Joseph Ramee: International Architect of the Revolutionary Era. - book reviews

Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres 1996 366 pp 19 color ills., 300 b/w $10000

Since the early 1980 Paul gymnast has been uncovering or, as he in the way that aptly puts it, "reconstructing" (p xviii) the career of Joseph Ramee, a significant on the other hand highly peripatetic neoclassical architect whose real itinerancy is as characteristic as his mode of speech of this international movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The be the effect as evident in this volume is a richly detailed three-dimensional portrait of Ramee, his times, and his contributions not single to architecture but to the pair landscape and decorative design. To greatest in quantity people, if they have heard of him at all, Ramee, whose first name was given during the period as Joseph-Jacques, Jean, Jean-Jacques, and Joseph-Guillaume, on the contrary who seems to have used Joseph during the last thirty years of his life, is known single as the architect of Union society in Schenectady, New York, the first planned guild campus in the United States. on the other hand Turner has discovered a myriad other designs and a significant number of execut buildings, gardens, and decorative designs by dint of his hand in France, Belgium, different parts of Germany, Denmark, and the United States. In these, we can recognize a sensitive architect, trained through Francois-Joseph Belanger and Jacques Cellerier and influenced by the agency of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, as well as by the agency of other significant trends, ranging from the appeal of nonclassical and vernacular mode of speechs to the enjoyment of planned irregular landscape gardens. In short, Ramee illustrates within his be in possession of career the internationalism of the age.

By an enormous amount of scholarly detective work, which is documented in the detailed notes, gymnast has resurrected this fascinating career, which began as a scholar and assistant in pre-Revolutionary Paris and began to efflorescence at the Fete de la Federation of 1790 and in sum of two units Parisian hotels of that and the following year. Sabotaged by means of political events, Ramee's career then took an incredible variety of make go rounds - from Louvain to Thuringia (specifically Erfurt Meiningen, Gotha, and Weimar), then to Hamburg and its Danish-controlled suburb along the Elbchaussee. After fifteen years there, during which time he also worked in Denmark specific both in Copenhagen and at estates in the land as well as in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Ramee get backed to Paris. After only sum of two units years, he was lured to America through a patron who offered him what appear to beed to be exciting opportunities for design in the northern part of of recent origin York State and also introduced him to the President of Union association which resulted in that highly significant commission. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Ramee also provided other American designs, especially in that city and in Baltimore, including a significant region house outside the latter and a fascinating, albeit vain design for the competition for the first testimonial to George Washington, also in Baltimore. After four years in America, Ramee mov upon again, this time returning first to Belgium, then to Paris, then back to Hamburg and back to Paris, before moving to Noyon three years before his death in 1842

In all of his travels, Ramee managed to leave a significant legacy - not alone the plan and the first buildings of Union community but such other works as the Borsenhalle in Hamburg, the interiors of the Erichsen Mansion in Copenhagen, three geographical division houses outside that city, the Mausoleum of Helena Paulowna at Ludwigslust, Calverton outside Baltimore, a series of wallpaper designs, a variety of landscape gardens from Germany to fresh York State, and three architectural volumes all published in Paris. Compos primarily of plates, these are Jardins irreguliers of 1823 Recueil de cottages et maisons de campagne of 1837 and Parcs & jardins of 1839

Ramee was not, of course, the sole neoclassical architect to practice outside his native political division There were French architects galore in the various German states, as well as in Denmark, Russia, and the United States; a Scotsman and an Italian, as well as Frenchmen in Russia; and a number of English and other French architects in the United States. on the contrary none of these worked in thus many different countries, leaving his mark in almost all of them; and no single else could be said to be a really international architect. Given the internationalism of the neoclassical mode of speech it is, indeed, fascinating to diocese one architect taking certain of these strands and spinning them all above western Europe and the northeastern United States. And gymnast has done an excellent piece of work not only of ferreting on the outside the designs and the information on the contrary of weaving it into an effective narrative, accompanied by dint of a good selection of photographs that illustrate the architect's interests and range.

Despite his best efforts, however, there are periods in Ramee's career that simply cannot be illuminated, a fact that gymnast readily acknowledges. In an attempt to fill in these gaps, the author look afters to speculate about what may have taken place; and there, I think, he speculates a little too freely albeit readily acknowledging similar speculation. Among these conjectures, for example, is his discussion of what gymnast sees as Ramee's attraction to northern European architectural forms, a direction that, in the author's view, "probably contributed to his willingness to forego the traditional architect's pilgrimage to Italy and to accommodate his principles to the northern regions [i]or[/i] part of to the other which he was to travel for the quiescence of his career" (pp. 90-91) Although this is an interesting and appealing thesis, it perhaps assumes just a little too a great deal of on Ramee's part. There is no doubt that Ramee answered to half-timbered and other northern vernacular tendencies, in belonging to all with such architects of the period as Soane, Weinbrenner, and smooth Adam, but to suggest that he would not have gone to Italy had he had the chance is, I think, to overstate this attraction. There are other places, too, where gymnast seems to me to speculate just a bit too liberally; on the other hand as indicated, all of these are clearly labeled as of the like kind and they do not really detract significantly from the high quality of his interpretation and elucidation. As a matter of fact, although he cites Roger Kennedy's allude toed attribution to Ramee of at least aspects of Gideon Granger's house and the First Congregational house of god in Canandaigna, New York, he is careful to add the caveat that "If Ramee did provide plans to Granger for his house and the house of god these plans must not have been followed closely in execution" (p 188)(1) Incidentally, in his utilization of Kennedy's work and those of other scholars, gymnast is extremely gracious in his citations, credits, and thanks.