Celebrating the architectural legacy of Penn’s first Black architecture graduate

Julian Francis Abele was just 30 years old when he designed Eisenlohr Hall, what is today the residence for Penn’s presidents.

Among designers, Abele is remembered as a brilliant talent in architecture and was, in 1902, Penn’s first Black graduate of architecture. Eisenlohr, which was commissioned in 1909 and constructed in 1911, is not Abele’s most famous work—for that, look to his contributions to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Parkway Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Until recently, Eisenlohr was also one that few people would consider in the same breath as “Abele.” Until an initialed (“JFA”) design sheet was discovered in 2021, in fact, it was still uncertain what role if any he played in the design, despite its commonalities with other buildings Abele was known to have contributed to.

That key discovery shed light on Eisenlohr as one of Abele’s first commissions for which he was significantly responsible. At the time, he worked for the famed architecture firm of Horace Trumbauer, which employed several Penn graduates. Eisenlohr’s marble quarried and shipped from France for the mosaic floor of the foyer, its numerous fireplaces, its elegant terrace—all were a product of the creative force of Abele. And at a dedication event on Tuesday, Feb. 25, inside the home, his contributions were formally recognized and celebrated by members of the Penn community, as well as Abele’s great-grandnephew Peter Cook—who, as it happens, is also an architect.

In remarks at the celebration, Bill Whitaker, curator and collections manager of the Architectural Archives at the Weitzman School of Design, teased out the documented hours Abele spent designing Eisenlohr’s details on dozens of design sheets of old drafting linen, drawing inspiration from French Renaissance and Roman styles. Details included everything from the molding to the iron grills.

“Each element, in its own way, is an invention. That is, an inventive exploration of an architectural tradition that he greatly admired: The French Renaissance style of the 16th and 17th century, here rendered as contemporary expression through the action—or is it the force?—of his hand,” Whitaker remarked. “Abele’s work is of course more than just shaping details; it is the art of shaping proportion, rhythm, materials, into a vessel for the daily pulse of human experience.”

At the gathering, a framed portrait commissioned from Frank W. Harting, Jr., of Abele was unveiled that lives on the first floor of Eisenlohr, alongside a sketch of the home’s floor plan, dated 1910-11. Also new to the building, in the dining room, is a series of watercolor and pastel paintings that Abele created during a 1913 trip. Trumbauer and other architects of that era, explains Whitaker, would send talent abroad to see architecture in France, Italy, and elsewhere, which was a common source of inspiration for the time. The paintings were donated to Penn in 1985 by Jeanne Yelcick and the donation was celebrated at a ceremony at Eisenlohr in June 1986. Already, Vanessa Grossman, an assistant professor of architecture, has taken the opportunity to bring her students to Eisenlohr to talk about the paintings and discuss Abele.

Eisenlohr Hall’s building plate located at the entrance has also been updated with Abele’s name, and several audio recordings about the building’s history, located around its perimeter, can be accessed via QR code that include voice notes recorded by Cook.

“The University is on a mission to try to capture the history throughout the whole campus and this is an important way to do it,” said Interim Penn President J. Larry Jameson at the celebration, recalling a years-ago visit with former Penn President Amy Gutmann in which she relayed the history of Abele. “We host a lot of people and events here, and it will give us an opportunity at each one of those to tell the story I heard from President Gutmann about Julian Abele’s role in the design of this house. Because when students, faculty, and visitors walk in, they always ask questions about the artists, the paintings, the architecture, the design.

“It will be a story we tell over and over again.”