Calvert Vaux

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Calvert Vaux (born December 24, 1824 in London , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , † November 19, 1895 in New York ) was an American architect and landscape gardener . Vaux designed cottages in neo-Gothic style and was one of the planners of New York's Central Park .

Youth and education

Vaux was born in London, England, at Christmas 1824, to doctor Calvert Bowyer Vaux and Emily Brickwood. He spent his early years with his younger brother, Alfred (born 1828) and sisters, Emily (born 1823) and Julia (date unknown), in good circumstances in a house at 36 Pudding Lane, not far from London Bridge. Vaux's father died at the age of 42 in September 1833. Calvert was then only eight years old. He attended the Merchant Taylors' School , built of red brick by Sir Christopher Wren , after the great fire. His classmates were the sons of lawyers, merchants, and clergymen. Here he stayed for four years until 1838. At the relatively late age of 19, Vaux became a student of the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham in 1843 , who was considered one of the oldest exponents of English Gothic Revival , who shared an office with George Truefitt . Vaux learned to create architectural drawings in the neo-Gothic style. Cottingham not only had a large library, but also an extensive collection of medieval furniture and architectural fragments which, according to his design, were housed in the rooms of a house on Waterloo Bridge Road. Vaux thus had an excellent opportunity to acquire a broad and deep knowledge of architecture, even in the days before the institutionalized architecture training.

In the summer of 1846, George Truefitt and Vaux went on a tour through France, Germany and Belgium, during which they made numerous sketches.

In 1848 Vaux appeared in the registry of residents at Kennington Place, across from Kennington Common, in south London.

He also painted watercolors of landscapes on the continent, which he exhibited in a London gallery in 1850, which attracted the attention of the American architect Andrew Jackson Downing . Downing had come to England to hire an assistant for a new department of thriving horticultural practice. He recruited Vaux, then twenty-six years old. He welcomed the opportunity to escape the relative stiffness and smell of English society.

Work with Andrew Downing

In 1851, President Fillmore Andrew Downing asked for a layout for the public spaces in Washington between the Capitol, the Smithsonian Institute and the White House. Vaux came at just the right time and worked as Downing's assistant. During the two years that Calvert Vaux worked with Downing in Newburgh, New York, most of his energy was devoted to creating "rural" house plans (thirteen of which are included in his 1857 book "Villas and Cottages") . The "rustic" style of these houses (with pitched roofs, picturesque verandas and ornate stone and woodwork) complemented the "rural landscape" of the wide curved lawns, carefully placed solitary trees and massed border plantings of shrubs and flowers. One of Newport's oldest houses, “Beaulieu” was built between 1856 and 1859 by the architects Calvert Vaux and Downing. The house called "cottage" was adjacent to Beechwood, owned by the Astor family. One of the main proponents of the Central Park Project, Downing, introduced Vaux to Frederick Law Olmsted after Olmsted published a contribution to Downing's Horticultural Journal. When Downing died suddenly and unexpectedly in the explosion of the SS "Henry Clay" steamer on July 28, 1852, Vaux continued the work of his mentor and took on the British architect Frederick Clarke Withers as a new partner .

He married Mary McEntee, sister of Jervis McEntee, a Hudson Valley painter, and then moved to New York City in 1856, where he identified with the city's artistic community - "The Guild," as he called it. In 1856 Vaux also received American citizenship. He entered the National Academy of Design and the New Century Club , and was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects in 1857.

Collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted

From 1854 to 1857 Egbert L. Many was chief topographical engineer for the state of New Jersey and as such was responsible for the planning and design of New York City Central Park, according to the plans of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

The planning of a lake in conjunction with the existing forest, called a “ramble”, was the pivotal part of the Greensward plan, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux when they drew up the first features that would become Central Park . In April 1858 they won first prize for this design. The two men supervised the work in the park - Olmsted as the responsible architect and Vaux reported to him in an advisory capacity. Over the next seven years they worked together on a number of assignments: a cemetery in Middletown, New York, the Hartford Retreat in Connecticut, Bloomingdale Asylum in New York City, a road system for the Fort Washington section of Manhattan, and some private properties, but apparently they did not have a formal partnership agreement.

That changed in the fall of 1865 when they founded Olmsted, Vaux & Co. As a partner, they secured a number of important contracts, such as B. the creation of parks and park paths in Brooklyn, a park in Buffalo, the South Park in Chicago and the suburb of Riverside, Illinois. Olmsted was also a partner in the architectural firm of Vaux, Withers & Co. Both partnerships were dissolved in 1872.

In 1872 Vaux founded a new company with the architect and engineer George Kent Radford and in 1880 they took on Samuel Parsons Jr. as a partner.

Her self-chosen title “landscape architect” was first used in the early 1860s to describe the work of Olmsted and Vaux in Central Park.

Collaboration with Jacob Wrey Mold

American Museum of Natural History

Shortly after it was founded in 1869, the American Museum of Natural History moved from the Arsenal to Manhattan Square. In 1874 President Ulysses S. Grant laid the foundation stone for the first building on 77th Street. Although funds were only available for the construction of a relatively modest building, the architects Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mold are preparing a monumental plan for all of Manhattan Square over four blocks. The enormous five-story square encloses a Greek cross in the middle, which comprises four enclosed courtyards with a central octagonal intersection, and is covered by a dome. The museum was built by Vaux and Mold between 1874 and 1877. In 1877 the first building was opened by US President Rutherford B. Hayes in a public ceremony.

Metropolitan Museum

On March 30, 1880, after a brief move to the Douglas Mansion at 128 West 14th Street, the Metropolitan Museum opened to the public at its current location at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. The architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold designed the first Gothic building after John Ruskin , which is only visible today in the west facade in the Robert Lehman wing. The building has since been extensively modified and expanded and the various additions - which were made from 1888 - now completely enclose the original building.

Works

literature

  • Francis R. Kowsky: Country, Park and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux. Published by Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-1953-4685-5
  • James L. Yarnall: Newport Through Its Architecture: A History of Styles from Postmedieval to Postmodern. Publisher: Univ Pr Of New England, 2009 ISBN 978-1-5846-5491-9
  • William Alex: Calvert Vaux: Architect and Planner . In: The Hudson Valley Regional Review, September 1990, Volume 7, number 255

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Good School Guide
  2. ^ The Building news Lewis N. Cottingham
  3. ↑ Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787-1847) ( Memento of May 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Calvert made the two drawings of the churches during a European trip with Truefitt
  5. ^ Rhode Island Historic Sites
  6. ↑ Beaulieu in Newport
  7. ↑ THE HENRY CLAY CATASTROPHE New York Times, July 30, 1852
  8. ↑ Jervis McEntee Painting Reproductions ( Memento from August 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ History of the American Institute of Architects
  10. ^ The Greensward plan
  11. ^ Description of a plan for the improvement of the Central Park (1858) Publisher: Reprinted [by] Sutton, Bowne & co. New York, 1868
  12. ↑ Olmsted and Vaux's Riverside 1869
  13. ^ The Olmsted firm
  14. ^ Museum of National History - history
  15. ↑ The MMA - plan by Vaux and Mold (The current facade in classical style was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and opened to the public in December 1902.)

Web links

Commons : Calvert Vaux  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Vaux, Calvert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect and landscaper
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1895
Place of death new York