Earlier this week I watched a live video webcast of a roundtable concerning the debate over the future of federal architecture, that is, on whether federal buildings such as courthouses should have a mandated classical style. There was immediate confusion because two of the participants–Notre Dame University professors–stated that classicism wasn’t a style at all. Then what was it? There was talk about local materials, green buildings, and load-bearing construction, which wasn’t much help. But if classicism wasn’t a style what exactly would a federal mandate entail? The confusion was compounded further by the interchangeable use of “classical” and “traditional.” Classical refers to the Graeco-Roman tradition; traditional is popularly used to refer to any pre-modern architectural style such as Gothic, Spanish Colonial, or California Mission. But what about a government building such as Bertram Goodhue’s splendid Nebraska State Capitol, which opened in 1932? Wiki describers it as having “elements of Achaemenid, Assyrian, Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque architecture.” Goodhue himself wrote: “So, while the architectural style employed may, roughly, be called ‘Classic,’ it makes no pretense of belonging to any period of the past.” A free spirit like Goodhue would have caviled at the idea of a mandated style. Mandates are good for seat belts and face masks; not so good for creativity.
Nebraska State Capitol
If you see classical architecture as a language–a means, not an end–it is no more an inhibition to creativity in architecture than speaking any language properly is to writing.
True enough. And language changes, slang becomes everyday speech, elaborate expressions are simplified, things get speeded up. Hence Cret’s classicism is different from McKim’s. And Cret died 75 years ago.
Other than the gadfly from the NCAS, which is probably run out of his basement, no one seemed to be arguing for the return of the classic style. Not that he provided any arguments. Preferences don’t count as arguments. We get it…Modern Bad, Classic good. He probably hates modern art and modern music. Much of the public would agree, proving what? That a great deal of Neoclassical architecture is utterly pedestrian will not apparently have occurred to him.
Prof. Lewis was the voice of reason, and the only one who could put his thoughts into meaningful English. The professors from ND argued for bearing walls and local sourcing which are legitimate issues, but rather off topic if you’re talking the classical style. More of an engineering question.
Curious that no one talked about how these buildings function for their occupants. It’s as though buildings only function to provide street decoration. My experience of government buildings is of dropped acoustic ceilings, distant windows, troffler lighting and impossibly ancient linoleum, regardless of exterior styles. Endless dreary corridors traversed to accomplish some equally dreary bureaucratic task. Couldn’t we do something about that first?
And thank you for the shoutout to Bertram Goodhue. My brother lives on the edge of Balboa Park, and I’ve wandered through his 1915 Panama-California Expo complex several times. It seems so organic and traditional that it comes as a bit of a shock to realize that Goodhue largely invented the Spanish Colonial style for this expo. What a guy! Died too young.
If Goodhue had not died so young (54), and but for the Depression and WWII, the course of American architecture would have been very different; 30 Rock Center than Seagram.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-12/how-trump-s-modern-architecture-ban-could-live-on?srnd=citylab-design
The Bloomberg article is not well informed. Burj Khalifa was not designed by SOM; RAMSA’s work has not been postmodern for a long time–the Bush Library is stripped classical and the new colleges at Yale are Collegiate Gothic. Back in 2010, HBRA designed a beautiful Greek Revival courthouse in Tuscaloosa (at the request of the judges themselves) and, as the author admits, the GSA’s demand for a Greek Revival courthouse in Huntsville has nothing to do with Trump’s as yet unrealized executive order. And the modern courthouse illustrated in the article does not incorporate “classical principles.”