An Architect of Place and the Village Beautiful: Alfredo Taylor in Norfolk, Connecticut

Architect Alfredo Taylor (1872-1947) was educated at Columbia's School of Architecture and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Although he maintained an office in New York as a partner in the firm of Taylor & Levi and engaged in work throughout New York and New England, the town of Norfolk, Connecticut, was central to both his personal and professional life. Choosing an alternate path to that of his high-profile Beaux-Arts contemporaries, Taylor developed a symbiotic relationship with Norfolk and formulated a philosophy of architecture that sought to capture and express the essence of the town. As an architect of place, Taylor drew on those elements that were integral to the town's place-bound identity: its natural environment and the cultural landscape. In 1902 when Taylor arrived in Norfolk as a summer resident, the cultural landscape was in the process of being transformed into a Village Beautiful.;Norfolk's leading family---the Battells and Eldridges---began this transformation to promote their cultural heritage in a time of socio-economic change brought on by industrialization and the loss of the town's agrarian base. Through the invention of tradition, they rewrote history in the landscape of the Village Green with the construction of buildings and the creation of cultural and educational institutions to cultivate the community, giving birth to the Village Beautiful ideal. With the moral premise of City Beautiful ideology, the Village Beautiful placed architecture in the service of shaping an identity, promoting traditional values and cultural authority, acculturating the immigrant population, and maintaining the social structure. By manipulating history and suppressing certain aspects of Norfolk's past, these patrons of the Village Beautiful sought to perpetuate their cultural heritage.;As an architect of place, Taylor participated in the continuing creation of the Village Beautiful, working within its idealism to enhance the town's identity. Taylor's artistic vision was informed by Arts and Crafts ideology, which tapped into the moral premise of the Village Beautiful and fostered a reassuring sense of stability. His creation of an artistic village center in the first decade of the twentieth century provided Norfolk with a romanticized image, while developing the Village Beautiful in a way that affirmed beauty, framed the attitudes and activities of townsfolk, and helped mediate socioeconomic change. At a time when many small towns in New England faced an uncertain future, the Village Beautiful strengthened Norfolk's place-bound identity.