I’ve had occasion lately to be thinking about the construction of Lovett Hall. I went back to a collection that was in part the topic of my second post on this blog: Sundry Contracts. As it turned out there are over a dozen boxes of these records, all of which came from the files of Arthur Cohn, and among them are several folders of materials that document the construction contracting process from beginning to end.
Here’s the very beginning, a letter from Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson to Edgar Odell Lovett, accepting the job of designing the first campus plan and buildings:
The very next day Lovett wrote to trustee Emmanuel Raphael with the exciting news:
Lovett’s statement to the local newspapers did indeed get there in time for the Sunday papers, which were pressing for action and hungry for any bit of information about the new Institute’s progress. This article was published on August 29:
Bonus: If you’re looking for strange you can usually count on a bassoonist.
What a great contract for architerctural services! Even though I’m retired as an attorney, I think I’m going to add that page and a half contract to my form file. It’s a lot better than today’s forms which resemble legal atrocities as bad as those 50 page software licenses we all have to approve on line.
If I were a Mormon, I don’t know if I’d be offended or amused by the “Church of the Latter Day Dude.” I hope it would be amused. If you can’t laugh at yourself, most assuredly someone else will.