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Bar News - February 17, 2006 Further Comment on the ‘Architecture of Power’ By: Donald M. Kreis
Although Rep. Ulery got a couple of the details wrong (the building is Neoclassical, not Romanesque; the columns behind the bench are Ionic, not Corinthian), he makes an astute point about the intentions of the architect, Cass Gilbert (1859-1934). One of the celebrity architects of his era, Gilbert also designed the Woolworth Building in New York and the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul. Rep. Ulery’s impressions confirm that Gilbert was mired in then-current fashion for the design of government buildings, particularly the use of classical details to convey a sense of pomposity and grandeur. The Supreme Court building was completed in 1935. It bears recollecting that the 30s were both an era of government expansion – hence the grim plethora of buildings with similar design sensibilities in Washington – and global worry about the stability of nations and governments. It is no coincidence that the overblown Stalinesque style we associate with the Soviet Union is of this time, to say nothing of the buildings Albert Speer designed for the Third Reich in Germany. In each country, architects sought to mask national insecurity with an architecture of power. As Rep. Ulery suggests, we know better today. Coincidentally, an interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in the January issue of Architectural Record echoes Rep. Ulery’s concerns about the anti-democratic hierarchy established by a courtroom that literally elevates the judges over everyone else. Justice Breyer was intimately involved in the planning of the new federal courthouse that opened in 1999 on the Fan Pier in Boston. It was designed by one of today’s celebrity architects – Henry Cobb, partner of I.M. Pei and designer of the John Hancock Tower in Boston and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. When asked if there is anything remarkable about the courtrooms in Boston, Justice Breyer proudly noted that they “put the judge deliberately at the same level as the lawyers and focus on the area in front of the judge, the jury and the witness.” Justice Breyer continued, “That focus promotes a conversation among all the participants. When lawyers are forced to carry on a conversation, the judge is more likely to get their truthful opinion, less likely to get play-acting. The design facilitates the work of the court.” Although our federal courthouse in Concord is more in line with Gilbert’s sensibilities than those of Cobb or Justice Breyer, since 1994 the General Services Administration has used its role as landlord of federal court buildings to reinvent the image of the federal judiciary through the GSA’s “Design Excellence” program. For example, the GSA recently made the intriguing choice of architect Steven Holl to design the new U.S. Courthouse in Denver. In New England, Holl is famous for his recent dorm at MIT that is designed to resemble, and in some senses function like, a giant sponge. Porosity sure beats pomposity if one is seeking to use architecture to promote open and democratic government. The GSA’s ambitious portfolio of designs by our nation’s greatest architects contrasts starkly with the shoddiness and unimaginativeness of most recent buildings in the public sphere. I hope that when Rep. Ulery and other legislators have occasion to appropriate funds for new construction in state government, they see the virtue of investing in the future as a way of improving on the public buildings our predecessors built for us. Donald M. Kreis, a New Hampshire attorney, is a state employee. He writes about architecture for the Valley News in Lebanon and for other publications. He is also on the board of trustees of one of the plaintiffs in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood.
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