9. Art in Government Center

Dimitri Hadzi, “Thermopylae” (Photo by author)

American sculptor Dimitri Hadzi (1921-2006) is known his craftsmanship and formal aesthetics. He was born in Greenwich Village and studied at Cooper Union, the Polytechnion in Athens, and the Belle Arte (Museo Artistico Industrial) in Rome. He was a professor of visual and environmental studies at Harvard, and primarily taught printmaking and sculpture.[1] Upon seeing some of Hadzi’s artwork, Walter Gropius architect of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, commissioned him to make a sculpture for the building.[2]

The sculpture was inspired by John F. Kennedy’s brilliant war record in the PT109 during WWII, and his Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage (1957), which relates the stories of eight US Senators who maintained integrity and bravery in the face of opposition. Therefore, the sculpture relates both the myth of JFK and the courageous free-thinking pioneer of the American Dream through the foundations of Greek and Roman history. Unlike the figurative forms of classical sculptures, “Thermopylae” has been semi-abstracted. It seems without reading the small plaque that accompanies it, one would not understand the correlation between it, the building, JFK, or its commemoration of courage. “Thermopylae” was funded by the Federal Government through the AIA, or the Art-in-Architecture Program.

The sculpture was inspired by John F. Kennedy’s brilliant war record in the PT109 during WWII, and his Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage (1957), which relates the stories of eight US Senators who maintained integrity and bravery in the face of opposition. Therefore, the sculpture relates both the myth of JFK and the courageous free-thinking pioneer of the American Dream through the foundations of Greek and Roman history. Unlike the figurative forms of classical sculptures, “Thermopylae” has been semi-abstracted. It seems without reading the small plaque that accompanies it, one would not understand the correlation between it, the building, JFK, or its commemoration of courage. “Thermopylae” was funded by the Federal Government through the AIA, or the Art-in-Architecture Program.[4]

“Sculptural Studies I,” Dimitri Hadzi, 1969 [1]

The Hood Museum of Art in New Hampshire contains a 15” bronze model of the full- scale sculpture and a ink drawing that seems to be a preliminary sketch for the “Thermopylae” (above) [5] It took three years to make the final sculpture, which consisted of twenty different pieces welded together.[6] The “Thermopylae” plays with positive and negative space. The form utilizes both dense volume (positive) and empty space (negative) by juxtaposing heavy bronze shapes with less dense bronze and open spaces. It also exhibits strong horizontal and vertical shapes that emphasizes stability and strength through its robust forms.

Detail of “Thermopylae” (Photo by author)

Detail of concrete, City Hall, Boston (Photo by author)

The textured bronze echoes the hand-poured concrete of the nearby City Hall, and contrasts with the glass building behind it (above). The installation of the sculpture directly next to the glass building leaves it little breathing room, perhaps it would have a different effect if it had been installed closer to the plaza. The plaque for “Thermopylae” says it is supposed to “through the effect of the sun, rain, and snow on the sculpture the viewer is provided with ever-changing visual and emotional experiences.” I have visited the sculpture at different times of the day, and it is always half, or three-fourth in shadow. Is this how it was meant to be viewed, or has the environment changed greatly since its installation? Does an “ever-changing visual” experience benefit, or distract the viewer from contemplating its thematic purpose?

Robert Motherwell’s New England Elegy

Motherwell, “New England Elegy,” 1966, JFK Federal Building, Boston (Photo by author)

In 1963, the Government Service Administrator Bernard L. Boutin established the Art-in- Architecture Program (AIA), an organization to commission artworks for federal buildings. From 1963 to 1966, the AIA program commissioned forty-five works of art in a strategic effort to integrate art into new office spaces. In 1966, the GSA commissioned and installed Motherwell’s abstract expressionist mural “New England Elegy” (1966) into the John F. Kennedy Federal Building. This was the first time the AIA sponsored the purchase and installation of art for a government building. Unfortunately, the public was immediately outraged over the Motherwell mural because they believed that the painting literally depicted Kennedy’s assassination. During this period of time, America’s collective wounds were still raw. The AIA’s program was suspended until 1972, because the Motherwell project was considered to be a great disaster.[7]

New England Elegy (Photo by author)

The mural hangs near the entrance that faces Cambridge Street. It has been installed perpendicular to the ceiling of the glass hallway, as if floating above, implying a potential connection to an otherworldly place. As one passes in and out of the building, the painting acts as a constant reminder of JFK’s legacy and tragedy. Also, the horizontal mural’s placement within a vertical space mimics the square windows of the rectilinear building, thereby integrating it into the building’s infrastructure. However, one can’t view it close-up. The painting is divided into five sections. The abstract painting resembles a stark landscape with two expressive black horizontals that are punctuated by blue and a narrow streak of yellow. It is at once poetic and powerful.

C. F. Taylor’s UpWard Bound

Charles Fayette Taylor Sr., (1894-1996) was scientist, physicist, professor at MIT in aeronautical engineering and mechanical engineering, and a sculptor. After he retired from MIT in 1960, he made metal sculptures, watercolors, oils, and prints that are in several museums and institutions collections. Most notably, he spearheaded the development of the internal combustion engine and was the chief developer of the air-cooled “whirlwind” engine for aircrafts. This advanced engine was used in Admiral Byrd’s first flight to the North Pole and by Charles Lindberg his first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

He was born in New York. At the age of fourteen, he became fascinated by airplanes after reading about the Wright brothers’ flights of 1904 and 1905. During World War I, he first served as an inspector of aircraft material for the U.S. Signal Corps. After three months, he was placed in charge of the Navy’s Aeronautical Engine Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1920, he received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Throughout the 1920s, Taylor worked as the chief engineer of the U.S. Army’s Air Service Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, performing engine endurance and aircraft flight tests. Then he went on to develop airplane engine design at the Wright Aeronautical Corp.[8]

This fascination can be seen in the form of his “Upward Bound” sculpture at the Government Services Center, Boston, MA. It faces out from the portico to New Chardon Street, the original pathway people were meant to take traveling between City Hall plaza and JFK building (below).

Charles Fayette Taylor, “Upward Bound,” 1970, Government Services Center, Boston (Photo by author)

“Upward Bound” seen in-between the columns of Government Services Center, facing out to New Chardon Street, Boston. (Courtesy of Google Maps)

The 30 ft wide sculpture is made up of brass cylindrical poles that have been welded together and are supported by four steel struts and twenty-five stainless steel cables. The poles intersect at the center creating cross-like formations in several areas. These semi-flat planes have a wing-like appearance. The upward movement of the sculpture is meant to symbolize the work of the employees of the Division of Employment security. They assist people in growing through economic and work opportunities.[9]

View of “Upward Bound” (Photo by author)

The imaginative flight that the sculpture conjures relates in spirit to the so-called insane architecture in its embrace of the uncharted, and experimental.[10]
However, the scale is off and it is difficult to notice this artwork when walking around the Government Services center. The sculpture at 17 ft above the ground has been hung very high, and is obscured by many columns (above).[11]Consequently, it appears diminutive in relationship to the building and suffers from a lack of lighting. Over casts days, contribute to the gray color of the sculpture blends with the concrete architecture. The scale of the structure and delicate shape would be better suited to an open space.

Taylor was the director of the Sloan Laboratory for aircraft and automotive engineering at MIT from 1929 to 1960. While at MIT, he developed the fundamentals of scientific framework for engine design and operation, helping to establish MIT as an internationally renowned center of science. His two volume book “The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice” was groundbreaking within in the field of automotive engineering. In the 1970s, he wrote his autobiography, which is housed at MIT.[12]

Constantino Nivola’s Graffito Murals

Nivola murals, Charles F. Hurley Employment Security Building, Boston, 1969 (Photo by Daniel M. Abramson)

Constantino Nivola (1911-1988) was a sculptor who worked primarily in East Hampton, NY. He was born in Sardinia and trained painting, architecture, and design in both Milan and Paris. During the late 1940s, Nivola was neighbors with Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko on the East End of Long Island. Nivola’s sand-cast and plaster murals demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of scale and material that he acquired from both the architects Jose Luis Sert and Le Cobusier, and his background as a Sardinian mason.[13]

Constantino’s mural (1969) is located inside the lobby of the Charles F. Hurley and the Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center at the Government Service Center, Boston, MA. It is part of the trio of buildings that provide health, wellness, and education services at Staniford, New Chardon, and Cambridge Streets. This new building consolidated the offices of five administrative offices and four placement offices into one. Nivola was the winner of the American Institute of Architects’ Fine Art medal in 1967. The murals take up the entire height and length of each wall and delineates the complex purpose of the building.[14]The coordinating architect Paul Rudolph’s design combines the rectilinearity of his Yale design with the dramatic curved forms of his Endo Laboratories building on Long Island.[15]

Panel of Nivola’s mural, supermarket (Photo by Daniel M. Abramson)

Panel of Nivola’s mural, family dinner (Photo by Daniel M. Abramson)

This combination of rectilinear and curved forms is present within Nivola’s murals. The three horizontal strata correlate visually to the irregular pattern of streets surrounding Government Center. The right panel’s narrative depicts the hardships of unemployment, the hard life in the city ghetto, the handing out of “unemployment insurance money,” a man buys goods and helping to keep the economy going, and a family celebrating at home.

Panel of Nivola’s mural, hand-out (Photo by Daniel M. Abramson)

The left panel’s narrative depicts the workforce, the workshop, or training involved, the depiction of fingers intertwined symbolically represents the agreeable exchange between an employer and the employment services, industry and culture agriculture production, and the outcome of services leisure time. [16]

Detail of concrete, Government Service Center, Boston (Photo by author)

Close-up of Nivola’s mural, intertwining hands (Photo by Daniel M. Abramson)

Nivola has painted directly onto wet plaster using energetic and impromptu strokes — similar to an action painting on concrete. The mural mimics Rudolph’s use of his famous “bush-hammered” or “corduroy concrete” in that the lines drawn into the concrete break up the smooth surface with jagged edges, rather than crisp lines (above). This is called a “graffito mural.”[17] The concrete is colored in geometric sections with red, yellow, and blue.

The art of both Nivola and Hadzi’s add a Mediterranean aspect to the American architecture and a debt to classical antiquity. Taylor’s sculpture compliments Government Center with references to science and aeronautics, conjuring up the excitement of space age travel brought about by the landing on the moon. Lastly, Motherwell’s Abstract Expressionist painting commemorates the legacy of JFK . All of the artworks chosen for Government Center are representative of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They serve as a time capsule to an age when we were on the threshold: exploring space and performing scientific discoveries, pioneering economic and mental health services, and mourning our country’s loss of innocence.

—By Robin Levine, December 2015

[1] Dimitri Hadzi website. Accessed November 14, 2015. http://dimitrihadzi.com/

[2] Norman C. Fletcher, “The John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building in Boston.” Studies in the History of Art, vol. 50, Symposium Papers XXX: Federal Buildings in Context: The Role of Design Review, National Gallery of Art (1995): 41. Accessed November 1, 2015 from JStor.

[3] Fletcher, 43.

[4] Salil K. Gandhi, “The Pendulum of Art Procurement Policy: The Art-in-Architecture Program’s Struggle to Balance Artistic Freedom and Public Acceptance.” Public Contract Law Journal, 31, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 536. Accessed November 1, 2015 from JStor.

[5] Hood Museum of Art.edu. Last updated November 11, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2015. https:// piction.dartmouth.edu and Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Burke. Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art. Hanover, N.H.: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2009.

[6] Dimitri Hadzi website.

[7] Gandhi, 535-536, 544-545.

[8] MIT News. “C.F. Taylor Sr., Retired MIT Professor Who Pioneered Development of Aircraft Engines, Dies at 101.” June 27, 1996. Accessed November 14, 2015. http://news.mit.edu/1996/taylor and
MIT website. “Professor C. Fayette Taylor.” MIT, Sept 1994. http://web.mit.edu/hmtl/www/taylor.pdf

[9] “Charles F. Hurley Employment Security Building Art and Architecture.” pamphlet, n.p., n.d., 6.

[10] Michele Koh, “Architecture of Insanity: Boston Government Service Center.” Singapore Architect, April 2010:148-153.

[11] “Charles F. Hurley Employment Security Building Art and Architecture,” 6.

[12] MIT News. “C.F. Taylor Sr., Retired MIT Professor Who Pioneered Development of Aircraft Engines, Dies at 101.” June 27, 1996. Accessed November 14, 2015. http://news.mit.edu/1996/taylor, 2.

[13] “Constantino Nivalo,” The Drawing Room. press release, July 2007. Accessed November 17, 2015. http:// drawingroom-gallery.com/press-releases/CNivola-07-Release.pdf

[14]“Charles F. Hurley,” 2-5.

[15] Mondo blog. “Constantine Nivola: Lost in Hamptons.” Accessed November 14, 2015. http://mondo- blogo.blogspot.com/2010/09/costantino-nivola-lost-in-hamptons.html.

[16] Charles F. Hurley,” 2-5. 17 Koh, 148-153.

[17] Mondo blog. “Constantine Nivola: Lost in Hamptons.” Accessed November 14, 2015. http://mondo- blogo.blogspot.com/2010/09/costantino-nivola-lost-in-hamptons.html.

Works Cited

“Charles F. Hurley Employment Security Building Art and Architecture.” pamphlet, n.p., n.d.

“Constantino Nivalo.” The Drawing Room. press release, July 2007. Accessed November 17, 2015. http://drawingroom-gallery.com/press-releases/CNivola-07-Release.pdf

Dimitri Hadzi website. Accessed November 14, 2015. http://dimitrihadzi.com/

Fletcher, Norman C. “The John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building in Boston.” Studies in the History of Art, vol. 50, Symposium Papers XXX: Federal Buildings in Context: The Role of Design Review, National Gallery of Art (1995): 39-43. Accessed November 1, 2015 from JStor.

Gandhi, Salil K. “The Pendulum of Art Procurement Policy: The Art-in-Architecture Program’s Struggle to Balance Artistic Freedom and Public Acceptance
.” Public Contract Law Journal, 31, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 535-557. Accessed November 1, 2015 from JStor.

Hood Museum of Art.edu Last updated November 11, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2015. https://piction.dartmouth.edu/icons/images/oc/index.html?surl=1294111229ZZOIVXAKWOMQ#d17956796.

Kennedy, Brian P. and Emily Burke. Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art. Hanover, N.H.: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2009.

Koh, Michele. “Architecture of Insanity: Boston Government Service Center.” Singapore Architect, April 2010: 148-153.

MIT News. “C.F. Taylor Sr., Retired MIT Professor Who Pioneered Development of Aircraft Engines, Dies at 101.” June 27, 1996. Accessed November 14, 2015. http://news.mit.edu/1996/taylor.

MIT website. “Professor C. Fayette Taylor.” MIT, Sept 1994. http://web.mit.edu/hmtl/www/taylor.pdf.

Mondo blog. “Constantine Nivola: Lost in Hamptons.” Accessed November 14, 2015. http://mondo-blogo.blogspot.com/2010/09/costantino-nivola-lost-in-hamptons.html

Image Credits

[1]Dimitri Hadzi, Sculptural Studies, 1969, pen and ink on woven paper, 10 1/16 x 14 15/16 in., Hood Museum of Art, https://piction.dartmouth.edu/icons/images/oc/index.html?surl=1211492962ZZJTTYVCYRMD#d17988119, accessed December 10, 2015.

[2] MIT website. “Professor C. Fayette Taylor.” MIT, Sept 1994. http://web.mit.edu/hmtl/www/taylor.pdf. pg 2.

[3] Mondo blog. “Constantine Nivola: Lost in Hamptons.” Accessed November 14, 2015. http://mondo-blogo.blogspot.com/2010/09/costantino-nivola-lost-in-hamptons.html

All other photographs taken by Robin Levine and Daniel M. Abramson, © 2015.