Cocktails at 6:00pm
Program at 7:00pm
In the Grant East Room
Registration required
Note: The Union League’s dress code is business casual—for men: jacket, collared shirt, and slacks, for women, something comparable. For more information, visit unionleague.org
The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1880s to the 1930s it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant works and millionaires alike. It was not be enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand chateaux’s and palazzo’s along Fifth Avenue, as collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris and Rome. To fluent their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts.
In Phillip James Dodd's book, An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, which has been painstakingly researched and beautifully photographed over many years, takes a close look at twenty of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, its main focus is on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age – often providing a glimpse inside buildings not otherwise viewable to the public. While some of the buildings and monuments that are featured are world renowned landmarks recognizable and accessible to all; others are obscure buildings that history has forgotten.
Set amid the magnificent achievements of an American Renaissance, this is not just an architectural history book. It recounts not only the fascinating stories of some of New York’s most famous and significant Beaux-Arts landmarks, it also recalls the lives of those that commissioned, designed, and built them. These are some of the most acclaimed architects, artists and artisans of the day – Daniel Chester French, Cass Gilbert, Charles McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Stanford White – and some of the most prominent millionaires in American history – Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Jay Gould, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, and the ubiquitous Astor and Vanderbilt families. Name’s that - as Julian Fellowes notes in the Foreword – “still reek of money”.
At this special event for the Philadelphia Chapter of the ICAA, Phillip will discuss the five homes featured in his book – The Samuel Tilden Mansion (now The National Arts Club), the Joseph DeLamar Mansion (now the Polish Consulate), The Frick Collection, and the Otto Kahn and James Burdens (which now combine as the Convent of the Sacred Heart); as well as the patrons and architects that designed them, and their influences on Julian Fellowes’ television series The Gilded Age.