Dumbarton Oaks facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Dumbarton Oaks |
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| University | Harvard University |
| Location | Washington D.C. |
| Coordinates | 38°54′51″N 77°3′48″W / 38.91417°N 77.06333°W |
| Founders | Robert Woods Bliss Mildred Barnes Bliss |
| Established | 1801 |
| Founded | 1940 |
| Website | doaks.org |
Dumbarton Oaks is a famous historic estate in Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C.. It used to be the home and gardens of a rich American diplomat named Robert Woods Bliss and his wife, Mildred Barnes Bliss. The Blisses gave their home and beautiful gardens to Harvard University in 1940.
In 1944, a very important meeting called the Dumbarton Oaks Conference happened here. Leaders met to plan for the United Nations, an organization that would help keep peace after World War II. Part of the gardens, which was a natural area, was given to the National Park Service and is now Dumbarton Oaks Park.
Today, Dumbarton Oaks is a research center. It helps people study ancient cultures like the Byzantine Empire and Pre-Columbian civilizations. It also focuses on garden design. The center offers special programs, holds meetings, and publishes books. You can visit its gardens and museum, and they even have public talks and music concerts.
Contents
History of Dumbarton Oaks
Early Days of the Estate
The land where Dumbarton Oaks stands was first given to Colonel Ninian Beall in 1702 by Queen Anne. Around 1801, William Hammond Dorsey built the first house on the property. This house is now the main part of the building you see today.
Later, in the mid-1800s, Edward Magruder Linthicum made the house much bigger and named it "The Oaks." A famous politician, John C. Calhoun, who was a Senator and Vice President, lived here from 1822 to 1829.
The Bliss Family Era
Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss bought the property in 1920. In 1933, they combined its old names to call it Dumbarton Oaks. The Blisses hired architect Frederick H. Brooke to make the house even better between 1921 and 1923. They turned it into a Colonial Revival style home.
The Blisses also bought more land, making the estate about 54 acres (22 hectares). They worked with a famous landscape architect named Beatrix Farrand to design beautiful terraced gardens and a wilder natural area. The Blisses also added new buildings, like a music room, designed by Lawrence Grant White.
After retiring in 1933, the Blisses started planning for a research center. They collected many artworks and books, which became the start of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. In 1940, they gave Dumbarton Oaks, including about 16 acres (6.5 hectares) of land, to Harvard University. They also gave about 27 acres (11 hectares) to the National Park Service to create Dumbarton Oaks Park.
In the 1960s, the Blisses helped build two new parts of the estate. One was designed by Philip Johnson to hold their collection of Pre-Columbian art. The other was a garden library designed by Frederic Rhinelander King, for Mildred Bliss's collection of rare books about plants and gardens.
The Dumbarton Oaks Concerto
In 1937, Mildred Bliss asked a famous composer, Igor Stravinsky, to write a special piece of music. It was to celebrate the Blisses' 30th wedding anniversary. The music, called the Concerto in E-flat, was first performed in the Dumbarton Oaks music room in 1938. Stravinsky himself conducted it there later in 1947 and 1958.
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference
In 1944, during World War II, very important meetings happened at Dumbarton Oaks. These meetings were called the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization. Representatives from China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met to discuss how to create an organization to keep peace and safety around the world. Their discussions led to the United Nations Charter, which was signed in San Francisco in 1945. This charter created the United Nations.
After the Bliss Family
Mildred Bliss passed away in 1969. She wanted Dumbarton Oaks to be a place for high-quality learning and for people to appreciate the arts and gardens. She believed it should be a home for the "Humanities," not just a collection of books.
Since then, Dumbarton Oaks has continued to grow. It has supported many archaeological digs and art restoration projects. For example, in the 1970s, it helped with projects in Cyprus, Syria, and Turkey. In the 1990s, it started funding archaeology in Central and South America.
In 2005, new buildings were added, including a large library designed by Robert Venturi. The main house and museum were also updated in 2008, restoring many of its historic rooms.
Research and Studies
What Dumbarton Oaks Studies
Dumbarton Oaks supports and promotes learning in three main areas:
- Byzantine Studies: This program looks at the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire from the 300s to the 1400s. It also studies how the Byzantine Empire interacted with other cultures.
- Pre-Columbian Studies: Started in 1963, this program focuses on the art and archaeology of ancient America. It covers cultures from Mexico down to South America, from the earliest times until the 1500s.
- Garden and Landscape Architecture Studies: This program, started in 1969, supports the study of gardens and the history of landscape design from ancient times to today.
Dumbarton Oaks invites scholars from all over the world to do research. They also give grants for archaeological work and publish scholarly books and journals.
Museum and Collections
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The Dumbarton Oaks Museum has collections of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art. It also has European artworks and furniture. The Blisses started these collections and planned for them to grow even after they gave Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard.
Byzantine Collection
The Byzantine Collection has over 1,200 objects from the 300s to the 1400s. It includes precious items like mosaics, sculptures, textiles, coins, and seals. It also has ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval artworks.
Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art
This collection features objects from ancient cultures in Mesoamerica, the Intermediate Area, and the Andes. You can see stone sculptures, including carvings of Aztec gods and Maya kings. There are also jade objects from the Olmec and Teotihuacan cultures, and pottery from the Nasca and Moche cultures. The collection also has amazing gold and silver items and over forty textiles.
The House Collection
This collection includes the historic buildings and their interiors. It has Asian, European, and American artworks and furniture. A highlight is the Music Room, which has a beautiful ceiling and floor inspired by a French castle. This room displays tapestries, sculptures, paintings, and furniture from the 1400s to the 1700s. The Blisses used this room for music and talks, and it's still used for those purposes today.
Philip Johnson Pre-Columbian Pavilion
In 1959, the Blisses asked architect Philip Johnson to design a special building for their Pre-Columbian art collection. This building has eight round galleries with domes, arranged in a perfect square. It reminds some people of Islamic architecture. Johnson designed it to blend with the surrounding gardens, using curved glass walls so visitors could see the plants outside. He wanted the garden to "march right up to the museum displays."
The pavilion is designed to be best enjoyed from the inside. The eight galleries make it easy to move around and offer cozy spaces to look at the art. Each gallery is 25 feet wide with curved glass walls and shallow domes.
Library
The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library has over 200,000 items. These support the three study programs: Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and garden and landscape architecture.
The Byzantine collection has grown to 149,000 books and over 550 journal subscriptions. In 1964, the library received Robert Woods Bliss's personal collection of 2,000 rare books on Pre-Columbian art. Mildred Bliss's garden library, with rare books and prints, now has 27,000 books. The Rare Book Collection has over 10,000 rare books, prints, drawings, and photographs.
The Rare Book Room, designed in 1963, looks like an 18th-century library. It holds Mildred Bliss's collection of rare books and drawings. These books include old pictures of gardens, which are very helpful because many of those gardens don't exist anymore. There are also books on architecture, plants, and how to design fountains.
The library also has many books that describe famous gardens or how to garden. It has early books about plants, called herbals, which were the first attempts to describe plants scientifically. Some of these herbals are among the earliest printed books with pictures. The collection also includes beautiful botanical illustrations, showing how plant drawing improved over time.
Besides printed books, the library has manuscripts and drawings. These include old garden plans, paintings of plants by Asian artists, and watercolors by famous botanical artists. The library continues to add to its collection, acquiring important and rare books.
Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives
This part of Dumbarton Oaks holds over 500,000 images in different formats. Most of these images are about Byzantine subjects. They are also building collections of photos and archives for Pre-Columbian and garden studies.
Garden
In 1921, the Blisses hired landscape designer Beatrix Farrand to create the garden at Dumbarton Oaks. For nearly 30 years, Mildred Bliss worked closely with Farrand. They turned the old farmlands into terraced garden "rooms" and scenic views. The garden starts with formal terraces near the house, then moves to a middle area with pools, a tennis court, and vegetable beds. Finally, it ends with a wilder area of meadows and a stream.
The garden at Dumbarton Oaks first opened to the public in 1939. The Dumbarton Oaks Park is a separate 27-acre park with a natural stream valley, which is part of Rock Creek Park.
Events
Music at Dumbarton Oaks
Since 1946, Dumbarton Oaks has hosted chamber music concerts in its music room. In 1958, they asked composer Aaron Copland to write a piece for the Blisses' 50th wedding anniversary. This piece, called "Nonet for Strings," was first performed in 1961. More recently, in 2006, they asked Joan Tower to compose "Dumbarton Quintet," which was first played in 2008.
Public Lectures
Dumbarton Oaks regularly offers public lectures. These talks often share new discoveries or interesting research that people will enjoy learning about.
Directors
- John Seymour Thacher, 1946–1969
- William R. Tyler, 1969–1977
- Giles Constable, 1977–1984
- Robert W. Thomson, 1984–1989
- Angeliki Laiou, 1989–1998
- Edward L. Keenan, 1998–2007
- Jan M. Ziolkowski, 2007–2020
- Thomas B.F. Cummins, 2020-Present
Images for kids
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A map showing the layout of the Dumbarton Oaks estate.
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An art installation in the Dumbarton Oaks Garden, showing school desks in front of the lake.
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The beautiful music room at Dumbarton Oaks, where concerts and lectures are held.
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See also
- List of botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States
- Tudor Place
- Architecture of Washington, D.C.
