Adolf Cluss


Adolf Ludwig Cluss also known as Adolph Cluss was a German-born American immigrant who became one of the most important, influential and prolific architects in Washington, D.C., in the late 19th century, responsible for the design of numerous schools and other notable public buildings in the capital. Today, several of his buildings are still standing. He was also a City Engineer and a Building Inspector for the Board of Public Works. He is believed to have been the only person to have met both Karl Marx and President Ulysses S. Grant.
Red brick was Cluss' favorite building material; that, and his early communist sympathies, led some to dub him the "Red Architect", though he was a man who in later life became a confirmed Republican.

Life

He was born on July 24, 1825, in Heilbronn in the Kingdom of Württemberg in south-west Germany. He was the fifth child of Johann Heinrich Abraham Cluss and Anna Christine Neuz. His father was a master builder, and young Cluss set out as an itinerant carpenter when he left Heilbronn at age nineteen. In his travels, he met and became a friend of Karl Marx and a supporter of communist principles at a time of political and revolutionary ferment in Germany. He joined the Communist League and became a member of the Mainz Worker Council. The failure of the German revolutionary movement in 1848 led him to leave Germany when he was twenty-three, along with other Forty-Eighters who emigrated to the United States at that time. In the United States, he continued his political activity into the 1850s, maintaining an extensive correspondence with Marx and Engels and writing and publishing political articles for the German-American community.

Early life in America

Adolf Cluss immigrated to the United-States in 1848 at the age of 23. He crossed the Atlantic on board the Zürich, a small sailing ship from Le Havre, France to New York City. He spent the first six months in New York City where he perfected his English. He looked for work in Philadelphia, Baltimore and finally settled in Washington, D.C., in the 1849. In the summer of 1849, he started working for the US Coast Survey as a technical draftsman surveying the Maryland and Virginia coastlines. The following year, we worked at the Washington Navy Yard designing various project for the Ordnance Department. He did not like this position or his life in the city and considered going back to Europe. He considered becoming a bookseller in 1852, requesting funds from his father who did not provide the funds. In 1855, he became a US citizen and transferred to the US Treasury Department as a technical draftsman. He became an abolitionist sometime after that time.
He briefly returned to Europe in 1859 to receive his share of the inheritance this father had left him when he died in 1857 and returned to Philadelphia. He attempted to become a brewer with a friend but the business soon failed and we was back to his old position in the Ordnance Department at the Washington Navy Yard working closely with Admiral John A. Dahlgren.

Private practice

Adolf Cluss started his private practice in 1862. While America was torn apart in the Civil War and while still working at the Navy Yard, Cluss started an architectural office with another German immigrant Josef Wildrich von Kammerhueber. He continued to work full-time at the Navy Yard until the following year and part-time as an architect. His partner was working full-time from Cluss' house on 2nd St NW. In 1864, their breakthrough was the Wallach School. Adolf Cluss was 39 years old.
Cluss and Kammerhueber were also civil engineers as many architects at the time. In 1864, the City of Washington requested Cluss and Kammerhueber to write a report on the Washington City Canal and the sewer system. This report led to the Canal being finally covered over in 1871 which had become an open sewer on the National Mall. The partnership ended in 1868. He became an active member of the American Institute of Architects in 1867.

Board of Public Works

Cluss maintained his solo private practice but became a Building Inspector for the Board of Public Works in Washington, DC. The Board was the most powerful entity in the city. Cliss wrote building regulations and was a major proponent of the use of building permits and inspections. On October 18, 1872, he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as a member of the Board of Public Works and City Engineer. This came at the recommendation of Governor Cooke, Alexander "Boss" Shepherd and his predecessor Alfred B. Mullett.
Cluss had been become a member of the local Republican party by then and had led a volunteer committee of local Republicans coordinating parts of the President's inauguration after having been re-elected that same year. He also volunteered in President James A. Garfield's inauguration committee in 1880.
The Board had been working to improve the city by paving and grading roads, adding sewers and planting trees but there was a cost associated with this. The expenditures by the Board of Public Works lead the city to be on the brink of bankruptcy. Adolf Cluss testified before a Joint Committee in May 1874. His appointment was revoked by the President on May 25, 1874. Congress to pass legislation on June 30, 1874, abolishing the territorial government and replacing it with the three-member.

Return to private practice

In 1877, he partnered with architect Frederick Daniel with an office at 701 15th St NW but the partnership came to an end in 1878. The following year, he started working with architect Paul Schulze. The partnership came to an end in 1889 when Cluss retired from his private practice having built almost 90 buildings including at least eleven schools, as well as markets, government buildings, museums, residences and churches. Cluss' schoolhouse designs were particularly innovative and influential, though only two of his red-brick school masterpieces remain, Franklin School and Sumner School in downtown Washington. The Franklin School was completed in 1869 earning the Washington public school system a Medal for Progress. He designed four major buildings on the National Mall, including the still-standing Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. He built six houses of worship including Calvary Baptist Church which still stands.
Two of the city's largest food markets, Center Market and Eastern Market, were built to his design. The first was torn down in 1931 to be replaced by the National Archives Building. The second is still standing having surviving a fire in 2007. His flagship store for Lansburgh's opened in 1882.
Cluss was also active as a builder of mansions for the Washington elite, such as Stewart's Castle on Dupont Circle. In 1880, he was hired to create what became Washington's first apartment building, Portland Flats, an ornate, six-floor, 39-unit creation on the south side of Thomas Circle. Almost all of Cluss' residential creations have been demolished—Portland Flats, for instance, was torn down in 1962 to make way for an office building.
In 1877, he was commission to oversee the reconstruction of the Old Patent Office Building in Washington, DC.

American Institute of Architects involvement

Adolf Cluss was an active member of the American Institute of Architects. He became a fellow of the Institute in 1876.
He also attended several conventions over the years:
He was one of the founding members of the Washington, D.C., chapter in 1887. He attended Annual Meetings of the Washington Chapter including the January 7, 1898, meeting.
In 1889, he was elected for 1 year as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects.

Inspector of Federal Buildings

He became an Inspector of Federal Buildings in the Office of the Supervising Architect under the United States Department of the Treasury in 1889 after closing his private office in June of that year. He inspected the Ellis Island buildings in February 1892 and wrote a report on July 15, 1892, a few months after the first Immigration Station opened. He testified in front of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization on how the humidity was a concern in the building only a few months after it was built. He also inspected many other buildings around the country including the Post Office designed by Alfred B. Mullet in Chicago.
On September 1, 1894, a few months after the death of his wife and after the victory by the Democrats, we was asked for his resignation by Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle. He had solicited letters of support from several prominent people but was replaced by a Democrat.

Personal life

On February 8, 1859, he married Rosa Schmidt at Zion Lutheran Church in Baltimore, MD. They lived in a row house at 413 2nd St NW between D St NW and E St NW for thirty-five years. They raised seven children in that house.
His wife died on April 10, 1894 a year after her son Robert of a lengthy respiratory illness. Following the death of Robert, Carl and Rosa Schmidt, Flora and Anita moved to their sister Lillian's house.
As published in the Evening Star on March 18, 1897, Cluss was on the Delinquent District of Columbia Real Estate Tax List owing $8.41 as of July 1, 1896.
In the spring and summer of 1898, Cluss traveled to Germany, Italy and Central Europe and visited his older sister's family in Heidelberg, Germany.
Adolf Cluss died on July 24, 1905, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 80 years. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Interviews and publications

Today, several buildings designed and built by Adolf Cluss still stand in the Washington, D.C., area:
In 2005, after a ceremonial resolution by the DC Council, DC Mayor Anthony A. Williams made a proclamation that 2005 would be "Adolf Cluss Year" from July 2005 to June 2006. Joint exhibitions would be presented in Washington, D.C., at the Charles Sumner School Museum and at the Stadtarchiv in his birthplace of Heilbronn, Germany. Both exhibits closed but a website remains:
A small street in Washington, D.C., was named in his honor: Adolf Cluss Court. It connects C St SE to D St SE between 12th Street SE and 13th St SE.
A bridge is named in his honor in his birthplace of Heilbronn, Germany over the Neckar river, at.

Buildings

A descriptive list of Cluss's known buildings and an interactive map showing their locations can be found here.
While Adolf Cluss designed and built close to 90 different buildings in his career, few survive today. In green are the buildings still standing today.

Churches

Markets

Schools

Federal buildings

Military commissions

Local governments

Hospitals and homes

Museums

Commercial and office buildings

Hotels and boarding houses

Halls

Residential

Others

Construction oversight

Adolf Cluss took some projects as a builder designed by other architects.
NameDatesLocation / GPSDescriptionPicture
District of Columbia JailConstruction: 1872
Demolished: 1976		Southeast corner of East Capitol St and 19th St SE
Washington, DC
United States Government Printing Office Construction of the addition: 1895-96Northwest corner of North Capitol and G St NW
Washington, DC
White House Conservancy and Greenhouse RepairsRepairs: 1896-1897
Conservancy demolished 1902		The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
Hearst School for Girls
Renamed: National Cathedral School for Girls		Construction: 1899-19003612 Woodley Rd NW
Washington, DC