"No corporation, or group of utilities, had the wherewithal to launch undertakings
the size of Hoover Dam during the halcyon days of the '20s, let alone during the depths of a
depression. The government powerplants even looked different. Streamlined powerhouse architecture,
cranes and generators in smooth aluminum shrouds and other manifestations of Art Deco influenced
industrial design seen at TVA plants, Hoover Dam, and Grand Coulee, had few precedents in the
electrical industry. Federal architects and designers sheathed hydroelectricity in entirely
modern clothes, as if to separate it from its past."
Duncan Hay, Hydroelectric Development
in the United States, 1880-1940, p. 132.
