Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis | |
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Projects | Montgomery Place Oliver Bronson House Virginia Military Institute Llewellyn Park Lather's Woods |
Alexander Jackson Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892) was an American architect known particularly for his association with the
Education
Davis was born in New York City and studied at the American Academy of Fine Arts,[1] the New-York Drawing Association, and from the antique casts of the National Academy of Design. Dropping out of school, he became a lithographer and from 1826 he worked as a draftsman for Josiah R. Brady, a New York architect who was an early exponent of the Gothic Revival style. Brady's Gothic 1824 St. Luke's Episcopal Church is the oldest surviving structure in Rochester, New York.[2]
Career
Partnership with Ithiel Town
Davis made a first independent career as an architectural illustrator in the 1820s,[1] but his friends, especially painter John Trumbull, convinced him to turn his hand to designing buildings. Picturesque siting, massing and contrasts remained essential to his work, even when he was building in a Classical style. In 1826, Davis began working in the office of Ithiel Town and Martin E. Thompson, the most prestigious architectural firm of the Greek Revival. In the office Davis had access to the best architectural library in the country, in a congenial atmosphere where he gained a thorough grounding. They designed Sachem's Wood in New Haven, Connecticut, which was built from 1820 to 1830.[3][4]
From 1829, in partnership with Town, Davis formed the first recognizably modern architectural office and designed many late Classical buildings, including some of public prominence. In Washington, Davis designed the Executive Department offices and with
A series of consultations over state capitols followed, none apparently built entirely as Davis planned: the
In 1831, he was elected an associate member of the National Academy. From 1835, Davis began work on his only publication, Rural Residences, the first pattern book for picturesque residences in a domesticated
Additions to Vesper Cliff were built in 1834.[6]
Country residences (1840 - 1860)
The 1840s and 1850s were Davis's two most fruitful decades as a designer of country houses. His villa
Two smaller but well known structures designed by Davis include one built for John Cox Stevens in 1845; Stevens was the first Commodore of the New York Yacht Club and the small Carpenter Gothic building on his property near Hoboken was given to NYYC to be used as its first clubhouse. This building, fondly called "Station 10", still exists and can be found in Newport. Davis built a similar pavilion for his colleague and fellow NYYC founder, John Clarkson Jay, on Jay's Long Island Sound waterfront property in Rye, New York, in 1849. Although this building was taken down in the 1950s, the original setting and garden where it was once located is part of a National Historic Landmark site and open to the public.
Inspired in part by friend Andrew Jackson Downing, Davis constructed several Gothic Revival cottage-style homes in Central New York, including the 1852-completed Reuel E. Smith House, which is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1851, Davis completed
The success of "Winyah Park" and "Lathers's Hill" generated other important commissions for Davis in New Rochelle, including two cottage-villas,
Davis was invited to become a member of the American Institute of Architects shortly after its founding in 1857.[12] In the late 1850s, Davis worked with the entrepreneur Llewellyn S. Haskell to create Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, a garden suburb that was one of the first planned residential communities in the United States.[13]
Davis designed buildings for the
Davis is credited with coining the term "Collegiate Gothic", documented in a handwritten description of his own "English Collegiate Gothic Mansion" of 1853 for the Harrals of Bridgeport, Connecticut.[16][17]
He married Margaret Beale in 1853 and had two children.
Declining patronage and retirement (1860–1892)
With the onset of Civil War in 1861, patronage in house building dried up, and after the war, new styles unsympathetic to Davis's nature were in vogue. In 1867, he designed the Hurst-Pierrepont Estate.[18] In 1878, Davis closed his office. He built little in the last thirty years of his life, but spent his easy retirement in West Orange drawing plans for grandiose schemes that he never expected to build, and selecting and ordering his designs and papers, by which he was determined to be remembered. They are shared by four New York institutions: the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the New York Public Library, the New-York Historical Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A further collection of Davis material has been assembled at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. Davis is interred in Bloomfield Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.[19]
Selected works
- Belmead, Powhatan, Virginia (1845)
- Blandwood, Greensboro, North Carolina (1846)
- Bridgeport City Hall, Bridgeport, Connecticut (1853–1854)
- Davenport House, New Rochelle, New York (1859)
- Litchfield Villa, Brooklyn, New York (1857)
- Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York (1838)
- Reuel E. Smith House, Skaneateles, New York (1852)
- Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut (1842)
- Wildcliff, New Rochelle, New York (1852)
- Winyah Park, New Rochelle, New York (1851)
See also
- John Henry Devereux, South Carolina architect who shared a client with Alexander Jackson Davis
References
- ^ a b c d e "United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.: East Front Elevation, Rendering". World Digital Library. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
- ^ "Monroe County (NY) Library System - Pathfinders - Architecture - Every Building Tells a Story". www.rochester.lib.ny.us. Archived from the original on 21 February 2006. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
- ^ "Wooded Path". Daily Nutmeg. 2020-06-08. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
- ^ Historic American Buildings Survey, creator (1933-01-01). "Sachem's Wood, Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, New Haven County, CT". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
- ^ "Images of Ohio State House, Columbus, Ohio, by Alexander Jackson Davis". www.bluffton.edu. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
- ^ William E. Krattinger (n.d.). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Vesper Cliff". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2009-11-20. See also: "Accompanying 15 photos". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2009-11-26.
- ^ "Archived item". Archived from the original on 2007-10-06. Retrieved 2005-06-06.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
- ^ Society, South Carolina Historical (28 March 2018). "This discursive biographical sketch of Colonel Richard Lathers, 1841-1902: was compiled as required for honorary membership in Post 509, Grand Army of the Republic ..." J.B. Lippincott. Retrieved 28 March 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ Edwards, Lee M. (1986). Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Painting, 1840-1910. Hudson River Museum.
- ^ Architectural Record. McGraw-Hill. 1909.
- ^ "History of The American Institute of Architects". American Institute of Architects. Archived from the original on 13 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
- ISBN 978-0-8143-1665-8.
- ^ "Clayton Hall, Virginia Military Institute Barracks, by Alexander Jackson Davis". homepages.bluffton.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-30.
- ^ "Barracks History Timeline - VMI Archives - Virginia Military Institute". www.vmi.edu. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
- ISBN 0472112775. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- ^ Golovin, Anne Castrodale. "Bridgeport's Gothic Ornament The Harral-Wheeler House" (PDF). Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution Press. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- ^ Elise M. Barry (April 1982). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Hurst-Pierrepont Estate". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on 2012-10-17. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
- ^ "NJ Historical Trust". Archived from the original on 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2019-02-17.
External links
- Alexander Jackson Davis architectural drawings and papers, circa 1804–1900.Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
- Art and the empire city: New York, 1825–1861, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Davis (see index)
- Peck, Amelia, “Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892).” The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History."
- John Thorn, "Alexander Jackson Davis: picturesque American"
- A.J. Davis at the Virginia Military Institute: plans and elevations at VMI
- Great Buildings online: Town and Davis
- Blandwood Mansion Greensboro, NC
- Driving map of Davis structures in the Hudson Valley
- Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on A.J. Davis.
- The Alexander Jackson Davis Architectural Drawing Collection at the New York Historical Society
Further reading
- Davies, Jane B (2000). Alexander Jackson Davis American National Biography. American Council of Learned Societies.
- Peck, Amelia (1992). Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803–1892. Rizzoli.
- Peck, Amelia. “Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/davs/hd_davs.htm (October 2004)
- Placek, Adolf K., ed. (1982). Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-02-925000-5.
- Aspirations for Excellence : Alexander Jackson Davis and the First Campus Plan for the University of Michigan, 1838
- Great Houses of the Hudson River, ISBN 082122767X.