The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-07-02
Quarters for State, Com
merce and Labor and JUS
tice Departments to Be
Wonderful Structures.
PROPOSED PLANS FOR
BUILDINGS NOW OUT
Considered Greatest Build
ing Project in the Coun-
try and One of the Great
est in Entire World.
(National News Association

Washington. July 1.-The officially
approved plans for the new govern
ment buildings advocated by the pre-
sent administration were made public
today. They provide for the erection
of buildings for the Department of
State, Commerce and Labor and JUS
tice on site that lies between Four
teenth and Fifteenth streets and ex-
tends from Pennsylvania avenue, south
to the wall which runs from the capi-
tol to the Washington monument.
Architecturally the new buildings will
supplement- the building design now
prevalent in Washington. The cost
will be $S,000,0O0.
Though the actual amount of money
to be spent in the erection of these
new buildings is insignificant in com
parison to the vast sums annually
spent for federal and state office
buildings throughout the United
States, great interest is attached to
the project, for it is considered by
experts the greatest building project
in the country and one of the great
est in the world, because it looks to
ward the erection of group rather
than a single unit with harmony in
the aggregate as it's ultimate result.
Competitive Contest.
In seeking plans for the buildings
the government inaugurated com
petitive contest, sending invitations to
some sixty of the leading architects
of America asking them to submit de
signs. These plans were then placed
before the board of examining archi
tects who selected three OF the mos'
suitable and artistic awarding to Dom
Barber, the Department of Justice;
to New York and Sawyer the Depart
ment of Commerce and Labor, and tc
Arnold w. Brunner the Department
of State. These three architects were
| then called together by the Secretary
of Treasury and gwen instructions to
develop their individual designs with
the heads of the buildings for which
they are intended, having constantly
in view at the same time the recon
| Citation Of the designs to each othel
and the harmony of the group as &
whole.
In exterior design the three build
| ings are similar in character, each EN-
ploying columns three stories il
| height set upon windowed wall, ant
architectural basement" This wal
is one story high in the case of the
end buildings and two stories high ii
| the central one, these correcting thu
! dip of the ground and raising thu
three colonnades to the same level.
| Designs Are Simple.
| While ornamental in appearance, tn,
buildings are of the utmost simplicit.
and no fancied needs of architecture
expressions have been allowed to in
| terfere with the practical require
ments of lighting and arrangement.
From Pennsylvania avenue on th'
north the principal feature of tn
| front will be the entrance portice o
the Department of Justice; from tn
Monument grounds or the Mall, tha
| of the State Department.
! The building of Commerce and La
Dor, forming the connecting link, is
simple rectangle, it's lines being ur
| broken by any dominating feature. 1t
main entrance is On Fifteenth street
! but its entrances for the employee
are from the sidewalk of Fourteent
street on a level with the car lines.
will probably be two years before tn
new buildings will be complied.