Bryn Athyn College. Near Philadelphia Pa

[coolhand]

Bryn athyn college is a beautiful campus with a real nice blacksmith shop.  Consider taking one of the workshops they offer.  Blacksmithing, stone carving and stained glass. I've attached a few pictures of the ironwork on campus.  It's a real hidden gem 

 

More pictures from Bryn Athyn 

All ironwork is in Monel

[JHCC]

That's actually Bryn Athyn Cathedral (mother church of the General Church of the New Jerusalem; a friend of mine is choir director there) across the road from Bryn Athyn College, but yeah: really beautiful. All the metalwork is done in monel, not iron or steel, so not only does it not rust, but the parts that get handled often (door handles and gates, for example) take on a lovely silvery color from the wear of many hands.

If I still lived in Philadelphia, I would love to take some classes there.

[Stash]

Former IFI member DSW (RIP) took some classes there and spoke very highly of the place. IIRC, he also did a photo thread you could find here. Could be up to 4-5 years ago.

Steve

[Ferrous Beuler]

Let's go with Samuel Yellin for a thousand, Bink.

[CMS3900]

Parke Edwards   -- Here's a interesting paper on it.  http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12617

 

[JHCC]

Edwards was a student of Yellin's at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts.

[John in Oly, WA]

Beautiful work! I like the simple, yet effective treatment of the bolt heads on the doors.

[JHCC]

On 6/21/2017 at 5:35 AM, coolhand said:

I've attached a few pictures of the ironwork on campus. 

@coolhand, are these photographs your own work? IFI discourages posting others' copyrighted material.

[Hay River]

What a fantastic paper.  I wonder why Yellin wasn't brought in on the project.  Edwards was obviously a wonderful designer and the smith's working to put his vision to reality were top notch.  Was Yellin asked and turned them down, did he just let Edwards take it on as his own right of passage?

[JHCC]

14 minutes ago, Hay River said:

What a fantastic paper.  I wonder why Yellin wasn't brought in on the project.  Edwards was obviously a wonderful designer and the smith's working to put his vision to reality were top notch.  Was Yellin asked and turned them down, did he just let Edwards take it on as his own right of passage?

I suspect that part of the decision was that Yellin would have done the work in his own West Philadelphia shop and might well not have wanted to disrupt his production by moving men, materials, and machinery elsewhere. The Pitcairns wanted to have all the work done on-site; note that all the stone and stained glass work was done in workshops at Bryn Athyn. I believe these became the genesis for the craft programs at Bryn Athyn College.

I suppose it's also possible that Yellin might not have wanted to invest time and money in having his staff retrain to work in monel, especially for a one-of job. That's just a guess, though.