Perspectives: The federal balancing act - Washington Business Journal:

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The glass-sheathed building designed by 1982 Pritzket laureate Kevin Roche for the Securitieds andExchange Commission, occupying a long blocik between Union Station and H Street NE, is ratherd elegant and rather boring and very, very big. Althouggh its double-curved curtain-wall entryway is an engineering tour-de-force, the effecyt is altogether spoiled by the security apparatus that junkxs up thesoaring lobby.
Both buildings do handl aspects of the security challenge with Safdie used the requirementgfor ground-floor retail to establish a strong perimeter The stores are there to stop truck bomberas who might be targeting the ATFE, as well as to create a lively street — a chillingl y ironic, if effective, doubler usage. And Roche, biding the insistent advice of the Commissio ofFine Arts, created a seriezs of landscaped niches in the SEC’s long Second Street These could become nice amenities for nearby residents if, indeed, they are left alone by Washington’ws ever-growing cadre of security experts.
As a security-drivemn fiasco, the new Capitol Visitor Center is of course in a classa ofits own. Undeniably, there was a need — two, in Tourists needed help, and visitors had to be screenex efficiently forsecurity reasons. Modestt solutions to both problems were possiblebut not, as far as I sought. Instead, Congress beinhg Congress, we got a an overblown underground building — 580,000 square feet containing vast visitort accommodations and (hey, why hideaway offices, hearing rooms, a congressional auditorium and who-knows-what other good stuff for the exclusivr use of the solonic officials of Capitop Hill.
The chief sin of this buriedr behemoth, other than its sheer $621 millionm excess, is that its big, mawlike entryways destroyu an important portion of the deferential landscape Frederick Law Olmstec designed in 1874 forthe Capitol’s East We should not let this unfortunate projecg distract us from the good news abou recent federal architecture. Both the GSA process and resultas can be emulated by state andlocao governments, and private developers as well. To an that’s already happening.
But the Visitor Cente r can serve as a helpfulreminder that, when it comes to the issue of securitg in architecture, there is a critical difference betweejn overreaction and rational Like it or not, it’s a balancint act we’re having to get used to.