Griffith Observatory is an icon of Los Angeles, a national leader in public astronomy, a beloved civic gathering place, and one of southern California’s most popular attractions.

“Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another.”

– Plato

Photo by Todd Abbot Winters.

This past weekend I had the honor of attending a friend’s wedding set in the hill country outside of Boerne, Texas. I had been in town since the Friday afternoon prior to the wedding for the rehearsal dinner and was lucky to spend some time with the groom on his soon-to-be wife’s porch that evening. In the country, particularly at dusk as the sun sinks beyond the horizon, there is a calm that covers the landscape like a blanket. You are inclined to soften your voice and observe the transformation happening around you.

Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere.

Tabula Selenographica in qua Lunarium Macularum exacta Descriptio by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr. Handcolored copper plate engraving c. 1742.

As we sat in rocking chairs, discussing the excitement in both of our hearts for their future, I noticed something that often goes missing in the city–the stars. For the Greeks, love is often comedic or tragic, but it can also be faithful, hopeful, and pure. For us, examples of both are set in constellations.

Constellations of the Northern Sky.

Constellations of the Southern Sky.

The Western understanding of constellations originates with the Greeks, but the Babylonian-Sumerian civilizations were astronomers before. Though the Greek names are most familiar to us, the idea of a constellation, “a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern that is traditionally named after its apparent form or identified with a mythological figure,” also existed in ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt.

Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini under the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy.

Perseus Liberating Andromeda by Francesco Maffei, circa 1658.

Andromeda and Perseus are two such Greek constellations that are surrounded in myth and love. As Perseus returns from slaying the Gorgon Medusa, at the behest of Polydectes, he spies the beautiful Andromeda chained to a rock on the cliffside. Cassiopeia, Andromeda’s mother, had bragged about her daughter’s beauty to Poseidon and then was forced to offer her as a sacrifice to Cetus, a sea monster and Poseidon’s son.

Perseus carrying the head of Medusa the Gorgon, as depicted in Urania’s Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.

Andromeda as depicted in Urania’s Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c. 1825, showing the constellation from the inside of the celestial sphere.

Struck by her beauty, Perseus slays Cetus and frees his new-found bride. Their story is immortalized by the two nearby constellations named for them.

Benjamin Franklin (left) and Thomas Jefferson (right).

By studying the constellations, we can understand how ancient civilizations viewed their relationship with the divine, but astronomy also has a far more practical purpose. America’s founding fathers emphasized the importance of exploring the celestial bodies for meteorological reasons. Benjamin Franklin observed the night sky to better predict the changing of seasons.

Astronomical Case Clock by Thomas Voight. Courtesy of Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.

Interior of the clock showing weights, pendulum and day labels. Courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson’s fascination began when he witnessed a lunar eclipse during the Revolutionary War. Decades later, he had a beautiful clock made by Thomas Voigt of Philadelphia. The inside of the clock case was marked so that–like the Great Clock prominently displayed in the Entrance Hall of Monticello still today–the single weight would keep track of the passage of time as it fell.

The 40-inch refreactor in the 90-foot dome at Yerkes Observatory.

Aerial view of Yerkes Observatory, looking North.

Nearly a century later in 1897, astronomer George Ellery Hale, with the financing by Charles T. Yerkes and architectural expertise of Henry Ives Cobb, founded the Yerkes Observatory. “The birthplace of modern astrophysics,” the observatory is located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin and operated by the University of Chicago. Here, observatories evolved from merely housing telescopes to accommodating physics and chemistry experiments and equipment. The telescope there, constructed by Alvan Clark and Sons, remains the largest refracting telescope ever made, and it boasts a 40″ lens.

The 90-foot dome under construction.

The 40-inch refractor as seen in 1921, with a group of scientists including Albert Einstein in the foreground.

To be continued…

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: architecture, astrology, astronomy, california, divine, Einstein, griffith, los angeles, observatory, Olmsted, space, star, stars, study, wisconsin, yerkes

The “Texas Rangers” and Small Town America

Alice Arnn

Posted on August 10, 2018

“Caldwell County Courthouse” Buck Schiwetz

“It is a guileless architecture, which, because innocent, is often apparently venerable; and which, because one may believe it to be uncorrupted, is sometimes curiously eloquent. When, as at Lockhart, it is combined with a city plan as entirely legitimate as that of the courthouse town; when, as there, a spontaneous and comprehensible architecture flourishes in a complementary relationship with a principle of authority; then we are in the presence, not of an amusing specimen of Americana, but of an exemplary urbanistic success whose meaning has been for too long obscured.”

-Colin Rowe and John Hejduk, “Lockhart, Texas”

The Caldwell County Courthouse by Henry E. M. Guidon and his partner Alfred Giles. Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly.

In the 1950s, a young architecture professor named Colin Rowe visited tiny Lockhart, Texas with his colleagues—all professors teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. An Englishman, he was surprised by and admired “the small triumphs of urbanity” that made this little town great. Lockhart had a distinctive and expressive courthouse and a lively square in front of it that, for Rowe, rivaled the piazze of Italy.

Lockhart’s downtown with Italianate details in vivid colors.

Piazza Pio II in Pienza. Photo Courtesy of Texas Monthly and Matt Johnson.

The plan of the Courthouse Square in Lockhart. Photo from The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground by Alexander Caragonne.

The town has a basic grid structure, centered around the Caldwell County Courthouse, and the main square and streets are lined with shopfronts, churches, and other public buildings. The hierarchy between these buildings is clear. The courthouse—colorful, lively, and built in the Second Empire style—designed by Henry E. M. Guidon and his partner Alfred Giles is at the center is surrounded by taller and more articulated civic buildings and churches—the Norman castellated Caldwell County jail and the First Christian Church—and less formal and shorter fabric buildings. These shops and offices are still complex and interesting with impressive brickwork and Italianate details, and they work to form the town’s public spaces.

Caldwell County Jail in Lockhart.

First Christian Church in Lockhart.

Elevation of a street facing the courthouse in Lockhart. Photo from The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground by Alexander Caragonne.

Lockhart’s downtown with Italianate details.

Lockhart’s downtown with Italianate details and brickwork.

Lockhart’s downtown with Italianate brickwork.

Like a lot of small towns in America, it was and is a frontier town that many drive right by without paying it any mind. In the 1950s, most architects saw this Victorian town and its architecture as a backwater—a place entirely of the past just waiting to be modernized. Rowe and his colleague John Hejduk, however, saw it differently, and their article “Lockhart, Texas” appeared in the primarily modern journal Architectural Record in 1957. To them, Lockhart was “curiously eloquent” with “an unsophisticated strength”—exemplifying the simple and often profound greatness in the architecture of small town America.

Faculty of the School of Architecture, 1954-55. Photo from The “Texas Rangers”: Notes from an Architectural Underground by Alexander Caragonne.

The faculty at UT during this time, of which Rowe was a part, is now referred to as the “Texas Rangers,” and, influenced by the Texas landscape itself, they introduced a new curriculum at the school that emphasized the importance of comparing historic examples to create a teachable and workable urban and architectural theory. Rowe himself would go on to write Collage City, a book that challenged the utopian and comprehensive planning that dominated the second half of the 20th century and has unfortunately damaged so many of America’s best cities.

The main square in Brenham, Texas. Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly.

An aerial view of Alpine, Texas. Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly.

I was reminded of this book last week as I read an article published in Texas Monthly on Texas’ “Small Town Revival” that quotes Rowe and particularly one of the passages above. The article documents the recent rebirth of three small rural towns in Texas. Lockhart—the town UT’s faculty considered so important, Brenham, Alpine, and many others like them have gone from shrinking small towns on the decline to growing communities with new restaurants and shops.

So what is it that about these towns that can attract both a group of young architects in the 1950s and young entrepreneurs today? Hidden in the Texas landscape, the UT faculty saw in them echoes of the great towns of Italy and France. Beyond mere nostalgia, Lockhart and towns like it have simple, idiosyncratic, and profound architecture that is at once in sync with and in sharp contrast to its particular landscape.

Lockhart’s downtown with the courthouse on the right and the Texas landscape unfolding beyond.

Pienza, a small Italian town situated on a hill overlooking the Tuscan countryside.

Just like in Tuscany or rural France, the small towns of the American West are informed by their particular landscape. From the Architectural Record article: …”the first indication of arrival is apt to be the courthouse which appears, from a distance of several miles, as the slightest eruption upon the horizon.” Like similar great towns including Pienza in Italy, they are built of local materials and in direct response to an often rugged and difficult climate, thus assuming a distinct, simple, and powerful form out of necessity and a need to survive.

Caldwell County Courthouse by Norman Bean.

But both in Italy and in America, these small towns’ strength also lies in the clarity of their purpose—they were formed because of one unifying idea and their architecture and urbanism expresses it simply and succintly. Rowe tells us while visiting Lockhart’s courthouse square:

“For patently this is a town dedicated to an idea, and its scheme is neither fortuitous nor whimsical…it is the law which assumes a public significance; and it is around the secular image of the law, like architectural illustrations of a political principle, that these towns revolve. In each case the courthouse is both visual focus and social guarantee; and in each [courthouse] square the reality of government made formally explicit provides the continuing assurance of order.”

The Caldwell County Courthouse with the Texas landscape unfolding beyond.

This example would inform Rowe’s later urban theory, and it is a phenomenon often lost in the ambiguous forms of modern architecture. Where Lockhart’s courthouse, churches, and other public buildings rise above the city’s fabric in stature, detail, and importance, many modern buildings lack the forms necessary to create such a hierarchy. This leaves us with towns full of buildings that are at best unclear in their meaning and purpose.

San Saba County Courthouse.

I shared this article with my coworkers, and many of them shared stories of other small towns experiencing similar rebirths. Robert Dinkins, who went to school in Kerrville, Texas, has watched new breweries and restaurants breathe life into what was a sleepy retirement town.

Mac White worked on the renovation of the Caldwell County Courthouse when he first began working as an architect, and he has seen a similar Renaissance in San Saba, Texas, another courthouse town, as younger generations of local family’s work to preserve and enhance the town’s character.

Downtown San Saba, Texas.

Lockhart’s downtown centered around the Caldwell County Courthouse.

As these little towns grow, Colin Rowe’s reflections on the architecture of rural Lockhart are an apt reminder of how powerful architecture that is tied to its place and purpose can be. New development and businesses are started, not in a vacuum with no discernible local identity, but in a place with a rich heritage that is reinforced by its architecture. Their history and culture, tied intrinsically to the landscape, are captured in these “curiously eloquent” buildings and thus are more easily passed to new generations.

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: Austin, county, italian, renaissance, small town, Texas, University of Texas, urban

The Roman Forum

Michael Madsen

Posted on August 3, 2018

Alfred-Nicolas Normand, Monuments of the Roman Forum at the Foot of the Clivus Capitolinus from the End of the Reign of Septimius Severus, 1852.

“Architecture, simply and immediately perceived, is a combination revealed through light and shade. of spaces, of masses, and of lines. These few elements make the core of architectural experience.” (p157).

Jean-Francois-Julien Menager, The Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, 1809.

This quotation by Geoffrey Scott in his book, The Architecture of Humanism, concisely explains not only how we perceive architecture at its most basic level, but also indirectly explains the reason behind why I made this watercolor rendering of the Roman Forum. This was a project for an elective class on watercolor wash rendering during my master’s degree at Notre Dame, taught by Prof. David Mayernik, a master watercolor renderer himself. The aim was principally to understand how to render architectural form and clearly communicate spatial depth, not with one or two-point perspective, but with only shades and shadows.

Auguste-Jean-Marie Guenepin, the Arch of Titus, 1810.

He explained that much of the beauty found in drawings comes from the way shade and shadow are rendered, their value and hue. And as architects, learning how forms behave in light, how they cast shadows, and how to accurately depict this in watercolor renderings allow us to notice in real life how the sun creates subtle gradients of shadow to shade on buildings – on their cornices, capitals, and other moulding profiles – which in turn can aid our design process to create not just beautiful drawings, but more importantly, beautiful buildings

Auguste-Jean-Marie Guenepin, the Arch of Titus, 1810.

We were instructed to choose a Beaux Arts rendering of a façade or section and make a copy of it at the same size as the original. Since the Renaissance, making copies of drawings from a master was the classical way of learning to draw or paint because it was such an efficient method. However, it is not just mindless repetition, but an intellectual study of how the master achieved his result; in other words, the goal was to understand the process of how the final product was made. The Ecole des Beaux Arts watercolor wash method of rendering architecture was a highly precise way of depicting shades and shadows on built form that also produced very beautiful drawings, so these architects were considered the masters from whom we were to learn.

Constant Moyaux, the Tabularium and Monuments at the Foot of Capitoline Hill, 1866.

Skimming through the book Ruins of Ancient Rome; The Drawings of French Architects Who Won the Prix de Rome 1786-1924, I was immediately drawn to the rendering (above) of a reconstruction of the Roman Forum done by Constant Moyaux called The Tabularium Monuments at the Foot of Capitoline Hill (1886, 98cm x 128cm). For this rendering, he relied on reconstructions by others, but also added his own classicist interpretations. It is also interesting to note that he used coins from antiquity to inform his reconstruction, which shows the close relationships between these group of monuments on the east side of the Forum. He also produced a rendering taken from the same perspective of the current condition of the Roman Forum during his day, making a comparison between nearly two millennia.

Photo of the Forum by Author.

One of the angles used by the author to study perspective.

Since I chose Moyeaux’s rendering as my example, I had to think compositionally about how I could make just a portion of his full rendering stand on its own to create a balanced asymmetry, since the size of our rendering was to fit on a 22×30 inch sheet of watercolor paper. I chose the right side of his work which focused on the Arch of Septimus Severus in the foreground, the Temple of Concord in the middleground, and the Tabularium in the background, since that seemed to me to contain a variety of materials, textures, and a dynamic spatial layering of each monument that could teach me a lot of concepts in a single rendering.

The finalized draft by author.

After the lengthy drafting process (the inscription on the Arch of Septimus Severus itself took nearly two hours!), I began running washes, first the sky and then the stone of the Tabularium, working from background to foreground and from top to bottom.

Pushing the gilt bronze statue values.

Professor Mayernik suggested I work on the gilt bronze statues and really get them to the correct value with shade and shadow so that I could use that as a datum to judge how much I needed to bring up the other values of the rendering.

Rendering the textures and staining.

Next, I worked on the piquage of the stone on the Tabularium and the other textures, like the staining on the monuments. It was interesting at this point to realize that Moyeaux had decided to show some ageing to the buildings, which was contrary to the Beaux Arts standard of showing pristine buildings.

The extent of the rendering prior to the author’s hiatus.

I completed the rest of the basic colors and values of the monuments and that was about all that got finished during the semester and unfortunately was unable to work on the rendering for nearly fifteen months since I was in Rome, and at the time trying to finish my thesis and degree.

Intermittent updates over an extended period of time.

I didn’t start it again until last September and worked on it during the weekends for about a month adding shade and shadow. I started with the Tabularium and its dark arches because that would be the gauge to judge the rest of the shadows in the rendering, and then step by step worked down to the Temple of Concord and the Arch of Septimus Severus to get all the big shadows blocked in, bringing them up to their correct value in relation to one another.

The final rendering by the author.

Again, I put it away as we all get busy during the holidays. It was not until the beginning of July that decided that I was going to stop procrastinating the tiny shadows of the Corinthian capitals and fluting and the relief sculpture and just finish the rendering. I worked solidly that Saturday and Sunday and had only some finishing touches to add early that following week after work. Finally, after almost two and a half years, it was finished!

Highlights of the author’s final rendering.

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: Forum, render, roman, rome, study, watercolor

The Rusticators

Michael Imber

Posted on July 27, 2018

The Beech Nut Hut stands on top of Beech Hill in western Rockport.

A young Teddy Roosevelt filled the shelves of his room on East 20^th St. in Manhattan with stuffed birds, squirrels, and mice in an attempt to satisfy his obsession with nature, while life in the streets below his window was grimy, noisy and crowded- quite a contrast from his life at Sagamore Hill in the country. By the mid 1800’s America’s big East Coast cities were overcrowded- and the cacophony of success rang throughout their streets.

Franklin Roosevelt as a Rusticator at Campobello island.

By the 1840’s Transcendentalism was reaching religious status as poets like Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of the blessings upon America of a richness of nature and beauty, and artists of the Hudson River School such as Thomas Cole, John Frederick Kensett, Fitz Henry Lane and Albert Bierstadt painted a picture of America that was nothing short of utopia.

Sunrise on the Maine Coast Mount Desert Island by Fitz Hugh Lane. Oil. 1856.

Approaching Thunderstorm by Martin Johnson Heade. Oil, 1859.

Before long, those who could, sought to escape the hot and odoriferous cities to discover their own bucolic paradise. Thomas Durant would build a railroad that ended in the wilderness of the Adirondacks and the 19^th century version of “glamping” had been established.

Two young Rusticators exploring Newport.

Open Camp, watercolor, artist unknown, 1888. Adirondack Museum (88.113). Photograph curtesy of the Adirondack Museum, Eric Borg photographer.

Colonel Loring’s Ausable Club.

River boat transportation bringing guests to the wilderness camp of Utowona at the Marion River Carry.

“Bishop’s Palace,” Camp Wild Air, Upper St. Regis Lake, c. 1895. The Whiteclaw Reid family named the small cottage for Episcopal clerics who sometimes stayed in it. Photograph by Craig Gilborn, 1989.

Soon wealthy individuals would begin to build “camps”, often vast and complex compounds of logs and rustic stone to accommodate hunting parties. The Adirondack wilderness would become a sporting mecca and cool mountain respites like the Berkshires would become country outpost of the cultured set.

An illustration of fashionable party goers dining in the branches of a tree is a glimmering of the implications. Illustrated London News. October 19, 1872.

In the beginning it was the sportsmen and artists that blazed the way, then journalist followed. Soon, others would begin to board ships and head up the coast to the rocky, sea sprayed coast of Down East Maine. These escapees would become known as the “Rusticators”.

Another Horse Show, including socialites such as the Ford’s and Rockefeller’s children.

1.193. Cow Cove, Watercolor sketch. Courtesy of Memorial Library, Boston Architectural College.

In 1855, the first hotel was established on Mount Desert Island, by the 1880’s there were 30 and Bar Harbor would rival Newport as society’s Gilded Age get away. The rich and famous would attempt to out shine one another with one grand estate after another and Rusticator Camps would reach grand proportions.

The Chatwold House of Joseph Pulitzer by Boston architects Rotch and Tilden. Custom additions due to Joseph’s ailments were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White.

1.203. Westward Way, waterfront facade. Courtesy of Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

1. 209. Highwoods, watercolor sketch. Courtesy of Memorial Library, Boston Architectural College.

Luminaries such as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts would hire famous landscape architects such as Beatrix Ferrand and architects such as Fred Savage, Peabody and Stern and Delano and Aldrich to create masterpieces among nature.

Plate 17 “Church of St. Sylvia [Mount Desert, ME],” by William Ralph Emerson in American Architect and Building News, Vol. 9, No. 287, June 25, 1881. (AIA Archives).

1.116. Coldbrook, garden view. Lenox, East Lee, MAssachusetts, 1886. E.A. Morley, photographer.

After the Civil War and the collapse of the fishing industry, the rich and the upper middle class alike began to purchase their of slice of heaven along the shores of Maine and to build their own summer cottages; New Yorkers in Mount Desert, Philadelphians in Camden and Bostonians in North Haven.

George B. Dorr (far right) standing before the Bubbles of Acadia National Park, 1923. Dorr fought for federal protection of the National Park against Maine legislators.

As railroads developed, grand hotels both along the coast and inland swelled with tourists. They offered golf and dancing, and excessive menus featuring trout and venison, accompanied by the music of a string quartet.

“Hotel, Cushings Island, ME,” Clarence Luce, Architecture and Building, Vol. 7, No. 4, July 23, 1887. (AIC)

Prospect House at Blue Mountain Lake.

Poland Spring House, South Poland, Maine summer post card.

A post card of Kearsarge Hotel, York Beach, Maine.

Eventually, many of the grand hotels burned down, never to be replaced, as the automobile offered a wider range of destinations. Today you can still find the decedents of the Rusticator’s wiling their summer days away on the porches of the old shingle houses, or at yacht club cocktail parties and regattas of the old wooden sailboats left behind. The tradition of “summering” in Maine remains strong. After all these years, escaping daily modern life for the quiet life by the sea still remains irresistible.

Under the mute gaze of trophies, the interiors of a Rangeley Lake fishing club are layered with decades of humble reminders of the pleasures and intricacies of fishing in a wilderness setting.

The interior of designer Libby Cameron’s Family Maine Cottage.

Some old Rusticator estates remain intact, such as the Fales House on Zekes Point overlooking the Fox Island Thoroughfare. Although, all original elements down to 100 yr old racing pendants remain, this house could use an owner that appreciates it’s unique architectural character and history.

(left) Victorian Iron beds in the guest house of the Fales house face a view with no windows- refined rustic living. (right) The chart room.

The living room displays many trophies of the sporting life.

(left) The rustic shingle style of the Fale’s residence on island of Vinalhaven. (right) The facade facing the thoroughfare.

For more information regarding purchasing the Fales House on Zekes Point, follow this link: Davidson Realty.

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: acadia, camping, handcrafted, life, lifestyle, Maine, rustic, shingle, sport, style, wilderness

Reaching for New Heights

Mac White

Posted on July 20, 2018

Our office is constantly educating itself in developing a true understanding of the Classical Tradition in Architecture. Few of us were taught in a system that addressed historical precedent in anything more than a perfunctory manner. Except in a general survey course and if you had an interest that went beyond that, many times you hard to really search out options or create them for yourself. We did not have the option of what today might be the exception that some of our younger staff experienced while attending the Notre Dame School of Architecture, a classically based program. Our desire to remedy this began to resolve itself as we became more involved with the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art. It has long been the leading national non-profit whose mission is to advance the appreciation and practice of the principles of traditional architecture and its allied arts by engaging educators, professionals, students, and enthusiasts. The national organization has led wonderful symposiums, classes, tours and other events that have traditionally been centered in its beginning locale of New York City.

The iconographic symbol of the ICAA, Diana by Augustus Saint- Gaudens.

In 2006, a community of architects, interior designers, landscape architects, builders, and supporters of the classical tradition collaborated together to bring these concepts to Texas when our own local chapter of the ICAA was born. Our office has been involved from the beginning of this chapter, with Michael Imber and myself both serving as founding board members and both serving in various roles of leadership. As chapter president and other roles, we have concentrated on bringing the best programing possible to our state. These have included lectures, tours, classes, and an awards program that recognizes the best traditional design that the many talents in our state have to offer.

Our state capital reflects the classical tradition in Texas.

One of the programs that was developed under the leadership of Mac White and Andrew Gander, along with a team of talented individuals from our office, is the New Heights Program – an outreach into our local community of San Antonio in collaboration with the Alamo Heights Junior School. We sought to provide their 8^th grade Portfolio Arts class with an introduction to traditional architecture. The developed curriculum fosters an appreciation of the practice of architecture through experiences in the classroom and in the field, is taught by members of our staff and artisans working in conjunction with the school’s art instructor, Casey Fallis. Together, we have developed a course that presents the fundamental concepts of building, design, and architectural language to help students develop observational, creative, and critical skills that engage the built environment. While also incorporating this into the larger scope of the classes’ art curriculum.

New Heights Instructor Mac White introducing a session.

Student Work.

For the studentes, this ten-week course provides them with an introduction to classical architecture and the historical buildings of San Antonio. When this program began, it was the first time a program such as this been offered in a public school and we are still excited to be leading this effort. By providing this opportunity, the New Heights program fills us with hope as we invest in the minds of tomorrow’s designers.

Students discussion during a class period.

A wide range of topics are covered including Speaking of Architecture, a study in which the basic principles and vocabulary of the classical traditions are introduced, as well as looked at in more depth in later specific studies. Similarly, Elements of Classical Architecture teaches the students the classical orders, proportioning systems, and moldings are introduced and studied.

Drawing the Orders led by Jim Lenahan.

To create a greater impact on the students, these stories are tied back to our local culture and environment through studying the Building Traditions of San Antonio. We discuss the mix of traditional influences that have made our city such a vibrant place – from the Spanish Colonial roots to the influences of immigrant cultures that brought vibrant building styles, craftsmen like the Germans and Alsatians, to the various examples of later architectural periods that have held strong in shaping our local sense of place.

Spanish Governor’s Palace.

Anton Wulff House in the King William District.

By using these rich examples of our architectural history, we have several sessions that relate to case studies involving students research. In small groups, they study several major works of six architects that have had a great impact on the city: from Francios Giruad, who was responsible for several early structures in San Antonio including the plans for the reconstruction of San Fernando Cathedral, as well as the architect for the Ursaline Academy; James Riely Gordon, designer of the Bexar County Courthouse; Alfred Giles, early San Antonio architect who designed among many things the Menger Hotel, the Steves Homestead, the Maverick Building and a series of buildings along Crocket street.

San Fernando Cathedral by Francios Giraud.

Bexar County Courthouse by James Riely Gordon.

The Menger Hotel by Alfred Giles.

Atlee B. Ayers, the architect that brought San Antonio into a new age, shaped downtown with a series of buildings such as the Tower Life Building, the original Municipal Auditorium, as well as other examples including home of Marion Koogler McNay or the Administration Building at Randolph Air Base. Paul Cret, a renowned Philadelphia classical architect who would design the Federal Courthouse and Post Office; and Ralph Cameron, a local architect who would be involved in a variety of projects like the Medical Arts Building (now the Emily Morgan Hotel) or the Scottish Rite Temple.

The old Municipal Auditorium, now Tobin Center, by Atlee B. Ayers.

Federal Courthouse and Post Office by Paul P. Cret.

The Medical Arts Building, now Emily Morgan Hotel, by Ralph Cameron.

In Parts Create the Whole: Architecture Composition and Form session students use these examples to study proportional analysis of the buildings, study the materials, and details being used by analyzing how every part of a building comes together to create the final composition. Following an introduction to rendering techniques in Representation in Architecture – Visual Communication of Ideas, students begin to take their analysis further through the development of analytique style drawings. A process by which many elements are studied through a drawing composed of a combination of plans, elevations, sections, and details. These are rendered in pencil drawings and watercolor.

Building analysis by students.

Students studying building details.

Analytique study by students.

Also, we have a class period dedicated to the Legacy of Churches in San Antonio – Missions and the City, making students aware of the strong influence of a variety of liturgical architecture in our city from the missions; San Fernando Cathedral, the German St. Joseph’s Church, to the variety of Gothic inspired churches that reside in the central city area, to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower or the Chapel of the Incarnate Word.

Students at San Fernando led by Zach May.

Much of the work of the semester culminates in a full day field trip to downtown San Antonio, where students walk the city from its beginnings at the Spanish Governor’s Palace and Main Plaza to experiencing the impact of the Riverwalk as an urban planning element for which our city is nationally known for. We see historic and new buildings in the city, visit La Villita and Alamo Plaza, to support the student led discussion of the topic. We also stop for sketching opportunities along the way, providing the students with the opportunity to learn through drawing some of the examples they have been studying.

Sketching on walking tour.

Most importantly, the students present their research to one another along the way during our day long tour. Each group shares what they have learned about specific architects and their built work. You can really see the students light up when they are able to experience these spaces they have studied.

Students presentation of the work of Paul P. Cret.

The course also brings the introduction of craftsmanship directly to the classroom. The first experiment consists of studying plaster ornamentation. By working with Hyde Park Mouldings out of New York, students are introduced to plaster as a material and how it can be used to provide decorative ornament to a building. This past semester, we were able to introduce students to the mold making process by using two different epoxy systems. Though this process, student were able to make their own molds and cast a variety of plaster moldings.

A variety of decorative plaster moldings.

Students in process of creating moldings led by Alice Arnn.

Students pouring and unveiling plaster casts.

The second is the design of a column capital, students take the principles they learned in the exploration of the classical orders and apply them with local influences and iconography to design their own Alamo Height Junior School capitals. Each student works through the design process, starting with individual initial designs and then were paired into groups to formulate a final design that was worked out between the team. Finally, each group then completed drawings of their capital. These were then given to a local decorative materials vendor, Materials Marketing, who working with their designer and stone carvers in Mexico produced shop drawings for the students to review and produced scaled carved scaled stone models of each of the capitals. These were created in quarters so each of the students will be able to take home an example of their design work.

Capital designs.

Carved stone capitals.

We also shared the more contemporary aspects of the professions – how construction documents packages are pulled together, how digital and three-dimensional modeling tools are used, and what a day in the office is like for an architect.

Exploring digital modeling and a 3-D printed model with Michael Stolle.

Discussing what goes in to a set of architectural construction documents led by Will Lancarte.

This past May, we held our second exhibition of the students work at the San Antonio Area Foundation. Where the student’s work was displayed to the public and they were able to share what they learned with their parents, faculty, and staff. An audience of loved ones and professionals from Alamo Heights School District, local architects, and AIA members, craftspeople, and members our chapter of the ICAA gathered to celebrate their work.

While this program was initiated in New York City by the ICAA, partnered with the Marymount School in 2015, “New Heights” has completed its second year here in Texas with the Alamo Heights School District. It is at the forefront of this type of education now being carried out in several chapters across the country including; the National Cathedral School in Washington, DC, the Girls Academic Leadership Academy in California, and the Great Valley Middle School in Pennsylvania. We hope that soon we will have the opportunity to expand this program to other cities throughout the state as ICAA Texas continues to develop its educational offerings.

Tour of San Antonio with 2018 New Heights students in La Villita led by Andrew Gander.

We hope that this program will give these young students an introduction to architecture and the built environment around them, that it will open their eyes to much broader influences as they continue their educations, and that they will more fully appreciate the relationship of the allied arts with craftsmanship in architecture.

Categories: About Michael

Good Things in Small Packages

Andrew Gander

Posted on July 13, 2018

Narcissa Niblack Thorne, 1882-1966, artist, patroness of the history of interior design.

While traveling this week, I found myself blown into the Windy City. When I’m in Chicago, I always try to visit the Art Institute. The museum currently boasts an excellent exhibition of works by John Singer Sargent, but it also has numerous other delightful and surprising exhibits. The Miniature Rooms by Narcissa Thorne is certainly a highlight for me as an architect, and it now tops my list of favorite galleries.

A6: New Hampshire Dining Room, 1760, c. 1940 by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

E-21: French Boudoir of the Louis XV Period, 1740-60, c. 1937 by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The scope and rigor is stunning and borders on unbelievable; it is certainly in another league altogether when compared to architectural models I have constructed in the past. Mrs. Thorne’s patronage for the arts stemmed from inspiring interior design–both imagined and real–from around the world. However, she first began to construct miniatures after receiving trinkets and baubles from her uncle who served as a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.

Massachusetts Drawing Room, 1768, c. 1940, by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Thorne’s childhood sweetheart, James Ward Thorne, was an heir to the Montgomery Ward department store fortune. Due to his untimely death, the fortune, and high unemployment during the Great Depression, Narcissa was able to hire expert craftsmen. Craftsmanship aside, the enormous effort and care taken to research historical precedent for the loving portrayal of these period rooms is obvious.

Tennessee Entrance Hall, 1835, c. 1940, by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

To our 21^st century eyes, these rooms may seem like a historic catalogue of styles. It’s important to remember that several spaces were exploring the current modern trends of the day. Rooms from the 1930s to 1940 showcase the sleek lines, new taste, and contemporary sensibilities of the Art Deco movement. Her most famous works are reconstructions of upper-class European and American homes crafted at one-inch-to-one-foot scale.

A7: New Hampshire Entrance Hall, 1799, c. 1940, Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Perhaps my favorite feature of these rooms are the adjoining ancillary spaces. Open doors reveal fully conceived rooms to the side. Some of these rooms, while complete, can only be viewed by an inch-wide doorway opening. It makes the viewer appreciate the effort all the more. They also spark the imagination. What does the rest of the house look like? Where does the next room lead? What would I find at the top of the staircase?

A36: California Living Room, 1850-1875, c. 1940 by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

California Living Room, 1935-1940, c. 1940, by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Similarly, open windows and doors reveal exterior spaces, too. Gardens with flowering bushes, leafy trees, cobbled paths, and gates with hinges offer an extraordinary sense of place. Expertly rendered backgrounds suggest an atmospheric perspective which tricks the eye into seeing a greater sense of depth. Despite the cost and timely process required to complete each set, Mrs. Thorne never sought to be paid for her work.

French Provincial Bedroom of the Louis XV Period, 18th Century The Art Institute of Chicago.

California Hallway, c. 1940, by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In addition to the craft of the rooms, I appreciate and want to call attention to the careful and intentional lighting design. The appearance of natural daylight pours in from the tall windows, and artificial lighting creeps in from open doors. This establishes a comfortable, warm, and very familiar atmosphere.

English Reception Room of the Jacobean Period, 1625-55, c. 1937, by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

These spaces go beyond a merely academic architectural exercise and explore a representation of daily life. Tiny tea cups, fresh fruit on the table, cabinet doors left ajar, a toy train abandoned on the floor-–to me, this is the heart and soul of the exhibit. Simply put, these rooms are delightful. They bring historic spaces and classic designs to a scale that can be enjoyed by the common man–not just learned historians and architects.

E-25: French Bathroom and Boudoir of the Revolutionary Period, 1793-1804, c.1937 by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Categories: About Michael

Washington’s Home

Alice Arnn

Posted on July 6, 2018

The West Front of Mount Vernon, by Edward Savage, 1787-1792, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Bequest of Helen W. Thompson, 1964

“I am once more seated under my own Vine and fig tree, and hope to spend the remainder of my days—which in the ordinary course of things (being in my Sixty sixth year) cannot be many—in peaceful retirement, making political pursuits yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the Earth.”
—George Washington, letter to James Anderson, April 7, 1787

A portrait of General George Washington.

George Washington served as commander-in-chief on the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, the president of the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the U.S. Constitution, and America’s first president. To his own generation and to those that followed, he is the father of our country—“the hero, the patriot, the sage of America…the man on whom in time of danger, every eye turned and all hopes were placed.”

Mount Vernon, 1796, with the Washington family on the terrace by Benjamin Henry Latrobe

But Washington’s greatness comes not only from his political and military achievements. After the end of the Revolutionary War, the general was favored to be the leader of the new nation. Washington, however, refused this potential dictatorship and, like the Roman statesman Cinncinatus, returned to his farm. After later serving two terms as the nation’s first president, he again relinquished his power, retiring to his beloved home at Mount Vernon and setting a precedent followed by every president until 1940 and later signed into law as the 22nd Amendment.

Map of the estate, drawn by Washington

Though Washington’s great grandfather purchased the original property, the majority of the 3000-acre plot was acquired by his father Augustine Washington when George was three. The property sits nestled on the bank at the Potomac River a few miles south of Alexandria, Virginia in Fairfax County. George acquired the property on lease in 1754, and he began improving the house originally built by his father. By the time the general died, he had more than doubled both the size of the original 3000-acre property and the square footage of the home.

Conjectural sketch of the original 1734 house, MVLA

Conjectural sketch of the house after the first expansion, MVLA

The late 1750s marked the beginning of Washington’s first ambitious expansion. Due to the estate’s self-sufficient community, which included carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, planters, and a whiskey distillery, little work needed to be outsourced. The original home General Washington inherited commanded views of the Potomac and was comprised of a central passage connecting four rooms and a garret. He began his improvements by lifting the roof to include a full second story and a third-story garret. The initial layout was then reconfigured to accommodate the added staircase and new bedrooms and storage rooms. Originally framed in wood, it was then finished in plaster that was scored to imitate the look of cut stone.

Mount Vernon by Eric Dowdle

Front of the main house at Mount Vernon

Sketch of the house after the second expansion, MVLA

From 1774 to 1775, a two-story expansion was added to the south side of the mansion with a study, master bedroom, and dressing room for George and Martha. Further additions were begun in 1776, but Washington’s plans were interrupted by the Continental Congress and the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. While Washington led the Continental Army in battle, the mansion was supervised by a distant cousin named Lund Washington. Though the general returned from the war in 1783, his work on the house was not completed until 1787.

A hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives, American, 1834-1907. Gift of Lenore B. and Sidney A. Alpert supplemented with museum acquistions funds

The eastern façade, facing the Potomac River

Through these additions, Washington aimed to imitate the style of Andrea Palladio. This is evident in the house’s simple, classical forms, but the original house’s plan prevented him from ever achieving the symmetry of the most famous Palladian villas. Washington also took inspiration from other classical European examples. He used colonnades to both attach the main house to two lower secondary buildings and to form Mansion Circle, a traditional cour d’honneur similar to the entry court at Blenheim Palace.

Blenheim Palace, The plan of the palace’s principal block or corps de logis is a rectangle, pierced by two courtyards

Additionally, the house received several other impressive features: a prominent pediment with an oval, ox-eye window, a cupola, and a two-story portico along the east façade overlooking the Potomac. While smaller, single-story porches were typical at the time, the mansion’s porch was wide and double-height with classical pilasters and an architrave supporting the cornice above. These classical details were common on public buildings in the 18^th century, but Washington’s use of them on his home and in a rural setting was unique at the time. He was inspired more by the great country houses of Europe than by contemporary American examples.

Portico at Mount Vernon, MVLA

To complete his renovations “left so long unfinished,’ Washington commissioned Philadelphia artisan Joseph Rakestraw to complete a custom weather vane–“a bird…with an olive branch in its mouth.” This Dove of Peace symbolized not only the domestic tranquility enjoyed by the Washingtons and their guests at Mount Vernon, but also the enduring peace he hoped the new nation would enjoy throughout its history.

Cupola and Dove of Peace, MVLA

The house itself is filled with remarkable relics of the life of man who was and is “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen…second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life.” Still today the key to the Bastille in Paris hangs on the wall. Given to Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette, his friend and aide during the Revolution, it was meant, in the Marquis’ words as” a tribute which I owe as a son to my adoptive father, as an Aide-de-camp to my General, [and] as a missionary of liberty to her Patriarch.”

Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960 and was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Washington and his wife Martha hosted countless guests from around the world during their time at the estate. Thanks to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and its successors, the Washingtons’ enthusiasm for sharing their home continues today. Beautifully maintained and still a working farm, it remains a testament both to the greatness of Washington and to his own love for the estate, the house, and the life he lived there.

Mount Vernon seen from the Potomac River

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: architecture, Cincinnati, George Washington, Independence, Mansion, Potomac

The blog of Michael G Imber Architects

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Robert Dinkins

Posted on August 17, 2018

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Alice Arnn

Posted on August 10, 2018

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Michael Madsen

Posted on August 3, 2018

The Rusticators

Michael Imber

Posted on July 27, 2018

Reaching for New Heights

Mac White

Posted on July 20, 2018

Good Things in Small Packages

Andrew Gander

Posted on July 13, 2018

Washington’s Home

Alice Arnn

Posted on July 6, 2018