Attachment_6_-_Hist__Am__Landscape_Survey_-_HALS_DC-55.pdf

WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

HALS DC-55

HALS DC-55

MERIDIAN HILL PARK, NOYES ARMILLARY SPHERE

Bounded by Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Euclid & W Streets Rock Creek Park Washington District of Columbia

HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20240-0001

HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY

MERIDIAN HILL PARK, NOYES ARMILLARY SPHERE

HALS NO. DC-55

Location: 2400 15th Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia

Latitude: 38.919499, Longitude: -77.035628 (Granite Plinth, Google Earth, WGS84)

Significance: The Noyes Armillary Sphere (non-extant) and its extant sculptural objects, including a bronze putto figural statue, a bronze solar calibration plaque and a granite plinth are contributing objects within the historic designed landscape of Meridian Hill Park, a National Register Property and National Historic Landmark. The bronze putto figural statue (object) and the bronze Solar calibration plaque (object) and the green granite plinth (object) are essential extant elements of the non-extant bronze armillary sphere.

The Noyes Armillary Sphere and Meridian Hill Park are representative of the large-scale planning and design schemes carried out during The City Beautiful Era (1893-1940), which was a phenomenon in American landscape architecture in the early 20th century whose mission was to organize, enhance and manage America’s growing urban and built environments. The putto sculpture, the solar calibration plaque and granite plinth are significant extant elements of the non-extant Noyes Armillary Sphere are the work of a master and designed by noted American sculptor C. Paul Jennewein, who was commissioned in 1930 by the US Commission of Fine Arts to sculpt a monumental piece of public art for the 12-acre public park. Meridian Hill Park, a National Historic Landmark, is a nationally significant designed landscape and is a repository of culturally significant public art.

Description:

The Noyes Armillary Sphere was a bronze astrological timepiece that was sited in Meridian Hill Park, Washington, D.C. Dedicated in 1936, the armillary was designed by noted sculptor C. Paul Jennewein. It weighed 1,500 pounds and was six feet in height with a circumference of sixteen feet. Removed by the NPS in 1973 to a warehouse to make repairs caused by vandalism and neglect, it was eventually lost and now presumed destroyed. The only extant elements that remain are the putto, the solar calibration plaque and octagonal plinth. The putto is made of cast bronze and is approximately 16-20 inches in height and has a child-like resemblance. The figure’s face and eyes gaze outward and its rear wings are spread and allude to flight. The child-like putto was placed at the base of the armillary and was symbolic of the birth of each new day. The bronze solar calibration plaque was a later addition and meant to correct the sculptor’s miscalculations and the celestial timepiece’s accuracy. The plaque was set on an oak tablet and mounted on a cast iron post that was independent of the sculpture itself. The polished Vermont green granite plinth remains in situ in the park. It is octagonal in shape and approximately three feet in height. It has heavily moulded base, the eight panels are smooth and without ornamentation, and the upper portion is finished with a modest ogee moulding.

History: Meridian Hill Park is a 12-acre park, which was modeled after the villa gardens of the Italian Renaissance and was built between 1914 and 1936. Meridian Hill Park is representative of public project built during the City Beautiful Movement of the early 20th century, which was inspired by the Beaux-Arts classicism. The landscape architect George Burnap and the architect Horace Peaslee drew up plans for the park in 1914 after a tour of European gardens. They integrated scores of Italian and French landscape elements into their design. Typical for the period, public sculpture and art was an essential element in the design for the park. Burnap eventually resigned but Peaslee stayed until the project’s completion in the mid-1930s. The National Park Service took over management of the park in 1933.

In 1930, Charles Moore, the chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, was tasked with securing a sculptural work for the park. Ferruccio Vitale, a prominent landscape architect and member of the Commission, sought to have a monumental sculpture sited at the terminus of the park’s monumental water cascade. Vitale wanted to replicate Paul Manship’s elegant Cochran Armillary at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, but was overruled by Moore who selected C. Paul Jennewein. The sculptor had been a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, and he would design an armillary specifically for the park.

Miss Bertha Noyes, the sculpture’s benefactress, gifted it to the city in memory of her late sister Edith Noyes. The budget for the project was $15,000. Six years after the project began, the armillary was dedicated on November 10, 1936, with an inscription memorializing Bertha Noyes’ late sister, “Given to the Federal City, MCMXXXVI, for Edith Noyes.”

Jennewein completed the final design within a year, creating. He produced a notable sculpture of artistic merit but also as a timepiece accurately recorded the local time. The sphere’s principal feature was a strapping equatorial band ornamented with deep reliefs of Roman numerals and figures of the Zodiac. A massive bronze arrow, pointing to the North Star, pierced through the sphere and served as its gnomon. Jennewein proposed that the bronze be fire-gilded and “burnished to a bright color” to give it a gold-leaf effect, but lack of funds forestalled the dramatic gilding. It was cast at the Roman Bronze Works in Queens, New York, for $2,800 and took 14 months to complete.

Other significant works of civic art in the park include the President Buchanan Memorial by sculptor Hans Schular and architect William Gordon Beecher; a bronze statue of Joan of Arc by Paul Debois; a white marble statue of Serenity by Josep Clara; and another bronze statue of the Italian philosopher and poet Dante Alighieri by sculptor Ettore Ximenes.

Since 2001, NPS Rock Creek Park, the division that manages the park, has completed $10.8 million in capital improvements in Meridian Hill Park, and the NPS has further preservation projects planned. The putto sculpture and solar calibration plaque are in good condition and stored at a NPS Museum Resource Center in Landover, Maryland. The green granite plinth remains in situ surrounded by an overgrown hedge. It is in poor/fair condition and vulnerable to vandalism and damage from poor maintenance. The NPS has no public plans to replicate the Noyes Armillary Sphere. Meridian Hill Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.

Sources: C. Paul Jennewein Papers, Smithsonian Institute, Archives of American Art, Washington, DC.

Ethan Carr. Meridian Hill National Historic Landmark Nomination, National Park Service, October 13, 1993.

Goode, James M. Washington Sculpture: A Cultural History of Outdoor Sculpture in the Nation’s Capital, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) Documentation of Meridian Hill Park, HABS DC-532, National Park Service, Washington, DC, 1984.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/dc0188/

Meridian Hill Park Cultural Landscape Report, Volumes 1 and 2. National Park Service – National Capitol Region, 1999 and 2001

Meridian Hill Park National Register of Historic Places – Nomination – National Register From: (#74000273), National Register Inclusion Date: 1-25-1974 National Historic Landmark Date: 4-19-1994

O’Day , James. “Sphere Not: the National Park Service has Lost a Huge Piece of Public Art,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, August 2014.

Historian: James O’Day, ASLA Historical Landscape Architect POASLA HALS Liaison

July 11, 2016

2016 HALS Challenge Entry: Documenting National Register Listed Landscapes

Site plan of Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Drawing: Meridian Hill Park Cultural Landscape Report, National Park Service, National Capitol Region, 1999 & 2001.

Photograph of putto statue (frontal view) from the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, NPS Landover, MD facility.

Photograph of putto statue (profile view) from the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, NPS Landover, MD facility.

Photograph of putto statue (rear view) from the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, NPS Landover, MD facility.

Photograph of solar calibration plaque, mounted on cast iron post, from the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, NPS Landover, MD facility.

Photograph of solar calibration plaque, mounted on cast iron post, from the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, NPS Landover, MD facility.

Photograph of polished Vermont green granite plinth, the base of the Noyes Armillary Sphere, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. Photo: James O’Day, date 11-19-2013, in situ Meridian Hill Park.

Photograph of the Noyes Armillary Sphere in its entirety, in situ, Meridian Hill Park, Washington, DC. (Photo: HABS NO. 532; Photographer: Theodor Horydczak, circa 1920-1950, LOC Prints and Photographs Division, DC).