Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Building Perfection: The Relationship Between Physical And Social Structures Of The Oneida Community, Janet White

The Courier

Architectural history has traditionally focused on formal aesthetics and the monuments of a "high culture". This approach accedes no place in the canon to the buildings of the Oneida Community. While they tend to be nicely sited, spacious, and constructed of handsome materials, they are not architectural masterpieces. The main complex combines elements from a jumble of styles; it has awkward joints where the products of three different building campaigns were unskillfully linked; and its towers are either stubby and ungraceful or capped by overwrought roofs.

It is, however, possible to approach the study of architectural history from another direction. …

A Marcel Breuer House Project Of 1938-1939, Isabelle Hyman

The Courier

Marcel Breuer designed a house for a development community in Palm Springs, California in 1938, a year after he emigrated to the United States. The project was never realized, and an interesting house in terms both of Breuer's career and of the history of transplanted modernism was thereby foifeited. Among the Marcel Breuer Papers preserved at the Syracuse University Library are unpublished sketches, working drawings, correspondence, and specifications which make possible a reconstruction of the Palm Springs house and its program, and furnish new particulars about working procedures in the Gropius-Breuer partnership.

The Huntington Mansion In New York: Economics Of Architecture And Decoration In The 1890s, Isabelle Hyman

The Courier

In 1889 railroad millionaire Collis P. Huntington (1821-1900) and his wife Arabella (d. 1924) purchased a large property on the southeast comer of New York's Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, the most fashionable residential neighborhood of the period, and undertook to build there another of the great stone piles that constituted the habitats of the very rich during the city's Gilded Age. Aspects of the history of the Fifty-seventh Street Huntington mansion have been recounted, but supplementary information about its decoration and about the artists and craftsmen who embellished it can be found in the George Arents Research Library at …

The Marcel Breuer Papers And Michael Ventris: A Biographical Note, Isabelle Hyman

The Courier

This article provides some biographical insights into the life of the famous architect and classicist Michael Ventis (who gained fame for helping to decipher the Mycenaen script Linear B). The facts are gleaned from correspondence between Michael, his mother Dorothea, and the architect Marcel Breuer, who designed her apartment. The letters are preserved in the Marcel Breuer Papers in the Syracuse University Special Collections.

William Lescaze And Hart Crane: A Bridge Between Architecture And Poetry, Lindsay Stamm Shapiro

The Courier

This article expounds upon the unique relationship between the architect William Lescaze and poet Hart Crane after Lescaze's emigration to the United States during the early twentieth century. Lescaze's knowledge of European modernism influenced Crane's poems, which sought to counteract the pessimism of modern poets (for example T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland"), and provide affirmation of the Machine Age.

The "Modern" Skyscraper, 1931, Carol Willis

The Courier

This article details the history of The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) building, constructed through the partnership of William Lescaze and George Howe in 1932. The author argues the building to this day remains "modern", displaying complexity and a varitey of color and materials. The building is also, the author says, the first skyscraper designed in the International Style. The author also examines the PSFS in the context of other tall buildings of the period, usually described as belonging to the Art Deco style.

William Lescaze And The Machine Age, Arthur J. Pulos

The Courier

In this article, the author talks about the history of modern architecture, and in particular William Lescaze's contributions. He gives the reader background about the Machine Age in America, and how Lescaze evolved in his art, eventually dedicating his life to Formalism and the International Style.

The William Lescaze Symposium Panel Discussion, Dennis P. Doordan

The Courier

This article is an adapted form of a panel discussion that took place discussing the architect William Lescaze. Overall, the panel seemed divided between those who judged Lescaze's achievements acoording to the established tenets of orthodox modernism and those who sought a new critical framework for evaluating Lescaze's contribution to the rise of modern design in American based upon typological, professional, and commercial criteria.

European Modernism In An American Commercial Context, Robert Bruce Dean

The Courier

This article seeks to explain why architect Willaim Lescaze's career proceeded the way it did. The author also makes observations about Lescaze's life in America during a secular, materialist age.

William Lescaze And Cbs: A Case Study In Corporate Modernism, Dennis P. Doordan

The Courier

During the period 1934 to 1949, the Columbia Broadcasting System provided William Lescaze with a series of commissions that, considered together, constitute one of the largest, most varied, and most important bodies of work in his entire career.

Lescaze was responsible for the design of a major new broadcasting facility, the interior design of studio and office spaces, the design of a variety of studio furnishings such as microphones and clocks, the design of a mobile broadcasting vehicle, and the graphic design for CBS facilities across the country. A careful review of the material indicates that Lescaze made a major …

A Brief Survey Of Architectural Holdings At The Syracuse University Libraries, Werner Seligmann

The Courier

This article gives a brief look at the various holdings regarding modern architecture located at Syracuse University. Among special note are the Lescaze papers, which the rest of this Courier issue examines in detail.

William Lescaze Reconsidered, William H. Jordy

The Courier

This article gives a critical look to William Lescaze's architectural career. While he had early success, his later career seems to pale in comparison. Regardless, the author praises Lescaze for remaining eclectic and not adhering too strongly to the orthodoxy of modernism.

Archimedes Russell And Nineteenth-Century Syracuse, Evamaria Hardin

The Courier

In November 1978 the Syracuse architectural firm of King and King gave an extensive collection of the papers of Archimedes Russell to the Archives of Syracuse University. The gift drew attention to a man who did as much as any other to shape the face of both the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse. Archimedes Russell's commissions included Park Presbyterian Church, the churches of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Lucy, the First English Lutheran Church, the Yates Hotel, Dey Brothers Department Store, and the Snow Building, as well as Central High School, the fourth Onondaga County Courthouse, …

The European Diary Of Fred And Lillian Lear, Patricia Newman

The Courier

This article describes the journals and sketches of Frederick and Lillian Lear, now housed in Syracuse University Special Collections. The couple toured Europe just a few years before the dawn of World War I. Frederick, an architecture professor at Syracuse University, critiqued the style of European art and architecture of the time, while Lillian offered interesting observations of Eueopean culture.