Philip Kennicott can be a harsh critic, but his views are always well expressed and not easily dismissed. In today's Post, Kennicott argues that the Supreme Court's "mindless" decision to bolt its front door is "a grand affront" to the citizens of a democratic republic. "We are becoming a nation of moles," Kennicott maintains, "timorous creatures who scurry through side and subterranean entrances." What's more, the Court's action has jurisprudential implications, which Kennicott takes to be a sign that we are losing our architectural literacy.
I am inclined to agree, but it is worth noting that the Supreme Court building has never been easy to read. The work of a distinguished Beaux-Arts architect, Cass Gilbert, the Supreme Court building was a Depression-era public works project intended to underscore the authority of an independent judiciary; nevertheless, it was not viewed with favor by all members of the Court. Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, in particular, seems to have thought it a pretentious monstrosity. It is said that Stone complained that the nine justices would be diminished by the building's ostentatiousness--that they would be "nine black beetles in the Temple of Karnak."
Meanwhile, in Architect magazine, Lawrence Hurley reports that some Justices have expressed strong objections to the Court's new security measures.
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