 |
firm active: 1907-1921 minneapolis, minnesota :: chicago, illinois |
Navigation ::
Home :: Western
Architect issues :: Commission List ::
Parabiographies
Design for The Western Architect
Purcell and Elmslie
1915 (Volume XXII, #1 [July, 1915])
Parabiographies entry, Volume for 1910
Text by William Gray Purcell
Job Date (in Parabiography): April, 1915
THE WESTERN ARCHITECT, Special Number, July, 1915
This was the third of the special numbers of THE WESTERN ARCHITECT devoted to our work, an opportunity made possible by the cordial attitude of my old friend Edward A. Purdy, and the life-long interest which Robert Craik McLain [sic: McLean] always had toward an organic and indigenous architecture in America. His editorials and stories in the WESTERN ARCHITECT over a period of twenty years will be found to be a mine of authentic history and biography covering the transition period from 1875 to 1930. He knew most of the well known architects personally, was sufficiently free from the influence of the French School to have a perspective on the significance of events as they were taking place, and he was a born gossip and raconteur.
Mr. McLain was a sturdily built man with read hair which he wore straight up in a stiff brush, but he had a most mind and benevolent face and no one ever radiated more joy and satisfaction in human companionship than Mr. McLain with his beloved pipe in the midst of a group of architects. For one thing, although he had not made for himself a successful career as an architect, he was, perhaps on that very account, convinced that architects as a class were the most human and engaging of creatures. And this deep male love of his kind was a part of all that he said and wrote. A beloved old tavern hound he was, but never one to overindulge in alcohol. He managed to retain his youthful canniness to a fine old age.
Collection: William Gray Purcell Papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota [AR:B4d1.9]
research courtesy mark hammons