Chapter 3: )
A few houses by McKim, Mead & White of the early eighties are
definitely _François I_, and Richardson used _François I_ dormers,
probably independently of Hunt, on the Albany Capitol. Moreover, the
round towers of the ‘Shingle Style’ undoubtedly owe something to
Stanford White’s sketching trips in France. This episode obviously
parallels the interest in revived Northern Renaissance modes of design
in Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia in these decades, and has
analogies also to the contemporary work in England of George & Peto
and Collcutt (see Chapters 9 and 12).
Footnote 288:
In the designing of the Sherman house—particularly in the Shavian
detailing—White had probably played an important part; he was,
moreover, called on by the Shermans to enlarge the house in 1881. The
library, of this date, is one of his finest pieces of interior
decoration.
Footnote 289:
One of the earliest examples of the serious study of Colonial
precedent is Arthur Little’s _Early New England Interiors_, Boston,
1878. However, his own work remained relatively free for some years.
Footnote 290:
See _Building News_, 28 April 1882.
Footnote 291:
These tiles wore out some years ago and have now been replaced. The
smooth black roof seen on Plate 111 lacks the fine scale and rich
texture the pantiles provide.
Footnote 292:
The conceptual organization of the exterior has seemed to most critics
to have been borrowed from a much later monument, Henri Labrouste’s
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris of the 1840s, even though McKim
would not admit it. There is certainly none of Labrouste’s exposed
metalwork in the interior; but the extensive use of Guastavino tile
vaults, at this time a real technical innovation, is worth noting.
Footnote 293:
See Burnham, D. H., _World’s Columbian Exposition_, Chicago, 1894, and
Ives, H., _The Dream City_, St Louis, 1893.
Footnote 294:
The area round the ‘Wooded Isle’ was much less regular than that round
the Lagoon in continuance of Olmsted’s earlier and more naturalistic
sort of landscaping. Into this area were shunted most of the buildings
by local architects, doubtless because McKim distrusted their capacity
to conform to the academic standards he was setting.
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