Government building

“ The public buildings now in process of construction, numbering 80, involving constant supervision, are all the building projects which the Government ought to have on hand at one time, unless a very palpable necessity exists for an increase in the number. ”

“ To the somewhat vague reference to “the nature and description of the work,” he replies by inviting a comparison between the New Palace and any other modern building, to show that in “variety of design, elaboration of details, and difficulties of combination and construction, the labour and responsibility incurred are greater than in any modern edifice,” and by referring to official delays and perplexities, and the control of Parliamentary Committees added to that of the Government. ”

“ We found that nearly every chamber had its own building and that all were handsomely housed, well financed and extremely effective. They have become a most important part of the government, handling with success many problems that are difficult for a government and which, at the same time, require a certain amount of governmental authority if they are to be disposed of in an efficient manner. ”

“ Building proceeds at such a rate that the big city seems to be growing while you look at it, but there are plenty of open spaces. Government House, in red brick and white stone, with an old bronze bell hung in front of the portico between two brass cannon, stands in a goodly park with fine trees and wide lawns and the Royal Lakes, across which there is a beautiful view of the Shwe Dagon, are surrounded by large grounds with {13} trim, well-kept walks and drives. ”

“ Every year every minor local governing body pulls down a building selected by local plebiscite, and the greater Government pays a slight compensation to the owner, and resumes possession of the land it occupies. ”

“ It is equally possible to expect a reasonably high standard of design in the other buildings erected under a local authority: its schools, libraries, and so on. Nor ought one to find unworthy architecture produced by any Government Department, whether it be a post-office, a telephone-exchange, a military barracks, or a coastguard station on a lonely cliff. ”

“ The location of such a public building, which should provide for the pressing necessities of the present and for the vast increase of the nation's books in the future, is a matter which addresses itself to the discretion of Congress. ”

“ Each building constructed or altered by the Postal Service shall be constructed or altered only after consideration of all requirements (other than procedural requirements) of zoning laws, land use laws, and applicable environmental laws of a State or subdivision of a State which would apply to the building if it were not a building constructed or altered by an establishment of the Government of the United States. ”

“ The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place. ”

“ Public buildings of course demand the first attention; and in a country like our own, owing its prosperity to its commercial enterprise, its political organisation, and its unequalled system of municipal government, we have witnessed in the course of the last few years the commencement, progress, and completion of costly and magnificently adorned buildings. ”

“ The annals of our cities are full of the creation of appointive state boards composed of men of the highest local standing and intrusted with the carrying out of some great single project,—the erection of a city hall building, the construction of a water works and filtration plant, or of a park system. ”

“ An ‘‘anonymous work’’ is a work on the copies or phonorecords of which no natural person is identified as author. An ‘‘architectural work’’ is the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings. ”

“ Many great buildings and beautiful buildings will be created by private effort; but many of the greatest buildings must necessarily be erected by the Government, national, State, or municipal. Those in control of any branch of that Government necessarily have but an ephemeral lease of power. Administration succeeds administration; Congress succeeds Congress; Legislature succeeds Legislature ”

“ The Architect recommends that some provision be made by Congress for inclosing, planting and otherwise improving the grounds surrounding the Capitol building which belong to the United States, and also for paving both of the streets and foot-ways around the lower grounds of the building. ”

“ In planning and building new postal facilities, the Postal Service shall emphasize the need for facilities and equipment designed to create desirable working conditions for its officers and employees, a maximum degree of convenience for efficient postal services, proper access to existing and future air and surface transportation facilities, and control of costs to the Postal Service. ”

“ The latitudinous construction, contended for by one party and one section, has been the open door through which the people have complained. A strict construction gives to the general government all the powers it can beneficially exert, all that is necessary for it to have, and all that the States ever purposed to grant. ”

“ Perhaps had I been treated with a more forbearing indulgence while committing those memorable blunders, for a want of a sufficient knowledge in the science of government, I might, after the rays of light had illuminated my mind, have rendered my country much more important services, and not only assisted in raising some of the pillars, but have furnished the edifice with a new roof of my own construction, rather better calculated for the convenience and security of those who might wish to take shelter beneath it, than that which it at present enjoys. ”

“ AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS Section 5 of act Dec. 18, 1942, provided that: "In order to carry out the purposes of this Act [sections 13 to 16 of this title] there is authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of (a) $450,000 for the erection and equipment of a building or buildings, including plumbing, lighting, heating, general service, and experimental equipment and apparatus, the necessary roads, walks, and ground improvement, and land for the site of the building if no land is donated ”

“ But the structural lines of the old Executive office building will remain. The artistic lines of the White House buildings were the creation of master builders when our Republic was young. The simplicity and the strength of the structure remain in the face of every modern test. ”

“ It would become the functions of public officials to provide shelter, food, and service for every comer, unless travelling is to be forbidden in the Socialist commonwealth. Then, again, the whole of the building business will be in the hands of the State. Public and private edifices, dwellings, schools, hospitals, insane asylums, storehouses, theatres, museums, public halls, post and telegraph offices, railroad stations, would have to be erected and kept in repair, or enlarged as necessity required. ”

“ Under the legislation cited, developments of private property may be to a considerable extent controlled, bill-boards may be abolished, structures may be limited in height, the design of private buildings may be modified, solely in the interest of the public’s sense of beauty. ”

“ Adjoining the town hall, and covering fully an acre of land, is a handsome block of buildings, devoted to the various Government departments, including the Treasury, Railways, Lands and Survey, Public Works, and Post Office. ”

“ The Government House is a fine specimen of architecture, and is built around an open square ornamented like a garden, but really little less than a citadel if necessity should require it to assume that form. ”

“ Like all other edifices, local self-government is built up from below. It is built on its own foundation. You cannot begin replacing an edifice by removing the top or middle stones and replacing them with others. ”

“ I recommend also such legislation as will render available and efficient for the purposes of instruction, so far as is consistent with the public service, the cabinets or museums of invention, of surgery, of education, and of agriculture, and other collections the property of the National Government.
The capital of the nation should be something more than a mere political center. ”

“ One of the patriotic members of the city government, distinguished for his enterprise, and his public spirit, undertook the job, and gave to the ancient walls of unhewn stone their existing "form and pressure;"—at an amount, too, not much exceeding, probably, twice the cost of two new buildings of the same dimensions.
Architecture is one of the crowning glories of a city; and nothing more strongly indicates the cultivation of a people, than refinement in this beautiful department of science. ”

“ Can we even ask that they should not be violently opposed to one another, not mutually destructive? Yes. But this can be secured in only one way. Local authorities must be given, or must take upon themselves, the duty of controlling building operations in all public places. ”

“ The care and protection which the Government owes to the people do not embrace the grant of public buildings to decorate thriving and prosperous cities and villages, nor should such buildings be erected upon any principle of fair distribution among localities. ”

“ Especially is wariness enjoined when the problem of construction implicates one of the recurring phases of our federalism and involves striking a balance between national and state authority in one of the most sensitive areas of government. ”

“ The type of control over city building which we are now to consider, however, is peculiar to a governmental agency. It grows out of the duty of the administrative body representing all the people to protect the rights of all from individual aggression. ”

“ There is nothing remarkable about the Government House; it is a plain 25edifice of one story in height, with lofty rooms; the aviary, the menagerie, the garden, and a pleasant promenade, where the society of the station assemble, are the most attractive features of the place. ”

“ The city does not deceive itself into supposing that that great building is a unit from which the police are to keep out and the civic authority to be excluded, but it says: "These are public highways, and light is needed in them, and control by the authority of the city." ”

“ In fact, I approve of the Government owning its own buildings in all sections of the country, and hope the day is not far distant when it will not only possess them, but will erect in the capital suitable residences for all persons who now receive commutation for quarters or rent at Government expense, and for the Cabinet, thus setting an example to the States which may induce them to erect buildings for their Senators. ”

“ There should be at least four out-buildings, detached from the main edifice and from each other, and in such positions as shall at once answer the purposes of the institution, and be consistent with the symmetry of the whole establishment: each building should be, as far as practicable, devoted to a distinct purpose ”

“ Such an organization, by the conservative exercise of the control delegated to it by a constitution upon which all local organizations can unite, could do a great work in looking after the interests of the various crafts and callings engaged in the building industry ”

“ It contemplates structures of utility and of beauty. When it reaches completion the people will be well served and the Federal city will be supplied with the most beautiful and stately public buildings which adorn any capital in the world. ”

“ Neither population nor the extent of the public business transacted has always indicated the points where public buildings should first be built or the cost of the structures. It can not be expected that, in the absence of some general law, the committees of Congress having charge of such matters will proceed in their recommendations upon strict or equal lines. ”

“ I believe that our government ought to inaugurate a new policy in this matter and build up in the chief capitals of foreign nations on land convenient to the foreign office buildings suitable in every way for the residences and offices of our diplomatic representatives. Such buildings constructed according to a characteristic American style of architecture and furnished like an American home would not only give to our representative a fixed habitation, but would exhibit to the people of the country in which he is accredited the American manner of living. ”

“ Whilst a Bill for re-building the city was being prepared for parliament the civic authorities were busy considering how to find the money necessary for re-building the Guildhall, the city's gates, the prisons and other public buildings. ”

“ Under the head of Municipal Architecture is included every application of the science to those purposes of social life not included under the former heads, such as public buildings of all descriptions connected with the civil business of life, up to the arrangements of entire cities. Men, therefore, must have been assembled together for some time, they must have agreed upon certain compacts and regulations of society, before this branch could have made any progress in the world. ”

“ Judging from a perusal of The Builder that it is your intention to give to the building world the first information upon all matters connected with its interests, I beg therefore to apprize you that at this moment, a bill is preparing very secretly (at least the ground-work for one) for Parliament, upon which it is presumed, as secretly will be obtained, a New Building Act. ”