RECENT ACQUISITIONS (January 1997 - December 1997)

Current Exhibit:

• The Legacy of FRANK MILES DAY (March 11-April 10, 1998)

• Dan Rose: A Retrospective of Books and Art (April 17-July 3, 1998)

• Louis I. Kahn:  Early Work (thru March 11, 1998)
• Taking Place: Satoko I. Parker, George W. Qualls, William H. Roberts (May 18-October, 1996)
• Esther I. Kahn Memorial Exhibition (April 20-May 16, 1996)

Kroiz Gallery of the Architectural Archives
Lower Level of the Fisher Fine Arts Library
220 South 34th Street

Fall/Spring Semester Hours: Monday through Friday 9:00am to 5:00pm. Closed weekends and holidays.

The University of Pennsylvania celebrates the growing collections of the Architectural Archives with an exhibition of works recently acquired by the Archives from January - December of 1997.

The exhibition features over 40 objects, including architectural drawings, sketches, models, and photographs, and including a broad range of architects and designers. Highlights are works by Mario Botta (b. 1943), Robert Venturi (b. 1925) and George Patton (1920-1991), Richard Neutra (1892-1970) and Thaddeus Longstreth (b. 1909), Charles Correa (b. 1927), Gilbert Cass (b. 1939), Gae Aulenti (b. 1927), Antoine Predock (b. 1936), Lee Lowrie (1877-1963), Lawrence Halprin (b. 1916), Gino Valle (b. 1923), Eileen Gray (1879-1976), Otl Aicher (b. 1922), August Komendant (1906-1992) and Moshe Safdie (b. 1938), Robinson Fredenthal (b. 1940), Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier, and Mario Gandelsonas (b. 1938).

Also on display are masterworks from the permanent collections, including works by Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974), Robert Le Ricolais (1894-1976), Alfred Bendiner (1899-1964), and Friedrich Weinbrenner (1766-1826).

Many of the works in the current exhibition were donated to the Architectural Archives in honor of GSFA Professor Joseph Rykwert (b. 1926) by various participants in "Body and Building," an international symposium and exhibition held in the spring of 1996 at the GSFA as a tribute to Dr. Rykwert.

Joseph Rykwert, Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture and Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania, received his M.A. from Architectural Association in London and his Ph.D. from the Royal College of Art, Cambridge University. Among many distinguished appointments, Dr. Rykwert has been the Slade Professor of Fine Arts, Cambridge University; the Andrew Mellon Visiting Professor, Cooper Union; Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery, Washington; George Lurcy Professor, Columbia; Senior Scholar, Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Monica; and awarded Chevalier dans l'ordres des Arts et des Lettres, France.

Books by Joseph Rykwert include: The Necessity of Artifice, The Idea of a Town, The First Moderns, On Adam's House in Paradise, a new translation of L.B. Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books, and The Dancing Column: On the Orders of Architecture.

The exhibition, scheduled through May, is presented in the Kroiz Gallery of the Architectural Archives, located in the lower level of the Fisher Fine Arts Library (formerly the Furness Building) at the University of Pennsylvania. "Recent Acquisitions of the Architectural Archives" is open to the public from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Architectural Archives, Fisher Fine Arts Library, University of Pennsylvania, 220 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA. For more information call the Architectural Archives at 898-8323. Admission is free.

 

A Pair of Houses on   Locust Street (1896)    The Philadelphia   Art Club (1888-1890)

"The Legacy of FRANK MILES DAY  (1861-1918)"  The University of Pennsylvania is honored to welcome Penn's campus the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects, and the family of Frank Miles Day.  Philadelphia architect, Penn graduate and Penn Professor, Day served as President of the AIA from 1906 to 1907.  Day was a leader in his profession  --  only the second Philadelphian to serve as President of the AIA -- and many have been inspired to follow in his footsteps.  Philadelphia, home to Day in his lifetime, continues to be enriched by his architectural designs.  At Penn, Frank Miles Day's legacy surrounds us in such buildings as Weightman Hall, Franklin Field and the University Museum.  Day's work graces many of the other beautiful campuses of this country, including Princeton and Wellesley.  As a teacher, Day inspired a generation of Penn architects, many of whom passed on his influence to those who came after them.  As a founding trustee of the American Academy in Rome, Day helped build an institution which continues to provide inspiration and intellectual nourishment to artists and scholars in all fields and in all stages of their lives.  Frank Miles Day's family has preserved his legacy, donating his drawings and papers to the Architectural Archives to ensure that Day's contributions can be shared with future generations.  The Archives is deeply honored by its role as steward of the Day legacy, and is grateful to Frank Miles Day's family for their generous gifts.

 

Prefabricated house, 1937 (unbuilt)

"Louis I. Kahn: Early Works"

Dan Rose:A Retrospective of Books and Art
April 17-July 3, 1998

 

"Dan Rose: A Retrospective of Books and Art"

Unit plan for a tourist village, Vela Luca  Joseph Rykwert

Site section of tourist village, Vela Luca  Joseph Rykwert

The exhibition, "Taking Place" celebrates the act of observing places that have been found special, and the means by whicg artists and architects have attempted to capture, transport, and present their experience. Included in the exhibition are over sixty drawings, paintings, and photographs by a number of alumni and members of the Penn family.

 

Golden Pavilion

Satoko Izumi Parker, Ph.D., received her graduate degrees in East Asian History and in medieval manuscript illumination from the University of Pennsylvania. She has delivered numerous papers on 18th and 19th century American and English architecture and on medieval manuscript illumination. She has guest curated a manuscript and incunable exhibition at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Her publications include articles as well as a two volume treatise including facsimile and commentary based on her dissertation of an 11th century illuminated Reichenau manuscript.

 

Parker's travels for her research have taken her to Europe, Russia and Turkey, and most recently to Japan- the subject of this photographic essay. She has stated that "The temples, gardens, villas and other sights attract thousands of visitors - be they Japanese or foreigners. As a 'first time' tourist as well as an art historian, I had looked forward to seeing those obvious sights on my own. At my own pace or whim, I would wander that path. Indeed, I could contemplate a magnificent rock garden raked with such precision over the centuries, or muse upon a group of hampers left haphazardly while the gardeners were at lunch. The contrasts became obvious. The pleasure of unwittingly seeking that 'other path' broadened my perspective and appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic."

Meiji Shrine

 

Quarry

Bill Roberts was born on a dairy farm in Wales, UK. Before attending the Welsh School of Architecture at the University of Wales in Cardiff, he attended Shrewsbarry Art School in England. Since coming to the University of Pennsylvania in 1958 for a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Bill's painting has been one of the pleasures of vacations and occasional weekends.

He chooses to paint landscapes in watercolor, striving to emulate the English masters of the medium and often painting with professionals in summer workshops. Bill has shown his work in galleries and museums and has been honored in competitive shows.

Bill Roberts is a founding partner in the firm Wallace, Roberts & Todd and is in charge of the landscape architecture division at WRT. Since its inception in 1963, the firm has been responsible for numerous master plans, landscape plans and environmental plans for parks and open space, greenways, universities, colleges and schools, and other projects across the country and abroad.

Snowdonia, Wales, UK

 This exhibition is funded in part by the Georgia Hencken Perkins Fund. Georgia Hencken Perkins (1909-1994) demonstrated a lifelong passion for excellence in design. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the work of the Architectural Archives. The Georgia Hencken Perkins Fund, created in 1995 by G. Holmes Perkins in memory of his wife, provides support for exhibitions, acquisitions, conservation, and publications.

The Esther I. Kahn memorial exhibition features a selection of master drawings from the Louis I. Kahn Collection, as well as portraits, photographs and memorabilia celebrating the life of Esther Israeli Kahn.

 

Louis and Esther Kahn on their Honeymoon in Atlantic City, NJ, 1930.

ESTHER ISRAELI KAHN (1905-1996)   The city of Philadelphia lost a friend and the international architectural community an advocate with the death of Esther Israeli Kahn, at the age of 90, on February 24 at her center city home.   A native Philadelphian, Mrs. Kahn was born in 1905 and graduated from West Philadelphia High School. She received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Elected Phi Beta Kappa in 1927, she received her master's degree in psychology in 1933. Mrs. Kahn was honored with the University's Alumni Award of Merit in 1978.   A dedicated member of the Board of Overseers of Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts since the 1970s, Mrs. Kahn was well known as the unwavering advocate of the young architect. In 1995, she was elected Overseer Emeritus by the University's Board of Trustees in recognition of her years of distinguished service to the School. The same year, in appreciation of her many civic and cultural contributions to the city of Philadelphia, Mrs. Kahn was presented with a special citation from Mayor Edward Rendell.

 

Following her marriage to architect Louis I. Kahn in 1930, Mrs. Kahn began her long career as research assistant to the renowned neurologist Bernard J. Alpers, first at Penn and then at Jefferson Medical College until her retirement in 1960. After Louis Kahn's death in 1974, Mrs. Kahn promoted the placement of her husband's archives at the University of Pennsylvania, where they now constitute the Louis I. Kahn Collection at the GSFA's Architectural Archives. She served as a consultant to the Kahn Collection until her death.

Louis and Esther Kahn at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1960.

In recent years, Mrs. Kahn lectured frequently on her late husband's life -- his earliest years in Estonia, his childhood in Philadelphia, and his training in drawing, painting, and music before he joined the class of 1924 at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Fine Arts. With her daughter, the flutist Sue Ann Kahn, Mrs. Kahn was active in resisting proposed alterations to two of her husband's landmark buildings, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. She spoke passionately on this topic at the 1992 AIA national convention in Boston.

 As music chairman of Women for Greater Philadelphia, Mrs. Kahn directed the series "Concerts by Candlelight" at Laurel Hill Mansion for twenty years. These popular summer concerts will continue in her honor.

 An active neighborhood supporter, Mrs. Kahn was the eloquent and energetic honorary chairman of the Friends of Kahn Park. Although always elegantly turned out, Mrs. Kahn was known to sport a "Friends of Kahn Park" T-shirt and baseball cap when necessary to further the cause. Mrs. Kahn also served as vice president of the Historic Clinton Street Association. Only last spring, after the devastating late-night fire on Clinton Street, she welcomed her displaced neighbors into the comfort of her home with her characteristic warmth and generosity.

 In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Kahn is survived by her sister Olivia Abelson, her grandson Gregory Kahn Melitonov, and innumerable friends around the world.

 - Julia Moore Converse

 At Mrs. Kahn's request, memorial contributions may be made to the Louis I. Kahn Collection at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, 102 Meyerson Hall, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6311.

The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
Director and curator: Julia Moore Converse [E-MAIL]
PHONE: 215-898-8323
FAX: 215-573-4032
This page was updated 10 April 1998