Birthday Reminders
December 16, 2015Need a reminder to get a birthday gift for that special architect in your life? Feel free to import into your Outlook calendar. Included on the right of their names are some of the seminal works, along with some of the photos I have collected along my travels.
January
Victor Horta 1.6.1861 Belgian Art Nouveau designer of Hotel Tassel
Julia Morgan 1.20.1872 American designer of Hearst Castle and estate
February
Alvar Aalto 2.3.1898 Finnish International Style designer of Finlandia Hall
Paul Williams 2.18.1894 African-American designer of the Theme Building at LAX
March
Mies Van Der Rohe 3.27.1886 German-American designer of The Barcelona Pavilion
Van Der Rohe – Barcelona Pavilion |
April
Peter Behrens 4.14.1868 German designer of The AEG Turbine Factory
Julian Francis Abele 4.30.1881 African-American designer of Duke University (then white only)
Behrens – AEG |
May
Benjamin Latrobe 5.1.1764 British-American designer of the US Capitol
Gordon Bunshaft 5.9.1909 American modernist designer of Lever House (and best name ever)
Walter Gropius 5.18.1883 German (and later American resident) leader of the Bauhaus
June
Charles R. Macintosh 6.7.1868 Scottish designer of the Glasgow School of Art
Frank Lloyd Wright 6.8.1867 American designer of Fallingwater and Guggenheim
Antonio Gaudi 6.25.1852 Catalan designer of the Church of the Sagrada Familia
Gaudi – Segrada Familia |
July
Philip Johnson 7.8.1906 American designer of the Glass House
Inigo Jones 7.15.1573 English neo-classicist designer of the Queen’s House
August
Charles Bullfinch 8.8.1763 American designer of University Hall, Harvard
Robert Mills 8.12.1781 American designer of the Washington Monument
Eero Saarinen 8.20.1910 Finnish-American designer of Dulles Airport Terminal
Mills – Washington Monument |
September
Sir John Soan 9.10.1753 English neo-classicist designer of Bank of England
H.H. Richardson 9.29.1938 American designer of Trinity Church, Boston
October
Le Corbusier 10.6.1887 Swiss-French designer of Villa Savoye
Christopher Wren 10.20.1632 English designer of St. Paul’s Cathedral
Le Corbusier – Unite d’Habitation, Berlin |
November
December
Gustave Eiffel (Hon.) 12.15.1832 French Engineer making the list for his Tower
Josef Hoffman 12.15.1870 Austrian designer of Wiener Werkstatte
Oscar Niemeyer 12.15.1907 Brazilian designer of Cathedral of Brasilia
Eiffel – 1889 World’s Fair Tower |
What struck me in putting this list together, and there are many more who could have been added, was the prolific amount of important architects born between roughly 1860 and 1890. These men and women shaped much of the 20th Century. Also, December 15 seems to be a harbinger for greatness. Seems to me there was one more…