The church architecture of Adolphus Druiding: A study of the ecclesiastical work of a late nineteenth century German Catholic immigrant architect

This thesis deals with the church architecture of Adolphus Druiding, a German immigrant architect active in the United States between 1867 and 1900. In this thesis I demonstrate how Druiding's ethnic identity as a German affected his use of historical styles in church architecture. I also demonstrate that Druiding varied his use of historical styles depending on the ethnic group for which he was building. I conclude that Druiding's sense of historical style in church architecture resulted from a mixture of the architect's own Germanic tendencies, a desire on the part of his Catholic clients to have an ethnically and religiously distinct architecture, and some influence of the American church architecture of the period. The study concludes that Druiding was not a German architect working in the United States, but a true German-American architect who showed the influence of German architectural traditions, but whose sense of style was also uniquely American.