Witold

NEW BLOOD

I recently came across an article in The Architect’s Newspaper titled “The future of our profession depends on diversity.” The author argues that the architectural profession needs to take specific steps to increase diversity. “The architecture profession runs the risk of becoming irrelevant if we do not adapt and create pathways for minorities to enter and lead the profession,” he writes. Received wisdom, but is it true? Or, rather, hasn’t it always been true? When I studied architecture in the 1960s, there were no women in my class, no blacks, and no aboriginal Canadians. But we were a mixed group: five immigrants (two from Hong Kong,

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IN MEMORIAM

Ten years ago I joined the jury of the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture. I came to know Richard H. Driehaus (1942-2021) as padrone of the prize and as a munificent host on my periodic trips to Chicago. But his passing this week touched me in an unexpected way—I had lost a friend. Like anyone who met him, I was impressed by his curiosity and intelligence. And by his generosity. Over the years I occasionally sent him pieces of my writing that I thought would interest him—and everything interested him: people, buildings, art, cars. I once introduced him to a public gathering as a true son of the great Daniel Burnham.

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THE REAL THING

My wife and I live in a downtown Philadelphia loft in the Larkin Building, a 12-story industrial building built in 1912-13. The builder was the Larkin Company, which a decade earlier had hired Frank Lloyd Wright to build its headquarters building in Buffalo, N.Y. Our building was designed by a lesser light. C. J. Heckman was a Buffalo-based architect about whom the internet provides no information at all. Was he the Larkin house architect, or did he simply specialize in industrial buildings, the lowest rung on the practitioner’s ladder?  Perhaps the latter, because our building is a very early example of reinforced concrete construction,

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HATS

The old Lit Brothers department store (built and expanded between 1859 and 1918) on Philadelphia’s Market Street has a sign over one of its corner entrances, that has always puzzled me. HATS TRIMMED FREE OF CHARGE is embossed into the metal fascia of the canopy. It’s the only such sign. But whose hats, men or women? Did it refer to a hat bought in the store, or was it—as I suspected—an enticement to walk in and get your hat “trimmed,” whatever that meant? And why was this procedure so important—and so common—that it had to be emblazoned over the store entrance?

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ROADBLOCKS

The pandemic lockdown has turned me into a podcast listener. One of my favorites is GLOP Culture, with Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz. In a recent conversation about woke bullying at the New York Times and Slate, Long made an interesting observation. There are too many wannabe journalists chasing too few jobs. What if wokeness is simply an expression of careerism, the young finding a way to make room for themselves by pushing out the old? A recent wokey article in Architect magazine, the official journal of the AIA,

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CONVICTION

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I value most in architectural work, apart from skill and competence, is conviction. That is why I appreciate the work of Louis Kahn and his teacher Paul Cret equally, because while their work is quite different, it’s executed with a strong sense of purpose. Absent that, architecture risks becoming merely a weak-kneed copy-book reproduction, whether it is modernist or classicist. There is nothing weak-kneed about one of my favorite Philadelphia buildings, the Main Branch of the U.S. Post Office on Market and Thirtieth Street (today it houses the IRS). It was built in 1931-35 and designed by the leading local firm of Rankin &

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THE AFTER TIME

A lot has been written about the effect of Covid-19 and the associated year-long shutdown, on cities. The present situation is dispiriting: so many of the amenities that attracted people to cities in the first place—theaters, museums, ball parks, restaurants, bars—are either closed or half-closed. Too many businesses have gone out of business. Municipal tax revenue is down; municipal social costs are up. Commuting is down; crime is up. Tourism—a number one industry in many cities—is down; homelessness is up. Most urban commentators have reverted to their priors. Advocates of decentralization see a further shift to suburban living; digital seers see more work at home;

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REMEMBERING

“By convention, we erect most of our monuments to salute the heroic spirit, or acknowledge acts of sacrifice of statue-genic soldiers, police, and firefighters or illustrate national ideals, such as the Statue of Liberty or the Gateway Arch,” writes Jack Shafer in Politico, in an article that argues that we are unlikely to erect a monument to commemorate the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. He is right, at least historically—there is no monument to the great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, although the recent trend, demonstrated by the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, is to commemorate individual victims.

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