Paul Philippe Cret (October 24, 1876, Lyon, France – September 8, 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a French-American architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he headed the School of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
Biography
Cret was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, then in Paris, where he studied at the Atelier Pascal and came to the United States in 1903 to teach at the University of Pennsylvania. [1] Although settled in America, he happened to be in France at the outbreak of World War I. He enlisted and remained in the French army for the duration, for which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre and made an officer in the Legion of Honor.
Cret's practice in America began in 1907. His first major commission, designed with Albert Kelsey, was the Pan-American Union Building (now Organization of American States) in Washington DC (1908-10), [2] a breakthrough that led to many war memorials, civic buildings, court houses, and other solid, official structures.
His work through the 1920s was firmly in the Beaux-Arts tradition, but with the radically simplified classical form of the Folger Shakespeare Library (1929-32), he flexibly adopted and applied monumental classical traditions to modernist innovations. (Bertram Goodhue also falls in that category.) Some of Cret's work is remarkably streamlined and forward-thinking. In the late 1920s the architect was brought in as design consultant on Fellheimer and Wagner's magnificent Cincinnati Union Terminal (1929-33), the high-water mark of Art Deco style in the United States. He became an American citizen in 1927.
In 1931 the regents of The University of Texas at Austin commissioned Cret to design a master-plan for the campus, and build the Beaux-Art Main Building (1934-37), the university's signature tower. Cret would go on to collaborate on about twenty buildings on the campus.
Cret's contributions to the railroad industry also included the design of the side fluting on the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr (debuted in 1934) and the Santa Fe's Super Chief (1936) passenger cars.[3]
Cret won the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1938. [4] Ill health forced his resignation from teaching in 1937, and after years of inactivity he died of heart disease.
Legacy
Cret headed the School of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania for over 30 years, and designed such projects as the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, the master plan for the University of Texas in Austin, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, and the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, DC. Louis Kahn studied at the University of Pennsylvania under Cret, and worked in Cret's architectural office, 1929-30.
Cret designed war memorials, including the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge National Historical Park (1914-17), the Pennsylvania Memorial at the Meuse-Argonne Battlefield in Varennes-en-Argonne, France (1927), the Chateau-Thierry American Monument in Aisne, France (1930), and the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial in Waregem, Belgium (1937).[5] On the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Cret's Eternal Light Peace Memorial (1938).
Following Cret's death in 1945, his four partners assumed the practice under the partnership Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larson, which for years was referred to by staff members as H2L2. The firm officially adopted this "nickname" as its formal title in 1976. H2L2 celebrated 100 years in 2007 and continues to uphold Cret's standards for design.
Major projects
- 1908-10 - Organization of American States Building, Washington, D.C. (with Albert Kelsey)
- 1914-17 - National Memorial Arch, Valley Forge National Historical Park, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
- 1916-17 - Indianapolis Central Library, Indianapolis, Indiana (with Zantzinger, Borie and Medary)
- 1922-26 - Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Camden, New Jersey
- 1923-25 - Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania
- 1923-27 - Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan (with Zantzinger, Borie and Medary)
- 1926-29 - Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with Jacques Gréber)
- 1928-29 - George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, Louisville, Kentucky
- 1929 - Integrity Trust Company Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1929-32 - Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
- 1930 - Chateau-Thierry American Monument, Aisne, France
- 1930-32 - Henry Avenue Bridge over Wissahickon Creek, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1931-32 - Connecticut Avenue Bridge over Klingle Valley, Washington, D.C.
- 1933 - United States Courthouse, consulting architect, Fort Worth, Texas
- 1933-34 - Central Heating Plant, Washington, D.C.
- 1935 - Duke Ellington Bridge, Washington, D.C.
- 1935-37 - Eccles Building, Washington, D.C.
- 1936 - Fair Park Texas Centennial Buildings at the Texas Centennial Exposition, consulting architect, Dallas, Texas
- 1936-39 - Texas Memorial Museum, consulting architect, Austin, Texas
- 1937 - Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial, Waregem, Belgium (with Jacques Gréber)
- 1938 - Eternal Light Peace Memorial, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lee Lawrie, sculptor
- 1939-44 - National Naval Medical Center, Buildings 1 and 17, consulting architect, Bethesda, Maryland
Gallery
References
- ^ White, Theo B., editor, John F Harbeson, forward, Paul Philippe Cret: Author and Teacher, The Art Alliance Press, Philadelphia PA 1973 p 21
- ^ Scott, Pamela and Antoinette J. Lee, Buildings of the District of Columbia, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991 p 208
- ^ Johnston, Bob, and Welsh, Joe, with Schafer, Mike (2001). The art of the streamliner. Metro Books, New York, NY. ISBN 1-58663-146-2.
- ^ Wilson, Richard Guy, The AIA Gold Medal, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1984 p 162
- ^ Nishiura, Elizabeth, editor, American Battle Monuments: A Guide to Military Cemeteries and Monuments Maintained By the American Battle Monuments Commission, Omnigrap p 22, 49, 50, 82
- ^ http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/NR/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=419&FROM=NRMapMO.html
External links
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