Park Tower

Park Tower, an apartment building constructed in 1928-1929, is one of Washington's finest examples of pre-International Style modern buildings. Designed by William Harris, the building was among the first major buildings in Washington to break away from the Beaux Arts and Colonial Revival architectural expression While other apartment buildings of a later date were designed in a style similar to that of Park Tower, few exhibit the integrated approach to form and detail that mark this prominently sited building. Because of the early date of Park Tower's Art Deco styling and the degree to which it incorporates design themes that dominated 1920s architectural aesthetics, Park Tower reflects important changes in aesthetic philosophy and illustrates a significant expression of this architectural style in Washington.

Park Tower was one of Washington's fashionable addresses during the 1930s. Across from newly developed Meridian Hill Park, the building wrapped around the French Embassy located at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Kalorama Road. The year it opened, Park Tower housed congressmen, physicians, newspaper correspondents, attorneys, and local businessmen (Polk's City Directory 1930). Congressman Hampton Pitts Fulmer (Democrat-South Carolina), who lived in Apartment 514, was the author of the US. Standard Cotton Grading Act later became adopted worldwide as a standard for grading that commodity.

Park Tower was designed by architect William Harris for developers 2. Thomas Goldsmith and William Keller. The building itself was financed by Shannon and Luchs who supplied money to construct a number of large apartment buildings during this period. Little is known about the three individuals directly involved in constructing Park Tower. William Harris was an unregistered architect who also designed the LaReine Apartments (1929) at Connecticut and Legation for Goldsmith and Keller and the Ravenel at 1610 Sixteenth Street (1929). His father, Albert Harris, was the City Architect of Washington and a partner in the firm of Hornblower and Marshall. According to John Clagett Proctor, William Harris was born in Laurel, Maryland on August 14, 1901. Educated in Washington, he graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1926 he entered into an association with his father as a member of Harris and Harris, establishing his own firm in January 1927. Proctor further wrote that "he gives his efforts to general architectural practice, and has designed several apartment houses within the District of Columbia which have been favorably criticized by authorities on a modern building. Also, he makes a specialty of medium priced residences, and in this connection has participated in development projects in the city".

Park Tower reflects important changes in aesthetic philosophy that mark American architecture in the 1920s. The early decades of the twentieth century were a time of tremendous ferment for the architectural profession in America. Particularly after World War I, "modern" design assumed a polymorphous quality. Modernism was pluralistic during this period, encompassing the following themes to which Park Tower clearly responds:

1. The search for a style that would be an appropriate expression of twentieth-century modern life. In contrast with later visions of modernism, the creation of a national, American modern style was a particular concern.


2. The relationship of tradition to architectural practice. Architects found it difficult to depart from the concept of architectural precedent either in design or ornament.


3. The incorporation of new aesthetic sources and influences. Rather than referring solely to European high style historic precedent, architects began to explore primitive and vernacular models. They were also exposed to new building types -- gas stations, skyscrapers, movie palaces, etc. -- that did not readily lend themselves to historical models and hence furnished appropriate vehicles for architectural experimentation.

This approach to modern design operated within a set of architectural aesthetic preferences that can appropriately be labeled a style. Characteristics of pre-International Style modernism include the following: the importance of mass and silhouette, a preference for bilateral symmetry derived from Beaux Arts axial design, new sources of ornament, the lettering used as a decorative element, and a fascination with surfaces and textures of materials. One of the most influential events in establishing this American aesthetic was the passage of the New York Zoning Act of 1916. This act mandated setbacks as a condition for added height and placed a premium on the ingenious massing of tiered elements. The outline of a tall building became as important as the expression of its solidity. Ziggurats received much attention as an appropriate precedent. As considerations of mass and silhouette began to dominate the architectural design, the appeal of the play of light and shadow across ornament diminished. The architectural expression became more subtle. The treatment of mass, the use of materials, and the grouping of windows -- rather than the detailing of highly plastic ornament - produced the visual effect of the building. Because ornament was secondary to the expression of mass, surfaces themselves began to be used in a decorative manner. While the contrast of surface texture and material employed in the 1920s is often jarring today, it was an integral part of the design aesthetic of the time.

Park Tower's incorporation of these characteristics of pre-International Style modernism on its Sixteenth Street facade makes it a superb example of 1920s modern design. In 1928 the building was described as being in the "modern American architectural style" (Evening Star, August 25, 1928, p. 13). Its forceful bilateral symmetry displays the tenacious influence of the Beaux Arts central axis, Park Tower's stepped roofline produces a ziggurat profile culminating in the rooftop loggia. The facade not only plays upon the contrast of brick to limestone but offers a veritable encyclopedia of brick patterns. Executed in tapestry brick, popular in the 1920s for the surface variation that its different colors provided, the facade incorporates spandrels displaying three different bonds -- header, chevron, and concentric stretchers. The texture of the facade is further enriched by the tile enframed marble panels set above the entry. Sources for much of the ornament lie outside the European tradition. Oak leaves and geometric devices are used for embellishment. Finally, the letters "PARK TOWER" provide the primary interest within the frieze above the entrance.

Park Tower is also an exemplar of Art Deco styling. Art Deco entered the mainstream of popular culture at the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 1925 but evolved into what has been characterized as "an almost universal design passion ... [which) dominated 20th-century art and life for the two decades of the nineteen-twenties and thirties (and) produced some of the most notable monuments of a uniquely American contribution to architectural history, the skyscraper" (Huxtable, "The Skyscraper Style," New York Times Magazine, April 14, 1974, p. 58 et seg). The dominance of the City BeautifulBeaux Arts forms of the monumental Federal City coupled with the limitations on verticality imposed by height restrictions impeded the development of the "skyscraper style" in Washington. Consequently, there are relatively few major buildings executed in this extremely popular style in Washington, DC. Park Tower, one of these major buildings, displays an exterior that is a virtual catalog of popular Art Deco motifs.

The classically derived frontispiece on the front (Sixteenth Street) facade displays an ornament that is streamlined in profile but largely classically inspired: symmetrically placed patera and floral motifs set within squares. Traditional architectural devices like ornamental cornices and bilateral symmetry contrast with machine-age, ultra-modern imagery that appears in the low relief zig-zag motif incorporated in the surround framing the central windows on the 3rd through 5th floors as well as in the dynamism of the overlapped triangles at the second-floor level. Similarly, the rhythm of the projecting bays on the rear, the uninterrupted vertical lines of the front stonework, and the stepped profile of the main facade are clearly in the mode of the elegant skyscrapers then being built in New York, such as the Chanin building of 1929 by Chanin, Sloan and Robertson or Raymond Hood's renowned Ideal Radiator Building and Daily News Building.

This combination of an image of modernity and machine-age power rooted in traditional architectural expression and articulation is the essence of the Art Deco style. The technology of modern commercial buildings was developed in the skyscrapers of the 1920s. Although Park Tower could not reach skyscraper heights in the District of Columbia, it still projects the complex and often contradictory imagery of the Art Deco transition between formal traditions of the past and the machine-age future and does so in an exceptionally well-executed manner.

Park Tower exemplifies both 1920s pre-International Style American modernism and Art Deco styling. It is a valuable part of the architectural heritage of the District of Columbia because of the early date of its Art Deco styling and the degree to which it incorporates Art Deco styling. Along with the C&P Telephone Co. Building (Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker - 1928) and the Capital Garage (Arthur B. Heaton - 1926, now demolished), Park Tower was one of the first major buildings in Washington to adopt a self-consciously modern architectural style. The stylistic innovation apparent in Park Tower in 1928 makes it a forerunner of later buildings like the Kennedy-Warren (1932) and the Dupont Circle Building (1931) and an excellent example of 1920s modernism in Washington.