Tag Archives: special collections

special collections

L’Architecture Francaise

Dormoy, Marie. L’Architecture Française. Boulogne (Siene) Éditions de “L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui” [1938]

Marie Dormoy explores the history of French architecture in L’Architecture Française, examining construction practices and materials to locate what is most essentially and consistently French about French architecture over time. By reducing space to its integral parts and the systems used to assemble those components, Dormoy performs a deconstructive analysis that functions to collapse all of French architectural history into itself, where essence becomes the thread of definition, signifying a relationship not only to practice but also to the projection of Frenchness in the built environment. Writing in French, Dormoy analyzes the full scope of French architectural history, and, while she provides little of substance about the varying shifts in the history of French design, she produces an excellent example of a scholar (and a woman!) attempting to locate broader meanings in space and across time.

Collection: Cret
Library of Congress call number: NA 1041 D67

special collections

Versailles

Arizzoli-Clémentel, Pierre, ed. Versailles. 2 vols. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2009.

A recent acquisition to the Architecture & Planning Library Special Collection, Versailles is a compendium documenting the rich architectural, art and cultural histories of the 17th century palace. This two-volume work juxtaposes plans, sections, and other drawing that express the palace’s design with high-resolution photographs of its resplendent interior and exterior spaces, and a number of essays that explore its art, sculpture, and landscape and architectural design. Versailles includes additional essays that examine the cultural and political activities that took place within the palace.

 

special collections

The Vernacular and Academic Nostalgia

Farm Houses, Manor Houses, Minor Chateaux and Small Churches: From the Eleventh to the Sixteenth Centuries, in Normandy, Brittany and other parts of France. New York: The Architectural Book Publishing Company, P. Wenzel and M. Krakow, 1917.

Another selection from the Paul Philippe Cret collection, Farm Houses, Manor Houses, Minor Chateaux and Small Churches is a collection of nearly 100 pages of images documenting vernacular architecture throughout Normandy, Brittany and other parts of France. While there is no index or table of contents, the book’s preface provides some unique insight into the function of this assembly. Written by AIA Fellow Ralph Adams Cram, we once again hear from a scholar seeking to return to a simpler moment, a time when architecture possessed “human scale.” Whether this response reflects the broader attitude toward the social and cultural activities that precipitated the First World War, or a more individual perspective, Cram suggests that the images compiled in the pages of this book are rooted in nostalgia, a time gone by and yet a moment his contemporaries should return to.

Collection: Cret
Library of Congress call number: NA 1041 F3

special collections

The Modernist’s Agenda

Emerson, William and Georges Gromort. The Use of Brick in French Architecture: Part One The Midi. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1935.

Written by architects William Emerson and Georges Gromort, The Use of Brick in French Architecture represents an historiographical shift in the writing of architectural history, where the architect-authors’ primary agenda reflects the desire to establish the parameters of appropriate usage. This professional concern is indicative of what we like to call modernism and suggests that the materials themselves possess specific meaning outside of their function in an architectural system. The Use of Brick in French Architecture represents one such endeavor, where examinations of the great brickwork architecture in the French Midi (this region includes Albi and Toulouse) results in the assembly of a body of work that establishes a relationship between building function and materiality while celebrating the majesty of works executed in brick.



Library of Congress call number: NA 1041 E55 PT. 1

library, special collections

A little wonder from the library of O’Neil Ford

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.

Chinese and Gothic Archtecture Properly Ornamented

Inside, we found a pocket for the circulation card.

Pocket for library 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.

Title page

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£.

Plate II

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.

special collections

Visual Memory

Townsend, Charles Harrison, T. S. Boys, William Callow, J. Coney, S. Prout, David Roberts, and C. Wild. Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium: Including Many which have been Destroyed during the War. London: T. F. Unwin, 1916.

This unique document reconstitutes historical renderings and paintings of gothic architecture in France and Belgium. Elegiac in tone, Beautiful Buildings of France & Belgium is an exercise in preservation, rehabilitating the obscured architectural object whose historical state was, in many cases, disrupted by the Great War. This type of visual doubling provides an early example of how what we see constructs social memory and nostalgia, and demonstrates the importance of certain types of documents in maintaining or proliferating a specific memory. Here, highly romanticized prose organized by location (Amiens, Bruges, Ghent) accompany each rendering to both celebrate and mourn these sites of tremendous cultural activity and the abundance of meaning that they represent.

Library of Congress call number: NA 1041 T6

special collections

Special Collections Focus: French Architecture


Visit the Architecture & Planning Library special collection located in Battle Hall

As part of our ongoing effort to expose the rich and diverse materials held in the Architecture & Planning Library special collections, we will be highlighting a number of collection items that explore various historical and historigraphical topics related to the study of French architecture during the summer and fall 2011 sessions. The volumes featured in this series were reviewed by architectural history and theory graduate student Kristen Decker-Ali as part of a volunteer project completed during the summer 2010. Decker-Ali, whose own work focuses on Philibert de l’Orme’s Château d’Anet for Diane de Poitiers, reviewed dozens of volumes documenting 33 items of specific interest. These items belong to 26 separate titles, explore the history of urban and provincial architecture in France from the medieval period through the early 19th century and include volumes published as early as 1830. Check out Battle Hall Highlights each week, as we take a look at these titles.

Including over 20,000 volumes, the Architecture & Planning Library special collections comprise almost 1/5th of the library’s holdings and function as an invaluable resource for scholars in the disciplines of architecture, art and architectural history, landscape architecture, community and regional planning, building technology and construction science. Special strengths include central and eastern European architecture, especially the Vienna Secession Movement, late nineteenth and early twentieth century British and French architecture books, as well as titles from the libraries of architects whose work is represented in the Alexander Architectural Archive. Of special note are the libraries of architect Paul Philippe Cret, architectural historian Colin Rowe, and architect and educator Charles W. Moore.

 

 

 

archive, exhibition, library, special collections

Then and Now: The Library of the School of Architecture

Throughout its 100-year history, the Architecture & Planning Library has been an integral part of the School of Architecture, providing services and collections for information and inspiration.  In tandem with the School, the library has grown and changed to meet the needs of its users—students, faculty, scholars, and the community.

A new exhibit – Then and Now: The Library of the School of Architecture – gives an overview of the library’s history as it developed from a faculty collection, to an established library in 1912, and then how it moved along with the School to its new locations.  Featured are interesting examples of how services and collections have expanded and stories about how people have contributed to their library and archive.

Artifacts from the Alexander Architectural Archive
Photographed by Parker Doelling

The exhibition – on view in Architecture & Planning Library Reading Room in Battle Hall through March, 2011 – is being held in conjunction with the School of Architecture’s centennial celebration 100: Traces & Trajectories exhibition.

Producing a centennial exhibit is a momentous occasion.  The challenge proves that some things never change: it reflects the efforts of an expert staff, dedicated students, the tireless hours of our volunteers, including co-curator Sarah Cleary.

All items on exhibit are from the vast collections of the Architecture and Planning Library and its Alexander Architectural Archive, as well as images courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

Visit the Flickr slideshow to enjoy more images from the exhibition.

Beth Dodd is Head Librarian for the Architecture & Planning Library at The University of Texas at Austin.

Special Collections at the Architecture & Planning Library
Photographed by Parker Doelling

library, special collections

Florence sketchbook of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910

The Architecture & Planning Library recently acquired a limited edition facsimile of the Florence sketchbook of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910, the manuscript sketchbook by Frank Lloyd Wright which served as the maquette or layout for the famous Wasmuth portfolio of 1910 entitled Ausgeführte Bauten Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright [Studies and Executed Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright].

This sketchbook has never been published before.  Therefore, it will be a very important addition to our collections and will greatly complement our holdings of several editions of the Wasmuth portfolio.  To learn more about these and other Frank Lloyd Wright materials in our collections read Kathryn Pierce’s entry in Shelflife@Texas.

Florence Sketchbook of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910
Florence Sketchbook of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910
library, special collections

Architectural Drawing, Now and Then

“In the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, there are drawings from casts, in pencil and in charcoal. The importance of skill in drawing and of appreciation of true proportion make this character of training as necessary for the architect as it is for any other art student.”
So begins an article that sounds like it could have been written yesterday—drawing is a major component of UT’s architecture program. However, this text was published in November 1914 in a journal called Southern Architect and Building News—long before any computer programs could help with those drawings!

Southern Architect and Building News
UT’s earliest issue of Southern Architect, 1892

As it turns out, the Architecture and Planning Library Special Collections has 106 unique issues from Southern Architect’s 1889-1932 run, more than any other institution. In addition to historical article content, the journals are heavy on advertisements, providing a fascinating look at the building materials and products available at the turn of the century.
With the generous support of School of Architecture alum Steph McDougal and her business, McDoux Preservation, we have begun an initiative to index and digitize the journal. We’re developing a work plan, manual and database, and we’ll be needing volunteers soon! Contact Beth Dodd if you’d like to help us make this valuable resource more accessible.
By Amanda Keys, processing assistant in the Alexander Architectural Archive and School of Information student focusing on archival enterprise and special collections

EDITOR’S UPDATE: For an update on the Southern Architect and Building News project, see https://blogs.lib.utexas.edu/aplhighlights/2016/03/17/southern-architect-and-building-news-update/