Authors on Architecture: Adams on Bunshaft
SAH/SCC Zoom Program
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Join
author Nicholas Adams as he shares his book Gordon
Bunshaft and SOM: Building Corporate Modernism (Yale University Press, 2019).
Adams explores the contested line between Bunshaft’s ambition
for acclaim as a singular artistic genius and the collaborative structure of Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill’s (SOM) architectural partnership. Gordon Bunshaft, FAIA, (1909–1990)
received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988 and remains the only SOM partner
to have achieved this distinction. Adams counters Bunshaft’s maxim that “the building
speaks for itself” with necessary critical context about this modernist moment at
a time when the future of Bunshaft’s iconic works is very much in question.
Bunshaft’s landmark 1952
design for Lever House reshaped the Manhattan skyline and elevated the reputation
of SOM, the firm where he would spend more than 40 years as a partner. Although
this enigmatic architect left behind few records, his legacy endures in the corporate
headquarters, museums, and libraries that were built within his distinctive modernist
principles.
Bunshaft’s career
was marked by shifts in material. Earlier glass and steel structures, such as New
York’s Chase Manhattan Bank (1961), gave way to revolutionary designs in concrete,
such as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (1963) at Yale University
(New Haven, CT), and the doughnut-shaped Hirshhorn Museum (1974) in Washington,
DC. Bunshaft’s collaborations with artists, including Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988),
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), and Henry Moore (1898-1986), were of paramount importance
throughout his career.
Adams is
Professor Emeritus of Art at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY) where he taught
from 1989 to 2018, after teaching stints at McGill University (Montreal),
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA), UCLA, and Harvard University (Cambridge,
MA). In addition to Bunshaft and SOM, he has written about Antonio da Sangallo
the Younger (1484-1546) and Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940),
and was editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians from 1992 to 1996.
Adams
on Bunshaft: Sunday, March 17, 2024; 1-2:30 PM PST; $5 go to www.sahscc.org and pay via PayPal or mail
in order form with check. Zoom
link sent upon registration.
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