Dates: 14 November 2011 - 27 January 2012
Locaton: Yale School of Architecture Gallery, 180 York Street,
New Haven
Lecture: "Gwathmey Siegel: Form and Counterform." by Kenneth Frampton.
17 November at 6:30 pm in the School’s Hastings Hall
The 2011–12 Yale School of Architecture exhibition program continues on
14 November, 2011, with Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation. This is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects (Charles Gwathmey `62 M. Arch), which practiced for over forty years and was one of the most influential architecture firms of the modern period.
With original architectural drawings, sketchbooks, reproduced drawings, models, photographs, and slide shows, Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation examines the close relationship between art and architecture
in eight residential and institutional projects designed by the firm.
The exhibition was organized by the Cameron Art Museum, in Wilmington, North Carolina, where it was on view in 2009. It was curated by Douglas Sprunt, former adjunct curator
of architecture and design at the Cameron. The
Yale showing has been organized by Brian Butterfield, director of exhibitions at the School of Architecture. The School of Architecture's presentation of the exhibition coincides with the arrival of the Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects records at Yale University Library's Department of Manuscripts and Archives, to which they were donated by Charles Gwathmey's widow, Bette-Ann Gwathmey. There they will join a significant collection of
primary source material documenting modern and contemporary architectural practices, including records from the firms of Eero Saarinen, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, Cesar
Pelli, and Robert A.M. Stern, among others.
Early photograph of Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel
Picture: © Yale
Background
Charles Gwathmey (1938–2009), who was the only child of noted Social Realist painter Robert Gwathmey and photographer Rosalie Hook, spent a year studying architecture under Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania. He then moved to the Yale School of
Art and Architecture, where he studied and worked under
Paul Rudolph. Following his 1962 graduation from Yale, he
was awarded a Fulbright grant to research the work of Le
Corbusier in Europe.
Robert Siegel (born 1939) studied architecture at the Pratt Institute and received a master’s degree in 1963 from the
Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The two men first met as students in New York City's
High School of Music and Art, and years later reconnected
while working in the office of Edward Larrabee Barnes, in
New York City. Buoyed by the success of the house and studio Gwathmey designed for his parents in Amagansett, New York, (1965–67) after he left
Barnes’s practice, they went on to found their own practice in 1968.
The Exhibition
Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation focuses on five transitional projects:
- the Gwathmey House and Studio, designed by
Gwathmey after leaving Edward Larrabee Barnes’s
practice, and immediately embraced as an important
example of a distinctly American Modernism
- the de Menil Residence, in East Hampton, New York
(1983), in which the relationship of the house to its
site—or of object and frame, as the architects stated - is
evident throughout, from the way the house was adapted
to its long, narrow beachfront site, facing dunes and sea,
to the smallest interior detail
- the Bechtler Residence, in Zumikon, Switzerland
(1993), a critical project in the development of
Gwathmey Siegel’s practice, and a residence in which
the visitor’s first experience is a gallery for the patrons’
extensive art collection
- Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland (2006), a residence and museum in which art, architecture, and the natural environment join to create an active yet contemplative
experience
- the renovation and restoration of Yale School of Architecture’s Paul Rudolph Hall (formerly known as the Art + Architecture Building), which restored the integrity and spirit of the building, and the addition to it of the Jeffrey Loria Center for the History of Art (2008), which respects the earlier building while nonetheless asserting its own identity
Bechtler Residence, living space, 1994
Picture: © Richard Braynt
Other institutional projects included in the exhibition are the restoration and renovation of Whig Hall, Princeton University (1973); the addition to the Fogg Museum, Harvard University (1991); and the Guggenheim Museum renovation and addition, New York City (1992).
In addition to materials related to specific projects, Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation includes artifacts and documents from the personal collections of the
architects. These include such items as Gwathmey’s scrapbook from his family's tour of Europe, in 1949–50, and his Fulbright Grant notebook, from 1962–63, as well as a selection of
his student work - unique to the School of Architecture presentation - that reflects the time he spent at Yale studying under Paul Rudolph. These and other personal materials enhance the exhibition's focus on the role of artworks in specific projects by revealing some of thesb broader
cultural currents at play in American modernist architecture.
Related Lecture
The exhibition will be accompanied by a lecture by architect, critic, and historian Kenneth Frampton, titled "Gwathmey Siegel: Form and Counterform." This will be held on Thursday, November 17, at 6:30 pm in the School’s Hastings Hall. It is free and open to the
public.
Yale School of Architecture Gallery
The Yale School of Architecture Gallery is on the second floor of Paul Rudolph Hall, located on the corner of York and Chapel Streets (entrance on York), in downtown New Haven. Exhibitions at the Gallery are free and open to the public. Hours are Monday–Friday,
9 am–5 pm; Saturday, 10 am–5 pm. The Gallery is closed on Sunday.
Further Information:
www.architecture.yale.edu , events
