Abstracts from the 1991 Annual Meeting Mississippi State University

Abstracts from the 1991 Annual Meeting Mississippi State University FROM RENAISSANCE TO MODERNISM Julia M. Smyth-Pinney, University of Kentucky, Chair Marc Antionio Barbaro and the Tempietto at Maser. John M. O'Brien, (Cornell University) The Fa/so Bernini in Codex Chigi. Jeffrey Shannon, University of Arkansas Symbolism of Cladding in the Architecture ofGottfried Semper. Jed Porter, University of Kentucky The New York Courthouse, Alfred Bult Mullett, and the Early Development ofAmerican Second Empire Style Architecture. Pamela Scott, Washington, D.C. The New York Courthouse and Post Office was the first of several large and complex federal office buildings designed by Alfred Bult Mullett in the Second Empire Style. Begun three months before the State, War, and Navy Building in Washington, generally considered the flagship of Mullett's buildings in the full-blown French style, the New York building was famous in 1868 and 1869 because it represented an attempt by the city of New York and the New York architectural establishment to wrest total control of federal office building design from the office of the Architect of the Treasury in Washington. A public competition was held in New York under the auspices of the city to which more than a hundred architects submitted designs. There was no single winner; rather, five architectural firms- Richard Morris Hunt, [James] Renwick & Sands, Napoleon LeBrun, Schultz & Schoen, and John Correjawere asked to produce a composite design from their individual entries. This composite design was the basis of Mullett's own design for the New York Courthouse and for all of his subsequent buildings in the Second Empire style. This lecture recounts the history of the New York building and demonstrates its significance not just in Mullett's work but in the establishment of the American Institute of Architects. ACADEMIC/CREATIVE ECLECTICISM IN THE TWEN11EfH CENTIJRY Jay C. Henry, University of Texas at Arlington, Chair Hentz, Reid, and Adler and the Problem ofDesign Attribution. Elizabeth Meredith Dowling, Georgia Institute of Technology The firm of Hentz, Reid and Adler dates originally to 1909 and the initial partnership of Hal Hentz and Nee! Reid who were joined in partnership in 1919 by Rudolph Adler. The firm changed once again with the premature death of Nee! Reid in 1926. Philip Trammell Shutze replaced Reid as design partner, and in 1927 the firm's name became Hentz, Adler and Shutze. In the early years of Hentz, Reid, and Adler, it was one of some thirteen architectural firms within Atlanta and even then was recognized as the city's strongest design firm. Nee! Reid was considered the design partner, and Hal Hentz handled client contact and job supervision. Rudolph Adler assumed this last role when he joined the firm, leaving Hal Hentz to devote his considerable charm and social contacts to securing work for the office. The firm attracted talented draftsmen who were interested in acquiring the skills necessary to become architects themselves. Philip Shutze (1890-1982) worked while a student at Georgia Tech from 1908-1912. James Means (1904-1979) joined the firm as an office boy in 1917. Each of these men became talented architects after their apprentice years. Other draftsmen who went on to found their own firms include McKendree A. Tucker, William Howells, Ed lvey, and Lewis Crook. The working arrangement of the office has not been recorded, and although Neel Reid was considered the design partner, his role in this position is unclear. To further muddy design attribution, Reid was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1923 which finally took his life in 1926 at the age of 41. Two Atlanta projects produced by the firm indicate the difficulty in defining the architect who actually guided a design to its ultimate appearance. These projects are the Andrew Calhoun House of 1923 and the Robert Alston House of 1922. 52 ARRIS 3. 1992 Pre-Modern Classicism: Nordic Design in the 1920s. Jay C. Henry, University of Texas at Arlington By 1920 National Romanticism and Jugendstil had begun to appear old-fashioned to architects in the Scandinavian countries and the new Republic of Finland, and a radical shift in style to classical models occurred. Denigrated for fifty years as yet another increasingly inept cycle of classical revivalism...