Edwin Dodge

Edwin Sherrill Dodge (1874–1938) was an American architect.

Personal background

Dodge was born into a wealthy family of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the son of the manufacturer Elisha Perkins Dodge. He trained as an architect at MIT, graduating in 1897.[1] In 1902, he graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

In November 1904, Dodge married art patron and writer Mabel Dodge Luhan, then known as Mable Ganson Evans. Their unconventional marriage is described in her autobiographies Intimate Memories and European Experiences. The couple also appear in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

In Arcetri, near Florence, they lived in the palatial Villa Curonia and undertook extensive, expensive renovations that consumed their incomes for years;[2] the house "drank money".[3] They continued to live together, more or less, in Florence until 1911, when Dodge returned to the U.S. and established architectural offices in New York and Boston. After a long separation and scandal, their divorce was finalized in June 1916.

Professional background

In 1914, Dodge partnered with John Worthington Ames (1871–1954), who had trained at Harvard and at the École des Beaux-Arts. Together, they formed the architectural firm of Ames & Dodge.

Dodge's architectural designs include:

• Newburyport High School, Newburyport, Massachusetts, circa 1937
• Ellen T. Brown Memorial Chapel, Oak Hill Cemetery, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1914[4]
• Edwin Booth Memorial, with sculptor Edmond Thomas Quinn, Gramercy Park, New York City, 1918[5]
• Hartford Fire Insurance Company Building, Asylum Hill, Hartford, Connecticut, 1921
• multiple buildings in the quadrangle at Smith College, as Ames, Dodge & Putnam, 1922–1936[6]
• Cabot Hall at Cabot House, now part of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1936[7]
• Lotta Fountain, Charles River Esplanade, Boston, Massachusetts, with sculptor Katherine Lane Weems, 1939
• Bennington Commons and the 12 original student houses, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, 1931 - 1937[8]

• 
  Newburyport High School (c. 1937), Newburyport, Massachusetts
• 
  Edwin Booth Memorial (1918), Gramercy Park, New York City
• 
  Cabot Hall (1936), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 
  Lotta Fountain (1939), Boston, Massachusetts
• 
  Commons Floor Plan Bennington College (1931 - 1937) Bennington, Vermont

References

1. http://tech.mit.edu/V17/PDF/N4.pdf accessed 10/28/10
2. Campbell, Katie. Paradise of exiles: the Anglo-American gardens of Florence
3. Adickes, Sandra E. To Be Young Was Very Heaven: Women in New York Before the First World War, page 64
4. http://www.newburyportchamber.org/pdf/navigator_march.pdf Archived 2009-07-04 at the Wayback Machine accessed 10/28/10
5. Kyle, Howard. The history of the Edwin Booth memorial: April 2nd to November 13th, 1918
6. Dimitrova, Bilyana and Margaret Birney Vickery. Smith college: an architectural tour
7. Bunting, Bainbridge and Margaret Henderson Floyd. Harvard: An Architectural History, page 140
8. https://web.archive.org/web/20120512173030/http://www.bennington.edu/timeline/index.html