Mullett, Alfred Bult

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Mullett, Alfred Bult (1834–90). English-born US Government architect (1866–74), he worked in a Beaux-Arts Renaissance manner derived from the Second Empire style of France (known in the USA as the General Grant style because it coincided with Ulysses Simpson Grant's (1822–95) term as President (1868–77)). He was in private practice with his two sons after 1875. Typical of his style was the huge Old Executive Office Building (State, War, and Navy), Washington, DC (1871–89), and the Post Office and Custom House, St Louis, MO (1872–84). He designed offices for the Baltimore Sun in Washington, DC (1885–6), often claimed as a rival to the first skyscraper by Le Baron Jenney. Like many architects before him (e.g. Latrobe) he was treated appallingly by a parsimonious US Government: facing ruin, he shot himself.

Bibliography

Fitch (1973);
Jordy (1976);
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxxi/1 (May 1972), 22–37;
Maddex (1973);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Jane Turner (1996)

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