Category Archives: Articles

Betelle in “Pencil Points”

An interesting architecture magazine I discovered is Pencil Points: A Journal for the Drafting Room. Running from 1920 to 1943, Pencil Points was produced by, and for, working architects, not the more general public as with titles like Architecural Record.

Pencil Points Reader is a recent collection of articles spanning the journal’s run. It gives a great feel for what it was like to work in architecture at that time, and how they dealt with the Depression and the onslaught of European Modernism.

Nothing in the Reader mentions James Betelle, but he is in the June, 1931 issue. He took park in an Architect’s and Producer’s Symposium, discussing their “mutual problems”.

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Essex County Hall of Records

Guilbert & Betelle designed the 1927 Essex County Hall of Records, in Newark, as a complement to the existing 1902 Court House by Cass Gilbert (to which they did the massive remodeling described in this article). Interestingly, James Betelle worked for Gilbert about that time; it’s possible he was involved in its construction as well. Looking at the Hall today, it is remarkably untouched (both inside and out). Even the windows, often the first thing to go on older buildings, seem intact.

The following article is from Architecture and Building, April, 1929. The photographs and plan are from The Architectural Forum, February, 1929. Continue reading →

Discoveries at The Grolier Club

James Betelle wrote articles for countless magazines and journals, but as far as I know, only one book; a forward to a 1933 publication by The Carteret Book Club entitled Colonial Dutch Houses in New Jersey. I suspected the book was rare, as it could only be found in by-appointment collections; no open stacks or reference desks. One such collection is at The Grolier Club, conveniently located a few blocks from my apartment. I recently made an appointment to see the book.

The Grolier Club is a beautiful old federal-style building squeezed almost anonymously among the noise, scaffolds and post-war apartments off Park Avenue. Upon entering, a gentleman at the front desk directed me to an elevator and the main reading room on the third floor.
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“Modern American Schoolhouses – Some Recent Examples of Specialized Buildings”

The following excerpts are from Modern American Schoolhouses – Some Recent Examples of Specialized Buildings Guilbert & Betelle, Architects by Rawson W. Haddon in The Architectural Record, September 1914. This lengthy article is a survey of the firm’s work of that period, before the death of Guilbert. The author ruminates on the not-strictly Gothic eclecticism of these buildings, as I explored in my recent drive through Newark.

Many things have combined to make the school house one of the most complicated of modern architectural problems. Not only are the usual appointments changed extensively from year to year, but the growing tendency to devote the school to the broader educational uses and to various sorts of social betterment and neighborhood work has also brought special problems: and each new use, whether educational or sociological, puts before the architect intricate questions of design to solve.
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“New School Buildings, State of Delaware”

The following excerpts are from a lengthy article by Betelle that appeared in The American Architect, Vol. CXVII, Number 2321, June 16, 1920. In it, he outlines the roots of Pierre S. duPont’s epic rural school-building plan for the State of Delaware and the civic, educational and personal benefits it would bring to the citizens of that State. Written before any of the structures were completed, the article was accompanied by beautiful pen & ink drawings and floor plans of many of the school designs.

New School Buildings, State of Delaware
By James O. Betelle, A.I.A.

Illustrated by the work of Guilbert & Betelle, Architects for the Delaware School Auxiliary Association, a corporation organized for the purpose of expanding the duPont Fund for new School Buildings to be built in the State of Delaware.

The school building program now in progress throughout the State of Delaware is at once the most interesting and probably the most important that has ever been undertaken by any state.