Inventing the Skyline

by Gilbert, Cass

• ISBN13: 9780231118736
• ISBN10: 0231118732
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Cass Gilbert's pioneering buildings injected vitality into skyscraper design, and his "Gothic skyscraper," epitomized by the Woolworth Building, profoundly influenced architects during the first decades of the twentieth century. Now, as the New-York Historical Society mounts a major exhibit documenting his architectural career, the full breadth of Gilbert's achievements is visible in one lavishly illustrated volume.Architect of the Broadway Chambers Building, the US Custom House, the Minnesota State Capitol, the St. Louis Art Museum, and large-scale projects like the city plan for New Haven, Connecticut, Gilbert is most famous for his skyscrapers -- "symbols of our national genius and unrestraint" -- monuments of the Beaux Arts "City Beautiful" aesthetic he embraced throughout his career.Containing essays by major Gilbert scholars, Inventing the Skylinedocuments fascinating details about the buildings: the color scheme of the main entrance of the Minnesota State Capitol, made to resemble the Byzantine tomb of Galla Placidia in Ravenna; the controversy that erupted over the use of female nudes on the relief of the Essex County Courthouse; and the ill-fated plans for the George Washington Bridge as a Beaux Arts monument with elaborate plazas, fountains, and sculptures.

Author Biography

Margaret Heilbrun is the director of the library, including the department of prints, photographs, and architecture, at the New-York Historical Society

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xxv
Biographical Time Line	p. xxix
Introduction	p. xxxiii
Cass Gilbert in Practice, 1882-1934	p. 1
From Sketch to Architecture: Drawings in the Cass Gilbert Office	p. 35
Cass Gilbert: Twelve Projects	p. 83
The Architect as Planner: Cass Gilbert's Responses to Historic Open Space	p. 177
Cass Gilbert's Skyscrapers in New York: The Twentieth-Century City and the Urban Picturesque	p. 229
Contributors	p. 289
Index	p. 293
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