Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Egyptian Revival Design Elements

Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Egyptian Revival DesignElementsAuthor(s): Zackery A. CothrenSource: The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 428-434Published by: Arkansas Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40023659 .

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Arkansas Listings in the National

Register of Historic Places

Egyptian Revival Design Elements

Zackery A. Cothren

In the fields of architecture and engineering, Egypt is one of the most highly regarded of the great civilizations of the ancient world. The pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and its temples are considered marvels of design, their endurance and grandeur evident to all who encounter them. As an Arab proverb has it: "All things are afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids."

This permanence and grandeur is invoked in the Egyptian Revival style, which emerged in Europe in the wake of Napoleon's Egyptian cam- paign of 1798-1799 and soon found its way to the United States. American architects used Egyptian Revival almost exclusively in the design of government and organizational buildings. In 1808, Benjamin Latrobe chose it for the original Library of Congress wing of the United States Capitol. Un- fortunately, the British destroyed the library when they burned the Capitol in 1814. In 1848, construction began on what is probably the best known example of Egyptian Revival architecture in the United States, the Wash- ington Monument. In the nineteenth century, Americans frequently bor- rowed design elements from the ancient world for such projects, intending to lend a sense of permanence to the still relatively young government. But while they frequently drew upon ancient Greece, the influence of ancient Egypt was much less prominent. In fact, Egyptian Revival is one of the rar- est styles of architecture in the United States.

One element that prevented the style from becoming more popular was its funereal undertones. Given that most of the ancient Egyptian structures that have survived are tombs or monuments to great pharaohs, the style can be easily associated with death and the afterlife. Egyptian Revival design Zackery A. Cothren is preservation outreach coordinator for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Pro- gram.

THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY VOL. LXIII, NO. 4, WINTER 2004



NATIONAL REGISTER 429

The John Fordyce House, Little Rock. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preser- vation Program.

is most commonly found in cemeteries, such as in entrance gates in the northeastern U.S. and in the widespread use, particularly in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, of obelisk monuments. The obelisk, with its uplifting lines, was thought to be tasteful, but, probably more importantly, it was cheaper to produce than other commercial headstones of the day.

Most architectural style guides place the Egyptian Revival period in America from 1835 until 1890. Although elements of Egyptian Revival, usually Egyptian columns, are found on a handful of Greek Revival and Italianate houses, such guides typically suggest that no pure examples of domestic Egyptian Revival architecture survive today. There is, however, at least one remaining example in Arkansas. The John Fordyce House, located at 21 12 South Broadway in Little Rock, is undeniably Egyptian Re- vival. Old House Journal has credited the Fordyce House with being the United States' last surviving example of domestic Egyptian Revival architecture.

Renowned Little Rock architect Charles Thompson designed the Fordyce House, which was built in 1904, almost fifteen years after the style had fallen out of favor. It was not uncommon for architectural styles



430 ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

in Arkansas to lag ten or more years behind national trends, but the choice of Egyptian Revival might also have been inspired by the profession of the man for whom the home was built. John Fordyce, the son of Samuel Fordyce (president of the Cotton Belt Railroad), was by that time a prominent engineer and inventor. He had undoubtedly been exposed to and might have been inspired by the engineering feats of ancient Egypt.

The home features large Egyptian columns, flared at the top and designed to imitate large bundles of reeds tied tightly together. A unique feature of this building, and one that sets it apart from buildings with only limited elements of Egyptian Revival, are the battered walls, meaning that all of the exterior walls lean slightly inward. This particular design element comes directly from the original Egyptian temples. Thompson achieved the effect through an unusual method of framing. The home is actually framed squarely using railroad ties, but it has a second exterior frame of conventional lumber. The exterior frame leans into the other frame. The home also has a boxed front porch, built to resemble the large entry gates found on the front of many Egyptian temples.

John Fordyce rented out the home when he was called into service by the Army Corps of Engineers during World War I. He never returned to the home. A tornado that hit Little Rock on January 22, 1999 damaged the building. But it survived, probably in part due to its extensive framing sys- tem. Fortunately, a caring owner has returned the building to its previous glory. The John Fordyce House was listed on the National Register on Au- gust 6, 1975.

With the exception of funerary usage, the Fordyce House is Arkansas 's only example of the first phase of Egyptian Revival architecture. In 1922, the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon led to a renewed interest in Egyptian culture and a resurgence of Egyptian Revival architecture. In Arkansas, at least two Egyptian Re- vival buildings date from this period, the El Dorado Masonic Temple and the Fort Smith Masonic Temple.

Freemasons had clearly adopted Egyptian elements into the design of their buildings and monuments by the start of the nineteenth century. This association of Egyptian symbolism and Freemasonry has been much de- bated. In 1835, John Fellows, an American Mason, published an elabo- rately detailed account tracing Freemasonry itself back to ancient Egypt. But other accounts suggest Count Cagliostro and Carl Friedrich Koppen introduced Egyptian symbolism to Freemasonry in Paris and Berlin in the 1770s and 1780s. The latter explanation seems to be more logical. Most Masonic organizations trace their origins to sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe (England and Scotland, in particular), and Egyptian Revival architecture is not found in the design of Masonic buildings until the



NATIONAL REGISTER 43 1

El Dorado Lodge Number 13, Free and Ac- cepted Masons. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

1800s, after the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt. The Freemasons likely adopted many of these Egyptian elements for their association both with enlightenment and mystery.

The Grand Lodge of Arkansas granted the El Dorado Lodge Number 13, Free and Accepted Masons, a charter on November 17, 1846. The Ma- sons met in several locations before purchasing a building of their own. After that first building burned in 1889, they met in a brick building erected on the same site. They occupied it for nearly ten years but had to move to accommodate their growing membership. The Masons then pur- chased the Johnsten Opera House, but once again fire destroyed their building. The lodge quickly cleared the site and began construction of a




Interior of El Dorado Lodge Number 13, Free and Accepted Masons. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

new four-story structure. In 1922, they hired architect Charles Watts to design it. He blended Egyptian Revival with the recently popular Art Deco style. The cornerstone was laid on April 28, 1923, the local paper reporting that it would be "undoubtedly the finest Blue Lodge Masonic Temple in the United States."1

The building's front elevation features smooth limestone with Egyp- tian engravings. On the lower level, the central entryway is accented by lotus motifs and a cavetto cornice that crowns the first-floor windows and forms the sill for the second-story window. Four two-story pilasters rise to the fourth story, and two shorter pilasters with sun symbols engraved on their bases rise up to the third-story window sills. A large panel featuring a winged Masonic crest dominates the building's roofline.

Egyptian Revival influences are even more prevalent in the building's main lodge room, which was designed by local interior designer Paul Gideon. One enters the room through large oak doors crowned with lintel molding. The lintels feature brightly painted winged disks, with the Ma- sonic crest centered in each. Cavetto cornices, located above the lintels, are painted with a lotus flower design. Three pairs of Egyptian columns,

lEl Dorado News Times, April 1, 1924.



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The Fort Smith Masonic Temple. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preserva- tion Program.

highly decorated with bands of painted symbols, are located along the walls. Tile designed to give the appearance of blocks of stone cover these walls. Paintings by artist Thomas G. Moses of Chicago hang above the tile. (Moses decorated over one hundred Masonic buildings in his career, in- cluding the Albert Pike Consistory in Little Rock.) Probably the most dra- matic Egyptian detail comes in a pair of Egyptian statues, symbolically guarding an elevated throne. The guards are rivaled only by a pair of sphinxes located at the opposite end of the room. The El Dorado Masonic Temple was listed on the National Register April 12, 2001.

Fort Smith's Osiris Council came into being on November 23, 1858, the fifth in the original group of Cryptic Freemasonry councils organized by Arkansas 's most conspicuous Mason, Albert Pike. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the records of this council in 1919, and little is known of its ac- tivities prior to that time. Beginning in 1920, Masons in Fort Smith began fiindraising efforts to build a new temple. By 1928, they had secured enough funds to select a site, and hired George Mann of Little Rock as chief architect, with the Fort Smith firm of Haralson and Nelson acting as assistant architects and Gordon Walker of Little Rock serving as contrac- tor. The building was completed at a cost of $385,000 and dedicated in 1929.




The stone and steel temple is a two-story, Art Deco-influenced version of Egyptian Revival. A large, projecting central bay dominates the front of the building. Two flat, rectangular pilasters frame the recessed, centrally located entrance, which is crowned with the Masonic crest. Two large, fluted pilasters separate the entrance bay from the two flanking recessed window bays. A broad band of frieze, designed in a spiral pattern, accen- tuates the upper portion of the building. The most clearly Egyptian-influenced elements of the building are the large sphinxes that flank the steps leading up into the temple's entryway. The side bays are shorter than the domineering central bay and set back slightly farther from the street. These smaller bays are less ornate, with the main decorative feature being engraved patterns along the cornice frieze.

The interior of the building is best described as a more generic Middle- Eastern design, rather than Egyptian Revival. Moorish arches and lotus flower patterns show up throughout. Gold-plated chevrons display an Art Deco influence. The Fort Smith Masonic Temple was listed on the Na- tional Register on November 20, 1992.

For more information about Arkansas 's National Register listed prop- erties, please visit the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program web site at www.arkansaspreservation.org.



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Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Egyptian Revival Design Elements