The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939.
The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among its creations are the well-known State, War, and Navy building (now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) in Washington, DC, the San Francisco Mint Building, and smaller post offices that have served communities for decades, many recognized as National Historic Landmarks, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, or designated as local landmarks.
Until 1893 the office used in-house architects. In 1893 Missouri Congressman John Charles Tarsney introduced a bill that allowed the Supervisory Architect to have competitions among private architects for major structures. Competitions were held for the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Cleveland Federal Building, U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland, and U.S. Customhouse in San Francisco (which are all now on the National Register of Historic Places) among others. The competitions were met with enthusiasm by the architect community but were also marred by scandal as when Taylor picked Cass Gilbert for the New York Customs job. Taylor and Gilbert had been members of the Gilbert & Taylor architecture firm in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1913 the act was repealed. [1]
Sir George Gilbert Scott, largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started his career as a leading designer of workhouses. Over 800 buildings were designed or altered by him.
Alfred Bult Mullett was a British-American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Supervising Architect, head of the agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings. His work followed trends in Victorian style, evolving from the Greek Revival to Second Empire to Richardsonian Romanesque.
Ammi Burnham Young was a 19th-century American architect whose commissions transitioned from the Greek Revival to the Neo-Renaissance styles. His design of the second Vermont State House brought him fame and success, which eventually led him to become the first Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department. As federal architect, he was responsible for creating across the United States numerous custom houses, post offices, courthouses and hospitals, many of which are today on the National Register. His traditional architectural forms lent a sense of grandeur and permanence to the new country's institutions and communities. Young pioneered the use of iron in construction.
John Charles Tarsney was an American politician from Missouri and an associate justice of the Oklahoma Territory Supreme Court (1896-1899). He then returned to Kansas City, Missouri, where he had a private law practice until he died in 1920.
William Martin Aiken was an American architect who served as Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury and oversaw and participated in the design and construction of numerous federal buildings during his appointment that now reside on the National Register of Historic Places.
Willoughby James Edbrooke (1843–1896) was an American architect and a bureaucrat who remained faithful to a Richardsonian Romanesque style into the era of Beaux-Arts architecture in the United States, supported by commissions from conservative federal and state governments that were spurred by his stint in 1891-92 as Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department.
James Knox Taylor was Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1897 to 1912. His name is listed ex officio as supervising architect of hundreds of federal buildings built throughout the United States during the period.
Edward Hale Kendall was an American architect with a practice in New York City.
The Federal Office Building in the West Village of Manhattan, New York City, also known as United States Appraisers' Warehouse, was built between 1892–99. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It is a ten-story Romanesque style building bounded by Christopher, Greenwich, Barrow, and Washington Streets, about four blocks west of Sheridan Square. The building's architect, Willoughby J. Edbrooke, left his successful Chicago practice on being named Supervising Architect of the Treasury in 1891. He died before the completion of the building, but his influence and the influence of the Chicago School of Architecture is evident.
The James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building is a historic post office and courthouse building located at San Francisco, California. It is a courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Completed in 1905 as the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office, it was intended to represent the affluence and increasing importance of the United States as it became a world power. The building survived both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Port Huron, Michigan is a historic courthouse and federal office building located at Port Huron in St. Clair County, Michigan. It is a courthouse of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The Lewis F. Powell Jr. United States Courthouse, also known as the U.S. Post Office and Customhouse, is a historic custom house, post office and courthouse located in Richmond, Virginia. Originally constructed in 1858, it was for decades a courthouse for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. A new federal district courthouse opened in 2008, but the Powell Courthouse still houses the Fourth Circuit. The United States Congress renamed the building for Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., in 1993. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as U.S. Post Office and Customhouse.
The Owen B. Pickett U.S. Custom House is a historic custom house building located at Norfolk, Virginia
James Alfonso Wetmore was an American lawyer and administrator, best known as the Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department from 1915 through 1933.
Louis A. Simon (1867–1958) was an American architect. He spent almost his entire career with the Office of the Supervising Architect for the U.S. Treasury. He served as the last supervising architect from 1934 to 1939 and thereafter of the Public Buildings Branch of the Federal Works Agency until 1941. He was also principal architect for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.