an opportunity to talk about the influence that various president have and didn't have on the architecture of DC and the US in general.

Some interesting Pentagon facts:
The Pentagon is still the largest office building in the world with 4 million square feet of floor space.
The project to build the Pentagon at the height of WWII was headed by Leslie Groves who later lead the Manhattan Project. The Pentagon was completed on time and under budget.
One original plan for the Pentagon called for the massive building to be turned into a records storage facility for the National Archives once the war was over.