The tour was wonderful. We didn’t get the chance to check out the courtyard or the green roof and instead spent so much time on the WPA murals. The Ansel Adams work was neat but it seemed like it was kind of added to the building, (which it was) and not fully integrated into the building like the murals were.
In the late 1930’s when the building was being built the artists worked along side the carpenters, plumbers and electricians. It felt like the artistic statements were integral to the architecture. For example, so many long hallways ended in huge, original murals painted into the plaster. Check out the attached image titled “Construction of the Dam” by William Gropper which was on axis with one of the long hallways. The image fully filled the ending wall and was nearly life size. The “red” influences were hilarious as well. Check out the hammer and sickle references though out the image including the red hankee in the guys pocket on the far right, the sickle shaped into the wood bracket and the hammers, which were scaled down for the final image due to political pressure.
If anyone else wants to jump on a tour you have reserve it a couple weeks in advance. Call Diane Zeigler at 202-208-4743 to make arrangements.
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