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Book Reviews 93 Metu Jfa 2006/1 BOOK REVIEWS METU JFA 2006/1 93 ALAN LESSOFF AND CHRISTOF MAUCH, EDITORS ADOLF CLUSS, ARCHITECT: FROM GERMANY TO AMERICA Born in Heilbronn in the southwestern newspapers and funded publication of German state of Württemberg, Adolf Marx’s writings in America, by 1852 he Cluss (1825-1905) grew sensitive to the was questioning whether American condition of rural and itinerant workers workers were really susceptible to the as a journeyman carpenter in the restive politics of class warfare. In 1855 he atmosphere of Europe in the 1840s. He became a U.S. citizen and took a job in became a communist and friend of Karl the Treasury Department drawing plans Marx. Germany erupted in revolution in for federal buildings, then a position the spring of 1848, but workers did not with the U.S. Navy in weapons research achieve the rights Cluss and other and design of a new foundry. Cluss also radicals called for. He thus sailed for became active in the brand new New York, and then arrived in Republican Party. Such affiliation would Washington in time to see the help Cluss gain federal architecture inauguration of President Zachary contracts over the next decades, but the Taylor. This event was symbolic, Republicans’ democratic antislavery because Cluss subsequently fashioned program actually appealed to many nearly a fifty-year career as a idealistic German revolutionary Washington architect. refugees. That a reforming communist could hold ostensibly sensitive This book traces that career through employment positions within the U.S. eleven text on Cluss’s life and work and government seems highly ironic today, the German and Washington contexts but in Cluss’s time communism was that influenced him. Lavished only beginning to have the sinister throughout with reprints of paintings, meaning most Americans would give it maps, and photographs, it also contains in the twentieth century. two photography essays on the city of Washington and on Cluss’s family. Throughout his architectural career Edited by Alan Lessoff, a professor of Cluss occasionally left reminders that he history at Illinois State University, and had not abandoned his early political Adolf Cluss (1825-1905) Christof Mauch, director of the German radicalism. He bought a copy of the Historical Institute in Washington, the Communist Manifesto in the 1890s. book contains essays by academic More significantly, however, his work experts in the United States and reflected his continuing interest in Germany in the history of architecture, creating structures of republican historic preservation, Atlantic dignity, reliable and accessible to immigration, and urban design. The ordinary people, be they the working or Adolf Cluss Project, directed by the commercial classes, schoolchildren, or freelance historians Joseph L. Browne immigrants. Fittingly, in 1875 he wrote, and Peter Wanner, supported the book. “it ought to be appreciated that the This project combined the resources of luxurious life of the higher classes the Charles Sumner School Museum, depends on the strength and activity of housed in one of Cluss’s two school the children of the industrious classes” buildings that still stand, and the (p. 77). archive of the Washington public school Over the rest of the nineteenth century system; the German Historical Institute Cluss, either in public service or private of Washington; the Goethe-Institut; the practice, would design or renovate more Historical Society of Washington; the than sixty Washington buildings. Office of Architectural History and Among those still extant today are the Historic Preservation of the Smithsonian Sumner School for African American Institution; and the Archiv der Stadt children, the Eastern Market building, Heilbronn. The project sponsored the Castle and National Museum exhibitions on Cluss’s life and work in ALAN LESSOFF & CHRISTOF MAUCH, eds. (today’s Arts and Industries Building) of ADOLF CLUSS, ARCHITECT: FROM Washington and Heilbronn in 2005 (its the Smithsonian Institution, and the GERMANY TO AMERICA website is http://www.adolf- White House. In all of these Cluss cluss.org/). (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005) hardcover, brought to bear a European influence in 184 p. While Marx praised Cluss as “one of the design of America’s capital begun ISBN 1-84545-052-3 our best and most talented men (p. 8),” by Pierre L’Enfant. As city engineer and Cluss wrote for communist Cluss supervised modernization of the 94 METU JFA 2006/1 BOOK REVIEWS city’s building codes, sewage system, Victorian or Rundbogenstil styles to its and street paving, utilizing the new current neo-classical appearance today, substance of asphalt. Later as building and as Americans re-evaluated public inspector for the federal government he buildings based on their size and inspected old and new buildings alike, elaborate ornamentation, as in the from the U.S. Capitol to the immigration Beaux Arts style, or their functionality facilities of Ellis Island. Perhaps and lack of historicism, as in the America’s hospitable image to millions International style. Meanwhile, of European immigrants of the age had corruption in the city’s Board of Public "Buildings for Market-House, Court-House, something to do with Cluss’s subtle Works, typical of the “gilded age” of Offices, etc., Alexandria, Va. as submitted by influence. American history, compelled him to Adolph Cluss, Architect," ca. 1871. give whistle-blower’s testimony to Alexandria Library, Special Collections, But Cluss’s story also had tragic p. 164. Congress, whereupon the Board’s elements. He lost three sons and a director had him fired. Near the turn of National Museum (Arts and Industries daughter to illness. Professionally, he the century Cluss was removed from building, Smithsonian Institution), witnessed the destruction of his ideas Independence Avenue between 8th and 10th U.S. government service when the and most of his buildings as streets, SW, Washington, 1879-81, Cluss& Republican Party was defeated, and, Schulze, architects. Photograph by R. Washington moved from his rustic Longstreth, 1970, p. 111. upon visiting Germany, he saw his native land still was not a united republic, as he had dreamed a half- century earlier. In his creative achievements limited by his accommodation to political realities and experience of setbacks to his aesthetic ideals, was Cluss not something of an exemplary architect? Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America, seeks to praise and commemorate Cluss, not to offer any critique of him, and in this it succeeds admirably. It should be of great interest to anyone interested in the history of early American architecture or in the impact on American material culture of the transformation of European political radicalism amid liberal American culture and society. Timothy ROBERTS Bilkent University, Ankara.
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