ARCHITECT

Skyscraper Architect.

Cass Gilbert, one of the most respected Beaux-Arts architects of the early twentieth century, is most often remembered for designing the Woolworth Building (1913) in New York City, an eclectic Gothic structure that was the tallest building in the world for nearly twenty years.

Out of the Heartland.

Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on 24 November 1859 and grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After a yearlong apprenticeship with the Twin Cities architectural firm of A. M. Radcliff, which helped him develop what became a legendary skill as a draftsman, he entered the new architecture program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first of its kind in the country. Leaving school after one academic year, he received the most important part of his training during two years as an assistant to Stanford White, the most prominent member of the Beaux-Arts firm of McKim, Mead...