McKim was dazzled by the buildings on the Acropolis in Athens. The stone blocks of the fifth-century-BC Erechtheum lined up face-to-face, mortarless, with such precision that even a thin blade could not be slipped into the seam. When he was engaged to design Morgan’s Library, McKim convinced the marble contractor, Robert C. Fisher & Co., to adapt ancient stone-setting methods, and Morgan agreed to cover the substantial additional cost.
These photographs, from a travel scrapbook in McKim, Mead & White’s records, depict the ancient architecture McKim so admired as he sought to create a contemporary building of comparable excellence.
Photographs from a McKim, Mead & White scrapbook depicting the Erechtheum and the Athenian Acropolis, ca. 1890s
Avery Classics Collection, Columbia University