Richard K.A. Kletting and the Fisher Mansion BY NAN WEBER, ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN Fisher Brewery Office, Utah Historical Society detail Richard K.A. Kletting, an architect, has a name synonymous with several well-known buildings, including the Utah State Capitol. He was, in fact, the designer of well over 400 projects in Utah and the surrounding states. Born in Unterboihingen, Oberamt Nürtingen, Württemberg, Germany, in 1858, he was the son of a railroad contractor and the stepson of another. He trained early in life to cut stone. Kletting states in a memoir, “Most buildings in Württemberg at that time were built of stone. I was told that it would be a nice thing for me to learn how to cut soft and hard stone. Following this advice, I spent my vacation between school terms in a stone yard and gained a good knowledge of how to cut the different stones.”1 Kletting’s interest in design came early in his childhood. When questioned about his early years, he often told the story that his boyhood toys included mechanics’ tools and drafting instruments. Although Kletting’s family moved frequently, his parents always made it possible for him to receive private instruction from experienced teachers. Through those instructors, he was educated and trained in the classics, engineering and architecture. His studies included geometry, physics, mechanics, drafting and various fundamentals of architecture. Notebooks that Kletting kept are filled with drawings of floor plans, elevations, molding details and brick patterns accompanied by copious notes. By 1874, when he was just 16 years old, Kletting obtained a position as a junior draftsman with the ever-expanding German railroad. During the year he worked in this capacity, it served as an apprenticeship and improved his drafting skills. Following several more years of study, 20-year-old Kletting was awarded two professional projects. The state of Württemberg was finishing a railroad between Stuttgart and Freudenstadt, and Kletting was working as a draftsman in the Freudenstadt engineer’s office. The first project he obtained was designing part of a new city plan and a two-mile-long roadway from the railway depot to the town of Freudenstadt. Kletting’s second project saw him in Lauterach, Bregenz, Austria, where he spent a short time working on a Roman Catholic Parish Church. Of the work, he says in his memoir, “I also spent a few months at Bregenz (Austria) on a church project for the city of Laut(e)rach.”2 He was working under architects Josef Anton Albrich and Alois Hagen. In the spring of 1879, young Kletting made a move to Paris. His arrival there launched his architectural education and began his evolution into a career as a designer. He was employed as a draftsman and stone mason on at least six of the City of Light’s most impressive Second Empire and Beaux Arts monuments. Those included Crédit Lyonnais, Le Bon Marché, Basilica Sacre Coeur, the Paris City Hall — now better known as the L’Hotel de Ville, the Comptoir National d’Escompte and the Printemps. 16 REFLEXION
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