Julian Abele
Julian Francis Abele ( born April 30, 1881 in Philadelphia, † April 23, 1950 ) was an American architect. It was 1902, the first African-American graduate of today's University of Pennsylvania School of Design and over 30 years, until his death, chief designer at architect office of Horace Trumbauer ( 1868-1938 ) in Philadelphia. To him, the design of over 200 buildings is attributed, including the Widener Library at Harvard University, the main building of the Free Library of Philadelphia and parts of the West Campus of Duke University, including the Duke Chapel. He is considered one of the most important African-American architects of his time in the United States, whose power was but increasingly publicly acknowledged until after his death and the end of racial segregation.
Life
Youth and studies
Julian Francis Abele was born on April 30, 1881, the son of Charles and Mary Adelaide Jones Abele to the world. His mother was a milliner and descendant of African-American clergy Absalom Jones (1746-1818), his father was in the Customs House (U.S. Treasury Custom House ) employed. Julian was the eighth of eleven children. At twelve, he went to the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, which was also his aunt Julia Jones taught drawing and encouraged him to pursue a career as an architect. In 1897 he went with sixteen to the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and a year later he was admitted to the prestigious School of Architecture of the University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania School of Design). In 1902 he made the first African American with a degree in architecture and then attended a year, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Between 1903 and 1906 he traveled in Europe, among other things, he was in France and Italy. It is believed that he also attended the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts de Paris, but which, according to the records of the school can not be confirmed. Some drawings from this period are now in the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania.
Chief designer at Horace Trumbauer
Julian F. Abele by Horace Trumbauer in 1906 was hired as an architect in his architectural firm founded in 1890. He was assistant to the then chief designer Frank Seeburger and took over after he left the company in 1909, later its place; the exact year is disputed. Trumbauer had made in the Gilded Age through the construction of palatial estate for wealthy individuals a name, such as Grey Towers Castle for William Welsh Harrison or Lynnewood Hall for Peter AB Widener. Since no documents of the company have survived and all designs were provided at that time only the name of the architect's office, the exact attribution of works to Abele is difficult. Trumbauer, Abele and the architect William O. Frank were complementary to the effect as the main actors that Trumbauer was the driving force behind the company, Abele designed the building as chief designer that made Frank engineering technically feasible. Running as a community work is evident in the fact that in the architect's office to the weddings of up to 30 architects were employed. After the death of Trumbauer 1938 Abele took over the company with Frank and they brought this continued under the name The Office of Horace Trumbauer. Abele worked until his death in 1950 a total of 44 years for the architect's office.
Family
Julian F. Abele married on 6 June 1925, twenty years his junior French Marguerite Bulle. Marguerite had studied at the Paris Conservatory piano and organ and Julian, who spoke fluent French, had taken before the wedding with her piano lessons. They had three children, the first born son Julian F. Abele Jr. and daughters Marguerite Marie and Nadine; Marguerite Marie died at the age of five from measles. 1936 Marguerite separated by Julian and the children remained with the father; the marriage was never officially divorced.
Work
Abele designed for Trumbauer many estate and public buildings in the style of Beaux -Arts architecture, such as 1909, the New York home of James Buchanan Duke on Fifth Avenue (now the New York University Institute of Fine Arts ) or 1916 Whitemarsh Hall in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania for Edward T. Stotesbury, which was demolished in 1980. In 1913 he designed the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University, which was erected in memory of Harry Widener and opened in 1915. Significant contributions in Philadelphia delivered Abele for the Free Library (1917 ) and the Museum of Art ( 1919-1928 ). As a template for the current main building of the Free Library of Philadelphia ( Parkway Central Library) served Abele, the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris ( 1774) by Ange -Jacques Gabriel, whom he admired. The Philadelphia Museum of Art was built in collaboration by Horace Trumbauers company and Zantzinger, Borie & Medary and completed in 1928.
Widener Library in the opening year 1915.
Abele attributed to design the Free Library of Philadelphia ( Parkway Central Library).
Template for the Free Library was the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris ( 1774) by Ange -Jacques Gabriel.
Taken with the previous work of Horace Trumbauer, in particular from the Widener Library, dedicated James B. Duke, the company in 1924 for the expansion of Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina to Duke University and the associated construction of the new West Campus. This held in the Gothic Revival style building complex deal Abele over twenty years until his death. He designed, among other things, the Perkins Library ( 1926), Cameron Indoor Stadium (1939) and the Duke Chapel ( 1929). Designed by Abele Allen Administrative Building was erected in 1952 after his death. In the foyer since 1989, pays tribute to a portrait of the architect, the first an African American on the campus of the university, which abolished racial segregation until the early 1960s and blacks admitted to the study.
Duke Chapel, opened in 1935.
Cameron Indoor Stadium Duke University ( 1939).
Allen Administrative Building Duke University ( 1952).