firm active: 1907-1921

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Fowler Methodist Church, consultation
Purcell, Feick and Elmslie
Minneapolis, Minnesota  1911

Text by William Gray Purcell
Parabiographies entry, Volume for 1911

Job Date (in Parabiographies): 1911

NATHANIEL MCCARTHY -- Fowler Methodist Church

McCarthy was a genial, warmhearted Irishman who ran the town's best bookshop. The sound bounced around from wall to wall in this hollow box of an interior so that no one could hear anything. We were called in to say what might be done. We knew as much as anybody did at the time about the subject of acoustics, which was exactly nothing. The famous Harvard experiments by Professor Sabine, which led to a scientific solution of this subject had not then even begun. We did not presume to offer any suggestions, at any rate, we did not have them string any wires. The whole matter ended in conversation. The church was later sold to the Masons for a Scottish Rite Temple.
 


   Collection: William Gray Purcell Papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota [AR:B4d1.5]
research courtesy mark hammons