LandmarkWest!
NEWSLETTER SPRING 2000
 |
One of the world's most important collections of Tiffany stained
glass and mosaics resides at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, located at 225
West 99th Street at Amsterdam Avenue. Central to Tiffany's design
for St. Michael's are seven huge stained glass windows, several now in danger
of collapsing. The church is currently raising $500,000, primarily to reinforce
and restore the windows.
St. Michael's Church is the oldest continuing institution on the
Upper West Side, founded in 1807 to serve summer residents with country houses
on the Hudson River. In the late 1800s, in response to its rapid growth, St.
Michael's hired Robert W. Gibson to design a new church, completed in 1891.
Gibson's Romanesque structure of Indiana limestone is now on the National
Register of Historic Places.
In 1895, St. Michael's commissioned Tiffany Glass Studios to carry
out the church's first interior project: decorating the semi-circular apse.
This was one of the earliest and most important commissions for Tiffany's
studio. Tiffany placed seven large, intensely colored stained glass windows
depicting "St. Michael's Victory in Heaven" at the focal point of the apse. St.
Michael carries his flag of victory in the center window, surrounded by legions
of angels carrying musical instruments. The massive windows, each measuring
five feet wide and 22 feet tall, are typical of Tiffany's work from this
period, utilizing a wide array of brilliant colors, patterns and textures to
depict figures. Tiffany used as many as four layers of glass in some places to
achieve his effects, and molded certain pieces to depict folds of drapery.
Unlike most stained glass, only the faces and hands are painted.
Tiffany executed several more projects at St. Michael's in
subsequent years, including the massive marble and mosaic pulpit; the "Dove
Window," and two windows and a wall mosaic in the side chapel. While St.
Michael's does not have a complete "Tiffany interior," since the works of other
artists are represented, its collection spanning 25 years is one of the finest
and largest examples of Tiffany's designs still intact in its original
setting.
Last year, it became apparent that the apse windows were sagging
in their frames, and the church's conservator discovered that several windows
were in imminent danger of collapse, although the church had cleaned and
repaired these windows only 10 years ago. Tiffany's own design had
incorporated inadequate structural supports, and an improperly-vented
protective glazing system had created a greenhouse effect, accelerating their
decline. These problems are being addressed by removing the windows, restoring
the wooden frames, adding structural supports, and installing a more
sophisticated protection system. The window at greatest risk has now been
restored and reinstalled, and the rest will be completed as funds
allow. |
Contact the church for a tour: (212)
222-2700.
Web site: www.saintmichaelschurch.org.
Walter M. Cain is Co-Chair of the church's
Restoration Committee.
Editor's note: St. Michael's Church is not a New York City Landmark.
by Kathleen Randall
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (1955-1969) marked the first
gathering of major performing arts institutions of an American metropolis into
a centralized location. As cultural historians have pointed out, the optimism
and prosperity of the postwar period brought new emphasis to the importance of
the arts in everyday life. From its conception, the nation's first "cultural
center" was promoted as a source of benefits that went well beyond providing
new performance spaces for ballet, opera, symphony and drama. Commentary
surrounding the project documents how the Center's visionaries instilled it
with a mission so large it included slowing popular culture's assault on the
traditional arts, promoting cultural exchange throughout the world,
democratizing the arts and even rescuing middle-class from a dangerous
abundance of leisure time.
These goals demanded a visibility and monumentality, which were achieved
by clustering the arts institutions on a super block site and by an
architecture wholly different from the surrounding Upper West Side
neighborhood. The site was made possible through Robert Moses' Lincoln Square
urban renewal project - a massive undertaking that originally included a
skyscraper hotel, commercial theatres and a fashion center along with a new
opera house. In the end, land was provided for Lincoln Center, Fordham
University and several large apartment towers. The project displaced thousands
of residents and businesses, generating a swift and organized opposition that
had little chance in an era when "slum clearance" was the strategy of choice
for saving cities.
The first major announcement of Lincoln Center in the New York Times
reported that the Center would feature "an architectural style defined as
Monumental Modern." What monumental modern might be was anyone's guess. Six
American architects were awarded commissions: Wallace Harrison, opera house;
Max Abramovitz, philharmonic hall; Philip Johnson, state theatre; Eero
Saarinen, repertory theatre; Gordon Bunshaft, library; and Pietro Belluschi,
Julliard School. Working with Harrison as coordinating architect, the
architects agreed on a set of "unifying elements" before setting out on an
architectural adventure that would span more than eight years.
Referencing Lincoln Center, Philip Johnson noted the similarity of
backgrounds among the selected architects. "We all came up through the Modern
movement together and we were all looking away from the puritanism of the
International Style toward enriched forms." Expressionism, Brutalism and
Formalism were some of the architectural challenges of the day to the
"puritanism" Johnson noted. Architects for Lincoln Center's three plaza
buildings settled on Formalism as their interpretation of "Monumental Modern".
Formalism, simplified to its basics, is architecture that emphasizes form over
pure functionalism or structural expression. Formalism allowed historicized
elements to be applied to modern street and glass buildings, creating an
instant, easily readable
considered essential to the Center's success. The stylized, temple-front
columns, exterior porticos, matching cornice heights, raised podium and plaza
paving pattern are all elements more historical than modern - elements that
differentiated Lincoln Center's buildings from the corporate modern
architecture of the day and celebrated the traditional aesthetics associated
with arts institutions.
Lincoln Center succeeded as a mid-century experiment in making a
selective group of performing arts institutions visible in an urban
environment. In doing so, it launched an entirely new concept in American
performing arts presentation that would be studied and cloned across the
country. Before the Metropolitan Opera house was even completed, over 60 cities
had cultural arts centers underway or in the planning stages. Architecturally,
there is very little like Lincoln Center in the city; as for sheer urban
spectacle, nothing beats the plaza, or a house balcony, at intermission on a
performance night.
Kathleen Randall is a graduate of Columbia
University's Historic Preservation Program.
Editor's note: Lincoln Center is not a New York City Landmark yet.
Lincoln Center's Front Yard:
Pedestrian Terror and Traffic Chaos
When Broadway slices across Manhattan's classic street grid, it creates
confusion, pocket-sized, triangular "bowtie" parks, and opportunities (Madison
Park, Herald Square, Times Square—and Lincoln Square).
Currently, Tucker Park (66th Street) and Dante Park
(63rd Street) are islands (one overrun, one underutilized) in the
midst of chaos. Council Member Ronnie Eldridge and LANDMARK WEST! (the dynamic
duo of West 72nd Street's rejuvenation) are spearheading a new
design initiative.
After an inclusive review of proposals by several major architects and
their project teams (dealing with traffic, landscape, graphics, gardening, and
lighting), the architecture firm of Beyer Blinder Belle was selected to develop
a schematic design incorporating urban design, programmatic, and maintenance
considerations for the parks and the adjacent streetscape. Stay
tuned.