Ralph Adams Cram: An architect's four quests : medieval, modernist, American, ecumenical

Ralph Adams Cram: An architect's four quests : medieval, modernist, American, ecumenical

Author: Douglass Shand-Tucci

Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 9781558494893

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Following in the footsteps of Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900, Douglass Shand-Tucci's widely praised portrait of Ralph Adams Cram's early years, this volume tells the story of Cram's later career as one of America's leading cultural figures and most accomplished architects. With his partner Bertram Goodhue, Cram won a number of important commissions, beginning with the West Point competition in 1903. Although an increasingly bitter rivalry with Goodhue would lead to the dissolution of their partnership in 1912, Cram had already begun to strike out on his own. Supervising architect at Princeton, consulting architect at Wellesley, and head of the MIT School of Architecture, he would also design most of New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the campus of Rice University, as well as important church and collegiate structures throughout the country. By the 1920s Cram had become a household name, even appearing on the cover of Time magazine. A complex man, Cram was a leading figure in what Shand-Tucci calls "a full-fledged homosexual monastery" in England, while at the same time married to Elizabeth Read. Their relationship was a complicated one, the effect of which on his children and his career is explored fully in this book. So too is his work as a religious leader and social theorist. Shand-Tucci traces the influence on Cram of such disparate figures as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Phillips Brooks, Henry Adams, and Ayn Rand. He divides Cram's career into four lifelong "quests" medieval, modernist, American, and ecumenical. Some quests may have failed, but in each he left a considerable legacy, ultimately transforming the visual image of American Christianity in the twentieth century. Handsomely illustrated with over 130 photographs and drawings and eight pages of color plates, Ralph Adams Cram can be read on its own or in conjunction with Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900. Together, the two volumes complete what the Christian Century has described as a "superbly researched and captivating biography."


The Chapel of Princeton University

The Chapel of Princeton University

Author: Richard Stillwell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 069119520X

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"This will be a new edition of a large-format illustrated guide to the architecture of the Princeton University Chapel, first published by PUP in 1971, with new color photos, redrawn figures, and a Foreword by the university's Dean of Religious Life"--


Princeton

Princeton

Author: William Barksdale Maynard

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0271050853

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"Explores the architectural and cultural history of Princeton University from 1750 to the present. Includes 150 historical illustrations"--Provided by publisher.


The Los Angeles Central Library

The Los Angeles Central Library

Author: Kenneth A. Breisch

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2016-12-21

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1606064908

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In the most comprehensive investigation of the Los Angeles Public Library’s early history and architectural genesis ever undertaken, Kenneth Breisch chronicles the institution’s first six decades, from its founding as a private library association in 1872 through the completion of the iconic Central Library building in 1933. During this time, the library evolved from an elite organization ensconced in two rooms in downtown LA into one of the largest public library systems in the United States—with architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue’s building, a beloved LA landmark, as its centerpiece. Goodhue developed a new style, fully integrating the building’s sculptural and epigraphic program with its architectural forms to express a complex iconography. Working closely with sculptor Lee Oskar Lawrie and philosopher Hartley Burr Alexander, he created a great civic monument that, combined with the library’s murals, embodies an overarching theme: the light of learning. “A building should read like a book, from its title entrance to its alley colophon,” wrote Alexander—a narrative approach to design that serves as a key to understanding Goodhue’s architectural gem. Breisch draws on a wealth of primary source material to tell the story of one of the most important American buildings of the twentieth century and illuminates the formation of an indispensible modern public institution: the American public library.


Designing MIT

Designing MIT

Author: Mark Jarzombek

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13:

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Chartered in 1861, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lay in financial crisis with an assortment of laboratories, classrooms, offices, and student facilities scattered across Boston's Back Bay by the turn of the century. But in 1912, backed by some of the country's leading financiers and industrialists, MIT officials purchased an undeveloped tract of land in Cambridge, launching a long and complex review of proposals for a new quadrangle. Based largely on the recommendation of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the commission was awarded to MIT and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts-trained architect William Welles Bosworth, known for his AT&T Building in Manhattan, and Kykuit, the Rockefeller mansion in Tarrytown, New York. Designing MIT is the first book to detail Bosworth's challenges in the planning and construction of the Institute's unique Cambridge campus. Beginning with an examination of the competing project proposals--from Steven Child, an emerging landscape designer and student of Frederick Law Olmstead; Desire Despradelle, Chairman of the Department of Architecture at MIT and a leading Beaux-Arts stylist; Ralph Adams Cram, noted for his gothic West Point campus; and John Freeman, one of the country's leading civil engineers--Mark M. Jarzombek provides a captivating cross-section of the architectural debates of the time. Though Bosworth's considerable social and political finesse enabled him to land the commission and balance varied competing interests, he found his classically oriented vision challenged by engineer John Freeman, proponent of Frederick W. Taylor's new principle of Scientific Management. However strained, the conflict ultimately resulted in a far more innovative design than either individual approach, employing new European concepts of industrialism, efficiency, and aesthetics in academic structures. Heavily illustrated with images from MIT archives, the story of Bosworth's new "Tech" offers more than just insight into the designing of a campus. Wrought with artistic clashes, bureaucratic tangles, and contemporary politics, Designing MIT sheds light on the academic culture in the early twentieth century, the role of patronage in the world of architecture, and the history of the Beaux-Arts style in the United States.


The Architects and the City

The Architects and the City

Author: Robert Bruegmann

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1997-08-18

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 9780226076959

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This book connects architectural history with urban history by looking at the work of a major architectural firm, Holabird & Roche. No firm in any large American city had a greater impact. With projects that ranged from tombstones to skyscrapers, boiler rooms to entire industrial complexes, Holabird & Roche left an indelible stamp on the city of Chicago and, indeed, far beyond. In this volume, the first of two on Holabird & Roche and its successor, Holabird & Root, Robert Bruegmann traces the firm's history from its founding in 1880 to the end of the First World War.


West Point U.S. Military Academy

West Point U.S. Military Academy

Author: Rod Miller

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781568982946

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West Point's rolling geography, originally chosen for military reasons, has had a profound effect on the campus plan and architectural design. Founded in 1802 by an act of President Thomas Jefferson, the campus is a showcase of austere Gothic and Romanesque designs by preeminent collegiate architect Ralph Adams Cram, with notable works by Richard Morris Hunt, McKim Mead & White, Paul Cret, and Sasaki and Associates. Beginning August 2001, West Point will celebrate its 200th anniversary, with events for cadets and tourists alike.


Arts and Crafts Architecture

Arts and Crafts Architecture

Author: Maureen Meister

Publisher: University Press of New England

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 1611686644

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This book offers the first full-scale examination of the architecture associated with the Arts and Crafts movement that spread throughout New England at the turn of the twentieth century. Although interest in the Arts and Crafts movement has grown since the 1970s, the literature on New England has focused on craft production. Meister traces the history of the movement from its origins in mid-nineteenth-century England to its arrival in the United States and describes how Boston architects including H. H. Richardson embraced its tenets in the 1870s and 1880s. She then turns to the next generation of designers, examining buildings by twelve of the region's most prominent architects, eleven men and a woman, who assumed leadership roles in the Society of Arts and Crafts, founded in Boston in 1897. Among them are Ralph Adams Cram, Lois Lilley Howe, Charles Maginnis, and H. Langford Warren. They promoted designs based on historical precedent and the region's heritage while encouraging well-executed ornament. Meister also discusses revered cultural personalities who influenced the architects, notably Ralph Waldo Emerson and art historian Charles Eliot Norton, as well as contemporaries who shared their concerns, such as Louis Brandeis. Conservative though the architects were in the styles they favored, they also were forward-looking, blending Arts and Crafts values with Progressive Era idealism. Open to new materials and building types, they made lasting contributions, with many of their designs now landmarks honored in cities and towns across New England.