Perhaps, as a real-estate developer, President Trump might appreciate the richness of America’s heritage of classical public buildings. It’s not inconceivable that he would support reform of the Guiding Principles. Otherwise, U.S. senators and representatives should do all they can to ensure that classical principles guide future federal architecture projects. In doing so, they will be contributing to a renewal of American civilization. — City Journal
During the administration of President John F. Kennedy, sociologist, politician, and diplomat Daniel Patrick Moynihan drafted the "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture," a set of architectural guidelines that inform the design of building projects undertaken by the Public Building Service (PBS) and the General Services Administration's Design Excellence program.
For Moynihan, the principles reinforced an ideology of good design in federal building projects. Moynihan expressed, "The belief that good design is optional, or in some way separate from the question of the provision of office space itself, does not bear scrutiny, and in fact invites the least efficient use of public money."
Writing for City Journal, Catesby Leigh voices support for reinvigorating federal buildings through classical architecture and traditional design, which, Leigh argues, have already produced the U.S.'s most prominent civic structures.
Leigh writes: "The design of federal buildings should be guided by consistent criteria. If the GSA has shown itself incapable of implementing Moynihan's guidelines, it can hardly be expected to carry out an explicitly classical agenda. Nor does it make sense for a gigantic procurement agency to control the design and decoration of new or renovated federal buildings. A new federal entity outside the GSA should be created to implement the reformulated guidelines."
It is amazing to compare the comments here in Archinect against the comments in the article... two different planets. One thing is clear: people want Architects to do better and make buildings that inspire again.
The argument that Classicism represents oppressive authority is so tired. Sure, anyone can find examples of unsavory figures that have adapted its language in its 2,000+ years of evolution and use it as a soundbite. I can assure it is just as easy to make as strong an argument against a suffocating corporate glass tower or brutalist government building.
Anyone who dismisses traditional architecture as uncreative and simply copying the past has no idea what they are talking about. Classicism is a language that has persisted because of its exceptional ability to adapt to material, climate, and scale. It is much more than temples with columns and can be distilled down to the most severe and minimal of forms. The key is to practice it and draw it out to truly understand it. Like learning any language, the need to go and practice outside the classroom (or history survey course in the case of architecture) is fundamental. There are a lot of architects that create terrible traditional work, but how can you blame them if they have no training in it? This proves the point that you can't simply pick it up and presto.
I am not arguing for a return to all traditional architecture. We do need more Louis Kahns, Mies Van Der Rohes, and Alvar Aaltos in the next generation to inspire. But the richness from their works stemmed from basic training and understanding of traditional principles. People want traditional buildings, and that's okay, but we owe it to them to train our profession better to provide that. It is a win win.
Its baffling how there is a demand for this, and yet we keep retorting, "no no no, you really want this!"
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GSA officials seldom talk about the architectural evocation of “dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability”—in other words, the vitally important symbolic role that federal architecture should play in the public square.
Here is the Mobile courthouse Leigh praises:
The building is ponderous, cold, and kind of stumpy. But it does have Doric columns, apparently the main—sole?—criterion for her approval.
And here is the Tuscaloosa complex:
Which is derivative and lifeless.
Meanwhile she pans some beautiful and significant public buildings.
This is a superficial discussion. Rote copying of the elements of a style without understanding its spirit leads to perfunctory design, ill equipped to deal with the challenges of civic life.
She raises significant issues, which need full, better informed debate. The same could be said of current political discussion.
Less of that, more of this:
What is this?
Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joseph_Moakley_United_States_Courthouse
Generally: Only a handful of architects (in my opinion) really grasp the concept of bringing classical/vernacular grammar into contemporary style/material. IM Pei [edit: Pei Cobb Freed!] was a master of it, this is (in my opinion) one of their finest. And a Federal Courthouse to boot!
Kahn understood. Kevin Roche understood. Maybe a few others?
This might make a good thread.
"classical architecture and traditional design"
recockulous.
trad arch = white supremacy
Long time since an arch history class?
"trad arch = white supremacy"- great way to end discussion.
There's always a weird sense of moral superiority when waxing lyrical about classical architecture ...
There is always a weird sense of moral superiority when criticizing classical architecture.
I like well executed classical vernaculars but is it superior to everything else in terms of aesthetics, performance, and urban impact?
Any "revival" style is, 95% of the time, a half-assed pastiche.
What we really need are more of these:
yes! give me the site and i'll deliver
Brutalism is cool
No to the former. Yes, please, to the latter.
you could get into a tired discourse on the appropriateness of classical architecture in the contemporary world, and you could pick out the awkwardness of various examples modern or classical from the last 50 years.
But on the whole, federal government projects are the only consistently decent architecture in modern America. Universities are a fairly disparate mishmash of experiments, and museums or corporate headquarters are often very elegant monuments to private wealth. But no one else is even trying to be better than the absolute minimum.
So this article is totally misguided, and the argument is a red herring to further the interests of this essentially antigovernment group behind the publication by disparaging what's so far been a fairly well done politically neutral government program.
Read it at your own peril; keep your spiritual firewall up.
The county courthouses throughout the United States are a barometer of what the People want. Most are of classical design and many have been restored several times over or rebuilt from fires. The very few that are of modern design have not attracted many emulators. The classical ones are a source of community pride. Why somehow incorporating elements of Athenian democracy in our democratic buildings is a 'bad thing' or 'racist' has never been explained.
this article is about the GSA design program. County courthouses are not overseen by the GSA. Many are indeed very nice places to enjoy the process of distributing justice.
I’m not sure this is a result of style and not intent. These old courthouses were places of pride in their communities, symbols of success and republican virtue, meeting places for the community. Today’s government buildings are not places for the people, they are fortresses that view the people as a threat.
It is somewhat ironic that democratic governments need the authority of monumental / classical architecture to impose legitimacy. Meanwhile the international style of the UN is seen as somewhat bloodless (as is the EU).
I liked how Kahn and the structuralists found a nice compromise -- a modernism with authority and monumentality. Perhaps we could rediscover a new monumentalism that reflects contemporary culture -- with a futurist pulse like Times Square-- which is where this article goes south, in using Morphosis underrated SF Government building as a foil (whereas it should be an example of what we can do-contemporary design that doesn't look like half-rate classicism or half-rate international style).
+++
Well put, chem
The last time the GSA got led by the nose by the modernists in the 1960s Washington, DC, was severely damaged by one brutalist building after another, the FBI Building being the Queen Bee in that lineup. It is possible to build a government building that reflects the heritage of the country and still be contemporary. Here is the Canadian Supreme Court in Ottowa.
I think it boils down to the lack of good classical architects rather than the style itself. Only a few schools still train architects that way and way too many poor designers get away with shoddy renditions of classical architecture. The questions of whether the style is merely an old looking facade slapped on a modern structure is less important.
I think it boils down to classical architects failing to take an essentialist approach and instead resorting to stylistic simulacrum.
Like Chemex said above, Kahn was able to tap the essence of classical architecture
without simply copying it.
Isn't that essentially the same thing? It's not like they're failing on purpose...
What an insidious article. How glibly she dismisses or simply ignores the values of transparency, openness, sustainability, and democracy. And her preferred values of “dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability” are suspect themselves, code words for something else. What the two examples I posted above have in common is that they are massive and imposing, bald expressions of power. Apparently she sees no contradiction.
By contrast, the Calhoun courthouse is human. I credit the warm brick and the intricacy and intimacy of the window details.
It's not the style but the intent and execution. I'm curious if there are any successful contemporary interpretations, or if that is even possible.
What a silly question. Of course not. Classical architecture fell into disuse over a millennium before The United States even existed. What we need is Neoclassical architecture. But not just any neoclassicism: really GOOD neoclassicism. Not the ponderous, EFIS-bloated edifices pumped out by RAM Stern and David Schwartz, but the truly skilled and subtle work of akin to the great 20th likes of Pope, Bacon, Stanford White. We also need excellent contemporary work that is clearly of this century. We are a nation of immigrants, of pluralities. There is room for many architectures. Our job is to assure they are the best of their kind and appropriate to the task.
I like this answer.
Regardless of program, GSA needs to ensure that the architectural language proficient. Classical language had provide correct language for decades.
24.3 decades.
One need not go farther than Columbus, Indiana to visit many appropriately contemporary civic buildings that are not just bad copies of Jefferson's Monticello. Societies evolve and so should its buildings.
It is amazing to compare the comments here in Archinect against the comments in the article... two different planets. One thing is clear: people want Architects to do better and make buildings that inspire again.
The argument that Classicism represents oppressive authority is so tired. Sure, anyone can find examples of unsavory figures that have adapted its language in its 2,000+ years of evolution and use it as a soundbite. I can assure it is just as easy to make as strong an argument against a suffocating corporate glass tower or brutalist government building.
Anyone who dismisses traditional architecture as uncreative and simply copying the past has no idea what they are talking about. Classicism is a language that has persisted because of its exceptional ability to adapt to material, climate, and scale. It is much more than temples with columns and can be distilled down to the most severe and minimal of forms. The key is to practice it and draw it out to truly understand it. Like learning any language, the need to go and practice outside the classroom (or history survey course in the case of architecture) is fundamental. There are a lot of architects that create terrible traditional work, but how can you blame them if they have no training in it? This proves the point that you can't simply pick it up and presto.
I am not arguing for a return to all traditional architecture. We do need more Louis Kahns, Mies Van Der Rohes, and Alvar Aaltos in the next generation to inspire. But the richness from their works stemmed from basic training and understanding of traditional principles. People want traditional buildings, and that's okay, but we owe it to them to train our profession better to provide that. It is a win win.
Its baffling how there is a demand for this, and yet we keep retorting, "no no no, you really want this!"
Traditional Western Principles, you mean.
I'd like to see more attention to civic architecture at this site, especially now in our frayed political environment. It would provide a platform to reexamine our values, also frayed. Architecture needs to be grounded in something significant and substantial. And perhaps society could learn from the values of good architecture.
Hard to tell who is responding to whom. The author, Leigh, singled out the examples in my first comment, not me, as examples of architecture that contribute to "a renewal of American civilization." Which should give pause. And she wants to make this national policy. It's not a matter of local clients' tastes and whims.
This should be a discussion about principles of American society and our architecture. Leigh gives us neither.
Neoclassicism, I assume, is a subset of the more general term classical.
Any national policy that seeks to shape architecture or any form of art is the antithesis of American. This country’s greatest achievement was staying out of the way of creative pursuits.
When the Federal Government is the client for civic architecture, shouldn't it have a policy about what the architecture should look like?
The federal government is never the client when they use taxpayer money.
They are our representatives.
All civic buildings should be through open competitions.
Most government work already is granted through extensive and public RFQ/RFP processes. "Open Competitions" only benefit the firms who can afford to take on free work.
Who judges the competitions?
If it's a courthouse the judges should be the judges.
Our representatives...ha...Then they are owner reps at best.
By the way, Catesby Leigh is a man.
Thanks, Erik.
Another shot of the Moakley Courthouse, from Wikipedia, your link. Thanks, tduds. This is a great building.
It fits in well with the surrounding buildings and at the same time lifts the area. Even at some ten stories, it is intimate and approachable (for a courthouse), not imposing.
The Wiki comment:
It was the first major project to be awarded as part of the United States Court Design Guidelines and incorporates General Services Administration's goals for imparting dignity and social significance, while creating modern and innovative justice architecture.
Only in the brick colonnades at the sides does it approach classical figures. It would be a nice discussion as to why this is classical in spirit.
I'm also curious to know what exposure the architects had to disciplines outside architecture.
I like the Calhoun Courthouse as well. It is civil and civilized, two qualities in short supply today. It has this added quality: it ages well, a century plus and counting. In fact I'd argue it's gotten better with age.
I speak a language a preponderance of whose words have Greek and Latin roots. I have no desire to extirpate them.
Let's think about thoughtful architecture, instead of what style we're going to promote. I've seen enough terrible neoclassical, po-mo and other historicist buildings to know that "classic" style doesn't translate into quality or even emotional relevance. My intention is not to pick on the Beebys of this world (Ooops, see what I did there? Had to get at least one dig in.): a bad modernist box or deconstructivist mess is no better. What we need is architecture that carefully considers what will happen in it and how it wants people to react to it, and then thoughtfully responds to those goals.
"What we need is architecture that carefully considers what will happen in it and how it wants people to react to it, and then thoughtfully responds to those goals."
I agree with this 100%.
But how do you communicate with people through the architecture, to shape how they react to it? With architectural language. That language is what we call "style".
Nail on the head, Erik. Control of architectural language is what gives a structure character and soul.
I don’t see how the PoMo Moakley Courthouse fits into a discussion of classical architecture.
Maybe the building is functionally and programmatically well-designed but it is a proportional travesty, lacks both elements and tradition of classical detail, and is ugly as sin.
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