Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

Previous articleNext article FreeEditor’s IntroductionCatharine Dann RoeberCatharine Dann Roeber Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreArchitecture often sparks strong opinions. Who has not glanced at a residence or entered a museum and felt either admiration (“I love that house!”) or dislike (“That place is SO ugly!”)? The livelihood of architectural historians, journalists, and reviewers of the built environment has long rested on their ability to evaluate buildings for professional and avocational readers alike. One thing is certain, though, opinions about a building’s success vary widely and often relate to perceptions about whether it expresses an “original” idea in wood, stone, glass, metal, and other materials. But what is original? Can repurposed design elements or architectural fabric count as something new? Does critical acclaim or functional utility even matter if the built environment satisfies its patrons?Articles in this issue of Winterthur Portfolio discuss two buildings, a little-known private home and a well-known museum, and the varied responses to the structures’ mimetic attributes. Amy D. Finstein’s “A Gropius-Breuer House like Notable Others: Consumerism, Copying, and Connoisseurship in an Unsung Commission” and Sandra Tomc’s “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Venice Spectacle” highlight buildings that were, in their own ways, intentionally not “original” but rather demonstrated international design conversations in American settings. We see individuals ranging from a wealthy socialite to an up-and-coming doctor incorporating European references into their American buildings. By taking a closer look at these two projects and their patrons, the contexts for their creation, rather than value judgments such as original or derivative, take center stage.By highlighting the Abele House in Framingham, Massachusetts (1941), as an important material expression of midcentury consumer culture, Finstein counters critics’ and scholars’ dismissal of it as a not altogether successful mashup of famed architects’ Walter Gropius’s and Marcel Breuer’s own houses nearby. She argues that, for Abele, selecting elements from the architects’ previous projects and from other accessible references to the International style at the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair was the point. He could use his buying power to craft a version of a popular style and a status symbol for his family that made a modest design splash, if only on a local level.In contrast, Tomc suggests that dramatic impact, including Gardner’s staged greeting of her guests on the Music Room stairs during the museum’s opening, was part of her personal spectacle in Boston. This bit of Venice in Back Bay rested not only on architectural references to canals and palazzos but on installation of imported elements such as the balconied façades from the Ca’ d’Oro that set off the breathtaking beauty of the Gardner courtyard to this day. Tomc reads the Gardner Museum as a backdrop informed by romantic design ideas of Venice but also concealing the illicit origins of some of its priceless Venetian contents.In their close examination of these two spaces, Finstein and Tomc sharpen our understanding of different audiences’ varying reactions to these spaces. Abele’s “architectural quotation” failed to impress connoisseurs but provided pleasant memories for the Abele children while it introduced midcentury modern design into their neighborhood. Gardner created spectacle within a spectacle in her “architectural confection” that repurposed a sanitized Venice for tourists. The fact that Abele and Gardner chose not to create something entirely new uncovers realities about how Americans built personal visions of international design and consumed architecture in the early twentieth century.Whether you study architecture, objects, landscapes or other aspects of the material world, we encourage you to be in touch. We are continually seeking content from scholars at all stages in their careers and from folks within or outside of academia. We at Portfolio intend for our pages to provide a forum for rigorous discussion and thoughtful reconsideration of methodologies and practices related to material culture in the Americas, and we welcome manuscript submissions that engage with similarly essential and timely questions. We welcome conversations with any scholars and practitioners of material culture who are considering a submission. Please view our videos on submitting manuscripts and reviewing for the journal and contact managing editor Amy Earls ([email protected]) or visit https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/wp/instruct for more information. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Winterthur Portfolio Volume 56, Number 1Spring 2022 Published for the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723779 © 2022 The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.