Events & Meetings | Past Events | Past Tours | Past Lectures
February 28, 2012
Cass Gilbert and Detroit
Join the Cass Gilbert Society on Tuesday, February 28, 2012, at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, at 7:00 P.M. for a follow-up event from the Society trip to Detroit. Barbara S. Christen, Ph.D., noted Cass Gilbert scholar, will preview the talk, Envisioning a Grand City: Cass Gilbert’s Detroit, she will be giving at the annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians to be held this April in Detroit.
Cass Gilbert’s Detroit Public Library (1913-1921), Scott Memorial Fountain (1921-1922), and the Belle Isle Bridge (1915), offer rich territory, previously unstudied collectively, to explore perspectives of city planning in early twentieth-century Detroit. The library served as one aspect of a civic center plan that was scuttled in the face of a struggling economy, labor concerns, and a world preparing to join a war, but that is only part of the story.
Gilbert also envisioned a city center knit together with the outer city by grand boulevards leading to an extensive bridge project that included recreational and park areas. Dr. Christen’s talk will examine and contextualize the rhetoric in the popular press about Gilbert’s grand schemes in relation to the ideals of the City Beautiful. It will also examine the role of Detroiter, Charles Moore, who was secretary to Michigan senator, James McMillan (author of the McMillan Plan in Washington, D.C.), and editor of Burnham and Bennett’s Plan of Chicago (1909).
Her talk will also consider the role of education for an emerging citizenry by examining the spatial, didactic, and programmatic goals of the Children’s Room in the library. The decorative treatments and uses of the children’s areas in the building have not been studied at length and deserve attention in light of the larger project of reformist ideals.
November 15, 2011
Lessons From Waterbury, Connecticut
Join the Cass Gilbert Society on Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 7 p.m., at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul. Ted Lentz, AIA, current president of the Cass Gilbert Society, provides a report on the restoration of the Waterbury City Hall. His talk is titled Waterbury City Hall Renovation: Lessons Learned and Cass Gilbert’s Continuing Impact on the City of Waterbury, Connecticut.
The Waterbury City Hall is the centerpiece of Gilbert’s ambitious plan for the City of Waterbury, begun in 1914. It served the city well for many years, but was vacated after years of neglected maintenance. In 2006, it was threatened with demolition but concerned citizens organized to save the building. In 2007, after the voters approved a bond issue to rehabilitate City Hall, the Waterbury Development Corporation drew up plans, and the city aldermen appropriated the funds. Members of the Cass Gilbert Society visited Waterbury in October 2007 on the Society tour of New York and Connecticut, shortly after the bond issue had been approved. Work was carried out in 2009-2010, and City Hall was officially rededicated on January 1, 2011.
Ted will illustrate his talk with “before” pictures taken by Cass Gilbert Society members in 2007 and others, as well as with ample “after” pictures that he took before and after the symposium.
Cass Gilbert Society Holiday Celebration and Fundraiser at the Freeman House
The Cass Gilbert Society is hosting a holiday celebration on Sunday, December 4, 2011, at the Freeman house, 505 Summit Avenue at Mackubin Street, Saint Paul, between 5 and 7 p.m. to raise funds to further the research activities and enhance the website and online database of the Cass Gilbert Society. History player and actor Alan Johnson will welcome guests in the role of Cass Gilbert. The Mount Curve String Quartette will provide musical entertainment, and light refreshments will be served. The cost is $50.00 per person.
For further information, please contact Linda Bjorklund, 612-990-7374.
Cass Gilbert designed the house, completed in 1897, for George W. Freeman, president and son-in-law of Conrad Gotzian, founder of C. Gotzian & Company, manufacturers and jobbers of shoes and boots in Saint Paul’s Lowertown. Gilbert had previously designed two warehouse buildings for the company in 1892 and 1895. The house is faced with Oneata and Indiana limestone and features Byzantine-inspired ornament on the exterior. The interior has several grand spaces suitable for entertaining, including an impressive multistory stairhall.
The current owners, architect Peter O’Brien and his wife, Helen (Duffie) Pearce, have generously made the house available over the years for Ramsey Hill house tours and a previous Cass Gilbert Society tour. It can also be seen as the site of some of the interviews featured in Cass Gilbert: Standing the Test of Time, the Cass Gilbert Society-sponsored TPT production.
Members of the Cass Gilbert Society and others on our mailing list will receive separate invitations to this event with more detailed information.
September 13, 2011
Who Built the Minnesota State Capitol?
Join the Cass Gilbert Society on Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 7 p.m., at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul. Randy Croce will share findings from a year-long research project on the workers and contractors involved in the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol from 1896 to 1907. Croce will relate the stories of several of the individuals he and his fellow researchers uncovered, including the six men who lost their lives during the construction. He will also talk about safety standards, rates of pay and working conditions for the builders of the period, accompanied by archival and contemporary photographs.
Croce has authored two articles based on the group’s work: “State Capitol’s stunning beauty came at a terrible cost,” and “State Capitol history comes alive for middle school students,” Admission to the talk is free to members and students and is $5.00 for
non-members.
September 22, 2011
Ramsey Hill House Tour: An Evening of Elegance
Friends of the Cass Gilbert Society in the Twin Cities area may want to participate in the biannual Ramsey Hill House Tour: An Evening of Elegance, Thursday, September 22, 2011, 5 to 9 p.m.
Visit eight historic homes in the Ramsey Hill neighborhood along and near Summit Avenue between Dale Street and the Cathedral of Saint Paul. The candlelight tour includes musical entertainment at three of the houses and wine and refreshments at two of the houses. Two houses on the tour were designed by Clarence Johnston, Sr., and one by Emmanuel Masqueray. Both were associates of Cass Gilbert in various enterprises.
Tickets are $30 in advance or $40 on the day of the event. For more information: www.ramseyhill.org.
October 15 and 16, 2011
9th Annual OpenHouseNewYork (OHNY) Weekend
On those days visitors can tour nearly 200 sites of architecture and design significance throughout the five boroughs of New York City, including many that are normally closed to the public. Weekend events also include 150 tours, talks, performances, family activities, and workshops that explore New York City by foot, bus, and bicycle.
Several Cass Gilbert buildings have been included in previous years. For more information and an up-to-date listing closer to the event date, visit www.ohny.org. The success of OpenHouseNewYork has led to the establishment of similar events in several other cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
CGS TOUR: Cass Gilbert and his Contemporaries in Detroit
Members of the Cass Gilbert Society will visit Detroit October 21-23, 2011, to see Gilbert’s works as well as visit other buildings by several of his contemporaries.
The Detroit Public Library is Gilbert’s major public building in that city. Commissioned in 1913, it was not begun until 1917 and finally completed in 1921. A restrained Beaux-Arts design, it is also notable for an impressive group of murals depicting events in city history that were painted by the Detroit-born artist Gari Melchers and attributes of the arts by New York artist Edwin H. Blashfield. Blashfield had previously worked with Gilbert on several major commissions. The library was expanded in 1960-1963 to designs by Cass Gilbert, Jr., and Francis J. Keally.
The James Scott Memorial Fountain is located at the west end of Belle Isle Park in the narrows of the Detroit River between the United States and Canada. Gilbert won the competition for the fountain in 1914, but it was not built until 1921-1925. In addition to the multi-tiered marble fountain, the design incorporates terraced steps leading to the river and a bronze statue of Scott, executed by Herbert Adams.
Deadline for Tour Registration: October 1, 2011
Click here for a PDF of detailed tour schedule, tour details, and tour registration packet.
Please contact Carolyn Nayematsu or phone her at 651-699-7407, for more information.
The Restoration of Waterbury City Hall
A talk by Ted Lentz, AIA, at the University Club about the symposium, The Legacy of Cass Gilbert and the Revitalization of Our Beautiful City, held on April 9, 2011, in Waterbury, Connecticut. It continued the 2011 New Year’s Day grand opening celebration of the $32 million restoration of the Waterbury Municipal Building. Helen Post Curry, Cass Gilbert’s great granddaughter, my wife Ona, and I represented the Cass Gilbert Society at this symposium on architecture, history and community revitalization. Local community leaders and restoration architects who worked on the Waterbury Municipal building were joined by nationally recognized architectural historians and preservation leaders to discuss Waterbury’s past, present and future.