Arts and Letters

Cass Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on November 24th, 1859. He died at Brockenhurst, Hampshire, in England, on May 17th, 1934. His long and distinguished career as an architect was begun back in the eighties, when practitioners of the art were confronted by more than one type of leadership. Richard Morris Hunt stood for both academic and romantic ideas of French origin. H. H. Richardson was committed to the Romanesque. McKim, Mead and White adopted classical motives as they had been filtered down through the Italian Renaissance. It was the last mentioned firm in association with which Gilbert launched himself, young, tall, handsome, and in his whole ebullient personality giving evidence of the character which was to win him authority and repute. He was to affirm himself through the realization of large, monumental conceptions.

These were destined to justify themselves through illustration of classical elements, handled broadly and boldly, but Cass Gilbert had more than one string to his bow and proved it, on occasion, with brilliance. In the Gothic Woolworth Building he gave free rein to his more exuberant impulses and exploited them so ably that this remains one of the vitalized architectural landmarks in New York, a singularly picturesque and impressive skyscraper in a city of skyscrapers. He could design also, in the vast structure for the U. S. Army Base, in Brooklyn, a building whose bare mass, austere lines, and obvious practicality must commend it to the most exacting modern taste. Outstanding things like the building of the New York Life Insurance Company, on the site of the old Madison Square Garden, and the approaches of the Washington Bridge, are likewise of his versatile designing, yet his instinct for the column and the arch would not down. Antique precedent determined the nature of the buildings which counted so heavily in the development of his fame, such as the Minnesota State Capitol, the New York Custom House, the building of the United States Supreme Court at Washington. These achievements, especially that at Washington, possess the Roman amplitude and dignity which were the principal ingredients of Gilbert's art.

In 1931 the Society of Arts and Sciences gave him its gold medal for reasons which drew from him a reiteration of his faith in the skyscraper as a form of architecture. But the salient note which he struck on the occasion of this award was one which went deeper. He put in a plea for beauty and sincerity as the indispensable factors in the evolution of architecture. He held fast to an elevated ideal of art and labored not only as an architect but as an executive to maintain it. Never was any one more active in the promotion of organized artistic effort. In 1881 he and a handful of others founded the Architectural League. In 1908 he was chosen to head the American Institute of Architects. In 1926 he was made president of the National Academy of Design, the first architect in the history of the institution to fill that office—and most devotedly he filled it. Some years before, in 1914, he had been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and at the time of his death was a member of its Board of Directors. To all these bodies, and to others, he brought enthusiastic and wise service.

I knew him over a long period of years and can well remember his stalwart presence and the energy that went with it. He was clever in little things, in the making of travel notes in water color, for example, but he was much more than clever in the fundamentals of his busy and constructive life. There he was a follower of the grand style, rising to the great opportunities offered to him to design buildings on an heroic scale, and the last impression he leaves is one of force, tempered by scholarship. He aided the cause of American Art generously and effectively. The recognition that came to him here and abroad was for work well done. He will be honorably remembered.