Architectural Historian and Author Lecturing at Ventfort Hall
LENOX, Mass. — Architectural historian and author/speaker Cornelia Brooke Gilder will lecture at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum on "Architects in Albany – The Berkshire Connections."Gilder will present her visual talk on Saturday, March 20 at 3 p.m. followed by a Victorian Tea, and will sign copies of the new book "Architects in Albany," for which she is the major contributing writer. Among other work, Gilder is best known as co-author (with Richard S. Jackson Jr.) of "Houses of the Berkshires: 1870-1930, named an honor book by Historic New England."
"Architects in Albany" contains some 36 entries on architects and architectural firms that were commissioned to design Albany buildings from one of the nation’s most imposing state capitols to churches, schools, banks and row houses dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. Gilder will focus specifically on those architects whose work is found both in the Empire State’s capital and in the Berkshires.
Among these are McKim, Mead and White, the firm that designed the Georgian-style Benjamin Arnold House in Albany and in Stockbridge, the Casino, now the home of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, as well as Naumkeag. The Albany County Courthouse, found on Capitol Hill, was designed by the firm of Hoppin and Koen, the architects for The Mount, Eastover, and Ashintully, all in the Berkshires. Patrick C. Keely designed two St. Joseph churches, one in Albany and the other in Pittsfield. J. Cleveland Cady’s style can be seen in the First Presbyterian Church of Albany and in his Morgan Hall at Williams College. William Appleton Potter was the architect for Albany’s U.S. Post Office and Federal Building and Pittsfield’s County Registry of Deeds building, formerly the city’s Atheneum.
The new book is an expansion of the 1978 booklet "Albany Architects: Yesterday Versus Today," for which Gilder was editor. Educated at Vassar College and Cambridge University, Gilder, a lifelong Berkshire resident, also wrote "Hawthorne’s Lenox," "The Tanglewood Circle" and "A History of Ventfort Hall" with the late Joan Olshansky. In 2005, she co-curated "A Walk in the Country: Inness and the Berkshires" at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
Tickets for the lecture and tea are $16 per person for nonmembers and $14 for members. Reservations are highly recommended as seating is limited. For information or reservations call Ventfort Hall at 413-637-3206. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker St.
