Capital-izing Food

In the summer of 1887, the citizens of Sioux City, Iowa, erected the first of what would be five successive Corn Palaces in their downtown. In essence, the building was a bricolage of architectural styles tied together under the unifying theme of corn. Billed as an appreciation of the region’s agricultural bounty and heralded as the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World,’ the Sioux City Corn Palace was an exuberant American manifestation of architecture parlante: a timber frame completely dressed, inside and out, with ornament composed of corn kernels, ears, silk, husks, and stalks. Literally translated as ‘speaking architecture,’ architecture parlante was first associated with a number of visionary architects who were active during the French Revolution. It is now used widely to describe buildings that outright express their function through their very form, regardless of location or chronology (Collins 1968). While they are certainly not exclusive to food related functions, buildings that fall within the rubric of architecture parlante often lean toward themes of sustenance, perhaps because food can readily embody and express direct symbolic meaning.The final Sioux City Corn Palace, constructed in 1891, was so imposing that its central archway spanned one of the town’s main thoroughfares. For the most part, these buildings, as well as their counterparts that sprouted up in other Midwestern towns, have been disregarded by architectural historians. Patricia Simpson did much to elevate these “humorous novelties” within academic discourse but some of the more serious undertones of the corn palaces remain concealed by the visual extravagance of their architecture (Simpson 2012). Despite their highly unusual designs and material compositions, they are not merely roadside oddities or vernacular anomalies but instead episodes of a longstanding habit in the built environment of the United States. Put categorically, corn (Zea mays or maize) has been used ornamentally in architecture for centuries, yet the conditions and complexities underpinning this recurring theme in the United States, including the appropriation of Indigenous cultural and agricultural knowledge, are not always fully recognized or examined, especially across disciplines.Food and architecture, at the first impression, may appear to be strange bedfellows. However, the last two decades have witnessed a notable development on this topic in architectural research, producing touchstone edited collections and seminal essays (Horwitz and Singley 2006; Steel 2008; Di Palma 2014). Many enquiries into the intersection of food and architecture have unpacked the reciprocity between these subjects and explored the manifold ways that buildings accommodate and cater to food, such as restaurants, granaries, and market halls (Farah and Martin 2023). Scholarship in the field continues to evolve, making space for studies that critically engage this topic in more theoretical dimensions. What follows here is an exploratory discussion into how architecture, food, and national ambition coalesced around corn during the incipient growth of the United States.The cornerstone of this discussion is something typically regarded as a footnote to the early architectural history of the United States. Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820), architect and colleague of Thomas Jefferson, is perhaps best known for his large-scale work on the US Capitol in Washington, DC. His designs for the Old Senate Chamber, Statuary Hall and the first Supreme Court are regarded as Neoclassical masterpieces: grand projects that fulfilled Jefferson’s ambition for a new Capitol that was, in his words, a “temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people, embellishing with Athenian taste the course of a nation looking far beyond the range of Athenian destinies” (Lipscomb and Bergh 1903: 179). Notably, in 1809, Latrobe included in this lofty ensemble a series of sandstone columns representing stalks and ears of corn. He himself asserted that he was depicting maize in his correspondence with Jefferson, but the columns are now uniformly interpreted as representations of corn (Looney 2004: 473–75; Fussell 1999: 41–65).Latrobe’s design faithfully observes the principles of European Neoclassical architecture while also situating them within a distinctly American context. The columns are based on the ancient Greek Corinthian order and rest on conventional bases with an upper and lower molding called the torus. However, in place of the concave fluting typically associated with Greek architecture, a spiraling cluster of corn stalks winds around the column shaft. These are bound together at their top by a rope that replaces the astragal, another molding that is common in classical orders. It is probably not a coincidence that these column shafts also resemble fasces, the ancient Roman insignias for power and authority. But the pièce de résistance of Latrobe’s design is the ring of highly naturalistic, ripened corn ears composing the capital itself. These stand upright and appear to burst forth from their husks, the outer layers of which unfurl to imitate the foliage seen on ancient examples. Whereas Greek Corinthian capitals depict acanthus leaves and refrain from literal symbolism, Latrobe’s version is highly expressive, harnessing themes of abundance, growth, and progress in the nascent United States.In this way, Latrobe’s rendition of a classical order is plausibly one of the earliest examples of architecture parlante in the United States, a distant precedent for the series of corn palaces that emerged much later in the nineteenth century. Both the corn columns and the corn palaces arguably transcend notions of bounty and plentitude, speaking to a form of sustenance that is embodied by—engrained into—the physical and material fabric of the architecture itself. Both intimate that this is a country so rich and abundant in corn that it is literally built out of the raw foodstuff. Although Latrobe’s architectural capital was experimental it was also earnest, ultimately foretelling the conversion of corn into economic and agricultural capital in the United States. The ancient Greeks, however, neither conceived nor projected their architecture in such a direct way. In fact, it is exceptionally rare for architecture in any time or place to be so clearly articulated or explicitly symbolic in its design, which makes Latrobe’s highly original ‘American’ nonce order all the more conspicuous and loaded.Latrobe had his own architectural precedent in mind when he was designing his corn capitals, that of the Tower of the Winds in Athens, which he contended was built in the Attic order (Cohen 2006: 11–12; Marks 2013: 1–3). Echoing the Neoclassical architects and theorists who preceded him, namely Marc-Antoine Laugier, George Dance, and John Soane, Latrobe sought to devise an architectural order that was guided by principles which he believed the Greeks had developed (Watkin 1983: 47–48). In 1804 he opined: “The Greeks…established general [italics in original] proportions and laws of form and arrangement, all matters of detail were left to the talent and taste of individual architects.…Of this licence in detail, I think it right to avail myself on all occasions” (Latrobe 1804: 527). In other words, his approach explicitly favored borrowing from local conditions and contexts rather than outright duplication or mimesis of classical examples. Latrobe imported the Attic order to the United States and disseminated it within a number of contexts, the corn columns being just one example (Marks 2013: 3, 66). Ultimately, corn, a grain that had already sustained Indigenous communities across the continent since antiquity through sophisticated agricultural systems, was appropriated and recast as an architectural canon for a new, fledgling nation whose buildings were modelled after European precedents, including buildings of empire. Despite its own ancient history and legacy, corn was enlisted by the United States not only to cultivate a visual identity but also to legitimize its own imperial and colonial ambition.Architectural scholarship grants only passing reference to Latrobe’s corn order. Sometimes it is cited as an American contribution to Neoclassicism, but more commonly the order is described as an effort to ‘Americanize’ traditional subjects, notably without broaching the subject of colonial intention, much less problematizing the recasting of Indigenous knowledge as European achievement (Upton 1998: 73; Watkin 1983; Bradbury 2015: 174–75; US Senate 2002). The official account of the architectural history of the Capitol states that “it [the column] was universally admired because it was undeniably appropriate and there was nothing esoteric about it” (Allen 2001: 88). In other words, the column has proven popular in the widest possible sense: anyone passing through the vestibule may grasp the symbolic intention of the corn columns, that they are meant to be a shorthand expression not only of American agriculture, but also deep-seated sustenance.The corn columns stand in the north wing of the Capitol in what is now officially known as the lower Senate Vestibule, a small room that leads off the Old Senate Chamber. It is important to note that this space originally served as the main entrance of the Capitol building itself, making the columns one of the first features seen and acknowledged by visitors. This last point is easily overlooked due to the fact that in the mid-twentieth century the entire façade of the Capitol was extended outward, farther east. Thus, what had originally been an official and stately foyer for the country, both in a literal and figurative sense, was relegated to a passageway hidden within the belly of the expanding federal complex.Although we may accept that Latrobe ‘invented’ his corn order, his methodology was in no way original or even innovative, for he was very much a product of the European Enlightenment. What was atypical in Latrobe’s case was the particular context of the United States: the land itself—its soil, the climate, Zea mays—as well as the settler society bent on creating wealth that relied on the dispossession of Indigenous lands and the exploitation of slave labor.To the twenty-first century eye, the corn columns summon (often clichéd) images of the Corn Belt, specifically rows upon rows of fields arrayed in geometrical precision; or perhaps something equally stylized and emblematic, such as a Grant Wood landscape painting. But it cannot be emphasized enough that in the early nineteenth century, this highly formal and institutional agricultural phenomenon was nonexistent. Rather, agriculture at that time was characterized by competing ideologies that led to different and sometimes conflicting farming practices and interpretations of the land (Sweet 1994: 59). The United States had yet to find a common ground.For Thomas Jefferson, the foundation of an ideal democratic economy was the small independent farmer, the yeoman. In his view, the capability of this ‘virtuous cultivator’ would manifest through the prudent and systematic gridding of the continent’s landscape. Yet this vision of virtue was built on multiple exclusions, most specifically Indigenous nations and enslaved Black people. The Land Ordinance of 1785 made at least part of this a reality by establishing a rectangular survey system that subdivided all lands west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River. Ultimately, this would reshape the topography of the United States on a spectacular scale, imposing a new formal geometric order on landscapes that had already embodied complex historical, cosmological, and ecological relationships for over a millennium (Fussell 1999: 42).It is no surprise that Jefferson admired Latrobe’s corn columns. For him, the ‘cerealian’ capital, as he called it, went hand in glove with his theory about cultivation as well as his sectioning of American terrain (Jefferson 1809). Corn would later become the crop that largely determined the remarkable visual character of this cultivated landscape. From this perspective, it is possible to propose that at the time of its unveiling, Latrobe’s corn order was more of an expression of fulsome ambition rather than an affirmation of established prosperity. Put another way, it was indicative of a nascent empire that was seeking to prove its own legitimacy and permanence, in large part by expropriating Indigenous maize landscapes and reengineering them into systematic grids.But it was not meant to be, at least in the way that Latrobe and perhaps also Jefferson had envisaged. In a letter to Jefferson in 1809 Latrobe expressed mixed feelings about the reception of his order in Washington, DC: “These capitals during the summer session obtained me more applause from members of congress than all the works of magnitude or difficulty that surrounded them. They christened them the ‘Corn-cob capitals’ whether for the sake of alliteration I can not tell, but certainly not very appropriately” (Van Horne, Formwalt, Stapleton, and Cohen 1986: 749–51). In the end, the corn order was all but jettisoned; an inspired effort reduced to whimsy.Modern scholarship tends to view the corn column as a failed adaptation or an inconsequential novelty. Like most other nonce orders, it simply never caught on. Yet it is possible to contend that Latrobe’s design was highly prescient. Although civic architecture in the United States was not destined to champion the corn order in a formal and systematic sense, by the turn of the twentieth century corn had attained a mythical standing that remained rooted in Jefferson’s original ideals of an agrarian democracy and the equally mythical yeoman.The Midwest corn palaces never completely faded from view. In 1892, the small town of Mitchell, South Dakota, built its own palace, and remarkably, it still lives on today, albeit as a purpose-built, permanent structure that stands in a slightly different location from the original (Simpson 2012: 36–44). At first glance, these buildings can be seen as visible manifestations of thanksgiving for periods of agricultural prosperity. Yet beyond this they are analogous to Latrobe’s corn order insofar as they are earnest and literal attempts to forge some kind of visual identity or commonality for a community and indeed an entire culture. It is interesting that a map of Sioux City produced in 1888 depicts the Corn Palace as one of two key landmarks in the fledgling town, the other being the Opera House. In a place without a deep-seated culture, or anything established for that matter, the Corn Palace offered a sense of legitimacy equal to any other civic monument.From the very start, these structures, and their concomitant exhibitions and performances, were also conceived as audacious promotional events. While sometimes portrayed as expressions of national patriotism, it is more accurate to describe these gatherings as examples of civic boosterism (Simpson 2012: 114–24). They are, and arguably remain, tied up with the politics of local economic growth. The communities organizing and hosting these elaborate festivals were almost always small and rural, and thus a corn palace was viewed as an important vehicle for luring people, and most importantly, investors. Thus, in a strange twist of irony, the agrarianism championed by Thomas Jefferson—that of virtuous yeomen cultivating the land so that it could reach its full potential—metamorphosed into entrepreneurial citizens striving to realize the possibilities of their towns. The interesting point here is that Jefferson’s grid provided the very scaffold on which these towns could grow.It would be specious to regard the corn palace phenomenon as raw and straightforward symbolism or unabashed celebrations of American bounty. Like Latrobe’s corn order, these edifices also registered undercurrents of uncertainty. Others have pointed out that the palaces extolled old-fashioned Jeffersonian agrarianism and yet, paradoxically, it was the hyper-productivity of industrial agriculture itself that made these buildings a reality (McCleary 1982: 140; Simpson 2012: 189). This situation makes the palaces look less like earnest festivals of civic pride and more like the freakish stepchildren of agribusiness.Moreover, the copious, extravagant displays of grain also belied the economic anxieties facing farmers in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. This was not a period of unlimited prosperity and easy profits, but instead a time when farmers were beset with financial woes (Schwider and Swanson 1973: 1210). This observation can be productively extended to argue that this precariousness was not at all particular to the turn of the century but was rather a new facet of America’s perennial anxiety about its physical environment. This is easier to see when we consider how the five corn palaces constructed in Sioux City were bookended by environmental calamities. Prior to 1887 drought and locust epidemics afflicted the region. 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