the bureau of construction, 1852 1865 49
Department during the 1850s was the Italian Renaissance palazzo
style, adapted to public buildings. The popularization of this style has
been credited to Sir Charles Barry of Great Britain whose Travellers
Club and Reform Club buildings in London sparked a rage for build-
ings that resembled an Italian Renaissance palace. As compared with
many picturesque Italianate residences, these public buildings were
more in the classical mode, with carefully balanced proportions,
heavy rustication at the ground floor, and quoins or pilasters at the
corners. Young s designs lent an air of simple official dignity to the
federal government s presence in the communities in which they
were located. The Italian palazzo model required less building mate-
rials per unit of usable space than the temple model and could be
built flush with the building lot line, making it a compatible neigh-
bor with the surrounding urban street.30
The buildings for Rutland, Vermont (figure 3.2), and Mobile,
Alabama (figure 3.3) typify the range of Young s designs. In these mul-
tipurpose buildings, postal functions were assigned to the first floor
because it was the most accessible to the public. Customs collections
normally occupied the second floor. If a third floor was available, it
was usually assigned to federal judicial functions because it was the
farthest from the street noises. Marine hospitals were designed as
large functional structures but ornamented with elaborate porches
and balconies for convalescents.
After the design and specifications were complete, the next task at
hand was to prepare copies for distribution to prospective contrac-
tors by the superintendent of construction. These copies also al-
lowed the staff at the Treasury Department in Washington and the
superintendents at the building sites to work and communicate from
identical documents. Copies of the written specifications were
printed and published as small books. The drawings were duplicated
through the lithographic process. Lithography, a method to produce
inexpensive printed images, became perfected in the late eighteenth
century in Germany. Greasy ink drawings were made on a large stone
that had its surface polished with special machinery. When the stone
was wetted, the water passed over the ink. A sheet of paper was then
pressed on the stone, thereby creating a reversed impression of the
drawing. Gum arabic and a weak acid solution kept the inked design
from spreading on the stone.31
The lithography firms used by the Bureau of Construction in-
cluded August Köllner of Philadelphia and Bradford & Co. of Boston.
Of the two, Köllner was the one most frequently listed on the printed