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American Architecture Students in Belle Epoque Paris: Scholastic Strategies and Achievements at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2013

Isabelle Gournay  and
Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte
Isabelle Gournay*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte*
Affiliation:
Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris
*
gournay@umd.edu
marie-laure.crosnier-leconte@inha.fr
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Abstract

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era witnessed the largest influx of American architecture students to the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The U.S. contingent—120 students admitted in the 1890s, 154 in the 1900s—accounted for 10 to nearly 20 percent of incoming students each year. This illustrated essay uses projects prepared by these students to introduce the major features and principles of the Ecole's architecture curriculum, in particular the physical and instructional framework of the atelier and the medium of the concours. The essay presents a step-by-step selection of projects by American students admitted between 1890 and 1909. These range from a twelve-hour sketch problem required for the admission competition to a diplôme (masters' thesis). Beyond introducing the Beaux-Arts method of instruction, these prints provide insight into the subsequent American career of their authors and thus of American architecture and urban design overall, given the enormous influence exerted by the Ecole des Beaux Arts and its anciens élèves. Drawings requested from Ecole students were not just artfully composed and brilliantly rendered pictures. They were problem-solving endeavors. Former students preserved them not only as study models, but also as status symbols, even trophies.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 154 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2013

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References

1 Available online at http://agorha.inha.fr, the Dictionnaire des élèves architectes de l'Ecole des beaux-arts (1796–1939) was prepared by Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte on behalf of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art. At the time of this publication, all entries for the period 1800–1900 are available online.

2 Howells, John Mead, “From ‘Nouveau’ to ‘Ancien’ at the École des Beaux Arts” in The École des Beaux-Arts (New York, 1901)Google Scholar, 37. This album forms the “Beaux-Arts Number,” a supplement to the January 1901 issue of Architectural Record. Since the mid-eighteenth century, students from several European countries had been attracted by the rigorous architecture curriculum offered in France and the opportunity for firsthand knowledge of both past and current French architecture; see Schmidt, Freek H., “Expose Ignorance and Revive the 'Bon Goût': Foreign Architects at Jacques-François Blondel's École des Arts” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61 (Mar. 2002): 4–29Google Scholar.

3 By only considering students who were U.S. citizens at the time of their admission, we exclude Edward Herbert Bennett (Figure 6), a British subject, born in Gloucestershire. However, Bennett's entry into the Beaux-Arts sphere went through the United States. Sent by his father to San Francisco at age sixteen, he received his initial design training from the charismatic and talented designer Bernard Maybeck, who had been officially enrolled at the Ecole in 1882–84.

4 The first formal, degree-granting architecture program in the United States, MIT held its initial classes in 1868. As early as 1872, MIT recruited Eugène Létang to teach advanced design. Létang had a rather modest Ecole record. Upon his death, MIT hired Désiré Despradelle, who taught there from 1893 to his death in 1912; Despradelle had closely missed being awarded the Premier Grand Prix de Rome, the supreme Ecole award, which was limited to French citizens and was the gateway to major public commissions in France. The University of Pennsylvania recruited Paul Cret, who taught there from 1903 to 1937 and became a prominent and influential designer; Pennsylvania also hired Léon Arnal (1911–18) and Jean Hébrard (1925–31). Cornell University employed Maurice Prévôt, Premier Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1901 (1904–06); Jean Hébrard (1906–10); and Georges Mauxion (1911–14). After Despradelle's death, MIT continued to seek out distinguished Ecole diplômés: Albert Le Monnier (1913–14); Albert Ferran, winner of the 1914 Grand Prix de Rome (1922–23); and Jacques Carlu, winner of the 1919 Grand Prix de Rome (1923–33). Harvard University had Eugène Joseph Armand Duquesne, winner of the 1897 Grand Prix de Rome (1911–14), and Jean-Jacques Haffner, Deuxième Grand Prix de Rome for 1919 (1922–34). The Carnegie Institute of Technology had Gabriel Ferrand (1908–14) and Camille Grapin, Deuxième Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1920 (1923–c.1935); Washington University, meanwhile, recruited Charles Abella, Premier Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1906 (1911–14), and Gabriel Ferrand (1914–34); the University of Minnesota, Léon Arnal (1918–48); and the University of Michigan Jean Hébrard (1931–51).

5 “Our Beaux Arts Architects,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1893.

6 Noffsinger, James Philip, The Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts on the Architects of the United States (Washington, 1955)Google Scholar, remains the only book-length analysis on the American architectural presence at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The exhibition The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1975 while postmodern Classicism was at its peak in the United States, triggered a number of articles, such as Carlhian, Jean-Paul, “The Ecole des Beaux-Arts: Modes and Manners,” Journal of Architectural Education 33 (Nov. 1979): 7–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Carlhian, “Beaux Arts or ‘Bozarts’?” Architectural Record 159 (Jan. 1976): 131–34Google Scholar. Recent monographs on architects officially registered at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the 1890s and 1900s include (in chronological order): Betsky, Aaron, James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism (Cambridge, MA, 1994)Google Scholar; Booth, T. William and Wilson, William H., Carl F. Gould: A Life in Architecture and the Arts (Seattle, 1995)Google Scholar; Kidney, Walter C., Henry Hornbostel: An Architect's Master Touch (Pittsburgh, 2002)Google Scholar; Woodbridge, Sally Byrne, John Galen Howard and the University of California: The Design of a Great Public University Campus (Berkeley, 2002)Google Scholar; Thorne, Martha, ed., David Adler, Architect: The Elements of Style (Chicago, 2002)Google Scholar; Pennoyer, Peter and Walker, Anne, The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Porter, Carol S., Meeting Louis at the Fair: The Projects and Photographs of Louis Clemens Spiering, World's Fair Architect (St. Louis, 2004)Google Scholar; Stern, Jewel and Stuart, John A., Ely Jacques Kahn, Architect: Beaux-Arts to Modernism in New York (New York, 2006)Google Scholar; Tilman, Jeffrey T., Arthur Brown Jr: Progressive Classicist (New York, 2006)Google Scholar; Pennoyer, Peter and Walker, Anne, The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore (New York, 2006)Google Scholar; Wilson, Mark Anthony, Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty (Salt Lake City, 2007)Google Scholar; Pennoyer, Peter and Walker, Anne, The Architecture of Grosvenor Atterbury (New York, 2009)Google Scholar.

7 These were Hubert Burnham (Ecole tenure: 1906–12), James Otis Post (1899–1902), Lawrence Grant White (1909–13), John Augur Holabird (1910–13), and John Wellborn Root, II (1910–13). Two students were the sons of American painters practicing in France: Édouard Frère Champney (1874–1929), named after his godfather, the French painter Edouard Frère, and Charles Meissonier Knight (1877–1968), the son of Daniel Ridgway Knight and godson of the famous French painter Ernest Meissonier. The latter set up a practice in Paris, receiving many commissions from members of the American colony in France, including Edith Wharton.

8 In addition to orally transmitted accounts, the major French source for anecdotes on Ecole life is Lemaistre, Alexis, L'École dessinée et racontée par un ancien élève (Paris, 1889)Google Scholar. Other informative books are Müntz, Eugène, Guide de l'école nationale des Beaux-Arts (Paris, n.d., c.1889)Google Scholar; Guédy, Henry, L'Enseignement à l'École nationale et spéciale des Beaux-Arts, Section d'architecture (Paris, 1899)Google Scholar; Delaire, Edmond, de Penanrun, Louis David, and Roux, Louis, Les Architectes élèves de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1907)Google Scholar.

9 For a selection of Clarence Stein's Paris letters from 1905 to 1911, Parsons, Kermit, ed, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein: Architect of the Planned Community (Baltimore, 1998), 9–61Google Scholar.

10 The prizes offered by the Ecole to needy French students provide a good example of the way France's Third Republic promoted upward mobility in its institutions of higher learning. Starting in 1903, existing regional schools of fine arts started following the same architecture curriculum as the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts and granting the same diplômes. Their students, however, were not admitted separately. They were requested to pass the entrance examination of the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

11 The Prix de Rome and other competitions administered by the Institut de France and its Académie des Beaux-Arts were not opened to foreign students at the Ecole.

12 Walter Cook, “The Story of Design in the Ecole des Beaux Arts,” The École des Beaux-Arts, 59.

13 Guadet, Julien, Éléments et théorie de l'architecture; cours professé á l'École nationale et spéciale des beaux-arts, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1905)Google Scholar, 1:81.

14 Students in both ateliers officiels and libres had to pay for their drafting supplies.

15 The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects established a clear distinction between its members, all officially admitted to the Ecole, and its associate members, who had attended an atelier but did not pass the Ecole's entrance examination.

16 According to John Mead Howells, “A French Government School From The Inside,” Century Illustrated Magazine, Oct. 1901, 864–68, French students were rowdy even when they were working on an esquisse en loge.

17 Cook, “The Story of Design,” 61.

18 Guadet, Éléments et théorie, 1:23.

19 News from the Ecole was dutifully recorded by Francis Swales (who was officially registered in the atelier Pascal in 1906–07) in his chronicle “Notes from Europe,” published in American Architect and Building News from 1908 to 1911.

20 See http://www.ensba.fr/ow2/catzarts. The authors would like to thank Marie-Hélène Colas Adler for her help in providing images for several drawings preserved at the Ecole, which have not been posted on this website.

21 Drawings that we reproduce that have recently appeared elsewhere include Figure 11, published in Boutelle, Sara Holme, Julia Morgan, Architect (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; Figure 12 (top), in Tilman, Jeffrey T., Arthur Brown Jr: Progressive Classicist (New York, 2006)Google Scholar; and Figure 15 (right) in Cohen, Jean-Louis, Scènes de la vie future (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar.

22 As far as the 1890s and 1900s are concerned, we estimate that additional research at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in U.S. archives and in American publications, should unearth drawings for approximately 100 additional projects.