To-day gladdens the hearts of all true Americans, the spectacle of a re-united country, knit together in real brotherhood of its citizens and in the bonds of an honorable, cordial and lasting pacification—and not least, the spectacle of veterans of the Army of the Potomac joining hands with veterans of [the] Army of Northern Virginia, to establish, as we here to-day establish, this “Lee Camp Soldiers’ Home.”
— Colonel Archer Anderson, Address on the opening of Lee Camp Soldiers’ Home, May 20, 1885 (read more)
While the conventional wisdom is that great innovation and vision happen in times of peace and prosperity, that is not necessarily so. It is often in the most difficult times that people of vision rise and take their place. There was a time, not so long ago, when our own country was able to project great vision for times to come. They were not times without great challenge and difficulty. In fact, they often were brought forth out of the darkest of times. To that end, here is a challenge four OUR times. We shall not be drawn down by the destruction and negativity we see now in high places and shall continue to seek a better vision, one that springs from Beauty, Truth and our Faith in the One Who gave us the Absolute Values.
Augusta County Courthouse
An Argument for Well-Crafted Classicism
Photos byBob Kirchman
Standing the test of time, the Augusta County Courthouse was built to this form in 1901...
The Augusta County Courthouse is a two-story, red brick, public building in Staunton, Virginia. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was designed by T.J. Collins, and construction ended in the Autumn of 1901. It is located in the Beverley Historic District. It is the fifth court house constructed on the site, the first having been a log building constructed in 1755. At the time the present edifice was built, the ‘City Beautiful’ Movement put forth by Daniel Burnham and other prominent architects greatly influenced civic architecture of that time. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations. Advocates of the philosophy believed that such beautification could promote a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life, while critics would complain that the movement was overly concerned with aesthetics at the expense of social reform. The work of the late Roger Scruton and Leon Krier continues in that tradition.
Certainly the Classical courthouse makes a strong argument for traditional style as a civic architecture. Plans created for a relocated and much expanded Augusta County Courthouse proposed for the future added Classical elements to a decidedly modern building. The resulting design – generated by computer – perhaps illustrates the folly of legislating architectural style. Good design does indeed create spaces that lift the human experience, but such design often defies codification. Indeed, there are great Modernist buildings and poorly thought traditional ones. This is particularly true where the designer lacks a sense of appropriate proportions. It must be noted here that there is always a healthy popular support for traditional style and government should acknowledge that. Architectural review boards, as a whole however, tend to discourage healthy innovation.
...compared with the District Courts Building, built in the late Twentieth Century.
In 2016 Moseley Architects proposed a replacement courthouse to be constructed in Verona. Classical detail is added to what is essentially a modern building mass.
“We shall never surrender!” Winston Churchill on an ‘Iron Maiden’ poster at Crozet Pizza.
Bright Light in Darkest Hour The Herculean Task of Saving Civilization
Ihave, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.
The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;
We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.” – Winston Churchill
A while ago I saw ‘Darkest Hour,’ Joe Wright’s film about Winston Churchill in May of 1940 and his facing the challenge of Europe’s fall and the immanent threat of invasion faced by Great Britain at the beginning of World War II. It is a wonderfully inspiring story of a great and flawed man who was indeed the man history needed in a time so overwhelming. Gary Oldman is very convincing as Churchill. His rendition of the “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech to Parliament had me fully invested in the story.
You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth” – another stirring quote by the great man is heard after much soul-searching by Churchill. A very human Churchill is rendered by Oldman, supported by Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill and Lily James, Playing Churchill’s secretary Elizabeth Layton. The real Elizabeth Layton wrote the book ‘Mr. Churchill’s Secretary’ which she wrote after serving in that capacity. According to Ms. James: “Initially I started talking about the film because I was so excited about the prospect of working with Joe Wright. He’s someone I really looked up to and Gary Oldman as Churchill is an insanely brilliant thing. Then I started reading Elizabeth Layton’s book and I was so drawn to her and her experiences and this different perspective on Churchill, it was a much more intimate view of him from her eyes. She was an incredible woman, so dedicated and committed to Churchill. She was witnessing history unfold and was the first person to hear these speeches, so it was a real thrill.”
Though Miss Layton actually arrived later than the film depicts, she did indeed find her initial meeting of Churchill quite frustrating and really did mess up the spacing of the first document she typed for him. In fact he drove her from the room. She returned a few days later. Churchill initially was gruff and did not engage in pleasantries, but Miss Layton persisted and grew to admire the man. She drafted (and redrafted) his speeches and no doubt polished them. She and Clementine deserve place in history for their support of the very human leader who rose to face a Herculean task in fighting the Reich.
Elizabeth Layton Nel, Churchill's wartime secretary.
Elizabeth Nel, who has died aged 90, was the last surviving personal secretary to have worked for Winston Churchill during the Second World War. (read more)
Pennsylvania Station
When the Future Came to Lake Michigan
In the Nineteenth Century, a vision for future America rose on the shore of Lake Michigan.
A Classical Foundation for America
Dr. William Thornton's original design for the United States Capitol.
Classical Revivals, Past and Present
When Dr. William Thornton created the original drawings for the United States Capitol, he drew on classical forms. A new nation built her civic buildings in the style of the great ancient civilizations. White columned and stately, they rose out of the swamps of the Potomac River. Thomas Jefferson raised a replica of the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nimes, France; on a hill overlooking the James River as a Capitol for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Yes, Classical Architecture indeed defined the style for America’s first civic edifices – a departure from the Georgian Style so often associated with the Colonial period.
Architects like Benjamin Henry Latrobe continued the tradition. Many fine works were built with great optimism in those early days. As our country grew Westward, a hasty hodgepodge grew up as the railroads pushed across the land. Speculators laid out sprawling Chicago in grids as far as the eye could see. It was sprawling, intimidating and unhealthy. The Nineteenth Century was a period of unparalleled growth, but there was need again for a vision to uplift that growth. In 1851 London held what is considered to be the first World’s Fair. Wonders were shown in an immense building called the Crystal Palace. Inspiration and innovation were to be found their by the many people who visited.
As the Nineteenth Century came to its end, Paris held the 1889 Exposition Universal with its grand halls and the great Eiffel Tower. Showcasing innovation and invention, the fair presented a vision for the future. The 300th anniversary of Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ presented an opportunity for America to host such a fair. Congress passed a motion for it and then the competition began for which city should play host to it. Philadelphia seemed a logical choice, but New York was the bustling port – America’s gateway to the world (as well as her largest city). Surely New York should be the site.
But out on the shores of Lake Michigan, stretching into the prairie, stood America’s SECOND largest city. Chicago was rapidly becoming the hub of American commerce. Chicago began in earnest to compete for the fair. Popular Mayor Carter Harrison Sr., a crafty political force, worked to bring the fair to Chicago. Honor bound to create something rivaling Paris, the city turned to Architects John Welborn Root, Daniel Burnham and Charles Atwood to design a grand vision of what an American metropolis should be. Frederick Law Olmsted, the creator of New York’s Central Park, was coerced into creating a landscaped site plan. The result was a grand campus with lakes, canals, a wooded island and surrounding those water features would stand a Classical world with colonnades and monumental fountains.
Time was not on the builders’ side, however. There was not time to build the buildings out of carved stone in the traditional manner. Instead, the builders would build steel and wooden frames covered with wood lath. Plaster would be applied to the lath (this was called ‘staff).’ This allowed the buildings to go up fast, but assured they would be temporary. Spray painting was invented to allow the ‘white’ coating that protected the plaster to go on in a timely manner. Hand painting would have been impossible in the time allotted. As it was, the fair opened for a one season run in 1893, not 1892.
Special rail lines were built to serve the fair. Visitors detraining at the lakefront would step into a surreal vision of a ‘Celestial City’ White edifices towering over reflecting pools would inspire the design of American civic architecture well into the Twentieth Century. Frank Baum saw the fair and it inspired his ‘OZ,’ also a white city, but one had to view it through green sunglasses! Walt Disney’s father worked building the fair buildings. But it was a mirage. Only one fair building was solid construction – the Palace of Fine Arts. Since it would hold treasures from around the world, the insurers demanded real masonry construction. It is the only fair building that remains today.
The Palace of Fine Arts, today the Museum of Science and Industry.
A Day at the Fair in 1893
The Palace of Fine Arts.
Aerial view of the fair showing the design ofFrederick Law Olmstead for the site.
The Peristyle.
The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, was designed and constructed byGeorge Washington Gale Ferris Jr. With a height of 80.4 metres (264 ft) it was the tallest attraction at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, where it opened to the public on June 21, 1893.
Great exhibition buildings surrounding the canals...
...in a landscape created byFrederick Law Olmstead. Here is the Illinois State Pavilion.
The Liberty Bell at the World's Fair.
“Thomas Moran, a follower of the British painterJ. M. W. Turner, was drawn to dramatic natural features in places such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. In this view of the lagoon and central buildings constructed for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893—an extravagant, nationalistic salute to the westward advance of “civilization”—Moran bathed the scene in the glowing colors of a vivid sunset and violet shadows that might have seemed extreme if rendered in oils.” – The Brooklyn Museum
Bright green trees and the cool blues of a stream enliven a painting of medieval wood and stone homes in an idyllic French country town. “His works were stunning, idealistic — the weight and texture of his brush strokes not unlike that of glazed candy — yet they still carried a serious, mature tone,” sophomore Andrea Wallace said. Wallace wasn’t describing Monet or Renoir — she was describing the art of none other than Sir Winston Churchill. (read more)
First a report about the College. Hillsdale’s campus is quiet, which it ought not to be, but also well. Our students were away for spring break when the coronavirus hit. We spent the week absorbing the news and making plans to bring them back, it being our job to have college. We found that we could not. Much of what I am writing here is shaped by this discovery: we did not have and could not get the tools and knowledge to do our work. And soon enough we were forbidden to do it by general fiat.
Spirits are good here, nonetheless. There have been many inspiring examples of service, good humor, and effort. I just finished a videoconference with the senior class officers to plan Commencement, which will be a grand celebration whether it is in May or later this summer. The seniors will arrive days early, dress up in their finery, and come over in groups for dinner at my house and sing and give toasts. Those are important rituals of friendship, and students have the same attitude as I: they will put up with absence and isolation, but resent it, and they will redouble their efforts to achieve the best things. They are determined to convert this disruption into an opportunity for excellence. (read more)
An hour or so later, Allison heard voices. Then the two stepped into an open area where the remainder of their colonists stood assembled. A heated discussion was underway about the future of the colony. Men and women who had been subjugated into numbers struggled openly with the task before them of leading the colony. The two Russian doctors had tried to take charge but that had obviously gone badly. There was already emerging a faction that blamed APOLLONIUS and anyone associated with him for the present calamity. Another faction, equally as vociferous, blamed the AAR. The truth was that no one at the moment really trusted either. As Allison and Josiah stepped into their midst, they became silent.
In the reality of farming a new world, it was already obvious that there were those who labored harder than others. It was also obvious that there were those who felt their status allowed them to live off of the labors of others. Here, many miles from Earth, was a scene from the time the Pilgrims set foot in America. The ‘Common Course and Condition’ had resulted in general lack of initiative among the colonists as a group. Josiah stepped forward. Relating the story of his and Allison’s survival, he then suggested a division of labor more in keeping with the flight director’s world that they inhabited. Each colonist would be given a section of greenhouse as their own. They would be responsible for their own sector’s productivity.
Indeed, they would need to cooperate and work together, but Josiah had now insured that each area would have a responsible person over it. In doing so, he unwittingly ‘elected’ himself leader of the APOLLONIUS Colony on Mars.
Josiah then asked how so many of them were in the particular area that survived. Amazingly, all but APOLLONIUS and a couple of launch officers were here intact after an event that might have destroyed them all.
It seems that APOLLONIUS had chosen to launch his missile at the time of an important farming lecture. The whole colony turned out, concerned that they really were confused and they wanted to learn more as a matter of survival. Even the doctors showed up, skeptical of the health claims in the course’s description. They would, they thought, weigh in to discredit it. The result was that the colony itself was quite uninhabited at the time of its destruction. Had APOLLONIUS planned this? That might never be known, for he and his launch technicians perished quite suddenly in the explosion.
Ironically, the basic farming methodology for the colony was from a text known as ‘Squanto’s Garden,’ which had guided the Northern greenhouse culture. It invoked the simple methods of early farmers and avoided heavy use of pesticides.
(to be continued)
Winter Trees Photos byBob Kirchman
Winter Trees
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963
All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
– Isaiah 55:10-13
Harper Goff, Imagineer
Harper Goff.
In 1951, my wife and I were in London. I was always a miniature train fan, so I went to Bassett-Lowke, Ltd... I was trying to find something I could bring back as an antique. I found one, and the man said, ‘There’s a gentleman coming in this evening who’s shown some interest in that. I can’t sell it to you, because I think he may think it’s being saved for him.’” That is how Harper Goff begins his story of meeting Walt Disney! Indeed Disney came back and bought the train, but he met Goff and got into a conversation with him. Disney offered Harper Goff a job and the rest is history.
Goff was a talented artist, watercolorist, set designer and musician. The Disney organization was a place where he would flourish.
Harper Goff was born on March 16, 1911 in Fort Collins, Colorado. As a boy he was artistic like Disney. After studies at the Chouinard Art Institute he initially became a magazine illustrator. He worked for a while at Warner Brothers before his fateful meeting with Walt.
Disney was embarking on a project to make a full-length feature film of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Goff found himself designing the iconic ‘Steampunk’ submarine for the movie. Years later he wrote:
Iwas assigned the task of getting together a 'true-life' adventure film using some exceptional underwater footage shot in a laboratory aquarium, by Dr. McGinnity of Cal-Tech's Marine Biology lab in Carona Del Mar. Walt (Disney) thought inasmuch as "20,000 L.U.T.S." was in public domain we might do worse than use the title for a current True-Life adventure short subject. Walt went to England and I stayed in Burbank and made a story-board of a live action version of the classic using McGinnity's footage as a sort of ballet episode where Nemo shows Aronax the wonders of the deep. Walt liked the story-board well enough to have me give an 'A.R.I.' (Audience Reaction Inquiry) to a group of exhibitors who were in town. They were enthusiastic and the rest is history.
In motion pictures, the text of a classic like this subject is sacrosanct like the Bible! The 'word' of Jules Verne is not to be made light of, so the duty of the production designer like myself is to take the sometimes arbitary discriptions of the Nautilus as recorded by 'J.V.' and "make it work".
a. Jules Vernewhile foreseeing brilliantly the atomic submarine of today, did not at that time invent the periscope, the torpedo tube, or sonar. He did not prophesy closed curcut television. According to Verne, if Nemo wanted to see what was going on the surface, he simply poked the glass ports of the conning tower out of the depths and took a direct look. He risked his vessel, himself, and his crew by ramming the enemy at frightening speed. If he wanted to study the marvels of life under the surface, he reclined in his elegent bay window lounge, and passed the hours studying the marine life outside the amazing pressure proof window of his luxurious salon. These items dictated much of the direction of my production designs.
b.Nemo is quoted by Verne as telling Aronax that "I need no coal for my bunkers. I have instead harnessed the very building blocks of the material universe to heat my boilers and drive this craft". No one can doubt Verne meant Atomic Power.
c.It is not sound economics to study and design obviously unnesscessary parts of the Nautilus if it will not appear on screen. The crews quarters were thus unaccounted for. In Verne's original text Nemo from time to time leaves the chart room and steps directly into other diversified areas of the submarine. Directors do not like to slow down the action and clutter up a dramatic moment by showing actors leave a room, lift a hatch, enter another room.
d. At the time Captain Nemo constructed Nautilus on Mysterious Island, the iron riveted ship was the last word in marine construction. I have always thought rivet patterns were beautiful. I wanted no slick shelled moonship to transport Nemo thru the emerald deep and so fought and somehow got my way. On Mysterious Island Nemo had the white hot heat of a volcano to help him build his dreamship, but I am sure that flat iron plates profusely riveted would have been his way. His stock pile of material was always the countless sunken ships uniquely available to him alone. Even the Greek amphora and the works of art that graced his great salon was salvaged from wrecks.
e.The free diving suits - (self-contained) were developed by myself with the assistance of Fred Zender, and exceptionally able underwater man. The helmets were souped-up Japanese pearl diving helmets. We masked the scuba gear, let water into the helmet, put a breathing tube in our mouth, the clamps on our nose and one night in 1952 Freddie and I walked slowly from the shallow end to the deep end of the Santa Monica pool. Lead around our middle and 16 lbs. shoes...it worked! Many had predicted failure. This formed the basis of the suits that appeared in the film. We spent 9 hrs. a day, 7 days a week for 8 weeks at Lyford Key in the Bahamas, underwater! Never lost a man, Fred was in charge of safety.
f.20,000 Leagues was the second cinemascope picture to go into production. Fox had the worldrights to the anamorphic lenses developed by a French inventor named Cretien. This lense "squeezes" the horizontal dimensions of a scene into half the normal area on a cinema frame. If projected thru an anamorphic projection lense it "unsqueezes" this image and the resulting image is widescreen. Fox had only one lense to lease and this meant that Disney could not shoot miniture set ups while the main action sequences were before the cameras. I hit upon the idea of having the prop miniature shop build a "squeezed" Nautilus miniature. The model was built half as wide and half as long, but just as high. Even the rivets were "squeezed". This one miniature was shot with a normal lense. If care was taken to insure the Nautilus remained on an even keel, the resulting footage was more than adequate. When "unsqueezed" by anamorphic projection, the image of the Nautilus was stretched to normal proportions. Of course the bubbles looked strange, but no one seemed to mind. The success of this experiment made it possible for the special effects department to make its necessary footage of many of the underwater miniatures simultaniously with principal photography of the actors.
g.My idea has always been that the shark and the alligator were the most terrifying monsters living in the water. I there for combined the scary eyes of the alligator that can watch you even when it is nearly submerged....with the dangerous pointed nose and menacing dorsal fin - its sleek streamlining and its distinctive tail. The disgusting rough skin of the alligator is well simulated by the rivets. As Verne insists that the Nautilus drove its way clean threw it's victim, I designed a protective sawtooth spline that started forward at the bulb of the ram and slid around all outjutting structures of the hull. These included the conning tower, the diving planes, and the great helical propeller at the stern.
Sincerely,
Harper Goff”
Goff’s creativity played in a lot of Disney’s projects. He was part of the creation of the original Disneyland Park. Not only did he create the visuals for park attractions, he played banjo with the original “Firehouse Five Plus Two” band. He even earned the ire of Disney as the band, in keeping with their name, began playing sets in front of the fire house on Main Street. Disney’s private apartment just happened to be upstairs in the fire house and Disney did not appreciate the band disturbing his ‘power naps.’
Eventually Harper Goff went on to freelance and designed parts of the great world’s fairs in the 1960s. He returned to Disney in 1975 and created pavilions for Epcot. Harper Goff passed away in 1993 and was awarded the Disney Organization’s highest honor: Disney Legend.
Jules Verne’s first published novel was Five Weeks in a Balloon. It details an expedition across Africa and was very well received by his readers. It reads more like a travelogue than an adventure though. Verne’s publisher, Jules Hetzel, would later ask him to include more adventure and even romance in later works. The story of Aouda, the woman Phineas Fogg rescues in India, is in answer to that criticism.
The Twentieth Century Fox film, made in 1962, adds adventure and romance to Verne’s original novel. Rather than a mapping expedition, the trip as rewritten in Irwin Allen’s screenplay becomes a race to stop slavers from occupying a piece of territory. The cause becomes more heroic. (read more)
The EPCOT Never Built
Disney's Unrealized Magnum Opus
Walt Disney died before he could begin construction on what might have been his Magnum Opus. His brother Roy continued his plan to build the Florida Magic Kingdom and EPCOT eventually was built as a permanent world’s fair. Look at these renderings and models, however, and it is quite clear that Walt had bigger things in mind when he laid out the concept for his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
Terry Kelley, Beverley Manor Magisterial District Supervisor attends the White House Conference on Rural Prosperity.
How do we arrive at such things as the lowest minority unemployment rates in history and a strengthened economy in the Heartland? Behind the scenes work like this conference attended by Beverley Manor Supervisor Terry Kelley are part of the process of returning America to the people who make her robust. (read more)
Vice-President Mike Pence addresses the delegates.
Elizabeth Layton Nel, Churchill's wartime secretary.
This past weekend I saw ‘Darkest Hour,’ Joe Wright’s film about Winston Churchill in May of 1940 and his facing the challenge of Europe’s fall and the immanent threat of invasion faced by Great Britain at the beginning of World War II. It is a wonderfully inspiring story of a great and flawed man who was indeed the man history needed in a time so overwhelming. Gary Oldman is very convincing as Churchill. His rendition of the “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech to Parliament had me fully invested in the story. (read more)
