The Solitude

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1997

For nearly a century the Fairmount Water Works stood as the beating heart of Philadelphia's municipal water supply, drawing water from the Schuylkill River and lifting it to a hilltop reservoir from which gravity carried it into the growing city. Designed in an elegant neoclassical style by Frederick Graff and his son, the buildings deliberately dressed heavy industrial machinery in the clothing of a garden pavilion. Power evolved with the century — from Oliver Evans' pioneering high-pressure steam engine, to breast waterwheels, and finally to turbines.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1990

John Coltrane lived in this Strawberry Mansion neighborhood house from 1952 to 1958, during the formative years when a young saxophonist was becoming one of the most important voices in jazz. He would go on to weave African and Indian musical elements into a searching, spiritual style that first startled listeners before it reshaped the music entirely. Philadelphia was the crucible where his restless artistry took form.

Philadelphia, PA

Erected by the City Councils of Philadelphia in 1848, this monument honors Frederick Graff, the engineer who designed and built the Fairmount Water Works on the Schuylkill River. Completed in the 1810s, the Water Works pumped clean water to a growing Philadelphia and became one of the most admired public works in the young nation, drawing sightseers from across America and Europe. Graff's design married engineering ingenuity with graceful classical architecture, setting a standard for American municipal infrastructure.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1991

In an era when the profession was almost entirely closed to Black Americans, Julian Abele broke through as the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania's architecture school. As chief designer in Horace Trumbauer's prominent firm, he shaped some of Philadelphia's grandest civic buildings, including the monumental Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Free Library on Logan Square. For much of his career his contributions went publicly uncredited, hidden behind the firm's name even as his designs defined the city's Beaux-Arts skyline.