The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (BAID, later the National Institute for Architectural Education) was an art and architectural school at 304 East 44th Street in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, in New York City. [1] It was founded in 1916 by Lloyd Warren [2] [3] for the training of American architects, sculptors and mural painters consistent with the educational agenda of the French École des Beaux-Arts. [4] The building is now home to Egypt's mission to the United Nations.
BAID grew out of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, a formal club of American architects who had attended the Parisian school.
From its beginning in 1894, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects had been interested in improving architectural education in the U.S.. It took on the task of developing standard architectural "programmes" for design problems to be given as assignments in architecture schools and in independent ateliers. The intent was to raise performance standards, but the effect also was to standardize the way architecture was taught all across the United States. By 1900, most American architecture schools and many independent ateliers were participating. By 1916 the burden of providing problem statements and jurying the work from an increasing number of schools and ateliers exceeded the capacity of the Society, so it established BAID to carry on this work.
Among sculpture professionals, the foundation of BAID ensured a supply of competent decorative sculptors, and allowed the members of the National Sculpture Society to position themselves as fine artists in comparison.
The National Sculpture Society deeded over a building at 126 East 75th Street to the newly created BAID. [5] Courses began on September 18, 1916 in three departments. The architecture department was associated with a committee from the Society; the sculpture department with a committee from the National Sculpture Society; and the mural department with a committee from the Society of Mural Painters.
Architect Frederic Charles Hirons of Dennison & Hirons was central to the founding and running of the school. Hirons had attended the Paris school from 1904 through 1909; co-founded BAID in 1916; designed the BAID building in 1928 (won through a competition, in the manner of Beaux-Arts); and served as president of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects from 1937 through 1939.
Another founder was Lloyd Warren, the brother of Whitney Warren of Warren and Wetmore. [2] He was instrumental in getting top figures from the sculptural and architectural fields to teach at BAID, and serve on competition panels, for the sake of the profession.
In 1927 the first winner of the annual Whitney Warren architectural competition was Carl Conrad Franz Kressbach, a student at the Graduate School of Architecture at Harvard University (graduate of University of Michigan). His design "An airport for a large city" drew interest among persons concerned with the future of commercial aviation, it depicted a scheme for dispatching and receiving commercial planes. [6]
In 1956 the Institute changed its name to the National Institute for Architectural Education, reflecting a change of focus away from European traditions. In 1995 it was again renamed the Van Alen Institute. [7]
BAID architectural competitions were published across the country, administered through university architecture schools or independent studios, and the entries all graded by jury at once. The highest number of entries received was in the 1929–1930 year, when 9500 entries came into New York City for judging.
BAID also had on-site instruction and classrooms, with large sculpture studios open long hours and into the evenings for the convenience of working students and part-time teachers.
The school tended to be populated by students who were either immigrants or first-generation Americans. They often came from working-class backgrounds, and their training was towards getting a union job in the building trades, rather than becoming a fine arts sculptor. Many of these students also attended the Art Students League of New York.
Lee Oscar Lawrie was an American architectural sculptor and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawrie's style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts, Classicism, and, finally, into Moderne or Art Deco.
Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art academies in protest of limited creative autonomy, Parsons is one of the oldest schools of art and design in New York.
Beaux-Arts architecture was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporated Renaissance and Baroque elements, and used modern materials, such as iron and glass. It was an important style in France until the end of the 19th century.
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who oversaw the engineering and design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., built between 1915 and 1922, which was his final project before his 1924 death.
Rene Paul Chambellan was an American sculptor who specialized in architectural sculpture. He was also one of the foremost practitioners of what was then called the "French Modern Style" and has subsequently been labeled Zig-Zag Moderne, or Art Deco. He also frequently designed in the Greco Deco style.
Alexander Stirling Calder was an American sculptor and teacher. He was the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and the father of sculptor Alexander (Sandy) Calder. His best-known works are George Washington as President on the Washington Square Arch in New York City, the Swann Memorial Fountain in Philadelphia, and the Leif Eriksson Memorial in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Victor Alexandre Frederic Laloux was a French Beaux-Arts architect and teacher.
Boston Architectural College is a private college in Boston. It is New England's largest private college of spatial design. The college's main building is at 320 Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.
Henry Hensche was an American painter and teacher.
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels is an art school established in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1711. Starting from modest beginnings in a single room in Brussels' Town Hall, it has since 1876 been operating from a former convent and orphanage in the Rue du Midi/Zuidstraat, which was converted by the architect Victor Jamaer. The school has played an important role in training important local artists.
Emmanuel Louis Masqueray (1861–1917) was a Franco-American preeminent figure in the history of American architecture, both as a gifted designer of landmark buildings and as an influential teacher of the profession of architecture dedicated to the principles of Beaux-Arts architecture.
Frederic Charles Hirons was an American architect, based in New York City, who designed the Classical George Rogers Clark National Memorial, in Vincennes, Indiana, among the last major Beaux-Arts style public works in the United States, completed in 1933.
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The National Society of Mural Painters (NSMP) is an American artists' organization originally known as The Mural Painters. The charter of the society is to advance the techniques and standards for the design and execution of mural art for the enrichment of architecture in the United States.
John Clements Gregory was an American sculptor.
Frank Tolles Chamberlin was an American painter, muralist, sculptor, and art teacher.
Vincent Glinsky was an American sculptor. He is especially noted for his architectural decorations.
K. M. Oswald Hoepfner was an American sculptor noted for his work as an architectural sculptor.
Nathaniel Cannon Smith (1866–1943), professionally known as Nat. C. Smith, was an American painter and architect of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Herbert Langford Warren was an English architect who practiced in New England. He is noted for his involvement in the American Arts and Crafts movement, and as the founder of the School of Architecture at Harvard University.
Lloyd Warren, architect, was found dead yesterday morning in an areaway below his bedroom at 1 West Sixtyfourth Street. It is believed that he fell accidentally while opening the window of his apartment, which is on the eighth floor. Mr. Warren who was founder of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and a brother of Whitney Warren, the architect, ... Subject to Sleep-Walking. Not a Suicide, Says Doctor.
This Institute that he founded less than a decade ago is and will remain, in the opinion of its countless friends, the very best monument that could be erected to Lloyd Warren's memory. ...
40°45′02″N73°58′15″W / 40.75068°N 73.97081°W
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
