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Shortly before the nine million dollar neoclassical Milwaukee County Courthouse was completed, Frank Lloyd Wright was quoted as saying, "The new Milwaukee courthouse belongs to the Nineteenth, not to the Twentieth, Century." The building is "a manifest cultural curse," an "irrelevant waste," "an experiment in falsehood," something "for which the city's children will in time hide their heads in shame." Of course, the architect of the courthouse, Albert Randolph Ross, argued with, “A departure into modernism would not be suitable for a courthouse. We must be trained slowly to things violently new. The public’s money cannot rightly be used to force unaccustomed fads down its throat.” Neoclassism was considered to be in the period between the years of 1750 – 1850. The Milwaukee County Courthouse, though designed in the 1890’s, was not actually fully constructed until 1931. This neoclassical building was built during early the nineteenth century during the steel and iron craze, at the same time Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty were constructed. Wright may have had a point when saying that the building was built in the wrong century. However, considering the purpose of the building, Ross’ argument is stronger. Whitney Gould, author of the Journal Sentinel article “Even in ‘30’s, backward-looking building took heat”, wrote, “I have always found the Corinthian-columned courthouse a cold, imperious statement of government authority - and a trite one, at that, since it echoes a style that was already an echo of Roman classicism.” The courthouse is a building with authority, with power, and its architecture should reflect that of its function.
Approximate Word count = 865
Approximate Pages = 3.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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