78. Joseph Breck. Two Sketches for Bonnefont Cloister and Medieval Garden, November 27, 1932. A gifted draftsman, Breck made innumerable studies of every aspect of the building. As the marginal note on the sketch at the left indicates, he relentlessly stripped away any superfluous details. His quadrant plan of the Bonnefont garden was based on fifteenth-century manuscript illuminations.
Rockefeller’s correspondence concerning The Cloisters, the
patience. “The difficulty of this whole matter is that Mr.
Depression loomed with menacing uncertainty. In August he
Collens is away on a trip around the world and that Mr. Breck
told Nelson, “I am not ready yet to say anything definite about
is making all these changes in conference with Mr. Willis
when it is likely I shall want to start work on the Museum. I
[Collens’s associate Harold B. Willis], . . . who realizes that he
think it hardly probable that anything will be done this fall or
has been departing from the understanding which Mr.
before the spring, and that does not mean that it will neces-
Collens has, but has been more or less forced to do so as a
sarily be begun at that time.” Consequently, Collens decided
result of Mr. Breck’s insistence. . . . Of course I am glad to
he would take a long-overdue vacation. He traveled around
have the plans improved, but the radical changes which Mr.
the world from December 1932 until mid-March 1933.
Breck is making should have been made before we autho-
“With the careful thought which your office will give the
rized the making of working drawings and large scale details.”
details,” Rockefeller had told Coffin in the spring of 1932, “and
It was the expense of revising the drawings that grated on
the added and worthwhile opinion which Mr. Breck’s study
Rockefeller, who was under the impression that the plans
of them will bring to bear, I feel sure the result will be satis-
had been finalized by late 1931. He asked Nelson to look into
factory to me.” But Breck’s continuing refinement and altera-
the matter. “I have been through the correspondence,” Nelson
tion of the plans (see figs. 76 – 80) began to wear on his
told his father, “and was unable to find any statement from
79 – 80. Left: Allen & Collens Architects. Rendering of Saint Guilhem Cloister, February 13, 1933. Right: Joseph Breck. Rendering of Saint Guilhem Cloister, February 1933. In late February 1933 Breck sent this watercolor to Rockefeller with a note saying that he and Willis recommended replacing the high roof and clerestory windows in Saint-Guilhem Cloister — the solution Rockefeller initially preferred (see fig. 79) — with a simpler skylight roof. “By substituting a skylight for a solid ceiling . . . the sculpture is properly illuminated, since the light falls in a natural way; the visitor has the sense of being in the open; and his attention, consequently, is not attracted to the modern superstructure.” Breck’s design was approved on March 31, 1933.
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