Henry Bacon, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1923
Born: November 28, 1866; Watseka, Illinois
Died: 1924; New York City


Projects
• 1922: Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
• 1915: Court of the Four Seasons, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco
• Paterson Free Public Library, Paterson, N.J.
• Naugatuck Train Station, Naugatuck, Conn. – in the style of an Italian villa
• Waterbury General Hospital, Waterbury, Conn.
• Eclectic Society Building, Middletown, Conn.
• Observatory, Wesleyan University
• Union Square Savings Bank, New York City
• World War I Memorial, Yale University
• Pope Building, Cleveland, Ohio
• Live Oaks House, Wilmington, N.C.


Biography
Though he was born in Illinois, Henry Bacon grew up in North Carolina, where his father worked as a civil engineer. Bacon studied at the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1884, but left after a year to begin working as a draftsman. He worked briefly in Boston, then moved to New York City to work at McKim, Mead, & White. When he won the Rotch Traveling Scholarship in 1889, Bacon went to Europe for two years, traveling mostly in Italy and Greece. He studied a number of ancient architectural and archaeological sites, including Assos in Turkey, where his brother Francis worked.

On his return to the United States in 1891, Bacon worked again for six years with McKim. From 1897 to 1903, he partnered with James Brite, then began working independently. Bacon is best known for designing the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., a project he took on when he was only 39 years old.

Bacon was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, was a National Academician, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Of all the of all Gold Medal ceremonies, Bacon's was the most elaborate; it was held at the Lincoln Memorial. AIA members, dressed in colorful robes, carried banners and standards. They marched down the reflecting pool accompanied by architecture students, who manned a series of ropes to pull Bacon, seated on a "royal" barge, down the pool's length. Bacon sat under a golden wooden statue of a boy with a laurel wreath that represented a crown. As the barge made its way, trumpeters from the Marine Band played. William Howard Taft, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and former president of the United States, met Bacon at the bottom of the steps and presented him to President Warren G. Harding, who bestowed the Gold Medal. After the ceremony, the participants dined al fresco on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial.