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Delano & Aldrich.
American architectural partnership formed in 1903 by William A(dams) Delano (b New York, 21 Jan 1874; d New York, 12 Jan 1960) and Chester H. Aldrich (b Providence, RI, 4 June 1871; d Rome, 26 Dec 1940). Aldrich graduated from Columbia University, New York, in 1893. After a year with the New York architects Carrère & Hastings he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (diploma 1900). He returned to Carrère & Hastings until he formed the partnership with Delano. The latter also studied architecture at Columbia University and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (diploma 1902). After about a year with Carrère & Hastings working as a draughtsman, he became Aldrich’s partner. Their initial commissions were private residences in the stately neo-classical styles fashionable in the early 20th century, for example the John D. Rockefeller House (1906–8), Pocantico Hills, New York, and 925 Park Avenue (1909), New York. Their first major commission was the Walters Art Gallery (1910), Baltimore, MD. The severely classical façade is relieved only by a series of Corinthian pilasters and a decorative frieze on the uppermost of four horizontal levels. Equally restrained in decoration, but less severe in surface treatment, are the residences and private clubs executed between 1915 and 1935, for which the firm is best known. The Knickerbocker Club (1915) on Fifth Avenue and 62nd Street, New York, for example, has a limestone and brick exterior and uses a variety of classical elements on both the interior and exterior. The firm also executed buildings on the campuses of Smith College (Music School, 1926), Northampton, MA, and Yale University (Harkness Hall, 1928), New Haven, CT. Other public buildings include the Japanese Embassy (1931) on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, DC, and the American Embassy (1933), Place de la Concorde, Paris. The firm’s mature style is marked, overall, by an adherence to 18th- and 19th-century British and American styles (rather than French Beaux-Arts), although the clarity and simplicity of their plans strongly reflect the architects’ French training. Aldrich’s association with the firm ended in 1935, when he became resident director of the American Academy in Rome, but Delano continued his practice, major works being the North Beach Airport (1939–40; now La Guardia), which uses elements of the ‘style moderne’, and additions to the US Military Academy (1944), West Point, NY.
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