"Geoffrey Blodgett grounds Gilbert's personal and professional life in national and regional history, offering detailed political context for the opening decades of his career. Fascinated by architectural design since boyhood, Gilbert trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, toured Europe, and apprenticed with the renowned New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. In 1882, ready to set out on his own, he chose the familiar territory of St.

Paul, his hometown, as the starting point for his career. Teaming for many years with close friend James Knox Taylor, Gilbert designed several dozen residences, churches, and urban structures in and around the Twin Cities. Suffering through the panic of 1893, with a wife and four children to support, Gilbert fought hard to win the plum commission to design Minnesota's capitol building in 1895.".

"While the commission would give Gilbert's fame a national dimension, these early years were crucial in nurturing the techniques that supported his later career. It was in Minnesota that Gilbert learned to cultivate social relationships and leverage political connections, practices that led to prime commissions. He also learned to work with rich and often demanding clients, whose wealth aroused his own ambitions.

Inspired by visions of success, Gilbert pursued a top ranking in the hierarchy of American architects. After the rough struggle of the Minnesota years, Gilbert would in fact be renowned as the most prolific and stylistically versatile architect of his generation, his mature skills ranging from the picturesque through beaux-arts neoclassicism to the new art of the high tower."--BOOK JACKET.