Architect’s favorite building is one he’s worked in for 18 years
Kettering Government Center’s pyramidal roof stands out, Terry Welker says.
Terry Welker is best known at the moment as the artist who created “Fractal Rain,” the centerpiece of the new downtown Dayton Metro Library. You can’t miss his spectacular mobile sculpture, which hangs in the building’s three-story Atrium and is fashioned of 3,500 six-inch prisms on nearly five miles of stainless-steel wire.
The dramatic piece, which hangs from the third floor under a skylight and cascades down into the floors below, changes as it catches the light at different times of day. The piece, says Welker, references
the Great Dayton Flood of 1913 and our city’s love/ hate relationship with rain.
But did you know that Welker is also an architect? As part of our ongoing “Architectural Treasures” series, we invited him to pick one of his favorite buildings in the Miami Valley and tell us why he loves it. Not surprisingly, he chose the Kettering Government Center, a building in which he spends much of his time. Since 2000, he has been the chief building official for the City of Kettering.
“As the building approaches its 50th year, it’s good to know that even with some midlife and recent renovations, architects have always taken care to preserve and even enhance the essential character of the building rendering it eligible for the national register,” Welker says. “I’ve come to really love the building by working in it for 18 years.”
The building made the top 100 list by the Society of Architectural Historians and is also the recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ “Ohio 25 Year Award.”
Welker knew the architect
For the first time in this series, our selected architect has had a personal relationship with the architect of the building he has chosen. Welker knew Kettering architect Eugene Betz personally and worked for him when he was a student at the University of Cincinnati. “I remember him being a real task master and that he could draw like the wind. He really knew how to detail a building. This building is well built — no leaks!
Other key players in Betz’s office were Jim Harrell of Cincinnati and Gene’s son, Doug Betz, a city planner.
“A lot of talented folks worked there,” Welker says. “His office still stands and is a very unique structure on South Dixie. His office, Rosewood and the Government Center are all on the Mid-Century Modern tour that I still give once in a while. After Gene retired, he shared an early master plan of the site with me which included a complimentary north building. We remained friends until his death and I came to be an architectural mentor to his grandson, Scott Betz, Doug’s son.”
About the building
The Kettering Government is significant, says Welker, for several reasons. Here’s his description:
■ It is a quintessential example of Mid Century Modern Brutalist architecture.
■ It has a very unique shape — triangular in plan with a pyramidal roof.
■ It is sited in a very unique way — it hovers over the ground and you enter the building with humility as you descend to slip under the roof — a direct reference to Eero Saarinen’s North Christian Church in Columbus, Ind.
■ The white roof is a stunning figure in the natural surroundings. Triangular geometry is the recurrent ordering system for the structure and reveals itself throughout. As massive as the roof is, it hovers with very long overhangs on all sides that rest gently on a system of concrete fins. Between the fins is wall-to-wall glass around the entire building letting daylight penetrate deep into the center spaces.
“The newspaper stories were rich when it was built. In a era when cars had ‘fins,’ I think some people thought it looked more like space ship rather than the traditional government building some people wanted.”
Reflecting an era
The Mid-Century Modern era runs from 19401970. “As architects refined their craft and explored the design language, Gene Betz was a champion of the Modern style and the Avant Gard variant of modern architecture called Brutalism (from the French ‘beton brute’ meaning ‘raw concrete’),” explains Welker. He had been developing this style since the 1950s with his own office and other buildings like the Rosewood Elementary School.
By 1969 when the Government Center was built, Betz had perfected his approach to board-formed concrete and exposed aggregate concrete, hallmarks of Brutalism. He used both types on the Government Center — exposed aggregate on the exterior and careful chevron patterned board forms on the interior.
Welker says the Council Chamber is elevated as a floating room inside the cavernous roof and has no doors — the architectural equivalent of the ‘sunshine law’ which requires certain proceedings of government agencies to be open or available to the public.
The last renovation — six years ago — was a real challenge from a preservation viewpoint, he says, because the building was made completely accessible. The elevator was carefully located and all the exterior glass was replaced with new insulated glass. “The views are wonderful as you peek over the ivy berms. I believe the new plan actually reveals the beautiful ordering system better because it has fewer solid walls, more interior glass.”
As part of the renovation, new public art works were commissioned including new stained glass by Erin Houk, which is empty in the center revealing a view of the exterior flags as you stand at the podium in the Council Chamber. “That kind of inside/outside connection it really cool,” Welker says.
The building is now LEED Gold Certified for energy conservation.
Public can look inside
This is one local architectural treasure that can be viewed from inside as well as outside. The building houses the mayor’s office and city manager’s office as well as a number of departments. The building is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and on evenings when there is a public meeting.
Check out the public art in the first- and lowerlevel lobbies done by area artists Erin Houk, Hamilton Dixon, Bing Davis and Katherine Kadish. Office areas have original art by regional artists but are secure and not generally open to the public.
If you are interested in an architectural/art tour that includes most office areas, contact Welker at terry.welker@ketteringoh.org.