The Second National Bank Building [constructed 1927-28] is situated at 1331-33 G Street, N.W K., on the north side of the street. It occupies a lot measuring 44 feet wide by 110 feet deep. The building has a rear light court which faces an alley. The building has ten stories and measures 110 feet in height. Its party walls abut buildings of approximately the same height; on the west is the Colorado Building (1903) and on the east is 1325 G Street (c. 1970) . It is constructed out of steel and concrete with a granite base and upper stories of ashlar limestone with bronze infill. The building is three bays wide; the outer bays are flanked by smooth wall surfaces which are treated as flattened piers. The Second National Bank/Office Building illustrates Stripped Classicism and uses Italian Renaissance sources for details. The facade is flat in overall appearance, and incorporates a tri-partite arrangement. There is a limited amount of ornament which is mostly confined to the area within the piers; it is crisply rendered classical moldings. The court and alley elevations are of beige brick, laid in common bond...
The Second National Bank stands among a group of banks in the vicinity of the U.S. Treasury Department which create part of Washington, D.C.'s financial district. It is one of the last of the classically inspired structures built during a sustained boom in Washington bank construction which began at the turn-of-the twentieth-century.
The Second National Bank was a major commission and the last of the banks designed by the distinguished Washington architect Appleton P. Clark, Jr. More than a decade earlier, Clark had classicized the facade of Second National's original headquarters. For the bank's second building, Clark deftly applied classical motifs to the vertical composition of a large bank-office building. Although many of his banks have been demolished, Clark is recognized as the city's most prolific bank architect.
Typical of the 1920s and 1930s, Clark's design exhibits the flattening and stylization of classical elements, but it also presents distinctive characteristics in the decorative use of moldings and early Italian Renaissance motifs in miniature. The skillful presentation of proportion and rhythmic detailing makes this one of clerks most successful commercial facades.