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Established in 1887 by Baltimore architects James B. N. Wyatt and William G. Nolting, Wyatt & Nolting became a prominent general firm which could successfully produce residences, office and academic buildings, and public commissions. According to James Wollon of the Dead Architects Society, the plum construction of their long partnership must have been the Baltimore City Courthouse, a commission which they won in competition in 1894 over the entries of such well known architects as Carrere & Hastings, Peabody & Stearns, Boring & Tilton, and Daniel H. Burnham & Company. Certainly its signature Beaux-Arts Classicism was a style which the office frequently used; however, in 1933, after Wyatt's death, the firm could also attempt a more modern, less decorative style -- as seen in their work on Patterson Park High School, now Hempstead Hill Elementary School. According to The Architecture of Baltimore, An Illustrated History, published in 2004: "The boxy, purposeful brick building had horizontal lines and square, factory-like windows; it represented Baltimore's first break from history-laden eclecticism in school design." Therefore, with Wyatt & Nolting the viewer can find the full range of changes in American architectural style from the late nineteenth century revivals to a spare modernism.

The firm survived the death of Wyatt in 1926, but Nolting's death in 1940 marked the end of an architectural firm which had not only demonstrated the development of American architectural styles, but which had educated many of the successful younger architects of Baltimore as well.

Written by Sandra L. Tatman.

 

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