George B. Post

George B. Post

George Browne Post (December 15, 1837 – November 28, 1913) was an American architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition.

Biography

Post was a student of Richard Morris Hunt (1858-60), but unlike many architects of his generation, he had previously received a degree in civil engineering (Scientific School, New York University, 1858). In 1860 he formed a partnership with a fellow-student in Hunt's office, Charles D. Gambrill, with a brief hiatus for service in the Civil War.

Many of his most characteristic projects were for commercial buildings where new requirements pushed the traditional boundaries of design. Many of them have also been demolished, since their central locations in New York and other cities made them vulnerable to rebuilding in the twentieth century. Some of his lost buildings were landmarks of their era, nevertheless. His eight-story Equitable Life Assurance Society (1868–70), was the first office building designed to use elevators; Post himself leased the upper floors when contemporaries predicted they could not be rented. [Winston Weisman, "The Commercial Architecture of George B. Post" "The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians" 31.3 (October 1972), pp. 176-203. Many details in this article are drawn from Weisman's sketch of Post's career.] His Western Union Telegraph Building (1872–75) at Dey Street in Lower Manhattan, was the first office building to rise as high as ten stories, a forerunner of skyscrapers to come. When it was erected in "Newspaper Row" facing City Hall Park, Post's twenty-story New York World Building (1889–90) was the tallest building in New York City.

His vast New York Produce Exchange (1881–84) at Number Two Broadway faced Bowling Green. Its grand skylighted hall, based on French retail structures, cast daylight into the lower floors.

At the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, Post was named to the architectural staff by Burnham and Root [Weisman 1972:176] and assigned the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, which exceeded by a few feet the clear span of the Machinery Building at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Post's on-site engineer E.C. Shankland of Chicago, has been over-credited in its design, Winston Weisman noted in 1973.

He also designed more staid public and semi-public structures: the New York Stock Exchange Building and the Wisconsin State Capitol. Among the prominent private houses by Post were the French chateau for Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1879–82) that once stood at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street (that was photographed by Albert Levy while being built), and the palazzo that faced it across the street, for Collis P. Huntington (1889–94). In Newport, Rhode Island he built for the president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, C.C. Baldwin, "Chateau-Nooga" or the Baldwin Cottage (1879–80), a polychromatic exercise in the "Quaint Style" with bargeboards and half-timbering; John La Farge provided stained glass panels.

A true member of the American Renaissance, Post employed noted artists and artisans to produce decorative sculpture and murals. Among those who worked with him were the sculptor Karl Bitter and the painter Elihu Vedder. he was a founding member of the National Arts Club and served as its president from 1898 to 1905. In 1905 his two sons were taken into the partnership. The firm carried on under Post's grandson Edward Everett Post (1904-2006) [cite news
author=
title=Paid Notice: Deaths
POST, EDWARD EVERETT
date=2006-09-05
work=New York Times
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E5D8173AF936A3575AC0A9609C8B63
accessdate=2008-08-07
] until the late twentieth century.

Post served as the sixth president of the American Institute of Architects, 1896-99. [Post's numerous other positions of honor are noted in Weisman 1972:176.] His extensive archives are at the New-York Historical Society. Sarah Bradford Landau, "George B. Post, Architect: Picturesque Designer and Determined Realist" (1998) inspired the retrospective exhibition at the Society, 1998–99 that reassessed Post's work.

Surviving works by George B. Post

* The Wisconsin State Capitol (1906)
*New York Stock Exchange (1901–03)
*The original Williamsburgh Savings Bank (1870–75), Brooklyn, New York. Solidly classicizing and capped with a dome, "it might easily have been prepared in the nineties. Indeed it prefigures McKim's famous Columbia Library", Henry-Russell Hitchcock noted in his biography of H.H. Richardson.
*Troy Savings Bank, Troy, New York (1875)
*Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, New York (1878–80), originally for the Long Island Historical Society; it employed architectural terracotta
*New York Post Building, 1880-81), in which a deep central recess provided light and air to the interiors, a feature that quickly became standard for large commercial structures.
*Mills Building (1881-83); the first modern office building, on a two-story base, the upper eight floors reached by ten elevators, it used architectural terracotta panels, which Post had introduced, and eliminated the conventional mansard roofline.
*Produce Exchange (1881-85), in a modified neo-Renaissance mode that clad an interior iron skeletal framing
*New York Cotton Exchange (1883-85)
*New York Times Building (1888-89), Post's tardy venture into Richardsonian Romanesque.
*Union Trust Building (1889-90).
*New York World, or Pulitzer Building (1889-90), at the time of its completion the tallest building in the world.
*College of the City of New York Campus (1903–07), in Gothic Revival style
*Old Montreal Stock Exchange Building (1904), now housing the Centaur Theatre
*Cleveland Trust Company (1908), Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
*Park Building, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (since remodeled)

Notes

References

* Landau, Sarah Bradford, "George B. Post:Picturesque Designer and Determined Realist", the Monacelli Press, New York, 1998
* [http://www.nyhistory.org/previous/post/gpost.html "George B. Post: Great American Architect"] New-York Historical Society exhibition
*archINFORM|arch|3163

External links

*Find A Grave|id=830
*http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/landmark/arch/archDetail.php?afil=&archID=95&phrase=sons&anyallexact=all&button=Search


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • George Edward Post — Nacimiento 1838 Nueva York Fallecimiento 1909 Siria Residencia EE.UU. Nacionalidad estadounidense …   Wikipedia Español

  • George Adams Post — (September 1, 1854 ndash;October 31, 1925) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.George Adams Post was born in Cuba, New York. He pursued an academic course at Oswego Academy. He moved to Susquehanna Depot …   Wikipedia

  • George Browne Post — (né le 15 décembre 1837, mort le 28 novembre 1913) était un architecte américain qui s est essentiellement inspiré du style Beaux Arts. Il fut l élève de Richard Morris Hunt, mais à la différence de la plupart des architectes de sa génération, il …   Wikipédia en Français

  • George Chetwynd (post office) — George Chetwynd was the Receiver and Accountant General of the Post Office. He conceived of the Postal Order in 1874 [ [http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=45200683 mediaId=47900697 A Brief History of the Postal Order]… …   Wikipedia

  • George Feyer (pianist) — George Feyer (b. Hungary, 27 October 1908; d. New York, 21 October 2001) was a classically trained pianist who turned to light music upon graduating, and released a series of top selling Echoes of... records on Vox Records. Feyer was born György… …   Wikipedia

  • Post (Familienname) — Post ist ein Familienname Bekannte Namensträger Inhaltsverzeichnis 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 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Post (surname) — Post is a surname, and may refer to:*C.W. Post, American foods manufacturer *Dickie Post, American football player *Emil Leon Post, mathematician *Emily Post, American author *Ehrhardt Post, German chess master *Frank Post, American BMX racer… …   Wikipedia

  • George Post — may be: *George B. Post (1837 ndash;1913), American Beaux Arts architect *George Adams Post (1854 ndash;1925), U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania …   Wikipedia

  • Post — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda La palabra de origen latino post puede referirse a: En el vocablo español post ó pos , es un prefijo que significa después de o simplemente después. Por ejemplo: posparto, posgrado, posponer. El Diccionario… …   Wikipedia Español

  • George Adams — is a name shared by the following individuals:Public officialsEngland/Great Britain*George Adams (1731 ndash;1789), English Whig politician; in 1773 inherited Anson family estates and assumed the name George Anson *George Adams (1804 ndash;1873) …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”