William Halsey Wood
From Archiplanet
| William Halsey Wood | |
| Born | April 24, 1855; Dansville, New York, USA |
| Died | March 13, 1897; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Notes |
Contents |
[edit] Projects
Following is a partial list of works by William Halsey Wood in alphabetical rather than chronological order:
- Breslin Memorial Tower, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, TN
- Christ Church (Episcopal), Bloomfield, NJ (1893)
- Church of St. John the Evangelist (Episcopal), Hunter/Tannersville, NY (1885)
- First Baptist Peddie Memorial Church, Newark, NJ (1888)
- First Congregational Church, Newark, NJ (1891)
- St. John's Episcopal Church, Passaic, NJ (1896)
- St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Jersey City, NJ (1889)
- St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Memphis, TN (1897-1898; completed posthumously)
- St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral, Laramie, WY
- St. Michael and All Angels Church, Anniston, AL (1888)
- St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Chattanooga, TN
- St. Paul's Episcopal Church, East Orange, NJ (1895)
- St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Paterson, NJ (1895)
- St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Washington, NJ (1886)
- Sixth (now St. Paul's Portuguese) Presbyterian Church, Newark, NJ (1888)
- Wickliffe Presbyterian Church, Newark, NJ (1888; demolished)
- Yaddo, Spencer and Katrina Trask residence, Saratoga Springs, NY
- Zion and St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, New York, NY (destroyed by fire)
[edit] Discussion
[edit] Early Life
As the youngest of four sons born to Daniel Halsey and Hannah Lippincott Wood, William Halsey Wood relocated with his family to Newark, NJ shortly after his birth in 1855. Daniel Wood operated a varnish manufacturing facility there. Family spiritual life centered on the House of Prayer, an Anglo-Catholic congregation where the children were introduced to ritualist liturgy and where William became a member of the choir, eventually serving as its director. Several members of Wood's family were also members of the clergy.
[edit] Career
Wood prepared for the architectural profession in a typical nineteenth-century pattern. During an unspecified time in the 1870s, he traveled to England and apprenticed in the office of George Frederick Bodley, a leading figure in the High-Church or Anglo-Catholic movement within the Anglican Communion. The Bodley connection is consistent with Wood's youthful experience at the House of Prayer, and that, with other family connections to the High Church party within Anglicanism, ultimately contributed to the character of Wood's own mature work. On his return from England, Wood entered the Newark architectural firm of Thomas Roberts, soon becoming the junior partner of Roberts, Taylor & Wood in 1875. Within a very few years, however, Wood set up an independent practice with offices in both Newark and New York City.
His practice focused on two familiar building types: large single-family residences and ecclesiastical designs, almost exclusively for the Protestant Episcopal church. Three of his suburban houses were featured in Artistic Country-Seats by G. W. Sheldon, an 1886 publication that included work by McKim, Meade & White, Wilson Eyre, and other notable turn-of-the-century designers. But church clients formed the largest part of Wood's practice, especially for his own denomination; from 1885 until his death twelve years later, Wood designed more than thirty churches and parish buildings, all but four of them for Episcopal congregations. A preliminary list of his works includes a dense cluster in the greater New York City area, but extends to Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Wyoming and California.
Perhaps wood's greatest claim to architectural fame was his unsuccessful entry in the competition for the Cathedral of St. John-the-Divine in New York City. He was one of four finalists in that competition, ultimately losing to the firm of Heins & LaFarge. The loss was one form which he never recovered.
[edit] Assessment
Wood's death at the age of 41 occurred at a time when American architecture was shifting from the historical revivalism of the late 19th century into the functionality of early-20th century modernism. Criticisms at the time of his passing and reevaluations shortly after suggest that he was very much a part of the transition, and would be better known today had he been able to practice longer.
A victim of tuberculosis, Wood died on March 13, 1897, at the Philadelphia home of his wife's parents. He is buried in the churchyard of St. James-the-Less, an important early Gothic Revival church building near the Falls of the Schuylkill.
