Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians

Abstract

S OF PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS Boston, Massachusetts, January 30-February 2, 1969 LATROBE AND HIS FOLLOWERS Chairman: Paul F. Norton, University of Massachusetts LATROBE'S PROFESSIONALISM J. Meredith Neil, University of Hawaii It is generally agreed that Benjamin Henry Latrobe was one of the first professional architects to practice in the United States. Other than to note his persistent efforts to gain recognition for architects as professionals rather than mechanics, however, scholars have failed to explore the meaning or the significance of Latrobe's notions about the profession. The result, as may be seen in Hamlin's renowned biography, has been a failure to understand Latrobe as truly a man of his time and place. Latrobe's letters and journals reveal three basic contexts within which he felt called upon either to discuss his concept of the professional architect, or to elaborate matters that clearly expose his feelings on the subject. First, and probably most important, would be his letters to clients, associates, and students which concern questions of professional fees and prerogatives connected with designing and building particular structures. A variety of letters may be cited here. Secondly, Latrobe's insistent distinction between the professional and the gentleman amateur points up certain crucial aspects of his theory of the profession. A comparison ofJefferson's, Thornton's, and Latrobe's ideas about the design of the University of Virginia may serve to exemplify this second context. Finally, Latrobe's opinions on city planning, especially as related to New Castle, Delaware, and Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, round out our understanding of what being a professional meant to Latrobe. We must conclude that Latrobe's professionalism, like Jefferson's theory of democracy, and Charles Willson Peale's ideal of a patriotic scientific museum, is distinctly early nineteenth-century American in flavor. Latrobe's not-quite-moder view of the architect surprisingly corresponds to the Jeffersonian democracy that still smacks of colonial deference, and with Peale's theory of public institutions insufficiently emancipated from a shallow rationalism and optimism. Latrobe wished the professional American architect to be paid at least as well as the commission merchant, in due recognition of his long training, rare talents, and high overhead costs. At the same time, Latrobe expected the architect to act like, and to have the status of an eighteenth-century gentleman rather than a mere carpenter. The former emphasis on expertise and economic realism proved to be at least occasionally incompatible with the later notions of gentlemanly humanism and noblesse oblige. Thus, Latrobe proudly contributed his services to all churches, including the Baltimore Cathedral, which accorded well with a gentlemanly graciousness, but could scarcely be thought of as a way to maintain a modern practice. Similarly, Labrobe's frequent reliance on European precedent while conceding that American conditions were laudably different, just as surely as Jefferson's and Peale's ambivalent attitudes towards Europe, represented a stage in American thought distinctive of the first generation of national independ-