Adolf K. Placzek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adolf Kurt Placzek (born March 9, 1913 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died March 19, 2000 in New York City ) was an Austro-American librarian and architectural historian.

Life

Adolf Placzek, National, University of Vienna (1937)

Adolf Placzek was a son of Oswald Placzek and Pauline Selinko. He began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1931 and switched to art history in 1934 . He had not yet finished his studies when in March 1938, with the annexation of Austria, Jews were banned from further studies. Placzek managed to escape to England in 1939 and to the USA in 1940, where he received a librarian training course at Columbia University , which he completed with a bachelor's degree. He received US citizenship in 1943 and served in the US Army from 1943 to 1946 .

Placzek was in 1949 Assistant Librarian at the Avery Architecture Library at Columbia University and in 1960 librarian and later head of this specialist library. Since 1970 he has been adjunct professor of architecture at Columbia University. Placzek was president of the Society of Architectural Historians .

He married in 1948 the British Joyce Maxtone Graham (1901-1953), divorced Joyce Anstruther, who had three children. She carried the stage name Jan Struther and wrote the novel Mrs. Miniver in 1940 , which was made into a film by William Wyler in 1942 . Her nephew was the author of the nautical books John Maxtone-Graham . Jan Struther died of cancer in 1953, and Placzek married Laura Beverley Robinson in 1957.

Placzek retired in 1980 and was then editor of the four-volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects , which came out in 1982 and includes the biographies of more than 2000 architects. In 1986 he was co-author of the first five volumes of The Buildings of the United States book series at Oxford University Press . Placzek was a member of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission . In 1999, at the age of 86, Placzek published the first of two autobiographical books about his life in Vienna before fleeing.

Fonts (selection)

  • (Ed.): Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects . New York: Free Press, 1982 ISBN 0-02-925000-5
  • Andrea Palladio . The four books of architecture . Issued by Isaac Ware 1738. Introduction Adolf K. Placzek. New York: Dover Publications, 1965 ISBN 0-486-21308-0
  • Jan Vredeman de Vries : Perspective . Edition 1604. Introduction Adolf K. Placzek. New York, NY: Dover, 1968 ISBN 0-486-20186-4
  • with Angela Giral: Avery's Choice: Five Centuries of Great Architectural Books; One Hundred Years of an Architectural Library, 1890-1990 . GH Hall, 1997
  • Dream trip with the family . Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag, 1999 ISBN 978-3-633-54158-4
  • Viennese ghosts . Vienna: Zsolnay, 2000 ISBN 978-3-552-04965-9
  • with Ernst Philipp (Ed.): Cousins ​​in exile: an anthology; poems . Introduction Margaret C. Ives. Lancester: Univ., Dep. of European Languages ​​and Cultures, 2004 ISBN 1-86220-161-7

literature

  • Placzek, Adolph K. , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Art Historians in Exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 519-521
  • Ysenda Maxtone Graham: The Real Mrs. Miniver . Biography. ISBN 0-7195-5541-8

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Placzek, Adolf K.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Placzek, Adolf Kurt; Placzek, Adolph K.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-American librarian and architectural historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 2000
Place of death New York City