Includes bibliographical references (pages 266-279) and index.
Contents:
Preface -- Introduction: the giant rises -- The world's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 -- City planning: the city beautiful movement and the resurgence of classical architecture -- A palazzo of knowledge: the Boston Public Library -- The Library of Congress: democracy's palace -- Civic grandeur, civic religion, architecture, and allegory: "We have learned to live with magnificence" -- Westward the course of governance takes its way: mighty domes arise in the Midwest -- The great American train station: Roman Doric homes for the iron horse -- Libraries across the land: the halls of Carnegie -- Palaces of art: The Met and the mogul -- The gentleman's club: a home away from home; or a palazzo away from the palazzo -- Conclusion: the last, but magnificent, hurrahs -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index.
Summary:
About American architecture as designed in the Classical Beaux-Arts manner during the Gilded Age - that is, between the Civil War and World War I - and its extension to the early 1940s, as it paralleled the rise of the Modern mode. It is about the transition that occurred as the nation changed from being mainly agrarian and largely concerned with internal matters, such as the settlement of the vast interior of the West, to being a mighty industrial and financial giant of international standing and global concerns. Yet the leaders of the Gilded Age chose to accept the nation's heritage as a beneficiary of Western culture. In erecting and decorating its major civic buildings, they chose the classicism of the Beaux-Arts style to assert America's new leadership role, to declare its high-mindedness, to display the creative energies of its financiers, industrialists, and mega-merchants, its inventors, architects, painters, sculptors, artisans, and keepers of culture, and to house its institutions and commercial enterprises such as courthouses, libraries, art museums, train stations, and social clubs.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.