A PARABLE (for a friend)

Not too long ago nor very far away, there are two churches. To the hasty eye, they may seem dissimilar. Other than their common date and purpose, one of them appears more than simple, unadorned; stripped of ornament. The sort of building which gains dignity through avoidance of sham or pretense. The other achieves its appropriateness for Divine Service through the conscious minimization of “style”, distinguished by the artful recognition of functional and constructional necessity. This one is more easily positioned in the spectrum of style; the other, less so, achieving its “style” through subtraction, minimizing all but the essential.

Step within each church, however, and be surprised. Like the architecture of Early Christianity, the exteriors are secular, of this world, while the interiors afford us of ultimate reward for the life well lived. Such is the first example. The second is a greater surprise, unexpected, and a different sort of reward, less readily explained. the difference(s) between them are one small matter; their similarities, another thing altogether.

Their likeness may reveal a common origin: they are, in fact, the simultaneous products of one mind, a single imagination. Their design — for they derive from a single historical source — comes from the 15th century church of Ste. Cecile at Albi in central France, a building shaped, like most of its era, by the genius of Gothic engineering, but additionally by the religious unrest of its particular place and time: the age of Albigensian Heresy, when God’s “mighty fortress” served both spiritual and physical defense. Here the external “flying” buttress would have become its weakest link in the otherwise structural cohesion of Gothic style. The architects of Albi had foreseen tis need and, with a few other churches of southern France and northern Spain (Catalunya), turned these vulnerabilities on the lofty walls they support; removed them from catapult and siege machine; maintained stability by withdrawing this weakest element.

The 19th century exercised its heresies in other ways; this Albigensian ploy served other ends. In dense urban areas of industrializing Europe and to serve the overabundance of Europe’s immigrant population in urbanizing America, church sites were tight, expense trumping expanse. They could ill afford the outward display of the buttress and its waste of useful volume. The Albi experiment was applied this way in Victorian Britain but less often in North America. In our examples at Chattanooga and Kansas City, the internal effect served economy as well as the reinforcement of spiritual power.

How or why our architect William Halsey Wood chose this path isn’t known. He did it only twice, so far as is known, just one of few American architects to do so.

CODA

Good architecture is the product of collaboration those multiple contributors to the process of design and construction. And here we cannot ignore the role of client: the Reverends Henry Jardine and G. W. Dumbell (which I prefer to pronounce “DUM-ble”). Father Dumbell was an emigrant from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. His origins are neither more nor less unusual than other 19th century Anglican clergy and local tradition has it that the slightly Georgian features of his church at Chattanooga — and unlikely turn of events at that point in American architectural history — had their origin in a ruinous fortification near his birthplace, though images of that source aren’t especially convincing. Seeking more information on the family, however, revealed a far simpler explanation: the churchyard site of the Dumbell family mausoleum is adjacent to Braddan Kirk, the family parish. Old Braddan Kirk, preserved as a cemetery chapel to the south, includes a bell tower almost certainly the inspiration for its reference at Chattanooga.

The story of Father Jardine, Wood’s client in early stages of the project at Kansas City, is attributable to a motive far more than nostalgia or homesickness. Jardine’s churchmanship was a match for his architect’s Anglo-Catholicism, though the priest’s had become an issue with both his bishop and his parishioners. Jardine’s situation at Kansas City had devolved into legal recriminations, defrocking, and imprisonment and ultimately to suicide. His ashes are interred beneath the high altar and local lore has his spirit residing in the church today. That factor could not have been a conscious influence on Wood but there is an uncanny expression in the church Jardine began.

Every building tells a story: of its imagining, its endurance, or demise. Regardless, each of these stories has meaning, though some are routine, merely ordinary, while others are can disturb.

A Commission

This Arts & Crafts frame was designed by British architect C.F.A. Voysey. Would that we owned it! Because it would have set me back a pretty penny…or is that pence?

Now and then, the Agincourt Project actually commissions new contributions to its material culture. In this case, we happen to own four similar (but not nearly as fine) copper frames from the A&C period—two small round frames and two oval—which happen to be empty. So, since I tend to dislike the word “empty”, we asked our friend Paul Bhajjan to imagine the art that will fill them.

The idea of a theme was discussed, something to hold them together (and, frankly, make a bigger impression should they be exhibited). Perhaps “The Four Seasons” or the four Gospels. Though, at the moment, I’m leaning toward “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”.

Stay tuned.

I’m never certain whether this should be one word or two.

This trade publication of 1915 will be useful in carrying the NITC terminal in downtown Agincourt to completion. It is filled with drawings which would be essential for any architect of the time to properly detail this simple two-story commercial building at the corner of Broad and Louisa.

It’s high time I finished this building. Happily, I’m getting some help from an old friend.

[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]

BHAJJAN, Paul (born 1995)

“The Glorification of the Royal Hungarian Saints”

oil on panel /

2023

Paul Bhajjan is a young artist working in Fargo-Moorhead and attending art school at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Paul is a realist painter heavily invested in the Baroque era of painting. This painting was an anonymous gift to the Community Collection.

Among Bhajjan’s inspirations is the Austrian painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch who painted the subject of Paul’s study. The original Maulbertsch painting of 1772-1773 is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

It’s appropriate that this is the first post of the New Year.

Last post for the month of November: a new header image that I stumbled on this afternoon.

Of late, the drip feed of entries here has slacked off considerably; looking like one or two posts per month. I could beg off and say I’m working on other things (which is true) but that means little in terms of ongoing interest in the Project.

And so I had lunch late last week with Mr Rutter and the conversation turned toward the potential for another Agincourt exhibit. I’d already had in mind something connected with the Community Collection—gathering dust in my basement. But how can I pass an invitation like this. So stay tuned….

Raskin Bobbins

Industry during 19th century America wasn’t necessarily concentrated in large urban centers. A good deal of it was towns of middling size but with aspirations of grandeur. One of the several small pre-Civil War enterprises in Agincourt shared the Syndicate Mill with other entrepreneurial efforts. They made bobbins for both commercial and hand weaving. I wonder if they were founded by an ancestor of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)? Should we ask him?

ANDERSEN, Hendrik Christian (1872-1940). Création d’un centre mondial de communication par Hendrik Christian Andersen. Ernest M. Hébrard, architecte. Paris: 1913.

Two parts in one volume, 2° (455 x 322mm). Pp.[6], xv, 128, 102. Half-title and part-titles. Title printed in red and black with vignette. Recto of dedication leaf in heliogravure. 25 heliogravure plates (9 double-page and 5 double-page and folding), including the plate ‘A World Centre’ at the beginning of part I not called for in the list of illustrations, 123 heliogravure text-illustrations (9 full-page) including that of Athena, Apollo and Herakles on p. iii not called for in the list of illustrations, 2 lithographic plans with manuscript coloured lines depicting public transport systems and central city heating, engraved vignette to pt II, p.30, woodcut head- and tailpieces to pt II. (First 4 preliminary leaves very lightly creased, occasional light soiling and spotting, plate I dampstained, plate XVII with light marginal creasing and soiling.) Contemporary marbled-paper covered boards, recently rebacked with red crushed morocco spine, top edge gilt, others uncut (extremities lightly rubbed, corners very slightly bumped).

FIRST FRENCH EDITION OF ANDERSEN’S VISION OF A UTOPIAN WORLD CITY. Andersen was born in Bergen, Norway, and emigrated as an infant with his family to Newport, Rhode Island. As a young artist, he mingled among Newport’s wealthy elite, and spent some time as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s art teacher. At the age of 21, Andersen travelled to Europe, eventually settling in Rome. There he pursued his artistic interest in monumental classically inspired pieces, believing that they stimulated in the viewer a desire for self-improvement. He devoted much of his time designing a perfect ‘World City,’ filled with art, which would motivate humanity to achieve a near Utopian state. The present work is the culmination of his theories, and may be seen as a precursor to later modernist visions, such as Le Corbusier’s Ville Contemporaine, 1922.

The book is in two parts. The first deals with the history of the city and monumental architecture, and seeks inspiration in classical and contemporary notions of city planning – Paris and Washington DC feature prominently. The second part details Andersen’s imaginary urban landscape, complete with works of art, for the ‘World City’. Olympic stadia, galleries for the arts and sciences, as well as government buildings are all outlined, and placed upon a defined grid plan with an emphasis on a grand central avenue acting as the axis of the city. ONE OF ONLY 75 COPIES ON JAPAN PAPER, the present work numbered XXVII.

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
― Elbert Hubbard