Depending on how you enter downtown Raleigh, you will get a very different impression of the state government’s architectural taste. If you come in from Hillsborough Street, you will pass the stoic Revenue Building. When you then turn on Salisbury Street and round Capitol Square, you will notice the Old Capitol Building’s beautiful neoclassical architecture, as well as the imposing, modern classicist Law and Justice Building. On the other side of the square sits the beautiful Labor building, as well as the Education building which now holds the Justice Department. All of these buildings carry a certain “democratic” beauty to them; they aren’t quite as extravagant as, say, the British Houses of Parliament or the Kremlin, but they don’t look terrible. They look like the kind of buildings a democratic government should have: elegant, but not gaudy.

Contrast these beautiful sites with what is thrust upon you if you dare enter the city from the north via Salisbury Street. You are immediately assaulted with the 15-story Archdale Building. Don’t let the long, expansive, front-facing windows fool you; the sides are practically concrete slabs. This monstrosity is immediately followed by the dull, lifeless Legislative Office and Dobbs buildings.

But why are these buildings, which former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory called “ugly as the dickens” so unpleasant to look at? Like the old saying goes, “money is the root of all evil,” but in this case the evil lies in a lack of money, not an overabundance of it.

The time was the 1970s, a period of dramatic change in the United States. Disco and pet rocks were all the rage, and the North Carolina government wanted to put on a new face. Earlier on, in 1963, the North Carolina began this transition to the future with the construction of the State Legislative building. The total costs of construction for the building were a scant $1.24 per North Carolinian (About $10.18 today). Out of all the buildings within the overarching state government complex on Halifax Mall, the Legislature is probably the least eyesore-ish.

Now, back to the 1970s. If there was one overarching quality of the 70s, it definitely would not be its economic prosperity. The gas crisis, inflation and stock market failures certainly did not make for a good economic outlook. However, the state government still wanted some new office buildings and decided to build them in the cheapest way possible: poured concrete. Due to limited specific changes, the costs involved in poured-concrete brutalist construction are significantly lower than, say, the neoclassical styles present in the Old Capitol and the Justice Building.

What future lies ahead for these gray monoliths? Currently, there is no definitive, concrete (pun intended) plan for what to do with these Orwellian horrors. In 2017, the state and Raleigh flirted with the idea of razing several of the buildings and replacing them with a Major League Soccer stadium. Former governor Pat McCrory, who said the buildings “look like they were built to protect the French coast from the Allied invasion” wanted to gut and revitalize them in an attempt to replicate what happened to Fayetteville Street during mid- to late-2000s.

But right now, those concrete slabs on grassy Halifax Mall are here to stay.

Sources

“History of the Justice Building.” North Carolina Judicial Branch, https://www.nccourts.gov/courts/supreme-court/history-of-the-justice-building

Campbell, Collin. “Gov. Pat McCrory floats plan to revitalize Raleigh’s government complex.” News & Observer, 2 Sept. 2014, https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article10047998.html

Johnston, W. Lee. “State Legislative Building.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Reeves, Jeff. “10 state-owned buildings would be razed for downtown Raleigh stadium.” CBS17, 19 Jul. 2017, https://www.cbs17.com/news/investigators/10-state-owned-buildings-could-be-razed-for-downtown-raleigh-stadium/1016939251