Lawrence Buck (1865—1929) was an American architect, artist and landscape painter, associated with the Prairie School and the American Arts and Crafts Movement.
Early years and education
Lawrence H. Buck was born in 1865 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was William Henry Buck (1840 in Norway – 1888 in New Orleans). The elder Buck was a landscape artist, specializing in sub-tropical landscape, genre paintings and sporting scenes. He was trained by Henry Thiberge and worked as a draughtsman. During preparations for the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial in 1884, Buck became associated with French architect Edouard Sidel, a gold-medal winner at the exposition. He assisted Sidel in commissions for the Caldwell Hotel and Morris Building in Birmingham, Alabama, and remained in the city in partnership with A. J. Armstrong in the firm of Armstrong & Buck.Smith, A. D. & Deland, editors (1888) Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical. Birmingham: Caldwell Printing Works
Among the firm's first designs was a successful entry for the competition for the Fort Worth Board of Trade Building in Fort Worth, Texas. By the time the building was constructed in 1889, Armstrong had moved to Texas to staff Armstrong & Buck's "branch office" before leaving to join the partnership of Armstrong & Messer. Buck remained in Alabama and partnered with English architect John B. Sutcliffe. In 1889, Sutcliffe relocated to Chicago, Buck followed him there and continued their professional association.National Register of Historic Places
Career Buck was a member of a group of young progressive Chicago architects sometimes referred to as "The Eighteen", who were friends and colleagues of Frank Lloyd Wright, Dwight Perkins, Robert C. Spencer, and others, who had offices in Steinway Hall. Buck maintained an office in Steinway Hall from 1902 through the 1920s.National Register of Historic Places
Buck worked both prior to and contemporaneously with the Prairie School architects and his work at times resembles theirs, but it is not limited to the Prairie Style aesthetic. He drew on a wide range of forms to create simple yet dignified buildings that have tremendous appeal, whether in a simplified Tudor, Arts and Crafts, English cottage, Prairie Style or Colonial revival mode. For example, his 1909 house for Mrs. Helen Campbell in Palo Alto is designed in a modified Dutch Colonial style.
Architect Hermann V. von Holst featured a number of noteworthy houses by Buck in his books surveying the work of Chicago area architects,Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period, by Hermann V. von Holst as did fellow architect and architectural writer Charles E. White, Jr.Successful Houses and How to Build Them, by Charles Elmer White, p. 260 For von Holst, Buck created "Studies of Different Exterior Treatments of the Same Plan" showing variations that are Colonial, English Country, Italian Revival, Jacobean Revival and Georgian Revival. The Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful magazines published homes which Buck designed; architects and builders in many parts of the country used these plans liberally. Buck marketed and sold plans for his buildings which were then constructed in other parts of the country, such as the Campbell House in Palo Alto, California, and the Nelson Bonny House in Norwich, New York.
Buck collaborated with women designers in his residential work, notably Elizabeth Eleanor D’Arcy Gaw (1868–1944)See: http://www.coloarts-crafts.org/documents/CACSNewsSummer09_000.pdf and Mary Mower who created interiors in the Arts and Crafts mode for his clients between 1901 and 1903.Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000: Diversity and Difference, by Pat Kirkham, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, p. 306 They formed what they called "The Crafters" group which was first located at 1013 Steinway Hall in Chicago, which also housed several of the Prairie School architects.House Beautiful, Volume 12, p. xxiThe Arts & Crafts Studio of Dirk Van Erp: San Francisco Craft & Folk Art, by Dorothy Lamoureux, p. 16
From 1907 to 1911, Buck worked in partnership with Edwin Besançon Clarke, an 1891 graduate of the University of Illinois.The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois: including Historical Sketchs, edited by James Herbert Kelley p. 154 Some architectural historians speculate that Buck may have had a second office in Rockford, Illinois, during this decade as there are at least ten houses in Rockford that have been identified as his work. Buck was a member of the Arts Club of Chicago, North Shore Art League, and Ravinia Sketch Club. Buck died on August 17, 1929, in Ravinia, Illinois.archInform website
Selected work Entrance Gates, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois – (with John Sutcliffe) Lawrence Buck House, Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois – 1904Distinctive Homes of Moderate Cost, by Henry Hodgman Saylor, p. 143von Holst, plate 1 Charles H. Reeves, Jr., House, 454 West Iowa Street, Oak Park, Illinois (with Vernon Spencer Watson) – 1905 Roycemore Private School for Girls, Evanston, Illinois (with Tallmadge and Watson)*National Register of Historic Places nomination formMark Hammons on The Prairie School website H. G. Wasson House, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 1907Exhibition, Issue 4, by Pittsburgh Architectural Club (Pa.) p. 6 Grey House at "Four Mounds Estate", 4900 Peru Road, Dubuque, Iowa – 1908U. S. National Register of Historic Places; see: http://fourmounds.org/FourMoundsInn/tabid/54/Default.aspx Max H. Penwell House, Pana, Illinois – 1908von Holst, plates 24 & 25 E. H. Ehrman House, Oak Park, Illinois – 1908von Holst, plate 34 Wigell House, 1010 North Second St., Rockford, Illinois – 1908; The Rockford Public Library has plans for the Wigell house by Frank A. Carpenter, another Rockford architect, which calls the Buck attribution into question.See: http://history.rockfordpubliclibrary.org/localhistory/?p=11465 Walter Boyle House, Rockford, Illinois – 1908von Holst, plates 40–42 Residence for J. S. Ely, Cedar Rapids, Iowa – 1908Book of the Annual Exhibition of the Chicago Architectural Club, by Chicago Architectural Club Nelson Bonney House, 80 S. Broad St., Norwich, New York – 1908 (mirror image of "The House Beautiful" 1908, "An Inexpensive House", built in Oak Park in 1907)Stickley's Craftsman Homes: Plans, Drawings, Photographs, by Ray Stubblebine, Gustav Stickley, p. 79 Rachel McMullen House, 332 Morris SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan – 1908Heritage Hill Walking Tour, see: http://www.heritagehillweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/New-Walking-Tour-Brochure.pdf George McMullen House, 305 Morris, Grand Rapids, MichiganHeritage Hill Walking Tour, see: http://www.heritagehillweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/New-Walking-Tour-Brochure.pdf 1160 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, California – 1909Palo Alto Stanford Heritage website Lawrence Buck Residence, Marshman Ave., Highland Park, Illinois (Ravinia), Illinois – 1911von Holst, plate 4 Elks Lodge, 210 W. Jefferson, Rockford, Illinois – 1912U.S. National Register of Historic Places E. D. Moeng House, Columbia Avenue and the Beach, Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois – 1912Inexpensive Homes of Individuality, edited by Henry Hodgman Saylor, p. 57von Holst, plates 85 & 86 "Walden" the Cyrus H. McCormick House, N. Mayflower Road, Lake Forest, Illinois – 1915; associated architectAmerican Architect and Architecture, Vol. 107, p. ix The Allendale School, 600 East Grand Avenue, Lake Villa, Illinois – 1919 (with landscape architect Jens Jensen)Treadway Gallery Ellis Family Homestead, Pensacola, Florida
References