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Biography :: Pre-P&E Designs and Projects
William Gray Purcell
Pre-P&E Designs and Projects, 1899-1906
Scope and Content Notes
Excerpted from The Guide to the William Gray Purcell Papers
Mark Hammons, 1985
Early
Work, 1899-1906 [AR:C1]
The Early work was done while attending college or at the various offices in
which Purcell served his apprenticeship. For example, records survive of several
prize-winning entries to competitions sponsored by the Chicago Architectural
Club or Brickbuilder magazine. Presentation drawings and diagrams show the kinds
of drafting required of Purcell when employed by other architects, and related
memorabilia document some of his experiences in learning the practice of
architecture. Although records are not present in the collection for all work
known to have been done by Purcell during this time, the materials in the Early
Work files provide a balanced and generally comprehensive impression of these
seven years.
Building Files [AR:WGP X1-X18]
The materials representing work done from 1899 to 1906 have been arranged
chronologically into project files and numbered to facilitate cross-references.
Original or reproduced drawings exist in the Purcell Papers for fourteen Early
designs. Two titled projects [WGP X1-X2] and several unnamed exercises [WGP
X14-X17] are documented by large watercolor renderings executed in the academic
manner of the time. One prophetic exception to the formal style is a
pier-and-lintel elevation dated 1900 [WGP X18].
The most distinguished of the Early Work is a design entered in the Andrew D.
White Competition of 1902 [WGP X4]. Although the original drawings were lost or
discarded by Cornell University, Purcell obtained photographic copies of the
plan, elevations, and section in 1952 from a published catalog. A lengthy
manuscript titled "History to the Point" recounts how professors and classmates
reacted toward Purcell taking first prize in the contest with a non-Classical
design. The narrative is complemented by original congratulatory correspondence.
Another important work of the same year is the Memorial Stone for W. C. Gray [WGP
X5], a design sometimes included in the scholarly assessments of Purcell &
Elmslie.
Two documents remain from Purcell'sbrief service in the office of Louis
Sullivan during 1903. A full-scale pencil on paper diagram for a Lockplate and
Knob [WGP X6] carries the monogram "NST" and is identified from other
manuscripts in the archives as being for the National Savings and Trust
Building. The first collaboration by Purcell with George Grant Elmslie is shown
in the Design for a Public Library [WGP X7]. The initial sketch for a "Village
Library," made as Elmslie and Purcell read the Brickbuilder competition program,
has a seminal relationship to the final drawings entered into the competition.
Purcell later wrote extensive comments about this design, especially the
ornamental treatment and intended building materials.
A solo study for "A City Bank," also known as the "Bank of Reno" [WGP X10], was
published in the Chicago Architectural Club Catalog of 1905. This design
was completed the same year that Purcell supervised construction of California
Hall for John Galen Howard at the University of California campus at Berkeley [WGP
X11]. Among other souvenirs that Purcell kept of this employment are a casual
photograph of the Howard office staff, a reduced copy of the presentation
rendering for the building, and a clipping of his article in Occidental
Magazine discussing the functional values of the design.
Two presentation drawings remain from the time Purcell lived in Seattle,
Washington. The first of these is the pencil rendering of a fanciful
timber-framed residential design for Oliver W. Esmond, most notable as an early
exercise of Purcell'slong term interest in the architectural possibilities of a
high, steep-pitched roof [WGP X12]. A photographic reproduction of another
rendering which was delineated by Purcell in 1906 presents an aerial view of a
Seattle amusement park designed by architect A. Warren Gould [WGP X13].
research courtesy mark hammons