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William Everett Chamberlin
William E. Chamberlain, 1856-1911.
BornJune 23, 1856
Burlington, Massachusetts
DiedAugust 6, 1911
Manchester, Massachusetts
NationalityUnited States
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsCambridge Hospital; Portland Library; Cambridge English High School; University Hospital, University of Michigan
Cambridge English High School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1889.

William E. Chamberlin (1856-1911) was an American architect practicing in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. His brief practice was mostly confined to residential architecture, but the major civic commission he undertook, the Cambridge English High School (built 1889-1892) proved to be highly influential in the design of schools.

Life and career

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William Everett Chamberlin was born June 23, 1856 in Burlington, Massachusetts to Daniel U. and Ann Maria (Stimson) Chamberlin. He was educated in the Cambridge public schools and the Chauncy Hall School in Boston. He then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1877. During his degree he was associated with Sturgis & Brigham in Boston, but upon graduation went to New York, and was employed as a draftsman by the firm of McKim, Mead & Bigelow.[1] Looking to further their education, in May, 1879 he and another employee of the firm, Edmund R. Willson, travelled to Paris and were admitted to the Ecole des Beaux Arts,[2] both entering the atelier of Joseph Auguste Émile Vaudremer.[3]

In 1884, Chamberlin established an architectural practice in Boston. In 1885 he was joined in partnership by William M. Whidden. In 1887 Chamberlin & Whidden won a competition to design the new Portland Library in Portland, Oregon, where Whidden had worked for McKim, Mead & White. When this project moved forward in 1889, Whidden moved to Portland to supervise construction. At this time William D. Austin was admitted to the partnership, and the firm was briefly known as Chamberlin, Whidden & Austin. In 1889 the partnership with Whidden was dissolved, and Whidden formed a new partnership, Whidden & Lewis, with Ion Lewis. Chamberlin and Austin continued their partnership until Chamberlin's retirement in 1892. Austin formed a new partnership with Frederick W. Stickney, Stickney & Austin, with offices in Lowell and Boston.[4]

Chamberlin had retired from full-time practice, but continued to work on a small scale from his home in Cambridge. He was the designer of a number of substantial projects into the first decade of the twentieth century, but execution of the work was usually entrusted to an associated architect. By the time of his death, August 6, 1911, he had been completely retired for several years.[1]

Personal life

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For much of his career, Chamberlin was hampered by his disablility. He began to have difficulties with his spine during the early 1880s, when he was in Paris. For the last twenty years of his life he was unable to walk and was in a wheelchair full-time.[1] It was this difficulty that led him to retire from active practice in 1892.

Chamberlin married Emily D. Abbot in 1891.[1]

Legacy

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Chamberlin's design for the Cambridge English High School proved to be very influential, and spawned many buildings of similar design. Chamberlin & Austin had produced a symmetrically-massed building, with a high central pavilion connected by hyphens to lower matching pavilions, all in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The design was praised by school administrators and architects alike, including the Boston architect Julius A. Schweinfurth, who found it timeless:

"There will be heard little, if any, difference of opinion among people whose opinion is of concerning the charming building. It is difficult to imagine a school more dignified, simple, and yet showing to the world that here is real architecture, simply obtained, without the hideous gymnastic efforts so apparent on most all architecture of the day. Its exterior shows what the interior is—the various rooms and the large assembly hall in the upper story and in the rear; its plan awaits the additional rooms which it shall require for future growth. This is a typical school building of the better class, and should be kept for reference and comparison by those who have to decide upon such matters at the request of their fellow citizens or townsmen. What makes it beautiful? Its form, fine proportion of masses, its fenestration so skilfully [sic] grouped, its splendidly proportioned wall surfaces and roofs, its color, the careful restraint in all its detail. It is founded on simple, classic models, on a standard type devoid of all passing idiosyncrasies or fads. Hence it will not go out of fashion but be as interesting fifty years from now."[5]

— Julius A. Schweinfurth, 1896.

The Boston architect Edmund M. Wheelwright, an acknowledged expert in the field of school architecture, found that its plan and elevation were worthy of close study by school architects:

"The architect to whom the designing of a schoolhouse is entrusted should accept the limitations imposed by the practical conditions of the problem. He should not seek to be "original" or to gain the semblance of a structure, however beautiful in its own time and for its own needs, which does not meet the requirements of an American schoolhouse. He may well be content to express in fitting architectural form the already well-developed schoolhouse plan. He will find profit by the study of the Cambridge High School. This building was, in my opinion, the first American schoolhouse which was designed in a truly artistic spirit; for here is found, with proper accentuation, good proportion, and refined detail, no sacrifice of the practical requirements which fitted the structure to its purpose."[6]

— Edmund M. Wheelwright, 1898.

One of the first was the Lowell High School (Frederick W. Stickney, 1890), by Austin's later partner.[7] In his role as City Architect of Boston from 1891 to 1895, Wheelwright had a major role in the popularization of the plan of the Cambridge English High School. He utilized it the design of many smaller and larger schools in Boston, most notably in the Louis Agassiz School (1892), Brighton High School (1894) and the Gilbert Stuart School (1895).[8] Many schools in New England and elsewhere were built along these lines, some closer copies than others. One, York High School (B. F. Willis, 1897) in York, Pennsylvania, was a near-identical copy.[9] A more distant example was the Kansas City Manual Training High School (Hackney & Smith, 1896) in Kansas City, Missouri.[10] In the first two decades of the twentieth century buildings along these lines continued to be built, though they no longer remained committed to Chamberlin's Second Renaissance Revival detailing, instead utilizing Beaux Arts or Colonial motifs. These include the Leominster High School (Frost, Briggs & Chamberlain, 1904)[11] in Massachusetts and the Woonsocket High School (Walter F. Fontaine, 1913) in Rhode Island,[12] one of the latest examples.

At his death, the Boston Society of Architects endowed an annual prize named in honor of Chamberlin, given as an award in an annual competition among fifth-year architecture students in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was first awarded in 1913.[13]

Henry Mather Greene, later of Greene & Greene, briefly worked for Chamberlin & Austin in 1891-92.[14]

Architectural works

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Year Building Address City State Notes Image Reference
1884 Parsons Building,
Mount Auburn Hospital		 330 Mount Auburn St Cambridge Massachusetts [15][16]
1885 House for Maria Murdock 64 Church St Winchester Massachusetts [17]
1886 Commercial building for Charles Torrey 107 South St Boston Massachusetts Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of the Leather District. [18]
1886 Double house for John G. Low 34 Eleanor St and 808 Broadway Chelsea Massachusetts [19]
1886 House for Francis H. Bigelow 4 Channing St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1886 House for Robert N. Toppan 54 Highland St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1886 House for John W. White 18 Concord Ave Cambridge Massachusetts Demolished. [20]
1887 House for A. McFarland Davis 10 Appleton St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1887 House for William B. Hovey 29 Lancaster St Cambridge Massachusetts Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of the Avon Hill Historic District. [20]
1887 House for Harold Whitney 9 Waterhouse St Cambridge Massachusetts Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 as part of the Cambridge Common Historic District. [20]
1887 Portland Library 411 S Broadway Portland Oregon This project did not move forward until 1889, when a local philantropist willed her financial estate to the Library Association of Portland. Demolished in 1913. [21]
1888 House for Henry Endicott 151 Brattle St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1889 Boston Storage Warehouse Westland Ave Boston Massachusetts Demolished. [22]
1889 Cambridge English High School 435 Broadway Cambridge Massachusetts Demolished in 1938. [23]
1889 House for Jabez Fox 99 Irving St Cambridge Massachusetts Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as part of the Shady Hill Historic District. [20]
1889 Manufacturing facilities for the Cambridgeport Diary Company 24 Blackstone St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1889 University Hospital,
University of Michigan		 Catherine St Ann Arbor Michigan Demolished. [24]
1890 House for Lucius L. Hubbard 32 Highland St Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1890 House for R. Austin Robertson 50 Stimson Ave Providence Rhode Island Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 as part of the Stimson Avenue Historic District. [25]
1891 House for William E. Chamberlin 27 Clinton St Cambridge Massachusetts The home of the architect and his family. [26]
1891 House for Albert H. Davenport 70 Salem St Malden Massachusetts Built for the owner of A. H. Davenport & Company. [27]
1896 Nurses' Home,
Mount Auburn Hospital		 330 Mount Auburn St Cambridge Massachusetts [16]
1898 Cambridge Homes for Aged People 360 Mount Auburn St Cambridge Massachusetts Designed in association with Stickney & Austin. [28]
1902 House for William H. Pear 23 Francis Ave Cambridge Massachusetts [20]
1904 Savings Bank Building 689 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge Massachusetts Designed in association with Clarence H. Blackall. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 as part of the Central Square Historic District. [29]

Notes

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "William Everett Chamberlin," in Biographical History of Massachusetts, vol. 5, ed. Samuel Atkins Eliot (Boston: Massachusetts Biographical Society, 1914)
  2. ^ "Two Rhode Island Architects," American Architect and Building News 91, no. 1624 (February 9 1907): 67-72.
  3. ^ Alice Thomine-Berrada, Emile Vaudremer, 1829-1914: la rigueur de l'architecture publique (Picard, 2004)
  4. ^ "Personal," Architecture and Building 16, no. 12 (March 19 1892): 142.
  5. ^ Julius A. Schweinfurth, "School Architecture," School Journal (June 27 1896): 770-773.
  6. ^ Edmund M. Wheelwright, "The American Schoolhouse. VI," Brickbuilder 7, no. 4 (April 1898): 73-77.
  7. ^ "Building Intelligence," Engineering and Building Record 22, no. 13 (August 30 1890): 208.
  8. ^ Municipal Architecture in Boston, From Designs by Edmund M. Wheelwright, ed. Francis W. Chandler (Boston: Bates & Guild Company, 1898)
  9. ^ "The Magnificent High School at York, Pa.," American School Board Journal 28, no. 3 (March 1904): 14.
  10. ^ "New Schools," Engineering Record 34, no. 18 (October 3 1896): 339.
  11. ^ American School Board Journal 24, no. 6 (June 1904): 28.
  12. ^ "Schools," Engineering Record 68, no. 6 (August 9 1913): 54.
  13. ^ Technology Architectural Record 5, no. 4 (September 1912): 75.
  14. ^ Randell L. Makinson, Greene & Greene: Architecture as a Fine Art (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1977)
  15. ^ "Notes," Sanitary Engineer 9, no. 16 (March 20 1884): 387.
  16. ^ a b "CAM.269", mhc-macris.net, Massachusetts Historical Commission, n.d.
  17. ^ "Our Illustration of a Moderate-Cost House," Sanitary Engineer 13, no. 19 (April 8 1886): 441.
  18. ^ "BOS.1983", mhc-macris.net, Massachusetts Historical Commission, n.d.
  19. ^ "Our Illustration of a Moderate-Cost House," Sanitary Engineer 15, no. 4 (December 25 1886): 86.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Christopher Hail, Cambridge Buildings and Architects (2002)
  21. ^ 23rd and 24th Annual Reports of the Library Association of Portland, 1886-87 (Portland, OR: Library Association of Portland, 1888)
  22. ^ "Our Architectural Illustrations," Engineering and Building Record 20, no. 11 (August 10 1889): 142.
  23. ^ "City Government," Cambridge (MA) Chronicle, January 5 1889, 2.
  24. ^ "Building Intelligence," Engineering and Building Record 20, no. 26 (November 23 1889): 374.
  25. ^ "Building Intelligence," Engineering and Building Record 22, no. 9 (August 2 1890): 144.
  26. ^ "New Buildings," Cambridge (MA) Tribune, August 22 1891, 1.
  27. ^ Douglass Shand-Tucci, Built in Boston: City and Suburb, 1800-2000 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999): 146.
  28. ^ "The Boston Architectural Exhibition," Brickbuilder 8, no. 6 (June 1899): 115.
  29. ^ Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Cambridge (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1999): 80.
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