Preservation in Mississippi
Modernism
Mississippi Architect: First Federal Savings & Loan, Jackson
Still in the inaugural issue of Mississippi Architect, March 1963, which we introduced with Bob Henry’s first editorial, about the architectural profession, yesterday. Today we’ll pass along the first building profile, which I love for many reasons: it’s an R.W. Naef building (now called BancorpSouth) that I have grown to admire over the last several … Continue reading
Modernist Gems in . . . Booneville?
Well, I didn’t start out the week with intention of having a Modernism theme, but since we’ve had three days of it, it just seems right throw in some pictures I took a few months ago on a road trip through Booneville, way up in the northeast corner of the state. I haven’t done anything … Continue reading
The Beauty of Modernist Storefronts
I admit I sometimes spend a good amount of money on a book that 99.999% of the population wouldn’t pay two cents for. I found one such book on a trip to Cincinnati a while back. Published in 1946, it’s called Modern Store Design by Gene Burke (B.S. Arch) and Edgar Kober of the Institute … Continue reading
Does this mean you hate it, Miss Ada Louise?
I took the opportunity over the holidays to get back into my reading schedule and finish books that I had started during the dog days of summer. One of those was Ada Louise Huxtable’s recent compilation of her decades of essays as architectural critic with the New York Times and more recently with the Wall … Continue reading
Pics of Goff’s Gryder House in Ocean Springs
Last week when looking around for a picture of the Gryder House in Ocean Springs to put in “Notes on SESAH Keynote” I realized I didn’t have any myself, and I just didn’t feel that those on the internet showed the true amazingness of the house. So, courtesy of MDAH, I have acquired a few … Continue reading
SESAH’s Bus Tour: Beyond Greek Revival
Ok, I promised to post a few pictures from SESAH’s Saturday bus tour of Jackson, called “Beyond Greek Revival.” The weather did a wonderful about-face overnight from the rainy dreariness of Friday to a brilliant sunshiny Saturday, and it was a great day for touring. True to promise, we saw only non-Greek Revival buildings, except … Continue reading
Notes on SESAH’s Keynote
Friday evening’s SESAH keynote lecture was co-hosted by MSU’s College of Architecture, Art + Design (CAAD), and I was glad to see a number of local architects in the crowd, along with a few young people who I presume were students at the 5th-year program just down the street. The night was cold and rainy, but … Continue reading
Notes from SESAH
Well, the SESAH conference is over as of Saturday’s bus tour of Jackson’s historic sites. I’m sure all of you were able to attend and listen to interesting papers and the thoughtful keynote lecture. If you weren’t though, rest assured your faithful correspondent attended several Mississippi-related papers and took copious notes for the MissPres readership. … Continue reading
SESAH coming to Jackson
If you’ve never heard of SESAH, it’s pronounced “see-saw” just like it looks. It’s short for the much-longer name: Southeastern Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. As I’ve mentioned before, the group is meeting here in Jackson this year, with paper sessions and tours stretching from Thursday morning through Saturday. This flyer arrived in … Continue reading
The International Style: Conformity, not Individualism
You have reached the end of a four-part series about The International Style by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. If you missed the earlier posts, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. ———————————————————— Way back in the 1990s, I picked up an old hardback novel at a book sale in … Continue reading
The International Style: Regularity, not Symmetry
Since I spend a good part of my life writing and reading descriptions of buildings, I naturally love symmetrical buildings. It’s so easy and simple to describe, say a Georgian Revival building, even a big building: center entrance with transom and sidelights and broken pediment is sheltered under a full-height portico and flanked by four … Continue reading
The International Style: Volume, not Mass
For me, the last concept to click about Hitchcock and Johnson’s definition of the International style was the subject of the very first chapter, “A First Principle: Architecture as Volume.” I’m guess I’m not enough of a physicist or whatever kind of scientist that would be, to have really thought about the difference between “volume” and … Continue reading
Book Quotes: The International Style
It’s been a while since we did a book quote series, and since the three earlier series included a diatribe against Modern planning principles (Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of the Great American Cities), a polemic against Modern architectural design (Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House) and a complaint about the lack of flexibility of Modern … Continue reading
July09 Name This Place #2
To play this exciting week-long game, see The Rules. Congratulations to Joseph A for grabbing the first points yesterday. Today we’ll go to a different part of the state and a different era. Current Standings: Joseph A: 2 points tsj1957: 1 point Theodore: 1 point
Lukacs on Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Developers
While we’re on the subject of unexpected architectural commentary, I recently discovered a short, but dense little book called The End of an Age by historian John Lukacs. Lukacs has written extensively about European history, especially World War II (having lived through it himself in his native Hungary before escaping from the Soviets to the … Continue reading
Name This Place #1
To be a part of this exciting game, see The Rules. Hint: This photo, with caption appeared in a Preservation in Mississippi post in March, 2009.
How Buildings Learn: From High Road to Unreal Estate
How Buildings Learn tries to accomplish alot that I won’t be able to adequately cover here. I’ll try to hit the high points, the ones that made the most impression on me, and leave the rest for you to find when you read the book and/or for those of you who dislike reading (!!) catch the videos … Continue reading
Mies, Mies, van der roh-ha
So after a week of berating Mies van der Rohe and his Mieslings for everything bad in architecture, here’s a little video that presents a different perspective. It’s guaranteed to keep you humming its catchy tune while you do your Saturday chores. This is the 6th and last post in a series. Wouldn’t you love to read … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Apostates and Post-Modernists
Ok, since it’s Friday, let’s finish up on From Bauhaus to Our House. The last two chapters deal with the architects who strayed from the Modernist compounds and were ostracised from the hip and cool in-crowd. These included Edward Durell Stone, who started out Modern but married a girl from Spain who said his buildings … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: The destruction of craftsmanship
Wolfe points out in chapter 4, “Escape to Islip,” the irony that while the 20th century was the American Century, the architecture that defined that century was primarily a European import. In the same chapter, he also touches upon what he sees as the myth that Modernism was a reaction to the lack of affordable craftsmanship–that … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Architectural Education Overthrown
In chapter three of From Bauhaus to Our House, “The White Gods,” Tom Wolfe recounts what he sees as the almost instant change in course in American architecture after the German Modernists began arriving in the late 1930s as refugees from the Nazi regime. He (I think rightly) pinpoints their most long-lasting influence as being … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Wolfe Does Not ♥ Gropius
To start off From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe looks at the architectural scene in Europe after World War I. The picture he paints is one of confusion in the arts and an increasing tendency to spend more time on theory than on creativity. Walter Gropius, who he calls “The Silver Prince” and “White … Continue reading
Book Quotes: From Bauhaus to Our House
I recently read–finally, way after I should have–Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House. Published in 1981, this is not a scholarly work, but it’s a passionate rejection of Modernist architecture and its practitioners. According to the copyright page, most of the book was published in Harper’s during the June and July issues, so you can … Continue reading
Red Hot Truck Stop, Meridian
In Friday morning’s SAH session on Architecture of the Road, Ethel Goodstein-Murphree of the University of Arkansas gave an enlightening paper called “The Common Place of the Common Carrier: The American Truck Stop.” She devoted a whole section to the Red Hot Truck Stop in Meridian, whose sign is still standing last I saw, but whose … Continue reading
Book Quotes: Jane Jacobs on City Planning
From time to time, either because I’m lazy or because I’m exceptionally clever, I will post a week-long series on a certain topic. This week, our inaugural series will be quotations from Jane Jacob’s classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961 during the Golden Age of Urban Renewal and Modernist principles of … Continue reading
Release Me, You Fiend!
Earlier this week, I was walking around downtown Jackson, past the Old Capitol (1839), past the Lamar Life Building (1925), the Governor’s Mansion (1840), the U.S. Courthouse (1933), over to Jackson City Hall (1846), the Hinds County Courthouse (1930), and Thalia Mara Hall (1968), saw the Tower Building (1929) and the King Edward Hotel (1923) … Continue reading
On Developers, Modernism, and Fondren
After I wrote this post, I decided that it should be considered Part II of The Return of Modernism. In the latest issue of the Northside Sun, editor Wyatt Emmerich discusses the recent talk given by developer David Watkins at the Rotary Club. Watkins is the lawyer-turned-developer of several historic properties in downtown Jackson, including … Continue reading
Everything Old is New Deal Again
Before I forget, here’s an interesting New York Times article about the loss of New Deal public buildings at the hands of eeeviilll local and state governments. The author notes the irony of this destruction in the midst of what some refer to as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. “It’s ironic to be … Continue reading
The Return of Modernism
All this has happened before, and will happen again. At least that’s what I’ve learned from 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica, along with lots of impenetrable mythology. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that Modernism has come back around. To me, the resurrection of Modernism is in direct relation to the decline of Preservation as a movement. Many fellow … Continue reading
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