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a12 people & arts
Saturday 12 March 2022
Old money, new money: Beaux Arts

style gets attention on HBO

By LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — “What
surroundings, Mrs. Russell.
We could be at Tsarskoye
Selo,” exclaims Nathan
Lane’s snooty Ward McAl-
lister at his first glance of her
opulent Fifth Avenue man-
sion on “The Gilded Age.”
The social arbiter’s refer-
ence to an 18th century This combination of photos shows, from left, the Pompeian
palace outside St. Peters- Room of the Joseph Raphael De Lamar House in the Murray
burg, Russia, is lost on the Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, the cover of “An American
Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City,” by
new-money Bertha, but the Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen and
point was made: The HBO the exterior of Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
Max series has brought Associated Press
alive America’s post-Civil uals or whole societies think can architects trained
War renaissance and New of themselves,” the HBO there before joining the
York City’s cultural awak- show’s creator, Julian Fel- gold rush for commissions
ening in all its Beaux Arts lowes, told The Associated amid New York’s sea of
glory. Press about why he need- brownstones.
The term, which translates ed to get the details right. Their clients, the titans of
simply as “fine arts,” was “The princes of the Ameri- banking, railroads and min-
anything but simple in the can renaissance were no ing, were looking to flaunt
hands of the city’s wealthi- different. They saw them- their fortunes and better
est figures of the time — selves as giants, no longer their social standing, and
names like Astor, Carnegie, inferior to the products of that of New York in the pro-
Frick, Morgan, Rockefell- older cultures across the cess. As they amassed art
er, Vanderbilt and more. sea, but kings of the world.” and antiquities in Europe,
Thanks to this powerful rul- Just as Fellowes began their architects, sculptors
ing class and their archi- work on “The Gilded Age” and muralists drew on a
tects, the period roughly several years ago after his wide range of influenc-
spanning the 1870s to the hit “Downton Abbey,” the es, including the ancient
1930s produced some of architect, author and edu- Greeks and Romans, along
New York’s finest structures. cator Phillip James Dodd with the Renaissance and
Beaux Arts at its best in- began his passion proj- Baroque styles from Italy
cludes buildings like The ect about the same era. and France. Often, all at
Metropolitan Museum of His “An American Renais- the same time.
Art, the Morgan Library & sance: Beaux-Arts Archi- Dodd’s book was released
Museum, the Woolworth tecture in New York City” just four months before
Building, Grand Central (Images Publishing) is a “The Gilded Age” series
Terminal, Pennsylvania massive, meticulous book premiered. Fellowes wrote
Station, the main branch delving into the homes, the foreword.
of the New York Public Li- monuments and public One of the top architectur-
brary, The Frick Collection, buildings that robber bar- al firms of the day, McKim,
Grant’s Tomb and select ons and industrialists or- Mead and White, makes
mausoleums in Woodlawn dered up in an over-the- an appearance on the
Cemetery, where some of top vein as the city gained show. Its ginger-haired and
the players rest. its cultural footing. mustachioed partner Stan-
The structures, or pieces of The Beaux Arts style, char- ford White is hired by Ber-
them, survived the advent acterized by classical tha and her railroad mag-
of Art Nouveau, Art Deco forms, massive proportions nate husband, George
and the modernist move- and lavish, usually symmet- Russell, to create their lav-
ment as the country radi- rical, detailing, sprouted ish home (a fictionalized
cally transformed. from the École des Beaux mansion on Fifth Avenue’s
“Architecture is always a Arts in Paris. Some of the Millionaires Row).
clear guide to how individ- most sought-after Ameri- The prolific White, designer
of homes, college build-
ings and the marble arch
at Washington Square, also
made real-life headlines in
1906 for being fatally shot
on the roof of Madison
Square Garden. His mur-
derer: enraged Pittsburgh
millionaire Harry Thaw, who
was married to one of the
architect’s past teen par-
amours, Evelyn Nesbit.q