by Witold | Apr 10, 2013 | Architects
Paolo Soleri died yesterday at 93. I first heard of him when I was a college student. A classmate, Ray Catchpole, had spent the summer at Soleri’s desert compound in Arizona (he had several sand-cast bronze wind bells in his room), and he encouraged me to go if I had...
by Witold | Apr 6, 2013 | Architects, Architecture
During his acceptance speech at the Driehaus Prize ceremony in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, laureate Thomas Beeby made an interesting point: architecture is turning into an uncollegial profession. Of course, architecture has always been highly competitive. Building...
by Witold | Mar 21, 2013 | Architects
In 1985 Léon Krier published Albert Speer: Architecture 1932-1942, a monograph on the work of Hitler’s architect. The book, assembled with Speer’s assistance, was received with almost universal opprobrium, Krier was vilified, Speer’s version of classicism was...
by Witold | Mar 9, 2013 | Architects, Architecture
Much has been written about the recently completed FDR Memorial in New York, designed by Louis Kahn. It was the great architect’s last project, and he had just completed it when he died in 1974, almost four decades ago. Kahn’s design reminds us how much has changed in...
by Witold | Mar 1, 2013 | Architects
In a history of postmodernism (history written on the fly since the book was published in 1984) Heinrich Klotz wrote: “James Stirling has received only one commission in his own country since he made his change to postmodernism, yet what stands in the way of...
by Witold | Feb 17, 2013 | Architects, Architecture
If I were compiling a secret history of architecture—those unpedigreed works of genius that stand outside the mainstream—I would include Gaudí, of course, but also many lesser figures: Henry Chapman Mercer, the builder of several amazing concrete structures in...
