Classical Interiors: Historical and Contemporary

CHAPTER 5

THE REVIVAL OF MODERN CLASSICISM The Education of Designers and Craftsmen ELIZABETH MEREDITH DOWLING

6-2] Axial view from the east reception hall through the Treaty Room in the State Department Building, Washington, D.C. designed by Allan Greenberg Architect.

6-5] Office of the Deputy Secretary of State in the State Department Building, Washington, D.C. designed by Allan Greenberg Architect.

6-7] In 1984, John Blatteau designed The Benjamin Franklin Dining Room in the State Department Building, Washington, D.C. The new design replaced the 1950s dropped ceiling and expanses of glass walls that still exist behind the twenty freestanding scagliola columns.

R EVIVA L OF CLAS SICAL A R CHITECTU R E

In the 1950s and 1960s few classical designers continued to find work and those who did usually had small, predominantly residential practices. Philip Shutze and James Means in Georgia, A. Hays Town in Louisiana, and Raymond Erith in Britain are characteristic of this group of classical survivors. The advent of a reinvigorated classical movement occurred gradually over some thirty years, beginning in the late 1980s. During this time educational support developed through the influence of Charles, Prince of Wales, in Britain and the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame in the United States.

During the transition from Beaux-arts training to modern classicism, a unique project displayed the desire by both architects and clients to restore principles of beauty to the profession of architecture – principles that, in America, had been suppressed through the influence of modernist theory. In 1961 the State Department in Washington, D.C., opened its new Brutalist styled headquarters and, immediately, a movement was initiated by Clement E. Conger, curator of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, to transform the simple modern spaces of the eighth floor into a display of the artistic heritage of the United States (figure 6-1). As Paul Goldberger commented, “The most charitable thing that could be said about the sprawling, limestone-clad headquarters of the

R E V I VA L O F M O D E R N I S M C L A S S I C I S M

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PORTFOLIO

Contemporary Projects

T

he following chapters of the book are divided into three groups of portfolios of currently practicing architects. Two essays separate these chapters. The first essay “Ornament: a source of beauty” written by David Watkin introduces the history of ornament as a defining element of classical architecture. The essential relationship between ornament and beauty contrasts with the twentiethcentury theory given voice by Adolf Loos that the use of ornament in any form whether on one’s person or in architecture is a primitive and obsolete activity in the modern world. The second essay written by Richard Sammons offers the reader an understanding of the complexity of classical design with its various ornamental details and size and shape of rooms all inextricably related in the most refined classical work. The portfolios of sixteen firms illustrate a variety of approaches employed to solve the needs for large and small residences, public buildings and commercial projects.t

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ANDALLUSIA Place

STUDIO PEREGALLI

216

ARCHITECT

221

M AY R I V E R Place

HISTORICAL CONCEPTS

288

ARCHITECT

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