Delano & Aldrich

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Delano & Aldrich was an American Beaux-Arts architectural firm based in New York City. Many of its clients were among the wealthiest and most powerful families in the state. Founded in 1903, the firm operated as a partnership until 1935, when Aldrich left for an appointment in Rome. Delano continued in his practice nearly until his death in 1960.

History[edit]

The firm was founded in 1903 by William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich, who met when they worked together at the office of Carrère and Hastings in the years before the turn of the 20th century.

Almost immediately after the firm was formed, they won commissions from the Rockefeller family, among others. Delano & Aldrich tended to adapt conservative Georgian and Federal architectural styles for their townhouses, churches, schools, and a spate of social clubs for the Astors, Vanderbilts, and the Whitneys. Separately (Delano was the more prolific) and in tandem, they designed a number of buildings at Yale.[1]

Their work was part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[2]

Aldrich left the partnership in 1935 to become the resident director of the American Academy at Rome, where he died in 1940.[3] Delano continued to practice almost until his death in 1960.[4]

Notable works[edit]

Willard D. Straight House.

Surviving buildings (all in New York City unless noted):

The Knickerbocker Club, New York
Willard Straight Hall (1925)
  • Colony Club, 62nd and Park Avenue, 1916.
  • Woodside (demolished), (Syosset, New York), for James A. Burden and his wife, Florence, 1916. The architects worked the spirit of Annapolis's Whitehall, a 1760 plantation house, into the design.
  • Greenwich House, 1917. The community later added two floors to this center, stretching the Georgian townhouse manner to the limit.
  • Francis F. Palmer House (later George F. Baker, Jr. House), 75 East 93rd Street at Park Avenue, 1918 (altered with a ballroom wing added in 1928).
  • Cutting Houses, 12 to 16 East 89th Street, 1919.
  • Cushing Memorial Gallery, Newport, Rhode Island, 1919.
  • Oheka, Huntington, New York, 1919.
  • Harold Pratt House, 68th and Park, 1920, built for Harold I. Pratt; it is now headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • Interiors of the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, 1922.[5]
  • Chelsea, the Benjamin Moore Estate, Muttontown, New York, 1923.[6]
  • Sterling Chemistry Lab, Science Hill, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1923.[1]
  • Brookville Reformed Church, Brookville, NY, 1924
  • Third Church of Christ, Scientist; Park Avenue at 63rd Street, 1924.
  • 1040 Park Avenue, at 86th, apartment building, 1924. In low relief along a classical frieze, tortoises alternate with hares. Condé Nast took the penthouse.
  • Sage-Bowers Hall, Yale School of Forestry, New Haven, CT, 1924 (Sage), 1931 (Bowers). Two buildings in brownstone Collegiate Gothic style.[1]
  • Willard Straight Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1925. Collegiate Gothic.[7]
  • The Brook, 111 East 54th Street, 1925
  • Fathers Building, The Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, NJ, dedicated September 1925.
  • William L. Harkness Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1927. Collegiate Gothic.[1]
  • Chapin School, at 84th and East End Avenue, 1928. Neo-Georgian
  • McPherson House, The Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, NJ, 1929
  • 63 Wall Street, 1929. Vertical bands of windows alternate with ashlar limestone cladding in setbacks to a penthouse with Art Deco gargoyles.

Dawes House, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville NJ, opened November 1929

Archives[edit]

The Delano and Aldrich archive is held by the Drawings and Archives Department in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. Some historical records of Delano & Aldrich's work on the Wall Street headquarters of Brown Brothers Harriman are included in the Brown Brothers Harriman Collection housed in the manuscript collections at New-York Historical Society.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Yale University Office of Facilities Archived 2008-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ "Delano & Aldrich". Olympedia. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. ^ "C.H. ALDRICH DIES; NOTED ARCHITECT; Member of Delano & Aldrich Designed Embassies, Clubs and Famed Residences STRICKEN IN ROME AT 69 Head of American Academy There Since 1935 Began Practice Here in 1903" (PDF). The New York Times. 27 December 1940. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  4. ^ "WILLIAM DELANO, ARCHITECT, DEAD; Designed Balcony of White House, Public Buildings and Distinguished Homes" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 January 1960. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  5. ^ "Painters and Sculptors' Gallery Association to Begin Work," The New York Times, December 19, 1922
  6. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  7. ^ Geng, Julie, "Straight Up: The Construction of Willard Straight Hall," Cornell Daily Sun Sept. 2, 2005 http://cornellsun.com/node/26950 Viewed July 27, 2009
  8. ^ "American Art Show Opened at Venice," The New York Times, May 5, 1930
  9. ^ http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/collection/grancent.htm%7C1934 Grand Central Art Galleries catalog
  10. ^ "Frank P. Wood estate historic plaque". Archived from the original on 2018-09-11. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  11. ^ Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins, New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars (1987).

External links[edit]