The andersons officially opened their home for entertaining when 120 years ago. Their home was described as a Florentine Villa in the midst of american independence, with an interior that will be a dream of beauty and good taste. Tonight, dr. Wilson will investigate the architecture of the Anderson House and other extravagant mansions mdc m newport mentions mansions in d. C. And newport built between the civil war and world war i. He specializes in the architecture, design, and art of the 18th through 20th century, both in america and abroad. Dr. Wilson has directed the Victorian Societys 19thcentury Summer School since 1979 and has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of Television Programs including Americas Castles and 10 most influential buildings for the pbs. He is the author or coauthor of 16 books, including studies the Prairie School in iowa, and monument avenue in richmond. His most recent book Edith Wharton at home was published in 1912 excuse me, 2012. Dr. Wilson. [applause] dr. Wilson thank you very much, kendall. Can you hear me all right . Ok. I want to thank kendall and the society for inviting me here. It is a little daunting to be here in this room. And i do want to also acknowledge anything i say tonight is actually built on the shoulders of other scholars who have worked on the different subjects here and so forth and different archives, and particularly to note Historic New England, which has substantial archives of the architects who designed this and i will be referring to in a minute. What i am going to try and do in my talk is to put lars and isabel andersons house and make sure there is an l and an i there, and see how many ls and is you can see by the end. There is quite a number of them. This is in the context of other houses, greenhouses and so forth great houses and so forth of the latter 19th, early 20th century. What were they up to in a place like this, other than building a big thing. What was it that was inspiring these different individuals and their architects. In other words, what this might mean . Of course, on one level, the house here is part of these giant houses. These are called cottages by some people. Newport cottages. 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. We are looking at 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. There is another Newport House by mckim, mead and white. This is done for the ehrlichs. They owned a huge steamship line. But actually the money that was funding this came out of virginia city, 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 upper 5th avenue. Also over on madison avenue. Most of them unfortunately have disappeared over the years. This one is still left, a frontispiece for a big hotel. This is another mckim, mead and white. This is the former music room you are looking at there on the rights. And the the mural over there is by john lafarge, one of the Great American painters at the time. And we can go of course further afield. The largest house ever built in this country is biltmore, the George Washington vanderbilt house down in asheville, north carolina. That is on the right. And it is gone, but this was the Potter Palmer house. The hotel people. This is mrs. Palmers castle that stood on the like driving chicago. But now since gone. How should we call these things other than mcmansions . Other than giant houses . Too much wealth . It should be noted a couple of these houses did inspire and attempt, but did not get anywhere in congress, 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. That we see here. This is a term very much today this is a term very much in use today, as noted in the introduction. There is a Victorian Society in america, there is a washington d. C. Chapter, Summer Schools that we offer in a number of different cities. Indeed the term 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 we were very much indebted to england. We still use this term today in English Literature classes, the term victorian. In other words, it is something and it shows this type of strong connection that went on. Now i will note that beginning around the civil war, there is a slight break, which i will come back to in a minute. We beginning to reorient ourselves, at least artistically more towards paris towards france. Still, queen vicky and there she is painted on the right by thomas sully, an american painter as she is taking the throne. One of the interesting things about her was that she and her husband Prince Albert were architecture nuts of the first order. In particular Prince Albert was very involved in architecture. His hand is all over mid19th century england. This is their getaway. Has anyone ever been there . Osborne house . 1, 2, 3, 4 . Ok. It is on the isle of wight on the south Coast Outside of portsmouth. This is where victoria and Prince Albert made their getaways. They made many, many, many additions to the house, as you can see over the years. I do 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. And 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. But very cluttered interiors. The room on the right is the indian room, all carved in india. Of course, 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 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 style of painting. This is a detail of mitten tiles, just to give you a sense here that this has a lot of stuff in it. That there is a tremendous amount of detail. Queen victoria really never did design anything. She was apparently pretty good at watercolors. This is one thing here that i think is interesting. Because this is of course the monument to her lately departed husband, it stands in hyde park in london. The architect as you can see is George Gilbert scott. But just once again to notice i hope this will work right. You can see all of the different details and so forth, the lushness. This is one of the things we very frequently think about it when we use the term victorian it is a lot. 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. The age of energy. Another term in frequently used is of course, the gilded age. It comes from mark twain and Charles Dudley warner, a book from 1871 called the gilded age a tale of today. What it is, it is set in washington, d. C. Anybody read it here . Nobody reads it any longer today. One person reads it. 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, d. C. [laughter] dr. Wilson right here, on this illustration right here, this is an illustration out of it, 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. What is interesting 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 date on this year. On this here. My date is a little off, it only took about 18 years to build the damn thing. And you can have a real contest on how many columns are on the exterior. One student told me once that he counted 100 it be 480 columns. There was a lot of political corruption involved in the construction of this. Two blocks is the hewlett mansion. This is 18921894, 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 d. C. 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. But it is basically an extremely dark interior. Extremely dark. 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 commissioned 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 architectural stage in the 1870s and a trinitys. And 1880s. He strode across, the only weighed 320 pounds. He actually did 3 houses in washington, d. C. There is one that has been moved, the warner house way up 16th street. He did this for john hay and henry adams down on lafayette square. Unfortunately this is gone. That is where the hotel with that name is located. But this house here done for Lars Andersons father in his youth. Look at this and think about this two very very different worlds. It goes to the point, and this is a rule of history we tend to zone the taste of her parents disowned 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 huge 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. Maybe you have not seen the dining room but anyway the dining room is a very different sort of thing. This is where Lars Anderson spent portions of his youth. And so 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. Which again shows the way that taste 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 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 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 under charles mccann. They are two different things. This one is looking more to the past, whereas 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. There is the entry hall. In the early 1880s, and associated american artists were hired to remodel the white house. This is the entry hall here. Mckinn rips all of this out, and this is what he does to the entry hall. Basically the same door. The same space across here, but you can see two worlds of difference. This is tiffany glass here. There are lots of different stories about where this glass went up. People are still scrambling through the dumps 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 to invent terms. Here is a book titled american renaissance in 1905. This is actually 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 this caught on can be seen in chicago in the world columbian exposition of 1893. It was decided that one of the greatest events in the history of all mankind history happened in 1492, when you know who sailed the ocean blue. And so this should be celebrated, but the event that out of hand a little bit, so they couldnt get their act together until 1893. The 141st anniversary of columbuss discovery of the new world. This is the worlds fair, or the socalled white city in chicago on the south side. Lake michigan is, well, i would be sort of drowning in Lake Michigan where this was taken. But this is the court of honor right here. This is the Administration Building. This is the statue of the republic by Daniel Chester french. What statue did he do here in washington, d. C. . The Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial. This is a meeting of the architects held on february 24 1891, when the most preeminent american architects in the country were called in to come out to chicago. The guy that is calling the men is this fellow, them in is this fellow, daniel of the 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. This guy right here, that is Richard Morris hunt, who did the Administration Building down here. Those of you that are architectural nuts will be interested that the guy bending over right there, with the dark beard, he is taking notes in the meeting, is louis sullivan. He took notes on the meeting. And what happened at this meeting was they got together and said look, let us create a classical city. A white city, a common 60 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. Which is a gustavus. Which is augustus. 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 artists since the 15th century . In other words, what happened back in florence and rome was now being reincarnated here in the united states. So what you have these are a couple of shots. Here is a statue of the republic by Daniel Chester french. Some shots around the best. What this was was we were trying to show those damn europeans that we can do it too. The first of the world fairs was in london, the crystal palace. Actually Prince Albert was very much behind this. The huge, crystal building. This is where people came and showed their stuff. This is where you brought your plows, your engines, your art, and there were many other worlds fairs. Another one that was inspiring what is going on here is the 1889 paris world fair. We actually had tried a world fair back in 1876 in philadelphia. The centen