Gold Medal American Institute of Architects Federal Commision for Fine Arts

past Tony Wrenn, Hon. AIA

As the Teddy Roosevelt era segued into the Taft and and so Wilson administrations, the AIA establish itself in the enviable position of advisor in the germination of a federal council of fine arts, and selection of the Lincoln Memorial and its site. During this Golden Age, the AIA held its first Due west Declension convention, approached a membership of 1,000, and inaugurated a feisty new Journal that took whacks at U.South. public buildings policy right on its comprehend. And, sadly, the Institute mourned the loss of one its virtually prestigious members just before he was to receive the AIA'due south second Gold Medal.

1909: Toward a Fine Arts Commission
But before the end of his term in Jan 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt established by executive order a Federal Council of Fine Arts. The AIA, in its plough, had been discussing a federal "bureau of architecture" since 1875, and Executive Director Glenn Brown and President Cass Gilbert oft talked with President Roosevelt about creating such a group. In meetings and correspondence between the AIA and the president, the aims of such a torso were discussed and potential members were suggested. The resulting Roosevelt Council of Fine Arts consisted of architects, painters, sculptors, and a landscape architect. The executive order included the AIA correspondence and White House responses and directed that "the heads of Executive Departments, Bureaus and Commissions govern themselves appropriately. Hereafter, before any plans are formulated for any buildings or grounds, or for the location or erection of any statue, the affair must exist submitted to the Quango I have named and their communication followed unless for good and sufficient reasons the President directs that it be not followed."

The quango met at the Octagon to organize and held a formal meeting on proposed locations for the Lincoln Memorial. The quango was then invited to the White House, where it reported in favor of the Mall site, ending discussions of placing the memorial at any other site. Inaugurated in March 1909, President William Howard Taft issued an executive society on May 21, 1909, revoking the Roosevelt order. Taft assured the AIA that he was in favor of such a group, but felt it should be established by the Congress to have the power it needed. Lobbying for congressional action began. On May 17, 1910, Congress approved legislation establishing a U.s. Commission of Fine Arts "to advise upon the location of statues, fountains and monuments in the public squares, streets and parks in the District of Columbia . . . and upon the selection of artists for the execution of the aforementioned." Afterward that yr, President Taft widened the commission's powers by executive social club, giving it dominance to advise on plans for public buildings erected past the authorities in the District of Columbia.

1909: Honoring McKim
At the 1909 convention in December, President Gilbert urged members to "nationalize your ideas," suggesting that "We have never held a convention on the Pacific Coast. It is time we did." The highlight of the 1909 Convention was to accept been the awarding of the Gilded Medal, the AIA's second, to Charles Follen McKim, but McKim died before the medal could be awarded. Still, the result was a glittering one. An exhibition of the piece of work of McKim, Mead and White was mounted at the Octagon. "This exhibition shows that fitness, proportion, beauty, refinement, written report and striving at perfection, whether the trouble exist peachy or small, are e'er evident," noted a description of the exhibition in the published proceedings of the "McKim Memorial Meeting." Tributes of respect came from effectually the state, and President William Howard Taft; Senator Elihu Root; U.Due south. Ambassador to Groovy U.k. Joseph Hodges Choate; Cass Gilbert; and American Academy in Rome President William Rutherford Mead (McKim's partner in the firm McKim, Mead and White) spoke.

President Taft's speech is remarkable for his recounting of the within story of how McKim saved the Mall when the Agriculture Building, already under structure, was being built. Taft was and so Secretary of War, under Roosevelt, and involved in the Agriculture Edifice controversy. He noted of McKim: "He was sensitive, equally I presume virtually geniuses and men of talent are, and he suffered much as he ran against that abruptness and cocksureness that we are apt to find in the neighborhood of Washington both in the Executive and the Legislative branches. He was the last person to give yous the impression that he had either abruptness or cocksureness, but I don't know any one who, when he had ready his listen at a thing and had adamant to attain a upshot, had more steadfastness and manifest more than willingness to employ every possible means to attain his purpose than Mr. McKim." Taft concluded, "I am living in a house to-day [the White Firm] that has been made beautiful by Mr. McKim. It is a house to which y'all tin can invite any foreigner from whatever country, however artistic, and feel that it is a worthy Executive Mansion for a keen nation like this, combining dignity and simplicity, and reflecting in all its lines (it does to me) the dignity and simplicity of the art of Mr. McKim." (I who would empathise McKim would do well to read the speeches of Taft, Root, Choate, and Gilbert.)

In presenting the Gilded Medal, Gilbert said, "His monuments in bronze and marble will long enrich his native land, his benefactions, not measured alone in the standards of commerce, have laid the sure foundation of fifty-fifty greater monuments in the hearts of his countrymen. Simply it is non for these alone that we offer this token of our praise and dear. The award of this medal can add together nothing to his honor. Titles, nor decorations, nor medals, nor whatever worldly thing can add to worth. Grapheme and merit are intrinsic. They are not conferred. Nothing we can do or say tin add together to their sum. Nobility is of the soul."

Mead suggested—when accepting the medal and placing it in the easily of McKim's daughter—that if McKim were present, he would say, "Any I have been able to accomplish in the field of architecture has been from devotion to a bully art and in the involvement of a noble profession. That my efforts have been recognized by this representative body of American architects is a reward which I shall ever cherish."

1910: Westward ho!
A major portion of the 1910 convention was given over to discussion of railways and city development, with papers presented by representatives of Wabash, Southern, Hudson and Manhattan, and Baltimore & Ohio railroads, forth with papers on transportation to city development and on inter-urban stations and trolley traffic in city streets. These papers were published under divide cover as, "The Relations of Railways to City Development, Papers read before the American Establish of Architects, December 16, 1909."

That convention did indeed encounter in California, the start to get so far west. On January 17-21, members met at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. They and then traveled to Palo Alto, Monterey, and Santa Barbara between January 21 and 23, and concluded in Los Angeles, Jan 23-25. Returning dwelling, many members went by way of the G Canyon for a planned stop. President Irving K. Swimming, in his address to the convention in San Francisco, noted: "Our American platonic need not, must not exist expressed monotonously along narrow lines, just must aggrandize broadly under varied skies, under climatic extremes, nether varied ethnic and social impulses unified by one American spirit. This must be if nosotros are to be true to our aesthetic ideal. California is i stage of America, as New England is another, as Manhattan is some other, these phases are to be harmonized and not confused, to be nurtured and developed and non swept bated for some manifestation of exotic growth. The American Institute of Architects is deeply concerned in the ethics of business concern and the profession, in the science of business and the profession, simply its passion must exist for the beauty which inheres in architecture."

Also announced at the 1910 convention were the congressional approval of the Commission of Fine Arts, and the engagement of members Daniel Burnham, Cass Gilbert, Daniel C. French, Thomas Hastings, Frank D. Millet, Charles Moore, and F. Fifty. Olmsted Jr. (all AIA architects or Honorary AIA members). Convention attendees approved the application of the AIA Gold Medal to George Browne Post at the side by side convention.

1911: Widespread influence and presidential praise
In 1911, AIA membership was approaching 1,000, but its press indicated far greater influence than that number would betoken. For case, Fifty'Enfant'due south memorial, finally unveiled at Arlington Cemetery on May 22, 1911, at iv.p.chiliad. in ceremonies arranged by Brown and various committees, Leslie'southward, Collier's, the National Press Club, and others were invited to attend and notified Brown they would. President Taft was on hand, equally were students from the Colonial School for Girls in Washington. The schoolhouse'south headmistress wrote Dark-brown that, "It was an occasion they will never forget." The impressive tabletop mark erected over the grave carried the Fifty'Enfant Plan for Washington and a fable noting "Pierre Charles Fifty'Enfant/Engineer, Artist, Soldier/ Under the management of George Washington/Designed the Program for the/Federal City . . ."

The 1911 Convention was highlighted by the presentation of the AIA Gold Medal to George Browne Post at the New National Museum in Washington on the evening of Dec. xiii, 1911. AIA President Pond opened past introducing Post, stating, "George B. Post joined the American Institute of Architects in 1860, and for fifty years he has given his time and talents to building up and improving the standard of art, looking to the do good to the public and the improvement of the artist; his efforts have been 1 of the factors in bringing the architect, sculptor and painter together in an effort to produce harmony in the combination of the arts."

President Taft, in his address, said, "I count information technology a very fortunate circumstance in the profession of the builder that there is some cloth, definite printed document of excellence. They do non have any such provision at the bar that I know of (laughter), or in medicine (laughter), or even among clergymen (laughter): you lot take to gather such certificates of excellence equally you tin from the uncertain thing nosotros telephone call the public opinion of the profession. Merely in compages, apparently, they have the virtues so much more solid and their standing in their profession so much more certain that they allocate them as golden, and silver and copper (adulation and laughter). I am glad to be here and to lend, both personally and officially, such weight as I may (laughter) to the importance and the ceremoniousness of this occasion of the rewarding of a man who for 50 years has labored to elevate his profession, and who has had the adept fortune to alive every bit long as Mr. Post has lived, to see his profession develop in this country and to experience that much of it has been due to his endeavor (applause)."

M. J. J. Jusserand, the French ambassador, gave the major accost, maxim of Mail: "From first to final, he has acted upon a principle which may appear unproblematic enough when expressed, merely is not of such an habitual application equally to have get banal; the principle that a building is non an abstract limerick raised mid-air for the contentment of fleshless spirits, but is a reality holding fast to the ground, to a particular sort of ground, in the midst of definite surroundings, in view of certain uses, with all of which it must concord: there must be harmony." Postal service's response to these and to President Swimming'due south official presentation, was a scant 100 words that included: "This medal will be guarded always as a most precious treasure; its value will be enhanced by the memory of this nighttime and the circumstances of its presentation."

1912: The Constitute faces a new world
1912 proved momentous for the Institute: The AIA finally accepted H. Van Buren Magonigle's design of the seal that is withal in use, canonical the end of publication of the Quarterly Message (which had begun publication in 1900), and in its stead approved publication of a monthly Journal of the American Institute of Architects. The Board of Directors could also report that the Fine Arts Commission had recommended and the Congressional Committee for the Lincoln Memorial (of which Taft was the chair) had formally selected Henry Bacon'due south blueprint and the Park Commission-recommended site for the Lincoln Memorial. The outset outcome of the Journal carried an article on the Lincoln Memorial with drawings, text, and a summary of AIA efforts to secure the pattern on the Mall site.

Evidently, though, not everyone was enamored of the Bacon blueprint. The Illinois Affiliate was i of the most vocal against it, noting that the design was not a product of its time and had no "connection historically, nor from the standpoint of Democracy with the work of Abraham Lincoln, nor with his life, his Country or his time; but suggests rather the historic period of Pericles." The resolution adopted by the chapter on Jan 14, 1913, too noted: "Said blueprint is of classic inspiration bearing a very close resemblance to Greek Temple Architecture of the Doric period; and ... A large bronze likeness of our beloved martyred President is to be placed in the midst of said Greek Temple suggesting of Lincoln a 'Greek Deity.'" The resolution approved the site, but suggested rethinking the design. However, the House canonical a joint resolution on the Memorial on January 29, 1913, which President Woodrow Wilson signed on February 1, accepting both Salary's blueprint and the Park Commission site.

1913: The rising of the Journal and Glenn Chocolate-brown's new legacy
1913 brought two events mourned by many. One was a alter in governance policies that led to the position of secretary to be elected past the AIA Board, which effectively removed Glenn Brown from office. A long resolution, prepared by a committee co-chaired by Gilbert and William A. Boring, noted that the Institute was "deeply impressed with the notable achievements and the true-blue services of Mr. Glenn Brown, who for fifteen years has been its devoted Secretary and Treasurer." The resolution, which recounts events of the by 15 years that Chocolate-brown either initiated or to which he was primal, was unanimously carried. 1913 was also the year that Charles Babcock, the last of the original 13 founders who met in Upjohn'due south office on February 23, 1857, passed abroad. The resolution on his August 27, 1913, expiry noted "his death marks the passing of a swell catamenia which must always be of peculiar interest and value to American architects, for it illustrates how loftier ideals and confident endeavor tin can bring order out of chaos, conviction out of suspicion, and great achievement past reason of graphic symbol and integrity."

1913 marked the first year of the publication of the Periodical, which was to go 1 of the about influential publications in its field. It published the minutes of the Board of Directors, reproduced superb graphics, and carried provocative articles, all with a signal of view. Even the encompass was used to editorialize. For instance, the encompass of the February 1916 issue, introduced in bold type an article on "Our Stupid and Blundering National Policy of Providing Public Buildings, Showing how the city of Washington is beingness marred by the erection of role buildings for rental to the Government at rates based upon inflated values." Information technology was a topic the magazine would return to once again and again. The cover of the May 1916 issue noting, in equally bold type, "Only a determined national endeavor, led by unceasing patience, directed by an intelligent appreciation, and inspired with the vision of Washington and Jefferson, can save the nation'due south capital from the architectural desecration which has already wrought an injury greater than the nation knows." Charles Harris Whitaker, its editor, hired Clarence Stein as an associate editor and published both Lewis Mumford'southward commencement article and the last written piece of work of Louis Sullivan. Forth the style, dreamy photographs of New York and New Orleans, drawings and photographs of colonial mansions, and news of current events made their way into the magazine.

Glenn Brownish'southward relationship with the Octagon did not finish in 1913, for he was hired virtually immediately to do something that he had begun years before: He wrote most the Octagon and hired Frances Benjamin Johnston to photo it. The AIA asked Brown'south house (in which his son Bedford Brown was a partner) to brand measured drawings of the house. The drawings were published in a monograph with photographs of the house and its effects, and a history penned past Glenn Dark-brown. It is non praising the drawings too highly to annotation that they established standards for such measured drawings; standards which would be picked up a decade later when the Celebrated American Buildings Survey began.

The Octagon Monograph, issued in a portfolio containing some thirty page-sized drawings, was promoted past the Journal, which noted, "One cannot enter information technology without unconsciously peopling its rooms with the gracious men and women of that day—there may come even a lingering regret over the changes which seem to have made that life no more a memory—and there will surely come the devout wish that the whole may be jealously guarded and preserved every bit an inspiration to future generations."

1916: The "winds of war"
In 1916, the Board of Directors could written report a membership of 1,432 but notation that "The architectural profession is at best a small-scale one numerically, and the membership of the Institute does not every bit all the same incorporate a majority of the members of the profession. Until that point has been reached and passed, the Institute cannot speak with complete say-so in a country where majority rule governs."

Whatever the state of practice in this country, the coming conflagration could not exist ignored. President Mauran recalled that, "At the last two conventions my predecessor touched our hearts and stirred our every sympathy with his discussion-pictures of the tragedy being enacted across the sea. Today the tragedy notwithstanding holds sway, but we must await beyond that moment of devout thanksgiving when peace shall have rung the pall down, to the day when war-weary Europe shall confidently demand not our sympathy lone but our sympathetic effective cooperation. And on that day let us not be plant unprepared to have upwards the responsibilities which belong to the states past right and by training as citizens of the globe."

Those responsibilities would make it with force in 1917.

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Source: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek06/0303/a150_tw030306_taft.htm

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