Connections Between Lawrie, Meiere and Architects Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and Raymond Hood

Each of the above worked together to create functional and beautiful architecture.

Greg Harm has been studying the life and work of architectural sculptor Lee Oskar Lawrie since 2000, when he first observed a connection between his native Nebraska and a particularly architectural firm, Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson.

Of note, Harm noticed that both Lee Lawrie and mosaicist Hilreth Meiere had both made significant contributions to Rockefeller Center. Construction of the Center was completed several years after completion of the Nebraska State Capitol, designed by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.

Goodhue and Associates had won the design competition for the Nebraska State Capitol in 1921; and both Lee Lawrie and Hildreth Meiere were collaborators with Goodhue in his winning design, years later, during the height of the Great Depression.

As the Great Depression took hold, paralyzing MOST new construction projects in the 1930s, the Rockefeller Center emerged as a shrine to commerce, as well as a jobs project to employ hundreds of skilled craftsmen who had been idled by the Great Depression

But among the prominent artisans looking for opportunities, Lawrie and Meiere landed contracts with the forthcoming center.

Call it coincidence, or dumb luck. both Lawrie and Meiere had (1) worked for Goodhue on the Nebraska State Capitol, and (2) had at least a minimal connection with Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center’s Chief Architect, since Hood had worked FOR Goodhue in the oughts and teens of the 20th Century.

Your host here, Greg Harm, recognized the connection between Goodhue, Lawrie, Meier and Hood, and became obsessed with how these artisans who had worked on the Nebraska State Capitol…that they must have gained some notoriety outside of Nebraska, before Rockefeller Center came into being.

The common thread that ties them altogether was Raymond Hood; the architect from Pawtucket Rhode Island, who worked for Bertram Goodhue in the 19-teens.