DIY Architecture (1885)

In 1885, The Weekly Kansas Chief reported on the availability of plans and specification forms that could be easily adapted for frame or masonry construction. Bridgeport, Connecticut architects Palliser, Palliser & Co. circulated advertisements of their pattern books to American states and territories; their designs eventually impacted architecture nationwide.

"Messrs. Pilliser, Pilliser [sic] & Co., of Bridgeport, Ct., the well-known Architects and Publishers of standard works on architecture, have lately issued a sheet containing plans and specifications of a very tasteful modern eight-room cottage with tower, and also with the necessary modifications for building it without the tower, and with but six rooms if desired. In its most costly form, the outlay is estimated at $3,000: without the tower, it has been built for $2,500; and if only six rooms are included, the cost may be reduced to $1,700 or $2,000. Details are given of mantels, stairs, doors and casings, cornices, etc. The publishers have found it the most popular plan they have ever issued, and state that it has been adopted in more than five hundred instances within their knowledge. The same firm issues Specifications in blank, adapted for frame or brick buildings of any cost; also forms of building contract, and several books on modern inexpensive, artistic cottage plans, which are of great practical value and convenience to everyone interested."

The Weekly Kansas Chief (17 May 1883). Available through Chronicling America.

Men at Work 1927

Over four years ago, we posted a 1903 illustration of the Radford Architectural Company's design department.  For those interested in Architectural Practices in the Age of Manual-Mechanical Reproduction, the following 1927 account may be of interest:

"It is very gratifying to me to observe how the carefully laid plans of procedure in connection with the Jung Hotel project are working out. In order to avoid the customary method of endless erasure and re-drafting on the large scale working drawings, with the consequent liability of making grievous errors by not following the changes through all the affected sheets on various tables and in so many different hands, with the attendant smudging and soiling of the finished sheets and possible necessity of marking new sheets (sometimes nearly completed) which had become torn and frayed and crinkled under such harsh usage, and to prevent the demoralization of the draftsmen under the circumstances of their continual uncertainty, we decided to make complete studies on small scale, and to make all erasures and changes on these preliminary sheets. This method was adhered to with stubborn determination against the temptation to begin the actual working drawings, even though it sometimes seemed that we were hazarding time and delaying constructive progress.

"The result was that a few days ago we had completed accurate, dependable small scale models, with all necessary alterations, erasures and adjustments made and carefully checked; whereupon we started four men to work up the final drawings. They are going full speed ahead upon these, with full confidence that they are headed straight and will not be obliged to rub out and redraft. Their progress is almost unbelievably fast; and as soon as we have settled some further problems, which are being worked out under my guidance, and are now nearly all solved, we will put at least two more men to drafting working drawings; which will, of course, result in a fifty per cent increase in speed.

"Insofar as the drafting portion of the designing operation is concerned, we are very much in the position of one who has already carefully cut and fitted various little oddly shaped pieces of a pattern quilt and who has now only to lay them into their respective places in the pattern and to stitch and bind them all together in the finished article.

"Parallel with this work, the structural steel and concrete designs have been progressing, and the heating, wiring, ventilation, plumbing, refrigerating, and other mechanical equipment systems have been designed and developed, so that these are now advanced to a stage of completion concurrent with the architectural plans. Under the circumstances, I am encouraged to hope that sufficient progress may have been made to justify my beginning the composition of the specifications within two weeks from tonight.

"Three things must be accomplished before I can work upon the specifications:  First, the plans must have been completed to a point where I am able to retire in quiet to work, without being interrupted every few moments with questions to answer, decisions to make, problems to solve, emanating from the drafting room and from the structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering system designers; second, the plans must have been developed to a point where a set of blue prints from the semi-completed sheets may be furnished so as to afford an adequate idea of the nature and scope of the various contract operations that will be involved; and finally, the plans must have been brought to such a stage of detail and notation and dimension as to make it possible for me to check them for errors as I write the description and requirements of workmanship, materials, and methods, because this checking that I do, as as I study the plans, sheet by sheet and operation by operation, is the only minute and intimate check they receive in this vital respect."

Leon Weiss.  Letter to Caroline Dreyfous. 11 August 1927.  The Writings of Leon Weiss, Vol. I. Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Tulane & the Beaux-Arts

In the second decade of the twentieth century, the Tulane Department of Architecture boasted its relationship to the Parisian École des Beaux Arts:

"The entrance requirements of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris are exacting and specific. The departments of this famous school have a standing hardly equalled by any college elsewhere in the world. To be a student in the 'Ecole' is one of the highest honors that can come to the young Frenchman and it is an honor no less prized by those foreigners who seek to gain admission through its doors."

"Last year 500 Frenchmen and 185 foreigners took the entrance examinations. Of these 185 foreigners 7 were Americans. Three of these Americans were successful and it is gratifying to note that of those three, two had been students of the Tulane Department of Architecture, viz: Feitel, B., Arch, 1911, and Armstrong, a three year student."

From "Architectural Department" Building Review125 (1913-1914), p. 7. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Fifth Wheel of the Wagon

As reported by The Daily Picayune 2 September 1889:

"Architects say their business is constantly increasing and that people are beginning to learn more readily that money is saved and other profit gained by employment of the architect. People used to believe an architect constituted the fifth wheel of the wagon. Nowadays, however, that opinion is giving way in the face of returning prosperity and the development of architectural tastes. Style in residences and stores, as stated before, is changing along St. Charles avenue, Prytania and other residence streets there is a greater prevalence of European and modern American architecture and a constant broadening of lines.

Another matter of note is the fact that stone is coming into more general use than ever before. Many of the lately constructed residences up town are COMBINATIONS OF BRICK AND STONE, and in the selection of the granite there is the utmost catholicity of taste. The Morris building, the Howard Library, and the Whitney National Bank, are all for the most part part built of red granite."

Excerpt from "Brick and Mortar: The Past Year's Building Operations," p. 2.

A Book a Day

Justin McGuirk reported for today's Guardian:

"In Britain we're sceptical of the idea of the architect as intellectual. Most people probably aren't aware that there's a whole realm of architecture that doesn't involve erecting buildings. But from Vitruvius in the 1st century BC and Alberti and Palladio in the Renaissance to Le Corbusier in the 1920s, architects have always produced books, not just to publicise their work but to lay down the latest architectural rules.

Often these titles tend to be monographs. Light of text and glossy of photograph, they are hefty volumes, records of achievement – a chance for the architect to say "Look on my works, ye mighty, and leave them casually stacked on the coffee table". But Rem Koolhaas's books, produced with his Rotterdam-based practice Office for Metropolitan Architecture, are different, as a new show at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London's Bedford Square demonstrates. On a plinth in the middle of the room sit 400 volumes bound together in black folders. They look like endless meeting agendas, but they are the complete works of OMA from 1978 to 2010. If you stood this object on the floor, it would be as tall as two people, one stood on top of the other. No wonder the show is called OMA Book Machine. . . "

To read more, click here.

Image above: Architectural Association, as it appears in the 17 May 2010 Guardian.

Men at Work 1903

William A. Radford founded the Radford Architectural Company (1902-c. 1926) in Chicago, Illinois as a publishing house for technical books. He hired architects and draftsmen to design plans and develop specifications for residential, commercial, and agricultural structures that he published in his expanding market of books and monthly trade journals. The Radford Architectural Company has been credited with contributing to the popularization of the Prairie School style, for its Special Department of architects and draftsmen (illustrated above) frequently produced Prairie, Arts and Crafts, Mission and Craftsmen-styled designs. Customers could make special requests for individualized plans, specifications and cost estimates, although many builders were content with the stock plans developed for such company publications as Radford's Artistic Homes: 250 Designs (1908) and The Radford American Homes (1903).

Between 1902 and 1926, architects and draftsmen such as G.W. Ashby, W.H. Schroeder, Alfred Sidney Johnson, Bernard L. Johnson, Charles Godfrey Peker, Loring H. Provine and Ervin Kenison created over 1000 plans for Radford.¹ An important precursor to prefabricated architecture, catalog homes proved widely popular across America: over 100,000 were built between 1903 and 1940.²

Image above: Radford's Special Department. As illustrated in The Radford American Homes (Riverside, IL: Radford Architectural Company, 1903).

¹ Kathy L. Morgan. "Gulder House," National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Listed 7 January 2010.

² The Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside. "2008: Architecture Award." URL: http://www.olmstedsociety.org/education/architectural-awards/2008-vince-and-dawn-hartnett/