Big Plans

A client who is a professional builder in the city showed up at our door with several tubes under his arm. Inside were some things he found on a job site in a building he had purchased: oversized architectural prints of some of the area's most important landmarks.


Here is the front elevation of the main branch of the Free Library. It is 60x40-ish. (!!!)




In case you are unfamiliar, here is the structure today:

You can see in this detail that the print bears approval signatures and is stamped with a date of 1922.

And the detail below shows the architect information. Horace Trumbauer is an architectural legend and one of Philadelphia's native sons. Among some of his notable designs are the main library at Harvard University, the chapel at Duke University, the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania, and he was one of the collaborators on the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

We paired it with a 3" wide black ornate frame with architectural ribs.

Also in the client's tube was the site map of Princeton University dated 1962. It is in two sections, each being about 48x36.

Below is a contemporary aerial view of the area. (Click on any of these to enlarge)

These were paired with 3" wide black beaded scoops, with leaf detail on the outside.

They are fascinating to me as architectural renderings, but even more so because of their scale and important subjects. But I also love the mystery of them; found in the rafters by a builder on the job.