Figure 88.—Scale model of the new building as planned before the requirement that the structure be blast-resistant compelled a sharp reduction in floor space to stay within the appropriation.
in the building itself, and the saving of $411,000 by eliminating this extra construction."[1]
At the close of the hearing, the Committee voted unanimously to recommend the measure favorably and, on 19 April 1950, the House bill passed the Senate and was sent to the White House where, on 29 April 1950, President Harry S. Truman signed it to become Public Law 495, 81st Congress, 2d session.[2]
Any thought that passage of the amendatory enabling act was all that was required to permit the Institute and its architects to go ahead with final plans and specifications was strictly illusory, for once more, overriding fiscal policies intervened. On 4 May 1950, less than a week after the new law went into effect, the Director of the Budget Bureau informed the Secretary of Defense that funds for the new Institute building would be withheld, unless the cost of the building should be reduced from the original estimate of $11,004,041 by 40 percent, or to approximately $6,800,000. This meant, as a restudy of the plans showed, the elimination from the plans of the entire public museum wing, a 500-seat auditorium, the public vestibule and lobby, two large bulk storage areas, and—most serious of all—the elimination of space equivalent to two entire floors in the laboratory services wing (fig. 88).
