The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich
Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker
Overview
'The glorious record of a glorious architectural career: Delano and Aldrich were certainly leaders in the American Renaissance of classical values.' —Louis S. Auchincloss
The firm of Delano & Aldrich occupied a central place in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, substantially shaping the architectural climate of the period. The grand country estates, striking townhouses and club buildings, churches, schools, and public buildings designed by William Adams Delano (1874–1960) and Chester Holmes Aldrich (1871–1940) are exceptional examples of architectural creativity and originality.
Illustrated with stunning color photographs taken expressly for the book and many historic photographs, plans, and drawings reproduced in rich duotone, The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich is the first book to give an account of the architects’ backgrounds and beginnings and the scope of their practice, setting the firm’s work within the social and architectural context of the day. It examines twenty particularly exemplary projects, showing how the architects tempered the purely functional aesthetic, inherent in a modernist approach, with the artistic aesthetic of traditional classical architecture. Early commissions of large country and city houses and clubs as well as the larger government and civic buildings of the post-Depression years, increasingly modern and stylized, reflect their underlying dedication to a classical architectural language and the great fluidity and breadth of their work. Among the featured projects are the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, Maryland), High Lawn (Lenox, Massachusetts), Oheka (Cold Spring Harbor, New York), the Knickerbocker and Union Clubs (New York City), Peterloon (Indian Hill, Ohio), the U.S. Post Office Department Building (Washington, D.C.), the American Government Building (Paris), Sterling Divinity School, Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), and the New York Municipal Airport, La Guardia Field (New York City).
A catalogue raisonné, employee roster, and list of buildings now serving as museums are also included, making The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich the definitive source about a practice whose work forms a lasting part of the American landscape.
Praise for The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich:
“… you really want to have an opportunity to see the interiors, an appetite for which will surely be stimulated by Mr. Pennoyer’s and Ms. Walker’s exquisite book…illustrated with stunning color photographs taken expressly for it, as well as many historic ones and reproductions of plans and drawings. It contains a catalogue raisonne of all the firm’s work, as well as an eximation in detail of 20 masterpieces.”
––Quest Magazine, April 2003
“What a fabulous insight into the Architecture firm of Delano and Adrich. This book with its beautiful photographs and engaging essay provide an invaluable tool for all architectural enthusiasts: from the average architecture buff to those involved in scholarly research. Im most impressed that the authors not only sought to perform research on the buildings themselves, but moreover, examined the partners and the social influences of the times. I feel we gain so much from the writers thru their experience of having read Delanos letters in archive at Yale! This book should stand as a model for future chronologist of architectural history. It is truly a wonderful presentation - the best that Ive seen published to date.”
––Home Garden Reviews
'The Architecture of Delano and Aldrich, by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, gives the outsider a look inside the town houses, clubs and other buildings that staked out a reputation the architects enjoy to this day––and also the insouciant touches that distinguish it from the typical upper-class architectural firm'.
––Christopher Gray, The New York Times
About the Authors
Peter Pennoyer is the principal of Peter Pennoyer Architects in New York, a firm with a national practice in classical architecture. Anne Walker holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from Columbia University.
ISBN: 0-393-73087-5
March, 2003
224 pages; 45 color, 150 b&w illustrations
Hardcover
