The Irving Langmuir House is a historic house at 1176 Stratford Road in
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady ( ) is a City (New York), city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populo ...
. Built about 1900, it was the home of physicist-chemist
Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and metallurgical engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.
Langmuir's most famous publicatio ...
, winner of the 1932
Nobel Prize in Chemistry during his research career with
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
. It was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 1976.
[ and ]
Description and history
The Irving Langmuir House is located in the middle of a suburban area east of
Union College known as the
General Electric Realty Plot, a
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...
to which it is a
contributing property. The neighborhood is residential, with large houses dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is located on the east side of Stratford Road, a short way north of Rugby Road. Architecturally, the house is unremarkable. It is a two-and-a-half-story building in a
vernacular
Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
interpretation of the
Colonial Revival
The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture.
The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...
style
Style, or styles may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal
* ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film
* ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film
* '' ...
. The
hipped roof is
tiled in
terra cotta and pierced by two almost symmetrical
dormer windows. A columned porch covers the Palladian-style main entrance. The interior follows a basic central-hall plan.
The house was probably built ca. 1900. In 1919 Langmuir moved in, living there until his death in 1957. It was still in his family's hands at the time of its landmark designation almost two decades later. Langmuir worked at GE's Schenectady research laboratory in 1909, where he performed basic research in a wide array of areas of physics and chemistry. He retired in 1950, having won numerous awards, most prominently the 1932
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in
surface chemistry
Surface science is the study of physics, physical and chemistry, chemical phenomena that occur at the interface (chemistry), interface of two phase (matter), phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum int ...
.
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in New York
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Schenectady County, New York
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langmuir, Irving, House
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
National Historic Landmarks in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1900
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in New York (state)
Houses in Schenectady County, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Schenectady County, New York