Paul J. Pelz
Paul J. Pelz | |
---|---|
Born |
1841 Seitendorf, Silesia |
Died |
1918 Washington DC |
Buildings | Library of Congress; Healy Hall, Georgetown University; Carnegie Library (now Hazlett Theater), Pittsburgh |
Paul Johannes Pelz (18 November 1841 – 30 March 1918) was a German-American architect, best known as the main architect of the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
Life and career
Paul J. Pelz was born November 18, 1841 in Seitendorf (now Poniatów), Waldenburg, Silesia, now part of Poland. His father, Eduard Pelz, was elected as a representative of Silesia to the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848. Subsequent political repression led him to emigrate to the U.S. in 1851 while the rest of the family temporarily stayed in Breslau, where Paul studied at the colleges of St. Elizabeth and Holy Spirit. In 1858, Paul Pelz joined his father in New York and served there as apprentice to architect Detlef Lienau. In 1864, he was employed as chief draftsman by Jewish architect Henry Fernbach, best known for his later design of New York's Central Synagogue. In 1866, Pelz became a member of the American Institute of Architects.
In 1867 he moved to Washington DC and was engaged as a civil engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board, where from 1872 to 1877 he served as chief draftsman. His work won a prize for the Lighthouse Board at the 1873 Universal Exhibition in Vienna.[1]
In 1873, Pelz and John L. Smithmeyer, another Washington-based architect, together won the competition for the architectural plans for the Library of Congress. Their winning design proposal was partly based on notes Pelz had taken on prominent public libraries when he traveled to Europe to collect the prize in Vienna. In the ensuing years Pelz also partnered with Smithmeyer on other projects. However, the difficulties experienced on the Library of Congress project, with many delays from congressional dithering, eventually strained their collaboration. In 1888 Pelz became the lead architect for the Library of Congress as Smithmeyer was dismissed; Pelz in turn was dismissed in 1892 and succeeded by Edward Pearce Casey. Pelz had the main role in the design of the building and the execution of its exterior, while Smithmeyer was instrumental in securing the commission and Casey supervised most of the interior finishings.[2]
Pelz's offices were in the Corcoran Building on 15th and F Street NW, which hosted several prominent architecture firms, now the site of the Hotel W near the US Treasury Building. He designed churches, public buildings, private houses and commercial buildings, and also participated in key debates of the time on Washington's urban design. In 1887, while still in partnership with Smithmeyer, he proposed an exuberant neo-medieval design for a new memorial bridge across the Potomac in honor of Ulysses S. Grant, a predecessor plan to the Arlington Memorial Bridge which was eventually built in the 1930s.[3] In 1898, at the request of socialite Mary Foote Henderson, he proposed designs for a new Executive Mansion to replace the White House on what is now Meridian Hill Park.[4] Pelz was a prominent participant in the 1900 Convention of the American Institute of Architects and presented a plan there for the remodeling of the National Mall which was a key source of the McMillan Plan the following year.[5]
Pelz's first wife, Louise Dorothea Kipp, died in 1894. In 1895, he remarried with Mary Eastbourne (Ritter) Meem (1849–1914). On 30 March 1918, he died in Washington, D.C. He is buried together with his second wife in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Style
Pelz mastered a range of architectural styles and was willing to switch across them depending on program and client's taste. His designs included Romanesque Revival (Carnegie Library of Allegheny, McGill Building, Memorial Bridge project), Gothic Revival (Antietam Cemetery gatehouse, Hot Springs Hospital, Grace Reformed Church), a hodgepodge of Neo-Medieval styles at Georgetown's Healy Hall, Northern Renaissance (Miller House), Neo-Georgian (Elkins Mansion), American Federal (University of Virginia), Stick Style (several lighthouses), and Beaux-Arts (Library of Congress, Foraker Mansion, Meridian Hill Executive Mansion project).
This eclectism may be traced back to the influence of Karl Friedrich Schinkel over generations of German-speaking architects, including those with which Pelz trained in New York, and the influential examples of Vienna's Ringstrasse development in the last third of the 19th Century. For the Library of Congress project alone, Pelz provided alternative designs in styles that included Romanesque, 13th-Century Gothic, Victorian Gothic, Italian Renaissance, French Renaissance, German Renaissance, and French Classical.[6]
Works
Lighthouses
- St. Augustine Lighthouse, St. Augustine, Florida, 1871
- Life Saving Station, Bay Head, New Jersey, 1871
- Bodie Island, near Nags Head, North Carolina, 1872
- Mare Island, San Pablo Bay, California, 1873 (demolished in the 1930s)
- Point Fermin, San Pedro, California, 1874
- East Brother, Richmond, California, 1874
- Hereford Inlet, North Wildwood, New Jersey, 1874
- Spectacle Reef, Lake Huron, Michigan, 1874
- Point Hueneme, Santa Barbara Channel, California, 1874 (replaced in 1940)
- Currituck Beach, Corolla, North Carolina, 1875
- Point Adams, Columbia River mouth, Washington State, 1875 (demolished in 1912)
Other
- Keepers Lodge, Antietam National Cemetery, Sharpsburg, Maryland, 1867
- Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, initially with John L. Smithmeyer, Washington DC, 1873 (winning competition entry), 1886-92 (architectural design and construction)
- Healy Hall and Riggs Memorial Library, Georgetown University, with John L. Smithmeyer, Washington DC, 1875–79
- Army and Navy General Hospital, with John L. Smithmeyer, Hot Springs, Arkansas, 1884-87 (demolished in 1931)
- Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny (now New Hazlett Theater), with John L. Smithmeyer, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1886–90
- Chamberlain Hotel, with John L. Smithmeyer, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1888-96 (destroyed by fire in 1920)
- McGill Building, 908 G Street NW, Washington DC, 1891 (demolished in 1973)
- Mansion for Senator Stephen B. Elkins, 1626 K Street NW, Washington DC, 1892-96 (demolished in 1937)
- Church of the Holy City, now Emanuel Swedenborg Center, as supervising architect on a design by H. Langford Warren, Washington DC, 1894–96
- House on 3440 34th Place, Washington DC, with Frederick W. Carlyle, designed for developer John Sherman to launch the Cleveland Park residential neighborhood, 1895
- First African New Church, Washington DC, 1896 (abandoned since 1992)
- General Winfield Scott Hancock Memorial, with sculptor Henry Jackson Ellicott, Washington DC, 1896
- Mansion for Senator Joseph B. Foraker, 1500 16th Street NW, Washington DC, 1897 (demolished after 1920)
- Randall Hall, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1898–99
- University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1899-1901 and additions in 1904-05 and 1906–07
- Hall of Christ, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York, 1899-1909
- Miller House, 2201 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC, 1900–01
- Grace Reformed Church, Washington DC, with A.A. Richter, 1901-1903
- Machinery Hall, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1903-04 (demolished)
- Buildings 100, 101, 102 and 103, Fort Monroe, Hampton, Virginia, 1906
- Swartzell, Rheem and Hensey Company Building, 727 15th Street NW, Washington DC, 1907-08 (later Playhouse Theater, 1948–84)
- Grace Reformed Church Sunday School, Washington DC, 1911-1912
Gallery
-
Antietam Cemetery Gatehouse, 1867
-
Bodie Island Lighthouse
-
Library of Congress, view c. 1902
-
Library of Congress, Great Hall
-
Healy Hall, main entrance
-
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, Hall entrance (now New Hazlett Theater)
-
Design for an Executive Mansion on Meridian Hill, Washington DC, 1898
-
Executive Mansion project, view from the South-East
-
Miller House, Washington DC
-
Grace Reformed Church, Washington DC
-
Swartzell, Rheem and Hensey Company Building, Washington DC
External links
References
- ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung Nr.62, Berlin, August 1898
- ↑ John Y. Cole (1997), "Struggle for a Structure", The Library of Congress: The Art and Architecture of the Thomas Jefferson Building, Norton Books
- ↑ proposed memorial Bridge in Honor of General U.S.Grant by Smithmeyer and Pelz, 1887
- ↑ Proposed Executive Mansion on Meridian Hill by Paul J. Pelz, 1898
- ↑ Tony P. Wrenn. "The American Institute of Architects Convention of 1900: Its Influence on the Senate Park Commission Plan".
- ↑ John Y. Cole (October 1972), "Smithmeyer & Pelz: Embattled Architects of the Library of Congress", The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Vol. 29, No. 4)