Ada Louise Huxtable

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Ada Louise (Landman) Huxtable , nee Landman, (born March 14, 1921 in New York City ; † January 7, 2013 there ) was an American architecture critic and author . She was considered one of the most important and influential architecture critics in the USA.

Career

She was the daughter of the doctor Michael Landman, who was also the author of a play ( A Man of Honor ) with his brother Rabbi Isaac Landman . Huxtable studied at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) with a bachelor's degree (BA) in 1941 ( magna cum laude ). She married the industrial designer L. Garth Huxtable in 1942 and continued to study at New York University until 1950 and was assistant curator for architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art under Philip Johnson from 1946 to 1950 . From 1950 she wrote for Progressive Architecture and Art in America , in 1963 she hired the New York Times , where a position for architectural criticism was set up especially for her. After more than three decades at the New York Times, where she cemented her reputation as a sometimes harsh critic with high aesthetic and intellectual standards and was on the editorial board, she joined the Wall Street Journal in 1997 .

Pennsylvania Station 1962

Huxtable developed into the first voice of American architecture criticism and was one of the first critics to turn not only to the newly built, but also to the existing building culture. She became known, among other things, through the vehement, albeit unsuccessful, fight against the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station , one of the greatest buildings of American neo-classicism. In 1963 it was destroyed in favor of the construction of the Madison Square Garden Stadium, which Huxtable compared to demolishing the Parthenon for the construction of a large pizza place. Huxtable was a driving force behind the founding of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. Your last article protested against the proposed rebuilding of the New York Public Library according to Sir Norman Foster's plans .

Huxtable wrote biographies about Frank Lloyd Wright and Pier Luigi Nervi , about architecture in New York and published several volumes of their reviews.

In 1981 she was a MacArthur Fellow . In 1970 she won the first Pulitzer Prize for Art Criticism. In 1974 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1977 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and 1989 to the American Philosophical Society .

Fonts

  • The tall building artistically reconsidered: the search for a skyscraper style , University of California Press 1984, 1992
  • Architecture of New York. A history and guide , Anchor Books 1964
  • Four walking tours of modern architecture in New York City , Doubleday 1961
  • Architecture anyone? , University of California Press 1988
  • Unreal America. Architecture and Illusion , Norton 1997
  • Kicked a building lately? , New York Times Book / Quadrangle 1976
  • Will they ever finish Bruckner Boulevard? , University of California Press 1970, 1989
  • Goodbye history, hello Hamburger. An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Desasters , Preservation Press, Washington DC 1986
  • On Architecture: collected reflections on a century of change , 2008
  • Pier Luigi Nervi , New York 1960
  • Frank Lloyd Wright , Lipper, Viking 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data of Ada Louise Huxtable in: Cultural Criticism 1969-1990: From Architectural Damages to Press Imperfections (Pulitzer Prize Archive Part B), by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer, Erika J. Fischer, KG Saur Verlag, 1992, page 3
  2. ↑ Member History: Ada Louise Huxtable. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 8, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Huxtable, Ada Louise
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Huxtable, Ada Louise Landman; Landman, Ada Louise (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 2013
Place of death New York City