Posted on 10/29/2012 6:04:20 PM PDT by EveningStar
John M. Johansen, a celebrated Modernist architect and the last surviving member of the Harvard Five, a group that made New Canaan, Conn., a hotbed of architectural experimentation in the 1950s and ’60s, died on Friday in Brewster, Mass. He was 96.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
He must have known Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe...one of my personal favorites.
“one of my personal favorites.”
Of the group at Harvard, I think the one that had the most effect on common folk like myself is Marcel Breuer...my desk side chairs were his Cesca chairs until Katrina finished them off. This group also trained some of the modern greats like I.M. Pei.
RIP
i have to say, a lot of his stuff is not all that wonderful, but some is interesting
http://www.johnmjohansen.com/John_M_Johansen/Chronology.html
I.M Pei built some of the ugliest crap in Boston.
Don’t like Pei at all. Have had to go every week to an NYC hospital that has the most unpleasantly ugly design imaginable. I asked what criminal was responsible for this appalling mess, and told that it was Pei.
Played a gig at Clowes Hall back in the day. Didn’t realize it was his work. Good acoustics, as I recall.
One of the reasons modern architecture is so downright ugly, as is modern art, is that it was spawned from Leftist/Communist minds and not much of anything they have created is very attractive.
Sounds similar to a couple of the Communist goals for the U.S.:
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
Yes, thank you, I read it. There are some modernists I like very much, like Felix Candela and Max Borges.
RIP.
Well I guess mileage will vary but I do like some of Pei’s designs and most are only remembered for their most famous or controversial work. Boston is in Mass. so your expectations should be low, after all the Kennedy’s are there to brighten up the place.
“Have had to go every week to an NYC hospital that has the most unpleasantly ugly design imaginable.”
Sorry that you have to go to the hospital so often hope it’s nothing serious. Lousy places, I work in one every day. Just curious which hospital? Sorry took so long to reply I have been in Fla.
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