|
The IBM building, aging
emblem of
Rockville's post-war construction boom, currently stands vacant and
threatened with demolition. One of Rockville's first modernist
office buildings, it was constructed by Otho Barkley, a Washington
area builder, who leased the property to the IBM Corporation shortly
after its completion in 1959. The address was changed from 326 East
Montgomery Avenue to 50 Monroe Street (today Place) following the
reconfiguration of street patterns during the urban renewal era of
the late 1960s.
It was, architecturally,
the most daring of Rockville’s five new office buildings of the late
1950s, an era that also brought reform and modernization to the
municipal government, which celebrated its centennial in 1960. Like
other communities in the Washington area, Rockville was rapidly
shedding its small town identity following two decades of
unprecedented residential development and population growth. The
decentralization of IBM from New York to Washington and its decision
to locate the new Federal Systems Division in Rockville signaled the
City’s emergence as a burgeoning center of modern commerce. By
early 1960, IBM had transferred 130 employees to its new Rockville
office, one in an expanding network of its research and aerospace
facilities in the Washington area.
Designed
by Bethesda architect Stanley H. Arthur—who also designed the
Rockville Library (1971)—the Bauhaus-inspired IBM building was
sleek, modern, and state of the art. Window panels alternating with
bands of yellow plates presented a lively façade to the main street;
the flat roof was punctuated by a brick service core; the first
floor—sheltered by a deep portico—had multiple entryways. There was
even parking for 41 cars, which proved to be inadequate from the
outset. Its architectural significance was underscored in the
mid-1960s, when it was identified as one of only nine conservation
properties in the mid-City Urban Renewal Project.
Comparatively
small by today's standards, the IBM building has been eclipsed by
more recent hi-rise structures and now deteriorates in the shadows
of the Americana Centre (1972), Town Center Apartments (1978), and
51 Monroe Street (1978). IBM vacated the property in the early
1970s following more than a decade of parking shortages and the
impact of changes in street patterns. For the next 25 years, it was
leased to a succession of tenants, including the Montgomery County
Volunteer Bureau, the States Attorney, and Peerless Rockville, which
occupied a small suite on the second floor from May 1989 to March
1990 during renovation of the Red Brick Courthouse. |
