Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

064. Inspired by the Ancients

McKim was dazzled by the buildings on the Acropolis in Athens. The stone blocks of the fifth-century-BC Erechtheum lined up face-to-face, mortarless, with such precision that even a thin blade could not be slipped into the seam. When he was engaged to design Morgan’s Library, McKim convinced the marble contractor, Robert C. Fisher & Co., to adapt ancient stone-setting methods, and Morgan agreed to cover the substantial additional cost.

These photographs, from a travel scrapbook in McKim, Mead & White’s records, depict the ancient architecture McKim so admired as he sought to create a contemporary building of comparable excellence.

Photographs from a McKim, Mead & White scrapbook depicting the Erechtheum and the Athenian Acropolis, ca. 1890s
Avery Classics Collection, Columbia University