Edith Wharton & Her New York, with Francis Morrone

Hosted by the Southern California Chapter in Collaboration with the National Office

On May 26th, 2021, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) was pleased to welcome architectural historian Francis Morrone for his talk "Edith Wharton & Her New York," a lecture co-hosted by the National Office and the Southern California Chapter.

Edith Wharton is well known among architects and designers for her first book, The Decoration of Houses, an enormously influential tract on interior design published in 1897. She was also, of course, one of America’s greatest novelists, and 2020 marked the one hundredth anniversary of her best-known novel, The Age of Innocence.

In this lavishly illustrated talk, Francis explores the native Manhattanite’s home town from the time of her birth at 14 West 23rd Street in 1862 to her departure for France at the turn of the century, and the world of The Age of Innocence, set among New York’s insular upper class in the 1870s, a time of profound change in America, in New York, and in what constituted “society.” Francis also examines the intellectual and literary foundations of the American Renaissance in architecture and art.

Francis Morrone is an architectural historian and a writer, and the author of fourteen books, including, with Henry Hope Reed, The New York Public Library: The Architecture and Decoration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (W.W. Norton, 2011) and architectural guidebooks to Philadelphia and to Brooklyn. He is the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, the Landmarks Lion Award of the Historic Districts Council, and New York University’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and was named by Travel and Leisure Magazine as one of the thirteen best tour guides in the world. This talk is based on his keynote lecture at the 2020 Edith Wharton Society Conference.

Sponsors

Lead Annual Public Programs Sponsor: RINCK

Seasonal Public Programs Sponsor: Dell Mitchell Architects

Seasonal Public Programs Sponsor: Hyde Park Mouldings

The Southern California Chapter Digital Programs are made possible by the generous support from:

LEADERSHIP CIRCLE Appleton Partners Jeff Hyland Landry Design Group Richard Holz, Inc. Builders Tim Barber Architects Wade Weissmann Architecture

SUSTAINER American College of the Building Arts DD Ford Construction Dugally Oberfeld E. Braun & Company Foster Reeve Architectural & Ornamental Plaster MG Partners New York Design Center Paul Brant Williger Architect Prime ECS Lifestyle Technology Reside Custom Homes Robert’s Inc. Shawn Nelson Builders Susan Masterman Architects

PARTNER Albertini Benner Landscape Design Crestron Electronics Gordon Gibson Construction J.R.C Group Kneedler Fauchère PHX Architecture Rose Tarlow Melrose House Sun Electric Western Lighting & Energy Controls & Lutron

Tags: classicism at home