 |
firm active: 1907-1921 minneapolis, minnesota :: chicago, illinois |
Navigation ::
Home :: The Team
Biographical Notes: The Team
Biographical essay in Guide to the
William Gray Purcell Papers.
Copyright by Mark Hammons, 1985.
The changing community of draftsmen, artists, craftsmen,
designers, contractors, and others who together carried out the work of the
various Purcell architectural partnerships came to be known collectively as the
"Team." These men and women shared a practical association based on the
democratic ideals that inspired the progressive movement toward an indigenous
American architecture. Many who worked for the Purcell office regarded the firm
as the most challenging and interesting place to be employed and, in contrast to
the majority of contemporary architect's offices, a situation where their active
contribution to the production process was both recognized and appreciated.
Their camaraderie as a fellowship was rooted not in time cards, salaries, or
commission fees but in a common belief in the organic procedures through which
they joined in the building art.
The first drafter to be hired for a regular position in the Purcell & Feick
office was not a man but a woman, Marion Alice Parker (1875?-1935), who joined
the firm in 1908. She moved to Minneapolis from New Hampshire, where she had
gone to drafting school and gained her first practical experience at a woodmill
owned by her uncle. She had worked for a series of firms before coming to
Purcell & Feick. Parker was competent and dependable, and during the more than
ten years she remained with the firm her previous eclectic attitude toward
architectural design changed into a full commitment to the organic principles.
After her departure from Purcell & Elmslie in 1919 she maintained her own
successful practice in Minneapolis until she retired to open an arts and crafts
shop in Laguna Beach, California. In a strange twist of fate, Parker died of a
heart attack only a short distance from the Purcell estate in the Pasadena
foothills while on the way to visit her old employer.
Another drafter, Lawrence B. Clapp, also joined the Purcell & Feick office in
1908 and remained through the change of partnership to Purcell, Feick, & Elmslie
until 1912. Clapp formed a particular attachment to George Elmslie and returned
to work for him during the 1920s after the dissolution of Purcell & Elmslie.
Clapp left the Midwest in 1929 to follow the boom in Florida real estate, where
he suffered financial losses. After a short time in Alaska he returned to
Chicago to sell watercolors made on his trip north and, like Parker, eventually
moved to southern California. In 1935 he was living in Santa Barbara and
participating in the artists colony fiesta in Laguna Beach.
In March of 1912 a drafter named Paul Haugen who was leaving the Purcell,
Feick & Elmslie office was asked to find someone to fill his place before his
departure. Haugen knew of Lawrence A. Fournier, who was unhappy with his
position at the Minneapolis Ornamental Iron Works. Haugen arranged for Fournier
to interview with Purcell and the drafter was offered the job. Although he had
previous experience in the offices of Kees & Colburn and William Kenyon in
Minneapolis, Fournier was at first self conscious about his carpenter drafter
background and intimidated by the idea of working for a highly creative firm
without the benefit of a formal education. Only a brief time back at his
drafting board in the ironworks persuaded him to make the change, however, and
the next day he telephoned Purcell to accept.
Over the next decade Fournier worked on most of the major commissions built by
the firm. In addition, he regularly entered small home competitions sponsored by
the Minnesota State Art Commission. He took first place in a 1914 Model Village
House contest, and the plan was published in folio with the second prize entry
of Marion Alice Parker. His two story design for a brick house with an estimated
cost of $2,500 won third mention in 1916 and appeared a year later in The
Minnesotan. When the Purcell & Elmslie office in Minneapolis was reduced to a
smaller staff in 1917, Fournier was transferred to Chicago and remained with
George Elmslie after the firm was disbanded in 1921.
Fournier made significant contributions to later work by Elmslie, particularly
the Capital Savings and Loan Association building in Topeka, Kansas, that
Elmslie refused to give credit until Fournier finally left, dispirited, in 1922
and opened his own practice. In 1935 he became executive architect for a large
housing project built during the Depression. Four years later the opportunity
arose to become designing engineer for a major bank building if he could meet
the license requirements. Fournier overcame the last of his educational hurdles
at age sixty by putting himself through three months of intensive technical
study in order to qualify for the work. When his health later became impaired,
he retired to Minnesota to spend his remaining years writing novels and poetry
until his death in 1944 at age sixty six in an apartment fire.
The most significant figure in the history of the "Team" came to the firm in May
1913 shortly before the departure of George Feick, Jr. A native born Minnesotan,
Frederick A. Strauel (1887-1974) first worked on the Thomas Snelling residence
that was being built in Waukegan, Illinois, and ultimately came to be regarded
as the chief drafter of Purcell & Elmslie. He remained a friend and associate
of both Purcell and Elmslie for many years following the end of their
partnership, continuing to work with them for nearly half a century
afterwards. For example, Purcell sent most of his drafting to Strauel during the
1920s and twice brought him out to Portland, Oregon, when the work in his office
warranted. Purcell and Strauel collaborated on a number of speculative houses
for a developer in Minneapolis, as well as on other projects in Minnesota, from
1928 to 1932. By sharing the rent with Purcell and Elmslie, Strauel was able to
maintain a small office in the Architects and Engineers Building in Minneapolis
until 1935 and did the working drawings for the last house designed by Purcell
for a client, the K. Paul Carson, Jr., residence in 1940. Except for the periods
when he employed Fournier and Clapp, Elmslie too used Strauel as drafter for
many of his jobs, including the Yankton College buildings in South Dakota and
the Western Springs Congregational Church in Illinois.
From 1933 to 1943 Strauel worked in the same WPA office as John Jager, followed
by a brief wartime job with a chemical company before taking a staff position
with the Minneapolis City Planning Commission from which he retired in 1952. In
October of that year he began working with John Jager on preparations for the
"Purcell & Elmslie, Architects" exhibition held at the Walker Art Center in
Minneapolis in 1953. Thereafter Strauel was periodically involved with the
archival preservation of the Purcell & Elmslie records, making detailed catalogs
of the drawings and annotating many records with information that he
remembered from earlier times. He outlived the rest of those involved in the
office and before his own death in 1974 donated the Purcell & Elmslie materials
in his possession to the University of Minnesota.
Numerous other draftsmen passed through the Purcell firms at different periods,
some on the way to establishing their own successful architectural practices.
The most prominent of these was John A. Walquist, who became a highly successful
architect in New York City. LeRoy A. Gaarder came to work at Purcell, Feick &
Elmslie in 1912 from earlier experience with a church architect. He stayed for
five years and later opened his own office in Albert Lea, Minnesota. While
working for Purcell & Elmslie, Gaarder attended night classes in architecture at
the University of Minnesota, leading Purcell to remember him by his notable
habit of carrying a derringer pistol for protection. Other draftsmen who worked
for the firm at various times included L. F. Collins, Kenneth Harrison, Clyde W.
Smith, and A. H. Wider.
The concept of the "Team" extended to encompass the many service professionals
who contributed to design details, construction, landscaping, ornamentation, and
the myriad other aspects of bringing a building into existence. General
contractor Fred M. Hegg handled mason and cement work, carpentry, roofing,
plastering, and painting for many Purcell & Elmslie buildings, his first job
being the Harold Hineline residence in Minneapolis. The Hegg foreman was
Fritz Carlson, who supervised the banks built by the firm in Madison and Hector,
Minnesota, as well as the Clayton F. Summy residence designed in 1924 by George
Elmslie in Hinsdale, Illinois. Both Carlson and Edward Goetzenberger, a
tinsmith, were so pleased with working for the Purcell office that they had
their own homes designed by the firm, an unusual indication of respect for the
building practices of their employers.
Numerous Purcell & Elmslie residences and other structures required specially
built furniture or other interior decoration. Much of the detailing of furniture
was done by French born interior designer Gustav Weber and Emil Frank, a "Team"
drafter whose father was the foreman of the John S. Bradstreet and Company
woodworking shop. The first time Weber (b. 1870) worked for the firm was in the
design of dining room furniture for the E. L. Powers residence, after which he
produced furnishings for the Wakefield, and Owre residences, as well as many
others. Emil Frank collaborated with Harry Rubins, the president of the
Bradstreet company, to produce drawings for the furniture, paneling, and
interior trim of the house for Louis Heitman in Helena, Montana. The Bradstreet
company also was responsible for interior furnishings of other residences built
by the Purcell firms and commissioned Chicago metalsmith Robert Jarvie to do
their metal work. Ralph B. Pelton, a craftsman, cabinetmaker, and superintendent
of construction for the Gallaher residence built in 1909, also produced a lamp
for the Edna S. Purcell residence as well as other handcrafted objects.
Interior finish often included leaded glass windows and mosaics, which were
usually executed by the Mosaic Art Shops owned by Edward L. Sharretts in
Minneapolis. Sharretts maintained a large stock of the best available glass and
reserved the finest pieces for his work with Purcell & Elmslie. Purcell
considered the color sense and imagination possessed by Sharretts to be a major
contribution in the beauty of the final rendering of the designs. Sharretts
supplied window panels and light fixtures for, among other buildings, the
Merchants National Bank and Madison State Bank, the Leuthold, Decker, Purcell,
and Hoyt residences, and the Alexander Brothers offices.
A man of essential importance to the execution of the delicate terra cotta
ornament incorporated in many Purcell & Elmslie buildings was not employed
directly by the firm but by the American Terra Cotta and Ceramics Company owned
by W. D. Gates. Sculptor Christian Schneider had modeled much of the terra cotta
and iron work designed by Louis Sullivan and George Elmslie since 1892, and he
excelled as no other person in translating their delicate, two dimensional
drawings into the three dimensional forms of clay and metal. Almost all of the
best terra cotta ornament designed by the Purcell firms passed through his
gifted hands. The distinction between his abilities and those of other sculptors
can be seen by comparing his work with that done after Schneider left the terra
cotta company, when the modeling became visibly less sensitive.
Artists were frequently employed by Purcell & Elmslie to embellish their
buildings with artwork. In particular, muralist John W. Norton contributed to
many of the most important commissions executed by the firm, including the
Woodbury County Court House in Sioux City, Iowa, and the Alexander Brothers
offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Norton, along with Charles Livingston
Bull and Charles S. Chapman, were the principal contributing artists for much of
the advertising materials created for Alexander Brothers under the supervision
of Purcell during World War I. Bull had earlier done the fireplace mural for the
Edna S. Purcell residence in Minneapolis. Other artists regarded as significant
participants in the work of the Purcell firms included Alphonso Ianelli, the
sculptor of large statuary groups for the Sioux City court house, and Frederick
D. Calhoun, an impressionist painter who did a large oil perspective of the same
building as well as interior design for other commissions.
The idea of the "Team" meant each individual who was part of the production
process shared in the credit that was summarized by the name of the
architectural firm. For example, office secretary Gertrude Phillips, who made
the first alphabetic index of the work of the Purcell firms, was as fully
respected in her position as Purcell and Elmslie were in performing their
own functions. The efforts made by every person were based on this shared
attitude, a foundation of purpose that made the final result a fuller expression
of the democratic, organic philosophy in which they believed.
research courtesy mark hammons