Hinckeldeyn, Vogel, and American Architecture

Abstract

THE WASMUTH VERLAG'S publication on Frank Lloyd Wright in 19io was not the first sign of German or even European curiosity about American architecture, but was another indication of America watching, which had begun about the time of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Several studies in recent years have made this point clear.' Reports of foreign commissions to the expositions of 1876 in Philadelphia and 1893 in Chicago were numerous. After 1882 articles on American developments appeared frequently in British journals and in the German and French after 1885. Cesar Daly's publishing firm in Paris issued two photographic studies, L'Architecture Amiricaine in 1886 and Villas Amiricaines in 1888. In 1895 Samuel Bing wrote the most thorough non-periodical study to that date, La Culture artistique en Amirique. The first German language interpretations were less impressive. Franz Lange, technical attach6 in the German Embassy at Washington, 1882-1884, published Eigenthiimlichkeiten im amerikanischen Bauwesen (Cologne, 1887), a superficial treatment, while in Switzerland, J. Meyer-Baeschlin and J. Lepori produced an equally disappointing study, Architektur, Baukonstruktionen und Baueinrichtung in nordamerikanischen Stiidten (Bern, 1894). There were, however, two serious German studies written before the Wasmuth tribute to Wright, Neubauten in Nordamerika