Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Washington, a position in which he remained for fourteen years. He designed and executed the great iron dome and planned the extensions which made the United States Capitol one of the most imposing and beautiful of all government buildings in the world. During this period of service at Washington he designed and erected a number of other buildings after classical models, notably the United States Treasury Building and the east and west wings of the Patent Office.

The companion-piece of the Capitol in Washington is the impressively beautiful Library of Congress, in Italian Renaissance style, without and within a triumph of the architect's art. The competition for the architectural plans of the new library was won by a German New York firm, the architects Smithmeyer and Pelz. In 1886 Congress formally adopted the plans of John L. Smithmeyer, who had been assisted by Paul J. Pelz. The latter subsequently supervised the work of construction and fixed the plans and main proportions of the building, remaining for some time in Washington to aid in designing the artistic features of the architecture.' The German sculptor, Albert Weinert, was put at the head of the staff of modelers. The architect, Paul J. Pelz, was born in Silesia, Germany, in 1841. He left his home at the age of sixteen to join his father in the United States, who was a refugee of 1848. Previous to his work on the Congressional Library, he was connected with the United States Lighthouse Board as architect and civil engineer. He was the architect of the Carnegie Library and Music Hall at Allegheny, Pennsylvania; the Chamberlin Hotel, Old Point Comfort, Virginia; the Aula Christi, Chautauqua, New York; Machinery Hall, Louis

1 Cf. Handbook of the New Library of Congress. (Boston, 1901.)

iana Purchase Exposition, and many other beautiful buildings.

G. L. Heins, of the firm of Heins and La Farge, who won a gold medal at the St. Louis Fair, was born in Philadelphia in 1860. His firm are the architects for the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York; New York Zoological Park, etc. Heins has been state architect of all New York state buildings since 1898.1 Theodore Carl Link (born in Germany, in 1850) won the first prize in the competition for the St. Louis Union Station, the largest railway terminal station in the world, which was built from his plans and under his supervision. He was the consulting architect of the St. Louis City Hall, the architect of the Mississippi State House, and of many other public buildings. The German architects William Schickel and I. E. Ditmars have built a large number of churches, hospitals, large business buildings, and private residences in New York City, as, for instance, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis', St. Vincent's, St. Joseph's, and the German hospitals, the Knickerbocker Building, and that of the New York "Staatszeitung." W. C. Zimmerman of Chicago was for some years state architect of Illinois. Very prominent in architecture in New York is the name of Eidlitz. The father, Leopold Eidlitz, was one of the founders of the American Institute of Architects, and the son, Cyrus W. Eidlitz, ably continues in the traditional occupation of the family. George Hansen (born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1863), of Berkeley, California, goes into landscape architecture as adviser to park commissions, municipalities, and cemetery associations.

There have been five schools of architecture in the United

In that capacity he constructed the new buildings of the New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, New York.

States, in the order of their foundation, that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, University of Illinois, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania. Most of the teaching done at these was under French influence, largely because the French schools furnished the best models of imitation. The Germans have taught architecture as a branch of engineering, and have therefore laid particular stress upon the subject of construction. In fact the influence of German architects in this country has been exercised most beneficently when shoddy work in our public and private buildings needed to be replaced by genuine and thorough construction. The German element among the teachers of architecture is represented by Professor Nathan Clifford Ricker, dean of the College of Engineering in the University of Illinois since 1878, and director of the department of architecture; and by Professor Clarence Augustine Martin,' director of the College of Architecture, Cornell University.

E. Graphic Arts: illustrators, designers, artist-photographers In artistic illustrating the German element is also well represented. Charles W. Reinhardt (born in Würtemberg, Germany, in 1868) has been a prominent illustrator since 1890; L. W. Zeigler (born in Baltimore, in 1868) has contributed to "Life," "Century," "Cosmopolitan," etc., and has illustrated many books; Charlotte Weber Ditzler (born in Philadelphia, in 1877), student of the Royal Academy of Munich, has furnished illustrations for magazines and books. G. W. Gaul (born in Jersey City,

1 The writer is indebted to Professor C. A. Martin and Professor Albert C. Phelps, of Cornell University, for valuable suggestions and bibliographical materials. Professor Phelps was a student of Professor Ricker in Illinois, and through him was influenced to study the German as well as the French educational methods in architecture, while abroad.

New Jersey, in 1855) and Arthur I. Keller (born in New York, in 1866) have won many medals at American expositions. Some of the best works of the latter are "At mass," bought by the Munich Academy, "Lead, kindly light," "The finishing touches," etc. He illustrated a large number of books, among them "The Virginian," "The Right of Way," "Bret Harte Stories."

In the art of wood engraving Frederick Juengling was faultless in technique and representative of impressionist treatment. He was skillful in imitating the very sweep of the painter's brush and the defects of the canvas.' Gustav Kruell (born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1843), winner of a gold medal at the St. Louis Exposition, modeled portraits with rare precision. William Miller (born in New York, in 1850, of German parents) started engraving on wood at Frank Leslie's publishing house, then studied in Germany, and from 1877 to 1889 was associated with Frederick Juengling. Another German engraver is E. Schladitz (born in Leipzig, in 1862), a winner of many exposition medals. Henry Wolf (born in Alsace, in 1852), author of many well-known engravings in books and magazines, was a member of the international jury of awards, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904. An artist lithographer is Max F. Klepper (born in Germany, in 1861); an etcher of note is Jacques Reich (born in Hungary, in 1852), who made most of the pen-portraits for Scribner's "Encyclopedia of Painters and Paintings,” and for Appleton's "Encyclopedia of American Biography,"

etc.

A most important name is that of Alfred Stieglitz (born in Hoboken, in 1864), the pictorial photographer and editor of the "Camera Notes"-"more artistically gotten

1 Cf. Hartmann, vol. ii, p. 147.

« VorigeDoorgaan »