page_title: Louis Ayres
section_title: Federal Triangle
hierarchical_section_title: Louis Ayres / Life and career / Federal Triangle
context_page_description: William Louis Ayres, better known by his professional name Louis Ayres, was an American architect who was one of the most prominent designers of monuments, memorials, and buildings in the nation in the early part of the 20th century. His style is characterized as Medievalist, often emphasizing elements of Romanesque Revival and Italian Renaissance, and Byzantine Revival architecture. He is best known for designing the United States Memorial Chapel at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial and the Herbert C. Hoover U.S. Department of Commerce Building.
context_section_description: In 1927, Ayres won a major commission to design the U.S. Department of Commerce building, an award which became one of his most important architectural designs.  He also played a major role on a board which helped plan the Federal Triangle government office building complex.
  The U.S. federal government had struggled with the need to build a number of large governmental office buildings since the mid-1910s, but little had been done. In January 1924, the Public Buildings Commission recommended that a new series of federal office buildings be built near the White House. In 1926, the U.S. Congress enacted the Public Buildings Act, which, among other things, authorized the United States Department of the Treasury to begin construction on the Federal Triangle complex of buildings. However, disagreements among the three planning bodies overseeing the project (Commission on Fine Arts, Public Buildings Commission, and U.S. Treasury) proved so fundamental that a year-long delay ensued. To end the disagreement, a Board of Architectural Consultants was created on May 19, 1927, to advise the groups on the development of the project. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles S. Dewey recommended Ayres as one of the consultants, and his appointment was almost immediately approved. Design work on all buildings was postponed in May 1927 to allow the Board to conduct its work. The Board of Architectural Consultants first met on May 23, 1927, at which time it considered a plan to create a single building ringing Federal Triangle rather than six to eight individual structures. In June 1927, Ayres and the other consultants approved construction of the Department of Commerce and Internal Revenue Service structures as stand-alone buildings on the previously proposed sites. A month later, Ayres and the other Board members proposed constructing eight buildings, connected by plazas, semi-circular colonnades, and other architectural and landscaping elements. The Department of Commerce building was set on the west side of 15th Street NW between B and D Streets NW.
  For the architectural style of the buildings, Ayres and the other Board members relied heavily on recommendation of the 1902 McMillan Plan that federal buildings in the District of Columbia be built in the Neoclassical style. Both the Board and Treasury Secretary Mellon rejected the Modern style then heavily in vogue. Rather than a mass of tall, imposing buildings, two unifying open spaces (intended for ceremonial use, and under discussion by the Board at least by March 1928) would be utilized. The first would be a Circular Plaza (inspired by the Place Vendôme) bisected by 12th Street NW, and which would require the demolition of the Old Post Office Pavilion. The second would be a rectangular Grand Plaza on the east side of 14th Street NW between the proposed Department of Commerce building (west side of 14th Street NW) and the proposed Post Office Department building (east side of 13th Street NW). The construction of the Grand Plaza would have required the demolition of the District Building.
  York and Sawyer was commissioned to design the Commerce building. This choice had been made almost 15 years earlier, oddly enough. A new headquarters for the Department of Commerce had been proposed in 1912 and a contract for the design work awarded to the architectural firm of York and Sawyer. Although this building was never built, Congress honored the contract and in the Public Buildings Act named the firm again as the Commerce building's designer. York and Sawyer put Louis Ayres in charge of the building's design. But not all design choices were left up to Ayres. By March 1927, government officials had already decided that the Commerce building should be 1,000 feet (300 m) long—making it the then-largest building in the District of Columbia. Work on the building site was expected to begin by March 31, 1927. Survey work at the site began on that date even though final plans for the project were still unclear. But the May 1927 work moratorium put all decisions regarding the Commerce building des
caption: Research Library of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce building, designed by Louis Ayres and with interior decoration by Barnet Phillips
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