CIVIC ART A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts . . . , · Published by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts · mmxiii United States Commission of Fine Arts 401 F Street, NW, Suite 312 Washington, D.C. 20001-2728 Telephone: 202-504-2260 www.cfa.gov The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts offers broad public access to its resources—including photographs, drawings, and official govern- ment documents—as a contribution to education, scholarship, and public information. The submission of documents to the Commis- sion of Fine Arts for review constitutes permission to use the documents for purposes related to the activities of the commission, including display, reproduction, publication, or distribution. printed and bound in the united states of america 16 15 14 13 4 3 2 1 U.S. Government Printing Office Cataloging-in-Publication Data Civic art : a centennial history of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts / edited by Thomas E. Luebke. Washington, D.C. : [U.S. Commission of Fine Arts], 2013. p. cm. Supt. of Docs. no: FA 1.2: C 87 ISBN: 978-0-160897-02-3 1. Washington (D.C.)—Buildings, structures, etc. 2. U.S Commission of Fine Arts—History. 3. Public architecture—United States. 4. Architecture--Washington (D.C.)—History. I. Luebke, Thomas E. II. U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Editor and Project Director: Thomas E. Luebke, FAIA Managing Editor: Mary M.Konsoulis Historian: Kathryn Fanning, PhD Architectural Historian: Eve Barsoum Illustration Editor: Sarah Batcheler Manuscript Editor: Beth Carmichael Meadows Design Office, Inc., Washington, D.C. Art Director and Designer: Marc Alain Meadows Assistant Editor: Caroline Taylor Imaging Assistant: Nancy Bratton : Michael Lantz, Man Controlling Trade, Federal Trade Commission building, 1937–42 (CFA collection). Contents Foreword by Earl A. Powell III 1 Preface 2 Acknowledgments 6 Aim High in Hope and Work 9 . An Enduring Design Legacy: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. in the Nation’s Capital 38 Statues, Fountains, and Monuments , – 57 The Improvement of Washington City: Charles Moore and Washington’s Monumental Core 84 Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam , – 95 The Jefferson Memorial: A Pyrrhic Victory for American Architecture 154 Heroism, History, and Automobiles , – 165 . Presidential Influence: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and the Design of Washington’s Icons of Executive Power, 1933–1953 220 Modernism and Monumentality , – 231 . Rather Strong Advisory: William Walton’s Commission and the Challenge of the FBI Building 292 The Past Is Present . , – 301 Washington Aesthetics: J. Carter Brown and the Commission of Fine Arts 398 To Every Age Its Art , , , – 407 : Legislative history 537 : Biographies of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Old Georgetown Board, Contributing Staff, and Essayists 538 Notes 563 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 602 Index 603 Illustration Credits 619 mong the remarkable as- velop features of the McMillan Plan. To- city planning. He brought to his chal- panded, revised, and passed on. system of parks, reservations, and park- semblage of experts who gether with his partners and associates in lenging tasks multifaceted talents, an in- Educated at both private and public ways, which conserved for public use a have guided the U.S. Com- Olmsted Brothers, he was engaged in cisive intellect, and a well-studied com- schools and at Harvard College, class of network of unique landscape types mission of Fine Arts, land- professional design projects throughout prehension of the landscape art, honed 1894, the junior Olmsted spent the sum- linked by parkways and managed cen- Ascape architect and planner Frederick the metropolitan area, many of these re- under the intense tutelage of his father, mers of his college years either working trally without regard to municipal juris- Law Olmsted Jr. holds a unique position lating back to the McMillan Commis- Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.; his older on the grounds of the emerging Chicago dictions. During this early period, he by virtue of the length and character of sion or Commission of Fine Arts tasks; half-brother, John Charles Olmsted; and World’s Fair—for which his father was also began designing the Baltimore sub- his service and the extent of his produc- others stemmed from other associations; their partner, Charles Eliot. Each of one of the chief planners—or in Euro- division of Roland Park, an enterprise An Enduring Design tive involvement in molding Washing- and still others independently commis- these men had expanded the parameters pean travel with his father, exploring the that led to numerous related long-term ton, leaving an indelible artistic imprint sioned but always considered according of the emerging profession by their ad- design ideas expressed in major public commissions, including the Baltimore upon the federal city. A youthful ap- to the consummate aesthetic principles vocacy of skilled land-use planning, de- and private landscapes. The World’s Fair park system of stream-valley reserva- Legacy: Frederick pointee in 1901 to the Senate Park established by the McMillan Plan.1 For sign aesthetics, and principles of scenic collaborations, learning firsthand from tions and neighborhood playgrounds, Commission, the so-called McMillan much of this work, Olmsted drew little conservation and their commitment to the artists who would later become his which he worked on simultaneously Commission, he was a major contribu- salary, barely covering the firm’s over- public service. Washington colleagues, Daniel H. Burn- with the early Washington projects. Law Olmsted Jr. in the tor to this body’s creative process to in- head and contributing his services for Born on July 24, 1870, in New York, ham, Charles F. McKim, and Augustus terpret, recast, and supplement Peter the greater cause to ensure that Wash- Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., originally Saint-Gaudens, were a highlight of his Nineteenth-century Charles L’Enfant’s remarkable eigh- ington’s landscapes of monuments and christened Henry Perkins Olmsted, was professional life. As he observed in notes Washington and the Transition Nation’s Capital teenth-century conception for America’s parks were unified expressions of L’En- renamed by his father sometime around for his twenty-fifth Harvard reunion re- to the New Century capital into a visionary plan for the city’s fant’s grand concept as envisioned by the 1874 to ensure that this Olmsted name port, this was renewal and future. To ensure vibrancy McMillan Commission. America’s na- would continue to be “identified with a ‘rush job’ full of enthusiasm and intense Public design and planning projects in of the vision and artistic coherence in tional capital was to be an exemplary the firm and the profession.”3 As the sustained effort, in which I first encountered the nation’s capital have a significance of the city’s architectural reconfiguration, model of a comprehensively planned fifth and youngest Olmsted child, he the stimulus and satisfaction of working, their own. From the outset, L’Enfant’s ¶ . the long-discussed Commission of Fine city, balancing architectural grandeur was raised in a household that was also even though as an unimportant youngster, planning shaped a city intended for cere- with some of the ablest architects and other Arts became a reality in 1910 with Olm- and landscape artistry while serving the the firm’s working office.4 He grew up monial as well as practical uses, clearly artists . The most exhilarating and no- sted as one of its first members. During resident and visiting public alike. surrounded by the product and pas- table thing about that experience was the cognizant of its necessary symbolic char- his eight-year tenure, with his firsthand When he began his appointment on sions of his father’s myriad intellectual prevailing spirit, among these men of great acter to represent the nation.9 By the knowledge of the McMillan Plan’s de- the McMillan Commission, Olmsted, at endeavors and design commissions, individual creative ability and diverse late nineteenth century, particularly in sign intent, he guided the implementa- age thirty, was more than twenty years which ranged across the country.5 By points of view, of self-subordinating cooper- Europe, urban progress was measured tion of its components while steadfastly younger than his colleagues.2 While the time the family moved to Brookline, ation in joint pursuit of a common aim in- by planning efforts designed to beautify, spired by enthusiasm for an artistic ideal. guarding its aesthetic principles. maintaining an extensive, multifaceted Massachusetts, in 1882, the home office to improve services for citizens, and to But the Commission of Fine Arts design and consulting practice across had expanded beyond the kitchen table During the summer following his protect municipal resources. But in lacked authority to supplement the vi- the country over his wide-ranging ca- to include an atelier of hard-working as- Harvard graduation, Olmsted worked as America’s capital, which was self-con- sion, to extend L’Enfant’s ideas into the reer, Olmsted continued to remain sociates implementing the senior Olm- a recorder for the thirty-ninth parallel scious about its role as exemplar for the active policies required to shape and deeply involved in Washington design sted’s aesthetic perspective in shaping survey, learning to read the land as his country and the world, such efforts were service the growing metropolitan