Federal Triangle - Critical Assessment

Critical Assessment

"Federal Triangle was the most important government construction project of the 1930s in Washington." It was the largest construction project in the United States in the 1930s; only the construction of Rockefeller Center in New York City came close. It "remains one of the most important design and construction projects" in American history.

The original seven buildings won critical praise for their beauty from the news media when they first opened. The Washington Post said the Internal Revenue building was "a credit to any city" and declared the "marble work to be among the most beautiful in the United States." At its dedication, the New York Times called the Department of Justice building "one of the most beautiful public buildings in the world". But praise was most heavily lavished on the Commerce building. It was not only the largest office building in the world, but the "greatest of office buildings" and one which represented the aspirations of the nation. It had "dignity without severity", one report said, and was "a magnificent architectural end". It had the "world's most extensive and impressive applications of bronze", "embellished with a wealth of detail, delicately modeled, carefully tooled, finely chased and exactingly finished." Even the interior decorating scheme was highly noted for its "fine architectural effect".

But younger architects in the 1930s criticized the style and size of the buildings at Federal Triangle for being "elitist, pretentious, and anachronistic". Architecture critic William Harlan Hale strongly criticized the Neoclassical style for being unimaginative and anti-democratic: "New Deal indeed! What was there new, or modern, or imaginative, or efficient, or economical in trying to give modern Washington the character of Imperial Rome? What was there either aesthetic or intelligent in cloaking the offices of a modern democracy as the temple of a classic tyrant, the gallery of a Renaissance prince, or the palace of a French monarch? ...we have learned quite a lot about the principles of modern architecture, just as we have learned a lot about some other things; and today, after so short a time, it looks it looks pretty much like a relic out of the dim past." By the 1940s, some critics said the buildings were too reminiscent of Nazi and Soviet architecture.

Initial assessments of the Ronald Reagan Building's design were overwhelmingly positive. Washington Post critic Benjamin Forgey highly praised the Pei Cobb Freed design when it was first made public. Forgey found the final building even more praiseworthy, finding it full of "character and extraordinary potential," "brilliant," "vital," "welcoming," "clever" and "dynamic." Forgey particularly praised the bold stroke of the building's diagonal structure (which extends from the rotunda at the north end of Woodrow Wilson Plaza to the juncture of 13th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue NW) and the conical atrium on the building's east side. Federal employees working in the building gave it "rave reviews" and at its dedication was one of the most sought-after places to work in the city. But six months later, another Washington Post reporter declared the Ronald Reagan building "much too large," "confusing" to get around in, "awkwardly configured," and with "dismal views". The facade, the critic felt, was "relentlessly austere" and represented "a lost opportunity to lighten the Federal Triangle's imperial, ponderous architectural spirit."