Forerunners

"The Masters" of my trade!

Bill F. Baker, SOM

"When I was a young structural designer, one of the experienced architects came over and chewed me out for designing a stair that was fine functionally, but was quite ugly. He told me that a structural engineer should design a structure so that the architect feels bad if he has to cover it up"

-Bill F. Baker, SOM.

(The Burj, Dubai, world's tallest building, 108 floors, 818m height, "Fritz Leonhardt Prize", 2009)

http://www.som.com/content.cfm/william_f_baker

Hitler's Architecture

Did you know that Adolf Hitler in his early years, earned a living by using his artistic skills to produce paintings that were sold to the public or used for postcards?

Hitler studied fine arts, music, opera, painting, sculpture and architecture. While living in Vienna under conditions of poverty, he read voraciously and spent whatever meager income he had to attend lectures, concerts, opera, and the theater. Even when he barely had enough money to survive he refused to compromise and always purchased the best paints, brushes, paper, and canvas.

As a remarkably prolific artist, he is estimated to have created between 2000 and 3000 drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings. His artistic talent revealed itself at an early age and continued painting and drawing throughout his life. Even while behind the front lines in World War 1, he continued to paint in his spare time and contributed instructional drawings and cartoons to the military newspaper.

His art continued throughout his leadership of Germany and included detailed building plans, furniture design, city planning, and monuments. Hitler considered the lack of architectural standards to be a serious problem. The words below are his thoughts on city character:

“In the 19th Century our cities began to lose the character of cultural centers and became simply human settlements.

When Munich was a city of 60,000, it wanted to be one of the major German centers of culture. Today nearly every industrial city claims this honor, usually without being able to show any significant accomplishments of its own. They are nothing more than collections of houses and apartment buildings.

How can such an insignificant place have any appeal? No one will have particular loyalty to a city that lacks any individuality at all, that avoids anything resembling art.

Even the big cities are becoming poorer in real works of art even as they increase in population.

The modern era has done nothing to increase the cultural level of our big cities. All the glory and treasures of our cities are the inheritance of the past.”

GREAT WOMEN ARCHITECTS

Architecture has also been a man’s domain for a long time and role of women is still overlooked in the profession. In my 5 years of student architect life, the ratio of boy to girl students has been 1:3 which has in the last 10 years changed to 1:1. Maybe it is time that we looked at the women who have overcome obstacles, designed landmark buildings and established successful architecture careers.

In the first post of Architalks, get introduced to 9 such wonderful ladies who made remarkable contributions to the world of architecture by their outstanding works.

1. Anna Keichline

First registered architect woman of Pennsylvania. She invented the fire proof hollow block and named it the "K Brick," a precursor to the present day concrete block.

2. Denise Scott Brown

She had made significant contributions to the field of urban design before she met her future husband, Robert Venturi. She made remarkable contributions in the form of her research and teachings in Architecture, aimed at the modern understanding of the relationship between architecture and community.

3. Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray's contributions were overlooked for many years, but she is now considered one of the most influential designers of modern times. Many Art Deco and Bauhaus architects and designers found inspiration in Eileen Gray's furniture and house designs.

4. Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan was the first woman to study architecture at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first woman to work as a professional architect in California. During her 45-year career, Julia Morgan designed more than 700 homes, churches, office buildings, hospitals, stores, and educational buildings, including the famous Hearst Castle.

5. Marion Mahony Griffin

Frank Lloyd Wright's first employee was a woman, and she became the world's first woman to be officially licensed as an architect. Like many other women who design buildings, Wright's employee was lost in the shadow of her male associates. Nevertheless, Marion Mahony Griffin contributed greatly to Wright's career and also to the career of her husband, Walter Burley Griffin.

6. Maya Lin

Trained as an artist and an architect, Maya Lin is best known for her large, minimalist sculptures and monuments. When she was only 21 and still a student, Lin created the winning design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

7. Norma Merrick Sklarek

Norma Merrick Sklarek was the first black woman to become licensed architect in the United States. She was also the first black woman honored by Fellowship in AIA. Her many projects include a new terminal, serving 10 million annual passengers, for Los Angeles International Airport.

8. Susana Torre

Susana Torre describes herself as a feminist. Through her teaching, writing, and architectural practice, she works to improve the status of women in architecture.

9. Zaha Hadid

Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950, Zaha Hadid is the first woman to win a Pritzker Architecture Prize. Her work experiments with new spatial concepts and encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban spaces to products and furniture.
http://oxy-i-gen.blogspot.com/2009/08/zaha-hadid-career-graph.html