The Woolworth Building, New
York City, completed 1913.
The Architecture of Cass Gilbert at The New-York Historical
Society
NEW YORK CITY - The New-York Historical Society will open ": The
Architecture of Cass Gilbert" on September 12. The exhibit taps
the rich architecture collection of the society to examine some
of the most celebrated structures of this American architect
(1859-1934), from conceptual sketches through completion,
including the Woolworth Building, the US Custom House at Bowling
Green and the US Army Supply Base in Brooklyn.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, :
The Architecture of Cass Gilbert (Columbia University Press),
edited by exhibition curator Margaret Heilbrun, director of the
society's library. "," which runs through January 21, is
dedicated to author and pioneer preservationist Henry Hope Reed,
who rescued the Gilbert archives from oblivion and secured their
donation to the society in the 1950s.
Gilbert, a product of the Midwest, was born in Ohio in 1859 and
raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. After training in the St. Paul
office of architect Abraham M. Radcliffe, Gilbert enrolled in the
architectural drafting program at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1878. He left after a year and after working as a
surveyor and traveling in Europe, he was employed in the New York
office of McKim, Mead & White for $20 per week. On 1882,
Gilbert returned to St. Paul. Initially, he was to open a western
office for McKim, Mead & White, but that plan fell through,
and he established his own practice.
In 1895, the Minnesota State Legislature held a competition for
the design of a new statehouse. By this time, Gilbert was
president of the Minnesota chapter of the American Institute of
Architects. He submitted his entry and the Board of the State
Capitol Commission awarded him the commission for the Minnesota
State Capitol. The Minnesota State Capitol proved to be a pivotal
project for Gilbert, as the commission established his national
reputation. It also provided him with experience constructing a
complex building and the opportunity to implement City Beautiful
ideals, both recurring themes throughout his career.
U.S Custom House
In 1899, the US Treasury Department invited a group of architects
to submit plans for a new US Custom House. Located at the foot of
Broadway, south of Bowling Green and conveniently near the docks,
the proposed seven-story granite building would supplant the old
Custom House on Merchant's Exchange, Wall Street, which had
become too small for the rapidly growing international commerce
of Manhattan. In the specifications for this architectural
competition, the Treasury Department called for a structure that
would not only emphasize the importance of New York City as the
center of US foreign trade, but would also symbolize the emerging
pre-eminence of the U.S. on the world stage. Although Cass
Gilbert eventually came to believe the extravagant ornamentation
he had insisted upon was excessive (noted architectural critic
Ada Louise Huxtable called his Custom House "that fruitcake of
Maine granite"), it remains a fine example of the style of both
the French L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Italian Renaissance.
One key reason for Gilbert's success in winning the Custom House
competition was his insistence upon the consistent implementation
of conservative design ideals. In order to achieve stylistic
uniformity in his presentation, Gilbert hired employees trained
by L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Although the Treasury
Department specifications called for a ground floor entrance,
Gilbert insisted on a second floor exterior entrance - a piano
nobile - above an elevated basement. The extra height and
exterior staircase would add grandeur to a site that was cramped
and inappropriately situated for standard monumental treatment,
such as a dome or a pediment.
Or serious concern to Gilbert and his team of designers was the
integration of the ceremonial role of a public building with the
practical requirements of record storage. Inspired by the
successful Library of Congress design, the rotunda is modeled on
the reading room of the library, with records, or "stacks"
surrounding it. The offices were located around the periphery,
forming an outer circle. Gilbert wrote, "I want the thing BIG and
GRANDIOSE." In addition to specifying the existence and location
of proposed sculptures, Gilbert gave the building a mansard roof
and elaborately ornamented second floor windows, the placement of
which defined the public space of the Custom House.
The Woolworth Building
IN 1910, F.W. Woolworth, merchant tycoon of five-and-ten-cent
stores, approached Gilbert to work on an office venture. The
Woolworth Company would be the lynchpin of a luxury office
building, one which eventually rose 55 storied above City Hall
Park, an outstanding monument to the ambition of Cass Gilbert,
the ego of F.W. Woolworth, and the power of commerce. The tallest
building in the world from 1913 until 1930, the "Cathedral of
Commerce" generated an enormous amount of press and prestige for
its architect. The commission for the Woolworth Building is seen
by many as the pinnacle of Gilbert's career, an opinion which
frustrated the architect, as expressed in this letter to a fellow
architect written in 1920: " I sometimes wish I had never built
the Woolworth Building because I fear it may be regarded as my
only work and...whatever it may be in dimension and in certain
lines it is after all only a skyscraper."
The commission for the Woolworth Building enabled Gilbert to
pursue his dream to create a truly skyline-altering structure. By
combining the ornamental vocabulary of medieval towers, churches,
and town halls, with modern aesthetic of unadorned vertical
elevations, Gilbert achieved a complementary relationship between
structure and cladding previously unknown in a skyscraper. Not
only was the Woolworth building a testimony to the mercantile
value of the Woolworth Company, but also its extraordinary
graceful height became an emblem of the burgeoning metropolis of
New York.
In Woolworth, Gilbert had a client whose ambition to create a
symbol for his commercial empire was matched by vast financial
resources. The construction of the Woolworth Building, originally
estimated at $5 million, eventually cost more than $13 million,
the bulk of which Woolworth paid in cash. This vase discrepancy
was due to Woolworth's evolving aspirations for the building.
Originally conceived as a corporate office building with ample
room to rent for profit, Woolworth's desire to alter the skyline
eventually led Gilbert, who dreamed of building a tower 150
stories high, to ask just how tall Woolworth was willing to go.
Woolworth's answer, inspired by the competitive heights to other
office buildings, was "50-feet taller than the Metropolitan
Tower," the newly erected corporate symbol of the Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company, which soared 700 feet above the streets
of Manhattan.
The fusion of public and private space within the building was
without precedent in the corporate culture of the day. The lobby
was the first such grand public space within a private office
building. Functioning as the main entrance to the building, the
vestibule for the offices of Irving National Bank located on the
ground floor, as well as a shopping arcade, the lobby was laid
out like a cross, with barrel vaults and a domed mosaic ceiling.
The grand marble staircase augmented the visitor's sense of the
splendor of the building. From F.W. Woolworth's private swimming
pool in the basement, to the tea room and observatory at the top
of the tower, the Woolworth Building pioneered the concept that
an office complex ought to provide luxury facilities for its
tenants.
The US Army Supply Base in Brooklyn
With the onset of the United States war effort in April 1917,
Gilbert's patriotic zeal manifested itself when he volunteered
his services - gratis - towards the construction of any
war-related projects. Nine months passed before he had the
opportunity to act on this offer. In conjunction with the Henry
C. Turner Company, a contractor specializing in construction
using a recently-patented method of pouring reinforced concrete,
Gilbert submitted a plan for the construction of an army supply
base and warehouse compound on the South Brooklyn waterfront.
Constructed at a cost of $35 million, the pier was in use within
six months; the entire complex was completed within one year.
The US Army Supply Base is the most utilitarian of Cass Gilbert's
structures. It exhibits neither the gothic extravagance of the
Woolworth Building, nor the vaguely pretentious classicism of his
state capitols and monumental buildings. Indeed, even those of
Gilbert's later contemporaries who held his work to be the
embodiment of staid, reactionary, monumental architecture looked
with favor upon the US Army Supply Base as a testament to a
profoundly modern aesthetic.
Consisting of two warehouses, a system of piers, and direct rail
lines to almost all major centers of manufacturing and commerce
in the Northeast, the supply terminal was conceived as a
state-of-the-art facility. The warehouses - eight stories,
two-tiered steel structures of reinforced concrete with timber
roofs and vertically moveable doors - were the largest concrete
structures in the world in 1919. Although the decision to build
with reinforced concrete was a practical one, Gilbert believed
the stark, functional aspect of the warehouses to be
aesthetically appropriate, as "ornament of any kind would seem
flippant and trivial." Located in the largest port in the United
States, near a number of important rail lines and readily
accessible by ferry and lighter, the primary purpose of the
Brooklyn base was to provide for efficient transport of goods and
men to aid the war effort in Europe. Gilbert's design was
inspired by the newly automated Ford Motor Company, where the
assembly line was revolutionizing industrial production.
Programs
On Tuesday, October 10 at 6:30 pm, architect Hugh Hardy will lead
a panel that explores the way that partnership between public
land and private development can create enhanced public spaces in
the city. Adrian Benepe, Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner;
Joel Kissen, president of the recently opened Guastovino
development at Bridgemarket and others will join the discussion.
On Saturday, October 14 at 10 am, authors of the catalogue
(printed by Columbia University Press) for the Historical Society
exhibition about American architect Cass Gilbert will lead a
discussion. Moderated by Peg Breen, president of the New York
City Landmarks Conservancy, the discussion includes Mary Beth
Betts, Gail Fenske, Margaret Heilbrun, Sharon Lee Irish.
The New-York Historical Society, Two West 77th Street at
Central Park West, is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm. For
information, call 212/873-3400.
