The Office of the Supervising Architect was an

agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

of the

United States Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an United States federal executive departments, executive department. The departme ...

that designed

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

government buildings from 1852 to 1939. The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among its creations are the well-known State, War, and

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

building (now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, the

San Francisco Mint The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint. Opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush, in twenty years its operations exceeded the capacity of the first building. It moved into a new one in 1874, now kno ...

Building, and smaller

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

s that have served communities for decades, many recognized as National Historic Landmarks, listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, or designated as local landmarks.

Tarsney Act

Until 1893 the office used in-house architects. In 1893 Missouri Congressman

John Charles Tarsney John Charles Tarsney (November 7, 1845 – September 4, 1920) was an Politics of the United States, American politician from Missouri and an associate justice of the Oklahoma Territory Supreme Court (1896-1899). He then returned to Kansas City, Mi ...

introduced a bill that allowed the Supervisory Architect to have competitions among private architects for major structures. Competitions were held for the

Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (originally the New York Custom House) is a government building, museum, and former custom house at 1 Bowling Green, near the southern end of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Designed by Cass ...

, Cleveland Federal Building, U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland, and U.S. Customhouse in San Francisco (which are all now on the National Register of Historic Places) among others. The competitions were met with enthusiasm by the architect community but were also marred by scandal as when Taylor picked Cass Gilbert for the New York Customs job. Taylor and Gilbert had been members of the Gilbert & Taylor architecture firm in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

. In 1913 the act was repealed.Architects to the Nation: The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect's Office by Antoinette J. Lee - Oxford University Press, USA (April 20, 2000)

Heads of Office of the Supervising Architect

* Robert Mills, as Federal Architect, 1836 to 1842 *

Ammi B. Young Ammi Burnham Young (June 19, 1798 – March 14, 1874) was a 19th-century American architect whose commissions transitioned from the Greek Revival to the Neo-Renaissance styles. His design of the second Vermont State House brought him fame and su ...

, as Architectural Advisor, 1842 to 1852 * Ammi B. Young, 1852 to 1862 (first Supervising Architect ''per se'') * Isaiah Rogers, 1863 to 1865 *

Alfred B. Mullett Alfred Bult Mullett (April 7, 1834 – October 20, 1890) was a British-American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Office of the Supervising Architect, Supervising Architect, head of the government agency, agency of the United States Treas ...

, 1865 to 1874 * William Appleton Potter, 1874 to 1877 *

James G. Hill James G. Hill (1841–1913) was an American architect who, during the period 1876 to 1883, headed the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury, which oversaw major Federal buildings. During that period he ...

, 1877 to 1883 * Mifflin E. Bell, 1883 to 1886 *

William A. Freret William Alfred Freret, Jr. Will Freret"(b. in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 19, 1833; d. 1911) was an American architect. He served from 1887 to 1888 as head of the Office of the Supervising Architect, which oversaw construction of Federal bu ...

, 1887 to 1888 *

James H. Windrim James Hamilton Windrim (January 4, 1840 – April 26, 1919) was a Philadelphia architect who specialized in public buildings, including the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia and the U.S. Treasury. A number the buildings he designed are on the ...

, 1889 to 1890 *

Willoughby J. Edbrooke Willoughby James Edbrooke (1843–1896) was an American architect and a bureaucrat who remained faithful to a Richardsonian Romanesque style into the era of Beaux-Arts architecture in the United States, supported by commissions from conservative ...

, 1891 to 1892 *

Jeremiah O'Rourke Jeremiah O'Rourke, FAIA, (1833 – 1915), was an Irish-American architect known primarily for his designs of Roman Catholic churches and institutions and Federal post offices. He was a founder of the Newark-based architectural firms of Jeremiah ...

, 1893 to 1894 *

William Martin Aiken William Martin Aiken (April 1, 1855 – December 7, 1908) was an American architect who served as Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury and oversaw and participated in the design and construction of numerous federal buildings during ...

, 1895 to 1896 * James Knox Taylor, 1897 to 1912 *

Oscar Wenderoth Oscar Wenderoth (1871–1938) was an American architect who served as director of the Office of the Supervising Architect from 1912 to 1915. He is identified as the architect of many government buildings built during that period, including some li ...

, 1913 to 1914 *

James A. Wetmore James Alfonso Wetmore (November 1863 – March 14, 1940) was an American lawyer and administrator, best known as the Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department from 1915 through 1933. ...

, as Acting Supervising Architect, 1915 to 1933 *

Louis A. Simon Louis Adolphe Simon (1867–1958) was an American architect. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Simon was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a tour of Europe, he opened an architectural office in Baltimore, M ...

, 1933 to 1939

References

External links

History of the Office of the Supervising Architect
United States Department of the Treasury agencies Architecture occupations Defunct agencies of the United States government {{architecture-stub

Tarsney Act

Heads of Office of the Supervising Architect

See also

References

External links