| This thesis explores the Kingscote dining room (Newport, RI, 1880-1881), as a significant cultural document of its period. Designed by Stanford White as part of an addition to an existing house, the space is representative of White's early design vocabulary and the tastes of the patrons, David and Ella King.;Stanford White joined Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead in 1879, forming the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White. The ensuing partnership would be responsible for approximately one thousand commissions in the period from 1879 to 1912. Trained as a painter, White brought an artistic eye to his work with McKim, Mead & White; this prowess is evidenced in the careful blending of traditional and modern materials, and the use of light, texture and color. White's knowledge of architecture, both historic and progressive, is apparent in the fusion of design motifs extracted from Elizabethan, Classical, Moorish, Japanese, and Colonial Revival sources;The Kingscote dining room was among the first of the firm's projects, exemplary of the architects' early work, which was defined by eclecticism and innovation in both exterior and interior architecture. At the time of its completion in 1881, the Kingscote dining room was unlike anything previously built in Newport. Its creation set David and Ella King apart from their peers, and identified them as fashionable, wealthy patrons of the arts. |
