The YWCA in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, has occupied the former Birmingham Athletic Club (1925)1 since 1948.2 This fine vintage sign, sans its original neon, hangs on the building’s southwest corner (3rd Avenue North and 23rd Street North) and appears to date from that time.
The 8-story Equitable Building was Atlanta’s first “skyscraper” when it opened in 1892. Built by Joel Hurt’s East Atlanta Land Company — a major client of G.L. Norrman‘s at the time — the Equitable wasn’t designed by Norrman but by John Wellborn Root of Burnham & Root2 in Chicago, one of the leading American architects of the era and a Georgia native.
Riding high on his own commercial and creative success of the early 1890s, Norrman was one of the Equitable Building’s original tenants3 and had perhaps the best view in Atlanta with a top-floor studio that spanned multiple suites,4 described as “brilliantly lighted, opening eastward”.5
On December 17, 1892, Norrman was profiled as part of an Atlanta Journal article about the building’s occupants, appropriately titled “The Equitable”.
The profile, published below, provides a few previously undisclosed details about Norrman’s early life, primarily regarding his education in Sweden and his international travels. It also indicates that Norrman emigrated to the United States in 1874, which he confirmed in the 1900 census,6 although in his 1897 passport application, he claimed to have entered the country in the fall of 1872.7
Norrman’s reluctance to reveal his age is also pointedly mentioned, and it seems he was self-conscious about the subject — in both the 1880 and 1900 censuses, Norrman reported himself as 2 years younger than his actual age.8 9 Given the fudging on his passport application, perhaps he just liked being mischievous with dates.
The article’s emphasis on his training is also notable, as Norrman was the only Atlanta architect at the time who had any formal education. The city’s other architects were all either self-taught or trained under other designers, and the difference is apparent when you compare their often crude vernacular creations to Norrman’s more sophisticated designs.
The profile has several minor errors, including misspelling Norrman’s name (3 times), erroneously stating that he came to Atlanta in 1882 (it was 188110), and referring to his first partnership as “Weed & Normann”, although it was Norrman & Weed.
The sketch also mentions the “Charlotte Hotel, Charlotte, N.C.”, although I’m not aware of any hotel designed by Norrman in that city. The name likely refers to Norrman’s design for the Hotel Carrolina (1891) in Durham, North Carolina, or it could also refer to the City Hall (1893) in Charlotte, then under construction.
Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, others have bachelorhood thrust upon them.
Now, the gentleman who occupies 829 on the eighth floor of the Equitable building is not only the architect of his own fortunes but the fortunes of a vast many others.
He is a lover of the beautiful, but has never been able to satisfy himself as to which style of architecture he would prefer in a wife.
In Southern Sweden his honest eyes first saw the light. He elected to be a designer and architect.
He finished his regular educational course in the finest school of Stockholm.
Then he made a tour of southern Europe and spent a time in Great Britain, studying all the different styles of architecture and the technique of different designers, from the age of sixteen until he proved himself one of the best draftsmen and one of the most ardent lovers of artistic architecture. He then spent a time in South America.
He has been at work for twenty-five years—eighteen in America—but he refuses, or rather, declines to make his age known because of the fact that he is still a bachelor of marriageable age and still hopes to meet with a companion of the opposite sex who would be willing to share his lot in a cottage of his own.
After coming to this country eighteen years ago this gentleman served as a draughtsman under various architects. He came to Atlanta in 1882 [sic], and was with his partner, Mr. Weed, under the firm name of Weed & Normann [sic], one of the architects of the Cotton Exposition buildings.
Of course you know who he is now—Mr. G.L. Normann [sic], whose splendid work as a finished architect is of national repute.
Among his finest tasks are some of the buildings that are monuments in Atlanta as well as other southern cities. He designed the Gate City bank building, the Piedmont exposition buildings, the beautiful Hebrew Orphan’s home, the elegant Hirsch building, the Edgewood school building, many of the handsome business houses and dwellings on Peachtree street and Edgewood avenue, and is now engaged on the new Bell Telephone building which will be one of the handsomest in the city.
Then he has designed many elegant buildings otherwheres, including the Armstrong hotel, Rome, Ga.; the Printup house and many beautiful homes in Gadsden, Ala. The aristocratic Windsor hotel, Americus, Ga.; the court house at Waycross, Ga.; the Charlotte hotel, Charlotte, N.C. [sic]; the Sweetwater Park hotel at Lithia Springs and many others.
Mr. Norrman is not only thoroughly conversant with all that pertains to his profession, but he looks on his work with the eye of an artist.
“I prefer the classic,” he said to a reporter, “for libraries, school houses, courthouses and all buildings of an educational character, as most proper. For depots and hotels any style will do, but I prefer the Romanesque for depots and the renaissance for hotels and homes as being more homelike and less business like in appearance. Churches I like Romanesque because the growth of the church and that style of architecture are so closely identified.
The so-called ‘colonial style’ of the old southern mansions is rennaissance [sic] so far as the builders were able to carry that style in those olden days, and it has recently come again into popular favor because of the sentiment that clings about those honored halls.”
Mr. Normann [sic] is a most interesting talker, thoroughly conversant with and in love with his art, and one can fail to be interested in talking with him if he is a bachelor of uncertain age.”13
This is the third in a series of 5 articles on home decoration written by L.B. Wheeler (1854-1899), an architect who practiced in Atlanta from 1883 to 1891. The articles were published in The Atlanta Constitution in December 1885 and January 1886.
Here, Wheeler spoke in harsh terms of fickle fashionistas who fretted over building their homes in the latest style, imploring his readers to consider “the length of the period for which we expect to build, which shall, in all probability, be for the remainder of our lives”.
That advice would have fallen on deaf ears in 1880s Atlanta, where the nouveau riche changed houses like their soggy underwear (from the humidity, of course), hopping from one new residence to the next every few years, each one inevitably more overwrought and gaudy than the last.
Atlanta has always been a parade of bullshit and spectacle, and Wheeler could have only had the houses of Peachtree Street in mind when he spoke of “a museum in which we store all sorts of unnatural curiosities and uninteresting bric-a-brac…overloaded with superficial ornaments in strained and unnatural attitudes, posed with a smirk before the audience like a ballet dancer awaiting applause.”
Wheeler mourned for the “lack of character, simplicity, refinement…” and other timeless attributes missing in late 19th-century architecture, a sentiment echoed by other Atlanta architects of the era — notably, G.L. Norrman, who later shared his own acerbic remarks about the city’s homes, although Wheeler was even more caustic here.
The irony is that Wheeler proved himself quite willing to satiate the whims of Atlanta’s elite. Photographic evidence abounds of the many ostentatious residences of his design, a legacy continued by his protege, W.T. Downing, who spent years littering the city with garish mansions, most of them mercifully destroyed in the 20th century.
It was as true then as it is today: If you have to be wealthy, for God’s sake, develop a little taste to relieve us of your affliction.
By L.B. Wheeler, Architect of the New H.L. Kimball House.
December 27, 1885
The prevailing style of architecture and the probable length of its fashionable existence, is to those contemplating the building of a home, often a question of serious disturbance. If we will think for a moment of the length of the period for which we expect to build, which shall, in all probability, be for the remainder of our lives, it would seem that the folly of following the dictation of an unreasoning fashion, which is constantly changing, would be apparent. If you are sure the style of your house is sanctioned by judgment and reason, you need have no fear in violating fashion’s decrees.
There is a prevailing impression that an architectural style consists of a set of forms–a sort of architectural clothing–to be used as fancy dictates. But the forms of a style, apart from its principles, which are its soul and life, are no more a style than the wooden image in front of a cigar store is a man. Taste, climate, materials, social conditions, wealth and various other circumstances, have given rise, in different countries and at different periods of time, to certain methods and principles of design, the application of which, in the erection of the monuments and buildings of those countries and periods have created certain architectural forms, which have been systematized and called styles. The frequency with which we see buildings dressed in these various styles without any regard to applicability, scattered along our thoroughfares like a great international masquerade, in which, by the way, some of the costumes are very curious, shows there must either be very great differences in the climate, social conditions and the nature and duties of materials on adjoining lots, or else there is a lamentable state of education in regard to the fitness of things.
Have you ever realized the possibilities of beauty to which our modern streets are susceptible? The great picture galleries that might be made of them! What charming pictures of social and domestic life could be arranged along their sides!
In the pictures of the artist the hills and foliage, the green meadows and even the sky are of paint: in ours they may be living, breathing realities possessing thousands of beauties inimitable. With such materials, what ought we not to accomplish, and what have we done?
Instead of making of our cities living pictures, expressing refinement, purity and nobility, we make of them a museum in which we store all sorts of unnatural curiosities and uninteresting bric-a-brac. The great faults of our modern architecture are lack of character, simplicity, refinement, delicacy, tenderness, beauty, grandeur, picturesqueness, homeliness, and sentiments, the expression of some one of which has been the endeavor of every good work erected by man. The designer’s highest purpose seems to be the representation of prettiness, novelty, and the demonstration of wealth, and even in this he fails–without any perception of the laws governing composition of the artistic susceptibilities of the materials used. His attempts to impart prettiness result in fantastic buildings, overloaded with superficial ornaments in strained and unnatural attitudes, posed with a smirk before the audience like a ballet dancer awaiting applause. Novelty which could formerly have been obtained by designing something more absurd than ever had been done before, would have been quite in his line and easy of accomplishment. If the field had not been so well filled by his contemporaries, that now a thing to be novel must necessarily be good–something quite beyond his powers. To demonstrate the possession of wealth he loads his building with starring ornaments, breaks everything up and fills every blank space with an inappropriate ornament. His universal recipe for producing repose, breadth and refinement in his composition, attaches his building to a tower of much grandeur, and no use whatever, and completes a building which, if it were not too large, would make a very good toy savings bank–a nice one with a tower handle. The exterior of a building should be the simple and natural clothing of the interior, and should express its character and purpose above all things. Truth is essential and means the correspondence of the representation with the facts. There should be no shams about the building. Nothing is as vulgar as the imitation by a cheap material of one more valuable. It deceives no one and creates on discovery an impression similar to that produced by the use of paste diamonds and bogus jewelry. The humblest materials used honestly, in positions suited to their functions, may be made beautiful, and in certain places their services are indispensable. It is by the arrangement of the materials and not their value that a house is made attractive. You might build a house of gold with diamond windows which would be very ugly and perfectly useless.
There should be no unnecessary towers, dormers, gables, windows, or other features which, by their presence, imply that they are there for a practical purpose which they do not fulfill. Features used in this way are not ornaments; they are architectural lies. What would you think of a man who covered himself with glass eyes and wax roses to make himself beautiful? They would not be more ridiculous than are some of the excrescences which are put upon many of our buildings and not unlike them in effect. Some people are blind to beauty, as others are to color. It is a defect in their natures like the want of a musical ear. These with many others who from fear of criticism, thoughtlessness, indolence, ignorance, and a meek desire to follow, however distantly, in the footsteps of wealth, are guided in matters of taste almost exclusively by the dictates of fashion; and even in their devotion to so sordid a government they are often imposed upon, receiving some very bitter doses, sweetened with a few of the detail of a prevailing style which, to their unsophisticated palate, has the flavor of the genuine article. If the motives in which fashion has its origin and the sources from which it springs were thoroughly understood it would have numerous less worshipers than now. Nature’s fashions never change. The leaves of the trees come in spring with the summer winds and gay troops of young flowers and in the autumn put on their gorgeous mourning as they have ever done. It would puzzle the oldest inhabitant to remember a change in the fashion of man, still our fashions are changing constantly. It must be either because there is no beauty in them or we fail to discover or appreciate it. We should learn to understand beautiful things and love them for their inherent beauties and not bondage our likes and dislikes to popular fancy. There would be no objections to the edicts of fashion if they were good and right; but the fact that a thing to be fashionable must be sanctioned by the majority is when we think that on matters requiring special knowledge, the majority are never right, almost enough to condemn it without further evidence. Fashion is a common bait thrown by the tradesmen to allure the wary dollars from our pockets. What could be expected from such a motive? A high standard of merit endeavoring to elevate and purify the public taste? No. The fisher with such a bait would go hungry for dollars. He must throw something more palatable to the multitude. So he fits up something nice, new and bright, calls it the latest style and fills his basket with dollars. This latest style is a very popular bait. The later it is the better. “There are no old masters now.” In this advertising age of ours every lecture-play-musical composition and every product of the manufacturer is an improvement upon its predecessor, and he who waits for perfection “is like the rustic who waited for the river to run by.”5
This is the second in a series of 5 articles on home decoration written by L.B. Wheeler (1854-1899), an architect who practiced in Atlanta from 1883 to 1891. The articles were published in The Atlanta Constitution in December 1885 and January 1886.
Here, Wheeler charted the origin of residential halls to Anglo-Saxon living rooms and criticized their “modern offspring” of the 19th century: “long, narrow, uncomfortable stair choked strips of passage”, which he characterized as “depressing”.
His description of a well-arranged central hall with a fireplace, stairs, and seating surrounded by a cluster of smaller rooms was the “living hall” concept introduced by McKim, Mead & White of New York in the 1870s. A fine example is their stair hall from the Metcalfe House (pictured below), on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Having previously practiced in New York, Wheeler would have been very familiar with the living hall concept, as indicated by an 1882 illustration of a similar “staircase hall” he designed (pictured at top).
The concept was still quite new in Atlanta, however, likely introduced to the city by G.L. Norrman with his design for the Edward C. Peters House in 1883. By the end of the 1880s, pretty much every home of consequence in Atlanta had a large, fashionable hall as its nucleus.
In this article, Wheeler also took the opportunity to argue for the judicious use of stained glass windows, and admonished people who furnished their halls with uncomfortable seats for “errand boys and servants… suited to their condition in life…” Wheeler described such accommodations as “giving a stone when no bread was asked for…”
Spoken like a true New York radical.
By L.B. Wheeler, Architect of the Kimball House.
December 13, 1885
The germ of our modern hall probably found its origin in the hall or living room of the Anglo Saxon. This hall was a large room with wooden walls and earthen floor in which lived, dined and caroused lord, lady, guest and serf alike, and where at night they lay down upon their straw filled sacks to sleep, arranged according to their rank. The only decorations of this room were the variously dyed and figured cloths hung upon the walls and against which, when not required for purposes of war and pillage, were frequently hung the arms and armor of its occupants.
The only furniture besides the chairs, which were for the exclusive convenience of those high in rank, were the benches, in which during the day were stored the beds used at night. The fireplace was the center of the room and the fire of logs, around which the shivering occupants gathered as the winds rattled the osier shutters and the rain beat upon the thatched roof and clay covered walls, poured forth constantly its curling wreaths of smoke which lingered loitering among the guests before ascending to the roof and taking a final leave of the dried meats and other stores, as it passed out at the gables.
Although not what would now be considered habitable the old saxon hall had an air of homeliness and hospitality about it which is seldom possessed by its modern offspring.
The hall, like the host, should greet you hospitably. What is more depressing than an introduction into one of the long, narrow, uncomfortable stair choked strips of passage, with rooms arranged in a row on either side, which, through modern courtesy is sometimes called hall, and which, whatever its width, is but a passage still? A well arranged hall is a great source of ventilation and heat, it should be a bond uniting the rooms in a complete and harmonious suite. The rooms so connected may be made much smaller than would otherwise be necessary, could not their dimensions, when occasion requires, be increased by uniting one with the other.
Halls are frequently used as sitting and reception rooms and when the floors are of hardwood are very serviceable for dancing. The furniture usually consists of a table, chairs, umbrella stand and hat rack, etc., all of which should be suited to their purposes, and not used for show. If you have no use for a piece of furniture, you may feel perfectly safe in rejecting it. Furniture is not made like pictures and statuary, to be looked at, but for use.
Hall chairs and seats should be comfortable. The necessity for this caution was suggested upon hearing a dealer in furniture explaining to one of his customers who had objected to a hall seat because it was uncomfortable. That it was for the service of errand boys and servants to whom we should offer in courtesy while awaiting our convenience a seat and temporary shelter from the inclemency of the weather and that such a seat should be suited to their condition in life and did not need to be comfortable. What kindness, what rare courtesy, that offers to the unfortunate under the guise of hospitality, aesthetic uncomfortableness, this is giving a stone when no bread was asked for. All that is necessary to make furniture comfortable and useful is a little thought expended upon its design. The staircase should be broad and ample with spacious landings, having short and easy flights leading in agreeable directions to the stories above. Upon this general arrangement of the staircase depends its effect, be it either of elegance, grandeur or inviting hospitality and no amount of unnatural twisting or torturing of rail or balusters or ludicrous imitation of massiveness or lavish display of cheap ornamentation can rectify a mistake originally made in this respect. Swans are not hatched from goose eggs; nor do lace and ribbons make an ugly form beautiful, although lace and ribbons may in their place be very attractive ornaments. The hall should be well lighted, not necessarily by stained glass windows. Nature seen through transparent plate or even crystal sheet is sometimes nearly as beautiful as stained glass. That this is not generally comprehended, is to be judged from the frequency with which we see really beautiful, natural scenery blotted out with much care and great cost by the use of those crude and violent contrasts of color so abundantly produced by some of our manufacturers. Stained glass, like jewels, should be used very sparingly, and unless, as with a picture, it is genuine art work, it had better not be used at all.
Its effects are so powerful that they challenge attention before everything else and if on inspection they fail to support their pretentions to consideration, the impression is very disappointing and likely to mold our opinion in regard to the remainder of the room and its contents. Of course it is unnecessary to state that a piece of coloring, which must necessarily be so powerful as that of stained glass, if used in any quantity, must become the key or point of cumulation of any composition in which it may be placed and should be suited to its position. It is well to assure ourselves before accepting our own judgment on these matters that we are not color blind. Many persons, who little suspect it are deficient in their perception of color and to produce an impression on them it is necessary to use some very striking combinations. The delicate and harmonies of one of Tiffany’s masterpieces, would not be perceptible to them. The eye usually requires considerable education before it is able to distinguish and appreciate delicate, refined and subtle combinations of color. The selection of stained glass should be left to a competent artist. As to the story or sentiment expressed and its fitness for its place, we may possibly be judges, but unless we have some special knowledge we had better suspend further judgment. The small sketches displayed by the agents of manufacturers are commonly no indication of the finished work. They are often made by parties who have nothing what ever to do with their execution. Stained glass, like any other art work, requires in its execution the application of the artist’s own powers.
Where it is desired in the arrangement of a suite of rooms that each should produced its proper effect upon the beholder, it is of importance that the best should be reserved for the last. The proof of the wisdom of this course may be drawn from our own personal experience.
After eating honey, sugar seems less sweet. One picture will destroy the effect of another. The skillful tradesman shows his best goods last, and after the loud rolling of thunder, even the lion’s roar seems mild.
Many people get too much thunder in their halls. Their principal idea of artistic composition being to arrange everything so that the beholder will be perfectly overcome upon his entrance into the hall; the result being that the hall overpowers and destroys the effect of every other room in the house and leaves none of those pleasant little surprises, which in a carefully studied design unfold themselves gradually to the interest and delight of the beholder.
If possible, a hall should have a fireplace–a good, generous and serviceable one–and in a pleasant and suitable position; not one of the little, narrow, useless things caged and squeezed into some remote place or corner, simply because its species are fashionable. Hall, home and fireplaces seem to be inseparable. How the very names kindle the imagination and sets memory wandering among her long forgotten stores, awakening pleasant reminiscences of long ago. An old house, moss-covered and gray, a sweep or road suddenly appearing beneath the hoary maples, guarding the decrepit gate, and as suddenly disappearing at the foot of the hill, only to be seen again in sudden flashes from behind mounds of green meadow and red and white farms, as it passes on to mingle in the gray confusion of distant meadow, farm and forest. And with it and a part of all the wind, which, sweet with the odor of the new fallen hay, flows gently up the hill and over the tangled grass of the lawn, enclosing the old house in its tender robe or coolness, penetrating every crevice, stealing in at the windows, and whispering to the lilacs and gooseberry bushes as it passes away, rustling secrets of the old hall within.
The old hall with its quaint mahogany staircase peeping out from behind the figured curtains, and leading away into the unfathomable mystery of tottling childhood. The oaken-timbered ceiling grown dark with age. The wainscoted walls, the generous fireplace, with its andirons of brass always so bright, and which in the long winter evenings were so serviceable, retaining in place the blazing forelog. The high shelf above the fireplace, and its brass candelabra, awakening with their prismatic reflectors strange fancies in the mind of imaginative youth, and over all the hospitable red chimney, which on Christmas day poured forth far above the misty gray trees its curling wreaths of welcome.3
This is the first in a series of five articles on home decoration written by L.B. Wheeler (1854-1899), an architect who practiced in Atlanta from 1883 to 1891. The articles were published in The Atlanta Constitution in December 1885 and January 1886.
Here, Wheeler introduced the series and pontificated in a somewhat circuitous manner on the origins and meaning of taste, the fickle nature of fashion, and ill-proportioned rooms, among other things.
However, it appears his main objective for the article was to rant about that most contentious of topics: wallpaper. Wheeler offered choice words on the subject and invoked the name of William Morris, an influential British textile designer, to argue against the “cheap, flashy appearance” of gold in wallpaper.
It truly was the Gilded Age.
The First of a Series of Interesting Papers.
By L.B. Wheeler, Architect of the New H.I. Kimball House.
It seems to me that if a knowledge of the truths and principles, the observance of which are essential to the production of all good decorative to other art work, could become general, it would greatly raise the standard of excellence in those productions. It is my purpose, from time to time, to offer through The Constitution suggestions for thought upon the following subjects: Halls, fireplaces, yards and fences, convenience and arrangement of rooms, carpets, tapestries, bricabrac, furniture, style, fashion, etc. If any interest is thereby awakened in those subjects, and a desire for their further investigation created, my object will have been accomplished.
L.B. WHEELER
It is essential that the arrangement, decoration and furniture of a room should be suitable for its purposes. However beautiful a room or an object may be in itself, if it fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was intended, it is a failure.
It would seem that practical application of truth so plain must be universal, but when we look around us, we find chairs which are uncomfortable to sit upon; rooms without suitable places for furniture, fireplaces so arranged that the back of the shivering applicant for warmth, receives a constant draught; sitting rooms, where the colors should be quiet and unobtrusive, the walls, forming a harmonious background for the occupants, and for the objects of interest and beauty that accumulate in such a place, having walls covered with paper, ablaze with Dutch gold, glaring red and black, thus forcing itself upon our notice, to the exclusion of all that is truly beautiful, refined and modest in the room.
Gold is very seldom used in the best designed papers. It is not introduced by William Morris into more than half a dozen of all the beautiful papers designed by him, and in these in such a manner that you are scarcely conscious of its presence. Gold, when it becomes too conspicuous in a design, gives it a cheap, flashy appearance, very objectionable in most of the papers used in house decoration; the figure is so strong that it destroys the effect of whatever is brought into contact with it or relieved against it: the colors are too bright and too many, and they are seldom harmonious; the general effects obtained, unless large quantities of Dutch gold are used, being some dirty gray. The tones, with a few exceptions, are never good and positive. The patterns are still worse, made without any regard to fitness of effect or the nature of the materials and processes at command. Attempts are frequently made to imitate nature, where the representation of some vine, flower or leaf is attempted you will probably find most of the laws which govern the direction of growth in nature and ornament violated.
Where figure subjects are aspired to, the results compare very favorably with the chromo-lithographic work on the bills heralding the approach of traveling shows. With such material at command, without any knowledge training, study or experience, their only stock in trade being their supposed inheritance of what is called good taste; “something with which, by the way, every true American is abundantly provided, and in which his neighbor is sadly deficient” it is not surprising that so many fail in the attempt to make their homes attractive and beautiful.
Many persons have selected beautiful papers for the walls, a lovely pattern for the frieze, but somehow when they were sent home and put up, the effect was not just what was expected, in fact it was disappointing, and their attempt at decoration proved a failure. They have yet to learn that colors, forms and objects are of as much importance, and require as great skill in their introduction and arrangement in a room as they do in a picture. Very few would think themselves capable of creating a work of art or making a change for the better in an existing one, yet they would not hesitate to destroy the effect of a beautiful room by the introduction of some inharmonious object or color.
The contents of our homes are usually chosen because we like them, but when we think of the effect fashion has upon our likes and dislikes, that the thing we thought perfectly beautiful last year, is perfectly hideous this year, how our so-called good taste is constantly changing, it is simply a matter of different influences brought to bear upon an immature education.
When we think of this, would it not be wise to use a little more judgment and less taste in the selection of things of so much importance to our welfare and happiness as the furniture and decoration of our homes? A form or color that is beautiful once is beautiful forever.
Who ever tires of the masterpieces of art, Beethoven‘s symphonies, or the scenes and beauties of nature familiar from childhood? Rather does not the pleasure derived from these things increase with continued acquaintance? That some people are more susceptible to the influence of the beautiful than others, and that they acquire more readily, though, perhaps unconsciously, an education from the objects by which they are surrounded, is true, but the value of this education depends upon their opportunities for observation. The definition of taste, according to the common conception, is this:
Taste is an inherited faculty to judge of the right and wrong a thing, about which we know nothing. The reputation of having this faculty, is often very cheaply obtained. The frequent and persistent assertion of your opinion upon matters of art, a month’s trip to to Europe, the ability to copy a few flowers indifferently well with the assistance of a teacher, or the having been connected in some distant way with art, perhaps a dealer in art materials, giving one a clear title to judge of the masterpieces in architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry.
Among a few of the mistakes made by amatures [sic] is the common one of failing to pay proper regard to the proportions of a room. Owing to the almost universal custom of making the ceilings of our homes a uniform height, regardless of the dimensions of the rooms, it happens that very few rooms only are of agreeable proportions. As it is of the first importance to the effect of a room that its proportions should be pleasing, this opportunity should be taken to correct any errors originally made in this respect by a proper arrangement of the decorations.
If we look around us we shall find this very seldom done. Rooms already too small are made to appear still smaller, by using too large and strong a pattern upon the walls, and by the introduction of clumsy excrescences in the finish and furniture. Ceilings, which are too high, are made to look still higher, and when too low to appear still lower, and many other mistakes are made by the failure to use the numerous expedients available for correcting such faults in the arrangement of decorations.
The walls are often so light in color that objects hung upon or relieved against them have a spotty appearance, destroying all repose and breadth of effect. Sometimes the effect produced is gloomy and cheerless, owing to the absence of a principal light where the general tone is dark.
In selecting wall papers those patterns which are pronounced or peculiar should be avoided. When we go into our neighbors’ houses and find the walls covered with a novel and striking paper, we come away with the impression that the paper in Mrs. So-and-So’s house is beautiful. Our admiration is somewhat dampened when on the day following we find the same paper at another friend’s, and by the time we have seen it in several different houses, it affects us as being very commonplace. This feeling is in direct proportion to the power with which the paper first challenged our attention.
As manufacturers produce large quantities of each design, and frequently dispose of them to the same dealers, we take considerable risk in using those of a striking and novel design.
L.B. WHEELER8
A.C. Bruce (1835-1927) was a founding partner of Bruce & Morgan, the most prolific architectural firm in Atlanta and the Southeast in the late 19th century.
The son of a contractor,6 Bruce started a carpentry business in 1865,7 and in 1870, he moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he began billing himself as an architect.8
In 1879, he moved to Atlanta to partner with W.H. Parkins,9 Atlanta’s first professional architect, in the short-lived firm of Parkins & Bruce. Finally, in 1881, Bruce partnered with his longtime draughtsman, T.H. Morgan.10 11
One of only 5 architectural firms in Atlanta in 1881,12 Bruce & Morgan quickly established the largest and most successful practice in the Southeast, producing hundreds of government, commercial, and residential structures across every state in the region for the next 23 years.
The sheer volume and rapidity of their output ensured a certain consistency of design: their buildings were rarely great, but seldom terrible either.
Past historians postulated that Bruce primarily handled design duties while Morgan attended to business affairs. However, I’ve found ample evidence that Morgan also consistently designed projects, if not to the same extent as Bruce — at least in the firm’s early years.
By the time Bruce & Morgan began producing Atlanta’s first skyscraper office buildings in the late 1890s, Morgan had clearly become the lead designer,15 16 17 and when Bruce retired from the firm in 1904, Morgan partnered with John R. Dillon for the successor firm, Morgan & Dillon, which continued until 1935.18
Bruce’s initial retirement was brief, and from 190519 to 1908, he joined with A.F. N. Everett in the firm of Bruce & Everett,20 specializing in churches and school buildings, although he also continued to design homes and apartment houses.
Public buildings were always Bruce’s forte, however, and it’s no surprise that many of his residential projects look suspiciously similar to his designs for county courthouses.
While he never exceeded the limits of his vernacular training, Bruce was a competent designer who admirably attempted to evolve with changing tastes. The residue of his Italianate designs from the 1860s and 70s still appeared in his work from the 1880s into the early 20th century, but he made good-faith efforts at more sophisticated styles like the Romanesque and Classical Revival, if not always successfully.
Bruce rarely produced any writing of significance, and you’ll find nothing especially revelatory in this short letter published in The Southern Architect journal in February 1893. The journal, incidentally, was founded by T.H. Morgan in 1889.22
Here, Bruce shares a common lament among architects of the time, criticizing people who attempted to design their own homes instead of hiring a professional.
Since architects were the journal’s primary audience, Bruce was essentially preaching to the choir, and while it may have been more effective to share his sentiments in a public newspaper like The Atlanta Constitution, he was clearly a shrewd businessman who took pains to avoid offending potential clients.
Compared to another of Atlanta’s leading architects of the era, G.L. Norrman — whose tendency toward brash public outbursts made him a lightning rod for disputes (and undoubtedly affected his business) — Bruce & Morgan were skilled diplomats who rarely attracted controversy. Note that Bruce even discreetly signed the letter with his initials only: A.C.B.
There’s a reason he had the top firm.
The expression “I am my own architect,” is frequently used by men and women who are about to undertake the erection of a residence, either in the city or country.
People who are guilty of indulgence in this form of vanity may be divided into two classes. The first are those who, as they express it, draw their own plans and employ an architect only for the purpose of designing the elevations and other “unimportant” matters. They are frank enough to confess that, while they have large ideas, their ability as draughtsmen is not worth mentioning. They disdain to cultivate such mere mechanical skill.
The second class comprise those gifted individuals who are able to draw the entire set, which are handed over to the unfortunate builder securing the contract.
In reality the tragedy of the transaction does not fall upon the builder, whose life is made miserable during the work, but upon the neighbors and residents of the locality, before whose horror-stricken faces are constructed the hideous exteriors that result necessarily from the barbaric practice of the fine art. How much better would the building look if designed by a skillful architect in charge of the work?
A.C.B.23
