Volta Laboratory and Bureau

The Volta Laboratory and Bureau is a research laboratory in Georgetown housed in a neoclassical building from 1893 with spaces for scientific projects. The facility displays collections on the development of communication technologies and preserves records of acoustics research history.

Alexander Graham Bell founded the laboratory in 1880 using funds from a French prize for his work on the telephone. The building was erected in 1893 to advance research into sound recording and optical transmission.

The name of the laboratory comes from a French prize meant to encourage scientific collaboration. Bell dedicated the site to research into speech and hearing, which remains reflected in the focus of the archive collections today.

Access is free and the exhibits can be explored without a guided tour. The rooms are arranged on a flat plan, making the building easy to navigate.

In the laboratory Bell developed the photophone, a device for transmitting speech through light beams instead of electrical cables. This invention laid groundwork for modern fiber-optic connections.

Location: Washington, D.C.

Elevation above the sea: 46 m

Address: 3414 Volta Pl NW, Washington, DC 20007

GPS coordinates: 38.91000,-77.06861

Latest update: December 5, 2025 22:24