Spotlight: Alfred Caldwell

Photo courtesy of Canadian Centre for Architecture

“Nature, too, shall live its own life.” - Mies van der Rohe¹

Alfred Caldwell was born in 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri. At an early age his family moved to Chicago, where he spent the majority of his school years. It was at Lake View High School, on the north side of the city, that his love for plants was nurtured under botanist Herman Silas Pepoon. Upon graduation from high school, Caldwell studied landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but never received his degree.

He met famed Prairie School architect, Jens Jensen, who mentored him as a landscape assistant. The time was well spent; Jensen proved to be an inspirational character and made a huge impression on Caldwell. Although Frank Lloyd Wright extended a prestigious invitation to study at Taliesin, the famed home, studio and school developed to further Wright’s Prairie School philosophy. Caldwell turned it down, which was surprising to many.

Caldwell then engaged in his own practice from 1931–1933. He was offered work as the superintendent of parks in Dubuque, Iowa and accepted the position only to be fired in 1936 for his fanatical attention to detail in his drawings. His talent was quickly recognized as he accepted another position as a designer for the Chicago Park District. There, Caldwell masterfully combined the teachings of Jensen while employing his own sense of style to Chicago’s prominently planned lakefront and parks.²

One summer afternoon in 1938, Caldwell was planting wildflowers in Lincoln Park when he ran across three “foreign looking” men who seemed to admire his work. These men were none other than master architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, innovative urban planner Ludwig Hilberseimer, and famed photographer Walter Peterhans, who had recently arrived in Chicago to teach at the Armour Institute of Technology.³ Caldwell was later introduced to Mies through a design class he was taking at the Art Institute of Chicago in preparation for the Illinois architecture exam (a degree was not required at the time). Caldwell’s design for a home of medium sized scale impressed Mies, who asked Caldwell to consider studying with Hilberseimer and Peterhans.

Caldwell’s exceptional drawing skills and poetic speaking style were fully utilized by Mies and Hilberseimer. He was still employed by the Park District, but Hilberseimer repeatedly used Caldwell to illustrate his views on urban planning, often without compensation or credit. Mies and Hilberseimer also admired his energetic oratory skills, especially since they had little confidence in their own ability to speak in English. Over time, Caldwell delivered many speeches for these men, giving them with a sense of flare and showmanship that left even Mies clapping at the end.⁴

During World War II, Caldwell served in the military as a government civil engineer. Once out of the service, Caldwell accepted an offer from Mies for a teaching position at Illinois Institute of Technology, along with the added task of being the landscape architect for the growing school. Caldwell was charged with teaching second- and third-year architectural construction classes. These classes were seen as a critical part of the foundation to Mies’s curriculum, for it was here that the students learned in detail about materials and how best to make use of them in a building.

“In Caldwell, Mies made one of the most significant teaching appointments in architectural education in the twentieth century.”⁵ Caldwell’s devotion as a teacher and charismatic personality appealed to the heart of the students, many of whom left his presence feeling greatly inspired. Although relationships with other faculty were not always positive (as is often the case in academia), Mies was a great supporter and had great confidence in Caldwell’s ability as a teacher, architect, and landscape architect.

After leaving Illinois Tech, Caldwell worked for the Chicago Department of City Planning in their special projects department. In 1964, he accepted a position at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute for two terms but left in 1965 for the University of Southern California, where he remained until 1973. In 1980, he was awarded the Distinguished Educator Award from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The following year he returned to teach at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he remained as faculty member until his passing. Caldwell passed away on his farm in Bristol, Wisconsin in 1998.

Alfred Caldwell was a true Renaissance man, with expertise in landscape design, architecture, teaching, urban planning, and civil engineering. His talents also included public speaking and drawing. His personality was inspirational, whether it be his students, faculty, co-workers, or even Frank Lloyd Wright, who called him a genius.⁶ Mies’s desire to utilize Caldwell both as a teacher and designer while at Illinois Tech truly made the architecture faculty an all-star cast.

1. Mies quoted in Stanley Abercrombie, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Preservation vol. 52, no. 5 (September/October 2000), 67.

2. This section was derived largely from Dennis Domer, ed., Alfred Caldwell; The Life and Work of a Prairie Scholl Landscape Architect, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 and Dennis Domer, “Alfred Caldwell,” Catalyst vol. 8 no. 2 (1998).

3. Domer, Alfred Caldwell, 29

4. Ibid, 33

5. Ibid, 39

6. Lee Bey, “Alfred Caldwell, Landscape Genius”, Chicago Sun Times 9 July 1998, 60.