NEW COURTHOUSE MODELS

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The beginning of the twentieth century was a time of significant settlement and development in a large portion of Texas that is included in this volume, although these observations apply to the entire state. During this period, two courthouse design models replaced the earlier, cross-axial plan types.First, a Beaux-Arts-inspired, academic classicism became popular for the state’s courthouses. Usually rectangular in form with a single, monumental approach, these courthouses were composed of a ground floor (often including a raised basement) of rusticated masonry with small openings, second and third floors recessed behind monumental columns or pilasters and bracketed by solid end bays, a tall entablature, and frequently a short parapet-like attic floor. This three- to four-story horizontal layering was seldom accented with pediments.Several courthouses follow this grand-order-over-podium format: the Stephens County Courthouse; the Tom Green County Courthouse; the Wichita County Courthouse; the Wilbarger County Courthouse; and the Old Taylor County Courthouse. Federal courthouse projects, including the Abilene Federal Building, and the Wichita Falls U.S. Post Office also followed this model. Architects used the order-over-podium model for private and institutional projects as well, notably for the El Paso High School.After the advent of the Great Depression and Works Progress Administration (WPA) or Public Works Administration (PWA) funding, the order-over-podium type remained in use but with the new, modernizing styling for the U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth leading to increasing simplification evident in the Grayson County Courthouse. A second, concurrent courthouse form has stepped massing composed of low wings bracketing a tall central block, influenced by Eliel Saarinen’s unbuilt but widely published 1908 project for the Finnish Parliament and by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue’s Nebraska State Capitol (1920–1932) in Lincoln. Examples are the San Angelo City Hall (SS3), the Eastland County Courthouse, and the Cottle County Courthouse. Through the 1930s, ornament was largely eliminated, and volumes became closer in size and shape, finally resulting in plain stone-clad boxes, as at Jack County Courthouse. One huge and magnificent building combines both of these form models. The Fort Worth Masonic Temple has a colossal, four-story, two-stepped podium surmounted by a three-story peripteral Ionic temple.—GERALD MOORHEAD

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "NEW COURTHOUSE MODELS", [, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/essays/TX-02-ART209.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 209-209.

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