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Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains and West » North Central Texas » Fort Worth (Tarrant County) » Downtown District » U.S. Courthouse

U.S. Courthouse

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1933, W. G. Clarkson and Company, with Paul Cret, consulting architect. 501 W. 10th St.

Cret had just designed the master plan for the University of Texas in Austin when commissioned to design this courthouse facing the block-square Burnett Park (1983, Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz) to the north. Folded-plane aluminum-framed windows are recessed between three-story piers faced with Texas Lueders limestone and detailed with cast aluminum light fixtures and relief work. Cret and Clarkson updated Beaux-Arts architectural conventions with what Cret called his “modern classical” approach. Black aluminum spandrels and other metal work allude to Mayan, Greek, and American Indian visual motifs. The only murals in Fort Worth associated with the federal Public Works of Art Project, Frank Mechau’s The Taking of Sam Bass (1940) and Texas Rangers in Camp (1940), are on the fourth floor. A post office originally occupying the ground floor has been removed.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Bank of America Center (First National Bank)
Fort Worth City Hall
First Christian Church
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Flatiron Building (Saunders Triangle Building)

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "U.S. Courthouse", [Fort Worth, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-FW22.

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, 208-208.

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