Frank Furness on Jewelers Row

A lot has been said about Toll Brothers potentially demolishing a significant portion of Jewelers Row for a high-rise apartment building as well as the state of historic preservation in Philadelphia, much of it more eloquent than I could ever put it.

Jewelers Row is one of Center City's gems, our equivalent to South Philadelphia's 9th Street Market or Fabric Row. It's unique, old, a little gritty, and everything you'd come to expect from what Philadelphia's Historical Commission should be protecting. But surprisingly, it's not, thanks to an oversight. 

Well, one building within Toll Brothers line of site on Jewelers Row could stop the wrecking ball, or at least offer a stay of execution. Take a look at 710 Sansom Street. 

710 Sansom Street, Jewelers Row

The architect is unknown, at least according to the Athenaeum's Philadelphia Architects and Buildings site. But if you're a fan of Philadelphia architecture, the C.E. Robinson & Bros. building might look suspiciously Furnessian to you. 

Frank Furness worked within this neighborhood in the mid to late 19th Century, and 710's brickwork and carved crowns reflect his signature style. While this building may not be protected, Frank Furness is something of an architectural god in the Philadelphia area and any connection, particularly if this was designed by Furness himself or his firm, could be enough for the Historical Commission to intervene.

So what do you think?

Could this have been designed by Frank Furness, his firm, or one of his students? 

Does the Historical Commission have the authority to intervene if it was designed by Furness?

And if this were hastily demolished, only to find out after the fact that it was designed by Frank Furness, would this be enough of a lesson in loss to truly improve how we address preservation in Philadelphia? 

Preserving Fake History

In the mid-20th Century, when one of Frank Furness's many gems was torn down in the name of Colonial revitalization, residents went nuts. At least the locals who held on to a city that was about to go the way of the Edsel. 

Dwindling in numbers, we have those people to thank for the Philadelphia we know today. One without a South Street Expressway. One with a robust downtown. And a city that didn't become "another city with some old stuff."

But try as they did, Frank Furness's Penn National Bank met the wrecking ball in the name of Colonial nostalgia.

The bank was demolished and the Graff House was rebuilt. Unlike the homes of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, both standing as ghost structures, the Graff House was fully rebuilt in the 1970s. Dubbed the Declaration House, the home is nothing significant. Had it been standing in the mid-20th Century, it might be a unique relic amid Market East's booming retail transformation. But as it stands, it's fake.

Rarely open and mind-numbingly boring, the Graff House, named for a longtime owner of a nonexistent house, saw little more than 1000 visitors last year. Two blocks from the Liberty Bell, the Shirt Corner saw more action. But those behind the Graff House are hoping to capitalize on the burgeoning Market East strip by renovating the beleaguered structure. 

If you need a visual for pork, the Graff House is it. 

What happened at the long-gone house at 7th and Market is sketchy. Those behind the Graff House claim Jefferson drafted the Constitution there. Between Virginia and Philadelphia, Jefferson did draft the Constitution. But again, even if he wrote one draft at 7th and Market, the building that stands isn't real. Nothing happened there. 

Yet this historical attraction, fake as it is, is trying to get $6-7M it claims is needed for restoration. 

Let's face it, even in its condition, the Graff House is a Society Hill home. On a good day, a large house in one of Philadelphia's poshest neighborhoods might fetch a couple million dollars. Why then has the park service estimated repairs at a price that could easily build five more?

$6-7M is staggering. The city says that the property is worth about $1.5M, and much of that is just land. The Graff House isn't a museum on par with the Barnes or the National Aquarium, it's a humble house museum. Built in the 1970s, this is just a house accommodating a few thousand square feet, if that. Its renovation estimate should be on par with a suburban McMansion in Cherry Hill.

If it really needs more than $6M in renovations, tear the thing down and build something worth $6M. 

The Art and Caricature of Frank Furness

Although Frank Furness is a household name to most Philadelphians, one of the most creative architects of the Victorian Era may also be one of the most underappreciated. Only vaguely adhering to the rigorous design requirements of his time, his deserved recognition is often lost in the history books, often with only a brief mention.

Like most architects of the latter half of the 19th Century, Frank Furness designed more than just his buildings. He pared his work with furniture, crafted woodwork and masonry specific to his buildings and clients.

To the post-war era public, the previous art and architecture movements were a garish homage to the excessive decadence that led to the Great Depression.

Urban planners spent the 1950s razing countless Victorian examples, and Frank Furness's projects took a particularly harsh hit.

Over a century later, Furness and others are finally getting the recognition they never received, even in their lifetimes. A recent wave of renewed interest has provided a place for rogue architects like Frank Furness, Willis Hale, William Decker, and others lost to the academic definition of their time.

The Barra Foundation is currently sponsoring an exhibition on Frank Furness at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, Face & Form: The Art and Caricature of Frank Furness. The exhibition, which runs until January 11th, showcases Furness's talent as more than an architect, but also an artist. The architect's sketchbooks, preserved by his ancestors, are on display for the first time ever.

Alexander Johnston Cassatt and his Influence on Philadelphia & New York City

Contributed by Mike Gaines

The concept of historic preservation has been around for a long time, though not always to the degree that it is today. One of the first public acts of preservation was when a group of women got together in the 1850’s and formed the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in an effort to save and restore George Washington’s Virginia estate.

Over the years, numerous other cases of preservation issues have been highlighted and pushed the movement into the public’s conscious, including the 1963 demolition of New York City’s famed Pennsylvania Railroad Station. As rail travel succumbed to the advancing air travel phenomenon, Pennsylvania Railroad found itself with a colossal, under-utilized station in the heart of New York City. By optioning the “air rights” to the station to developers, Pennsylvania Railroad would get a brand new, air conditioned station at no cost to them, as well as a 25% stake in the new Madison Square Garden Complex, to be built on the site of the demolished station.

Waiting Room at New York's Penn Station

The public around the world was in absolute shock that such a structure could even be considered up for demolition. Contrary to their own designs, modernist architects rushed to save the structure, often chanting “Don’t Amputate – Renovate” at rallies to save the building. Unfortunately no one’s efforts could stop the movement and the pink granite, block-sized mammoth came crumbling down.

Some of the sculptures, fortunately, were saved: a sculpted clock surround modeled after Audrey Munson survives as part of a fountain in Missouri; a caryatid stands in the sculpture garden of the Brooklyn Museum; and 14 of the 22 eagles still exist, including five in Philadelphia – one at the Philadelphia Zoo and four that were donated to the city by the Pennsylvania Railroad and positioned on the east and west approaches of the Market Street Bridge (opposite 30^th Street Station, formerly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad).

Eagle and lamp from Penn Station on Philadelphia's Market Street bridge, approaching 30th Street Station.

All of this would not have come about had it not been for Alexander Johnston Cassatt. Often called “A.J.” by his friends and associates, Cassatt was born in 1839 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His familiar connections were filled with many famous people, including his sister, renowned painter Mary Cassatt, and his wife, Lois Buchanan, niece of President James Buchanan and songwriter Stephen Foster.

From 1899 until his death in 1906, Cassatt was employed as the 7^th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was under his direction that the railroad doubled its assets ($276 million to $594 million); made improvements in every possible category; initiated an electrification program that would ultimately lead to the PRR being the nation’s most electrified railroad system; and was finally able to get a station in New York City – Pennsylvania Station.

He employed McKim, Mead and White as architects and they created a station that was not only striking in its shear size and appearance, but through its design being influenced on historic structures such as Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the Roman Baths of Caracalla. Unfortunately Cassatt would die before this project was be completed. In tribute of the man who invested so much into the company, a statue was erected in Pennsylvania Station in his honor (it has since been moved to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania).

The statue of Alexander Johnston Cassatt at Penn Station now resides at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

His legacy did not stop with Penn Station, though. Cassatt had numerous residences including a house on Rittenhouse Square designed by Frank Furness, a country home in Haverford he called Cheswold , and a farm in Berwyn he named Chesterbrook Farm. It is from here that his other lasting legacy emerged.

Cassat's Rittenhouse home, designed by Frank Furness, seen in 1969.

Cassatt was an avid horse enthusiast and fox hunter, and it was on his Chesterbrook Farm that he raised thoroughbred racehorses. His farm produced the 1886 Preakness winner The Bard, the 1889 Belmont Stakes winner Eric, and winners of the 1875, ’76, ’78, and ’80 Preakness Stakes. Cassatt also helped establish the National Steeplechase Association, introducing the Hackney pony to America (ideal for carriage driving), and founding the American Hackney Horse Society.

After all of that, it makes one wonder what else this man might have accomplished had he lived any longer than his 67 years. Unfortunately, there is very little physical evidence left of Cassatt’s life and influences. As noted before, Penn Station was demolished in 1963, his Rittenhouse Square townhouse was demolished in 1972 to make way for the Rittenhouse Hotel, and his country home Cheswold burned in 1935 and was demolished shortly thereafter.

Cheswold in Haverford

Today the 600-acre Chesterbrook Farm is the site of a subdivision and office park which still retains the ‘Chesterbrook Farm’ name. And though all of the buildings are long since gone, the main barn of the farm, designed by Frank Furness, has been maintained and restored.

In an act of sheer coincidence (or someone doing some very thorough research), a high tea parlor opened in the lobby of the Rittenhouse Hotel in 1988 – the Mary Cassatt Tea Room & Garden – and is still in business today.

The economics of architecture and the anthropology of American style

Like art, the politics of an era play a strong roll in the elements of architectural style. America’s most iconic state buildings are inspired by the world’s classic Democratic civilizations. Our dedicated monuments honor our historic leaders in temples that saint them as gods.

As much as politics, the economy of an era has influenced our built world. Our Colonial beginnings are remembered in the quaint streets of Washington Square where small homes conservatively housed our Founding Fathers. Even Independence Hall and other 18th Century civic structures, while grand in theme, were subdued in pomp.

A hundred years later, the global Gilded Age driven by America’s Industrial Revolution reinvented architecture’s message. The wealth of the client was garishly displayed in the various styles of the Victorian era. Rich colors and textures were found in exotic woods. Expensive silks and leathers adorned the walls of even the more modest of homes, some of which can still be found in the West Philadelphia twins along Spruce Street.

The artchitectural detailing on Victorian homes along Spruce Street in West Philadelphia is representative of the economy of the era.

While the elements of Victorian era styles are anything but subdued, exaggerated elements can be found in the works of Frank Furness. A caricature of these styles, and perhaps one of the inspirations for the more refined Art Nuevo movement can be seen in Antonio Gaudi’s late 19th Century designs.

Frank Furness's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

When any culture becomes excessively decadent, a rebellious counter culture is bound to surface. The idealistic youth of the early 20th Century rejected the saturated styles of the Victorian era with a number of artistic movements, namely with the soft, organic lines and lights pastels of Art Nuevo. To the modern eye the styles may not be very distinguishable, but artistically, Art Nuevo and various Victorian styles are symbolic opposites.

Perhaps the most dramatic comment on the excess of the Gilded Age would be International Style. Although not initially successful in the United States, it saw enormous popularity in countries eager to distinguish themselves from American capitalism.

One of the largest, early examples of International Style can be found in Philadelphia. In a twist of irony, the Pennsylvania Savings Fund Society employed a style intended to criticize capitalism to make the ultimate capitalistic statement. By stripping the skyscraper of any stylistic elements, the bank snubbed others who displayed their wealth and success with ornately adorned phalluses.

Philadelphia's PSFS Building is the world's first example of a skyscraper designed in International Style, a style that would prevail as the dominant skyscraper design for the rest of the century.

The Great Depression immediately followed the completion of the PSFS Building. It’s difficult to say if its style would have succeeded otherwise, but the failing economy motivated clients to reject the lush lines of a culture that led to the country’s demise. Likewise, the art community embraced this simplicity for political reasons.

A year later the Empire State Building opened. Its Art Deco style dominated America’s civic structures for decades and came to symbolize our rebirth. Art Deco train stations and post offices can be found across the country, many throughout Philadelphia. Ironically, along with International Style, Art Deco was dominantly employed to represent Communist and Socialist movements across Europe.

An Art Deco relief on Philadelphia's 9th and Market Post Office.

Although the elements in Art Deco were far simpler and cheaper than the preceding Victorian styles, it became clear that as buildings were to grow taller, the new economy would not afford the classic elements of style.

The success of the PSFS Building gave developers a unique opportunity. For the first time, an artistic movement was branded specifically for economic purposes. Art and architecture became commodities, not finely crafted luxuries. And the audience ate it up.

Philadelphia's early 20th Century skyline, thanks largely to the opulence of America's Gilded Age and the Industrial Revolution, was comprised of ornately adorned stone towers. The Great Depression forced developers to seek cheaper ways to build taller. The PSFS Building at the top center was the world's first skyscraper designed in International Style and would serve as the prototype for a century of affordable skyscraper construction.

Art critics tailored the process of interpretation to excuse limited design. Glass curtains were praised for their lack of presence, but those in the design community said nothing of the absent statement made by these unadorned walls. Like modern art, less meant more and we were stunned by the boldness of nothing. And in order for industrial cities to continue to rise, developers needed this trend to continue.

But a century later we continue to interpret meaningless art on behalf of our artists. International Style was invented to oppose capitalism, but its composite construction of cheap materials allowed it to become the ultimate capitalistic blindfold.

People continue to demand less and are willing to pay more for it. While skyscrapers were diluted in order to afford their height, the same practice has been applied to low level and residential architecture in the name of profit. Once architecture meant something in even the most humble of homes, but today’s wealthiest clients have become more concerned with prefabricated amenities than the aesthetic details of their environment.

Throughout the majority of the last century, very few styles have made a statement that wasn’t purely philosophical. A stagnant art scene can be measured anthropologically, and it’s no coincidence that the world’s most exciting experimental architecture can be found in emerging countries like India and China, and in the Middle East.

As the United States struggles to identify as the world’s Super Power, other countries are beginning to experience their own Victorian Gilded Age, which is evident in the skylines of Shanghai and Mumbai and the palaces of the United Arab Emirates.

Risky Design Business

While critics encourage better design and community activists lobby for responsible development, many times the compromises yield bland results or stagnant progress. In a culture once ruled by the commercial media, an explosion of personal technologies has given everyone an immediate voice.

Blogs rival traditional news sources with opinionated diatribes. Activists protest multiple causes from their iPhones. The audience is overstimulated with what ultimately amounts to little more than white noise. These technologies aren't bad, we just haven't learned how to deal with them yet.

Operating under antiquated expectations (and by antiquated, I mean the world before the web), City Council receives arguments presented by critics and activists as if they were an angry mob standing outside City Hall in 1980.

The rules of campaigning tell politicians that these loud voices are all potential votes, but these rules haven't compensated for the white noise and the internet mayhem. Essentially, politicians haven't figured out that most of today's vocal opposition isn't as dedicated as the picketers in the last century.

One day they're protesting billboards on Market East, the next they're blogging against horse-drawn carriages in Society Hill, and the next week they're at a Prop 8 rally in California. We have it so good we'll protest anything, and our elected officials need to know how to weed out the legitimate constituents from the hot air.

Willis Hale's macabre Lorraine Hotel, known now as the Divine Lorraine, has captured the imagination of each passerby for a century.

Unfortunately, in a city once known for its exciting, experimental architecture, City Hall's inability to deal with public opinion has left us with a lot of vacant lots and boring buildings. 10 Rittenhouse, Symphony House, and even the Comcast Tower don't come close to living up to the reputation handed down to us by Willis Hale and Frank Furness.

Frank Furness challenged conventional Victorian style with exaggerated elements and colors. Shown here is the National Bank of the Republic on Chestnut Street.

William Lescaze and George Howe challenged convention and the city's skyline with the PSFS Building, the world's first skyscraper built in the International Style. Even the mid-century additions of I.M. Pei's Society Hill Towers, Ed Bacon's Dilworth Plaza, and the State Office Building on North Broad Street employed a high standard of quality in their designs that were both strong and risky.

At a time when Philadelphia's skyline was dominated by City Hall and church steeples and New York's by Art Deco spires, the PSFS Building changed the face of urban American cities.

Built in a time when professionals knew their place and a community was respectful of their vision, architects were allowed to wow us, and occasionally disturb us. But like a bad haircut, it grows back or you get used to it.

In what would seem like a complete disregard for the quaint Colonialism of Society Hill, I.M. Pei's towers gently compliment the surrounding brick row homes and parks. The towers were part of a massive, mid-century plan that turned the worst slums in Center City into some of the regions most desirable addresses.

Instead of bending over for every action group with a website or assuming every critic is a professional at architecture and history, city planners and private developers need to know where to draw a line when it comes to the influence of public opinion. Given the attention span of most of the opposition, in the end it rarely matters.

Focus groups lead to boring, formulaic television programs, and the same goes for art and design. Renderings are shopped around the newspapers, blogosphere, and community meetings, shuffled through several self-proclaimed "expert" organizations, and sent back to the drawing board to be stripped of all character.

While our voices are often important, we don't know better than the professionals. Sometimes those with a vision need to stand their ground and shock us.

Replace Our History, or Create a New One?

Philadelphia - historic as it may be - has always functioned as a working city and as a result, has no inherently true "historic districts". Center City's one seemingly historic district is the result of a mid-century attempt to reconstruct a Colonial past, one which is only as important as a number of other movements responsible for the PSFS Building, the Divine Lorraine, even the Cira Centre. The result, Society Hill's "historic district", is a collage of questionable reconstructions which sacrificed dozens of 18th and 19th century buildings, some by Willis Hale and Frank Furness. This attempt at architectural cohesiveness created a very peaceful, historic illusion, but compared to the rest of Center City is one of the less interesting neighborhoods to look at.

Historic districts are important but it is just as important to respect the existing history of a neighborhood which has naturally evolved. The Keystone National Bank Building is a prime example. Is it more historically respectful to replicate the original facade which was replaced less than ten years after it was constructed, or do you pay homage to the five successive facades implemented over the following 100 years by designing something truly modern that represents the needs of the existing urban fabric of a culturally, historically, and architecturally diverse neighborhood? Unfortunately we usually fall somewhere in the middle, attempting to appease the devout advocates as well as the needs of the client, and we end up with bland, historic interpretations. Instead we should be replacing the avante garde masterpieces we've lost over the decades with exciting new architecture.

An empty construction site or blank facade has the potential to be architecturally significant someday. In a city as aesthetically diverse as Philadelphia, architects should be creating tomorrow's history and not wasting their time recreating yesterday's.

Arcade Building

Another unlucky victim of West Market's rebirth was the Arcade Building. Built in 1901 with the addition of a massive tower in 1904, it was designed by Frank Furness. A 1901 rendering of the Arcade Building next to City Hall and Broad Street Station, makes the Arcade Building look much wider than it actually was.

Shown here in the late 1950's with its additional tower, the Arcade Building was later known as the Commercial Trust Building.

Shown from 15th Street with City Hall in the background, the Commercial Trust Building shortly before its demolition which occurred in 1969, which made way for Dilworth Plaza, eliminating this portion of Broad Street.

Speaking of Convention Centers

Can somebody tell me why University of Pennsylvania couldn't have used Convention Hall (Phillip H. Johnson, 1931) for something? Or better yet, why University City wasn't a better site to situate the sprawling Convention Center back in the 1990's rather than planning what is essentially a three block warehouse, just one block from City Hall? We tore down the Broad Street Station (Wilson Brothers & Company, 1881; Frank Furness 1892-93) because it took up too much valuable real estate to remain so close to the literal center of the city. How does the Pennsylvania Convention Center justify it's existence when we can rationalize demolishing two historic masterpieces?