Back-door banality (or beauty?)

My recent notice of this patchwork of back doors, balconies, bays and odd windows made me think of how the rear ends of our buildings tend to get shorter shrift than their streetfronts in terms of public presentability. As dandruff on shoulders, runs in stockings, and scuffs on heels signify our neglect of our backsides compared to our neatening of ties, bodices and laces on our first-impression fronts, so rickety back porches, tacky ells and bizarre bumpouts show our tendency to cut corners on rear elevations, clearly to save design/build costs and hours. 

Warehouses on West Parade near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England.
Photo by Evelyn Simak, courtesy of Creative Commons.

And understandably so. Service entrances, loading docks, employee entries, emergency egresses, and rear garages are merely functional and hidden from public view. So they don't require the order, ornament and signage front facades need for the curb appeal and civic propriety necessary to lure customers, visitors, tenants and homebuyers with a strong first impression, like our frontal apparel.

 

And yet back doors, walls and alleys are special beyond their roles as channels for deliveries, services, fire escapes, parking access, and—ugh—unseen break-ins. 

For one, they can express the functions of their buildings' interiors more honestly than orderly or prissied-up façades can. This was how backsides of buildings helped give rise to the bare-bones utilitarianism of modern architecture, as an honest expression of the structures and functions of buildings with their ornamental ball-masks off. 

And their erratic self-formation, in contrast to the formality of their corresponding fronts, can yield a diversity of forms and color-texture contrasts that captivate us like collages or Cubist paintings, as a tangible example of, in Paul McCartney's words, "chaos and creation in the backyard."

As this back-alley-scape does. A house-like addition with white vinyl siding contrasts with various shades of brown and reddish-brown from paint, stucco and brick. Its closure counters the breezy, square openness of the left-hand porches and the overhanging sheltered balcony. 

This in turn contrasts with the solid polygon of the cantilevered bump-out beside it, expressing the angle of the staircase it encloses. These projections also add to the angularity by casting slanting shadows on the walls, which creates a light-dark polarity to increase the diversity.

Now I ask you: What and where do you think these buildings are?

While you try to guess, come with me on a tour of structures throughout the ages and the world that flourished on their fronts but balked on their backs...

Mount Vernon, Virginia

George Washington's 1750s-1770s expansion of the iconic plantation estate he had inherited from his father, Augustine, had a twofold intent: august architectural expression of his Southern-gentlemanly landed-gentry wealth and prestige; and refreshment from the winds off the Potomac River in the shady calm of an "outdoor room." 

Fitting the bill for both these goals was a riverfront façade of perfect Palladian symmetry, from the precisely centered Carolean cupola to the twin chimneys to the trio of dormers to the mirror-image window banks to the equally-spaced-apart columns on the façade-spanning verandah.

Photo by Otherspice, courtesy of Creative Commons.

The rear west front entrance does not mirror this balance, showing Washington's struggle to balance interior function with exterior display. The left-hand wing's third bay snuggles under the central pediment, knocking lopsided the symmetry of its right-hand counterpart and disrupting the even-handedness the axis of the cupola, pediment and pedimented door sought for the composition. This suggests that the three interiors differ greatly in layout, hence function, from one another.

City Hall, New York

City Hall, New York (1810-1812, Joseph-François Mangin and John McComb Jr.), 1900.
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Front-to-back, side-to-side symmetry was no bane for the planners of City Hall, who drew on French Renaissance and Georgian standards for architectural expression of civic pride, orderly conduct, firm leadership, and open democracy (hence the front porch, public park and open-armed wings). Building expenses were the bugaboo this time. Massachusetts marble bedecked the front for a strong first impression...
 

City Hall, New York, 1913. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

...but brownstone clad the rear to save money on the least visible elevation. Its central projection, which supplied the interior space the set-back front had taken away to form a welcoming forecourt, was another awkward front-to-back transition, appearing to keep visitors at bay with a "where do you think you're going" statement instead of inviting them with the "come on in, the door's open" one that the marble front extended.
 

City Hall, New York, 2016. Photo by MusikAnimal, courtesy of Creative Commons.

City Hall, New York, 1939. Photo courtesy of New York City Parks Archive.

After decades of pollution and pigeons had deteriorated the marble (left) and eroded the brownstone, City Hall was resheathed in Alabama limestone on a Missouri granite base in 1954-56 by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon (architects of the Empire State Building), uniforming its face front-to-back. 

(And both sides are uniformly unwelcoming now, kudos to the security aftermaths of 9/11 and COVID-19.)

Tweed Courthouse, New York

Tweed Courthouse, New York (1861-72, 1877-81, John Kellum & Leopold Eidlitz), 1893,
Image extracted from page 269 of King’s Handbook of New York City by Moses King.

City Hall's marble classical symmetry inspired the erection of a neighbor that made similar open-door and back-off gestures, but with greater grandiosity: the New York County Courthouse (now the Tweed Courthouse). Clearly designed to outrank the more restrained City Hall in physical stature and curb appeal, this marble edifice was built in an Italianate style by William M. "Boss" Tweed, the crooked leader of the Tammany Hall political machine that was monopolizing New York city and state governments. Kickbacks from his embezzlement of nearly $300 million in New York City public funds assured the courthouse's completion. Indeed, its pediment-crowned central temple-front entrance seemed to say "I'm the boss," infusing you with a sense of overwhelming awe as you dared venture past its monumental columns, unlike City Hall's lowlier, friendlier front porch.

Tweed Courthouse, 1893.
Image extracted from page 59 of King’s Handbook of New York City by Moses King.

The courthouse stuck out its rear end further than City Hall had done. This disrupted the traditional classical tripartite scheme of projecting wings and a central headhouse set back from the wings while projecting just enough of a porch to offer friendly shelter before one's formal entry, which City Hall's front succeeded at. By contrast, Tweed seemed eager to grab as much space as possible within his footprint's parameters...

Tweed Courthouse, City Hall, Municipal Building (1907-1914, William M. Kendall / McKim, Mead & White), 1915. Library of Congress.

David N. Dinkins Municipal
Building (1909-1914, McKim,
Mead & White), New York.
Photo by Momos (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Civic Fame (1913, Adolph
Alexander Weinman).
Photo by Valeriy Ovechkin,
courtesy of Creative Commons.

...thus locking the back ends of the courthouse and City Hall in what looked like head-butting, finger-pointing, knife-wielding, or tongues sticking out at each other (or Tweed giving City Hall the finger) over who was the real powerhouse of New York City, needing the judge's robes of the dominant Municipal Building (now the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building, right) and its crowning Civic Fame statue (left) to be the final arbiter and judge of who was really boss of the boroughs.

See what their backstabbing looks like from Civic Fame's point of view:

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library in 1915.

Another New York City landmark that finessed its front but rumped its rear is the New York Public Library. Built in 1902-1911 from a design by Carrère & Hastings, it went all out to trumpet its intellectual enrichment goals with the utmost in classical design and statuary, from the Patience and Fortitude lions that sternly guard its steps to the Beauty and Truth figures that flourish in the fountain alcoves...

...but look at how its backside turned out: plain vertical window-strips signifying the bare-bones steel stacks behind them in a way that clashes with the classicism in a proto-modernist way. Of course, the $9 million building, having ballooned its budget three times over, had to cut corners somewhere. So, like City Hall, why not the back end, where fewer people would be?

Bryant Park, NYC (1933-34, Lusby Simpson; 1988-92, Hanna Olin & Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer. Photo by Jean-Christophe Benoist (CC BY 3.0).

Photo by Elisa Rolle (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Until today, thanks to the very attractive, people-luring back end the NYPL has now: Bryant Park, a serene green lawn serving as an outdoor lunchroom for local workers' lunchbreaks, an outdoor reading room, and a gathering place for movie nights, live performances, yoga, tai chi, chess, Ping-Pong, Putt-Putt, you name it. And the park's London plane trees and 1911 William Cullen Bryant Memorial (honoring the park's namesake) offset the austerity of the stack windows with an attractive screen, emphasizing the Renaissance arched windows to allow some of the library's academic classicism into the park.

 

Did you guess?

If you haven't yet guessed what lurks behind (or in front of) this back-door bonanza, or where it is, then here it is:

This business block on Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, includes a liquor store, a Fraternal Order of Eagles lodge, and a pizza/sub shop; further down are a cigar store, international restaurants and a beauty salon. 

As you can see, it is as diverse in its tenancy as it is in its back-door architecture—another example of how telling backup bands can be about their frontmen.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!