a Saturday morning lecture

So on Saturday morning I got up to go to a lecture on the career of two architects from the turn of the century to the last days before the 29 crash, Carrère and Hastings.

here is the blurb from the museum where I went for the lecture-

The lecturer was a wonderfully knowledgeable and witty woman who had vast amounts of information about these two gentlemen- giants of their era. Most famous for the NY Public Library (where were they when the monstrosity that is the Chicago Public Library was being designed?) the two collaborated on many other famous works including the Ponce de Leon hotel in St Augustine and the Flagler Home in Palm Beach and many "country" homes of the uber-rich of the era in Newport and Long Island and other east coast venues. And one of our favorite museums - the Frick was their design...

here is the wikipedia entry for them

Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère (November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 23, 1929), was one of the outstanding Beaux-Arts architecture firms in the United States. It was located in New York City. The partnership operated from 1885 until 1911, when Carrère was killed in an automobile accident. Thomas Hastings continued on his own, using the same firm name, until his death in 1929.

Both men studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and worked at the firm of McKim, Mead, and White before they established their firm in the same building. The partnership's first success was the Ponce de León Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, which they designed for Henry Flagler. They went on to establish a successful practice during the 1880s and early 1890s, and rose to national prominence by winning the competition for the New York Public Library in 1897. The firm designed commercial buildings, elaborate residences, and prominent public buildings in New York, Washington and as far afield as Toronto, London, Paris, Rome, and Havana.

now the facility of Flagler College - we toured the Ponce de Leon hotel a couple of years back- here is my photo group-

here are some of the works she presented to us this morning - 

• Ponce de León Hotel, St. Augustine, Florida, 1885–87, now part of Flagler College
• Cairnwood Mansion, Bryn Athyn College, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1895
• New York Public Library, New York City, 1897–1911
• Burrwood, one of the Gold Coast Mansions on Long Island, New York, 1898–1899 (razed)
• Vernon Court, Newport, Rhode Island, 1898
• Blairsden, C. Ledyard Blair house, Peapack, New Jersey, 1898–1903
• Bellefontaine, Giraud Foster house, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1899
• Henry Flagler's Whitehall, Palm Beach, Florida, 1900–1901
• Knole, Herman B. Duryea house, Westbury, New York, 1903
• Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1903–1908
• Arden, E.H. Harriman house, Harriman, New York, 1905–09
• Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1908
• Bagatelle, Thomas Hastings house, Old Westbury, New York, 1908
• Nemours, Alfred I. DuPont house, Wilmington, Delaware, 1909–10
• Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, 1910
• W. B. Thompson Mansion, Yonkers, New York, 1912
• Henry Clay Frick House, now housing the Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York City, 1913–1914
• Grand Army Plaza (Manhattan), NYC, 1916
• Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, Washington, D.C., 1920

A very interesting lecture that literally packed the Historic Asolo theater- really worth getting up for!

avant garde

so on Saturday I went to see the performance at the Historic Asolo Theater of ETHEL called "Documerica".

First- here is the theater as I was awaiting the start of this unusual performance by the string quartet ETHEL...

the view from the stage (remaining photos taken from the program for the performance)

and here is some information about the performance-

cover of the Series program guide- with Julian Sands in upper left and ETHEL in the lower right-
(for the review of the Julian Sands show see http://semifreelife.blogspot.com/2015/02/just-plain-brilliant.html )

so I won't spend a ton of time on the review- it is mixed- several of the pieces were fabulous and a couple were grating to my ears. the younger members of the audience were very enthusiastic in their response to the show. And - there were younger audience members - which is sometimes not the case in this area of wealthy seniors...LOL Phil told me that the median income and age for Long Boat Key (where we do not live) is 290K and 68 and 99% white (so now you know why we don't live there- LOL) but this is a common demographic of the theater goers in the area ... (source for the data is Wikipedia)

so - while I really enjoyed the photographic part of Documerica (in some respects a tour of my youth) I was less enamoured by the music- great concept though to combine visuals with the sounds--- overall, glad I went also glad Phil did not- so not his style... and then we were up the next day for the big reunion! (stay tuned)