Panhandle Modernism: Guy A. Carlander, Amarillo Architect

Amy Von Lintel, PhD Assistant Professor of Art History

West Texas A&M University Prepared: April 2014

Carlander as Panhandle Architect

!  Between 1921 and 1950, completed 67 designs in Amarillo and the surrounding Panhandle Towns and eastern New Mexico

! Designs included 9 residences; 1 country club; 4 hospitals; 20 school buildings; 17 commercial buildings; 1 apartment building; and 5 civic buildings

! His designs can be seen in Amarillo, Albuquerque, Claude, Clarendon, Tulia, Post, Vernon, Canyon, Wellington, Plainview, Miami, Higgins, Dumas, Clinton, Roswell (NM), Lubbock, Childress, Melrose (NM)

History of urban Amarillo parallels Carlander’s biography

!  1874 – Battle of Palo Duro Canyon between Indian tribes and the U.S. Army; majority of the Panhandle tribes surrendered and relocated to reservations

!  Influx of cattle ranching investors from around the U.S. and Europe,

1876-1885 !  JA Ranch, est. 1876, by Charles Goodnight of Texas and Colorado and

John Adair of Ireland (Palo Duro Canyon lands) !  New Mexico sheep ranchers near Tascosa !  Quarter Circle T Ranch, est. 1876 by Thomas S. Bugbee of Kansas !  LX Ranch, est. by two Boston millionaires (Potter County area) !  Frying Pan Ranch, est. by Harry B. Sanborn of New York and Illinois and

William H. Bush of Illinois (Tecovas Spring area) !  XIT Ranch (near the TX-NM border)

History of Amarillo parallels Carlander’s biography

!  1887 – Cattle ranching business declined in prosperity, but had already produced growth and industry in the Panhandle (railroads, windmills, barbed wire, and boomtowns)

!  Arrival of the railroad in the 1880s produced the majority of the area towns (exceptions were Tascosa, Mobeetie, and Clarendon) !  1881 – Fort Worth & Denver City RR builds north from Fort Worth and

arrives in Amarillo by 1887 !  1887 – a RR construction camp called “Ragtown” is set up on the future

Amarillo site !  1887 – election names “Oneida” the county seat, renamed Amarillo !  1888 – livestock companies from Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis

begin operations in Amarillo; soon thousands of cattle at a time held in Amarillo to be shipped elsewhere

History of Amarillo parallels Carlander’s biography

!  1888 – Sanborn of the Frying Pan Ranch built the Glidden (of the barbed wire fortune) and Sanborn Addition in Amarillo, and the center of the city shifted eastward to its present downtown location

!  1889 – Santa Fe RR system reached Amarillo using the tracks of the FW & DC RR

!  1890 – Amarillo becomes one of the largest cattle shipping points in the world

!  1899 – SFRR moved its general offices to Amarillo (Carlander’s employer)

!  1890s – Period of boosterism luring Anglo settlers to the Panhandle

!  1903 – Rock Island RR line arrives in Amarillo

The Effects of Boosterism, 1890-1920

!  The Great American Desert (coined by Dr. Edwin James c. 1820 during American Geographic Survey exploration) became the “chosen land,” where “perpetual sunshine shall kiss its trees and vines, and, being stored in luscious fruits and compressed into ruddy wine, will be sent to the four points of the compass to gladden the hearts of all mankind; and this shall be our sanitarium, a huge hospital where the afflicted of all lands will come and partake of Nature’s own remedies. They will breathe the pure and bracing air, bask in the healing sunshine….Sickness shall be vanquished.”

! Railroads offered discounts to settlers to ship their belongings, and the response was overwhelming (Carlander was working for the SFRR building structures for their expanding network)

!  Amarillo’s population grew from 1,442 in 1900 to 15,500 in 1920; populations of the surrounding Panhandle towns grew from 34,000 to 185,000 (Carlander settled permanently in Amarillo by 1919)

“Amarillo, Texas: Ideal Location for Capital and Industries,” July 1925

Carlander helps give Amarillo an urban profile

Oil and Gas Boom, 1920-40

! 1921 – discovery of oil in Carson County ! 1923 – world’s largest natural gas field at the time was

discovered in the Panhandle ! 1926 – Borger oil boom, 50,000 people swarmed to Borger in a

few weeks, Amarillo’s commerce thrived in response; oil companies (Shamrock, Phillips, and Magnolia) set up headquarters in Amarillo

! 1926 – 400 building permits were issued in Amarillo, mostly for residences, but also for churches, hotels, and commercial buildings; Amarillo gains a skyline

! By 1927, Carlander had already completed more than twenty buildings in the Panhandle

!  In 1930, few cities of Amarillo’s size had as many skyscrapers

Carlander, Christmas Card, “We greet you with Amarillo’s skyline,” c. 1932

All completed within 5 years: Amarillo Building, Herring Hotel, Rule Building, Fisk Building, Amarillo Hotel Tower (now destroyed), and the Oliver Eakle Building (later Inland Oil), and the Santa Fe Building

Guy A. Carlander, Fisk Medical and Professional Building, 1926-7, now the Courtyard Marriott

Modern skyscraper design: Steel frame, reinforced concrete, elevator, cast concrete

Modern skyscraper design: Steel frame, reinforced concrete, elevator, cast concrete detail work

Modern skyscraper design: Steel frame, reinforced concrete, elevator, cast concrete detail work

Louis Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Building, Chicago, 1898 and Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1890-91

Carlander’s Modernist Styles

! Medieval Revival ! Neo-Gothic ! Neo-Byzantine ! Neo-Romanesque !  Playful medieval (Amarillo Natatorium,1922)

Gothic Revival Skyscrapers

Cass Gilbert, Woolworth Building, New York City, 1912-13

Other Gothic revival skyscrapers in Texas in the 1920s: State National Bank, Corsicana; Petroleum Bldg, Midland; Norwood Tower, Austin; and the Santa Fe Bldg, Amarillo

Recent addition to Margaret Wills Elementary, 2013-14

Carlander, Amarillo Natatorium, 1922

No mention of Carlander?

! Amarillo’s population grew from 15,000 in 1920 to 43,000 in 1930

! The wealthiest citizens needed homes, neighborhoods and businesses

! Carlander designed the Fisk Building downtown in 1926-7, as well as the Amarillo Country Club in 1921 and its surrounding Country Club District in 1923

! Shift from streetcar system to an automobile city by the mid 1920s; 6th Street as part of Route 66 was paved in 1921

! Country Club district is the first to “break the grid”

Carlander, Gateposts for Country Club District, Line Street and Sunset Terrace, 1923

Carlander, Gate Houses for Country Club District, 10th and Bushland, 1928

Carlander, R.M. Gaines House, 306 Sunset Ter., 1927

Eclectic Cottage Style

Carlander, Carlander Residence, 3615 Fountain Ter. C. 1930

Carlander, Clarence M. Eakle House, 2104 S. Polk, 1923

Craftsman/Bungalow Style from Southern California: •  Exposed wooden beams •  Rustic stonework •  Horizontality – long and low •  Wood details •  Japanese influence •  Asymmetry •  Modern, handcrafting,

affordable, anti-historicist

Pasadena, California and “Bungalow Heaven,”

built c. 1905

Carlander and the Depression

! One commission fell through in 1929: Frank and Iva Storm House

! The economy of Amarillo, with its basis in oil and gas, did not collapse, and Carlander still saw numerous commissions in the 1930s: Amarillo College Gym and Auditorium, White and Kirk Department Store, Amarillo Hardware Co.

Carlander, original blueprints for Storm house, 1929

C.W. Brott, original blueprints for Storm house, 1931

Storm house before (R) and after (L) recent renovations by the Horsley/Fortunato family

Art Deco/ Streamlined Moderne

Style from Europe beginning in 1925 Paris at the “Exposition of Decorative and Industrial Arts” Characteristics: 1.  Geometric but not neo-classical

designs 2.  Cast stone and stucco work

detailing 3.  Colorful accents, often tile 4.  Used more with commercial

buildings, schools, and other public buildings

Carlander, Amarillo College Gym and Auditorium, Funded by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, 1936-9

Rockefeller Center, NYC, 1930s

Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1921

“Mere decoration set aside and proportion and scale attained, an advance has been made; we have passed from the elementary satisfactions (decoration) to the higher satisfactions (mathematics)” (139)

Beauty = “practical and constructive order”

Form follows function

Le Corbusier, Interior of the Pavilion of the Esprit Nouveau, Exposition of Decorative and Industrial Arts, Paris, 1925

Carlander, Amarillo Hardware Company Building, 600 S. Grant, 1937-8

Art deco/ Streamlined Moderne: Reinforced concrete Flat roof Minimal decoration Clean lines Sign design part of the modern aesthetic

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Building, Dessau, Germany, 1925-6

Carlander, White and Kirk Department Store, 516 S. Polk, 1938

Railroad network of Amarillo made trendy aesthetics possible ! Building materials ! Styles ! Architects ! Pattern books

The Automobile Dominates Amarillo

! Route 66 shifts to Amarillo Blvd ! Canyon Drive (E-way) carves up old

neighborhoods of Wollfin and Oliver-Eakle, beginning in 1955

! Affluent citizens shift residences toward the South and West

! Need for increasing parking downtown, leading to the demolition of numerous early buildings

!  I-40 completed in 1967, again carving up and bisecting the city spatially and socio-economically

Carlander, drawing of parking tower proposed for downtown Amarillo, c. 1964-5

Carlander’s diverse modern style ! Medieval Revival ! Craftsman/Bungalow ! Art Deco and Streamlined Moderne !  Never Victorian/Neo-classical/Beaux-Arts

J. Roy Smith and R.H. Hunt (Chattanooga and Dallas), Polk Street United Methodist Church, 1928

Carlander designs that were never built

Carlander, sketch of the Polk Street United Methodist Church,

Amarillo, never built. Commission went to another firm. Carlander, design for renovation of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, 1961

Carlander designs that were never built

References on Carlander: ! Guy A. Carlander Papers, Panhandle-Plains Historical

Museum (PPHM), Canyon, TX ! Amarillo Historic Building Survey and Preservation Program

Recommendation, 1981 ! Carlander, Kenneth Dixon. Guy A. Carlander: Notes on his

Life, 1994 ! Henry, Jay C. Architecture in Texas, 1895-1945, 2009 ! Amarillo Public Library, Photoarchive Collection (includes

Includes 110 images of works by Carlander): http://images.amarillolibrary.org/