9/22/2006

Exterior, main sanctuary Parish House and Chancel for Christ Church Eau Claire, Wisconsin 1908/1915 All photographs by John Panning Exterior, Parish House Interior, sanctuary Window, sanctuary Still not there. Mea culpa. I got involved with keystrokes other than transcribing the section of the Purcell manuscript related to the 1906 trip to Europe, so again that ship has not yet sailed. Instead, I started working on the massive backlog of images that have sat here waiting for me to get them up and got on something of a roll even though this Grind is technically late. In the Duck, Quack Department, some 40 images contributed by John Panning have been added to the Parish House and Chancel for Christ Church in Eau Claire. Let Purcell explain, which he really wants to do: "This job was a poser for a young fellow fired up with Louis H. Sullivan fuel and deeply convinced of the need for indigenous American architecture." I know, you know, he knew that this was about maintaining valuable contacts in a prosperous town where there was much work to be had. This commission is largely overlooked by most people who examine the work of the firm, and well might that be a good thing, I suppose, in comparison to the purer visions found in the rest of the P&E commission list. I have always viewed it as the perfect form of contrast, a demonstration that Purcell and Feick could have done perfectly well amid the revivalists had that been their path. Instead, the Christ Church shows clearly their comprehension of the devil against which their minds and spirits were arrayed. They just tweaked the horns. Presentation rendering Community House for the First Congregational Church Source: Images Database, University of Minnesota Libraries Front elevation as constructed Photograph by John Panning P&E were rewarded for their patience, along with us, with that feast for the eyes that is the Community House for the First Congregational Church, which we now view with 22 new vantage points thanks to John. This is one of the few P&E projects where the initial take on the building elevation changed radically from the final construction. Partly such was due, no doubt, to the enthusiasm of the firm that the driving force for the commission, the woman who was footing the bill, had a strongly modern outlook. Yet, in the end, the conservative sensibilities of the whole flock leaned heavily upon the design. The final result is starkly different from the original conception. The facade as built incorporates what is clearly a familiar form of ecclesiastical detail, yet one rendered with such perfect delicacy and integral relationship with the whole that the enrichment poetically references but effectively belies the taint of revivalism. Detail, leaded glass panel Community House for the First Congregational Church Eau Claire, Wisconsin   1913 Photograph by John Panning Interior, looking toward kitchen Community House for the First Congregational Church Eau Claire, Wisconsin   1913 Photograph by John Panning There is one mistake that happens frequently when people look at the Community House and the adjoining church building. Most people assume that the Community House was an addition to the sanctuary. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Community House survived a fire in the 1920s that took down the original church, and Purcell recounts this as the conclusion of his Parabiographies entry for the project. The current life of the building did away with the basketball court long ago, and the space now serves as a Sunday School and Nursery. The congregation is clearly proud of the legacy, and treats the building with a refreshing respect and obvious enjoyment.
Gustav Weber Studio Minneapolis, Minnesota  1915	Some more miscellaneous images have been added hither and thence, including one of Gustav Weber's interior design establishment. Four images from the 1930s of the later iteration of the firm, Weber Werness Studios, are available from the Minnesota Historical Society website [type in "weber werness" on the search line], when the studio was in the Handicraft Building. The sales floor purveyed home furnishings in a space where, at least last time I was there, you can get a decent omelet and some trail cakes along with fresh squeezed orange juice. The Handicraft Guild building, for which Purcell & Feick did a "consultation," is more or less intact, though decayed throughout much of the interior from sheer neglect over the decades. It was to the auditorium of this space that Purcell shepherded H. P. Berlage for the great Dutch architect to give a talk to the local architecture community when he visited Minneapolis in 1911 while on his tour of the United States. I have always felt sad for Berlage, who was so homesick by this point in his lengthy American sojourn that he failed to take the train an hour south to Owatonna to see the National Farmers' Bank, arguably the finest of all the Progressive buildings that were the object of his travels. There that evening Purcell also met John Jager, who eventually came to be called the "silent partner" in P&E. The Arts & Crafts-oriented Handicraft Guild proved to be an assembly area where Purcell, Elmslie, and the Team were prone to circulate in the closest they had to an local arts community of peers, I suppose because the place had seats.
Dining room presentation rendering by Gustav Weber Edward L. Powers Residence Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie Minneapolis, Minnesota  1910	Presentation rendering Clayton F. Summy residence George Grant Elmslie, architect Hinsdale, Illinois  1924
Probably my favorite presentation rendering in the Purcell collection is the one done by Weber for the dining room of the E. L Powers residence. Intensely lush with poetic warmth, the drawing is a fair prophecy of the feeling intended in his interior decoration of the room -- even if the table did wind up being round instead of rectangular. It is the exception, however, rather than the rule, something brought home to me as I rescanned to modern display resolutions a number of the earliest images ever to appear here, originally done in 1996. The vast majority of P&E renderings were done on tracing paper with colored pencil. A perfect example of the standard issue is the one given to Purcell's in-laws for the Clayton F. Summy residence.  Even though it was created in 1924, this drawing invokes perfectly the presence of all those that came before. Part of the reason for this simplicity was so that client would not mistake the idea of the building, which is all that the design was at the point of service for the drawing, for the actual thing it would become in tangible built presence. The usual P&E presentation drawing is almost always an elevation, flattened on the plane of the paper. Only rarely did a job command the time and expense of more elaborate representational, perspective views like Weber used for the Powers decorating scheme. Beyond the grave goods of a b&w photograph we are likely never to know more of what was possibly the finest of the P&E renderings, done for the Institutional Church for Charles O. Alexander, project (Y.M.C.A.) which was to have been built in Siang Tan, Hunan, China.  Poof, vanished, gone without a trace. There was also a special oil rendering done by Charles Chapman for the Woodbury County Court House that had its own commission number. That perhaps has a better chance of showing up, as it was left with the client. Purcell tried to inquire of the Sioux City folks in the 1940s, but couldn't get a straight answer. Perhaps they came upon this painting during their restoration effort but, if so, I have yet to see a photograph. We have no true sense of what the drawings for the P&E submission to the Australian Parliament Buildings Competition really looked like, either, since Elmslie left them outside on a porch to merge with the winter snows, even though the original plain bumwad sketches miraculously -- and accidentally -- survived forgotten in a flat file drawer. The most comprehensive set of surviving renderings is the suite of sketches prepared for the First National Bank, project, which present several alternate facade schemes. In my experience -- and making the aforementioned P&E point about why such drawings were usually eschewed -- many people react to these drawings as art objects before they look at them as conveyances for architectural design. There is also in this group the unique use of a transverse section in a P&E presentation, rendered at substantial expense by enriching a hectograph with colored pencils and paint. Of course, it was from these drawings that Tom Ellerbe ripped off P&E's design to thieve the commission, the ultimate form of flattery that hits below the belt, in the wallet. Everyone should read the trenchant editorial that appeared in The Western Architect when this perpetration of ethical failing was exposed for all to understand.			Presentation rendering Institutional Church for Charles O. Alexander, project also known as "Y.M.C.A" Siang Tan, Hunan, China   1916
			Principal scheme First National Bank, project Mankato, Minnesota   1911
			Transverse section, main banking room Principal scheme First National Bank, project Mankato, Minnesota   1911
Presentation rendering Welcome Inn Hotel, project Watercolor and colored pencil on paper, mounted on a masonite panel in the 1950s Rhinelander, Wisconsin 1915
Of the other formal presentation drawings that remain, t he large "Welcome Inn" project rendering done for the Rhinelander hotel project is superbly articulate and conveys a strong architectonic sense while being confined to a flat front elevation (above is a fresh higher resolution scan, somewhat treated for color adjustment, different than what's on the project pages). I have always wished to see the real drawing for the Riverside Country Club, which we have only in the lithograph that appeared in The Western Architect in 1915. The print reproduction is fine enough for the time and purpose for which it was made, but the publication process resulted in an image that is cheesy to my eyes. Certainly the original could have been right up there among the best that ever came from the P&E office. Just possibly the club still has it.		Presentation rendering Lithograph insert to The Western Architect (1915) Riverside Country Club Purcell and Elmslie Riverside, Illinois   1914
Presentation rendering, in collaboration with John W. Norton Color image originally from Hess-Ives separation negatives, 1915 Charles O. Alexander residence, project Philadelphia, Pennsylvania   1915 Source: University of Minnesota Libraries online U Media Archive, University of Minnesota Libraries
		The last all presentation renderings done for clients was the one John Norton collaborated on for the Charles O. Alexander residence, project in Philadelphia. Again we have only a photograph, albeit in color through a Hess-Ives separation. Again, I have processed the available image to enhance the contour sharpness, and this view is, I think, better than the one otherwise available on-line. Also, to come full circle, the formal Christ Church rendering (alas, I lack a color representation) is an angelic exercise in celestial pastels. Reproduction can never do it justice. Thus, one duck, a goose by Ellerbe, and many swans later, we have arrived at the end of our current pool of consideration.  And thanks again for the contributions of Caravan member John Panning. I won't even bother with a Next Up, because who knows? There are hundreds more images begging to be tagged and released. Presentation rendering (b&w facsimile) Parish House and Chancel for Christ Church Eau Claire, Wisconsin 1908/1915 A "legible" view of the image at a higher resolution has been added to the project page.

9/7/2006

"Demolition   Henry B. Babson residence   Mark Hammons  2005

Successful Relaunch. Most regular readers of this blog won't care about the technobabble reported in this issue, but they will care about the resources newly restored to accessibility. For nearly three years since the death of that 10 year old Pentium I that was the Organica server for so long, much of what can be delivered through Organica was off-line. The HyperFind system on which the vast majority of information here was based simply didn't have any way to work. With the advent of a rescued Pentium 3 coming into service, complete with a hard drive harvested from a castoff carcass in the dumpster, the effort to bring the HyperFind modules back into service has been accomplished. With the occasional exception of indexing code that still needs to be adjusted to recognize the new directory structures, the following Organica sections are working again. Guide to the William Gray Purcell Papers Between August, 1979 and mid-1986 I worked to complete a roughly 800 page manuscript to serve as a guide to the Purcell Papers. It was converted in the 1990s to work through the HyperFind software. The advanced indexing features have been restored, and are visible on the entry page. The Prairie School: The Progressive Era On-Line The original version of the HyperFind  software built web "exhibits" from databases on the fly. While this is very primitive compared to what can be done today, when it was built in 1994 it was cutting edge. The Director of the National Digital Initiative at the Smithsonian stood at my desk and said that I had solved problems his engineers had just realized were there. It was a nice thing to say, but it scared the supervising librarians standing nearby. Until I can complete building the new interface with web controls that mimic the actual Windows application in the browser, the old views will have to appear. The Prairie School Exchange This resource had just been barely up six months or so before the old server died. It looks a little scrawny now, of course, but just needs attention. The current resurrection does contain Martin Hackl's wonderful presentation on John S. Van Bergen. So, dice are rolling and the knives are out. Further developments portend.

9/3/2006

"Troubled Buddha" Portrait of Louis Sullivan Mark Hammons  2005

Buck Up.  First, everyone who reads this page is doing so because of the generosity of a member of the Caravan who chose, out of sheer humanity, to save Organica and, not coincidentally, my life as I know it. After staggering forward since 9/11 on mostly willpower, I arrived at the bottom of the barrel in August, 2006. An architect for whom I work owed me six weeks of back pay and did not have the money. I received an eviction notice. You could just see the management company salivating at the opportunity to raise the rent in this otherwise rent-controlled apartment another $500 a month after moving me out. Such is the day-to-day rapacity of economic challenge in Los Angeles. Sure, it's the City of Angels, but they don't tell you these are predominately from all I have seen the ones that sided with Lucifer. With the rent twenty-one days late, the drama and my transformation in this experience cannot be overstated. Most people don't have a chip set for being about four minutes from the lifestyle of the street through the ministrations of the LA County Sheriff. Heaven knows the spaces beneath the bridges in LA are already fully occupied, so me, my cats and what few possessions I might have salvaged would have been on the sidewalk. While I explained this situation to the person in question only as an understanding of why uploading some images would likely not happen and making the point this was not his concern, he turned around and made it one. I have never been paid a higher compliment in my life than my name being expressed next to Louis Sullivan in the same condition and being deemed worthy of salvation. My command of language is overwhelmed by this kindness from someone I have never met. With this act of grace, the Cause in the shape of my footprints is moved forward to another set of days. The whole experience has reaffirmed for me that what I do here has merit, provides interest, and conveys value for others. For the deliverance of my life from disaster on the wings of that judgment by someone who prefers to otherwise remain anonymous, I am profoundly grateful. Synchronously, the old cast off computer that sat here for almost a year unwilling to work has miraculously decided to function, and Progressives On-Line, the Prairie School Exchange, and the Guide to the William Gray Purcell Papers can now be restored to service. That's what I am working on at the moment. Once that is up, I can resume the addition of materials here. Salve!

research courtesy mark hammons