AP Staff Writer, Washington Examiner, December 9, 2012
"The FBI building is an example of Brutalist architecture — derived from the French 'beton brut' meaning 'raw concrete,' a popular style in the 1960s and 1970s.
""I do think it was always an unfortunate work of architecture.'
"FBI building is ill-proportioned and ominous.
"'its harsh and overbearing design and how it deadens street life on all four sides.'
"'FBI building's forbidding, defensive design less and less compatible with its surroundings,' Fitch added.
"cold and forbidding."
I recall long ago seeing a painting that consisted of the interior of what looked like an warm comfy average American family living room, but, inexplicably, in the middle was an immense boulder, just sitting there, cold, heavy and immovable. It made you ask, "What has invaded that family's household?" It is ironic then, considering the Hoover-King nemesis relationship, that this 'Brutalist' FBI building style seems somehow akin to the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial's disturbing, lumpish, overbearing, the-power-of-the-Party-has-spoken-and-we-can-squash-you-like-a-bug Sino-Soviet style. Both cold heavy brutish blockish edifices, squatting at the heart of our nation, as if they were dropped into place by a giant iron fist, seemingly representing something sinister, ominous and alien to the spirit of those who founded America, who created such breathtakingly graceful and stately monuments, and their surviving kinsmen.
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