Architecture Archives - Page 3 of 4

Glencairn’s Cozy Living Room

The living room at Glencairn. The stained glass includes an 800 year old panel from Europe and twentieth-century panels built on site using the same techniques. Source: TCM

Glencairn was built by Raymond Pitcairn, “self-taught cathedral architect” (as his New York Times obituary described him) and heir to the massive empire created by his father, John, the founder of PPG industries.

After completing construction of the Bryn Athyn Cathedral of the The New Church, Pitcairn turned to building himself a new house. Located north of Philadelphia (the Philly skyline can be seen from the top of the mansion’s seven-story tower), it was designed by Pitcairn and constructed between 1928 and 1939, while Pitcairn was simultaneously fighting against Roosevelt’s New Deal. Glencairn is built in the Romanesque style out of hand-cut stone and concrete. It contains 90 rooms, including 17 bedrooms, a chapel, and the expansive living room, decorated with both actual Medieval-era items and modern recreations built by artisans in the same style.

Ceiling inspired by the Irish Book of Kells. Source: TCM

Roebling’s Shaky Bridge

View of the Shaky Bridge from the Delaware River. Undated. Source: Photograph, collection of David Denenberg. bridgemaster.com

Shaky Bridge in 2019, Trenton, NJ. Source: TCM

This little suspension bridge, which spans the attractively named Waste Weir, was built by the Roebling Company. Some internet sources say it is a miniature replica of one of Roebling’s more famous projects, either the Brooklyn Bridge or the Niagara Bridge. Although it uses the same suspension technology, the design is not identical. Other sources say it was built to demonstrate suspension technology, and then given to the city of Trenton. I haven’t seen a firm date for when it was built.

The Shaky Bridge sits between the Delaware River and Route 29 in Stacy Park. Route 29 runs over the alignment of the Trenton Water Power, a seven mile long canal completed in 1834 – the same year as the 65 mile long D&R Canal.

The Story Behind the Field Guide to American Houses

See the Curbed article on Virginia Savage McAlester, the author of A Field Guide to American Houses. A revised version of the encyclopedic classic came out a few years ago, and McAlester is now planning a field guide to commercial buildings.

Louis Sullivan’s Jewel Box in Grinnell

The Jewel Box, Grinnell, Iowa. Source: TCM

The Merchants National Bank building in Grinnell, Iowa, also known as the Jewel Box, was designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan late in his career and built in 1914. Used as a bank for over 80 years, it now serves as the visitors’ center for the town. The building is a National Historic Landmark and part of the Grinnell Historic Commercial District.

Early Images of the Classical World: Daguerreotypes of the Monumental Journey

Olympieion, Athens, Viewed from the East, 1842. Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Qatar Museum Collections (IM.314)

In the 1840s, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, a French photographer and architectural historian, took thousands of photographic images of monuments of Greece, Italy, Egypt, and other countries during a three-year long trip around the Mediterranean. The daguerrotypes he produced are the oldest known surviving photos of these locations.

“The Wife of my Youth”

This 19th century graveyard monument in Mercer Cemetery engraved to “The Wife of My Youth” first makes you wonder what kind of monument the wife of his dotage got. But the phrase is from the Old Testament of the Bible:

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Proverbs 5:18

Mercer Cemetery

The Mercer Cemetery in Trenton, NJ, was created in the 1840s. There were few new internments after the 1930s. Unlike the Riverview Cemetery, which is still active, no one has been buried in Mercer since 1973. In the 1990s, the city spruced up the cemetery, but it became neglected, landscaping and maintenance was deferred, and conditions within the cemetery deteriorated. Fortunately, Trenton is now looking to rehabilitate the Mercer cemetery, beginning with a recent volunteer cleanup effort.

The Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, Plainfield, New Jersey

Craig Marsh Mansion, Plainfield, NJ. Source: TCM

There are over 150 houses within the Van Wyck Brooks historic district, ranging in age from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. Here are just a few of them.

The Esherick House

A few years after completing the Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn designed the one-bedroom Esherick house for a bookstore owner who wanted plenty of reading nooks. The current owners conducted a 17 month restoration of the house.

Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Source: philly.curbed.com/photography by Heidi’s Bridge.

Modernism and Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House

What does concrete block want? Probably a sympathetic and historically accurate restoration.

Louis Kahn is considered one of the most important architects of the twentieth century, but his early career was unremarkable. When Kahn was about fifty, he traveled through Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The ancient architecture he studied there transformed him, and when he returned to the United States, one of the first buildings he designed was the Trenton Bath House, one component of the Trenton Jewish Community Center. This unassuming structure, completed in 1957, is a landmark in Modernism and marks a turning point in Kahn’s design vision, and in twentieth century architecture.

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