#american architecture - 19thc.

[lostprofile]

AMERICAN GOTHIC

Gothic architecture emerged in the Ile-de-France around 1140 and ended in the United States in the 1930s.

Fittingly, the last architects to build in the Gothic style were primarily drawn to its late, florid period. Saint Patrick's Cathedral, a studied summa of the rayonnant and flamboyant styles, is the most convincing recreation of a medieval building this country. Early skyscrapers like the Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan and the Tribune Tower in Chicago acknowledge their debt to the first generation of vertically-oriented buildings in their creative reinterpretation of flamboyant decoration.

The broad, low-pitched arches and intricate vault tracery of the English Decorated and Perpendicular styles, derived mainly from late medieval halls and chapels at Oxford and Cambridge, served as the architectural model formany elite East Coast academic institutions. The Neo-Gothic,ivy-clad core campuses of Yale, Duke, the Universities of Chicago, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and the crown jewel of "collegiate Gothic," Princeton University, are synonymous with higher education in the American imaginary.

Modernism and capitalism brought an abrupt end to American Gothic architecture. The modernist rejection of 19th-century eclecticism and historical revival styles coincided with the Great Depression, during which the astronomical cost of constructing, and then maintaining, stone vaults, lead armatures and stained glass, carved moldings and gargoyles, hammerbeam ceilings, and bell towers became unsustainable for all but the wealthiest patrons.

The world's largest church built in the Gothic style is in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Harlem. Construction began on the vast Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in 1892, but structural and fiscal difficulties have brought the project to a halt several times and there is no completion date projected.

1. Cope and Stewardson, Princeton University, Holder Hall and Tower, Rockefeller College, 1910. 2. Cass Gilbert, New York City, Woolworth Building, 1910/12. 3. James Renwick Jr., New York City, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, 1858/78. 4. John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, Chicago, Tribune Tower, 1922/25. 4. Richard Upjohn, New York City, Trinity Church, 1839/46. 6. Julian Abele, Duke University Chapel, 1930/35. 7. Ralph Adams Cram, NThomas Webb Richards, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1871.ew York City, Cathedral of St John the Divine 8. Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, University of Chicago, Harper Memorial Library, 1891-1912. 9. Charles Klauder, Pittsburgh, University of Piitsburgh, Cathedral of Learning, 1926/37. 10. Thomas Webb Richards, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1871.

#neo-gothic #gothic revival #collegiate gothic #princeton university #cathedral of saint john the divine #american architecture - 19thc.

[larryland]

  An original play written for the Olana landscape

The Olana Partnership, in collaboration with The Ancram Opera House, will present Performing Olana, an original play throughout the Olana landscape, on Friday, September 22 through Sunday, September 24.

Performing Olana has been written by nationally recognized playwright and TV writer, Darrah Cloud and co-directed by the innovative Ancram Opera House creatives Jeffrey Mousseau and Paul Ricciardi along with The Olana Partnership’s Director of Education Amy Hufnagel. The three theater artists have been working for months to design an immersive, promenade style theater production to be delivered in the landscape at Olana while the audience follows the story through the historic site.

It is a play that takes the interpretation of Olana to another level- both in terms of costumed “interpretation” but also in the untold and imagined stories between the lines of letters and journals in the Church archive. The piece draws inspiration from Frederic Church’s painting, letters, family life and the celebrated landscape and is presented as an immersive experience in which performer and audience journey together into Church’s art. This production falls between the categories of creative non-fiction and historic fiction.

The piece mines Church’s artistic legacy in painting and the great achievement that dominated the second half of his life—the home and landscape he meticulously designed and called Olana. The creators are seeking a real connection with Church in the very spaces and places he lived and worked. Biography and historical record converge with contemporary theatrical imagination and sensibilities. The performance asks how we can live artfully today in rapidly changing and polarized times.

Performing Olana brings the 19th century alive in a way that only theater can; audiences will move from place to place in the landscape as the narrative unfolds.  Actors deliver scenes in historically accurate venues and subjects including Church’s homes, the orchard, meadows, the barns, carriage roads, the lake and the forest. Inhabiting this real and imagined world is the artist himself, Frederic Church, along with his wife Isabel, their children and the ghost of his mentor, Thomas Cole.  Contemporary characters of the creators’ invention invade the scene by traveling back in time.

This public program will occur rain or shine (although will be delayed if there is extreme weather-check the website for day of performance updates). We encourage audiences to purchase their tickets in advance at www.olana.org/calendar.   The play will take place on Friday, September 22 at 6p; Saturday, September 23 & Sunday, September 24 at 2p, 4p and 6p. This performance will start at the Wagon House Education Center. Participants should wear comfortable walking shoes and should be prepared to walk about three quarters of a mile. Admission: Member: $10, Non-Member: $15, Family (up to 5): $40.

About the PLAYWRIGHT: Darrah Cloud is currently working on the musical adaptation of Willy Holtzman’s play, Sabina, with composer Louise Beach, to be produced at The Cell in NYC in Winter 2018, and American Siddhartha with director Nick Demos and composer David Newman (Durga Das). Recent productions include: Our Suburb, premiere Theater J, Washington, DC, 2014, Joan the Girl of Arc, premiere Cincinnati Playhouse, 2014, What’s Bugging Greg?, The Stick Wife, The Mud Angel, Dream House, Braille Garden, and The Sirens. Musical productions include Heartland, The Boxcar Children, Honor Song for Crazy Horse, and the stage adaptation of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, filmed starring Mary McDonnell for American Playhouse. She has won numerous awards, including the Macy’s Prize for Theatre for Young Audiences, an NEA, and a Rockefeller. Disney was also drawn to Cloud, commissioning her to create a dramatization of their classic Snow White, which played at Disneyland. She has had over 10 movies-of-the-week produced on CBS and NBC, is a proud alum of the Iowa Writers Workshop and New Dramatists, and conducts A Howl of Playwrights, a new play development group in Rhinebeck, NY.

About the DIRECTORS:

Jeff Mousseau is Co-Director of The Ancram Opera House and an award-winning theater director. In NYC, his work has been seen at HERE Arts Center, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Theatre for the Open Eye, Theater at 224 Waverly, West Bank Café and, locally, at Stageworks, Hudson Opera House, Proctors Theater and Olana. Regional credits include numerous productions as Artistic Director of The Coyote Theater in Boston (recipient of numerous Elliot Norton and IRNE awards). Other credits include American Southwest Theatre, Provincetown Rep, Florida Studio Theatre and Tampa Players. Guest artist and lecturer: Brandeis University, Emerson College, The University at Albany, and Siena College.  Residency: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Paul Ricciardi is Co-Director of The Ancram Opera House and an award-winning actor, director and voice/speech/dialect coach. He received his MFA in Acting from Trinity Repertory Company, studied with Kristin Linklater and received his Linklater Teacher Designation in 2012. He teaches voice and acting at the City University of New York/Kingsborough CC. Recent work as an actor includes Playhouse Creatures’ New Play Festival, Hamlet with Saratoga Shakespeare Festival, Lovesong at Chester Theatre Company, and many others. Paul has designed dialects for countless college theatre productions and professional theaters including StageWorks, WAM, America-in-Play, and others. Ricciardi is Immediate Past Co-Chair for Region I of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and is a recipient of the Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Award.  Memberships:  AEA, VASTA.

About Olana and The Olana Partnership: Olana is the greatest masterpiece of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the preeminent American artist of the mid-19thC and the most important artist’s home, studio and designed landscape in the United States.  Church designed Olana as a holistic environment integrating his advanced ideas about art, architecture, landscape design, and environmental conservation. Olana’s 250-acre artist-designed landscape with a Persian-inspired house at its summit embraces unrivaled panoramic views of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains and, today, welcomes more than 170,000 visitors annually.

Olana State Historic Site, a historic site administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Taconic Region, is a designated National Historic Landmark and one of the most visited sites in the state. The Olana Partnership, a private not-for-profit education corporation, works cooperatively with New York State to support the restoration, conservation, and interpretation of Olana State Historic Site. 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Olana as a public work of art.

In this season’s exhibition, an innovative collaboration between The Olana Partnership and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros [CPPC], artist Teresita Fernández examines Frederic Church and his contemporaries’ response to the cultures and landscapes they experienced during their 19th century Latin American travels. Working with Guest Curator Sara Meadows, Teresita Fernández incorporates her own new work in a site-specific installation with elements from the collections of Olana State Historic Site and the renowned Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.

To learn more about Olana and The Olana Partnership, please visit www.olana.org

To learn more about the Ancram Opera House, please visit www.ancramoperahouse.org

Olana Partnership & Ancram Opera House Present “Performing Olana” An original play written for the Olana landscape The Olana Partnership, in collaboration with The Ancram Opera House…