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NEWSLETTER NUMBER TWENTY-SIX |
JULY 2010 |
| Adolf
Cluss (1825-1905), Architect: From Germany to America Shaping a Capital City Worthy of a Republic --a
project to enhance public understanding of the architect’s work in Washington
during the Gilded Age by interpreting the impact of Cluss’s revolutionary
roots and his social vision on the city’s architecture and life. PROJECT NEWS:Previously Unknown Cluss Buildings FoundIn the past year, researchers have discovered ten buildings designed by Adolf Cluss that were not previously known. One of the ten is still standing. A total of 89 buildings designed by Cluss, often working with partners, have now been identified.  Discovered in June 2010, the Metropolitan Hook and Ladder Company’s Fire Engine House is one of eleven buildings that Cluss designed that still stands, and the very first one of his buildings to be completed. Dedicated in February 1864, it is still standing at 438 Massachusetts Avenue NW. (Photo courtesy Wood Powell)Newspaper articles about eight previously unknown buildings have been discovered by John Richardson, who is working on a biography of Alexander R. Shepherd. Three of the buildings were commercial or combination commercial and residential establishments in Southwest Washington: the Joseph P. Herman Store and Residence (83), the Samuel Herman Stores and Residences (84), and the Wolford and Shilberg Store (85). Both Joseph and Samuel Herman emigrated about 1855 from Hesse-Darmstadt.   For the United States Coast Survey (86) Cluss planned four brick buildings on Capitol Hill between New Jersey Avenue and South Capitol Street SE in 1870-71. John Cloud of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration found copies of Cluss’s drawings of the Coast Survey complex in the NOAA Library (next two images). In 1872, the Board of Public Works ordered Cluss to design a Smallpox Hospital (87) at 1900 Massachusetts Avenue SE on the grounds of the Washington Asylum (more recently the site of the District of Columbia General Hospital). Richardson also discovered evidence of three residential buildings: The William F. Mattingly and Michael W. Beveridge Residences (88) (89), a duplex at 1616 and 1618 H Street NW; the John K. Wills Residences (90) (91), a duplex at 1013 and 1015 Fourteenth Street NW, and the General Noah L. Jeffries Residence (92), 1505 K Street NW. The Ladies Relief Society of St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church commissioned Cluss to design a residence for women “of reduced circumstance.” The St. Aloysius Church Industrial Home for Women (93) stood at the northeast corner of K and North Capitol Streets NE. In 1864, the City of Washington commissioned Cluss and Kammerhueber to design a two-story market building at Center Market, a brick structure facing Pennsylvania Avenue that would provide a link between two frame buildings that faced 7th and 9th streets. When the walls of the building were nearly complete, members of Congress forced the city to tear the building down, complaining that the city needed its permission to build on the federal reservation (where other city market buildings already existed). Five years later, Congress granted a charter to a private company to build a new Center Market (20) at the same location and they, too, hired Cluss. The 1864 Center Market building is the only Cluss structure known to have been razed before it was finished. All of the newly-discovered buildings were designed in the 1860s and early 1870s. More information about the numbered buildings can be found on the Cluss website. The buildings without numbers will be added to the website soon. Many thanks to Miriam Eberlein of the Stadtarchiv Heilbronn for her work in adding new information to the website about the Cluss buildings.
NEWS FROM HEILBRONN:
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NEWS FROM WASHINGTON:
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| To
join our mailing list and be kept informed about the progress of planning
for the exhibition, please send your name, address, and email address to
cluss@washington.goethe.org.
This
project is made possible thanks to generous support from the Transatlantic
Program of the Federal Republic of Germany, with funds from the European
Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor
(BMWA), the MARPAT Foundation, the Kiplinger Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Humanities Council of Washington, DC,
Edelman, Douglas Development Corporation, Wagner Roofing, Boston Properties,
CD Cartondruck, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Clark
Construction Group, LLC. |
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virtual tour through the city's history, a museum on the internet.
This presentation was created through the planning process for a new permanent exhibition in the building of the Stadtarchiv. Although the implementation phase was halted temporarily, the virtualization helped reach the aim of a new permanent exhibition which will open in July 2012.
Since Fall 2009, the Adolf Cluss Project has been involved in the debate in Washington about the future of the Historic Franklin School Building at 13th and K Streets NW. The District of Columbia government offered the building for long-term lease and development for commercial purposes, but no decision has been made about disposition of the building. The issuance of an RFP led to the creation of a loose-knit Coalition for Franklin School to explore and propose public, educational, and/or cultural uses for Franklin, which opened as a Model School in 1869. 
National Trust for Historic Preservation;