Eccles Building - Architecture of The Eccles Building

Architecture of The Eccles Building

In 1935 the Federal Reserve Board decided to consolidate its growing staff in a new building, to be sited on Constitution Avenue and designed according to the results of an invited, juried competition. The winning design, by the Philadelphia architect Paul Philippe Cret, was a daringly modernist interpretation of the Beaux-Arts style and has become a noted part of American architectural history.

The principal officials overseeing the competition were Charles Moore, chairman of the presidentially appointed United States Commission of Fine Arts, and Adolph C. Miller. Miller had been a member of the Board since the Federal Reserve had begun operations in 1914; after leaving the Board in 1936, he continued as chairman of the Board's Building Committee.

These two men deliberated over the nature of the building design between October 1934 and February 1935. They could not ignore the traditional style of public architecture in the nation's capital—monumental scale, classical references provided by columns and pediments, and generous use of symbolic ornamentation. But they could—and did—work to update that style. Miller drafted a statement about the Board to help the competing architects understand the concerns of their potential client. Accompanying the Program of Competition, the statement conveyed the sense of Miller and Moore that traditional style would not be their utmost concern.

The building that emerged from the competition, with its modernism based on a simplified classicism, was unique for Washington at that time. The result is a credit to the vision of Miller and Moore and to the winning design by Paul Philippe Cret.