by Witold | Aug 4, 2019 | Architects, Architecture
This 1931 photograph of a group of party-goers at the Beaux-Arts Ball in New York is famous. That’s William Van Alen in the center (the Chrysler Building), flanked by Ely Jacques Kahn (the Squibb Building) on the left, and Ralph Walker (the Irving Trust Building) on...
by Witold | Aug 2, 2018 | Architects
News that the Abrams House in Pittsburgh, designed by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown in 1979, has been sold and is to be demolished. Apparently, the new owner, who lives in the adjacent Giovannitti House (designed by Richard Meier) wants to enlarge his garden—the...
by Witold | Jun 3, 2018 | Architects, Architecture, Modern life
The first university architecture programs appeared in the late nineteenth century, at MIT (1865) and the University of Pennsylvania (1868). Previously—and for a long time thereafter—most architects in the English-speaking world learned their craft through...
by Witold | May 11, 2018 | Architects, Architecture
“But an influence is not necessarily a good influence” writes Joan Acocella in a review of books about Bob Fosse. She’s right, of course. How often we describe an architect as influential, without qualifying the nature of that influence. Probably the most influential...
by Witold | Apr 27, 2018 | Architects, Housing
The finding of a recent online poll by AJ contrasts the views of architects (about a third of the respondents) with those of the non-professional public. The participants were shown images of housing, some traditional, some Modern. The public favored the former and...
by Witold | Jan 10, 2018 | Architects, Architecture
Reading a recent monograph on the work of John Simpson, I am struck again by the difference between American and British classicism. For one thing, the former is rooted in a much shorter tradition. Moreover, it is a tradition that is, in a sense, academic. Or, at...
