Notes from my Knapsack 10-7-21
Jeff Gill
The last member of the Ghost Army
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Architect Gilbert Seltzer said of his 1960 Utica Memorial Auditorium: "This was the first successful use of cables for a roof structure." The design he worked out with engineer Lev Zeitlin was reused a few years later for what is the current Madison Square Garden, built just a few years after the dedication of the Utica structure, with the same circular layout and unobstructed views thanks to the innovative roof design.
In 1966, Seltzer used this technique in miniature at Denison University to create Herrick Hall, a lecture and performance space just off the Academic Quad. I sat in that space for a program just last week, and thought about the life and legacy of its designer, who died in August at the age of 106.
An obituary of Gil Seltzer said "he put his stamp on college campuses with buildings at West Point, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, CUNY Rutgers, William Paterson College, New Jersey City University and many others." Among the many others was Denison's campus, with some fifteen or more buildings coming off of his drafting table. Most are still in use, the exception being the Ace Morgan Theatre recently brought down to make room for the Eisner Center for the Performing Arts.
His last contribution was Blair Knapp Hall at the heart of today's campus. Seltzer came for the 1966 groundbreaking of this building, and the dedication that same year of Herrick Hall; I can't find any information tying him to campus after that. That final design was named for Blair Knapp after the president who had worked with Seltzer for years unexpectedly died in 1968.
A quarter century earlier, Al Seltzer had taken a leave from Gehron Associates, the architecture firm where he worked, to join the US Army and fight World War II. After looking into joining the Canadian military, he found an opportunity to sign up for Officer Candidate School, and ended up in the United States Ghost Army.
Ghost Army? Exactly so. And it's even cooler than you think.
The U.S. Ghost Army was tasked with creating a fake army's worth of tanks and ships and planes and troops to make the Germans think the invasion of Europe would be somewhere other than it was going to be. Calais, mostly, rather than the Normandy beaches where D-Day ultimately landed.
An army of set designers, costumers, and architects fabricated blow-up tank balloons, like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and other "from a distance" tricks of perspective and contour to create a whole army corps of invaders which literally froze in place an actual army of Nazi troops, while the actual soldiers of the invasion landed further west. Look it up: the U.S. Ghost Army saved thousands of lives, and helped make D-Day and the crossing of the Rhine a success. Bill Blass the fashion designer, Ellsworth Kelly the artist, and a thousand other creative souls made the Ghost Army the success that it was, along with Gil Seltzer.
Then, he came home and kept working another seventy-five years. Including the design of most of the dorms and a hatful of classroom buildings still in use at Denison University, architecture many of us walk past or drive around every day.
His partner, William Gehron, began his career as an associate to Arnold Brunner of Cleveland as he moved to New York City; Brunner designed Swasey Chapel, and so the thread weaves through campus from there to the residential quads to the Academic Quad, to lower campus and beyond, from Brunner to Gehron and triumphantly Seltzer.
The legacy of the Ghost Army, of unobtrusive design and clarity of purpose, is all around us on the Denison campus, thanks to the work of Gil Seltzer. May his memory indeed be a blessing.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher around central Ohio; tell him where you see design helping us live better lives at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
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