Building Manifestations
(copyright 1999)

I recently drove some visitors around the District of Columbia, and we observed the Capital City's most remarkable sites and buildings. We saw the spires of the National Cathedral; the solid columns of the Supreme Court building; the ornate and high-reaching ceilings of the Library of Congress; the tall steps and spacious crest of the National Gallery of Art West Wing building; the knife-edged corners, and immense granite panels of the East Wing building; the old Pension Bureau with its tremendous Great Hall and towering Corinthian Columns built in honor of the Union victory -- and to house bureaucrats, no less; the surrounding, heavy, black, iron fence and classic outline of the Executive Mansion and its head-on view of the statue of Thomas Jefferson from across the South Lawn; the strong profile of the monument to Lincoln; the reaching, definitive, and mighty tower of that to Washington, whose original design included a neo-Greek temple at its base with a thirty foot statue of Washington posed as a Roman god; the classic, symmetrical homage to Jefferson; the handsome, low-lying, carved-stone Memorial Bridge; and that grand and imposing home to the nation's legislature. My guests were amazed and proud of the energy, heritage, and fervor that went into each of these structures and that they represent.

Contemporary observers of the development of the Capital city cannot contain mention of the contradictory convergence of the city's grand design with old Washington's proximate slave quarters, bordellos, and muddy streets.(1) We are to conclude that the city and its people, their past, their future, and their mightiest accomplishments are thereby permanently compromised, shamed by history, a disgrace to the enlightened, like that hypocrite Jefferson who ran off to France with his wife's half-sister, a slave girl with whom he carried on a scandalous affair, and who harbored slaves in his very home while preaching liberty for all men... Or is it, instead, amazing that slaves are no longer to be found at Monticello or 2nd and D Streets? The magnificent structures that overlooked those shackled subjects are monument to their architect's glory, despite - not instead of - their sins. What thoughts did the visage of that magnificent Capitol building inspire in the slaves housed at its feet? Was it anger and resentment, or hope and faith in a better way? Did fear and spite overcome the hard-luck Union foot soldier who camped below the unfinished stump of the Washington Monument and empty dome of the Capitol building? Or was it trust in their completion and higher symbolism? Would that those buildings reflect the Founder's vices, we'd have had no nation at all, for these great buildings are the Founder's hopes and aims embodied, built to aspire, not to mirror the sinful and mundane, whatever the age.

Today, does hope spring eternal upon entry to the Fairfax County Government Center complex (to pay the hated personal property tax, perhaps), that coffin dropped amidst an old field now barren but for the vast parking lot before it? And are hapless government dependents inspired by the stubby concrete-gray buildings and broken sidewalks of the District's public assistance offices? Would visits to the DMV be more palatable under cathedral ceilings, with the waiting lines woven between lofty pillars and across marble floors? Could there even be hand-out lines beneath columns of a more ambitious building?

Does purpose reflect design, or do government buildings resemble, like aging couples who come to look alike, the services they provide? Are merely functional buildings necessary for the smooth operation of government wealth-transfer programs, or is it more that these buildings exhibit our present lack of faith in man and our polity and a public policy based upon this pessimism? Would to aspire to greatness in our public buildings inspire greatness in our public functions? Certainly the District's magnificent buildings have housed tyrants and fools, but must not even the most wicked cow under the Capitol rotunda, whose marble floors are lined with statues of the country's most illustrious citizens(2) and whose magnificent trompe l'oeil dome is emblazoned with Constantino Brumidi's homage to freedom, the "Apotheosis of George Washington"?

In the Old Dominion, we must not only submit to state rules to purchase whiskey, we must buy it from the state itself. I prefer the thirty minute drive to the District where alcohol is sold by private merchants, whose cluttered, often dirty, stores are an aesthetic diversion to the Virginia ABC store's school-tile floors, gray shelves lined by excessive quantities of the same bottles, and whose broad isles, limited product offering, and crude marketing offer testimony, by contrary example, to the power of competition and the free market.(3) This drab decor is interrupted by the stark presence of one or two bright promotional displays provided by the Seagrams or Baccardi companies: unseemly and embarrassing, like an awful modern hotel in the Havana that reflects worse upon its surroundings than its ugly self. These government stores look exactly as they are: bleak in spirit, purpose, function, and fact; better off in Soviet Moscow.

When we argue over NASA budgets, the usual defense of the billions spent on space exploration is that the earthly benefits are countless times greater in terms of knowledge, products, and systems developed to conquer space than the cost of space exploration itself. By this logic, we might as well focus national laboratories on perfecting new materials and designs for mouse traps than to explore Mars, if only because Mars is so damned far away. New designs and materials for high-tech mousetraps may not yield Goretex and Tang, but some benefit must surely be derived beyond better ways to rid the house of pests. Nay, we go to space because it is in our nature to explore.(4) We go to space because man is most noble, most profoundly human, when reaching -- in this case literally -- up. Space exploration, like high art, architecture, and love, enhances and ennobles man's spirit. Yearning, wondering, and exploring need no justification.

Present replies moan earthly denunciations of ambition: settle accounts at home before we seek gold afar. Ours is the day of instant gratification, where blame is keenly dispensed and responsibility unceremoniously buried, where no attainment goes unpunished and no failure disallowed. This is the land of the Here and the Now, the magical shores where the past and the future are but clever devices of today's resolutions, ornate leaves on the present's emblems, symbols that excuse annoying stains, a rug pulled over a tarnished floor. Hope is disallowed, for hope lives only in a tomorrow that can never satisfy today's impetuous demands. In such an age, why build monuments to a past or bequeath works to our children? Modern buildings reflect our times. Today, architectural achievement is measured by the number of offices, accessibility of fire escapes, and miles of fiber optic cable. Why house government behind gilded fronts when government itself has no luster?(5) We build functional because we aspire only functional; and functional is precisely and sadly what we get.

Think to the last time you entered an old courthouse, library or fire station. What grandeur! What simple, yet deep faith can be found in those bold wooden staircases, those high, irregular windows, and those bulky, awkward doors! To accommodate modern sensitivities, the appearance of old buildings has been marred by window air conditioners, clumsy handicapped entrances, lighted exit signs, etc. Must these anomalies defeat such buildings, or can we preserve their grandeur without compromise of modern convenience? The Capitol building was designed by William Thornton, a physician, a man inexperienced in architecture, ignorant of engineering, yet deeply moved by the spirit and joy of the new nation. His design reflected that spirit, and that spirit infected his design, like the Republic itself, drawn from ancient Greece and Rome. A half century later, the nation thus wrought was too large for the building. Splendidly and loyal to Edmond Burke's admonition to preserve and improve, not only the Capitol's size, but its grandeur, was enhanced.

I dare not imagine a Capitol conceived today. Modern buildings reflect the modern spirit: unleavened, uniform, accessible and equal to all, perfect marks of the socialist dream, where nothing is too low - and nothing ever too high.

-Bromley, 2000

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1. Is this how we should feel about the old immigrant districts of New York, today centers of commerce and wealth, but yesterday home to immigrants disallowed entrance to respectable businesses?

2. By act of Congress, each state was invited to submit two statues of its most "illustrious" citizens. Could we even use the word "illustrious" today? The recent stir over placement there of the statue to suffragettes was appalling display of present absence of standards: the statue is offensive not because it depicts unworthy subjects, but because it is ugly.

3. Stark reminder of Brazilian chain stores during its era of protectionism, when shelves were loaded with the same products, reflection and consequence of economic policy that prohibited imports, thereby subsidizing the few domestic producers who, freed of competition, churned out limited varieties at high prices.

4. To his credit, the current NASA director spoke of the innate American urge to explore, although this was mentioned on the side as part of larger explanation of the earthly benefits of space exploration.

5. New constructions in our area - houses to be sold for upwards a million dollars - have brick fronts. The structures are of aluminum and press board, and the brick is trimming. Brick, once a foundation, now serves for aesthetic suggestion of the strength it once actually provided.