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Release Number: 0008
23-Aug-02
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Boxler
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FROM SHINGLES TO COLUMNS, HISTORIC PRESERVATION CONFERENCE STUDIES WORK OF McKIM, MEAD & WHITE
NEWPORT, R.I. Salve Regina Universitys 6th Annual Conference on Cultural and Historic Preservation, to be presented Sept. 26-28, will focus on New York architects Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead & Stanford White, whose prolific body of work From Shingles to Columns changed the face of American architecture.
Organized by Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth professor and chair of architectural history at the University of Virginia, the three-day conference will study the evolution of this celebrated architectural team, from their earlier shingled buildings in Newport, to their later grand classical buildings.
Following is the conference agenda:
Thursday, Sept. 26
Session I: 9:15-10 a.m.
Richard Guy Wilson presents McKim, Mead & White and the American Renaissance. Between the 1870s and the early 1900s, McKim, Mead & White helped change the face of American architecture. Employing the leading American artists, McKim, Mead & White produced decorated buildings that led the way to the revival of American art. From their earlier shingled buildings in Newport, to their later grand classical buildings such as the Boston Public Library and Pennsylvania Station, they established for the United States a new architectural lineage that connected with both the country's past and the grand traditions of the old world.
Session II: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Samuel White Faia of Buttrick, White & Burtis LLP presents The Transitional Houses of McKim, Mead & White The houses designed by MM&W between the early 1880s and the mid-1890s are distinctly different from both their early work in the shingle style and the academic classicism that defined the firm's output during last 15 years of the partnership. These transitional houses look forward and backward in the firms chronology as well as possess distinctive characteristics that relate to neither of the firm's better known periods.
Session III: 1:15-2:15 p.m. (at Newport Art Museum)
Joyce Schiller, associate curator 19th Century Art, Delaware Art Museum, presents More Than Pigeon Roosts: Saint-Gaudens Public Monument Collaborations with McKim & White. Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens preferred to work with the creative spatial and design input of an architect in the planning and creation of his public monuments.
Session IV: 2:30-3:30 p.m.
James Yarnall, assistant professor, Salve Regina Universitys art department, presents Across Generations: John La Farge, Charles Follen McKim, and Stanford White. During the late 1870s, La Farge (1835-1910) emerged as one of the foremost figures in American decorative art, primarily for his innovative development a new type of stained-glass window called opalescent. Among those strongly influenced by La Farge's ideas about decoration were two artists of a younger generation, McKim and White. From McKim, La Farge obtained his first major commission for an opalescent window in 1879 and received a personal commission for a memorial to McKim's wife in 1887. For his part, White commissioned La Farge to design a series of memorial windows for the White family church on Long Island in the 1890s and brought La Farge into numerous collaborations with the firm of McKim, Mead & White. Notwithstanding these many projects, La Farge took McKim, Mead & White to task publicly at the end of his life for not giving him even more opportunities for decorative work.
Friday, Sept. 27
Session V: 8:30 - 9:30 a.m.
Mosette Broderick, Urban Design and Architecture Studies Program, Department of Fine Arts, New York University, presents Helping Hands. McKim, Mead & White were the nations pre-eminent architects at the beginning of the 20th century. The firm gave visual form to the dreams of Presidents and Robber Barons with designs for their houses, clubs and cultural institutions. How did three middle class young men without wildly evident talent achieve their status as the creators of the buildings of imperial America. This talk will focus on the architects, their colleagues in the office and the clients who will propel the firm to the first rank.
Session VI: 9:45-10:45 a.m.
Pauline Metcalf, Decorative Arts Historian, presents Gilded Lilies & More: The Splendid Interiors of Mckim, Mead, & White. From Renaissance palazzos, French chateaux, and English country houses, this talk will compare the 17th and 18th century European sources used by the firm and discuss how they adapted and furnished their 20th century creations for their American patrons. Also to be considered are the roles played by other decorating firms, such as Allard, Herter Brothers, and Baumgarten to achieve the total assemblage.
Session VII: 11 a.m.- noon
Mark Rennella, Ph.D. Intellectual and Cultural Historian, presents Democratic Luxuriance: The Popular Appeal of the Fine Arts in Charles Follen McKim's Boston Public Library. A close look at the Boston Public Library, the passionate debate surrounding its policies around the time that it was being built, and the way McKim used art to participate subtly in these debates points to an outlook that is neither populist nor aristocratic. Instead, McKims created an aesthetic that might be called democratic luxuriance. This paper will show how McKim shaped what could have been a reassertion of noblesse oblige into an exciting egalitarian space.
Session VIII: 1-2 p.m.
Paul Miller, curator, Preservation Society of Newport County, presents Shingle Style Interiors: A Newport Paradigm - The Isaac Bell House. From the early phases of experimentation with H.H. Richardson through the tentative definition of the New Colonial Style in the 1880s, the Newport cottage interiors of McKim, Mead & White reflected the blend of Queen Anne, New England Colonial, and Orientalist design sources that were to become the firm's signature. How these influences came to share power and cohesively unveil themselves in the picturesque decorative package that became the Isaac Bell House will be the focus of this talk.
Session IX: 2:30-4 p.m.
John Tschirch, Architectural Historian, Preservation Society of Newport County, presents Stanford White Builds a Dream House: The Architectural History of Rosecliff. Rosecliff was designed as a retreat from worldly cares. Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs required a house that was suitable for staging lavish parties, indeed, some of the most legendary of Gilded Age Newport. As the consummate designer of the Gilded Age, Stanford White had an exceptional talent for theatrical architecture and ornament. He created a Terra cotta palace based on the Grand Trianon of Versailles. The floor plans of Rosecliff, the decoration of the facades and the building materials were marshalled together to achieve one objective, the creation of a house devoted to a world of fantasy.
Saturday, Sept. 28
Session X: 9 a.m.-noon (at Rhode Island State House, Providence)
Richard Guy Wilson and Elizabeth Delude-Dix, Cultural and Historic Preservation Program, Salve Regina University, present We have tempted Providence, we have fared Capitally. By 1890, the clamor for a new state capitol had reached fever pitch. Rhode Island citizens demanded a structure which reflected the states' aspirations and the pre-eminence of Providence as the second city of New England. A two-year architectural competition selected the entry by McKim, Mead, and White from a field of local and national architects. Their design, which forges historical forms with technological innovation, consolidates the essential elements of American Classicism, and became a prototype for civic structures and state capitols across the country.
Combined with the symposium will be tours of Newport Art Museum, Varieka Gallery, Rosecliff and the Isaac Bell House in Newport and the Rhode Island State House in Providence. All sessions will be held in Ochre Court on the Salve Regina campus.
For registration information, call (800) 351-0863 or (401) 341-2711.
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