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.ÿþ164 architects to the nationResurgence of American ClassicismThe picturesque style had gripped the imagination of the Americanarchitect for nearly half a century, and the earlier interest in classicismhad been virtually eclipsed.Classical styles had not died out entirely,however, as witnessed by Alfred B.Mullett s heavily classical SanFrancisco Mint.Interest in classicism was also evident in the 1881 de-sign for the custom house and post office at Jackson, Mississippi, pro-duced under the administration of James G.Hill.By the 1880s, how-ever, picturesqueness had produced such an cacophony of towers,turrets, polychromatic images, and irregular massing that the urbanstreets looked untidy.Progressive architects looked elsewhere for anappropriate architectural style for the nation s industrial cities.Feeding this search for an alternative design spirit was the emer-gence of the United States as a world leader with an enlarged senseof national destiny.After a century, the nation stood ready to reap thebenefits of its industrial might.This consciousness of national unityspurred business leaders, as well as architects and artists, to look toEurope as the source for artistic traditions that might benefitAmerica s own search for a cultural legitimacy.The Old World provided the artistic prototypes and offered themost desirable educational institutions for aspiring architects andartists.A grand tour through Europe had been de rigeur for U.S.ar-chitects since the early nineteenth century.Now the École des BeauxArts and, to a lesser extent, other European schools beckoned toAmerican architects.Richard Morris Hunt is generally recognized asone of the first U.S.architects to study at the École.A steady streamof Americans followed in his footsteps.An education at the Écoleprovided an aspiring architect with a mastery of architectural historyand the architectural elements that were essential to each historicalstyle.In these studies, the classicism of the Roman, French, or Italianvariety dominated. Classicism possessed not only the required cul-tural connections, but it also had an academic heritage it was codified in books. 1 A European architectural education providedAmerican architects with new sources of design inspiration.Attendance at these European schools served as a common bond andprovided a sense of unity in outlook among the leaders in the pro-fession.One of the earliest buildings executed according to this new ar-chitectural spirit was the Villard House complex in New York City,designed by the New York firm of McKim, Mead & White and com- [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]