Ralph Adams Cram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ralph Adams Cram, (December 16, 1863 - September 22, 1942), was an American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic style.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Cram was born on December 16, 1863 at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire to the Rev. William Augustine and Sarah Elizabth Cram. He received his education at Augusta, Hampton Falls, Westford and Exeter.[1] While his father was a Unitarian minister, he called himself an agnostic in his youth.[citation needed]
Cram moved to Boston in 1881, at age 18, and spent five years in the architectural office of Rotch & Tilden,[2] after which he left for Rome. During an 1887 Christmas Eve mass in Rome, he had a dramatic conversion experience.[citation needed] For the rest of his life, he remained a fervent Anglo-Catholic who self-identified as High Church Anglican.
In 1900 Cram married Elizabeth Carrington Read at New Bedford. She was the daughter of Captain Clement Carrington Read C.S.A. and bore him two children, Mary Carrington and Ralph Wentworth.[1]
[edit] Career
In his review of the standard biography of Cram by Douglass Shand-Tucci, Yale professor and architectural historian Sandy Isenstadt writes: "what Shand-Tucci has done in this book...is to demonstrate how much {modernist} disdain {of Cram} turned out to be modernisms loss". Similarly, in another review by Peter Cormack, director then of London's William Morris Gallery, the British scholar commented on the neglect of Cram's work, "a phenomenon which has significantly distorted the study of America"s modern architectural history".Added Cormack: Cram"deserves the same kind of international--and domestic--recognition accorded (all too often uncritically)to his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright". Both scholars point to how little Cram is understood by often mediocre traditionalists who try to hijack his genuis for their profit today. His work is represented on a number of campuses, including Cornell University, The University of Notre Dame, Sweet Briar College, The University of Richmond, Williams College, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, the United States Military Academy, Mercersburg Academy, St. George's School, Phillips Exeter Academy, and The University of Southern California.[3] Cram designed the original master plan of Rice University in Houston and its original 1912 suite of six major buildings, serving as consulting architect for the remainder of his active career.
He is most closely associated with Princeton, where he was awarded a Doctor of Letters[1] and served as Supervising Architect from 1907 to 1929. For seven years he headed the Architectural Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[4]
As an author, lecturer, and architect, Cram propounded the view that the Renaissance had been, at least in part, an unfortunate detour for western culture.[5] Cram argued that authentic development could come only by returning to Gothic sources for inspiration,[6] as his "Collegiate Gothic" architecture did, with considerable success. He was not altogether inflexible on this point, however, rejecting Gothic for his Rice University buildings in favor of a medieval north Italian Romanesque style more in keeping with Houston's hot, humid climate. A modernist in many ways, to the chagrin of many traditionalists today, he designed many Art Deco landmarks of great distinction, including the Federal Building skyscraper in Boston and a great number of churches in a very modernist deco style. For example, his design of the tower of the East Liberty Church, Pittsburgh, was inspired by the Empire State Building in New York. His work at Rice,moreover, was as modernist as medieval in inspiration. His administration building there, his secular masterwork, has been compared by Shand-Tucci to Frank Lloyd Wrights work, particularly in the way its dramatic horizontality reflects the surrounding praries.
He was a public figure, frequently mentioned in the press. The New York Times called him "one of the most prominent Episcopalian laymen in the country". He made news with his defense of Al Smith, saying "I... express my disgust at the ignorance and superstition now rampant and in order that I may go on record as another of those who, though not Roman Catholics, are nevertheless Americans and are outraged by this recrudescence of blatant bigotry, operating through the most cowardly and contemptible methods."[7]
[edit] Works
[edit] Buildings
Cram's buildings include:
- All Saints' Church, Ashmont
- [[The Mather School, Dorchester, MA
"The first public elementary school in North America"]]
- The Monastery of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Cambridge
- Church of the Advent
- Marsh Plaza, Boston University
- Saint Clement's Eucharistic Shrine
- Saint Paul's Parish, Malden
- Parish of Christ Church, Hyde Park[8]
- Fourth Presbyterian Church
- State Administration Building
- Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (nave and exterior) 1912[1]
- Saint Thomas Church[1]
- South Church[1]
- Chapel of the Intercession Trinity Parish[1]
- Cathedral of Hope (Pittsburgh)[1]
- Calvary Episcopal Church (Pittsburgh)[1]
- Holy Rosary Church
- Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church (chancel addition in 1931)
- St. George's School Chapel
- Mercersburg Academy Chapel, 1928, Mercersburg Academy
- Trinity Church[1]
- Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church[1]
- Taft School.[1]
- Russell Sage Memorial[1]
- Cathedral[1]
- St Mary's Convent, Peekshill[1]
- Academy Building, Phillips Exeter Academy[1]
- Phillips Church, Phillips Exeter Academy
- Davis Library, Phillips Exeter Academy
- Cole Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College[1]
- All Saints Episcopal Church
[edit] Publications
Cram authored numerous publications and books on issues in architecture and religious devotion. Titles include:
- Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories, Stone & Kimball, 1895
- Impressions of Japanese Architecture, The Baker & Taylor Company, 1905
- Heart of Europe, MacMillan & Co. London, 1916 325pgs.
- The Substance of Gothic, Marshall Jones Company, Boston 1917
- Towards the Great Peace, Marshall Jones Company, Boston 1922
Cram was also a writer of fiction. A number of his stories, notably "The Dead Valley", were published in 1895 in a collection entitled Black Spirits and White. The collection has been called "one of the undeniable classics of weird fiction."[10] H. P. Lovecraft wrote that "In The Dead Valley the eminent architect and mediævalist Ralph Adams Cram achieves a memorably potent degree of vague regional horror through subtleties of atmosphere and description."[11]
[edit] Professional memberships etc
Cram[1] was a -
- Fellow of the:
- Boston Society of Architects.
- American Institute of Architects.
- North British Academy of Arts.
- Royal Geographical Society of London.
- Member of the:
- Member of the clubs -
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z New Architect of St. John's Cathedral in Oswego Daily Times, September 22, 1911, Page 7d
- ^ Shand-Tucci, Douglass (2000) (revised and expanded ed.). Built in Boston: City and Suburb, 1800-2000, p. 163. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1558492011.
- ^ Cram designed the Doheny Memorial Library; "Doheny Memorial Library". USC Libraries. 2008. http://www.usc.edu/libraries/locations/doheny/history/. Retrieved on 2008-06-17.
- ^ "Ralph Cram Dies; Noted Architect; Redesigner of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Here Stricken in Boston; An Authority on Gothic; Fashioned Buildings for West Point and Princeton; Wrote on Religion," The New York Times, September 23, 1942, p. 25
- ^ Cram, Ralph Adams (1914). The Ministry of Art. Houghton Mifflin Company.
- ^ Shand-Tucci (2000), p. 162.
- ^ "Cram backs Smith as Bigotry Protest", The New York Times, September 14, 1928, p. 4
- ^ Restuccia, Paul (2002), "Gray finds a way for Christ Church." Boston Herald, June 14, 2002. p. 52: "a village church designed by renowned church architect Ralph Adams Cram... the congregation, which has never been wealthy, is the owner of an architectural gem, the second church by the architect who designed the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York"
- ^ First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, NY. Homepage
- ^ Ashley, Mike (2004). The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales, p. 284. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0786714085.
- ^ Supernatural Horror in Literature, text online at online text
- Shand-Tucci, Douglass. Ralph Adams Cram:Life and Architecture. 2 volumes. Boston Bohemia (University ofMassachusetts Press, 1994); Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005).
[edit] External links
- Works by Ralph Adams Cram at Project Gutenberg
- HDB/Cram & Ferguson
- audio tour (part 2) that covers Cram
- review of recent Cram book
- Recent book on Cram by Ethan Anthony
- HDB
- Why We Do Not Behave Like Human Beings, essay by Cram
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Guglielmo Marconi |
Cover of Time Magazine 13 December 1926 |
Succeeded by Charles Curtis |
