NEWSLETTER NUMBER THREE

MARCH 2004

PROJECT NEWS

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.

Welcome to the second issue of the Cluss Exhibition electronic newsletter! 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.

TEAM CLUSS IN HEILBRONN

Thanks to support from the MARPAT Foundation and the City of Heilbronn, several members of Washington's Team Cluss visited Heilbronn in January, giving us a chance to meet with our German counterparts and examine firsthand many of the images and objects that can be used in the upcoming Exhibitions.

The Lord Mayor of Heilbronn, Helmut Himmelsbach, hosted a press conference that was attended by many reporters from Heilbronn and Stuttgart. Designer Barbara Charles, of Staples & Charles, the internationally known exhibition design firm, was part of the delegation. We also met with Ruben Gazarian and Peter Conzelmann of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra, which is planning special concerts in Washington, Baltimore, and Heilbronn as part of the Exhibition's public programming. Among our finds: spectacular water colors of 19th-century Heilbronn, including striking images of the town and the stone quarries controlled by the Cluss Family.

GERMAN RADIO FEATURE ON CLUSS TO BE REPEATED IN APRIL

"My Mug Wouldn't Fit Into a Muzzle"—German Rebels and America (from a Cluss quotation) was the title of a one-hour radio feature produced by Rainer Volk and broadcast in December 2003 on Bavarian Radio. Volk was in Washington last year to research the history of German political exiles in America. The resulting program includes ten minutes on Cluss's life and career and features fine interviews with two members of Team Cluss: Sabina Dugan of the Smithsonian and Barbara Franco, former executive director of the City Museum. The program will be repeated on Thursday, April 8 at 1:05 pm ET. You can hear this German-language program on the Internet through Deutschlandradio Berlin at www.dradio.de.

CLUSS'S PLANS FOR S.F. BAIRD HOUSE DISCOVERED

Rare original floor-plans and elevations by Adolf Cluss for a major Washington residence were recently discovered at the Library of Congress by Team Cluss members Harriet Lesser and Sabina Dugan. The residence, long since demolished, was built in 1878-1880 for Spencer Fullerton Baird, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1878 until his death in 1887. The residence was located at 1445 Massachusetts Avenue NW.

FEATURED BUILDINGS:
EASTERN AND CENTER MARKETS

Eastern Market has served Capitol Hill as a market and community center since its opening in 1873. Designed by Adolf Cluss, it opened November 12, 1873, with 80 stalls manned by vendors of meat, poultry, butter, vegetables and oysters. On opening day shoppers were serenaded by the Holly Hill Band.

Cluss's Eastern Market

Cluss also designed Center Market (now the site of the National Archives at 7th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue). He visited market buildings in other cities to investigate the latest developments in market buildings.

Cluss's Center Market, ca. 1920
Credit: Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library

Provisions for ventilation and natural lighting characterized the open-plan Eastern Market building. In response to its popularity, the city added two additional halls in 1908. You can experience the liveliness of Eastern Market by going to two complementary websites: www.easternmarketdc.com/ and www.easternmarket.net.

Inside Cluss's Eastern Market Today

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.

Members of "Team Cluss" include Project Director Joseph L. Browne plus Laura Schiavo and Harriet Lesser (City Museum), Christof Mauch (German Historical Institute), William Gilcher (Goethe-Institut Washington), Tanya Beauchamp (Independent Scholar), Cynthia Field and Sabina Dugan (Smithsonian Institution's Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation), Judy Capurso (Sumner School Museum and Archives), and Peter Wanner (Stadtarchiv Heilbronn).

Exhibition Contact:
Laura Schiavo
City Museum
801 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001-3746
lschiavo@citymuseumdc.org
(202) 383-1839

More about Cluss:
www.goethe.de/uk/was/
vtour/dc1/clussbio.htm

Cluss Electronic Newsletters

This project was made possible thanks to generous planning grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Humanities Council of Washington, DC and the MARPAT Foundation. A cooperative project of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, Goethe-Institut Washington, the Historical Society of Washington, DC, the National Building Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation and the Stadtarchiv Heilbronn.