Citizendia

Clay Lancaster (30 March 1917 – 25 December 2000), was an authority on American architecture, an orientalist, and an influential advocate of historical preservation. Events 240 BC - 1st recorded Perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Events 274 - Roman Emperor Aurelian 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. According to the New York Times, Lancaster's 1961 study of the architecture of Brooklyn Heights "proved to be one of the earliest and loudest shots in the historic preservation struggle in New York City. "[1]

Contents

Writings

Lancaster's best-known books of architectural and art history are Architectural Follies in America (1960), Ante Bellum Houses of the Bluegrass (1961), Old Brooklyn Heights: New York’s First Suburb (1961), The Japanese Influence in America (1963), Prospect Park Handbook (1967), The Architecture of Historic Nantucket (1972), New York Interiors at the Turn of the Century (1976), Nantucket in the Nineteenth Century (1979), The American Bungalow (1985), The Arts and Crafts of the Animals (1993), The Breadth and Depth of East and West (1995), and Pleasant Hill: Shaker Canaan in Kentucky (2000). A collection of his photographs appears in James D. Birchfield, Clay Lancaster’s Kentucky: Architectural Photographs of a Preservation Pioneer (2007).

Lancaster was, as well, a writer and illustrator for children. The Periwinkle Steamboat (1961) was later redesigned and re-published as The Flight of the Periwinkle (1987). Michiko, or Mrs. Belmont’s Brownstone on Brooklyn Heights was published in 1965. The Toy Room appeared in 1988, Figi in 1989, and The Runaway Prince in 1991.

Lancaster's style received high praise. Alan Priest, former curator of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art noted in his introduction to The Japanese Influence in America that "the prose is most agreeable to read and the subject matter so interesting that one is led to read almost as if it were a historical novel. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, " The poet Marianne Moore, introducing Lancaster’s Prospect Park Handbook (1967), writes: “his pages are art. Marianne Moore ( November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American Poet and Writer ”

Biography

Lancaster was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and studied at the University of Kentucky. Lexington (officially Lexington-Fayette Urban County is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 68th largest in the United States. The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public, Co-educational, University, and is also the state's land-grant university located He spent half of 1936 at the Art Students League of New York. The Art Students League of New York is an Art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. Returning to Lexington, he served as stage designer for the university’s Guignol Theatre and was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic Honor society with the mission of "fostering and recognizing excellence" in the Undergraduate Liberal arts He took his A. B. in Art in 1938.

In 1943, Lancaster moved to New York and, as a graduate student there, worked in Columbia University’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library with Talbot Hamlin, biographer of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe ( May 1, 1764 - September 3, 1820) was a British-born American Architect best known for his design of

At Columbia, Lancaster received the appointment of Ware Librarian. In the fifties he lectured at Cooper Union, Columbia, and the Traphagen art school in New York. The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (commonly referred to simply as The Cooper Union or Cooper Union) is a privately-funded college in In 1968 he originated a course, “Asian Art and its Influence on Europe and America,” that was given at New York University. New York University ( NYU) is a private, Nonsectarian, Coeducational Research University in New York City.

In 1954 and 1955, during the first of two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, he carried out the research that underlay The Japanese Influence in America (1963); a second Guggenheim, in 1963 and 1964, supported research on the architecture of Kentucky. Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who In 1966, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving appointed Lancaster curator of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape masterpiece, an assignment which led to his preparation of The Prospect Park Handbook (1967). Thomas PF Hoving (born January 15, 1931) is an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Frederick Law Olmsted ( April 25, 1822 &ndash August 28, 1903) was an American landscape designer and father of American

In 1971 Clay Lancaster moved from Brooklyn to Nantucket. Here he restored an 1829 saltbox dwelling and wrote studies of historic Nantucket, of Victorian architecture, and of train terminals and stations. A saltbox is a Wooden frame house with a long pitched Roof that slopes down to the back

Lancaster returned to live in Kentucky in 1978, purchasing Warwick, a Federal-era residence on the Kentucky River. The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River, 259 mi (417 km long in the U Here he spent the first winter making mantels for fireplaces in an addition, shelves for the library, and cabinets for the kitchen. During the following spring he gave a course on Kentucky architecture at Transylvania University, and it became a seminar in the College of Architecture at the University of Kentucky in the fall. Transylvania University is a private liberal arts college related by covenant to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ located in Lexington, Kentucky In 1980 he presented a class on “Asian Art and Its Influence on Europe and America” at Transylvania. In 1983, as Morgan Professor at the University of Louisville, he repeated the Kentucky architecture course and conducted a seminar on “Asian Influences on Western Architecture. The University of Louisville (also known as U of L) is a public University in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. ” During this period he wrote and illustrated The American Bungalow, 1880 – 1930. Also he produced a study on the World Parliament of Religions (1987), which was held at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893; the book was published in England in May 1987. The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair) a World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary

Awards and Honors

Lancaster received a Certificate of Merit from the Municipal Art Society of New York City in 1962 for his book Old Brooklyn Heights. The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS is a nonprofit membership organization which advocates for excellence in Urban design, Urban planning, Contemporary In 1966 he was given a citation from the president of the Borough of Brooklyn for his work on the Prospect Park Centennial Committee. Prospect Park is a 585 acre (24 km² public Park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn located between Park Slope, In 1975 he was elected to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Kentucky. The Alabama Historical Commission presented him in 1975 with its Award of Merit for Preservation of Alabama’s Heritage for his study of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama, published by the Alabama chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1966 (and again by the Commission in 1977). The Alabama Historical Commission is the Historic preservation agency for the U The American Institute of Architects (AIA is a professional organization for Architects in the United States. In 1979, for Vestiges of the Venerable City, he received the Lexington-Fayette County Historic Commission Preservation Award and, in the same year, the Kentucky Heritage Commission’s Preservation Professional Award. In 1986, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation presented him its John Wesley Hunt Award.

Follies

On the grounds of Warwick, Lancaster built several architectural follies of his own design — an eighteenth-century tea pavilion, a guest-house replicating the first-century A. In Architecture, a folly is a Building constructed strictly as a decoration having none of the usual purposes of housing or sheltering associated with a conventional D. Tower of the Winds, and an Arts and Crafts style art gallery. The Tower of the Winds, also called Horologion (timepiece is an octagonal Pentelic Marble Clocktower on the Roman The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, and American Aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the He also assembled an extensive acreage nearby to serve as a nature preserve, called Shantalaya ("abode of peace"). Also, in his final years, Lancaster established a charitable organization, The Warwick Foundation,[2] to promote and extend his many interests. The foundation sponsors tours, lectures, scholarships, exhibitions, conferences, and maintains the Warwick compound as a museum.

Lancaster died on Christmas Day in 2000. The following spring, his ashes were scattered in the ravine next to his Warwick residence.

Notes

  1. ^ Douglas Martin, "Clay Lancaster is Dead at 83; Historic Preservation Pioneer," New York Times, February 9, 2001.
  2. ^ Warwick Foundation website.

References

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