Cass Gilbert Gilbert was a conservative who believed architecture should reflect historic traditions and the established social order. His design of the new Supreme Court building (1935), with its classical lines and small size, contrasted sharply with the large federal buildings going up along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which he disliked. Heilbrun says "Gilbert's pioneering buildings injected vitality into skyscraper design, and his 'Gothic skyscraper,' epitomized by the Woolworth Building, profoundly influenced architects during the first decades of the twentieth century." Christen and Flanders note that his reputation among architectural critics went into eclipse during the age of modernism, but
David Chipperfield wrote that the purpose of the building was to "break the image of justice as rigid and monolithic", but architectural critic Rowan Moore of the "Guardian" said it appeared "uncomfortably prison-like." The Saint Louis Art Museum project in Saint Louis, Missouri (2005–2013) involved building a major new wing attached to a landmark of American architecture, the gallery built by beaux-arts architect Cass Gilbert in 1904. The new building by Chipperfield, with 9000 square meters of space, harmonizes smoothly with the classic building; its ground level is the same as that of the main floor of the Gilbert Building. The walls