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Julian Francis Abele (April 30, 1881April 23, 1950) was a prominent black American architect, and chief designer in the offices of Horace Trumbauer. He contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings, including the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University (1912–15), Philadelphia's Central Library (1917–27), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1914–28), and Eisenlohr Hall, home of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania.
Abele was the primary designer of the west campus of Duke University (1924–54). His contributions to the Trumbauer firm were great, but the only building for which Abele claimed authorship during Trumbauer's lifetime was Duke Chapel (1930-35). Following Trumbauer's 1938 death, Abele co-headed the architectural firm and designed additional buildings at Duke, including Allen Administrative Building and Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Abele worked in many media: watercolor, lithography, etching and pencil, wood, iron, gold and silver. He designed and constructed all of his own furniture, even doing the petit point himself. While he knew many historic styles, he seemed to love Louis XIV French most of all.
He was the first Black student admitted to the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. This achievement was all the more noteworthy for the restrictions Black people faced at the university, including not being able to live in dormitories or dine in the school's cafeteria. On projects assigned to pairs of students, he partnered with Louis Magaziner, the only Jewish student in the department, who also faced discrimination. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two.
He won a 1901 student competition to design a Beaux Arts pedestrian gateway. His submission was in the form of an exedra – a curved bench flanked by piers, but with steps passing through its center. This became his first commission when it was built on the campus of Haverford College. "Gate on Haverford College Campus Linked to Black Architectural Pioneer Julian Abele," Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, January 26, 2016. The Edward B. Conklin Memorial Gate stands at the Railroad Avenue entrance to the college. Conklin Memorial Gate, from Google Earth. He was widely respected among his peers, earning the nickname "Willing and Able", and also won student awards for his designs for a post office and a museum of botany, and he was elected as the president of the university's Architectural Society.
He became the University of Pennsylvania architecture department's first Black graduate in 1902. He worked part-time for a local architect and attend evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Under the financial sponsorship of Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, he traveled through France and Italy, an experience that was to influence his design work throughout his life.
Art historian David B. Brownlee studied the 14-year effort to design and build the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1914-28. He credits Trumbauer architect Howell Lewis Shay with the building's plan and massing, but notes that the final perspective drawings are in Abele's distinctive hand.David B. Brownlee, Making a Modern Classic: The Architecture of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997), pp. 60–61, 72–73. Brownlee credits design of the exterior terracing, including the front steps celebrated in the 1976 film Rocky, to Abele.
Abele was also the architect for Eisenlohr Hall, which functions as the official home of the president of the University of Pennsylvania on the Penn campus.
Following Trumbauer's death in 1938, the firm continued until 1950 under the name "Office of Horace Trumbauer," co-headed by Abele and William O. Frank. Commissions were hard to come by during The Depression and World War II, but the firm completed Duke Indoor Stadium at Duke University in 1940,Duke Indoor Stadium was renamed Cameron Indoor Stadium in 1972. and later made additions to Duke's Library (1948) and designed Duke's Allen Administrative Building (1954).
When Abele joined the American Institute of Architects in 1942, Philadelphia Museum of Art director Fiske Kimball called him "one of the most sensitive designers in America". Smithsonian Magazine described him, in a career retrospective, as "probably the most accomplished Black of his era."
Despite being the primary designer of Duke University, Abele was refused accommodations at a Durham hotel during a visit to campus.Henry Magaziner, son of Abele's U. of P. classmate and friend Louis Magaziner, in a 1989 interview. Quoted in Susan E. Tifft, "Out of the Shadows," Smithsonian Magazine, February 2005. Although it was not until 1988 that a portrait of him was displayed at the University, the main quad at Duke University is now officially named Abele Quad with a dedication plaque prominently placed at the busiest spot on campus.
Abele died from a heart attack in 1950, in Philadelphia and is interred at Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania.
===Gallery===
École des Beaux-Arts
Between 1903 and his hiring by Horace Trumbauer in 1906, Abele traveled throughout Europe. His descendants contend that he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris during his stay. But Sandra L. Tatman, co-author of The Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects, 1700-1930, could find no record of his having been enrolled at the École. Biography: Abele, Julian Francis (1881 – 1950), from Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. She allows that he may have been permitted to informally sit in on the school's atelier. She also notes that Abele listed travel to France, Italy, England, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain on his membership application to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), but not study at the École des Beaux-Arts.
Career
Immediately after his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1902, Abele traveled west to Spokane, Washington, where he designed a house for his sister, Elizabeth Abele Cook, before returning east. In 1906, Abele joined the Trumbauer firm as assistant to chief designer Frank Seeburger. When Seeburger left the firm in 1909, Abele advanced to chief designer. Abele's stature within the firm was no secret; he was the second-highest paid employee. He was an architect.
Personal life
In 1925, at the age of 44, he married Marguerite Bulle, a French pianist 20 years his junior. They had three children: Julian Abele, Jr., Marguerite Marie Abele (died young), and Nadia Boulanger Abele. Marguerite left him in 1936, to become the common-law wife of opera singer Jozef Kowalewski, with whom she had three additional children. Because Abele never took action to divorce his wife, his children and Kowalewski's children shared equally in his estate.Cf. Tifft 2005
Legacy
and terraces at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (1928)]], Durham, North Carolina (1940)]] Lawn, Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina]]
See also
Further reading
External links
Categories: 1881 Births, 1950 Deaths, Architects From Philadelphia, Burials At Eden Cemetery, Duke University People, Cheyney University Of Pennsylvania Alumni, University Of Pennsylvania School Of Design Alumni, University Of The Arts Alumni, Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts Alumni, African-american Architects, 20th-century American Architects, 20th-century African-american Artists, Artists From Philadelphia
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