Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-07-22
Cities
end People
World Fairs
And Washington
By ROBERT ]. LEWIS

nOuSe Dy neIlcOpLer last
Monday. two dozen persons
sat down at the big table In
the White House fish room"
Their presence supplied
the third major illustration
within so years Of q strange
and wonderful phenomenon.
For this meeting was to
prove once again that phys
ical changes in the heart Of
Washington are apt to be
shaped by architectural rep
utationS first made popu-
lar in the fantasy land Of
United States World Fairs.
The man who presided
over this meeting was Arthur
]. Goldberg, Secretary of
Labor. His role here, behind
the closed door leading to
the Presidents reception
room, was to add a touch Of
ceremony in the absence Of
the President.
This was to be the initial
meeting of the 10-member
Council on Redevelopment
Of Pennsylvania Avenue. Ma
thaniel A. Owings Of the
firm Of Skidmore, owings &
Merrill, had been chosen
chairman.
SECRETARY GOLDBERG
said:
when the President ap-
pointed the Committee on
Federal Office Space, of
which I was a member, I'm
sure he didn't think of the
committee getting into the
problem of Pennsylvania
Avenue or the question of
architecture.
yet we found these were
questions that could not be
ignored, and that they were
greatly relevant.
q. When we left the
Capitol on Inauguration Day,
I looked at the Avenue-this
great ceremonial Avenue
and it did not make a very
great showing.
I'VE were inaugurating the
President, and we did it in
the most shoddy circum-
stances. Pawnshops and old
stores were not an appro-
pirate setting.
1.-THE condition of the
Avenue aroused my interest
and my concern. I found
that my reaction was a uni
versal reaction. On the Hill,
there was a uniform feel
ing that it should be i'm
proved"
In these words, the origin
Of the most significant step
Of the present generation to
beautify the city was first
publicly traced.
IS
THE TWO OTHER big eff
forts of the present century
are fairly well known. Both
the Mcmillan Commissions
Plan of 1902 and the Fed
eral Triangle project a gen.
Grafton later were shaped by
the vision of Roman splen-
dor traceable to the Worlds
Columbian Exposition of 1893
at Chicago.
In charge of the Mcmillan
plan was Daniel H. Burn
ham. He had been superin-
tendent of works for the
1898 Fair. McKim, Mead
and White, and other ar
chitects who had played a
role at that fair, contributed
to changes In Washington
influenced by the Mcmillan
plan.
The reversion to classic ar
chitecture was still strong
when the Federal Triangle
was undertaken. The man in
charge was Edward H. Ben
nett. He formerly had been
associated with Burnham in
work on the 1893 fair.
In the proposed Pennsyl-
vania Avenue changes, the
influence of architects
closely identified with more
recent world fairs may also
be significant. One council
member, Paul Thirty, Is chief
architect of the Seattle
Worlds Fair. Another, Mi
noru Yamasaki, designed
that fairs spectacular Fed
eral building.
Chairman Owings, too, was
a Worlds Fair architect
this one the 1888 Century Of
Progress Exposition at Chi
cago. Louis Skidmore of the
Skidmore, Owings g. Mer-
rill firm, was that fairs ar
chitectural director.
OF the Century of Prog
ress Exposition, someone
rafI &h1h ,oarIone s%e v,oacf