Word: architect
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Artistic Bent. Herter was born in Paris, of expatriate artist parents, and the first language he learned was his governess' native German. He was trained not in the law-the staple of U.S. Secretaries of State-but in fine arts, and he originally set out to become an architect and interior decorator...
...deciding on a career in the arts. Herter was following in family footsteps. His German-born grandfather, the first Christian Herter, was an architect and interior decorator who designed and lavishly adorned the Fifth Avenue mansions of such gilded-age moguls as J.P. Morgan and William H. Vanderbilt. In his early 40s, having piled up a million of his own, Grandfather Herter said farewell to his family and went off to live in Paris, where a few years later he died of tuberculosis, leaving behind a sadly dwindled fortune and two gifted sons. Son Christian (uncle of Christian Archibald) became...
...enrolled at the Columbia University architecture school and New York's School of Applied Design. But at his class's first reunion back at Harvard, in 1916, a classmate who was about to leave for a minor post in the U.S. embassy in Berlin told the aspiring architect about another opening at the embassy, urged him to apply for it. A week later young Herter sailed for Europe with his friend...
When Brazil's famed Architect Oscar Niemeyer designed the chapel 16 years ago for Belo Horizonte (pop. 650,000), he was inspired by French Poet Paul Claudel's statement: "A church is God's hangar on earth." But to Belo Horizonte's Roman Catholic archbishop, Niemeyer's hangar looked more like the devil's bomb shelter -a parabolic vault of glass and stucco, with an emaciated Christ glaring from a huge fresco by Painter Candido Portinari. Worse, Architect Niemeyer and Painter Portinari were godless Communists. Despite protests by Belo Horizonte's Mayor Juscelino...
Last week the 16-year controversy was finally ended. The old archbishop had gone into virtual retirement; Mayor Kubitschek was President of Brazil; and Architect Niemeyer was an ex-Communist. After a long talk with Brazil's national-monuments chief, Auxiliary Archbishop Dom João Rezende Costa agreed that the church has "great artistic significance and a spiritual atmosphere." Refurbished by Architect Niemeyer, the old chapel was at last consecrated by Archbishop Rezende Costa before an enthusiastic crowd of citizens. Said the archbishop: "Now we can feel the wonderful art created here in homage to the Creator." Said...