There are going to be loose ends - Part 2

This is Part Two of a two-part blog. Click HERE to read Part One.

Attempting to attribute the design of a structure to an architect with no building citation from its time of construction can be a difficult endeavor. Even with substantial corroborating evidence, there is always a hint of doubt. An excellent example of ongoing research where I have been trying to identify the architect of a home is the William Flinn Residence. 

William Flinn Residence, Pittsburgh, PA, ca 1896. Image from Utica Heater Company advertisement published in Architectural Forum, November, 1921.

While compiling research on Silsbee's work in the Pittsburgh parks, I came across an image of a home of one of the men involved in park construction, William Flinn. I had seen the home before but the previous image I had didn't capture my interest the way that this one, in an advertisement for an upstate New York heater company, did.

Flinn was an interesting character. He was a senator and a contractor and along with Christopher Magee, he was a political boss in Pittsburgh. Magee was the cousin of the Director of Public Works, Edward Bigelow and eventual benefactor of the Pittsburgh Zoo. Flinn made donations to that same venture. Both Flinn and Magee also held ownership of all the streetcars in Pittsburgh. In 1896, at the same time the zoo was being planned, Flinn built a palatial Classical Revival home for his family at the entry to Highland Park.

View of entry to Highland Park from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection held by the Library of Congress. The Flinn home can be seen to the right of the large entry gateway to the park.

Flinn's choice of location for his home may seem like an aesthetically fortunate one; situating his grand estate adjacent to a beautiful park setting. It was also a shrewd business move. Flinn had amassed a large amount of land along Highland Avenue. Beginning in 1895, Pittsburgh undertook an unprecedented expenditure of funds to improve its two major parks, Schenley Park and Highland Park. Chicago architect, J. L. Silsbee, was hired to provide a master plan including new bridges, entrance gateways, refectories, boathouse, observatory and a zoo. Highland Park was chosen to have the parks most popular attraction, the Highland Park Zoo. The primary means for residents to reach the park was by the street cars and by the main thoroughfare approaching the park, Highland Avenue. As such, a large amount of money for public improvements was spent on this street and on the park entrance. Flinn took advantage of this opportunity. Is it also possible that Flinn was so impressed with Silsbee's proposed architecture for the parks that he hired him to design a home near one of the main park entrances?

William Flinn's Residence (upper left) compared with other Silsbee-designed structures including the West Virginia Building at the World's Columbian Exposition (upper right), the William Hammond Residence (lower left) and the John Fyffe Residence (lower right).

Physical evidence that Silsbee was involved with the design for Flinn seems very strong, particularly when compared with other Silsbee structures designed in the same Classical Revival style. The planning of Flinn's home with a strict symmetry and extensive verandas bears a remarkable resemblance to the West Virginia Building that Silsbee designed four years earlier for the World's Columbian Exposition. This same planning method was used on a more modest scale in Silsbee's plan for John Fyffe's home, built that same year. The corner pilasters on the Flinn home mimic those on the West Virginia Building and on the William Hammond Residence.

Image of Residence of William Flinn from the American Contractor, March 7, 1908, A. M. Sillsby, architect.

One piece of evidence that confuses my search for an architect of Flinn's home is the first image I ever saw of it. Years ago, friend and historian Martin Wachadlo forwarded me an image from the American Contractor. Always on the lookout for interesting research finds, Martin came across an image of a home by an architect named "A. M. Sillsby" of Chicago. I had it in a file and didn't think much of it until I came across new images of Flinn's home year's later. I decided to dig a bit more and discovered a problem: there never was an A. M. Sillsby of Chicago. Actually, subsequent research fails to find an A. M. Sillsby, architect in any city. The only architect with a similar name in Chicago is J. L. Silsbee. Is this a bad misspelling or is there an "A. M. Sillsby" out there that has not been discovered?

A final coincidence that seems to point back to Joseph Silsbee as architect for Flinn's home is a commission that Silsbee receives in 1905. That year he is hired by Flinn's brother in law, George Darr, to design a home at Belle Haven, an exclusive residential section along the Long Island Sound, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Darr's home, a large Georgian estate, was nothing like Flinn's but given the time of its construction and its location, this isn't a surprise.

George Darr Residnece, Greenwich, Connecticut (1905), J. L. Silsbee, architect.

From the numerous newspaper articles that have come to light, it is clear that Silsbee did much more work in the city of Pittsburgh than a zoo building. His earliest works were unrealized proposals for Phipp's Conservatory in 1892 and he continued a relationship with key individuals in that city up to his work on the Pittsburgh zoo, completed in 1898. Given this fact and the circumstances surrounding the interpersonal connections between Silsbee clients and Flinn, it is highly plausible that he was involved with the design of Flinn's home.

This is part Two of a Two-part blog. Click HERE for Part One.

    

Garfield Park Power House

Nestled along the railroad tracks, in the northwest corner of Garfield Park stands the second of three projects that Joseph Silsbee designed for the park in 1896. The plant was designed to house dynamo generators that would power lighting for Garfield and Douglas Parks. It is a huge Flemish Revival structure that is approximately 150 feet long and 60 feet wide. It is made of buff-colored brick with stone trim. Gables are crowned with finely carved stone that records the year the structure was built. Similar elements once crowned the side dormers as well. It was topped with a clay tile roof.    

The original steel chimney stood 164 feet high and was carefully placed at the corner of the building. This structure hasn't fared much better than Silsbee's other masterpiece in Garfield Park, the Garfield Park Bandstand. The current chimney and an additional tower now conceal much of the southwest corner of the building. The setting of the building has also been compromised as its park-like landscaping was replaced with a sea of asphalt. One story additions around the structure further detract from its original picturesque appearance.    

J. L. Silsbee had a distinguished career in the design of utilitarian structures for industrial and railroad uses. Since his structures for Solvay Process and other steel and chemical companies are all demolished, this power house may be the only structure that survives for this type of use. It is a testament to his creativity and evidence of how these structures could be given the same artful attention as the finest homes that he designed.



Garfield Park Bandstand

In the finest buildings designed at the turn of the century, the creativity of a designer and expertise of craftsmen is apparent when a wide variety of materials and forms come together in a singular structure.  When the Garfield Park Bandstand opened for weekly concerts in 1897, it drew great attention in part because of the popular music and bands that played under its dome but more so for the structure's graceful appearance and visual symphony of materials and decoration. There are few buildings that remain that showcase J. L. Silsbee's design skill the way that the Garfield Park Bandstand does.  

The bandstand sits in the southern portion of Garfield Park and is a large four-sided structure set on a grand landscaped terrace in the park. The corners of the structure each have an octagonal "bay" that form an irregular shaped pedestal from which band members perform.  This platform was designed to seat 100 musicians. 

      

Above the band platform is a massive dome held up by large octagonal columns resting over each octagonal bay.  The entire structure is clad in white marble from the Georgia Marble Company and the dome is clad in highly carved copper roofing.  The overall appearance and decorative motifs used in the structure have a combination of Classical, Moorish and South Asian influences.  The overall building form and array or ornament and materials are extremely exotic and show a high level of sophistication in design and craftsmanship.         

The massive octagonal roof is composed of copper sheathing with heavier copper elements used for ornament at the crown and as an ornamental band that runs around the base of the dome.  The platform of the bandstand extends beyond the dome above at the four corners.  Above each open part of the platform, a small pediment with a pointed arch adds additional detail.  The roof work was completed by the Frank Voigtmann Cornice Company of Chicago.  The copper ornament is an intricate pattern of intertwining curvilinear forms.         

Another remarkable feature of the structure is the use of mosaics. Contemporary accounts of the structure indicate that this was the earliest use of exterior mosaics on a permanent structure in Chicago.  If it wasn't the first, it was likely the most extensive Chicago had seen on the outside of a building.  Colored glass and tile mosaics are used on the interior of the dome, as a decorative band in panels around the bandstand baluster and at the tympanum above the entry doorways. It also once framed the doorways and windows but this mosaic work has been removed. This work was completed by John Carretti & Company, a tile and terrazzo company that is still in operation in Chicago today. Silsbee would extensively feature glass mosaics in his work, several years later, while designing a memorial chapel for a good friend.    

The glass mosaics continue the ornamental themes that are seen elsewhere in the building, with curvilinear and geometric forms that borrow from a variety of Eastern influences. The decorative panels feature depictions of lotus, orchids and other exotic flowers.  

It is important to note that the bandstand was not a singular structure randomly placed in an open area. It was part of an elaborate plan to develop Garfield Park south of Madison Avenue. Joseph Silsbee was intimately involved with the planning of the area and designed several structures and landscape features as part of the effort. The area around the bandstand, known as the Music Court, is a series of circular forms radiating out from the bandstand itself. At the base of the bandstand is a grass terrace with a white marble wall with small fountains on each of the building's four sides. This "water terrace" was designed to be in harmony with the bandstand.  The fountains were intended as drinking fountains and featured bronze dolphin spouts.     

Below the fountains was another terrace that was approximately fifteen feet wide. This was surrounded by a low curved retaining wall.  The wall and a series of piers that went around it, were clad with the same white marble as the rest of the structure.  Bronze finials capped these piers and custom-designed bronze chains were strung from pier to pier. Beyond this terrace was an open circular road or concourse that surrounded the structure and was used for seating and viewing. 

Electric light was another critical part of the building's design. At the base of the dome, lighting with small glass globes was recessed into the mosaic work. These have since been filled in.  At the top of the dome, on the underside, was a hand-wrought copper fixture with an opalescent globe that measured over two feet in diameter. The electric work was provided by the McFell Electric Company of Chicago. Custom lighting was designed for the surrounding grounds as well.  Large lightoliers, each topped with five opalescent globe lights, flanked the entryway at each staircase leading to the terrace.  The same fixtures were also arranged in a ring around the structure on the outside of the court.  The same bronze was used for the for this lighting as was used for the pier finials and chains, and fountain spouts.   

The Garfield Park Bandstand sits vacant and has no events programmed for it. It has been stripped of all of its bronze ornament and the landscape immediately surrounding it has been significantly altered. Once a site where over ten thousand would come to view a concert on a week night, it is now the site of loitering and various illegal activities. At the time of construction, no other park structure displayed such opulence in design and craftsmanship.  The Garfield Park Bandstand could easily have been considered the crown jewel in Chicago's remarkable West Park System. Today, Silsbee's legacy in Garfield Park and in Chicago Parks in general is grossly under-stated and sadly, this former gem can easily be considered the shame of the Chicago Park District.