Excerpt
Lienau was... one of a relatively small group of trained architects, of whom the majority were fairly recent arrivals from Great Britain and the continent. All brought with them to the New World the traditions of the Old. But Lienau differed in one important respect from his colleagues: Molded by his early Danish and North German environment, and by years of study in various German art centers and in Paris, Lienaus point of view was more international than theirsa rarity in an age of ardent nationalism. Thus, fusion of traditions enabled him to adapt quickly to life in America and to deal successfully with the demands of an increasingly eclectic age. One more point should be stressed..., since it has long been ignored: Lienau, and not Hunt, was the first to bring to the United States a mind and a hand that was shaped, through contact with Labrouste, by the French Beaux-Arts tradition. His career provides a dramatic illustration of the contributions made by the professionally trained European architect to American architecture at a critical period in its developmentthe years immediately preceding the Civil War and those that followed it...
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Lienaus chief importance to American architecture of the period from 1850 to the mid-80s lies, then, not in his use of the Second Empire mode per se, nor in his general eclecticism, but in the classical orientation of his entire oeuvre. His work represents a continuing current of conservatism in American architecture, which for a time was submerged beneath the more dominant picturesque modes of the period, the High Victorian Gothic and the Second Empirethe latter quite as anti-classical in its later style phase as the former. He served as a bridge between the classical traditions of design of the second quarter of the 19th century and their re-emergence in the 1880s of the movement led in New York by the firm of McKim, Mead & White... An editorial on Eclecticism in Architecture [early issue of American Architect] called attention to several factors that were of unquestioned importance to its development in this country. First, our lack of a unified, long-established tradition and the varied origins and sympathies of the architects of Lienaus generation, men like Upjohn, Wells, Mould, Petersen, Eidlitz, and Saeltzer, to mention only a few. In a short speech at the second annual dinner of the American Institute of Architects in 1859, Lienau himself noted that the diversity of nationalities, background, and education of its members had given rise to a variety of styles and opinions. He went on to say that, though this sometimes led to heated discussions, it augurs well for the future of our Institute and for the future of Art in this country. In later years, the tendencies toward eclecticism were further encouraged by the years of study of the younger architects at LEcole des Beaux-Arts. [Second was] the broadening base of American culture in the third quarter of the century. This was true not only of the education of architects, but also of the general public and of patrons of art and architecture, especially after the Centennial Exposition. What was characteristic of them had been true a generation earlier in the case of the wealthy upper middle classes. When architects had clients like the Schermerhorns, Joneses, Belmonts, and Lockwoods, who had traveled extensively abroad, they were dealing with people who prided themselves on their cultivated taste. Moreover, as a class, they were highly conscious of the prestige value of architecture... and of art in general. The educated upper middle classes, not only the nouveau riche, ... liked to cloak themselves in aristocratic garb. And what style could express this better than a combination of the best elements from the approved styles of the past? Architects vied with one another in their endeavor to give substance to the fabulous dreams that easy money made possible. Money, and the open flaunting of the architectural creations it could buy, had not yet become generally suspect. The climax came, of course, in the period of the 80s and 90s with the creations of Hunt for the Vanderbilts and the Astors.
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... the period of the 1860s and early 70s was a very different one from that of the 1840s. These years were among the most remarkable in our history. The days of a stable balance between architecture and industry were over, blown sky-high by the roar of the cannon. The sense of equilibrium had vanished. Everything was changing; everyone was on the move. The West was opening up, transportation and the means of communication became cheap, fast, and easy. Railroads were beginning to cover the country; steamboats and barges were plying... the rivers and canals with the products of our fast-expanding industries. Steamships replacing the old clipper ships and packets, and the Atlantic Cable, assured the quick exchange of news and ideas from abroad. Immigrants by the millionsand one should remember that Detlef Lienau had been one of thempoured into this promised land, bringing with them their own traditions, which in due course were being absorbed into the mainstream of our culture. Our urban population, reinforced by recruits from the farms, doubled within a generation... In short, the entire cultural atmospherethe political, social, and economic fabric of the countrywas being completely transformed within the memory of a single generation. It is against this background of change, of the Civil War, of the emergence of power of the industrial North, that one must try to understand the architecture of these crucial decades. A single dominant style, such as the Classical Revival, was no longer capable of expressing the complicated tensions of the period. The delicate balance between the Greek and Gothic Revivals, so long maintained, was impossible now. There was no time to cope adequately with all the problems raised by the new needs, much less to work consciously toward the creation of an American style. Architects had to work quickly just to keep up with the tremendous demand for buildings of all types. In these circumstances, it is only natural that they relied on the past.
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