Fabulous Furness: the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 12/29/2010 06:10:00 AM.
Built by Frank Furness in 1871-76 to house the oldest art museum in the US, the Academy building is one big delirious example of late victorian Gothic gone nuts with the Renaissance and the Second Empire style.
Furness had been a pupil of Richard Morris Hunt, who introduced him to the aesthetics of the modern Gothic revival. This included John Ruskin's appreciation of the richly colored designs of 14th-century Venice, Owen Jones's and Christopher Dresser's Eastern influenced ornament, and Viollet le Duc's use of foliated decoration combined with cast-iron architecture.
The result here concocts an edifice with many details that would leave their admirers wondering if they weren't a tad ahead of the streamline age or some Art Deco creations.
Furness had been a pupil of Richard Morris Hunt, who introduced him to the aesthetics of the modern Gothic revival. This included John Ruskin's appreciation of the richly colored designs of 14th-century Venice, Owen Jones's and Christopher Dresser's Eastern influenced ornament, and Viollet le Duc's use of foliated decoration combined with cast-iron architecture.
The result here concocts an edifice with many details that would leave their admirers wondering if they weren't a tad ahead of the streamline age or some Art Deco creations.
Labels: Architecture Instant Love, Architecture shot, design, Philadelphia, photography
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