Washington
Monument
Robert Mills designed this monument in 1838 to follow the form of an Egyptian obelisk. It stands 168 m (550 ft) high and is the largest masonry structure in the world. Construction, which began in 1848 and completed in 1884, took so long due to a lack of funds and the intervention of the Civil War. A difference in shading of the marble (visible approximately 150 feet up) clearly delineates the initial construction from its resumption in 1876.