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 national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

that designed federal 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 State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

, and

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

building (now the

Eisenhower Executive Office Building The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB)—formerly known as the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), and originally as the State, War, and Navy Building—is a U.S. government building situated just west of the White House in the U.S. ca ...

) 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 Morg ...

, 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 se ...

s that have served communities for decades, many recognized as

National Historic Landmarks A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

, 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 ...

, or designated as local

landmarks A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

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 American politician from Missouri and an associate justice of the Oklahoma Territory Supreme Court (1896-1899). He then returned to Kansas City, Missouri, where he had a private ...

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, 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 Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and ...

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, 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 Supervising Architect, head of the agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildi ...

, 1865 to 1874 *

William Appleton Potter William Appleton Potter (December 10, 1842 – February 19, 1909) was an American architect who designed numerous buildings for Princeton University, as well as municipal offices and churches. He served as a Supervising Architect of the Treasury ...

, 1874 to 1877 * James G. Hill, 1877 to 1883 *

Mifflin E. Bell Mifflin Emlen Bell (October 20, 1847 – May 31, 1904), often known as M.E. Bell, was an American architect who served from 1883 to 1886 as Supervising Architect of the US Treasury Department. Bell delegated design responsibilities to staff mem ...

, 1883 to 1886 * William A. Freret, 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 durin ...

, 1895 to 1896 *

James Knox Taylor James Knox Taylor (October 11, 1857 – August 27, 1929) was Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1897 to 1912. His name is listed ''ex officio'' as supervising architect of hundreds of federal buildings bu ...

, 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 l ...

, 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, 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