Uncomfortable Court

While the U. S. was waiting last week for the Justices of the U. S. Supreme Court to make up their minds about TVA, workmen draped the elaborate Italian ceiling of the 64-ft. square courtroom with a cheap canvas screen. Also last week in Manhattan a onetime partner of the architect responsible for that classic pile across the plaza from the Capitol sued the architect's son and daughter for a sum estimated at a quarter of a million dollars.

Functionalists and other extreme modernists rubbed their hands in glee at both events because in the few months since its opening the gleaming $11,000,000 Supreme Court Building has become an all-star exhibit of all the faults they blame on traditional architecture.

In 1926, after years of argument, Congress appropriated money to build a suitable home for the Supreme Court, which for nearly 70 years had been meeting in dusty discomfort in the original Senate chamber in the Capitol. Chairman of the building committee was Chief Justice William Howard Taft, who easily persuaded his fellow members to appoint white-haired, dignified Cass Gilbert as architect.

Architect Gilbert had a proud record of achievement. From his drafting boards had come Manhattan's Woolworth Building, the Minnesota Capitol, the New York Customs House, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, the Detroit Public Library--all of them handsome, elaborate, rich in borrowed decoration. On the Supreme Court Building, Chief Justice Taft gave him three orders: "The building must conform in design with the Capitol. It should be enduring. And Mrs. Taft says it should be easy to keep clean."

Following Order No. 1, Architect Gilbert designed a Corinthian temple, flanked by two utilitarian wings for offices, waiting rooms, conference chambers, etc. Following Order No. 2, though the building has a steel frame, its masonry walls are strong enough to support it should every steel beam rust away. Following Order No. 3, the building is almost entirely of marble.

Still anxious to please Mrs. Taft, Architect Gilbert designed a courtroom that to the casual visitor is one of the most impressive chambers in the U. S. A row of Ionic columns surrounds it. Bronze and steel grilles shut off the wing corridors. A handsome sculptured frieze surrounds the walls. The bench itself is a chaste and dignified bar of polished mahogany.

But Architect Gilbert seemed to have designed his building from the viewpoint of visiting tourists rather than from that of the lawyers and Justices who must work there. Marble, though permanent (and easily cleaned, is a chilly substance, reflects innumerable echoes.

The nine elderly Justices had hardly moved into their new quarters last October than they began to complain of drafts. The heating was increased. Then they found that they could not hear from one end of the bench to the other, that lawyers before them were almost forced to shout.

Acoustics engineers were called in, deadened the echoes by hanging crimson velvet curtains between each of the columns. This shut out so much light that the Justices found they could not see to read. Elaborate chandeliers were dropped from the ceiling. They shone in the Justices' eyes. Finally a set of nine bronze desk lamps was installed on the bench itself. Greatly irked. Associate Justice Brandeis refused to accept one. plunked down in front of him a battered, goose-necked student lamp of his own.

Finally it was decided that the ceiling, gilded, carved and painted at great expense, was too dark. So last week a white canvas frame was stretched over it. During the summer the ceiling will be repainted and by next autumn Architect Gilbert's son and successor may have produced a courtroom in which the New Deal's severest critics will feel more at home.

Cass Gilbert Jr. will probably have to find a new partner to assist him. Onetime partner in the firm of Cass Gilbert Inc. was John R. Rockart. In New York's Supreme Court last week he brought suit, claiming that during Cass Gilbert's lifetime he had an arrangement guaranteeing him "more than one-eighth" of the gross architectural commissions on which he worked. Since Architect Gilbert's death in May, 1934, John Rockart insists that he was in complete charge of the Supreme Court Building operations, hence deserves one-fourth of the profits on the building during Cass Gilbert's lifetime, three-quarters of the profits since.

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