Strickland was a student of the architect Benjamin Latrobe, a disciple of Neoclassicism who had helped design the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Strickland himself, based in Philadelphia, had already designed the Philadelphia Mint building and the Second Bank of the United States, and would design the Charlotte and Dahlonega facilities, making him the architect of the first four U.S. mint buildings. Martin Gordon supervised the building's construction, which was undertaken by Benjamin F. Fox, the master carpenter and joiner, and John Mitchell, the master stonemason and builder. On the north façade the mint building features a central projecting Ionic portico, supported by four monumental columns that are flanked at the ends by square pillars. The top of the portico contains a simple entablature, crowned by a flat roof in front of a simple, unadorned pediment. This entrance, which sits on top of a basement story, fronts the rectangular central core of the facility and is flanked by two large wings of multiple bays of rectangular windows. These wings wrap around the central rectangular core to form a "W"-shaped structure with two square courtyards at the rear. Balconies framed by iron railings and posts adorn the sections of the building's south façade that adjoin the courtyards. Architectural historian Talbot Hamlin described it thus: "it has those graceful, original proportions so characteristic of Strickland's work. Even today [1944], condemned to a use so different from that for which it was designed, it remains one of the most distinguished of the earlier buildings of New Orleans." On the interior, Strickland placed the grand staircase that connects the three levels immediately behind the portico in the central core of the structure. The floor system is composed of fired-clay jack arches supported on steel I-beams, a common feature of warehouses and other long-span structures. On the second floor, many of the larger rooms, which were used for coining and melting, contain ceilings with beautiful high arches supported by the walls and freestanding piers. The smaller rectangular rooms on the second level (and the basement), such as the former superintendent's office, also contain these arched ceilings with a single groin vault. The basement formerly contained the boilers inside a brick cage, but now contain museum exhibits devoted to the minting processes as well as the Coin Vault at the Mint, a coin shop.