The site originally chosen was Arlington Farms, which had an asymmetric, roughly pentagonal shape, so the building was planned accordingly as an irregular pentagon. Via Concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington, D.C., from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ended up selecting the Hoover Airport site instead. The building retained the pentagonal layout because Roosevelt liked it and a major redesign at that stage would have been costly. Freed of the constraints of the Arlington Farms site, the building was modified as a regular pentagon. It resembled star forts constructed during the gunpowder age.
