Guy Lowell
Guy Lowell | |
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Guy Lowell (August 6, 1870 – February 4, 1927), was an American architect and landscape architect.
Biography
Born in
Returning to the United States, Lowell opened his own practice in Boston in 1899 and was successful immediately. By 1906, he had opened a branch office in New York and later split each week between New York and Boston. His commissions included large public, academic, and commercial buildings, as well as many distinctive residences, country estates, and formal gardens. He was the architect and landscape architect for the first
Guy's work on
Lowell also made a name for himself as a landscape architect. His obituary in The New York Times notes that he designed or "fitted up" gardens for the elder
It is in the area of education that Lowell left his lasting mark on the profession of landscape architecture. He founded the short-lived, but influential, landscape architecture program at MIT (1900–1910). Under his guidance, the program developed as a synthesis of French planning ideals and Italian garden design, with a significant emphasis on horticulture and engineering. The first students graduated from the program in 1902. It was an undergraduate option from 1900 until 1904, and it continued as a graduate course until 1909, with Lowell's offering instruction in landscape architecture until 1912. (He donated his services, asking that his salary be turned over to the Architecture Department.) He taught an important group of landscape architects their trade including Mabel Keyes Babcock (1862–1931), George Elberton Burnap (1885–1938), Marian Cruger Coffin (1876–1957), Martha Brookes Hutcheson (1871–1959), and Rose Standish Nichols.[3] Lowell's program at MIT provided educational opportunities in landscape architecture for women that they could not find elsewhere; many of his female students went on to become outstanding practitioners.[4]
Lowell also published several books, including: American Gardens (1902), Smaller Italian Villas and Farmhouses (1916), and More Small Italian Villas and Farmhouses (1920). He also contributed to American Gardens, a photographic magazine.[citation needed]
Lowell died suddenly in the
Major buildings and gardens
- 1902 Lowell Lecture Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1906 Fox Clubhouse, 44 JFK Street (formerly 44 Boylston), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1904 Emerson Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1909 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- 1910 Eegonos, Bar Harbor, Maine
- 1910 Charles River Dam, including the Boston Embankment, the Upper and Lower Lock Gate Houses, the Stable, the Boat House, and an open pavilion
- 1912 Natirar, Somerset Hills, New Jersey
- 1913 New York State Supreme Courthouse, New York City
- 1913 Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, New York
- 1929 Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan
Other selected buildings
- 1900 13 Follen Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, built for Alice Lowell Ropes
- 1901 Tupper Manor (now part of Endicott College), Beverly, Massachusetts
- 1902 Boston, Massachusetts
- 1904 Spring Lawn, Kemble Street, Lenox, Massachusetts
- 1907 Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
- 1907 Unitarian Church of Barnstable, Cobb's Hill, Barnstable, Massachusetts
- 1909 New Hampshire Historical Society building, 30 Park Street, Concord, New Hampshire; the pediment contains sculpture by Daniel Chester French that includes the Society's crest flanked by figures representing Modern History and Ancient History
- 1910 Cumberland County Courthouse, Portland, Maine (with George Burnham)
- 1911 Piping Rock Clubhouse, Locust Valley, New York
- 1912 Harvard University President's House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1913 Boscawen Public Library, Boscawen, New Hampshire
- 1921 Community House, Hamilton, Massachusetts
- 1922[6] Fuller Memorial Bell Tower, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
References
- ^ Inventing the Charles River, Karl Haglund, 2003.
- ISBN 9781439664148.
- ^ Against all Odds MIT’s Pioneering Women of Landscape Architecture, Eran Ben-Joseph, Holly D. Ben-Joseph, Anne C. Dodge.
- ^ Lowell Guy in Pioneers of American Landscape Design II : An Annotated Bibliography. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources, Heritage Preservation Services, Historical Landscape Initiative, 1995.
- ^ Joan M. Marter, The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 191.
- ^ News – Memorial Bell Tower Archived 2006-05-04 at the Wayback Machine at www.andover.edu
Further reading
- Benjamin F. W. Russell, "The Works of Guy Lowell." Architectural Review vol. 13 no. 6 (February 1906), pp. 13–40.
- Charles A. Birnbaum and Robin S. Karson, Pioneers of American Landscape Design, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), pp. 230–33.