Oculus Feb/78
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Oculus Feb/78 Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Is Guest Speaker at Chapter On Jan.24 Robert F.Wagner,Jr., newly appointed Chairman, City Planning Commission, was guest speaker at the Chapter. He . corrrnented on several positions taken in the past by the Chapter and outlined what he thought to be the future at CPC. What followed was an informative and very positive dialogue. This year is the 40th anniver sary of the founding of the Planning Commssion. The AIA has been quite active during the last two administrations providing the CPC with a constant flow of its opinions. Mr. Wagner is very much in Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Chairman of the City Planning Commission favor of creating an even speaking at Jan.24th Chapter meeting. Seated from the left is stronger liaison between the Stephen Kliment, Chapter Secretary and Chapter President, Chapter and the CPC than has Peter Samton. Photo by George Lewis. had been experienced in the past. He plans to establish regular monthly meetings with the Chapter to maintain a see a m1n1mum solution on West government has most deliberate steady exchange of ideas with Street. Wagner feels strongly intentions to see something a resultant deeper involvement that the public should have done. The City Administration of the AIA in CPC activities. access to the waterfront with has put forward a plan for the a well designed road and park rehabilitation of the area. Highlights of the Wagner system. This plan is now being comments we re: reviewed in Washington. •Convention Center •Housing and Community Devel A firm decision will probably opment Mr. Wagner had met previously be made within the next two Urban design will be a most with chapter representatives months. significant factor in all CPC the day he was sworn in, and activities. Efforts will be at the outset of his tenure at •Westway made to see that federal CPC an excellent relationship The Koch Administration is not housing funds are allocated to with the Chapter has clearly in favor of Westway. If there have maximum effect. Regarding been established.D is a mass transit trade-in, the South Bronx project he however, he does not want to indicated that the federal Mary Jane Clark 1 Evelyn McGrath at Candidates for Membership Chapter for Twenty Years Information received by the Secretary of the NYC/AIA re garding the qualifications of candidates for membership will be considered confidential: AIA Member Charles G. Brodie James A. Carr Alan Gaynor Laurence T. Goldberg Joseph A- Mi cal i Ge r a rd F . Vas i s ko Joe 1 D. Z i eden AIA Associate This IlKJnth .will mark Evelyn McGrath's 20th year at the Handen N. McKay Chapter. During this tirre countless members have been delighted with the way she has worked with them, exhibiting a New Members seemingly endless display of skill and patience. She has not only provided the sole continuity through many changes of leadership, but she has at the same time brought up a family of ten, now ranging in age from 16 to 29. Cathanne Piesla The NYC/AIA Welcomes the who is also on the Chapter staff is her daughter. Photo of following New Members: "Ev" is by George Lewis. AIA Member Miscellany Wi 11 iam Bobenhausen Donald L. Bostwick, I I Jack Gonchor Peder H. Knudson The Post has engaged a new New York Chapter The American Institute of Architects Sergi e Waisman reporter, Eric Fettmann, who 20 West 40th Street New York, New York 10018 will write on housing and 212/730-1221 related subjects. Peter George S. Lewi s, Executive Dire ctor Samton urged Rupert Murdoch to Executive Committee 1977178 give more coverage to housing Peter Samton, Pres ident · Charles E. Hughes, 1st Vice Pres ident and planning issues. George A. Dud ley, Vice President Joseph Wasserman , Vice President Stephen A. Kli ment, Sec retary The Chapter wl ll review a Anna M. Halpin, Treasurer Jonathan Barnett , Directo r · proposal of the ·Fisher Michael McCarthy, Director Brothers to build behind the Rosa ria Piomelli , Dire ctor John Belle, Director Racquet Club. Ro y Friedberg , Dire ctor Robert A. M. Stern, Director The AIA convention will be in Oculus Committee Denis Glen Kuhn, Edito r/ Chairman New York in 1982, and it is A_lbert Barash none too early to develop Stephen N. Carter Mary Jane Clark plans for what should be the Bonnell Irvine Law rence Levine greatest architectural Kenneth Ricci conference ever held anywhere. Will iam C. Shopsin Stephen A. Kl iment Secretary, NYC / A JA Cathanne Pies/a Ch apter Staff Member 2 Executive Committee Cuts Philip Johnson to Receive AIA Gold Medal Chapter Dues and Restudies Chapter to Celebrate Event in the Spring Position on Relicensing At its regular Jan. meeting the Chapter's executive committee voted to cut back first and second year ind~vidual dues for Chapter members to $25 and $50, respectively, from the current $58 and $72 (see story this page). The committee also agreed to review diverse ~pproaches to continuing edu cation and relicensing held by the NY State Regents, the NY State Board for Architects, NCARB and the state and local Chapters, and come up with a single, practical position to bring before the Regents. In other actions, the committee Philip Johnson pictured recently above at his offlce will voted to-- receive the coveted AIA ·cold Medal at the May'78 AIA eho 1d a spring celebration in Convention to be held in Dallas. The Chapter plans to hold a honor of Philip Johnson, '78 spring celebration of this event. Photo by Denis Glen Kuhn. recipient of the AIA Gold Medal •adjust the Chapter's member First and Second Year Dues Slashed ship admission process to In Chapter Campaign for New Members reduce current delays euse a scheduled private In a move it hopes will they do pay their employees' meeting with Robert F.Wagner, attract new members to the individual dues as an Jr., new chairman of the City ranks, the Chapter is reduc incentive to join the Planning Commission, to ing first year individual Institute. exchange views on Westway, the dues from $58 to $25 and Museum of Modern Art expansion second year dues from $72 to The Chapter's lowered dues and other city-shaping issues $50. Applicants who submitted will reduce the dues load on within Mr. Wagner's power to their forms before the reduc cooperating firms since influence. Meetings wi 11 a 1so tion will receive partial individual members pay dues be sought with the five refunds. not only to the national AIA borough . presidents. but also to the state and The reductions are in sharp local organizations. Full text of the minutes are contrast to today's pattern available at the Chapter of constant inflation. A move is now underway to office. o bring down the state associa The cuts will also make more tion's dues for first and Stephen Kliment attractive the current $85 second year members from the bonus in supplementary dues present $42.50 to a lower offered by the national AIA figure. O to firms for each AIA archi tect in their employ. As Stephen Kliment membership committee chair lady Sarelle Weisberg said in her Dec.13 letter to firm principals, firms will come out ahead in their net total of supplementary dues even if 3 Chapter's'77 Brunner Scholarship is in Use to Support a Re-Evaluation of Bertram Goodhue'sWork Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924), for a growing number of us, stands out as an Architect so sure of his image and his purpose, and evidently so secure as a person, that he could proceed to develop an astonishingly original archi tecture that at once encom passed modernism, tradition, and fantasy. In a time of dramatic changes, Goodhue felt no obligation to remain a com placent conservative, like Ralph Adams Cram, nor any desire to thunder zealously - like a born-again Christian in to the ''Modern' 1 camp, l i ke George Howe. That the prestig Drawing by Bertram Goodhue of his Peterson House - ious Brunner Scholarship Westchester, New York project. The drawing made in 1915 is should, at this time in par in black crayon and pencil and is owned by John Rivers, ticular, be used to support a Goodhue's grandson and photographed with his cooperation by re-evaluation of Goodhue's the Cooper-Hewitt Museum for their 200 years of American work seems, therefore, Architectural Drawing exhibition. altogether appropriate. original. Indeed, with the trast, suggest that originality Goodhue's prolific career Library, Goodhue intended to in fact emerges from a context included some of the most 11 g i ve· them a bu i l d i n g that of tradition and precedent. splendid commissions of the will make them sit up and day: lavish churches in New scratch their heads. 11 Yet his Consider the Los Angeles York, Chicago, and elsewhere; buildings each possess Library. The plan, shown on p.5 the influent i a 1 "Spanish" features in plan, section, has a clarity of organization buildings for the 1915 Panama elevation and detail which are one expects from a Beaux Arts Cal ifornia Exposition in San undeniably traditional. building, or one by Louis Kahn:· Diego; the Los Angeles Public Towers, rotundas, and eclectic five noble reading rooms sur Library; and the state capitol imagery were employed for the rounding a great stack of of Nebraska at Lincoln. Never power they hold over the eye books, the whole centered on a theless, Goodhue's work has and mind of the viewer, rather clerestory-1 it rotunda.