A Cleveland Legacy The Architecture of Walker and Weeks

Description:

Walker and Weeks was the foremost architectural firm in Cleveland for nearly forty years, from 1911 to 1949. Its clients were the wealthy and influential of Cleveland and the Midwest; its landmark accomplishments included the Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Severance Hall, the Cleveland Post Office, and the Indiana World War Memorial. Harry E. Weeks and Frank R. Walker complemented each other well: Weeks was an unassuming, but talented manager; Walker, a brilliant, outgoing architect. Together they established an architectural factory of the type pioneered by Daniel Burnham in Chicago in the 1890s. Although Cleveland in 1911 was the sixth largest city in the U.S. and teeming with architects, Walker and Weeks was one of the few local firms large enough to manage every phase of a commission. They combined the Renaissance ideal of collaboration between artists and artisans with the modern principle of scientific business management. Their innovative use of marketing was another key to their extraordinary, success. Best known for the classical public buildings built in Cleveland in the 1920s and 1930s, they also designed many residences and lesser-known buildings around Cleveland and throughout the Midwest. As the photographs and drawings in A Cleveland Legacy demonstrate, they created designs that delight the viewer as much today as they did seventy years ago.