A Phildelphia School Story: A Half-Century Legacy of Planning & Design Practice

This exhibition was organized by alumni from the Class of 1965.

Mid-century Philadelphia was a city in the throes of a political reform movement under  mayors Joseph Clark and Richardson Dilworth. Rebuilding the city was an essential part of this movement.

G. Holmes Perkins, Dean of The University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts (now PennDesign) from 1951-1971, was also chairman of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Perkins built Penn into perhaps the leading school of planning and design in the world. He assembled a remarkable faculty that included many of the acknowledged giants of the field, including Louis I. Kahn, Romaldo Giurgola, Robert Venturi, and Robert Geddes in architecture, Ian McHarg in landscape architecture, Martin Meyerson, Denise Scott Brown, and Lewis Mumford, in city planning, and David Wallace, David Crane and Edmund Bacon in urban design.

The School’s fame was such that the professional journal Progressive Architecture devoted an entire issue in 1961 to “The Philadelphia School,” highlighting the work of Penn’s architecture faculty and students. The philosophy nurtured at the School was based on an interdisciplinary approach to design that emphasized urbanism, harmony with the natural environment, and the importance of the physical, social and economic context. This exhibit celebrates the 50-year professional careers of students who graduated from Penn from the class of 1965, during the School’s hey-day. Since their graduation, the planning and design professions have undergone significant changes. The tools of the trade have changed; theories of city design, architecture and landscape architecture have evolved as well. Class members have made significant contributions in architecture, historic preservation, landscape architecture, environmental planning, city planning, sculpture, development, teaching, writing, and architectural photography. They have worked across the United States and abroad, in practices based not only in Philadelphia, but also in other major cities across North America.