The Watergate Project: A contrapuntal mulit-use urban complex in Washington, DC
--Adrian Sheppard, FRAIC, Professor of Architecture, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Professor Sheppard's (an assistant architect on the Watergate project in Moretti's Rome office) white paper begins:
"Watergate is one of North America's most imaginative and powerful architectural ensembles. Few modern projects of this scale and inventiveness have been so fittingly integrated within an existing and well-defined urban fabric without overpowering its neighbors, or creating a situation of conflict. Large contemporary urban interventions are usually conceived as objects unto themselves or as predictable replicas of their environs."
The paper continues with a discussion of the site as part of the master planning of Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Notes Professor Sheppard, "L'Enfant's plan resulted in many awkward points of collision between the geometric street pattern and the picturesque edge of the river. Watergate lies in the transition zone between two urban realities, the natural and the man-made. Watergate's site is a large triangular tract of land bordered by three roadways, New Hampshire Avenue, Virginia Avenue, and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway.
The avenues are prototypical of the city's principal arteries bordered by eight to ten-storey freestanding buildings, while the parkway is a picturesque vehicular artery which
follows the wavy river's edge. The difference in character between the avenues and the parkway is significant, and it is precisely this difference in setting which Moretti exploited to the fullest.
Full paper is here.
Read more on Professor Sheppard here.
Read Professor Sheppard's personal memories of working witih Moretti here.
Moretti - a lecture by Mario di Valmarana, professor of architecture at UVa
December 8, 2005, summarized by George Arnstein, Watergate East resident
Mario di Valmarana, retired professor of architecture at UVa, expressly said he was not presenting a history but a review of the role of Luigi Moretti, the Italian architect who designed the Watergate Complex for Società Generale Immobiliare [SGI], the Italian real estate company in which the Vatican Bank had a significant interest.
Some dates and facts:
SGI bought the land in 1960 for $10 million, uncertain what to do with the “rusty, neglected” turf. In fact, there were some welcome enterprises in the adjacent area: the Old Vic theater [Arena Stage] in a former brewery, and the original, popular Watergate Restaurant (which prevented the later restaurant in the complex from using that very name, thus was known as the Watergate TerraceRestaurant, today Acquarelle, in a different location in the complex).
- In 1965 the first building, Watergate East, was completed. The first residents moved in during November of 1965, when some of the corridors and all of the upper floors were not yet completed. Mr. Valmarana said there were 135 different types of windows, that every apartment was different (as you can verify if you look up at the tapered facades.)
Mr. Valmarana also said there was a Grand Opening in 1965. I have a brochure which marks the dedication of the building on 27 October 1965. It contains many of the same photos Mr. Valmarana projected in his most interesting presentation. The Cooperative became effective in March 1965.
- 1967, the hotel and first office building opened.
- 1969, Watergate West opened.
- 1971, Watergate South and its adjacent office building opened.
Moretti sketched or designed a circular concept of the Kennedy Center; reportedly he was displeased over the "tension" between the circular Watergate complex and the rectangular Kennedy Center, as built. There also was tension because Watergate South seemed to overshadow the Kennedy Center. The result was to cut the original concept of Watergate South as a horseshoe (or U-shaped) in half, with the residential portion that faced the Kennedy Center, built to a lower height than the office section which has no balconies.
Not mentioned by Mr. Valmarana was the slight realignment of the horseshoe, at the request of the Kennedy Center, as we were told at that time. The rumor then was that the split into an office wing was caused by the lack of demand (slow sales) of apartments.
Mr. Valmarana talked about Moretti’s personality, that "his ideology was architecture," referred to Moretti’s fascism in a positive context because Mussolini favored free expression in the arts, including architecture.
(This runs counter to what I learned in college: Fascism – the bundle of fasces containing an axe -- meant much coordination and integration or common alignment of the corporate state, possibly imposed, but in Italy supported by an enthusiastic majority plus many opportunistic followers. And Mussolini was a dictator.)
Valmarana presented an illustrated and coherent explanation of land use, how existing streets were closed off, how the complex consists of 55% open land while 45% is occupied by the buildings. Surprisingly there was no reference to a strip of land, toward the Potomac, which the developer, Watergate Improvements Inc., donated to the city thus enhancing the pedestrian walk facing the river.
Valmarana answered questions, then voiced his surprise that there were no questions about the role of the Vatican. He did not tell the anachronistic joke that the Kennedy Center is the box that Watergate came in.
