The Library of Drury Blakely Alexander is a collection of architectural books assembled by Drury Blakely Alexander (1924-2011), or Blake (as he preferred to be called), over the course of his celebrated teaching career. Professor Alexander was both an alumnus of, and a distinguished professor in, the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture from 1955 to 1994. During his time at the University of Texas at Austin, he also laid the foundations for the school’s nationally important collection of architectural drawings, photographs, papers, and other ephemera that since 1997 has been known as the Alexander Architectural Archive. His library, which encompasses over 6,000 volumes, represents just one part of a generous bequest made by Professor Alexander to the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture.
Since early this summer, I have been processing books and adding provenance notes to the many titles in Blake’s library. Professor Alexander’s primary interest was in making his books available to scholars and students, so this is being done to enable greater access to his extensive collection. Each week this blog will highlight one of the unique, beautiful, or interesting titles that have piqued my interest as I have sorted through the Library of Drury Blakely Alexander. Stay tuned!
During the summer 2010 session, I began work on the Ayres & Ayres Architects provenance notes project–a project that required locating over 250 titles donated by the San Antonio father-son atelier in the late 1970s. After spending a few weeks rummaging through collection development files and searching for each volume in the library catalog, I descended into the special collection and began locating each of these titles, item-by-item. As my search enters its third summer, over 200 of these titles have been located including exquisite nineteenth-century building monographs and tomes documenting ornamentation and interior design as well as less esoteric but often (and surprisingly) appealing technical volumes.
This entry marks the launch of a series highlighting volumes from the Ayres & Ayres records. The records exhibit a range of content that reflects the historicizing revivalist mode employed by Atlee and Robert Ayres throughout their years of collaboration. This spectrum will be examined throughout the series, hopefully providing inspiration and delight while further exposing the Architecture and Planning Library’s special collection offerings.
Ayres & Ayres, Architects donated its library to The University of Texas School of Architecture beginning in 1979. A second donation was received in 1983 adding to the firm’s already considerable library, which included books, journals, magazines and clipping files. Book and journal volumes were subsequently transferred to the Architecture & Planning Library. The Ayres & Ayres collection highlights western traditions in architecture, encompassing a wide-range of architectural knowledge. Including both historical and technical materials, the extant collection consists overwhelmingly of building monographs and texts focused on typology, indicating a taxonomic preoccupation with what, in many cases, might have increasingly been considered historicizing modes of architectural representation including the well-known San Antonio-brand of Spanish mission revival popularized by the Ayres. The collection also contains a number of professional journals, competition manuals, and materials catalogs. Most of these titles can be located in the Architecture & Planning Library Special Collection.
Professor Emeritus Blake Alexander was a great admirer of classical architecture. His personal library, which he donated to the Architecture & Planning Library and is currently being processed, contains many important titles that focus on British architecture, including many of Nikolaus Pevsner’s The Buildings of England.Shortly after he passed away last December, I was asked by Fred Heath, vice-provost to UT Libraries to select a book that would be purchased in Blake’s memory. I believe he would have enjoyed my selection: Georgian Architecture in the British Isles 1714-1830. Published last year by English Heritage, this is revised and expanded edition for the original 1993 Georgian Architecture also by James Stevens Curl. The book includes extensive illustrations including plans, sections and elevations as well as renderings and contemporary photos. The select bibliography spans 12 dense pages that will clear offer a wealth of options for further readings. More information about this title can be found on the author’s website.
Come enjoy a special centennial exhibit “Our Landmark Library: Battle Hall at 100,” featured in the Architecture & Planning Library’s reading room. The exhibit revisits the history of the university’s first dedicated library space on campus through imagery drawn from sources including the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the Alexander Architecture Archive, the New-York Historical Society and the Library of Congress. An accompanying online exhibit offers additional images and information conveying the story of the building from conception to completion. The Architecture and Planning Library will be open from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our namesake, Drury Blakeley Alexander. Blake was a champion for the education, documentation, and preservation of Texas’ architectural heritage. He was also a pioneer in recognizing the importance of archiving architectural records. The Alexander Architectural Archive grew out of his personal collection and stewardship. The resources he collected continue to play an important role in the restoration of many of Texas’ most important buildings and continues to support the education and scholarship of American architectural history.
To learn more about Blake’s life and legacy, please see:
Event: Composer Ellen Fullman brings her Long String Instrument to Battle Hall to premiere her new composition “Tracings.” The event is free and open to the public.
Designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1911, the Battle Hall should provide an extraordinary acoustic environment for Fullman’s unique instrument. “Tracings” was composed specifically for the historic building, repurposing ratios found in the design of the building to produce justly tuned musical intervals. A centennial celebration for Battle Hall occurs on Nov. 11.
Joining Fullman for the performance are NMC musicians Brent Fariss (contrabass), Nick Hennies (percussion), Andrew Stoltz (overtone guitar designed by Arnold Dreyblatt) and Travis Weller (playing his custom string instrument “The Owl”).
Mauban, André. L’Architecture Francaise de Jean Mariette. Paris: Van Oest, 1945.
In L’Architecture Francaise de Jean Mariette, André Mauban indexes the collected works of engraver and book collector Jean Mariette whose own publishing efforts included the completion and dissemination of at least five volumes concerning French Architecture. L’Architecture Francaise de Jean Mariette is divided into to two sections, the first indexes each work represented in Mariette’s five volumes and the second assembles notes, references, and plates that demonstrate Mariette’s work and explore his significance and influence. Throughout this French-language tome, Mauban is considerate of the reader, providing explicit instructions for using and understanding the book.
Many remember Hal Box as an architect, dean, and visionary for architectural education, but Hal was also a great champion of libraries. He had a keen understanding that strong architecture programs are built on solid foundations. For Hal, this foundation included an architecture library, close at hand, where students and faculty could browse and check out books.
In January 2010, we were busily preparing for the School of Architecture centennial. As the school’s library, we were in effect preparing for our own grand anniversary, so I asked Hal if he wouldn’t mind providing an oral history. He graciously agreed and this is how I learned about Hal’s love and respect for libraries.
Hal’s experience with libraries started in early childhood when he attended East Texas State Teacher’s College training school for his elementary education. He lived two blocks from campus and on his walk home would stop at the college library. Hal described this building as similar to the University of Texas’ first library, Battle Hall, with a grand stairway leading to the second floor reading room. Hal spent many hours doing his homework in this space, and received great encouragement from its librarian.
In the late 1950s, as a young professional working with James Pratt, Hal became interested in developing a firm library, explaining “There were no architecture schools in Dallas and the public library didn’t have much on architecture.” Hal gained an early understanding of both the value and cost of an architecture library, as the firm spent a lot of money on journals. They built this library in their conference room and he even had his son catalog it! “That was really the first library I built.”
In 1971 Hal started the architecture school at UT Arlington in a small house off campus. It was about a quarter mile walk from the main library to the studio and the architecture books were shelved throughout three floors, so it was very difficult for them to use. A gift from the father of faculty member Peter Woods- a collection of grand Beaux Arts folios- inspired Hal to transform a small classroom into a library for his school. He obtained a $1,000 grant from the Texas Society of Architects and started to build the collection. His unorthodox collection plan also consisted of each faculty member checking out the maximum number of books from the main University Library and reshelving them all in his new library. The Head Librarian found out about it and called Hal. Hal recalled his response:
“Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk about it. He [the librarian] was just as angry as could be. I told him this is what we’re going to do. Architecture was not like history or English where you check out a book and in two weeks you read it. You want to browse through a whole lot of books, it’s mainly visual, and you had to be close to them because you want to use them while you are in studio. You’re not going to check them out for a week and take them home. You’re going to go over to the library and look up Aalto or Corbu and see how they did something and then proceed from there. Well then, he understood and we continued there.”
Hal secured a new building for the program and made sure that its design included both a library and slide collection. It was his good fortune that the director of the Fort Worth Museum of Art was married to a librarian, so he quickly hired her to oversee the library. “I think it was about that time we convinced the general library to establish a branch library.” (Hal then decided to “hire a young PhD from Berkeley” to help develop the library and slide collection. These collections were so important that despite not having money to bring him in for an interview, Hal hired Jay Henry sight unseen to conduct this work.)
In 1976, during his interview for Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, Hal and a friend visited the Battle Hall library, which then housed a variety of subjects including architecture and planning. Earlier in 1973, architecture’s collections were transferred to Battle Hall. Hal and his friend compared their experiences as students using the architecture library. Hal’s library had a dedicated librarian and was just doors away from his studio, while his frustrated friend couldn’t find (browse) any architecture books because they were mixed in with other non-architecture subjects. Hal soon learned that there was great discussion of consolidating branch libraries into the Perry Casteñeda Library when it would open in 1977, further dispersing the services and collections from its School.
Harwell Hamilton Harris, Hal Box & donor David Barrow reviewing the newly acquired Harris archive.
In preparation of his meeting with UT President Lorene Rogers, Hal made a list of what the School needed, specifying the necessity its own branch library. Hal believe that “the library is more than just a bunch of books, it’s a place with services.” As part of his signing agreement, Battle Hall and Sutton became part of the School of Architecture’s campus when he became Dean. Hal continued to make it a priority to keep the library close by. In 1980, Battle Hall became home to the Architecture & Planning Library branch and the architectural drawings collection, now known as the Alexander Architectural Archive.
During this time, Hal initiated the renovation of the buildings on his architecture campus. Hal decided not to continue with the Battle Hall renovation because among other things, it would have displaced too much valuable stacks space. Even in my last meeting with Hal, he still struggled with the renovation of the University’s first library building.
“Libraries are sources of power… that knowledge they hold is power.” As Dean, Hal understood the constraints of a library budget and that the library did not have its own alumni from which to draw support. Also in his experience, the school could not recruit against Harvard because it didn’t have the research collections to support scholarship.
“One of my objectives, after I realized that this needed to be more than a professional school… [was that] it needed to involve the whole discipline of architecture- so we’re not just training professionals, we’re developing scholars… we’re developing people who will be active within the community. So it really started when we signed our first PhD… [and began] building a collection that would be vital to scholars. It was a very distinct objective to make this happen in the school, and that, just like a scientist… he’s got to have a laboratory. [If we could achieve this] we would be a major source for scholarship, and I think that has happened.”
As a member of the library council, Hal motioned for and pushed through a library fee for each student. He knew that it wasn’t much, but it helped a bit. Hal was also very hands-on with the library and archive. He chuckled when he told me about how he and Molly Malone single handedly moved the drawings from Blake Alexander’s closet in Goldsmith to Battle Hall, in preparation for the Goldsmith renovation. Through his many contacts, Hal was also instrumental in helping to obtain archival collections such as that of Howard Meyer, or Harwell Hamilton Harris, or finding funding for the purchase of the James Riely Gordon collection among others. As Dean, he even funded the early curators and until his death he was serving on the University of Texas Libraries Advisory Council.
More recently, Hal was enthusiastic about new technologies for teaching and research. He enjoyed learning about the great online resources the library offers, while at the same time found that there is still relatively very little published digitally in architecture. As Hal was preparing to close down his office at the School of Architecture, he offered the papers and books he had amassed over the years to the Architecture & Planning Library. We are grateful that we had the chance to thank him and to let him know how valuable many of these books will be to our collections.
Hal's books awaiting to be processed
From childhood, Hal was inspired by the architecture of libraries and their librarians, as a professional, he valued a firm library, and as a scholar he built his own personal library. For the University of Texas, he started and developed a branch library from the ground up in Arlington and in Austin secured a strong branch research library and archive close to his School. Hal understood and valued libraries from all perspectives. One of his fondest memories was in the library as a University of Texas architecture student in 1946. “Most students concentrated near the recent periodicals. They went there right away when they got a design problem. It was a good place. It was a happy place.”
Last week, Joe Sosa, gift processor at the Architecture & Planning Library, came to my office to share a wonderful find. Joe has been processing books from the library of O’Neil Ford, which came to us as part of his collection donated to the Alexander Architectural Archive. He starts by searching our catalog for existing copies in our collections so in many cases he is the first one to look closely at donations. He regularly sees interesting material and once in a while he comes across a jewel like this:
Chinese and Gothic architecture properly ornamented : being twenty new plans and elevations on twelve copper plates containing a great variety of magnificent buildings accurately described ; as also, several of a smaller kind elegantly design’d, with all necessary offices, of great strenght, early construction, and graceful appearance. The whole carefully calculated by the great squares; with instructions to workmen, etc. in several pages of letter-press. intended as an improvement of what has been published of that sort.
This delightful book came in what can be described as a regular preservation nightmare: a homemade cardboard binder (very likely acidic) with a faded photocopy taped on.
Inside, we found a pocket for the circulation card.
Chinese and Gothic architecture properly ornamented was written in 1752 by William Halfpenny and his son John. William Halfpenny was an English architect, carpenter and author of early pattern books as well as other manuals on construction such as The Art of Sound Building, Demonstrated in Geometrical Problems.
These are page 6 and 7: “Plate II – The Ground and Chamber Plan, with the Elevation (drawn to double their Scale) for a Design to a House 67 Feet in Front.” As all designs in this book, it includes dimensions for each room ans well as some instructions and estimate of the cost, in this case, 2475£.
This book is a great example of an early pattern book as well as 18th Century Chinoiserie. Gothic? Well, in my opinion, this looks more Palladian influenced but it has made me curious as to why Halfpenny would refer to these designs as Gothic. That is one of the details that makes this book peculiar and fascinating.
All 1,000,000+ images from the ARTstor Digital Library are now accessible through iPad, iPhone, and the iPod Touch to registered ARTstor users.
ARTstor Mobile provides read-only features such as searching, browsing, zooming, and viewing saved image groups. Also try the new Flashcard View, which allows you to test your knowledge by viewing the image without textual information, and then flipping the image to reveal the image record.
There’s no need to download special software, just go to the ARTstor page via UT Libraries from your mobile device (if you have already created an ARTstor account go directly to http://library.artstor.org). ARTstor Mobile is only available through the Safari browser; for more details, visit ARTstor Mobile’s Help page.
Image credits
Image provided by Alan Kohl, Photographer.
Blog from the University of Texas Architecture and Planning Library
