Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the American architect whom United Press International described as “the most quoted architect since the death of Frank Lloyd Wright” and whose works include iconic New York City structures like the lobby and grand ballroom of Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Radio City Music Hall, and Rockefeller Center?
He was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas on March 9, 1902, and attended the University of Arkansas where his interest in architecture was encouraged by the chairman of the art department. He then moved to Massachusetts, where he won the prestigious Rotch Traveling Fellowship, which afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and North Africa for two years. During his travels he was influenced by the Beaux-Arts style and the works of the leading modernist architects of the day.
He returned to New York City in 1929, where he designed the lobby and grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and then worked with the architectural firm associated with the Rockefeller Center project. He was the principal designer of the Radio Music Hall, and later the Museum of Modern Art.
He continued to employ the modernist vocabulary for the remainder of the 1930s, but during an automobile trip across the US in 1940, he began to formulate an approach to design that fused the experience of the Beaux Arts training, and to seek new forms that were more rooted in American vernacular design.
In the 1950s, he moved away from strict modernist tenets and began to fuse the formalism of his early Beaux Arts training with a romantic historicism. His career enjoyed a dramatic turn when he was awarded the commissions for the US Embassy in New Delhi, India, and the US Pavilion for the 1958 International Exposition in Brussels, Belgium.
A cover story on him in the March 31, 1958 issue of Time magazine led to a series of important national and international commissions. Business Week called him “The Man with a Billion on the Drawing Board.”
The State University of New York at Albany, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, the Standard Oil of Indiana Building in Chicago, Illinois, Pepsico World Headquarters Complex in New York, and the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology are examples of his late-phase work.
He received numerous honors during his long career and passed away on Aug. 6, 1978.
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Last week’s question: Who is the prominent American restaurateur who was responsible for exciting new concepts like the salad bar?
Answer: Norman E. Brinker
Winner: Shalimar A. Cañon of Camarin, Caloocan City
Text your answer to 0926-3508061 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
