Evening star., 1963-12-29
ART AND ARTISTS
The Newest House Office Building:
Why 1t Is So Widely Criticized
By FRANK GETLEN
An Critic Of ne Star

I ~ &AAEAANA NG AAElM1M
Art Critic Of The Star
The difference between
natural catastrophe and man.
made disaster is baSicalIy one
of scope. Nature red in tooth
and claw is only looking for
her dinner and VIII generally
stop being catastrophe once
that has been found. Nature
manifeSting blind chance has
the odds against much rever-
beration Of tragedy: It comes,
it strikes, it goes away, as in
a tidal wave, an earthquake,
a hurricane.
With mans ingeniOusly
contrived disasters, on the
other hand, there's no way of
calculating the final cost. It's
not even easy to put your
finger on one particular fea-
ture and say HERE, right
here, is the source of the
trouble.
This may be observed In
such man-made disasters as
the nuclear bomb and televi-
sion. Here In Washington the
principle may be studied in
the new, new House Office
Building, named for Sam
Rayburn and scheduled to
open In the coming year.
Blocking the Way
In recent weeks Congress
and especially the House of
Representatives have been
accused a of blocking the
smooth and august course of
government. Critics have
seemed to be saying that II
only we got rid of the govern
ment, government would be
fine.
Tn e S e propositions don't
readily suggest aesthetic
discussion, but assuming
them to be true, the attitude
toward government they
embody is re-embOdied in the
new building.
Take blockage. The south
west freeway has suddenly
offered motorists in the Capt.
tai a whole sequence. Of new
views Of everything, including
the Capitol dome. The new
new office building, however,
successfully cut off those new
views before the freeway was
even open. The driver on the
new road curves gracefully
down the chute that delivers
him to the foot Of Capitol Hill
and looks up, expecting his
heart to stir at the sight Of
the great wedding-cake
against the sky.
Nothing.
Instea of the soaring
dome, he sees only a chill,
forbidding, endless, shapeless
mass Of stone, a section of the
Great Wall of China or per-
haps one Of the Egyptian
river bank tombs. How on
earth could it have got here?
Symbolic
However 1t did, its symbol
ism is obviously not what
members Of Congress wish to
project Of themselves.
There was something equally
distressing in the clash Of
symbols heard last summer
when it was discovered that
the interior arrangements
were all wrong. To get from
his private office to his staff
office, a Congressman would
have had to sashay through
the waiting room exposed to
the pleading eyes. rapid
tongues and clutching hands
Of his constituents. To protect
him, doors were cut from
private offices to staff rooms,
but. symbolcally enough, you
couldn't just cut a door. Built
in files had to be unbuilt and
money had to be thrown to
the winds in great handfuls to
accomplish belatedly what the
most chuckle-headed architect
could have seen as necessary
from the first.
The fundamental achieve
ment in the new, new building
has been the rigorous avoid
ance Of having control in the
hands of any architect, even a
chuckle-headed one, who could
be held responsible for the
results. Presumably in total
command is the architect of
the Capitol" who is an archi-
tect the same way the Sen
ate's sergeant-of-arms Is a
sergeant: By appointment,
not by training or education.
The difference is that the
sergeant-at-arms does not try
to conduct close-order drill.
| Stone Juggling
| There are three stones
employed in the new, new
building, G, a rough-dressed
warm brown one at the base,
a lighter brown as a tranSi-
ton and then the whole in
credibility of the main floors
in cool blue-white marble.
Any of the three is inoffen-