In the history of the United States, the Gilded Age, a term first coined by Mark Twain, is associated with an era of unparalleled growth, prosperity and cultural change - mansions in Newport; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby; and the creation of the modern metropolis that we now recognise as New York City. Spanning from the 1880s to the 1930s, this period is also fittingly referred to as the American Renaissance.
...And just like in the Italian Renaissance, an elite group ruled New York. These were the titans of American finance and industry whose unprecedented, and unchecked, power and wealth was supreme in the land - Astor, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt. To this wealthy elite, it was not enough that the city merely be the nation's financial capital. Their collective dream was to create a new city, a new metropolis that would also become the nation's cultural capital.
Simply put, their dream was to create a new \"Paris on the Hudson\" - and to do that they needed architecture rich in grandeur, full of historical reference, and dripping in embellishment, to flaunt their wealth and power to the world. Enter the Beaux-Arts style.
About the Author
Phillip James Dodd is one of today's foremost experts on classical architecture and interiors. Born and raised in the United Kingdom, he moved to America 20 years ago, and in 2014 founded his eponymous design firm Phillip James Dodd: Bespoke Residential Design. Since then he has become one of the most sought-after young residential designers practicing today, with designs that can be found in Manhattan, Greenwich and Palm Beach. He is the author of two best-selling books The Art of Classical Details: Theory Design & Craftsmanship and An Ideal Collaboration, and is currently working on a new book on the architecture of the Gilded Age in New York.
Industry Reviews
"I recommend to every Architect, designer and those who have a passion for New York to own this magnificent book...there is no better on the extraordinary Beaux Arts of New York." - Lemeau, Decorator's Insider
"This great, beautiful, glossy, polychromatic slab of a book more than does justice to an epic period in architecture when some of the world's most luscious buildings were designed for some of the most unpleasant people in American history." - Timothy Brittain-Catlin, World of Interiors
"Full-color photography from Wallen and insightful commentary by Dodd welcome readers into some of New York's celebrated Beaux-Arts landmarks-including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Terminal and some that are not open to the public-and the world of those who imagined them." - Tani Levitt, Gotham Mag
"But to hold us over, there's a dazzling new book, An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City (from Images Publishing, with a forward by TGA creator Julian Fellowes), which richly examines the lasting architectural legacy of the era's big-spending industry titans." - Ann D'Adamo, Black Book Mag
"Full-color photography from Wallen and insightful commentary by Dodd welcome readers into some of New York's celebrated Beaux-Arts landmarks." - Tani Levitt, Modern Luxury
"In Phillip James Dodd's glorious new book, An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, you'll find buildings whose own names were serially preceded by their architect's in common conversation-not out of some formal, Gilded Age sense of obligation but because they deserved to be." - AirMail
"New York would be little more than another faceless glass-and-steel city were it not for its Gilded Age buildings and institutions... An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, written by Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen, is a gilded embrace of this legacy." - The Critic
