BEAUX-ARTS BLAME GAME 2

There was a building boom in America after the Civil War.  American architects were very concerned regarding both the low quality of the design and construction of these buildings.  Thus there was a large American contingent in Paris between 1890 and 1910.

An early culmination of all of this French architectural influence was the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago  in 1893.  This was a temporary yet completely and finely detailed exposition, in which the public could see the beauty of classical principals both for specific buildings and for urban design.  They could also experience how this overarching classicism works together to achieve balance, harmony and beauty.  This exposition led to the City Beautiful Movement.

The previous discussion is only to give a background to our principal interest in the output of the Ecole, and that is their renderings.  These drawings, which typically were ink lines and watercolor wash, have become iconic in the education of American architects.  Students were required to render in exquisite detail the elements and shadows of their buildings.  In short, they produced works of art.  Because the principal concern was proportion, most of the drawings were done in elevation.  This elevation projection of course has no transparency, and is completely devoid of the indication of structure and function.  A typical example of this drawing style is Richard Morris Hunt’s elevation study of the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, shown immediately below.  This isolation of the building image continues to limit our understanding of the building as a functioning whole.  And it continues to foster the phenomenon that if you draw a pretty picture, you must be an architect.  And vice versa.

Of course the Ecole was not without critics.  Frank Lloyd Wright, for one, agreed that while it produced some magnificent drawings, it kept American architecture mired in what he called “Frenchite pastry.”

The architect as artist who produces works of art.  This influence, to a large degree, remains with us in our profession today.

Our schools continue to have the same essential model of the Ecole. We as a society continue to worship classical buildings.  Our belief in education continues to validate our current architectural schools.  And there remains the sense that architects are artists.

BEAUX-ARTS PENN STATION

My watercolor at the top of the page is a transparent study of the old Penn Station in NYC (1910-1963).  Designed by McKim, Mead and White, it is a classic American Beaux-Arts building.  The most imagination searing images that we see of this building are of the soaring interior glass covered spaces per the examples shown below.  So as I started my investigations to understand how this building worked by finding these and similar images, it slowly dawned on me that this soaring, iconic, modern glass and steel construction over the concourse is surrounded by the heavy Beaux-Arts construction around the perimeter of the building.  I had never understood how these two architectural languages were included in one building.  In this drawing I tried to record an understanding of both languages simultaneously so as to get into the mind’s eye of the architect.  When you draw transparently, it forces you to understand a dichotomy such as this.

The above three photographs are in the Public Domain under the auspices of the New York Public Library.