Nationality American Occupation Architect | Name Fiske Kimball Education Harvard University | |
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Full Name Sidney Fiske Kimball Born December 8, 1888 ( 1888-12-08 ) Newton, Massachusetts Alma mater Harvard University
University of Michigan Died August 1955, Munich, Germany People also search for Thomas Jefferson, Sylvia Pankhurst, Jon Kukla Books Domestic Architecture of the Am, A History of Architecture, Harper's Fine Arts Series ‑ A, The capitol of Virginia, Domestic Architecture of the Col | ||
Fiske Kimball and the Jefferson Memorial: A Pyrrhic Victory for American Architecture
Sidney Fiske Kimball (1888 – 1955) was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director. A pioneer in the field of architectural preservation in the United States, he played a leading part in the restoration of Monticello and Stratford Hall Plantation in Virginia.
Contents
- Fiske Kimball and the Jefferson Memorial A Pyrrhic Victory for American Architecture
- Biography
- Marriage
- Works
- References
Over his nearly-30-year tenure as director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he moved the museum into its current building and greatly expanded its collections.
Biography
Kimball was born in Newton, Massachusetts on December 8, 1888.
He was educated at Harvard University, where he took both his bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture. He then taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan, receiving a Ph.D from the latter institution in 1915. In 1919, Kimball was appointed to head the newly formed department of art and architecture at the University of Virginia. While at the University of Virginia, he served as the supervising architect for Memorial Gymnasium (built in 1924), and the McIntire Amphitheatre on grounds at the university. He also designed the campus of Woodberry Forest School.
In 1923, Kimball left the University of Virginia to establish the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. In 1925, he was appointed director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he served until his retirement in January 1955. During his first year in Philadelphia, he lived in and restored the Mount Pleasant mansion.Kimball was a consultant on numerous other restoration projects, including Monticello, Gunston Hall, Stratford Hall, and Colonial Williamsburg.
Kimball continued to work on projects in Virginia. Kimball designed his own home, Shack Mountain, in Albemarle County, Virginia, not from far Monticello. Kimball used Jefferson's architectural principles as the basis of his design of Shack Mountain, short for Shackelford Mountain, the surname of a branch of Jefferson's descendants. Built in 1935-1936, Shack Mountain is a Jefferson-style pavilion, like Monticello, that is considered Kimball's masterpiece.Shack Mountain was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.
Fiske Kimball died in Munich, Germany, on August 14, 1955. He and his wife are buried at Monticello Memorial Gardens on Monticello Mountain, about a mile from Monticello.He is commemorated by the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library at the University of Virginia.
Marriage
Kimball married, in June 1913, Marie Christina Goebel (1889–1955), the half Dutch, half German daughter of Julius Goebel, a professor of Germanic languages at the University of Illinois. She eventually was the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and served as Monticello's first curator (1944–55). She also wrote a three-volume biography of Jefferson.