Note 513 — CHAPTER 24 ARCHITECTURE CALLED TRADITIONAL IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The decline is perhaps to be related at its start to the death of their associate Joseph M. Wells in 1890. Never a member of the firm, he had nevertheless been personally responsible for the design of the Villard houses (Plate 109B) that had opened the academic phase of the firm’s career. Later, the death of White and the retirement of McKim in the early years of the new century removed the two controlling personalities from the firm. Henceforth the office was a ‘plan-factory’, with high professional standards undoubtedly, but without direction other than that already established in the late eighties and nineties by the founders. In 1961 the firm finally came to an end with the death of J. K. Smith, the only surviving partner who had known the founders.