Architecture

Art Nouveau lasted only a few decades; it appeared around 1890 and came to an end shortly after the First World War. Perhaps for that reason, it is often given short shrift by art historians who see it as a not altogether respectable prelude to modernism. “With novelty [Art Nouveau] must most certainly be connected, and liberty at least in the sense of license is applicable too,” sniffed Nikolaus Pevsner, who called it “suspiciously sophisticated  and refined.” He did not explain why sophistication and refinement were disqualifying qualities. “Art Nouveau is outré and directs its appeal to the aesthete,

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“I am not now and never have been a postmodernist,” said Robert Venturi twenty years ago; the quote appeared on the cover of the May 2001 issue of Architecture. But of course he was a postmodernist, although it is no wonder that he wanted to disassociate himself from that movement; after several decades PoMo had run its course, moreover in hindsight it appeared that it had done more harm than good. The best postmodernists had produced first-rate work—the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, the Sainsbury Wing in London, the Beverly Hills Civic Center—but few architects were as historically knowledgable as James Stirling,

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Last night I listened to an ICAA Zoom lecture by the architect Tom Kligerman, whose firm—Ike, Kligerman, Barkley—specializes in beautifully crafted houses, which were the subject of his talk: “New Thoughts on the American Home.” While many of the designs could be described as traditional, others were distinctly modern, and some were an eclectic combination of the two. Evidently catholic in its taste, IKB was clearly not committed to a canonic approach to the classical past. Kligerman observed that in his opinion architects should aim to make history, not simply be inspired by it. This has surely been the motivation of all creative architects over the years,

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Walking down a corridor of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia I came across a decorative mosaic panel hanging on the wall. An accompanying label explains that it is a portion of the lobby floor of the Elm Building, which was demolished in 1981 to make room for the building in which I’m standing. The Elm Building was built by the hospital in 1901, a photograph on the hospital website shows an attractive one-story brick and limestone building with a pedimented temple front. Clearly a building of some consequence, it housed administration offices and an assembly room. The unidentified architect took trouble with the lobby floor,

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The Associated Press reports that President Emanuelle Macron has approved a plan to rebuild the roof and spire of Notre-Dame cathedral exactly as it was before last year’s fire. Hurrah! That means an oaken structure supporting a lead roof and a spire according to the nineteenth-century design of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. A thousand three-foot diameter oaks are being felled to provide the timber, which must be allowed to season for at least eighteen months. According to the cathedral’s rector, Patrick Chauvet, the entire reconstruction is expected to take ten to fifteen years.

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