firm active: 1907-1921

minneapolis, minnesota :: chicago, illinois
philadelphia, pennsylvania :: portland, oregon
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In reverse chronological order, the changes and additions to this site since the conclusion of The Grindstone.

12.6.2008

  • Bit the bullet and put up a donation button. The cost of maintaining access to this site for thousands of people has become an issue. There is no free lunch, true enough. Someone somewhere is always paying for whatever. My expenditures here in the past seven years have come to nearly $10,000, much of which exists as debt. Astonishing to realize that, especially when I am faced yet again with an email from the web host saying my payment is past due. I remain skeptical that this donation option will produce any result, but sometimes life has happy surprises.
     
  • Added three exterior photographs of the A. B. C. Dodd house taken recently by Richard Kronick. Thanks, Dick!

10.7.2008

  • Started conversion of the site to CSS, with the concomitant redesign so long wished. The new look will reflect more of the P&E graphical standards for publication, such as they can be rendered in the present medium.

10.5.2008

  • Numerous link fixes, error corrections, and various small adjustments; cosmetic as well as functional repairs. One thing led to another over a couple of weeks; invisible but worthwhile.

9.18.2008

The final chapter on Elmslie in the "Review of Gebhard Thesis" contains some remarkable passages concerning Sullivan and Elmslie, with notes on drawings as a means for conveying ideas, and the real scope of the "form and function" organic philosophy as a community identity rather than the literal pass through of structural engineering. Purcell states pointedly that there is "just no relation of any kind between L'Art Nouveau and the organic and spiritual values of Sullivan and Elmslie. I don't think they gave two looks..."  WGP also reviews the economic rational for the use of rectilinear furniture forms, and the practical point behind high back dining room chairs in a candlelit environment. Everything starts off with a straightforward statement about Elmslie being responsible for the design of the Owatonna bank, and moves on to the afore noted conversation on organic design by saying that it was "Sullivan's re-expression on an architectural base of what Whitman was trying to say." Nice to have it all out in the open. Purcell concludes with this meditation: "But architecture is poetry; its subject is Man, and to him it is addressed. The Function of architecture is to express Life -- all of it."

  • Interleaved note: Data for Dave [Gebhard] (October 24, 1955), contained within the sequence of essays of the thesis review, is a brief comment by Purcell concerning Elmslie's later accounting system that touches also on the intermission in their friendship and the intermittent conclusion of their partnership.

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research courtesy mark hammons