historically important c. 1929 arizona biltmore hotel interior "wrightesque" style pressed opalescent white glass wall sconce panel

BLDG. 51 MUSEUM COLLECTION
In stock
SKU
UR-15266-12
albert chase mcarthur, architect

 

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exceptionally unique and visually striking all original c. 1929-30 american biltmore hotel interior pressed white opalescent glass light panel comprised of four distinct units set tightly within a soldered joint copper frame. the remarkably thick "wrightesque" wall-mount glass assembly features an iconic design derived from the logarithm of a b flat minor chord. warren mcarthur, jr., and brother charles mcarthur along with john mcentee bowman, the entrepreneur behind the biltmore hotel chain, opened the arizona biltmore on february 23, 1929. the arizona biltmore's architect of record is albert chase mcarthur, yet its authorship is often mistakenly attributed to frank lloyd wright, owing to wright's on-site consulting for four months in 1928 relating to the masonry unit "textile block" construction. some visitors say the hotel has the look and feel of a wright building, especially in the main lobby, likely owing to a strong imprint of the unit block design that wright had utilized on four residential buildings in the los angeles area some 6 years earlier. mcarthur is indisputably the architect as original linen drawings of the hotel in the arizona state university library archives attest, as does the 1929 feature article in architectural record magazine. the prairie school architect was educated at the armour institute of technology (later the illinois institute of technology) and harvard university. mcarthur worked as a draftsman with architect frank lloyd wright (along with william drummond, francis barry byrne, walter burley griffin, marion mahony, isabel roberts and george willis between 1907 and 1909. mcarthur continued his education in austria and italy, opening an architectural firm in chicago with partner arthur s. coffin in 1912. he moved his practice to phoenix in 1925. the biltmore is his most important design. in the course of the great depression, all three of the mcarthur brothers moved to hollywood, california in 1932. authorship of the hotel's design is not a new dispute. wright has variously condemned mcarthur's use of the block system (wright wanted square blocks as opposed to mcarthur's mathematically proportioned rectangle block that was used) and publicly claimed credit for the building's design. in 1930, the mcarthurs lost control of the property to one of their primary investors, william wrigley jr., who later became full owner. in 1970, the wrigley family sold the hotel to the talley family. when taliesin restored the biltmore after a destructive fire in 1973, they recast the bricks from the original molds, but put them in sideways and upside down. mrs. talley, thinking that this could be a flw project, banned albert chase mcarthur from the property and removed the original thousands of pieces of warren mcarthur furniture which had been a major visual part and asset of the hotel.


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