Cass Gilbert

Mr. Gil­bert stu­died at the Mas­sa­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Tech­no­logy, en­t­e­red the of­fice of McKim, Mead & White, then es­ta­blis­hed his own of­fice in St. Paul. As early as 1899, when he won a com­pe­ti­tion for the United Sta­tes Cust­oms House in New York, he was con­side­red among the best of Ame­ri­can ar­chi­tects. Mr. Gil­bert was the fa­ther of the mo­dern sky­scra­per. He de­si­gned the sixty-story Wool­worth Buil­ding in New York. At the time of its erec­tion no buil­ding of its height (792 feet) had been built. After drawing the plans for this sky­scra­per, he re­su­med his ge­ne­ral ar­chi­tec­tu­ral work, de­si­gning among other pu­blic buil­dings the state ca­pi­tols of Min­ne­sota, West Vir­gi­nia, and Ar­kan­sas; li­bra­ries in St. Louis, De­troit, and New Haven; New York Cust­oms House, and the Cham­ber of Com­merce of the United Sta­tes. One of the last struc­tu­res for which he made plans was the United Sta­tes Su­preme Court Buil­ding, Gre­cian in de­sign and erec­ted at a cost of ten mil­lion dol­lars. The late Chief Jus­tice Wil­liam Howard Taft hea­ded the United Sta­tes Su­preme Court Com­mis­sion which selec­ted Mr. Gil­bert as ar­chi­tect, and he re­gar­ded the struc­ture as an out­stan­ding achie­ve­ment of his long ca­reer. He was con­sul­ting ar­chi­tect for the Ge­orge Wa­shing­ton Bridge across the Hud­son River in upper Man­hat­tan. Pre­si­dent Theo­dore Roo­se­velt made Mr. Gil­bert chair­man of the Coun­cil of Fine Arts, and Pre­si­dent Wil­son re­ap­poin­ted him. He was made a Che­va­lier of the Le­gion of Honor of France, re­cei­ved the order of King Al­bert of Bel­gium, and many gold me­dals both here and ab­road. At a din­ner in 1931, he was awar­ded the gold medal of the So­ciety of Arts and Sci­en­ces for in­au­gu­ra­ting the age of sky­scra­pers. He was pre­si­dent of the Ame­ri­can In­sti­tute of Ar­chi­tects in 1908 and 1909; a foun­der of the Ar­chi­tec­tu­ral Le­ague of New York, ser­ving as its pre­si­dent in 1913-14; and a mem­ber of the Ame­ri­can Aca­demy of Arts and Let­ters. In 1908 he was elec­ted an Aca­de­mi­cian and was pre­si­dent of the Na­tio­nal Aca­demy of De­sign from 1926 to 1933.