Historical records matching Philip Hubert Frohman
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About Philip Hubert Frohman
Philip Hubert Frohman
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_H._Frohman
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/96414726/philip_hubert-frohman
- https://www.publicartct.org/artists/philip-h-frohman/
- https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/31/archives/philip-hubert-frohman-d...
Frohman was an American architect who is most widely known for his work on the Washington National Cathedral, named, the "Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul" in Washington, D.C. He worked on the English Gothic style cathedral from 1921 until his death in 1972.
Frohman was born in The Hotel Chelsea, designed by his grandfather Philip Gengembre Hubert, in New York in 1887 to Gustave Frohman, a theatrical producer, and the former Marie Hubert, an actress. His mother was a French Catholic and his father Jewish.
Frohman had a notable lineage in the related worlds of architecture and engineering. In 1849, his grandfather Philip Gengembre Hubert and his great-grandfather Charles Antoine Colomb Gengembre moved to America. While practicing architecture in New York, Hubert designed The Hotel Chelsea, later to become a well-known residence for actors, writers, musicians and other artists. Built in 1883, it had the distinction of being the tallest building in New York until 1899. Initially constructed as an apartment building, it still remains in operation today, as a hotel. His great-grandfather, Charles Antoine Colomb Gengembre, both an architect and civil engineer, supervised the building of the first railway from Liverpool to Manchester. His great-great-grandfather was Philippe Joachim Joseph Gengembre, who served as Director of Works for King Louis Philippe of France in the early 19th century. Gengembre designed France's first steam warship and the first home in Paris to feature gas lighting.
Education and Early Career
Frohman's interest in architecture was evident even in his early years. At the age of eleven, he enrolled in the Throop Polytechnic Institute in Pasadena, California, where he attended grammar school and secondary school. (Throop later spun off its grammar and secondary schools into Polytechnic School, while Throop itself became the California Institute of Technology.) He designed his first house when he was fourteen. In 1907, he graduated and became the youngest person ever to pass the state architectural examination. The following year, at the age of twenty-one, he opened his own office in Pasadena. In his early practice he focused on the design of both churches and houses. Early Frohman-designed churches include Trinity Episcopal Church in Orange, California in 1909, and other parish churches in Santa Barbara and Inglewood, California between 1909 and 1917.
During World War I Frohman served in the ordnance construction section of the Army and was stationed in the Washington, D.C. area. Placed in charge of the architectural division at Aberdeen Proving Ground, he designed buildings there and at Rock Island Arsenal. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of dean of the National Cathedral and, later, the Episcopal bishop of Washington.
Career
Over the course of his long career Frohman would be credited with the design of some fifty churches in the United States.
The great majority of Frohman's life and work, however, would be dedicated to the construction of the Washington National Cathedral, on which he labored for more than fifty years.
During a visit to Washington in 1914, Frohman visited the Bethlehem Chapel, which had been completed in 1912. He described it as, “a more beautiful crypt than any I had ever seen abroad; the most satisfying example of church architecture in America.” So taken was he by the cathedral that in signing the visitor register he included a small prayer in code. The prayer was that he might someday become the cathedral architect. Following military service in World War I Frohman moved from Pasadena to Boston to continue his architectural practice.
In 1919 Frohman began making preliminary sketches for revisions of Bodley's designs at the invitation of the Bishop of Washington, The Right Reverend Alfred Harding. During the next two years he formed a partnership with E. Donald Robb and Harry B. Little and in November 1921, the firm of Frohman, Robb and Little was officially designated Cathedral Architects. Robb died in 1942 and Little followed in 1944, after which Frohman served as the sole architect of the cathedral.
Although adhering to Bodley and Vaughan's original plan in its essence, Frohman made substantial refinements to the initial blueprint. His impact on the overall structure has been described by one author on the cathedral: “Bodley and Vaughan’s preliminary plans envisioned a predominantly English Gothic structure; under Frohman’s guidance the style became more eclectic, a happy blending of Medieval Gothic from both England and the Continent . . . . Frohman’s cathedral combines architectural elements from both sides of the North Sea.”
In particular, Frohman revised and augmented the original design for the crypt, adding ambulatories and an additional chapel. Over the years he was intimately involved in virtually every aspect of the cathedral's furnishing and embellishment. The most notable and visible of his revisions is his redesign of the west facade, the principal entrance to the cathedral. It is said to be the culmination of Frohman’s genius—his most plastic work and his most original design.
Frohman's successor described him as: "[an] architectural giant—a man who never compromised on less than perfection." It was said that he did not hesitate to change drawings to modify structural details by as little as a sixteenth of an inch. When the cathedral's construction progressed to the crossing and a crucial debate arose over whether to complete the nave or build the central tower next, Frohman's recommendation to proceed with the tower proved decisive.
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Philip Hubert Frohman's Timeline
| 1887 |
November 16, 1887
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The Hotel Chelsea, New York, New York County, New York, United States
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| 1926 |
December 29, 1926
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Washington, District of Columbia, DC, United States
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| 1930 |
March 16, 1930
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Washington, District of Columbia, DC, United States
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| 1972 |
October 30, 1972
Age 84
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Washington, District of Columbia, DC, United States
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| ???? |
Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, District of Columbia, DC, 20016, United States
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