A: Each of those architects or firms also designed a building that was once the tallest in the world.
- Corcoran Gallery of Art — Ernest Flagg, who designed the Singer Building in New York (tallest 1908-09)
- US Supreme Court Building — Cass Gilbert, who designed the Woolworth Building in New York (tallest 1913-30)
- SunTrust Bank Building at 2 Massachusetts Avenue, NW — William Van Alen, who designed the Chrysler Building in New York (tallest 1930-31)
- Acacia Building at 51 Louisiana Avenue, NW — Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, which designed the Empire State Building in New York (tallest 1931-72)
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden — Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed the Sears (now Willis) Tower in Chicago (tallest 1973-98) and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (tallest 2010-present)
- Main terminal at Washington National Airport — Cesar Pelli, who also designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (tallest 1998-2004)
One might also include mention of Minoru Yamasaki, who was part of a team of architects who designed several buildings at Bolling Air Force Base, and also designed the World Trade Center in New York, which was the world’s tallest structure from 1972 to 1973. Kohn Pedersen Fox designed several buildings in Washington, as well as the Shanghai World Financial Center in China, which by some definitions was the world’s tallest from 2008 to 2010.
March 2011
Q: Louise Bethune was the first woman to become a member of the American Institute of Architects (in 1888). She famously declined to enter a competition for the design of the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Why?
A: Bethune refused to participate because male and female architects designing buildings for the fair were not compensated equally. Each male architect or male-owned firm received a fee of $10,000 just for the design, with the cost of construction documents to be borne by the fair. By contrast, female architects invited to design the Woman’s Building had to compete for a “prize” of only $1,000, and the winner would then be expected to provide a full set of construction documents. The pavilion was ultimately designed by Sophia Hayden, who was the first woman to receive an architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
February 2011
Q: At 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26, 2011, many buildings in your area may suddenly be plunged into darkness. Why?
A: No, it’s not the dreaded Mayan apocalypse coming 21 months early, it’s simply Earth Hour, a global initiative calling for citizens, businesses, and public agencies to turn out the lights on their buildings for one hour in order to express a commitment to fighting climate change. For more information, visit www.earthhour.org.
January 2011
Q: The structure now known as the Cotton Bowl, which was built in 1930 and later served as the home stadium of the Dallas Cowboys, was significantly remodeled in 1936, just six years after its initial construction. Why?
A: The stadium stands in the middle of Dallas’s Fair Park, which was the site of the Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936. The structure, then known as Fair Park Stadium, was renovated to fit in with the architecture of the rest of the fair, which was mostly a blend of Art Deco, Art Moderne, and Modernist design. The Texas Centennial Exposition is one of six fairs featured in the National Building Museum’s exhibition, Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s.
November 2010
Q: How did Frank W. Woolworth, the five-and-dime tycoon, finance the New York City skyscraper that bears his name?
A: Woolworth paid for the building in cash — $13.5 million. Designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1913, the building was the tallest in the world until 1930.
September 2010
Q: How did Walter Paepcke, chairman of a Chicago-based company making corrugated boxes, become one of the most influential figures in 20th-century American architecture and design?
A: Paepcke, who made a fortune as an executive with the Container Corporation of America, provided critical financing for the New Bauhaus, which was founded in Chicago in 1937 by László Moholy-Nagy. Born in Hungary, Moholy-Nagy was an innovative photographer, painter, and designer who had taught at the Bauhaus in Germany before it was closed by the Nazis. Under his leadership, the New Bauhaus — which was later renamed the Institute of Design and incorporated into the Illinois Institute of Technology — helped promote modernist design in the United States.
Moreover, in 1950, Paepcke established what is now known as the Aspen Institute, famous for its seminars and conferences attracting leading thinkers and policy-makers. The Aspen Institute also gave rise to the Aspen Music Festival and the annual International Design Conference. Paepcke hired Herbert Bayer, another former Bauhaus teacher, to design posters and other graphics for the Aspen Institute, which helped to fuel the new organization’s rapid rise to prominence.
July 2010
Q: What is the origin of the name LEGO?
A: Ole Kirk Christiansen, the Danish carpenter who founded the LEGO® company in 1932, came up with the name as an acronym for leg godt, which means “play well” in Danish. Coincidentally, lego is also a Latin word meaning “I read,” “I gather,” or “I assemble,” the last translation seemingly a very appropriate one given the nature of the company’s primary product, but Christiansen claimed that he was unaware of the term’s Latin translation.
May 2010
Q: In 1934, the US Commission of Fine Arts approved plans for a drastic remodeling of one of Washington, DC’s historic buildings. Endorsing the proposed changes, the chairman of the commission at the time, Charles Moore, called the building “one of the three or four eyesores of the city,” and noted that it had been “ridiculed both by the public and by the architectural profession” since it was built. The proposed renovation was never carried out. Which famous DC building narrowly escaped such a comprehensive transformation?
A: The Pension Building, which is now, of course, the National Building Museum, and widely considered to be one of Washington’s most beautiful landmarks. Tastes change.
March 2010
Q: What does the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago have in common with the Dome nightclub on board the cruise ship Pacific Dawn?
A: They were both designed by architect Renzo Piano. Admittedly, the interior of the ship’s nightclub has been completely redone and bears little resemblance to Piano’s vision, but the basic, dome-like shape of the enclosure is clearly his design. The Pacific Dawn was built by Italy’s famed Fincantieri shipyard, and launched in 1991 as the Regal Princess. In 2007, the ship was sold to P&O Cruises Australia and given its current name.
Photographs above: Woolworth Building top designed by Cass Gilbert. Collection of Lego toys from the 1930s. Wikipedia
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