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Albert D. Lueders Metropolitan Merchandise Marts, Inc. / Clifton Park Manor collections
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Held at: University of Delaware Library Special Collections [Contact Us]181 South College Avenue, Newark, DE 19717-5267
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Delaware Library Special Collections. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Albert D. Lueders was born in New Jersey in 1905. In 1937 he established an architectural firm in Arlington, Virginia, where he designed housing based on the Garden City Movement. This movement began in England with the work of Ebenezer Howard at the close of the nineteenth century. The ideas behind the Garden City Movement came to America in the 1920s and influenced city planning. The concept was one of a self-contained community which integrated residences, businesses, and green spaces. People could live where they worked, and in some cases designers intended to minimize the amount of automobile traffic or separate driving and pedestrian spaces. Towns such as Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City reflected this movement in England while Radburn, New Jersey; Greenbelt, Maryland; Greenhills, Ohio; and Greendale, Wisconsin, appeared in the United States, all influenced by the same principles. In 1949 Lueders applied what he knew of the Garden City Movement to the designs for Clifton Park Manor in northern Delaware and the Wilmington Merchandise Mart which adjoined it. Wilmington Merchandise Mart later came to be known as Merchants Square. Lueders was involved in Virginia development, including apartment complexes in Falls Church, Virginia, and designs for Claremont, Virginia. Lueders died circa 1975.
“Planned Communities, Part 1: Garden City.” University Libraries, University of Maryland, College Park. http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/gardencities.html. June 4, 2002. Accessed September 26, 2006“National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, VDHR 000-9700.” Virginia Department of Historic Resources: Historic Registers. http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Arlington/000-9700_ClaremontHD_2006_NRdraft.pdf. 2006. Accessed September 26, 2006.Wells, John E. and Robert E. Dalton. The Virginia Architects, 1835-1955: A Biographical Dictionary. (Richmond: New South Architectural Press) 1997.
The collection includes documents related to the 1948-1949 planning of Clifton Park Manor and Wilmington Merchandise Mart, which later became Merchant square.
Box 1: Shelved in SPEC MSS manuscript boxes
Purchase, September 2006
Processed by Jenniver Vess, September 2006. Encoded by Jaime Margalotti, July 2017.
People
Organization
Subject
- Planned communities--Delaware--History--20th century
- City planning--Delaware--History--20th century
- Architecture--Designs and plans
Place
Occupation
- Publisher
- University of Delaware Library Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
- Finding Aid Date
- 2017 July 19
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce isrequired from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library, https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?askspec
Collection Inventory
108 pages including cover, 97 of which were produced on blueprint paper. The cover is signed by the architect, owner, contractor, mortgagee, indemnitor and mortgage insurer. The contents include a 10-page “The General Conditions of the Contract for the Construction of Buildings” in its fifth edition at the time, and approved by several professional associations. The remainder of the book lays out in detail the building specifications including process and materials for the buildings to be included in Clifton Park Manor. The pages are bound with staples.
Physical Description108 pp
Plan consisting of 48 pages each with a pocket that holds a printed table of population, income, mobility, transportation, sales projections. The plan itself has narrative portions supported by statistics on Delaware income (per capita and sources of income), population, retail trade, travel and transportation, parking and dwellings predominantly from the year 1948, but in some instances as early as 1930. Also includes traffic pattern maps.
Physical Description48 pp
48 pp
Color print showing the proposed layout of the Wilmington Merchandise Mart adjoining Clifton Park Manor. Includes the name of the architect and the artist. The reverse has the name T.B. O’Toole, Inc.