Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: art nouveau

The hops trade was a significant part of Southwark’s commercial past until the early 1970s. Southwark was for centuries associated with hops, breweries and coaching inns. The inns derived their existence from the fact that Borough High Street and Old London Bridge constituted the only land route into the City from the south until as late as 1750. All the road traffic from Kent, Surrey and Sussex came through Southwark. The proprietors of the inns were rich and influential, often serving as Members of Parliament for the parliamentary borough of Southwark. The best-remembered of these was Harry Bailey, landlord of the Tabard, who led Chaucer’s pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales: ‘Befel that in that season on a day / In Southwark at the Tabard, as I lay’. The mediaeval route to Canterbury led you from Borough High Street, via Kent Street, to the Old Kent Road. Kent Street was renamed Tabard Street in 1877. I saw a wonderful building on the Borough High Street while waiting to meet my son. The building erected in the late 19th century to house the offices of W.H. & H. Le May Hop Factors is now listed under the Planning Act for its special architectural or historic interest. The facade is made of stucco, coloured to resemble old red sandstone. It has a granite plinth. The roof is obscured behind a balustraded parapet. To quote from the official document: "3 storeys, single bay but with triple window at 1st floor. Rusticated ground floor and pilasters at angles of upper storeys. Cornices at each storey. Ground-floor rustication forms voussoirs to round-arched entrance with dropped keystone bearing number 67. Pair of inner part-glazed doors. Frieze inscribed WH & H LeMay Hop Factors, embellished with hops. First floor triple round-arched sash windows with modified Ionic pilaster jambs. 2nd storey: large relief sculpture of hop gatherers in classical costumes with name WH & H LeMay Hop Factors. To right at ground floor, square-headed entrance with single corbel." The terracotta relief shows a man and woman harvesting hops. They represent a tradition in 19th and early 20th century England when whole families, including small children, from east and south-east London would immigrate to Kent to work in the annual hops harvest. They would travel on Hop Pickers Specials, trains put on to take pickers at the beginning of the season; they would live in temporary hoppers’ huts while working. I have actually talked with people who remember going down to Kent for the hops harvest. The final chapters of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage and a large part of George Orwell’s A Clergyman’s Daughter contain vivid descriptions of London families participating in this annual hops harvest. Apparently, the building's interior has heavy staircase with square, moulded newel; moulded balusters. The upper storeys are linked by iron spiral staircase leading to top lit upper floor.I only wish that I had been able to see the interior of this amazing building.

Gustave Doré created this three-ton bronze vase, for French winemakers, who exhibited it at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair. It represents an allegory of the annual wine vintage, taking the shape of a colossal wine vessel decorated with figures associated with the rites of Bacchus (the Roman god of wine). The revelers include cupids, satyrs, and bacchantes, who protect the grape vines from pests. The foundry shipped this bronze version of the vase to Chicago for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and then to San Francisco for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition. (This exuberant work must have resonated with the fair’s theme, "California: Cornucopia of the World.") According to an article in an 1893 issue of World’s Fair, "The total visual effect of ‘Poem of the Vine’ is one of lush, rich enjoyment … like a bottle of wine itself, to be tasted in sips, yet enjoyed as a complete experience." M. H. de Young purchased the vase at the fair’s end and later donated it to the de Young Museum. In 1906 the San Francisco earthquake tipped over the vase but apparently caused little damage.

Arthur Putnam (1873-1930) was an American sculptor who was recognized for his bronze sculptures of wild animals. As a child growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, Putnam enjoyed drawing animals and modeling them in clay. In 1899 Putnam married and moved permanently to San Francisco where he worked primarily as a sculptor of architectural ornaments. Regarded as an artistic genius in San Francisco, Putnam was also well-known both statewide and nationally during his lifetime. He won a Gold Medal at the 1915 San Francisco world's fair, officially known as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and his works were also exhibited in New York, Chicago, Paris, and Rome. Putnam lived a tragic life and in spite of his short productive career, his output of tabletop bronzes and monumental works is still impressive. He was first and foremost an animalist and his bronzes were masculine and impressionistic, rather than tightly realistic, with their details indicated rather than painstakingly rendered. He often sculpted recumbent figures, men or animals in slumbering repose, rather than in action, giving them a dreamy quality that was typical of the Art Nouveau era. While Putnam’s oeuvre included bronzes of women, children and small animals, it was the species of big cats that seemed to fascinate him the most and their combination of menace and mystery made them his most common subject. This pair of concrete sphinxes replaces the original black granite sculptures commissioned from Arthur Putnam for the entrance to the Egyptian revival Fine Arts Building of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. He modeled the body of the sphinx after a lifelike cat, but gave the mythological creatures a woman’s face, a face that he modeled on that of his old friend Alice Klauber, the San Diego artist. The building’s Egyptian Revival architecture reflected a fascination with ancient Egypt, inspired by archeological discoveries such as the 1858 excavation of the Great Sphinx at Giza. The architecture also reinforced the perception of a continuous link between the cultural accomplishments of ancient Egyptian civilization and those of Europe and America. At the fair’s end, this building served as the first incarnation of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Sometime between 1905 and 1912, the granite sphinxes were removed and new concrete sphinxes based on Putnam’s initial plaster maquettes were placed at the site. The Egyptian Revival building itself was badly damaged in the Earthquake of 1906 and was eventually demolished in 1929 and replaced by a succession of new museum structures. During the construction in 2005 of the new de Young, the museum’s conservators repositioned the statues on new bases and restored them to their original appearance based on documentary photographs.

Although it occupies one of the smallest sites in the retail area, the Art Nouveau Hammersmith Building, designed in 1907 by Lansburgh & Joseph, makes a contribution to the streetscape which is wholly disproportionate to its size. The building has a large amount of glass for the time it was built, and one motif, that of a building-wide arch, running through all floors. It has maintained its integrity, having been little remodeled in its seventy-two year existence. One of the architects, G. Albert Lansburgh, earned local fame particularly as a designer of theatres.

Built in 1899 as the Hotel Bellevue and is now an elegant residential condo building. The Bellevue Hotel and the adjacent apartment building at 122 Bowdoin Street served as John Kennedy’s residences when he moved to Boston to run for the U.S. Congress in 1946 under the slogan of "The New Generation Offers a Leader." The future president initially lived at the Bellevue, where his grandfather John F. Fitzgerald, former Boston Mayor and U.S. Congressman, was spending his retirement years.

Built in 1899 as the Hotel Bellevue and is now an elegant residential condo building. The Bellevue Hotel and the adjacent apartment building at 122 Bowdoin Street served as John Kennedy’s residences when he moved to Boston to run for the U.S. Congress in 1946 under the slogan of "The New Generation Offers a Leader." The future president initially lived at the Bellevue, where his grandfather John F. Fitzgerald, former Boston Mayor and U.S. Congressman, was spending his retirement years.

Built in 1899 as the Hotel Bellevue and is now an elegant residential condo building. The Bellevue Hotel and the adjacent apartment building at 122 Bowdoin Street served as John Kennedy’s residences when he moved to Boston to run for the U.S. Congress in 1946 under the slogan of "The New Generation Offers a Leader." The future president initially lived at the Bellevue, where his grandfather John F. Fitzgerald, former Boston Mayor and U.S. Congressman, was spending his retirement years.

Maxine Dalsemer works in the Visitor Center of Macy’s and gives an informative tour of the Wanamaker Building. During the tour she talks extensively about the history of the Wanamaker building, its architecture, and the business conducted within. She states that the building is made up of cement and steel with a façade of granite from Maine and an interior of the finest marble. "Wanamaker," she says, "didn’t think of the space in terms of dollars per square foot as most retailers do but was more concerned with the grandeur and beauty of the space." She points out that the columns on the second floor lining the Grand Court are Corinthian, the ones on the third floor are Ionic, and the columns on all the floors supporting the ceilings are Doric. She brings the tour to a vestibule to show the very intricate mosaics made of Terrazzo Marble tiles that are placed painstakingly to create the Wanamaker’s logo Ms Dalsemer claims that at one point there were a tennis court and a jogging track on the roof for the benefit of the store’s employees, but that they regrettably have been replaced with air conditioning units. As she walks through the store she reveals that most of the walls that the shoppers see are false walls used to camouflage stock rooms. She leads the tour past what used to be the Egyptian room on the 3rd floor but remorsefully declares that it has been converted to the executive offices. She explains that it once was a sales floor/auditorium that sold and auctioned off pianos. For special occasions the pianos were disassembled and stored to make room for the seating of 700 or more people. The tour is then brought to the Greek Hall also on the 3rd floor. This dark wood-paneled room with Tiffany Stained Glass Windows has intricately carved wood ceilings featuring Hellenistic patterns, molding featuring large plaster cameos of Roman generals, and elaborate inlayed wood designs on the walls.

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