Architects

Abramovitz, Max (1908-2004).
Chicago-born architect, educated in the USA and at the École des #Beaux-Arts in Paris. He worked with Wallace K. #Harrison and Jacques-André #Fouilhoux, and was Harrison’s partner 1945-76 (see Harrison). He was responsible for the Philharmonic (now Avery Fisher) Hall, Lincoln Center, NYC (1962), and for the Assembly Hall (1963) and Krannert Center, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1969), among many other projects.

Abraham, Raimund Johann (1933-2010).
Austrian-born American architect. Prompted by the idea of ‘collision’ in architecture, much of his work was theoretical and utopian, although he built several houses (e.g. Pless House, Vienna (1960-4), Dellacher House, Oberwarth (1963-7), and Prefabricated Houses, RI, USA (1963-7)). He designed a residential and office building, Friedrichstrasse, Berlin (1986-7), apartments, Traviatagasse, Vienna (1987-92), and a residential and commercial complex, Graz, Austria (1992).

Abercrombie, Sir (Leslie) Patrick (1879-1957).
Influential British architect and town-planner. He worked at the University of Liverpool (1907-9) under (Sir) C. H. #Reilly and S. D. #Adshead, edited the Town Planning ReviewI, and produced a series of reports on the growth and condition of several European cities. After Adshead was appointed to the Chair of Town Planning at University College London, Abercrombie became Professor of Civic design Liverpool in 1915, a post he held until 1935, when he succeeded Adshead in London. During those twenty years Abercrombie produced a multitude of studies and reports on many areas in England and Wales, and , druing his Presidency of the twon Planning Instititute, published The Preservation of Rural England (1926) which led to the formation of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE). He championed the idea of a Green Belt around London, and contributed to the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, the report of which (Barlow Report) appeared in 1940. Abercrombie, in association with John Henry Forshaw (1895-1973), was appointed to prepare a plan for post-war rebuilding in the Country of London, and was given the task of planning the whole area around the Country. The results were the Country of London Plan (1943) and the Greater London Plan (1944) which provided the basic skeleton of post-war development policies, including the #New Towns programme, from 1946. Abercrombie became an internationally acclaimed figure in town and regional planning: many of his former students rose to positions of authority.

Abel, John (c.1578-1675).
English architect and master-carpenter. he designed and built several elaborate #timber-framed structures in the English and Welsh Border Countries, e.g. the Market Halls at Brecon, Wales (1654-demolished 1820), and Leominster, Herefs. (1633-dismantled 1861 and reconstructed as a house named Grant Court). He also built the stone Grammer School at Kingston (1625), and was probably responsible for the Caroline timber screen by Abbey Dore Church, Herefs (1633).

ABC.
Group of architects established in Switzerland, active 1924-39 (including El #Lissitzky, #Meyer, and #Stam), associated with #Constructivism.

Abbott, Stanley William (1908-75).
Influential American designer of the Blue Ridge Parkway (1935-87) linking the Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the Appalachians.

Abadie, Paul (1783-1868).
French architect. In 1805 he joined #Percier’s office in Paris, and in 1818 became Architect to the city of Angoulême and the Département de Charente. He designed the Palais de Justice (1825), #Hôtel of the Prefecture (1828), the School, and the Grain Market, all in Angoulême. His son also, Paul Abadie (1812-84), became Diocesan Architect to Angoulême, Périgueux, and La Rochelle in 1848n and in 1861 Inspector-General of Diocesan Buildings. He designed the Hôtel de Ville at Angoulême and the Byzantino-#Romanesque Church of St-Front at Périgueux (1852-1901), both of which owe more to conjecture than archaeology, He used the same style for his Church of Sacré-Cœur, Montmartre, Paris (1874-1919). In 1874 he succeeded #Viollet-le-Duc as Architect of Notre Dame in Paris.

*picture is of Paul Abadie (Junior)

Aalto, Hugo Alvar Henrik (1898-1976).
Finnish architect and highly-regarded C20 designer, he started his career as a #Neo-Classicist in Jyväskylä (1923-7), but, influenced by #CIAM and by Aino Marsio (1894-1949)-his wife and partner from 1925-became involved in #International #Modernism after his office moved to Turku. The Standard Apartment Block, Turku (1927-9), incorporated prefabricated #concrete units, while the Turun Sanomat Building (1928-30) was the first of his designs to incorporate Le #Corbusier’s #’Five Points of a New Architecture’. Among his early buildings were the Viipuri Library (1927, 1930-5) and the Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium (1928-33), which established his credentials as an architect of international stature with his own distinctive idiosyncrasies. In the Turku years Aalto’s reputation grew, not least because of his furniture designs in which bent plywood played a considerable part: his three-legged stacking-stool (1938) is ubiquitous. Timber also enjoyed a growing role in his architecture, as in his country’s Pavilion at the Paris Exposition Universelle (1937) and the Villa Mairea at Noormarkku (1937-9). His more personal style, in which curved walls, monopitched roofs, and brick-and-timber construction were prominent, evolved after the 1939-45 war: perhaps the most memorable designs are the Baker House Halls of Residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA with its serpentine walls and projecting staircases (1946-9); the Town Hall at Säynätsalo, with it’s brickwork and monopitched roofs (1949-52); and the Finlandia Conference Centre and Concert Hall, Helsinki (1962-75). His interest in all aspects of design extended to many artifacts: his celebrated vases, for example, are still given as wedding-presents in Finland today. In 1952 Aalto married Elissa Mäkiniemi (1922-94), who worked on many later projects, taking over the practice after his death.