The new federal courthouse building in Jackson has come under some criticism from folks interested in architecture.
Phillip Thomas and Anderson have focused more on the details. Like the cornerstone got the the name of the president in 2010 wrong. No, George W. Bush wasn’t the president last year.
This is apparently a direct result of the General Service Administration’s standard for required cornerstones:
Cornerstone
A cornerstone is required for all new buildings as a part of the exterior wall. The cornerstone should be a cut stone block having a smooth face of size adequate to present the following incised letters: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, (PRESIDENT’S NAME), PRESIDENT, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, (ADMINISTRATOR’S NAME), ADMINISTRATOR, (YEAR OF PROJECT COMPLETION). The words, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, should be in letters 50 mm (2 inches) high and other letters should be proportionally sized by rank.All names should be of those individuals in office during project development prior to construction, if construction is completed during a subsequent President’s term of office.
(I just knew there was a rule for this out there somewhere). Of course, the “YEAR OF PROJECT COMPLETION is wrong, but what the heck.
The groundbreaking for that building occurred in February of 2008, so it’s clear that this complies with the GSA rule. Which is a silly rule.
It seems pretty clear in the regulations. And, it seems pretty clear that the regulations are written such that inscriptions will be transparently wrong at least a good portion of the time.
But, hey, giving the standards of construction these days, what are the odds that that edifice will still be standing 10 or 20 years down the road when anyone would actually be unaware that GWB wasn’t President in 2010?
That’s a fascinating regulation–thanks fro digging that up! I hadn’t noticed the cornerstone when I was taking pictures. Frankly I was worried about getting my camera taken away or being forced to erase my pictures, like several photographers of the McCoy Building downtown have had happen. Given the sometimes decade or longer process that is now normal to bring a federal building from start to finish, I wonder what they would do if they had three presidents to contend with? Planning starts in the last half of one presidency, continues through a one-termer, and finishes up in the next presidency?
Come to think of it, I’m going to start paying attention to when the president’s name started appearing on federal buildings. I have pictures of some post office cornerstones from the 1930s that don’t have the president’s name on them, but the Warren County Courthouse, a WPA project, does have FDR’s name on it.
[...] of Jackson’s new federal courthouse on his blog, NMissCommentor, in a post title “It’s 2010. Do you know who your president is?” In a detail I failed to catch when I was taking pictures of the building for my rant about [...]