FACTOID #53: If you thought Antarctica was inhospitable, think again - its land area is only ninety-eight percent ice. Reassuringly, the other 2% is categorised as "barren rock".
McKim, Mead, and White was the premier architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm consisted of Charles McKim, William Mead, and Stanford White. McKim and White studied under Henry Hobson Richardson before forming their own firm. They were associated with the City Beautiful and Beaux Arts movements, which aimed to clean up the visual confusion of American cities and imbue them with a sense of order and noble formality.
Their works include:
Seth Low Memorial Library, Columbia University, built 1895
McKim, Mead, and White was the premier architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century.
McKim was a designer with a keen understanding of early American buildings and decorative arts, a powerful ability to simplify forms, and a list of clients and connections that would benefit the firm for the next thirty years.
McKim, Mead and White's architecture rose to the level of excellence because the strengths and weaknesses of each partner complemented the others, because each architect understood his own role in the process, and because they worked together.
Stanford White (September 11, 1853 - June 25, 1906) was an American architect and the "celebrity" partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms.
White lived the same life as his clients, not quite so lavishly perhaps, and he knew how the house had to perform: like a first-rate hotel, like a theater foyer, like a theater set with appropriate historical references.
White had a major influence in the "Shingle Style" of the 1880s, on Neo-Colonial style, and the Newport cottages for which he is celebrated.
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