Adolf
Cluss (1825-1905) From Germany to America:
Shaping a Capital City Worthy of a Republic
--an
exhibition 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.
Charles
Sumner School Museum, Washington DC,
and Stadtarchiv Heilbronn,
September 2005 - February 2006
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.
 CHARLES
SUMNER SCHOOL DETAIL:
During a period when
most people did not own watches, the Sumner School's clock tower was an
important way for the neighborhood to keep track of time.
PROJECT
NEWS:
Exhibition Designers
 Since
January 2005, The Design Minds, an Alexandria, Virginia-based firm known
for its creative work, has been working to take the script written by
Laura Schiavo, our consulting curator, and turn it into a three-dimensional
exhibition for the Charles Sumner School Museum in Washington, DC. One
of the key recurring themes will be "What Does Democracy Look Like?,"
a question that Cluss, an immigrant from the failed German revolution
of 1848, surely asked himself when he arrived in Washington-and which
he proceeded to answer through his many model schools and other public
buildings in the capital of the American republic.
Councilmember
Jack Evans
In his recent letter
of support for the Cluss Project, Councilmember Jack Evans wrote:
Washington is a
city with a remarkable history and we think we know it-especially when
it has to do with life here in the historic Downtown that I represent!
So, I am always surprised when I discover whole new chapters in our
own history. Adolf Cluss and his influence on architecture, education,
and urban planning is such a case. Cluss was once a well-known name
in Washington, and he well deserves to be known widely again.
The Adolf Cluss
Exhibition, with its section on public schools and democracy, promises
to be a wonderful way to engage the public in both a historical and
a contemporary discussion about the nature of education and democratic
life. I look forward to the exhibition and to the public programs where
these themes will be front and center.
WHY
ADOLF CLUSS?
Mike Lesperance,
Aaron Smith, and Lonny Schwartz of The Design Minds, the Washington, DC
exhibition design firm
 One
of the most compelling and challenging things about Cluss from an exhibition
design standpoint is how to create an environment that both reflects Cluss's
life, times, and architecture while simultaneously making his story engaging
and meaningful to a contemporary audience. Fortunately for us as designers,
Cluss has left us with a considerable visual and architectural legacy
from which we can draw. This includes everything from his color palette,
buildings, and architectural details to his personal sketchbook showing
mosaics from Pompeii. In terms of telling a story in an exhibit, Cluss
is a compelling historical figure because his life helps us as Americans
understand the evolution of civic life and built form in our society.
Cluss was one of the first architects to grapple with the question of
what buildings should look like in a democratic society, and he certainly
won't be the last.
 For
those of us who live in and near Washington, D.C., it is often hard to
imagine the capital in its early phase, where muddy streets and poor sanitation
ruled. Through looking at Cluss and his role in D.C.'s development, we
have come to appreciate the challenges that early inhabitants had to overcome.
Cluss's story is really a story of an adolescent democracy: it is a story
of people both looking to Europe for inspiration and simultaneously imagining
something new. Knowing that Cluss played a major role in this development
is exciting. That only a few of his buildings remain is indeed puzzling.
Peer and Marcel
Friedel of CreativTeam, the Heilbronn, Germany exhibition designers
 The
concept: to create a special building for the exhibition about Adolf Cluss,
an architect of his times, a man responsible for structures that mark
the landscape of Washington, DC, and to place it here in a prominent location
in Heilbronn, where he was born. And also to present a characteristic
element of his work in America--Red Brick--in a huge form, as a symbol
of the exhibition of his 19th-century work.
That's what the "Cluss
Cube," the "Cluss-Kubus," will become: a unique way of
presenting Cluss's work in Washington to the people of Heilbronn and to
our visitors.
NEWS
FROM HEILBRONN:
The Adolf Cluss
Cube in Heilbronn
Construction starts
in on the "Cluss Cube" in just a few weeks (see the February
newsletter). After the exhibition closes, the building will be moved
and used as an exhibition center for the Fachhochschule Heilbronn,
the city's University of Applied Sciences.
Production Begins
on the CD Project
In mid-April, audio
producer Helmut Kopetzky will come to Heilbronn for recording sessions
for the German tracks of a CD of music and sounds evoking Cluss's life
and buildings in Heilbronn and Washington. Alex van Oss, producer of the
US side, is already at work in Washington on soundscapes that evoke Cluss's
buildings here in DC. The CD, with a working title of "Spaces, Music
and Sounds: Adolf Cluss and the 19th Century in Washington, DC and Heilbronn,
Germany," will be available this Fall. More news next month.
DOCENTS
NEEDED
The Cluss Project
seeks docents to provide tours from September 15, 2005, through February
28, 2006 at the Charles Sumner School Museum. Seeking volunteers with
an interest in Washington history, architecture, politics, German-American
history and immigration, historic engineering, and public education. Training
begins in May 2005. Contact Harriet Lesser, Cluss Exhibition Coordinator,
at harriet.lesser@comcast.net
or 202-442-6051.
LECTURE:
"BALTIMORE ARCHITECTS WHO WORKED IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY WASHINGTON"
Tues. April 26,
6-8 pm
Historical Society of Washington, D.C., 801 K St NW
202-383-1851, www.citymuseumdc.org
James T. Wollon,
Jr., AIA, a Baltimore architect who specializes in historic restorations,
is one of the leaders of the "Dead Architects Society," which
has led the effort to compile the histories of the founding members of
the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Mr. Wollon
will share information about his research on the work of 19th century
Baltimore architects in Washington. Light refreshments will be provided.
Cost: $8, members; $12, nonmembers.
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FEATURED
BUILDINGS:
THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY, AND OTHER MILITARY COMMISSIONS
This month we feature
military commissions designed by Adolf Cluss.
The Army Medical
Museum and Library
by Sabina Dugan, Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation,
Smithsonian Institution
 When
Congress appropriated a mere $200,000 in 1885 for the construction of
the Army Medical Museum and Library, the architects, Adolf Cluss and his
partner Paul Schulze, were forced to economize their plans. Cluss explained
in a letter to Colonel Thomas Casey (Commissioner of Public Buildings)
that inexpensive materials and construction methods would be required
to achieve "the solidity, sanitary condition and dignity due to a
public building erected upon a prominent Government reservation."
He proposed using terracotta rosettes to enliven the rather plain pressed-brick
facades. Cluss and Schulze designed a U-shaped building in the Romanesque
Revival style with arched windows along Independence Avenue and 7th Street,
NW to house the nation's medical library, pension records, and museum
of the Surgeon General's Office.
The second floor
formed the most imposing internal spaces, with a library in the west-wing
gallery and a large exhibit space in the east-wing gallery. These large
galleries had forty-seven foot high ceilings with exposed trusses and
monitor skylights. Since these spaces housed treasured objects, they were
constructed as fireproof compartments within the building; insufficient
funds prevented the architects from fireproofing the entire structure.
In the central core,
a large hall with iron columns connected the offices of the Record and
Pension Division of the War Department and the Surgeon General's Office.
The building also contained a post hospital, a dissecting room, photography
rooms and storage spaces. Anatomical and biological laboratories were
housed in a two-story annex on the Mall, connected to the main building
by a covered passage. Plans for a later extension along the Mall, redirecting
the main façade to the Mall, never materialized.
During the 1960s,
the Army Medical Museum and Library was listed on the National Register
of Historic Buildings, but nonetheless was demolished in 1968 to make
room for the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Image Credit: American
Architect and Building News, 1886
Other Military
Commissions
 While
employed at the Ordnance Department at the Washington Navy Yard during
the Civil War, Adolf Cluss drafted gun designs and constructed his first
building, the New Ordnance Foundry. His 1860 drawing of the foundry reveals
that the building not only housed the armory, but also contained a plant
for making modern high-power guns.
Military commissions
helped launch Adolf Cluss' architectural career. His construction of the
New Ordnance Foundry was followed by powder magazines for both the Navy
(at the Navy Yard) and the U.S. Arsenal at Fort Lesley J. McNair, both
completed in 1864.
Cluss completed another
military commission in 1869 when he remodeled the east and west wings
of the penitentiary at Fort Lesley J. McNair. The penitentiary grounds
had become famous as the place of the trial and execution of the alleged
conspirators involved in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. In 1867, most
of the penitentiary was demolished and Cluss was hired to remodel the
end sections of the building into officers' quarters. His east building,
altered during the 1940s, today remains extant, while his west building
was demolished in 1903.
Image Credit: Edward
Marolda, Washington Navy Yard, 1999
FRANKLIN
SCHOOL UPDATE
 Stanley
Jackson, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, announced
on March 10, 2005 that the Franklin School (at 13th and K streets NW)
will be re-developed by the District-based Western Development Corp. and
Jarvis Corp. as a boutique hotel. The building's 19th-century façade--including
a bust of Benjamin Franklin--is an eloquent expression of principles of
public education in post-Civil America. The exterior has been handsomely
restored, but the interior remains largely as it was when the building
was closed decades ago.
WALKING TOUR: HISTORIC SCHOOLS
Saturday, April
16, 1 pm
Departing from the Goethe-Institut, 812 Seventh St. NW
(Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown)
RSVP to 202-289-1200, ext. 510
At times, Washington
DC's educational system and its school buildings have been considered
models of excellence, innovation and foresight, and they can be again.
What is the history
of education in Washington? How are these historic structures being preserved?
What is their future? Stops will include the Webster School (formerly
the Americanization School), the Franklin School, and the Charles Sumner
School Museum and Archives. Architectural historian Tanya Beauchamp will
give a brief talk about preservation issues at the Franklin School (both
Franklin and Sumner were designed by German-American architect Adolf Cluss).
The tour will conclude with an opportunity to view the current exhibits
and the facilities at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives.
Led by Alice Stewart,
local historian. Tour is limited to 15 people, and involves considerable
walking.
Free of charge as
part a weekend of free walking tours during Cultural Tourism DC's WalkingTown,
DC.
Planning for the
exhibition, slated to open in Washington and Heilbronn, Germany, Cluss's
birthplace, in 2005, is a cooperative effort among many institutions in
Washington and Heilbronn, Germany.
Exhibition Contact:
Harriet Lesser, Exhibition Coordinator
c/o Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives
1201 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036-3009
harriet.lesser@comcast.net
Project Director:
Joseph L. Browne, Ph.D.
c/o Friends of the Goethe-Institut Washington
812 7th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001-3718
jbrow@fcc.net
About the exhibitions
in Germany and the USA:
www.adolf-cluss.org
About Adolf Cluss:
www.goethe.de/cluss
Cluss
Electronic Newsletters
SUPPORT
THE ADOLF CLUSS EXHIBITIONS AND RELATED PUBLIC EVENTS
"Friends of
the Goethe-Institut Washington" has set up a special account to receive
tax-deductible donations in support of the Adolf Cluss Project. A special
thank you to Neal Bien for his recent gift in memory of Richard Hurlbut,
preservationist and first director of the Charles Sumner School Museum
and Archives.
Send your check (payable
to "Friends of the Goethe-Institut Washington") to:
Friends of the Goethe-Institut
Washington
812 Seventh St, NW
Washington, DC 20001-3718
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