#Boston Architectural College

[ellen-whelton]

The Light Museum Project

In my studio class I was tasked with designing a Museum of Light at 321 Newbury Street here in Boston.

By recreating light conditions found in extreme landscapes using materials that are ubiquitous in urban Boston, my intention was to challenge visitors to question what makes a space urban or natural.

I really enjoyed researching site conditions and considering materiality in this project. This project also allowed me to focus on and improve my craft when it comes to modeling and drawing, and I think it is my favorite project of my first semester at the BAC!

Below: Longitudinal Section

Above: Ground Floor Plan (Left), Roof Plan (Right)

[aub145eeg]

Hi all, my name is Aubrianna. I am a senior at the BAC and part of the Go Lawrence team for this Fall's Go BAC. I am inspired by Gaudi's organic fluid motions within his structures and his inventiveness. He saw outside the forced structural norms and created beauty.

[rothgalleries]

Boston College photography impressions from a picture perfect spring day. I loved all the blooming tulips flowers and tree blossoms around this historic university campus and photographing them. Good light and happy photo making! www.RothGalleries.com

[thevampireofbrighton]

Oh to walk down these steps with a long robe trailing behind me

[timmurleyart]

The glow of the fading sun. ☔️🌧💦

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Jester Hairston

By Life Magazine via Google Images-Photographer Loomis Dean., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28896923

Jester Joseph Hairston (July 9, 1901 – January 18, 2000) was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor and actor. He was regarded as a leading expert on black spirituals and choral music. His notable compositions include "Amen," a gospel-tinged theme from the film Lilies of the Field and a 1964 hit for the Impressions, and the Christmas song "Mary's Boy Child."

Hairston was born in Belews Creek, a rural community on the border of Stokes, Forsyth, Rockingham and Guilford counties in North Carolina. His grandparents had been slaves. At an early age, he and his family moved to Homestead, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh, where he graduated from high school in 1921. Hairston was very young when his father was killed in a job-related accident. Hairston was raised by his grandmother while his mother worked. Hairston heard his grandmother and her friends talking and singing about plantation life and became determined to preserve this history through music.

Hairston initially majored in landscape architecture at Massachusetts Agricultural College in the 1920s. He became involved in various church choirs and choral groups, and accompanist Anna Laura Kidder saw his potential and became his benefactor. Kidder offered Hairston financial assistance to study music at Tufts University. from which he graduated in 1929. He was one of the first black students admitted to Tufts. Later he studied music at the Juilliard School.

Hairston pledged the Chi chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity in 1925. He worked as a choir conductor in the early stages of his career. His work with choirs on Broadway eventually led to singing and acting parts in plays, films, radio programs and television shows.

Hairston sang with the Hall Johnson Choir in Harlem for a time but was nearly fired from the all-black choir because he had difficulty with the rural dialects that were used in some of the songs. He had to shed his Boston accent and relearn the country speech of his parents and grandparents. Johnson had told him: "We're singing ain't and cain't and you're singing shahn't and cahn't and they don't mix in a spiritual." The choir performed in many Broadway shows, including The Green Pastures. In 1936, the choir was asked to visit Hollywood to sing for the film The Green Pastures. Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin heard Hairston and invited him to what would become a 30-year collaboration in which Hairston arranged and collected music for films. In 1939, Hairston married Margaret Swanigan. He wrote and arranged spirituals for Hollywood films as well as for high school and college choirs around the country.

Hairston wrote the song "Mary's Boy Child" in 1956. He also arranged the song "Amen", which he dubbed for the Sidney Poitier film Lilies of the Field, and arranged traditional Negro spirituals.[16] Most of Hairston's film work was in the field of composing, arranging and choral conducting. He also acted in more than 20 films, mostly in small roles, some uncredited. Hairston starred in John Wayne's The Alamo (1960), in which he portrayed "Jethro," a slave owned by Jim Bowie. In 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird Hairston portrayed the uncredited role of the father of accused rapist Tom Robinson. In 1967’s In the Heat of the Night, Hairston portrayed the butler of a wealthy racist being investigated for murder. In both films, Hairston shot scenes along side men who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in those respective films for portraying white Southerners navigating their jobs through a racially divided culture.

In 1961, the U.S. State Department appointed Hairston as Goodwill Ambassador. He traveled all over the world teaching and performing the folk music of the slaves. In the 1960s, he held choral festivals with public high-school choirs, introducing them to Negro spiritual music, and sometimes led several hundred students in community performances. His banter about the history of the songs along with his engaging personality and sense of humor endeared him to many students.

During his nationwide travels, Hairston checked local phone books for other Hairstons and reunited many people on his family tree, both black and white. He composed more than 300 spirituals. He was the recipient of many honorary doctorates, including a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and a doctorate in music from Tufts in 1977.

In his later years, Hairston served as a cultural ambassador for American music, traveling to numerous countries with choral groups that he had assembled. In 1985, he took the Jester Hairston Chorale, a multiracial group, to sing in China at a time when foreign visitors would rarely appear there.

Hairston died in Los Angeles of natural causes in 2000 at age 98. For his contribution to the television industry, Hairston has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6201 Hollywood Boulevard. He is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.

[lovingsylvia]

Today marks the 61st anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death! RIP!

Sylvia Plath 27 October 1932 Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, USA - 11 February 1963, Primrose Hill, London, England, United Kingdom

…

"I want to live each day for itself like a string of colored beads, and not kill the present by cutting it up in cruel little snippets to fit some desperate architectural draft for a taj mahal in the future."

–The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, Excerpt: December II for December 1955

...

Photo: Sylvia Plath at Smith College Quadigras dance in May 1954

[artbyblastweave]

What do you think about the whole Institute brotherhood as foils of each other thing ?

Because I feel like Bethesda did set up some interesting stuff with that? The Institute as a paragon of "progress" that destroy any chance of rebuilding society around them ,then the brotherhood as champions of regression who foister environments that allow "new" societies to form.

I think you could make that argument. One clear way in which the two are foils, right, is that both of them are legacy groups descended from pre-war American institutions- U.S Army for the Brotherhood, Ivy-League Academia for the Institute- but there's an underremarked-upon further similarity in that the founding stock of both factions aren't the best and brightest preserved as part of a considered plan, but instead a tiny pocket from each larger body who got reeaaaal fuckin' lucky and let it go to their heads. The Institute got started by a bunch of CIT faculty and students who hid in the basement when the bombs dropped- which’ll net you a higher-than-average engineering/r&d acumen than any other basement, and it would certainly select for the self-importance that crops up in those spaces, along with the MIT-specific funny student prank neurosis, but they are, fundamentally, still just A Bunch Of Guys In A Basement. The state of their complex 200 years later feels like an performative effort to justify to themselves that they really are the best and the brightest, but you find out from the maintenance guy that it’s a patina over old-world systems they have to keep repaired, and you can find elements of the old-world architecture and office complexes that they didn’t have the spare plastic to makeover. (The FEV lab is notably and pointedly in this style- and from this I think you can extrapolate that most of the institutes fun toys are probably pre-war research projects that they picked up and ran with vs something they were soooo uniquely intelligent to think of and produce post war. I do think SOME level of actual thought went into the Institute and how it happened and What It Is Thematically but not enough of that made it into the game in actual spoken words the player hears.)

In conclusion, the secret good fallout 4 that lives in my head would have been much more aggressive about drawing a through line to pre-war academia, and would have also made pre-war academia’s presence in Boston (college town of college towns) much more salient in the environmental storytelling and narrative- making it clear the extent to which the institute is essentially the still-walking zombie of the-pre-war governments research and development division, making their tussle with the Brotherhood closer to a civil war between fragments of the same beast. I have a lot of thoughts about how I’d rework the institute but this is getting long.

[ellen-whelton]

Light and Shadow Exploration Project

Foundation Studio 1 - Fall 2022

[my-own-walker]

Someone You've Never Seen Before

A Kyle Spencer Fan Fiction

frat!kyle AU, fem!main character, sexual themes, mature language, use of drugs and alcohol, frat boy antics

1.

There's a beautiful simplicity in the way college students choose their seating arrangement in large lecture halls. No assigned seats. Just vibes. On the first day of class, everyone shuffles in, bleary-eyed and foreboding. The semester is fresh. There's potential. There's dread. There's an uncertainty. How will this class be? Will I find it easy? How's the professor? Is there anyone I know here?

They find a seat in an empty hall that looks appealing to them. A seat they will sit in for the rest of the semester. They go from the freedom of winter or summer break back to the confines of grades and assignments.

Some prefer the back row, some prefer the seat closest to the exit, and others prefer to stay hidden, being just another head among the sea of students. I, personally, always found myself in the middle somewhere. I could hide easier. Never the back row, though. My eyesight was too poor for that.

Calculus is easy for some. For me, an English major, not so much. I knew I would struggle horrendously in class when I sat down in the fifth row on the first day. My mind was not oriented in the realm of math. I knew dozens of papers and other writing assignments would be due in my other classes. Looking over the syllabus, it was clear that I wouldn't be able to wrap my head around derivatives and complex analysis. 

I sighed internally and opened my notebook, preparing for the worst. It was the fall semester of my third year at Tulane, and it snuck up on me, truly. 

The school wasn't large. Class sizes weren't huge, so it was hard to hide, but I sure as hell tried. I thought I did a pretty good job of being unknown. I was born and raised in a small town near Salem, Massachusetts. I grew up in the kind of neighborhood you'd see in movies. Victorian-style houses painted with bright colors, trees lining the streets that would turn shades of orange in the fall. We'd get some pretty cold weather and tons of snow in the winter. I basically existed in only Doc Martens, oversized corduroy jackets, sweaters, and baggy jeans.

That upbringing put me in a weird position in New Orleans. I liked to think of my town and Nola as sister cities. They had the old-world charm of small main streets lined with shops and the kind of architecture that made you think you'd stepped back in time. I was a pretty smart kid, so Tulane was enticing due to its low acceptance rate and similarity to my hometown. I got in with my high SAT scores and GPA. My scholarship essentially gave me a full ride. It seemed like the perfect place for me. I didn't anticipate just how out of place I'd feel.

For one, the weather never dipped below 50 degrees, even in the winter. It was more humid there, as well. I suffered a fashion crisis, knowing I couldn't rely on large jackets for comfort. I moved as far away as I did to get out of the small-town rut. Everyone I knew went to UMass or Boston. Tulane was a new start. As time passed, though, Tulane became just another small town to me.

Everyone knew everyone. No one was above petty drama, not even me. News about social matters got around quickly. There was no class I joined that I didn't know a single person in. As much as I wanted to disappear, I easily got swept up into things. For example, I wasn't one to engage in the school's Greek activities. But even then I still went to their parties to get drunk, which meant I rubbed shoulders with almost every frat bro and sorority girl on campus. I would always be home by midnight, though.

Greek life was the lifeblood of Tulane; the thing that kept the social scene going. Everyone was involved. Everyone. I refused out of defiance, but even my closest friend and roommate, Lily, was in a sorority. I wasn't particularly interested in paying to have friends, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Lily and I met freshman year. I put in an application for a random roommate pairing; an unintended consequence of me knowing no one at Tulane. I got extremely lucky, though. The housing department paired me with Lily Davies, an education major with dreams of one day teaching kindergarteners. She had pin straight blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and a bright smile. Despite how innocent she sounded, Lily was the sickest son of a bitch I'd ever met, and I loved it.

She was a crop-top-and-leggings-wearing-bastard with the sickest sense of humor. She was wild and witty with a sunny disposition. She blurred the lines of the dichotomy between popular and weird. Lily was a Louisiana-native, born and raised in Lafayette. Tulane was also her way of getting away from people from her high school (who had mostly gone to U of Louisiana Lafayette). 

Our friendship was the only reason I survived at school. Lily would force me to leave the dorm and socialize. There was a standing, open-invite to any of her sorority events for me. I rarely ever went, but it was nice to not be alone all the time. 

After freshman year, Lily and I moved into an off-campus, two-bedroom apartment. Both of us had no problem footing the bill, as my scholarship and her in-state status made school itself cheap for us. She had the opportunity to move into the Pi Phi house, but she declined out of respect for me, knowing I'd have to find another random roommate again. There was a small chance that it would work out as well as it did the first time. I felt bad being the thing stopping Lily from branching out, but she swore she didn't mind, and that she'd "rather live with The One And Only Hannah Martin."

She balanced me. She was the pop-music to my indie-records. The Nike to my Converse. The silver to my gold. You get it. 

Two years of school went by in a flash. By sticking my head in the books, only emerging for occasional social time, I managed to forget to "cherish my youth," as old people would say. Another thing that snuck up on me was my math requirement. I needed one math class to graduate. Most English majors try to get it done in their freshman year to get it out of the way. I, instead, prolonged my dread until I couldn't any longer. 

As I surfaced out of my sea of thoughts, I noticed the lecture hall had filled up quite decently. I took stock of who was in the class, rolling my eyes inwardly at some. Archie Brener. What a loser. The professor stood at the front of the room, shuffling through his papers, just two minutes until he was due to start the lecture.

The number of people filing in had dwindled significantly, and the seat next to me was still not occupied. I celebrated internally, happy that I would get more legroom and a chair to throw my bag onto. My elation was short-lived, though, as the hall's door swung open with a crash, and a blonde-haired boy rushed in to grab the first open seat he could see. I whipped my head around to see what the noise was about as Kyle Spencer rounded the chairs and rushed down the stairs, eyes scanning the crowd. Despite his rush, he made a point to fist-bump Archie as he passed him. Of course, he chose to sit in the seat next to mine. 

He sat with a huff and hurriedly unzipped his backpack, pulling out an already-crumpled notebook. I tried not to stare, but the last time I had seen him, he was streaking through the Kappa Lambda Gamma house. I averted my gaze when his naked form ran past me, but I had already seen too much of him and his "brothers."

"I nearly didn't make it," Kyle panted next to me, clearly catching his breath from running here. "I read it wrong. Thought this class was in another building." I looked over to see who he was talking to. It quickly dawned on me that he was talking to me. 

"Oh, uh, haha," I replied awkwardly. He leaned forward in his seat again, returning to fumbling through his bag. I returned my gaze to my notebook and began to idly draw some flowers in the corner of the blank page before me. I felt someone tap my shoulder, though.

"Sorry," Kyle whispered, "but do you have a pencil? I can't believe I forgot mine." He laughed shyly to punctuate the end of his question. I nodded and reached into my own bag, producing a brand new no. 2 pencil for him to use and abuse. 

"You can keep it," I murmured. It was about to be a long semester.

Next Part

[hinako-supremacy]

please tell us killer cupids lore PLLEEEAASSEEEEEEE

i usually just reveal and come up with little tidbits of lore in random kilelr cupif posts (sometimes having different versions and universes) but i will try to write down the most consistent. i may be forgetting some things though hehe

(btw the lore isnt really static, it can be kind of all over the place and inconsistent. and for the little tidbits just go through his tag)

here we go v

one fateful day somewhere in pennsylvania, madsion valentino was born into a very large family of criminals(secret style) and general weirdos, so yeah from the start he was gonna turn out weird. he spent his days reading fairy tales, folk tales and horror stories, and oh how he loved to dissect roadkill! he loved all things scary and all things lovey

in his younger years, he would be bullied a lot, by teachers and students alike, but also he'd beat the shit out of his bullies in blind rage (berserker style) and there would be one million horrors and living nightmare redacted trauma, and he would keep mostly to himself and read (haha, kind of like scarecrow). hed like animals better than people, seeing himself more as an animal, kind of like

a very creature guy

further on he would actually grow more interested in people then become fascinated by humans and love to study them!!! anatomy and anthropology and psychology, wonderful!!! dissect things always <33 study peoples reactions to things and their behaviors and the way they think (and hed get a little silly with it, a little terrorizing with it) hed also love history!! and research history of gotham. interest!!!! hed be in awe of the history of gotham and the architecture and all that

so. when he went to college to become a doctor, hed go to gotham university, since its like. right over there. and gotham!! interest!!!! (hes like with gotham the way i am with boston (GREAT MOLASSES FLOOD 💪💪💪)) so then he becomes a physician at arkham asylum cause hes like "ohoho i'll meet all SORTS of interesting people there." and thats where he meets jeremiah, and let me tell you, the second he meets this man its love at first sight. he wants to know all about him, become his bestie, put him under a microscope and all that. and jeremiah is so nice to him... madison finds him so kind... so.. interesting!!! and hes so cute when hes stressed!! want to give him a big smooch!!! and bite him and be with him forverv all time!! and keep him in his basement i mean what

madison always tries to find out everything he possibly can about jeremiah and get close to him. though he finds that jeremiah doesnt like to be asked about himself... but the scarecrow, one of the inmates hes very much grown to like, admires even, and become a bit of friends hehe, he used to be with jeremaih!! find out some things from him 🔍🔍🔍 and madison has definitely heard stories and done research about arkham itself and the family. each day his obsession grows more and more <3 start following him around and stealing from him

and with scarecrow, the two find they have so much in common, similar interests and things, two peas in a pod!! he finds he feels so comfortable around him.. so free... wiow! he can say batshit crazy things to this guy! he can BE batshit crazy with this guy!!!

some point, madison sees some rando that reminds him of jeremaih, he thinks "hey. what if i brutally murdered that guy. what if i cannibalized that guy while pretending he was jeremiab." (i got this idea from the first episodes of hannibal, yes. the whole "i killed them so i wouldnt kill you" thang) and so he does, and as he rips the heart out he has an idea "what if i mail this heart to jeremiah, how would he react? would he be horrified? i hope so." so he put it in one of those heart shaped boxes for chocolates and thehhrehes his valentine <3

also, how he became a werewolf: same reason gregor samsa became a bug, god said "why so creatureous?" and turned him into wolf becasue

[floralcrematorium]

Is there any point in history/event you're interested in 👀?

Very unfortunately, the Tudor dynasty.

And I say unfortunately because I very begrudgingly am interested in the British MonarchyTM. I don't like that I'm interested in it, but it's interesting to observe it through a "woah what the FUCK happened here???" kind of lense.

My thesis in college was originally supposed to be about Henry VIII's queens. Then I got self conscious and dropped it halfway through the year.

There are a lot of areas I'm interested in but haven't had the energy to research. TBH I haven't had the energy to do much research since 2022 because it feels without purpose -- I think it's because I did so much research for a thesis that ultimately ended up being half a year's worth of work wasted so I'm afraid of that happening again.

I'm interested in the Philippines as a whole. Personal reasons for that one.

I've been meaning to look into Jadwiga of Poland and Olga of Kyiv. I don't really have a specific reason as to why.

TW for death I guess? Not specifics but just overall.

And something else I'm interested in but haven't. Done anything about are worldwide funeral practices. I know vague things about each of my following questions, but not to the point I can give you examples without extensive fact checking.

How was death handled prior to the emergence of major religions? How did major religions worldwide affect this? War has an impact on it. Obviously epidemics, pandemics, and outbreaks impact the way people view the deceased -- the fear of disease is why we think dead bodies are dangerous to begin with. Obviously someone who died of a contagious disease's corpse would be dangerous, but the average person who dies of old age or a heart attack isn't (beyond you really shouldn't be touching bodily fluids unprotected, alive or dead). The American funeral industry is an industry -- It's an inaccessible and expensive monolith. Oh, and climate. Funeral practices definitely vary due to climate and geography -- Thinking specifically about how cemeteries in New Orleans have all above ground mausoleums due to being below sea level or this one cemetery I visited in Boston that was raised up for reasons I can't remember (tbh they're most likely nefarious reasons).

Funeral architecture also interests me. I'm obviously used to the way things are done in the US because I grew up here, so when I think of a cemetery the idea of "forever resting place" comes to mind. Other countries' cemeteries are rentable - as in you only have the space for a certain amount of years before you need to be moved to make space for someone else.

Different cultures also just have different attitudes about death and that's something I'd like to learn about beyond "I think I remember this thing..."

For someone who is afraid of personally dying, it's weird that I have such a strong interest in forensic science, death culture, and the physical process behind dying. I really miss being up in my college town because I was within a very short walking distance to a cemetery I liked taking walks in.

[timmurleyart]

The city around me. 🌃🌝🌛

[dd20century]

The New Formalist: Edward Durell Stone

“A great building should be universal, not controversial.” --  Edward Durell Stone

New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote in his obituary of architect Edward Durell Stone:

Edward Durell Stone's career as an architect was marked by a dramatic reversal of direction. He gave up a position as one of America's leading advocates of the International Style just as that austere modern style was gaining wide public acceptance, and he began instead to evolve a personal style that was lush and highly decorative, the very opposite of the International Style. (1)

This shift would be influenced by a woman, Durell Stone’s second wife, Italian designer Maria Elena Torch. As Durell Stone said, “Maria's fine Italian hand began to show in my attire and my work. Both began to move toward elegance.”

Edward Durell Stone on the right having dinner with (left to right) architect William Wesley Peters, Stone's then-wife Maria Torch Stone, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Photo credit: Charles Rossi.

Edward Durell Stone’s Early Years

Architect Edward Durell Stone was born on March 9, 1902, in the college town of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Durrell’s grandfather Steven K. Stone was a successful businessman, Durrell’s father “Benjamin Hicks Stone (1852-1942) graduated from Emory & Henry College, in Virginia, in 1873 and returned to Fayetteville to run his father's business” (2). In 1885 Benjamin Hicks Stone married Ruth S. Johnson, an English teacher. The couple “had four children, the youngest..., Edward Durell Stone” (2).

Young Edward showed early artistic promise. His mother encouraged him to take up drawing and woodworking. J. William Fulbright was one of Edward’s childhood friends. Fulbright would go on to become a United States Senator. The two men remained life-long friends. Stone attended the University of Arkansas in the early 1920s but was unsuccessful in all of his courses except drawing. His talent came to the attention of the head of the “university's art department, [Elizabeth Galbraith who] recognized Stone's talent and encouraged him” (2).

At that time Edward’s older brother James Hicks Stone was an architect practicing in Boston, MA. Elizabeth Galbraith reached out to the brother asking him “to take an interest in the boy” (2). Edward spent the summer of 1921 in Boston visiting the city’s architectural landmarks with James. The experience made an impression on the young Edward, leading him to his calling. In 1922 Edward moved to Boston and found work as an office boy at the architectural firm of Strickland, Blodgett & Law while he studied at the Boston Architectural Club at night. There Edward met architect Henry R. Shepley who hired him to work as a draftsman at Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott. Shepley would become Stone’s most valued mentor. (2)

Edward Durell Stone, Radio City Music Hall, Auditorium, (1932), New York City. Image source.

Stone’s Early Architectural Career

“In 1925, Stone won a scholarship to Harvard University's School of Architecture” (2) and also studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1927 Stone won the Rotch Travelling Fellowship which gave him the resources to study in Europe for two years. (1, 2) Stone returned to the United States he moved to New York City, just before the start of the Great Depression in October 1929, where he was hired by, “a consortium of architects designing Rockefeller Center. There he worked on what was to be considered his first major early achievement, the design of the interiors of Radio City Music Hall” (2).

 “In December 1930, [Stone] married Sarah Orlean Vandiver (1905-1988), an American tourist he had met and courted in Venice. The couple had two sons, Edward Durell Stone, Jr. (1932-2009), and Robert Vandiver Stone” (2).

Donald Deskey was one of the architects that Stone worked with on the Radio City Music Hall project. This association led to Stone’s ‘first independent commission in 1933, the Mandel House, in Bedford Hills, New York, built for owners of a prominent department store” (2). Deskey served as the interior designer on that project. (2) “The Ulrich Kowalski House, also in Mt. Kisco” (4) was built the following year. With the success of the Mandel and Kowalski Houses, many more commissions followed, and in 1936 (3) Stone established his architectural firm at Rockefeller Center (2).

Edward Durell Stone, Richard M. Mandel House (1935), Bedford Hills, New York. Image source.

Stone and The Museum of Modern Art

From 1936 to 1939 Edward Durell Stone worked on what Newsweek magazine called, "the first large museum in America to be built according to the streamlined, ultra-modern 'international' style of modern architecture."(5) The project was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Stone collaborated with Phillip L. Goodwin. Stone served as design architect while Goodwin produced the architectural drawings. (2) During this time Stone was also designing a home in Old Westbury, NY for MoMA president Anson Conger Goodyear. (4)

In 1940 Edward Durell Stone drove across the United States. Traveling to Arizona and Wisconsin, he met with architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s use of materials and decorative patterning manifests itself in some of Stone’s later work. In San Francisco, Stone appreciated the use of natural materials used in regional architecture. His greatest takeaway from the trip, however, was his disappointment at how extensively Americans had marred the natural landscape. Quoting Durell, “I scarcely encountered a place where land was used wisely and where what has been built is beautiful” (6).

Edward Durell Stone's Service in World War II

As the United States had entered World War II, Edward Durell Stone enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in the summer of 1942, “and was stationed in Washington, D.C. Stone entered as a captain and was promoted to the rank of major in November 1943. At his instigation, the Army Air Forces established a Planning and Design Section in July 1944” (2).

As chief of this section Stone was responsible for “the master plans for airfields in Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas” (2).  He also designed the Continental Air Command headquarters at what is now known as Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. (2)

Edward Durell Stone, William Thurnauer House (1949), Englewood Heights, New Jersey. Image source.

Stone’s Post-war Work

After the war, Edward Durell Stone reopened his architectural practice. Most of Durell’s commissions during this time were residential. The most notable were the David Stench House (1947) Armonk, NY and the William Thurnauer House in Englewood, New Jersey (1949). (2) Stone’s homes of the late 1940s ‘indicated the increasing influence of Wright — his buildings became lower, more horizontal, and relied more on the use of wood” (1).

 His non-residential projects included the 300-room El Panama Hotel in Panama City, Panama, “notable for its pioneering use of cantilevered balconies in the construction of a resort hotel” (7). In 1948 Stone designed Fine Arts Center for the University of Arkansas in his hometown of Fayetteville, AK. The center featured works by Alexander Calder and Gwen Lux, friends of the architect. (2)

Postcard photo of Edward Durell Stone's El Panana Hotel (1946), Panama City, Panama. Image source.

Read part two of The New Formalist: Edward Durell Stone.

References

Goldberger, P., (7 August, 1978). Edward Durell Stone Dead at 76; Designed Major Works Worldwide. https://www.nytimes.com/1978/08/07/archives/edward-durell-stone-dead-at-76-designed-major-works-worldwide-a.html

R. L. Skolmen and H. Stone, Edward Durell Stone: Life. https://www.edwarddurellstone.org/

Smart, G., (2024). Edward Durell Stone, FAIA (1902-1978). https://usmodernist.org/stone.htm

Wkikpedia.com, (7 February, 2014). Edward Durell Stone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durell_Stone

"The Glass-Temple Museum: Modern Art Display Takes Over Own Building in New York," Newsweek (22 May 1939): 32.

Edward Durell Stone, The Evolution of an Architect, (New York: Horizon Press, 1962), 92.

Britannica.com, (n.d),.Edward Durell Stone, American architect. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Durell-Stone#ref81069

[ms-m-astrologer]

Was doing some research (as the buzz wears off) on Saturn going into Pisces. Neptune is already in Pisces - “heavy fog and water” is my first thought.

But the weird part is that the two will not be exactly conjunct until February 20, 2026 - at 0°43’ Aries. A very long build-up that has a surprise plot twist at the end.

Anyway, the last time both Saturn and Neptune were together in Pisces was intermittently between 1847-9. My friend Wikipedia provided me with some events which struck me as typical:

May 1847 - Architectural Association School of Architecture founded in London

May 7, 1847 - American Medical Association founded in Philadelphia

June 1, 1847 - first congress of the Communist League, London

February 21, 1848 - publication of The Communist Manifesto, London

February 1848 and onward - revolutions in France, Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe

March 18, 1848 - Boston Public Library opens

March 29, 1848 - Queen’s College, London, first to award academic qualifications to women

July 1848 - Public Health Act, England and Wales, begins to address sanitation issues

July 19, 1848 - first Women’s Convention in Seneca Falls, NY; introduction of “bloomers”

August 19, 1848 - first newspaper articles in eastern US about the California gold rush

January 23, 1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman MD in the US

Looking up those years in art and music was disappointing, as there was a decided lack of definite dates. Grrr. But I found three representative things for 1848:

April 1 - disgusting POS of a human, composer Richard Wagner, first wrote down his intention to write what would eventually become his “Ring” cycle of four operas. Talk about a blend of inspiration (Neptune) and discipline (Saturn).

September 1848 - the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists, poets, and critics is founded in London.

And best of all, to me anyway: sometime before October 1848, Joseph Bracket wrote the song “Simple Gifts:”

'Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

Makes me feel better about what’s to come, to think about those words - set, of course, to Aaron Copland’s wonderful music.

[supernoondles]

2024

In my haste of class planning and making the most of my time in the bay, as I moved to LA for work in December of 2023, I completely forgot to write my year in review. So now I tell that it was a great year!

It was a year of milestones: I finally finished my PhD and graduated over the summer, spent the fall funemployed and traveling, and the last month moving and preparing for what, at least right now, seems to be my dream job. Yet when things are too good, I harbor a greater fear it could all come falling down.

I write this sitting on a plane from SFO to LAX (wretched airport) because 1) it was conveniently timed with my brother and his fiance (!)’s flight back to the Netherlands, and 2) I had airline credit from when I got COVID and could not make my friend’s wedding in Florida. In 2023 I got a PhD, my brother got a bachelor’s, and I got COVID from my mom when we went to Boston for said brother’s graduation. Last night (which isn't technically 2023, but 2024 starts, for me, when my health insurance card finally arrives in the mail and I get in a classroom with students) I hung out with my friends, who largely live in San Francisco, in the endless Asian strip malls of Union City. “When you get to the suburbs, SF and LA aren't so different,” said a friend. This has helped quell my anxiety about the move: that driving 30 minutes to neon plazas of Rowland Heights was semantically and experientially the same as the imitation mission plazas of the East/South Bay. (Since starting to read City of Quartz, again part of my migration south, I have thought: how funny that the lasting impact of the Spaniards, besides white supremacy, is their architecture. How funny it is that Asian immigrants now occupy these sites of worship.) This year, despite being filled with drama and (claimed) abandonment and reconciliation (or not despite, perhaps because of?) was the year of my mostly queer, entirely Asian diaspora friend group. In LA I believe I will have everything I need except for them (so although I'm scouting, I know what a rarity and a privilege I've had).

To put my move in perspective, I haven't changed geographic regions since I started college. Leaving high school was exciting (I couldn't wait) and for the last decade of my life I've had solid friends and community, as well as my family nearby. Sure, it's just the other major metropolitan area in the same state, but the distance is non trivial! For the first time in my adult life I don't have a reserve of people who are willing to hang out on a moment’s notice. For the first time in my adult life I am also living alone. I have loved the control (especially around having a clean house), but I get lonely very easily.

This year my Canadian partner left the PhD program and moved far away (back to Canada) to my immediate and eminent grief. I'm better now: daily calls help, as does begging for attention, as does turning an old friend into a lover. Japan was a sex vacation. Banff was a sex vacation. Oahu (where my lover’s aunt lives) was a sex vacation. 2023 was the year of having really good sex: public sex in a Petaluma park, sex in a ryokan with paper thin walls, hookups of varying but generally positive quality. As a consequence of my partner leaving, I finally became a real slut. It's been liberating, except for the fact that, even as of writing, I never heard back about my Medicare application so I was fucking uninsured. Out of the many indulgent days of unemployment vacation, two instances have stuck with me: hiking 12 miles while it was snowing in Banff to two teahouses nestled amongst glaciers, and landing at LAX after a sleepless flight from Japan, with a grueling 7 hour drive back to the bay ahead of us.

As I knew I would be leaving the bay area in 2022 (do you sign a year before you start in any industry besides than academia?), in 2023 I whittled away at my bay area bucket list. While I never managed to get up Sutro Tower, I did go to the Fallorons, which, despite my throwing up twice, was everything a birder could have wanted. (I took two boat rides this year, the other at Cape Cod when my brother begged for us to vacate his suffocating studio, and in that one I saw a great white shark attack. How lucky I am!) As usual, I went to many shows. New this year were shows my friends performed in! The past winter had the most rain I’d ever seen in the bay area, so I did a lot of hiking amongst the luscious green east bay hills, which stayed green until May. This made me also really happy, but I don't want my relationship to the bay area (like it is for so many people I know who have moved) to be one defined by lack.

One thing I will not miss, however, is West SF’s fog. This summer, as well as the ending of Daylight Savings time, particularly pushed me to my limits. As I get older my need for two daily hours of direct sunlight exposure grows more dire. The other lowlights of the year were having to replace my phone screen twice, and, after a decade in the bay, finally having my car broken into. I found it ironic that it was not because of petty theft (I also never leave anything in my car), but a TikTok trend encouraging teens to steal Kias and Hyundais. At least they failed with me!

In 2023 I organized a really big (600 people) party for a conference. I wrote a paper with my friends about power dynamics for the same conference (which usually only talks about “technical” things) which was also the last chapter in my thesis. Thanks, advisor, for believing in me. As the party was on Halloween, I hosted a costume contest. The winner for scariest costume was my labmate who put a photo of our advisor (my other one) on a programmable LED screen strapped to his chest.

In 2023 I also started getting paid an hourly wage that made me happy looking at the number doing contract work with an old undergraduate mentor. Beyond this, and the volunteer labor, and the paper/thesis writing, I did not do much of “working” this year: also part of the reason why this year has been awesome.

Thanks to an Asians with dyed hair and pronouns art accountability club, in 2023 I made more art than I had in past years. I did gouachetober and the occasional digital illustration. I did not, however, accomplish what I sought to do during my unemployment: dedicate myself to being a full time artist and making something great. (In retrospect, rest, recuperation, and being excited for my job instead of burnt out from my PhD was the more important goal, and I definitely achieved that!) I feel like one’s relationship to their creative practice is a lifelong evolution (mine certainly is), and at least I had time to slow down and think about how I want that to shape out (the answer which is, more than it has been.) I didn't sew much of significance (a robe with black cat fabric I bought in Japan, a very hungry caterpillar Halloween costume, a Pokémon fanny pack) this year. It was, however, a great year for video games: I really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom (timed well with my COVID recovery), Super Mario Wonder, Pikmin 4, and I wouldn't say I “enjoyed” it, but I did play the Scarlet Violet DLC. My brother started playing Pikmin Bloom (so I have been playing it more) and I also “play” Pokemon Sleep every night. The best thing I watched was Beef. I listened to a lot of Caroline Polachek.

At a zine making workshop at Sour Cherry I got a 4x6 photo print of a cat that says, Wow! I'm looking forward to the future! That's the energy I'm approaching this new year with (I'm going to hang it in my office for my students). I am looking forward to adopting cats. My only resolution is to work less than 40 hours a week. Recapping how I did with last year's resolutions, I 1) did not really exercise more consistently, but I did run more consistently, and did a 5K with my dad on Thanksgiving! (Middle school me would never imagine.) 2) am unclear if I developed a more methodological way to conduct literature reviews, because my thesis related work was mainly copy/pasted from my old papers, and 3) did very much enjoy my last year in the bay. Here's hoping I can find community, nature, and food (rip China Lounge, I love you so much) as good in LA.