Charles Greene Overview

Charles Sumner Greene and his brother Henry Mather Greene, who established the architectural firm of Greene and Greene, were influential American architects. Active primarily in California, their bungalow houses and larger-scale ultimate bungalows are prime exemplars of the Arts and Crafts... [more]

Charles Sumner Greene and his brother Henry Mather Greene, who established the architectural firm of Greene and Greene, were influential American architects. Active primarily in California, their bungalow houses and larger-scale ultimate bungalows are prime exemplars of the Arts and Crafts movement. As a teenager, Charles studied at the Manual Training School of Washington University, in St Louis, Missouri, graduating in 1887-1888 primarily studing metalwork and woodworking. Charles received a 'certificate for completion of partial course', a special two year program at MIT's School of Architecture, in 1891 Studying classical building styles, intending at that time only to gain certification for apprenticeships with architecture and construction firms upon graduation. After M.I.T., in the Spring of 1890, Charles Greene apprenticed first with the firm of Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul, but after four and a half months, moved to the office of R. Clipston Sturgis. By March of 1891, he had moved again to work with Herbert Langford Warren, and by the following November, he had changed again to the firm of Winslow and Wetherell. He would stay there until the two brothers departed to join their parents in Pasadena, California. In 1893 their parents requested that the sons move out to Pasadena, California, where they had moved to a year before. Charles and his brother agreed and while traveling by train from Boston they stopped at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and saw a few examples of Japanese architecture, which made a lasting impression on both of them, according to a late-in-life interview with Henry Greene. There was actually very little Japanese influence upon their work until after Charles Greene visited the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, MO. The Architectural firm of Greene and Greene was established in Pasadena in January of 1894, eventually building toward the crescendo of their "ultimate bungalows", such as the Gamble House in Pasadena, generally considered one of the finest examples of residential architecture in the United States. Such ultimate bungalows were completely custom affairs, where the vast majority of ingredients – light fixtures, furniture, even woven textiles – were created for a specific space in the home. In 1901 Charles Greene married Alice Gordon White, and they honeymooned in Europe and her native England. It was following this trip that the firm began developing the distinctive stylistic elements that finally came together as a cohesive whole in their grand works of 1907-09. The Greenes developed a personal idiom within the Arts and crafts aesthetic, receiving commissions to design furnishings for their houses. Charles Greene's sketches for the 1903 Mary Darling house were published in England in Academy Architecture the same year, representing the first foreign publication of the firm's work. The firm of Greene & Greene was officially dissolved in 1922 after Charles moved his family north to Carmel, California. Charles and his brother Henery remained life long friends until their deaths in the 1950s [show less]