Constructed indoor miss homes enormous homes. In this program, Richard Wilson talks about the architects that define the era. Today we serve as the headquarters for the society of the cincinnati institute. A nonprofit that promotes the knowledge and achievement of america ended 10 independence. It was the winter residence of lars and into the isabel anderson. Their home was described as a Florentine Villa in the midst of american independence. With an interior that would be a dream of beauty and good taste. Dr. Wilson will investigate the architecture of Anderson House and other extravagant mansions built between the civil war and world war i. Dr. Wilson holds the commonwealth professors chair and architectural history at the university of virginia. He specializes in the Architecture Design of america both at home and abroad. He has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of television programs, including americas castles, and 10 most influential american buildings. He is the author of books that deal with moderatn architecture. His most recent book was published in 2012. Dr. Wilson. [applause] dr. Wilson thank you. Can you hear me . Are we ok . I want to thank kindle and the society for inviting me here. It is a little daunting to be in this room. I do want to acknowledge anything i say tonight is built on the shoulders of other scholars who have worked on the different subjects here and so forth. Particularly 10 note Historic New England, who has the substantial archives of the Architecture Designed this and that i will be referring to in a minute. What i am going to try and do in my talk is to put the larson is a and isabel house, to see how many ls and is you can see in the house. There are a number of them. The house is in context of other houses of the latter 19th, early 20th century. Something about what were they up to and a place like this other than building a big thing . What was it that maybe was inspiring these different individuals and their architects . On one level, the house here is part of these giant houses. These are called cottages by some people. Very expensive. In this case here, this is one of the vanderbilt houses in newport, rhode island, designed by the eminent architect Richard Morris hunt. This is the dining room. As you can see, you can get a lot of calories, not just in the food, but also on the interior. This is one example of what we might say is a gilded age mansion. This is another Newport House by mckim, mead and white. This is done for the ehrlichs. Or they owned a huge steamship line. This money was coming out of nevada. This is another example of these large houses. I can go on and on. New york at one point in time had quite a number of these on for fifth avenue. Upper 5th avenue. Also over on madison avenue. Most of them unfortunately havent disappeared over the years. This one is still left, affront or a big hotel. A front for a big hotel. This is another mckim, mead and white. The mural over there is by John A Lafarge one of the Great American painters at the time. We can go further afield of course. The largest house ever built in this country is built more is mibiltmore, the George WashingtonVanderbilt Health in asheville north carolina. House in asheville. It is gone, but this was the holder palmer house power p almer house. This is mrs. Palmers cassel that stood on the like driving chicago. But now since gone. What ishow should we call these things other than mcmansions . Too much wealth . It should be noted a couple of these houses did inspire attempt s to actually prohibit spending more than 250,000 on an american house. There was a bill actually introduced into congress in 18901891 that tried to pull it back. There are a lot of other terms. One term and we frequently use is the term victorian. Of course, that is for good queen vicky. This is a term very much today as isis posed introduction. There is a as a supposed introduction. There is a victorian chapter summer schools that we offer in a number of different cities. Indeed determined victorian is a very much used. The reason i am bringing this up we might have our independence. We got our independence from england, but culturally and intellectually a good portion of america in the 19th century was still very indebted to england. Yes, we had attempts to make our own culture but at the same time query very much indebted to england. We still use this term today in English Literature classes the term victorian. In other words shows this type of strong connection that went on. I will note that beginning around the civil war, there is a slight break, which i will come back to any minute. We beginning to reorient ourselves, at least artistically towards france. Still, queen vicky and there she is painted on the right by thomas sully, and american painter at she is taking the throne. One of the interesting things about her was that she and her husband Prince Albert or architecture nuts of the first quarter. Of the first order. Prince albert was very involved in architecture. His hand is all over mid19th entry england. This is their getaway. Has anyone ever been there . It is on the isle of wight outside of portsmouth. This is where victoria and prince court made their getaways. They made many, many, many additions to the house, as you can see over the years. I bring this up because if you have a certain amount of money as an american, you had your own ship that took you to england. You wanted, if possible, to stop here and get invited to the house. This is a big deal for wealthy americans to get received by Queen Victoria at her house, her osburne house on the isle of wight. Just a couple of the interiors to give you a certain sense of their taste or some people would say their lack of taste. The room on the right is the indian room, all carved in india. The symbol of english empire. It is interesting, just to the range of elements that you get. This is her boudoir on the left. I am showing you a detailed. A detail. The house is still owned by the crown, though it is managed today by English Heritage and is open for business. There shows what the boudoir looks like. The salon silastyle of painting. This is a detail of mitten tiles, just to give you a sense that this has a lot of stuff in it. There is a tremendous amount of detail. Queen victoria really never did it design anything. She was apparently pretty good at watercolors. This is one thing here that i think is interesting. This is the monument to her lately departed husband it stands in hyde park in london. The architect as you can see is George Gilbert scott. I hope this will work right. You can see all of the different details. This is one of the things we very frequently think about it we hear the term rhetoric, and overload visually an overload visually in any way that you can take it. There are other terms that have also been applied to these years. Many years ago, the Great American water entitled the book the brown decades. That was one turn. Another was the mob decades. Another term in frequently used is of course, the gilded age. It comes from mark twain and Charles Dudley warner, a book called the gilded age until today. It is set in washington dc. Anybody read it here . Nobody reads it any longer today. It is really a good read. It is a damn good read. We ought to read it more often because it is about corruption in washington dc. [laughter] dr. Wilson right here, on this illustration, this is the congressman from tennessee. You can see this is public document, and they are filing them in, and he says all congressman do that, in other words, you are covering up. To show other illustrations this is the ladys dress, the elaboration of the interiors and this is a term that was very political, but of course it has caught on in a visualcultural sort of way. It is very much what we use today. Examples of this type of architecture that are here at home. On the public sphere, the Eisenhower Executive Office building next to the white house on the right. Notice the details. My date is a little off, it only took about 18 years to b uild the damn thing. You can have a contest on how many columns are on the exterior. One student to leave once that he crowded hundred 80 columns on the exterior. 4380 columns. There was a lot of political corruption involved in the construction of this. Two blocks is the hewlett mansion. This is 189219894, but architecturally this looks back. This is on the corner of New Hampshire avenue. This is where the term brown decade comes from. , all of this rough, brown stone on the exterior is simply a detail. This is a wild sort of concoction, a variety of different elements that are pulled together. This is, as i say, one of the best examples of architecture from this period remaining in washington dc in the sense that it is in this romanesque type of style on the exterior. All of the details, some of them just made up, that the architect mr. Myers is using. Inside it is interesting. And im sorry, i would hope we would have a bigger screen. But as you can see, there is a lot on the floor patterns. Here is the Entrance Hall, a lot of stuff on display. It is basically an extremely dark interior. This is one of the styles and so forth of the 1870s, the 1880s. Another building, which unfortunately does not exist but that this man and knew very well because this is where our Lars Anderson grew up. His father mission to the house from ath richardson. It stood over the corner of 16th and k street. H. H. Richardson if you are not familiar strode across the architecture stage. He strode across, the only weight 320 pounds. Weighed. He actually did 3 houses in washington dc. One house way up 16th street. He did this work john hay and henry adams down on lafayette square. That is where the hotel with that name is located. This house here downone for Lars Andersons father in his youth. Think about this two very very different worlds. It goes to the point, and this is a rule of history we tend to disown at the taste of her parents and find great value in the taste of our grandparents. No but there is the sense to reject what we know and rediscover something that has come from the past. In the case of the Anderson House, it is very well known at the time, that here are the interiors. This is well enough known that he was published in a very famous book a gugehuge folio of the best american interiors published in 1883 called artistic interiors. There is the Entrance Hall. There is the dining room. You came in through the Entrance Hall here. The dining room is a very different sort of thing. This is where Lars Anderson spent portions of his youth. This gives us a little bit of a background. Because, here we are there is a period of 20odd years that separates these two houses. It shows the way things changes. You have to have changed to have history. You cant have history without having some change. This is a good example here of the rearview of the house. There is the whole right around the country. The hall right around the corner here at the lars Anderson House. What i am suggesting is that there was a shift that went on in american taste. When we use the term in gilded age, victorian it isnt the same thing all the way through. There are shifts and so forth that go on. For instance, these two chairs right here. They are both designed for the white house. The one on the left, 1870, done by a brooklyn firm, remodeling under Ulysses Grant for the white house. You might think that popeye had something to do with it. Whereas on the right, this is a boston firm, davenport and company. This is designed for remodeling the white house under Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 hundred charles mccann. Under charles mccann. They are two different things. This one is looking more to the past, where is this, you have to wonder what is going on here as far as the design. [laughter] dr. Wilson or here. There is the entry hall. In the early 1880s, and associated american artists were enlisted to remodel the white house. Mccainkinn wipes all of this out, and this is what he does to the entry hall. The same space across here, but you can see two worlds of difference. This is tiffany glass here. There is a lot of speculating where this glass went up. People are still scrambling through dumpsters to find it. Shifts in taste are what is going on. What i would suggest is that there wasnt something that began to occur was something that began to occur in the latter part of the 19th century that is sometimes called the american renaissance. What i am showing you on the right, you may remember this as exhibit i was involved with many years ago. Is at the brooklyn museum, then it came down here to the smithsonian. This is the cover of it. That is a look inside the library of congress. The term american renaissance was not invented by me. There is nothing that art historians like more than two infect terms to invent terms. Here is a book titled american renaissance in 1905. This is a term that begins to come in circulation in the 1880s and continues well past the 1920s as the description of the new type of american architecture new type of american interiors that begin to appear in these years. It was very different than the stuff we have been looking at a minute ago. One way that is caught on can be seen in chicago in the world columbian exposition of 1893. It was decided that one of the greatest events of all mankind history happened in 1492 when you know who sailed the ocean blue. This should be celebrated, but the event that out of hand a bit, so they couldnt get their act together until 1893. The hundred 41st anniversary of columbuss discovery of the new world. The worlds fair, or the socalled white city in chicago on the south side. Lake michigan is, well, i would be drowning where this was taken. But this is the court of honor rigthht here. This is the statue of the republic by Daniel Chester french. What statue did he do here in washington dc. The Lincoln Memorial. This is a meeting of the architects held on february 24, 1891 when the most preeminent of architects in the country were called in to come out to chicago. Daniel of thea chicago firm has been placed in charge of trying to get a design for this big worlds fair. He has called in, this is Charles Mckim presenting his design. I will not go through all of these people. That is Richard Morris hunt, who did the Administration Building down here. Those of you who are architectural nuts will be interested that the guy bending over right there with the dark beard taking notes, is louis sullivan. He took notes on the meeting. What happened at this meeting was they got together and said look let us create a classical city. A white city, a common 50 foot cornice line. Classical details throughout. And they all agreed unbelievably. You get a bunch of architects together, and they agreed on this. At the end of the meeting, this man over here. What did gus do here in town . The adams memorial. Gus, another eminent american sculptor walked over to burn up and grabbed him by the hand and said look here old fellow, do you realize this is the greatest meeting of artist since the 15th century . In other words, what happened back in florence and rome was being reincarnated here in the united states. Here is a statue of the republic by Daniel Chester french. What this was was we were trying to show those damn europeans that we can do it too. [giggling] dr. Wilson the first of the world fairs was an in london, the crystal palace. Prince albert was very much behind us. This is where people came and showed their stuff. This is where you brought your plows, your neengines, your art and there were many other worlds fairs. Another important inspiring what is going on here is the 1889 paris world fair. We actually had tried their back in 1876 in philadelphia. The centennial. It is interesting to read the commentary on the worlds fair. This is american exceptionalism and so forth, they think, by gosh, this is a worlds fair that is going to really be it. However, as the worlds fair opened and after it closed, it is interesting in the oped pieces that appears we missed. We missed. We didnt really quite show it. The burden was really on in this 1893 that we would really show the world that we have arrived. That we are on the same level as those countries that have all about culture and civilization back in europe, that we have it here. It is also worthwhile to note that there were four and civilian, such as the japanese civilian on the left. Foreign civilian. Can you tell me who did this state on the right . This is the first mount vernon repo. The first of many. This is the Virginia State building. A group of ladies from richmond got together, because Virginia State government is pretty worthless and they could never get it together. [laughter] dr. Wilson this is interesting from this identity point of view. On the left is the california state building, which is a take on spanish missions. This is supposedly a genuine example of early kentucky architecture. [laughter] dr. Wilson and that is the daniel boone after. Boone out there. Let me tell you, it is over doing what the past is. The point im trying to make is that there is a shift going on in american taste towards the idea that we have to get up there with europe. Yes, we have some history here. But what you we really have as far as great architecture . You can see the buildings beginning to creep in. The Patterson House on the dupont circle. Down a bit further, this is Thomas Nelson pages house. A