Louisiana State Capitol

Within the stream of ideological bias that taints your pages, the editorial by Mr. Codrescu stands out for its extremism. He presents the Louisiana State Capitol exclusively as a manifestation of Huey Long’s dictatorial aspirations and therefore a building (and a style of architecture) to be reviled. This incriminating association is confirmed by an extended analogy between Long and Stalin. At no time does he mention the architectural quality of the building, as this would presumably mitigate the categorical condemnation of depression-era classicism as the style of dictatorship. (For a nuanced discussion of Huey Long and his circumstances see Liberalism and its Discontents by Alan Brinkley)

Where does one start exposing Mr. Codrescu to the facts on the ground (that American, pragmatic, way to say: spare us the theory)? Shall we point out that Franklin Roosevelt’s America, cradle of liberalism, produced more buildings in this style than all the contemporaneous dictatorships together? Or shall we remind him that the belligerent, jack-booted, black-shirted, fascist Giuseppi Terragni practiced a superb modernist architecture? But perhaps he should just return to Baton Rouge to see for himself that the brutalist City Hall (the ”Municipal Services Building”) of the 1970’s is incomparably more repressive than Long’s State Capitol?

Even a moderately erudite person could demonstrate by sheer weight of evidence that the style and quality of an architecture is only randomly associated with its political circumstance. Stalin built excellent worker’s housing while Johnson’s H.U.D. built it very badly. To paraphrase Leon Krier’s assessment of Albert Speer: “Among the crimes that may be laid to Huey Long, bad architecture cannot be included.”

The State Capitol, the State University Campus, and the magnificent parkways of Long’s administration are a source of enduring pride to Louisianans of impeccable democratic credentials. Their Capitol is considered to be in league with only one other: Bertram Goodhue’s for Nebraska; a building that, incidentally, manifests a similar tower, is designed in the same style, and is ornamented with same kind of blood-and-earth carvings as Louisiana’s. How does Mr. Codrescu explain such phenomena in the absence of a demagogic stimulant in Nebraska?

The fact is that architecture manifests the fashion of its time, the talent of its architects and the skill of its artisans. It is absurd, given our national capital, to introduce to the United Sates the post-war Germanic intolerance of any traditional architecture as the manifestation of repression. If we must have a European-type ideological criticism, let us instead apply the method of the Italians towards the many wonderful buildings of their Fascist era:” These were not built by Mussolini, but by the hands of the Italian people.” A similar assessment of the Louisiana State Capitol would have the advantage of being true.