In case you’ve not caught wind of it, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC is back in the news again. And once again, it’s not really because of good news about of what’s happening on its stages.
We’ve talked before about how in the 1950s there began to be interest in the National government playing a more active role in American culture. But because there were also politicians at the same time who thought American artists should only make art that praised the country—and that those who didn’t should be ostracized or worse—artists themselves were wary. There was one cultural project though in the decade that might prove to artists that the government’s concern was genuine.
At the outset of the Eisenhower administration, in a report it submitted to the president, the Commission on Fine Arts recommended that a grand new performing arts center be built in DC. Nothing happened for a few years, however, and only when Eisenhower himself warmed to the notion did the project seem to gain momentum. Early in 1955, Eisenhower met for a few minutes in the Oval Office with Harold Dodds, the President of Princeton University. Five days earlier in his State of the Union address, Ike recommended that Congress create a federal advisory commission on the arts. American culture was on his mind.
As he talked with Dodds about ways the White House might give some official recognition to accomplished American painters and sculptors, he said the nation’s capital was in dire need of a suitable public building for cultural activities. Copies of the notes from the President’s meeting ultimately found their way to the Bureau of the Budget’s Public Works coordinator and word quickly circulated that Eisenhower supported a performing arts center.
Subsequently, Congress took up the project in earnest. Ike intended to wait until legislation for an arts center emerged from committees before he put the weight of his office behind the project. It was not his style to get involved in a fight over the details of size, location, or any one of innumerable little sticking points.
Actually, location was the first big controversy. Many backers in Congress wanted it to be right on the National Mall. Just to the east of the famous Smithsonian “Castle” there was a prime piece of real estate, ripe with potential. Back in 1938, Congress had authorized the Smithsonian Institution to acquire the site for the construction of art gallery to house the institution’s growing collection. But since the National Gallery wound up being built on the north side of the mall, the site remained unused. Some people in Congress, including powerful Senator J. William Fulbright, thought it would be a perfect spot for a National Performing Arts center. Others though had very different ideas for what should go there.
Stay Tuned.