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Vol. 26:3 ISSN 0160-8460 September 1998
Preserving Architectural Collections at The Art Institute of Chicago
Work was recently begun at The Art Institute of Chicago on an NHPRC-funded project to preserve, through microfilming, the papers of architect and city planner Edward H. Bennett, Sr. (1874-1954). One of the early practitioners of city planning in the United States, Bennett was an important figure in the City Beautiful movement, and had a broad, nation-wide professional practice in this field during the period 1900-1940. In its present state, on acidic paper stock, as much as 20% of the manuscript material in Bennett's papers cannot be handled without risk of its disintegrating, and the balance of the collection is only slightly more durable. The creation of a preservation microfilm master and film copies will ensure the continued availability of this extremely fragile manuscript material and will permit greater use of it by researchers.
Born in England, Edward H. Bennett, Sr., was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1895 to 1902, thanks to the generosity of Phoebe Apperson Hearst. The training and friendships he made at the École shaped his entire career. After a short time in New York with architect George B. Post, Bennett moved to Chicago to assist architect Daniel H. Burnham in preparing a plan for the military academy at West Point. Burnham found Bennett's work highly satisfactory and took him on to do the field work for the comprehensive plan for San Francisco begun in 1904. Although this completed plan was not implemented in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, Burnham hired Bennett full-time to work on his plan for Chicago.
Bennett, who co-authored the Plan of Chicago (1909), made Chicago his personal and professional headquarters for the rest of his career. He served on the Chicago Plan Commission in various capacities into the 1930s and developed a substantial private practice and a national reputation as a city planner. Burnham, who largely retired from active practice after 1905, other than for his work in Chicago, directed applicants to Bennett, who, with partners William E. Parsons (1872-1939) and Harry T. Frost (1886-1943), served as a planning consultant to many cities large and small. In the plan for Chicago, Burnham and Bennett created a working document giving substance to the City Beautiful philosophy. From this prototype Bennett developed comparable plans for numerous American cities, including Minneapolis, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon.
Denver Civic Center Plan, from the Bennett Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Usually serving on a consultant basis, frequently for quasi-public or commercial interests such as the Commercial Club of Chicago, the firm was a pioneer in the creation of zoning ordinances and the study of transportation and regional planning as urban design tools. His vision of the city was formed in the application of Beaux-Arts design principles of axiality and the incorporation of monumental public buildings as civic markers, coupled with a systematic ordering of functions for efficiency. Bennett's ideas about the marriage of technical and aesthetic ideals are important examples of urban utility and beauty in a democratic society. Bennett was concerned with both the regional organization of a city's services and the individual citizen's enjoyment of his city. He realized the importance of transportation planning, the placement of government and civic structures, zoning, and the creation of parks and public spaces for public enjoyment.
After World War I, the nature of planning work changed. Fully three-quarters of the Bennett firm's work done in the 1920s was for official city planning agencies rather than for independent business or civic groups. With the Depression, Bennett's volume of work declined. From the late 1920's, he was involved in planning for the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, and designed a number of structures for it. From 1927 until 1937, Bennett served as Chairman of the Board of Architects responsible for the development of the Federal Triangle in Washington, DC, a large complex of government buildings between the White House and the Capitol built to house a number of Federal agencies, including what is now the National Archives and Records Administration.
After the retirement and death of his partners, Bennett closed his practice in 1944 and spent the final decade of his life in retirement. In the course of his career, Bennett had worked in nearly 20 states, from California to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico and Canada. He presented his papers to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1953, and these were supplemented by additional gifts and bequests from his architect son, Edward H. Bennett, Jr., over the following two decades. The collection comprises the complete archival holdings of Bennett's work, consisting of manuscript materials, daily diaries, photographs, drawings, newspaper clippings, and published plans for a number of cities. This collection, used in conjunction with the institute's Daniel H. Burnham Collection, provides an important resource for the study and documentation of the development of American's urban form during the period 1880-1940.
Entrance to the home of Katherine and David Adler, Libertyville, Illinois, 1923, from the David Adler Archive, The Art Institute of Chicago.
At the same time that the Bennett papers project is beginning, a second NHPRC-funded project relating to architectural records at The Art Institute of Chicago is nearing completion. This project involves the arrangement and description of the David Adler Archive.
David Adler (1882-1949) was the architect of more than 50 important houses located throughout 13 states. Adler can be situated within the large group of professionals who designed homes and estates from the turn of the century through the 1930s - the period of the Great American House - along with other great architects such as Richard Morris Hunt, John Russell Pope, Julia Morgan, and William Delano. His architecture must be defined as eclectic. Looking to history for his inspiration, Adler was extremely knowledgeable and skillful in his ability to understand and employ several architectural techniques. His designs, like those of other classicists such as McKim, Mead, and White, treated building and landscape as an integrated whole and expanded the architectural space beyond the dwelling. Garden, land, and house - exterior and interior - were all considered part of the overall architectural design.
Born in Milwaukee, Adler's architectural education took place at Princeton, the Polytechnikum in Munich, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His extensive studies and travels in Europe gave him the vast knowledge of architectural vocabularies and the understanding of scale, siting, and materials that would allow him to undertake projects with exceptional skill. These varying vocabularies led to the Crane House on Jekyll Island, Georgia, which resembles an Italian palazzo; the Clark residence in San Mateo, California, using English half timber construction; and the Blair House in Lake Bluff, Illinois, designed in the style of a Colonial New Netherlands farmhouse.
Along with the traditionally inspired vocabularies, Adler developed interior organizations which were attuned to modern living, using materials in fresh new ways to reflect the time, or original elements and pieces of furniture brought from his many trips to Europe. Likewise, consideration of exterior garden and courtyard layouts and designs completed a unified architecture. Adler was also particularly skilled in the siting of buildings. A case in point is the Crane House in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which commands a striking view of the sea created by the well-defined allée of groomed shrubs leading down to the Atlantic.
Although the collection includes photographs and correspondence with various clients, the bulk of the collection is made up of over 5,000 drawings, including site plans, elevations, floor plans, and shop drawings. As part of the project, site visits have been made to learn more about the status of several of the homes designed by Adler and to interview some current residents.
The well-known architect Robert A.M. Stern has written that "David Adler is one of this century's great stylists: a superb interpreter of the past, his architecture is truly timeless and an inspiration to very many of us today." Another famous architect, Stanley Tigerman, has also expressed praise for Adler, writing that his work "has made a tremendous contribution to American architectural history. It is of significant importance that Adler's work be given the suitable notoriety it so richly deserves." By arranging and describing this important body of work, The Art Institute of Chicago will be better able to assist architectural historians, architects, students, and members of allied professions in their research, and increase awareness of David Adler's place in the nation's architectural history.
