|
celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first service in their historic building. Eventually more of the writings developed for that series of Jubilee Celebrations will appear on this Web site. But for now, here are a few passages about the architect, Pietro Belluschi. (gleanings from various Web sites) an engineer at both the University of Rome and at Cornell University, emigrating to the U.S. in 1923. After working as a mining engineer, he joined the Portland-based architecture firm of A. E. Doyle. Belluschi acted as chief designer with A. E. Doyle for several years before becoming a partner in 1933. He assumed control of the firm under his own name in 1943. During his years in Portland, Belluschi designed several commercial buildings in the evolving International Style. Although his commercial designs owed much to the International Style, his domestic and religious work showed a preference for regional traditions and native materials. While contemporary firms rejected tradition, Doyle's office maintained a strong Beaux Arts tradition. From 1951 to 1965, Belluschi acted as Dean of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his fifty years of practice, both in Portland and in Massachusetts, Belluschi designed over 1,000 buildings. "Architecture, unlike other arts, is not an escape from, but an acceptance of, the human condition, including its many frailties as well as the technical advances of its scientists and engineers. It may rise to great art if it achieves unity, order, and form by appropriate technical means, and if it meets its purposes with conviction. I suppose only then will we have achieved the 'Great Society.' The great architect strives for comprehension, rather than originality for its own sake; a thorough study of a problem, made within the freedom that knowledge provides, is always the greatest source of originality. "An architect should not be afraid to vary his philosophy to suit a particular project. We must accept the enormous variety of situations that our age has created, and try to find solace in the thought that nature has evolved the orchid and weed, the whale and the mouse, the eagle and the hummingbird - all from a wonderfully complex yet orderly system. We should not attempt to formulate a rigid intellectual program for architecture. Anyway, it seems impossible for us to draw laws and conclusions that cannot be challenged. "To have a certain consistency as a social art, architecture must have integrity and it must be based on what is possible, extracting whatever beauty may be hidden, while doing it in an understated way. Most important, probably, is structure. Not only the way in which a building is put together, or the simplicity of its structural idea, but how this is expressed without striving to make the bones be the whole answer. Structure that has been hidden, twisted or polluted as an idea, will seldom produce good architecture." From Paul Heyer, Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America, pp. 228-229. but that of the saint, rather than that of the fool. It comes from deep understanding and purification, so that every time you omit | saying something, or choose not to make a personal statement, you do it for good reason, for taste and restraint. I think in terms of what is appropriate - how to meet one's duty to a client's particular project may emerge. The client, in turn, must be able to appreciate and accept the poetic values inherent, but not always obvious, in simple design. "To search for the solution in an abstract way is very tempting but only a few extremely gifted, elected architects can do it. Even when they are gifted, they too fall on their face - as did Wright in the later years, and Stone; Rudolph himself admits that he goes all the way to do what he thinks is an experiment, and then allows that he might fail. Architecture, as an art, must strive for roots and continuity but must not deny the man of genius his right to innovate if that is his moment, and his voice rings true." Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America, p. 226. Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, March 2, 1994: Obituary, Dean Pietro Belluschi, 94 Pietro Belluschi, one of the world's leading architects who served as dean of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning for 14 years, died February 14 at his home in Portland, OR, at the age of 94. His buildings include MIT's MacGregor House dormitory at 450 Memorial Drive, opened in 1970. The New York Times described him as a modernist architect whose work ranged from elegantly simple structures at the start of his career to such massive urban skyscrapers as the Pan Am Building in New York City and the Bank of America in San Francisco. He participated in the design of more than 1,000 buildings in all, among them the Juilliard School of Music and Alice Tully Hall in New York, which were done in association with a colleague from MIT, Eduardo F. Catalano, now professor emeritus of architecture . . . . At [Belluschi's] retirement, MIT President Julius A. Stratton praised Dean Belluschi as "an inspiration to faculty members and students alike," adding that "his taste and judgment" had helped shape the Institute's own building plans and would be permanently reflected in the development of the campus during that period. He continued: "During a period when contemporary architecture was dominated by a spirit of impersonal functionalism, he sought to combine elegance and beauty with usefulness. Here at MIT his creative spirit has been a dominant factor in the development of the School of Architecture and Planning . . . . He has brought to the Institute a number of outstanding new members to the faculty. He has supported with vigor and imagination the extension and strengthening of the graduate program in the Department of City and Regional Planning [now Urban Studies and Planning]. Outstanding among the developments in planning during his tenure as dean were the establishment in 1958 of the PhD degree in planning, and the founding, with Harvard, in 1959 of the Joint Center for Urban Studies." |