2018考研英语一阅读新题型源文_第2页

　　Many of our most celebrated national figures have participated in historical events that have taken place within the EEOB’s granite walls. Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson,Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all had offices in this building before becoming President. It has housed 16 Secretaries of the Navy, 21 Secretaries of War, and 24 Secretaries of State. Winston Churchill once walked its corridors and Japanese emissaries met here with Secretary of State Cordell Hull after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. President Herbert Hoover occupied the Secretary of Navy’s office for a few months following a fire in the Oval Office on Christmas Eve 1929. In recent history, President Richard Nixon had a private office here. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was the first in a succession of Vice Presidents to the present day that have had offices in the building.

　　Gradually, the original tenants of the EEOB vacated the building – the Navy Department left in 1918 (except for the Secretary who stayed until 1921), followed by the War Department in 1938, and finally by the State Department in 1947. The White House began to move some of its offices across West Executive Avenue in 1939, and in 1949 the building was turned over to the Executive Office of the President and renamed the Executive Office Building. The building continues to house various agencies that comprise the Executive Office of the President, such as the White House Office, the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Security Council.

　　The French Second Empire style originated in Europe, where it first appeared during the rebuilding of Paris in the 1850s and 60s. Based upon French Renaissance prototypes, such as the Louvre Palace, the Second Empire style is characterized by the use of a steep mansard roof, central and end pavilions, and an elaborately sculptured facade. Its sophistication appealed to visiting foreigners, especially in England and America, where as early as the late 1850s, architects began adopting isolated features and, eventually, the style as a coherent whole. Alfred Mullett’s interpretation of the French Second Empire style was, however, particularly Americanized in its lack of an ornate sculptural program and its bold, linear details.

　　While it was only a project on the drafting table, the design of the EEOB was subject to controversy. When it was completed in 1888, the Second Empire style had fallen from favor, and Mullett’s masterpiece was perceived by capricious Victorians as only an embarrassing reminder of past whims in architectural preference. This was especially the case with the EEOB, since previous plans for a building on the same site had been in the Greek Revivial style of the Treasury Building.

　　In 1917, the Commission of Fine Arts requested John Russell Pope to prepare sketches of the State, War, and Navy building that incorporated Classical facades. During the same year, Washington architect Waddy B. Wood completed a drawing depicting the building remodeled to resemble the Treasury Building. This project was revived in 1930 when Congress appropriated $3 million for its construction. Wood worked for 3 years on the design to remove the granite walls and replace them with marble, but the project was shelved due to financial burdens imposed by the Great Depression. In 1957, President Eisenhower‘s Advisory Committee on Presidential Office Space recommended demolition of the Executive Office Building and construction of a modern office facility. However, the public outcry, and the overwhelming expenses associated with the demolition, saved the building.

　　The building has not been without detractors. It has been referred to as Mullett’s “architectural infant asylum” by writer Henry Adams. President Harry S. Truman came to the defense of the building when it was threatened by demolition in 1958. He said it was “the greatest monstrosity in America”. Noted architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock, however described it as “perhaps the best extant example in America of the second empire.”