Past Events & Meetings | Past Tours | Past Lectures
February 17, 2009
Gail Fenske to Speak on Her Book, The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York.
Gail Fenske, Professor of Architecture at the School of Art, Architecture and Historic Preservation, Rogers Williams University, will speak on her book, The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York, why she wrote it and what it meant to her.
Following her talk, Dr. Fenske will answer questions and sign copies of her book. Refreshments will be served. Admission is free to Cass Gilbert Society members and students with ID; the charge is $5.00 for non-members.
Gail Fenske is also the author of “The Image of the City: The Woolworth Building and the Creation of the New York Skyline,” a chapter in Cass Gilbert: Life and Work, edited by Barbara Christen and Steven Flanders (W. W. Norton, 2001), and “Cass Gilbert’s Skyscrapers in New York: The Twentieth-Century City and the Urban Picturesque,” in Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert (Columbia University Press, 2000).
November 2008
Katherine Solomonson to Speak November 11, 2008:
"Cass Gilbert: Re-Imaging the Western Landscape"
Katherine Solomonson, Ph.D., will speak to the Cass Gilbert Society on November 11, 2008, at 7 p.m. at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul. Her talk is titled "Cass Gilbert: Re-Imaging the Western Landscape." Admission is free to members and students with current student identification cards; there is a $5 charge for nonmembers of the Cass Gilbert Society. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.
Dr. Solomonson, associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Architecture, College of Design, at the University of Minnesota, has been researching and writing about the Minnesota career of Cass Gilbert and the work of his St. Paul office as it shaped the perception of architecture in the Great Northwest. She has focused on the role of Gilbert in fostering architectural professionalism in the late nineteenth century, the growth of architectural offices, and the development of architect-client relationships.
The railroad was a key factor in the furtherance of Gilbert’s career, both as a client and in enabling him to pursue a geographically wide-ranging practice.
April 2008
Annette Atkins, author of newly published book for the Minnesota Sesquicentennial, Creating Minnesota: A History from the Inside Out, (Minnesota Historical Society Press), will speak on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, at 7:00 P.M.
February 2008
Cass Gilbert Society Travelers to Tell Tour Tales
Join participants in the Cass Gilbert Society tour to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut on Tuesday, February 12, 2008, at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, at 7:00 P.M.
Members of the group, including Tom Blanck, Jim Law and Jean Velleu, Nick Marcucci and Ann Schroder, Marjorie Pearson, and Cindy Stephani, will present an illustrated talk about the October tour.
Society members from Connecticut, California, Minnesota, Maryland, and New York, met in New York City at the U.S. Custom House on Bowling Green on October 11, 2007, to begin an intense five-day tour of Cass Gilbert sites. Organized by Helen Post Curry and Steven Flanders, the tour was also guided by Barbara Christen and Marjorie Pearson. When Gilbert relocated from Saint Paul to New York at the beginning of the twentieth century, he applied the lessons he had learned in Minnesota to the design of public, institutional, and commercial buildings. Tour highlights included the Brooklyn Army Terminal; the West Street Building and Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan; the newly restored Essex County Courthouse in Newark, N.J.; the Cass Gilbert Historic District in Waterbury, Connecticut, where the city approved restoration of the City Hall; and Cass Gilbert’s country house and the local cemetery in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
November 13, 2007
Talk by Larry Millett, author of The AIA Guide to the Twin Cities.
Join the Cass Gilbert Society on Tuesday, November 13, at 7:00 P.M. at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul. Larry Millett, author of the AIA Guide to the Twin Cities (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007), will be speaking on Cass Gilbert and the architecture of Saint Paul.
Millett, who was architecture critic for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, is also the author of several books that explore the architectural heritage of the Twin Cities, including Lost Twin Cities (1992) and Twin Cities Then and Now (1996).
The AIA Guide, which is subtitled “The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul,” does not slight the work of Cass Gilbert, which ranges from the Minnesota State Capitol to the warehouses of Lowertown, among its fifteen hundred total entries.
Admission to the lecture is free to Society members. There is a $5.00 charge for nonmembers. Refreshments will be served after the lecture. A demonstration of the Cass Gilbert Society’s redesigned website (see story inside) will be available before and after the lecture.
September 2008
Living With Cass Gilbert: FALL TOUR, September 28, 2008
Three Architects Describe Their Experiences
Visit three Cass Gilbert-designed houses in Saint Paul on September 28 between 2 and 5 p.m. Architects Gar Hargens, 548 Portland Avenue, and Nicholas Marcucci, 552 Portland Avenue, live in Portland Terrace, at the corner of Kent Street, a Gilbert commission from 1888. The row was built for attorney Leidum Sharpe, who lived with his family at 548 Portland, one of the end houses, and rented out the other four units. The house at 552 Portland is in the middle of the row. Architect Peter O’Brien, 505 Summit Avenue, corner of Mackubin Street, owns the George W. Freeman House (1896), built for the president of the Gotzian Shoe Manufacturing Company. The impressive façade is of Minnesota limestone with Indiana limestone details. O’Brien has been restoring the house to Gilbert’s original design, room by room, since 1990. The three architects will lead tours of their houses, beginning every half hour. Each tour will be limited to 20 participants at a time. Tour participants will move from house to house and can visit the houses in any order. Refreshments will be served on the porch at 505 Summit Avenue. The garden of the property on Summit Avenue west of the Freeman House will also be open for visitors. The cost is $20 for Cass Gilbert Society members and $25 for nonmembers. Tickets will be available at each of the houses.
October 11-15, 2007
Cass Gilbert Society Tour of New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Download the slideshow, "Touring with Cass Gilbert" by Marjorie Pearson [13.4MB PDF]
November 18, 2006
Cass Gilbert Society Four-Day Tour of Central Texas: Austin & San Antonio.
St. Paul Walking Tour, Fall, 2004
St. Paul Lowertown Tour, 2003
| Gail Fenske | "Book: The Skyscraper and the City" | 2009-02-17 |
| Katherine Solomonson | "Cass Gilbert: Re-Imaging the Western Landscape" | 2008-11-11 |
| Larry Millett | "The AIA Guide to the Twin Cities" | 2007-11-13 |
| Hampton Smith | "The Spirit and the Bride: A History of St. Clement’s Episcopal Church 1893-1996" | 2007-09-11 |
| 7 GGS Members | "Cass Gilbert Society Texas Travelers Tour Report" | 2007-04-24 |
| Michael J. Bjornberg & Robert D. Loveridge, Jr. |
"Minnesota State Capitol Restoration" | 2007-02-27 |
| William Seale | "Historical and Architectural Restoration: State Capitols" | 2006-10-31 |
| Marjorie Pearson | "Cass Gilbert: Architectural Ambassador" | 2006-05-09 |
| William Morgan | "The Kerr Block, 1887" | 2006-05-09 |
| Patty Dean | "Cass Gilbert in Montana" | 2006-02-28 |
| Leigh Roethke | "Minnesota Capitol: Centennial Story" | 2005-09-20 |
| Sheila Smith | "Collecting Minnesota Capitol Memorabilia" | 2005-02-15 |
| Helen Curry | "Cass Gilbert's Family in Connecticut" | 2004-10-04 |
| Patricia Murphy | "Cass Gilbert's Origins and Early Career" | 2004-09-14 |
| Lance Neckar | "Cass Gilbert at the University of Minnesota: Models, Expos, Plans" | 2004-04-20 |
| C. Ford Peatross | "Cass Gilbert: Collection at the Library of Congress" | 2003-11-18 |
| Sally Webster | "Minnesota Capitol Design & Decoration" | 2003-10-14 |
| Paul Larson | "Cass Gilbert's Art and Life Abroad" | 2003-04-29 |
| 10 CGS Members | "Cass Gilbert Society 10-Building Tour, New York City" | 2003-02-25 |
| Mary Beth Betts | "Cass Gilbert's Architectural Esthetics" | 2002-09-24 |
| David Lanegran | "Saint Paul, Context of Cass Gilbert" | 2002-04-30 |
| Barbara Christen | "Minnesota Capitol Approaches & University of Minnesota Planning" | 2002-02-05 |
| Neesse & Thomas | "Their Cass Gilbert House, West St. Paul" | 2001-11-03 |
| Charles Lock | "Cass Gilbert MIT, Europe, MM&W, St. Paul Railroad | 2001-09-25 |
| William Morgan | "Cass Gilbert: Politics of Business, 1874-1905" | 2001-04-17 |
| Sanchez-Coulter | "The Seligman House, Helena, Montana" | 2001-02-20 |
| Geoffrey Blodgett | "The Young Cass Gilbert, 1880-1882" | 2000-11-14 |
| Steven Flanders | "Cass Gilbert Life & Work: the Public Domain" | 2000-10-03 |
| Sharon Irish | "Modern Traditionalist: His Esthetics" | 2000-04-25 |
| Paul Larson | "Cass Gilbert: Lost Early Work - 1883-1886" | 2000-02-22 |
| Tom Blanck | "Bethlehem Presbyterian Church" | 1999-11-16 |
| Gail Fenske | "Cass Gilbert: Woolworth Building, New York City" | 1999-10-19 |
| Geoffrey Blodgett | "Cass Gilbert: Early Years, From His Start" | 1999-05-08 |
| O'Sullivan | "MN Capitol"-Kompelien "Politics, Preservation" | 1999-03-23 |
| Herb Grika | "A Book: Minnesota's State Capitol" | 1999-01-02 |