The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich

The firm of Delano & Aldrich occupied a central place in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, substantially shaping the architectural climate of the period.

The grand country estates, striking townhouses and club buildings, churches, schools, and public buildings designed by William Adams Delano (1874–1960) and Chester Holmes Aldrich (1871–1940) are exceptional examples of architectural creativity and originality.

Illustrated with stunning color photographs taken expressly for the book and many historic photographs, plans, and drawings reproduced in rich duotone, The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich is the first book to give an account of the architects’ backgrounds and beginnings and the scope of their practice, setting the firm’s work within the social and architectural context of the day. It examines twenty particularly exemplary projects, showing how the architects tempered the purely functional aesthetic, inherent in a modernist approach, with the artistic aesthetic of traditional classical architecture. Early commissions of large country and city houses and clubs as well as the larger government and civic buildings of the post-Depression years, increasingly modern and stylized, reflect their underlying dedication to a classical architectural language and the great fluidity and breadth of their work. Among the featured projects are the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, Maryland), High Lawn (Lenox, Massachusetts), Oheka (Cold Spring Harbor, New York), the Knickerbocker and Union Clubs (New York City), Peterloon (Indian Hill, Ohio), the U.S. Post Office Department Building (Washington, D.C.), the American Government Building (Paris), Sterling Divinity School, Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), and the New York Municipal Airport, La Guardia Field (New York City).

A catalogue raisonné, employee roster, and list of buildings now serving as museums are also included, making The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich the definitive source about a practice whose work forms a lasting part of the American landscape. 45 color, 150 b&w illustrations