Detlef Lienau
Encyclopedia
– August 29, 1887) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
architect born in Holstein
Holstein
Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
. He is credited with having introduced the French style
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
to American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
building construction, notably the mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
and all its decorative flourishes. Trained at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he designed virtually every type of Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
structure—cottages, mansions, townhouses, apartment houses, hotels, tenements, banks, stores, churches, schools, libraries, offices, factories, railroad stations, and a museum. Lienau was recognized by clients and colleagues alike as one of the most creative and technically proficient architects of the period, and was one of the 29 founding members of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
.
Life and career
Lienau was born in an area of Denmark that later became part of GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. He immigrated to the United States
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
in 1848 and on May 11, 1853, he married Catherine Van Giesen Booraem. It was his first marriage and her second. Lienau and Catherine had five children: Jacob August, Detlef, Catherine Cornelia, Lucy, and Louise. All but the eldest son, J. August, died young. His granddaughter is Jane Lienau, a prestigious teacher of Classics at Brunswick High School. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became an architect, designing mostly residential structures after taking over his father’s practice in 1887. He later formed a partnership with Thomas Nash, which lasted through the late 1920s.
After Catherine's death in 1861, Lienau married Harriet Jane Wreaks in 1866 and they had two children: Eleanor F. and Jacob Henry. In 1935, J. Henry donated about 800 of his father’s professional drawings, photographs and other original documents to the Avery Library of Architecture and Fine Arts at Columbia University.
Lienau was one of a relatively small group of trained architects, of whom the majority were fairly recent arrivals from Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the continent. All brought with them to the New World the traditions of the Old, but Lienau differed from his colleagues in one important respect: Molded by his early Danish
Culture of Denmark
The culture of Denmark, while rich in the arts, has some general characteristics associated with Danish society and everyday culture. Modesty, punctuality but above all equality are important aspects of the Danish way of life...
and North German environment
Culture of Germany
German culture began long before the rise of Germany as a nation-state and spanned the entire German-speaking world. From its roots, culture in Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular...
, and by years of study in various German art centers and in Paris, Lienau had a point of view more international than theirs—a rarity in an age of ardent nationalism. Thus, a fusion of traditions enabled him to adapt quickly to life in America and to deal successfully with the demands of an increasingly eclectic age. Another point that should be stressed, since it has long been ignored: It was Lienau, not Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...
, who was the first to bring to the United States a mind and a hand that was shaped, through contact with Henri Labrouste
Henri Labrouste
Pierre François Henri Labrouste was a French architect from the famous École des Beaux Arts school of architecture. After a six year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the Rationalist view...
, by the French Beaux-Arts tradition.
Lienau’s career provides a dramatic illustration of the contributions made by the professionally trained European architect to American architecture. His chief importance to American architecture of the period from 1850 to the mid-’80s
1880s
The 1880s was the decade that spanned from January 1, 1880 to December 31, 1889. They occurred at the core period of the Second Industrial Revolution. Most Western countries experienced a large economic boom, due to the mass production of railroads and other more convenient methods of travel...
lies not in his use of the Second Empire mode per se, nor in his general eclecticism, but in the classical orientation of his entire practice. His work represents a continuing current of conservatism in American architecture, which for a time was submerged beneath the more dominant picturesque modes of the period, the High Victorian Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and the Second Empire—the latter quite as anti-classical in its later style phase as the former. He served as a bridge between the classical traditions of design of the second quarter of the 19th century and their re-emergence in the 1880s of the movement led in New York by the firm of McKim, Mead & White.
Among the architects Lienau is said to have influenced are Henry Janeway Hardenbergh
Henry Janeway Hardenbergh
Henry Janeway Hardenbergh was an American architect, best known for his hotels and apartment buildings.-Life and career:...
and Paul Johannes Pelz
Paul J. Pelz
Paul Johannes Pelz was a German-American architect. He is best known as architect of the main building of the Library of Congress.-Life and career:...
, both of whom worked in Lienau's office-workshop. According to Hardenbergh, Lienau never had more than six men in his office, so he could really devote some time to them. Thus, through the work of his many pupils, Lienau's influence continued down through the early years of the 20th century.
From simple cottages to great mansions, Lienau used many modes to express his own ideas and the wishes of his clients in what he considered to be their most appropriate form. The Chalet and Stick Style of the early cottages, the Italian Villa, the monumental French Renaissance
French Renaissance
French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...
tradition (all reflections of the picturesque High Victorian Gothic of the late ’60s
1860s
The 1860s were an extremely turbulent decade with numerous cultural, social, and political upheavals in Europe and America. Revolutions were prevalent in Germany and the Ottoman Empire...
and early ’70s
1870s
The 1870s continued the trends of the previous decade, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. America was recovering from the Civil War. Germany declared independence in 1871 and began its Second Reich. Labor unions and strikes occurred worldwide in the later part of...
), and finally echoes of the Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
and of the Colonial Revival—all found expression in Lienau’s work.
Lienau died in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His drawings and papers are held in the Department of Drawings & Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. It is the largest architecture library in the world...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City.
Buildings
Some of Lienau’s most important commissions (by completion date of their first phase). Those in boldface are on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
1849—Michael Lienau cottage; 44 Jersey Avenue; Jersey City, NJ.
1852—Beach Cliffe; Kane Villa; Bath Road; Newport, RI.
1852—Francis Cottenet Villa (Nuits
Nuits (Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York)
Nuits, also known as the Cottenet-Brown House, is an Italian villa-style house located in the Ardsley-on-Hudson section of the village of Irvington, New York, United States. Built in 1852 for Francis Cottenet, a wealthy New York merchant, it was later owned and renovated by Cyrus West Field, John...
); Hudson Road and Clifton Place; Ardsley-on-Hudson, NY.
1852—Hart M. Shiff House; Fifth Avenue at 10th Street; New York, NY.
1853—Grace Church Van Vorst
Grace Church Van Vorst
The Grace Church Van Vorst, is located in Jersey City, New Jersey. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1979. The church was built in 1853 and was named after the former Van Vorst Township. The church is an English Gothic-style Episcopalian church and was...
; Erie Avenue and Second Street; Jersey City, NJ.
1859—William C. Schermerhorn House; 49 West 23rd Street; New York, NY.
1862—F.O. Matthiessen & Weichers sugar refinery; South Street; Jersey City, NJ.
1864—First National Bank; 1 Exchange Place; Jersey City, NJ.
1865—New York Life & Trust Company; 52 Wall Street; New York, NY.
1868—Elm Park
Lockwood-Mathews Mansion
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion is a Second Empire style country house, now a museum, in Norwalk, Connecticut. It was featured in the movies The Stepford Wives and House of Dark Shadows....
(now known as the "Lockwood-Mathews Mansion"), 295 West Avenue; Norwalk, Connecticut
Norwalk
Norwalk is the name of several places in the United States of America:*Norwalk, California, a suburb of Los Angeles*Norwalk, Connecticut, a city in southwestern Connecticut that contains several neighborhoods including Central Norwalk, East Norwalk, South Norwalk, and West Norwalk** The Norwalk...
, CT
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
.
1868—New York Sugar Refining Company; Washington and Essex Streets; Jersey City, NJ.
1868—L. Marcotte factory and warehouse; 160-164 West 32nd Street; New York, NY.
1869—Edmund Schermerhorn House; 45-47 West 23rd Street; New York, NY.
1870—Mrs. Rebecca Jones Block; Fifth Avenue between 55th and 56th Street; New York, NY.
1871—American Jockey Club; Madison Avenue at 27th Street; New York, NY.
1871—Henry A. Booraem Block; Second Street; Jersey City, NJ.
1871—Schermerhorn Apartments; 2131-2137 Third Avenue; New York, NY.
1872—Grosvenor House Hotel; Fifth Avenue at 10th Street; New York, NY.
1872—Michael Lienau Villa (Schloss Düneck); Moorrege
Moorrege
Moorrege, located 30 km north west of Hamburg at the small river Pinnau, close to the Elbe river, is a municipality in the district of Pinneberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.Moorrege is the seat of the Amt Moorrege....
, Germany.
1873—Matthew Wilks Residence (Cruickston Park); Blair, ON, Canada.
1874—DeLancey Kane Estate loft building; 676 Broadway; New York, NY.
1875—Edward Bech Villa outbuildings (Rosenlund, now Marist College); Poughkeepsie, NY.
1875—New Brunswick Theological Seminary
New Brunswick Theological Seminary
New Brunswick Theological Seminary is a professional and graduate school founded in 1784, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to educate ministers for the congregations of the Reformed Church in America...
(Sage Library); 17 Seminary Place; New Brunswick, NJ.
1876—Georgia Historical Society (Hodgson Hall); 501 Whitaker Street; Savannah, GA.
1879—George Mosle townhouse; 5 West 51st Street
51st Street (Manhattan)
51st Street is a long one-way street traveling east to west across Midtown Manhattan.-East 51st Street:*The route officially begins at Beekman Place which is on a hill overlooking FDR Drive...
; New York, NY.
1880—Walter H. Lewis Cottage (Anglesea); Ochre Point; Newport, RI.
1881—William C. Schermerhorn store and loft building; 116-118 East 14th Street; New York, NY.
1882—Daniel Parish Estate office building; 67 Wall Street; New York, NY.
1883—Mrs. Mary M. Williams Cottage; 1135 Hamilton Street; Somerset, NJ. See: Tulipwood (home)
Tulipwood (home)
Tulipwood is an historic home at 1165 Hamilton Street in the Somerset section of Franklin Township, New Jersey.-Williams family:The property has been owned by the family of Mary Maclay Pentz Williams since 1877. An 8-1/4 acre portion of the original tract, was granted to Stephen Guion Williams by...
1884—Mrs. Mary M. Williams Row; 37-47 West 82nd Street; New York, NY.
1887—Lienau-Williams Row; 48-54 West 82nd Street; New York, NY.