Minneapolis, Minnesota :: Chicago, Illinois
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania :: Portland, Oregon

That tasty bit tucked under my wing, I happened next in line to see a mention of his work in Portland in Architectural Guidebook to Portland by Bart King and this caught my eye:

Portland Buddhist Temple [Now called Miao Fa Chan Temple]
Originally Third Church of Christ, Scientist
1722 SE Madison Street, one block north of Hawthorne Boulevard
  between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Avenues
Architect: William Gray Purcell

Nifty Amazon deposited me on facsimile page whose number was not visible, but which contained this remarkable description:

"Given the year of this building's construction, its lack of decoration is unique. It is a strongly geometric structure, focused on rectangular forms in its composition; even the windows are squared off, an unusual touch for a church built in the 1920s. The architect, William Gray Purcell, once worked in the noted Chicago firm of Purcell and Elmslie, which specialized in commercial buildings in the Chicago style. Unfortunately, that style isn't particularly suited to a building with spiritual intents. Viewed from the outside, this cube-like temple could be mistaken for a bottling plant, or perhaps a Prairie-home design that got left in an industrial furnace, but nonetheless it is a landmark building and a useful structure."

First off, if you have stopped howling yet, one can only remark in passing that a more complete lack of awareness concerning the work of Purcell and Elmslie could hardly be expressed in print. Clearly, this writer had never lifted the cover of H. Allen Brooks, at a minimum, nor obviously ever typed in the name of the firm into Google or Yahoo. Naturally, Purcell not only "worked" at P&E, he happened to be a founding principal of the second most commissioned Progressive firm, especially of residences, after Frank Lloyd Wright. Since the very essence of Purcell and Elmslie was the expression of spiritual integrity, and this building for Christian Scientists responded to a very particular type of practice, the above must be allowed to pass by without dwelling further unless you want to stop for a soda.

The original sanctuary standing in the back, the new construction on the portion of the site whose main sanctuary was never realized by the Christian Scientists.	Source: Miao Fa Chan Temple website
	Source: Miao Fa Chan Temple website
A proper feng shui entrance to the temple, now...	Source: Miao Fa Chan Temple website

When I made my pilgrimage to this building in 1984 (in another universe, some 23 years ago), I saw that there were concrete foundations lining an intended but never realized extension of the building. Something has been built there now, as you can see. I was comforted by seeing that the original sanctuary appeared to be unaltered on the exterior. Being Buddhist myself, I knew what was likely to have happened inside, but could only be glad of the possibility of this building being repurposed to the dharma. Imagine my delight that, although one side alcove has been closed off and the altar has completed changed the former reader's stage area, the interior remains pretty much functionally intact and even the electroliers are still there.

Sanctuary, present day
Source: Miao Fa Chan Temple website

This is a Chinese temple interior, but not altogether unlike the Tibetan forms that I tend toward; nonetheless I am thrilled with this outcome for a building that might have been demolished or turned into, say, a bottling plant. Utterly, profoundly wonderful! [I think the Relics Tour of the Maitreya Project needs to check in here for a visit, if it hasn't already. And if you don't believe that such things have power (I didn't but experience proved my assumption wrong), you should try sitting in the presence of the reliquaries for four or five hours. I was naturally high as a kite for days, with dharma poetry spontaneously flowing (uncharacteristically) out of me. These things pack a charge, however they came by it.] I am so ready to visit Miao Fa Chan Temple and humbly ask permission to meditate. Anyone want to scholarship me a trip to Portland? Double whammy for the bucks, good karma for architecture and merit in the dharma in one fell swoop. I wonder if my old jalopy would make it up there...naw, don't even think about it. I'm already flying anyway...

Lawrence Fournier residence Lawrence A. Fournier, architect Minneapolis, Minnesota Photograph courtesy Richard Kronick

And There's So Much More Department. In my life I have been blessed with some lasting friends who are truly great human beings. Just because I asked, two of them have independently collaborated to deliver a set of photographs of the Lawrence Fournier house in Minneapolis that, taken together, cover the inside and outside. Most importantly, these images recognize the commitment and respect of devoted owners who are spending their time and treasure to restore and refit this home by one of the key drafters in the P&E office. I wish I had a decent photo of them to put up here, because these are clearly the kinds of folks that the P&E Team intended should live in their houses. They obviously have a deeply personal connection with the dwelling, and in a moment of time where the Owre house is on the block for the pickings of millionaires only, it is heartwarming to see a couple so obviously making a very fine down to earth home in the Fournier house. They've even perfectly feng shui'ed the front entrance with a substantial pair of foo dogs.

Although the Fournier house is more Arts & Crafts in line than a design from the P&E studio usually was (J. D. R. Stevens house in Eau Claire has this same feel on a larger scale), there is a straight shooting cleanliness in the general scheme that keeps faith with the progressive message. The house did not fare well with owners in previous decades. Like many of its kind, interior fixtures were stripped as the property changed hands, finish features faded or were removed, and clapboard siding was converted to stucco. One of the more recent owners added a fireplace mural and plaque insert to the chimney whose imagery, while romantic enough, is purely Arts & Crafts in the traditional sense and not akin to a P&E fireplace, even though witness the body of the raised hearth being exactly what it should be. Nonetheless, the house retains key elements sufficient to bring the mind to rest in wholesome values. Should I ever make it to Minneapolis, I hope to call and pay my respects.

Capitol Building and Loan Association George Grant Elmslie, architect [George G. Elmslie and Associates] Topeka, Kansas 1922  demolished

Panel by Emil Zettler, formerly above main entrance Mike Springer, a friendly and generous Caravan member from St. Louis with roots in Kansas, sends along this tombstone shot of the Emil Zettler figures once found above the front entrance to the demolished Capitol Building and Loan Association bank building. Purcell expressed his unflattering opinion of this sculptural work, which was basically saying Zettler just did not have the same order of sensitivity as Richard Bock or Alphonsi Ianelli. He mentions that during this stretch of time George Elmslie was apparently "off" Ianelli for some reason. Talbot Hamlin, however, held a different view in captioning a photo for this very entrance in his "George Grant Elmslie and the Chicago Scene," piece in Pencil Points (September, 1941, page 583). Mike has provided a number of detail shots of the panel for those unlikely to venture to the park where they are now installed.

Tom Shearer has been at it again, doing that thing that he does so well with his camera.
I am tempted to simply put up a flowing series of his images in a Flash presentation, but that isn't really a Grind.
This column is supposed to be about my own experience of process in the Caravan. One of the major blessings in recent years is having Tom's images bring new light to my eyes on things long familiar or known previously only in archival black and white. The original achievement, a primordial contribution, in Lux Shearer is the high resolution digital close-ups that provide a completely new visual approach to details which are simply invisible to the naked eye on site. Maybe we were never meant to see these things this way, but perhaps this unintended intimacy allows us compensate for the destructive vagaries of intervening time in a uniquely organic way. I can't bear to shrink wrap these beauties, so I have reduced them only enough to display whole on the average computer monitor. Hope you all have broadband, because these will take 30 seconds to download even at that speed. Scroll slowly. Maybe make an espresso and grab a scone while this arrives.

Aside from revealing the telling presence of cobwebs and cracks, patches and chips, manufacturing blemishes and positioning flaws, his images allow the heart of the idea from which these architectural enrichments unfolded to be perceived elementally. In combining his talent for framing with the clarity of high resolution detail, Tom's photographs provide a draught of purity. Through these pathways the inquiring heart and mind can reverse-engineer, drawing from a single breath of beauty the essential oxygen of purpose and thus embrace a comprehension of the whole structure that might not still be as easily available in the larger context of surviving conditions.



Clock lintel frieze panels detail
Farmers and Merchants State Bank
Purcell and Elmslie
Hector, Minnesota   1916
Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

You'd never get this out of just standing there. I look forward to the time when Tom goes to the local phone company in, say, Winona, and asks politely if they would mind lifting him up in a bucket so he can get the capitals and medallions from the Merchants Bank head on. Adapted to geographical scope, Tom has the potential to become a valued successor to Richard Nickel. Color is a significant advantage in reproduction, one Nickel didn't have for publication, but Tom's sharper edge is the capacity of sophisticated digital cameras to go where the human eye is either unlikely or unable to venture. The contribution to those studying the geometries and efflorescence of these patterns is unparalleled. Some of those who write to me on a semi-regular basis to exchange notes have made significant new discoveries in their awareness of these compositions thanks to Tom allowing me to post the images here (also available on his Flickr page).

Exterior frieze corner block
Farmers and Merchants State Bank
Purcell and Elmslie
Hector, Minnesota   1916
Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

While I don't willingly step on any toes here, there are those out there who are trying to render an argument for an archetypal mathematics underlying all Elmslie's patterns. It's kind of cool in a way that people sense an underlying language common to all of his ornament, and since they did come from one mind there is no doubt a relationship between them all. I am just not yet sold that this can be reduced to a formula programmable on a computer to output variations at will. There is just so much more going on with an individual expression of site and circumstance in each commission where these delicacies flourished. I admit, it will make a hell of a screensaver, anyway. 

Banking room interior, 2007 First National Bank of Adams Purcell and Elmslie Adams, Minnesota  1919 Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

Banking room, circa 1920 First National Bank of Adams Purcell and Elmslie Adams, Minnesota  1919	Fireplace, banking room, circa 1920 Source both photographs: IMAGES, University of Minnesota Libraries
Barely a century has passed since a confluence of social, cultural, and artistic energies crystallized in these reflections of democratic ideal. The message rendered into physical expression has come down to us throughout the Midwest, or the Middle West as those responsible termed their own sphere, in a surprising diversity of places. While some few of these buildings remain remarkably intact, most have suffered the disinterest of neglect, economic failure and subsequent malediction in repurposed use, a passive-aggressive manifestation of individual egotism thinly veiled as "restoration," and sometimes worst of all, the overt hostility of demolition. The fabric of these architectural expressions of American spirit has been much ripped and worn, in places completely to tatters, with fragments scattered like dandelion seeds into museums and private collections. What remains in situ, if anything at all is left, must often contend with the jarring distractions, detractions, and distortions of present day "design", particularly in tawdry signage, brutal or cheesy lighting, and fatuously inappropriate furnishings. Still, without bearing down too harshly in armchair ardor on those who have no idea about cultural stewardship, nor indeed the means but who must make their living with what remains at hand, I think one of the best uses for these types of images is to capture the sections of the original that are not torn or papered over with debris. An archaeologist may photograph all the layers of dust and crust as a skeleton is being excavated, but it is the bones that wind up, neatly cleaned, in the display case. That is the edifying measurement, the result of the endeavor. In a similar way, I think, something like that is at work in what Tom does with his camera. That's why I am nagging him about doing a book.	I suppose there is comfort in knowing that the terra-cotta modules on mural alcove corners have some functional use, after all. I would buy all that stuff just to get it out of the way for a better picture. All around.
Mural by John W. Norton First National Bank of Adams Adams, Minnesota  1919 Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

Electrolier
First National Bank of Adams
Adams, Minnesota  1919
Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

Electrolier Peoples' Savings Bank Louis Sullivan, architect Cedar Rapids, Iowa  1911 Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.		Any photographer can compensate for bad lighting or find the best angle to eliminate, where possible, negative intrusions (as Tom did so beautifully in the image to the left), yet there is a deeper satisfaction to be had in getting closer to the surface that no other architectural photographer has, to my knowledge, presented in the study of the Prairie buildings. I am a little torn in wondering where it is best to clean, say, an electrolier, or leave the dust. Nice, too, to access spaces obscured by dropped ceilings and find original light fixtures, but what about showing an incomplete object, such as the one above (missing the bonnet of the white ridged globe? There are good questions deserving of thought. Detail, electrolier
	Penny postcard Peoples' Savings Bank Louis Sullivan, architect Cedar Rapids, Iowa  1911

On the other hand, it is wonderful to see, up close and personal, the often wondrous way that these materials have managed to age with grace. The color on terra-cotta exposed to harsh winters has managed miraculously to remain vibrant. While interior metals have naturally acquired a patina from atmospheric exposure, the workmanship and the quality of the materials has only been emphasized in many instances. In Tom's views, this becomes part of the evaluation of the object and leads to deeper understanding. Yes, eventually, if you hung out in these places for months you might get to know it anyway, but as Sullivan noted a building reveals itself only slowly. These photographs help that time function along substantially.



Front elevation with overlay of original drawing
Merchants National Bank
Louis Sullivan, architect
Grinnell, Iowa  1914
Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

Tom also has a penchant for graphical manipulation of his images. At times, I have taken exception to his filtrations and finesses, because I think these diminish the raw power of contact carried through his capture of the moment of being there. At least such post-documentary reconsiderations, however lyrically intended, do so to my eye. Recently, however, he has discovered that there is, in fact, a scaled relationship between the object and the drawing from which it was fabricated, and superimposed the beginning on the end. I tried this in a larger format, but on a lesser scale, in the P&E galleries for the Minnesota 1900 exhibition in 1994, using the actual objects positioned within life-sized working drawings. It does have a certain pedagogical value. You just have to add in your mind the village of human hands whose motions brought the intangible into material being--and there you have an icing of Midwestern egalitarianism on your architectural history cake.

Sawed wood detail above window, President's Office
National Farmers Bank
Louis H. Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie, architects
Owatonna, Minnesota   1905
Photograph © by Tom Shearer. All rights reserved.

As the wag said, "Take a picture. It'll last longer." Sadly, oh so true in Progressive architectural history.