GILBERT, CASS

1859–1934, American architect, b. Zanesville, Ohio, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in Europe. In 1880 he entered the employ of McKim, Mead, and White, New York City, and three years later opened his own office in St. Paul, Minn. He returned in 1899 to New York, where he became widely known for the design of the Woolworth Building (1913). This 60-story office building, with its Gothic trim, exerted considerable influence in its time on the development of the skyscraper. Among Gilbert's other conspicuous works are the New York Life Insurance Company Building and the Federal Courts Building, New York City; the U.S. Treasury Annex, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.; and public libraries in Detroit, St. Louis, and New Haven, Conn. He was consulting architect for the George Washington Bridge.

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