FELLOWSHIPS AT VAN ALEN Table of Contents Our Story (4—15) The Paris Prize (16—53) 1904 –1996 William Van Alen Memorial Fellowship (54—69) 1972 – 1996 Dinkeloo Traveling Fellowship (70—83) 1978 – 2006 New York Prize Fellowship (84—121) 2007– 2010 Prizewinners and Alternates (122—129) Board Members and Directors (130) Acknowledgments and Credits (132) Van Alen Institute’s legacy as a center In 1995, the Institute was renamed for design innovation that bridges in honor of William Van Alen—architect architectural education and pro­ of the Chrysler Building and winner OUR STORY fessional practice informs all of our of the 1908 Paris Prize—and turned its work. We investigate pressing social, focus to architecture and the public cultural, and ecological challenges realm. Today’s Van Alen continues to of tomorrow on a global scale. build on this legacy, expanding both the scope of our work and our belief in the The Institute was founded in 1894 as power of design to change people’s the Society of Beaux­Arts Architects lives for the better. by a group of American architects who had graduated from the École About this book de Beaux­Arts in Paris; their goal Most of the material within these pages was to spread the school’s model of comes from our institutional archives, architectural education in the United which extend back to the 1880s, before States. As their efforts grew more the organization was formally estab­ extensive and a national network of lished. Our collection includes drawings, independent ateliers followed their photographs, correspondence, admin­ annual programs, they created a new istrative records, and more. Together, organization to administer this work they present a rich portrait of the in 1916, the Beaux­Arts Institute of organization’s founding, development, Design (BAID). By the 1920s, students and moments of self­examination and from dozens of universities across change. At each period, the archive the country entered the design com­ materials also tell a story of the wider petitions, and in 1930, the BAID world outside. One can see these shifts received over 9,500 entries. clearly in the drawings themselves, but we’ve chosen to add the voices of By the end of the Second World War, the many people involved with the the Beaux­Arts method was falling organization to convey how they re­ out of favor and was soon replaced by sponded to those changes. the cooperative pedagogical systems of the Bauhaus. The very name of Using winning drawings and the words the institution became a liability, so, of the fellows themselves—taken from in 1956, the BAID was renamed the letters and, more recently, conver­ National Institute of Architectural sation—this book documents our four Education (NIAE). The NIAE positioned primary fellowship programs, the itself as an organization committed to people and ideas they engaged, and supporting diverse curricula among the competitions that were an integral architectural schools. Over the part of them. decades, programming expanded to include annual competitions and — David van der Leer fellowships, the most prestigious of Executive Director, Van Alen Institute which remained the Paris Prize, which had started in 1904. 05 Fellowships at Van Alen Stephen Cassell core values that animate our work today. to support the development of young It is clear that there is a deep belief in the architects and to spread their ideas across value of design to transform the world in the nation. The Beaux Arts was not just which we live. a formal language, or even just a peda­ gogical system, but a system of values Tracing the line from 1894 to today shows that prized the application of neoclassical how the Society of Beaux­Arts Architects precedent to contemporary needs. The (SBAA), which was founded by alumni SBAA created the Beaux­Arts Institute of of the École de Beaux­Arts in Paris, steadily Design (BAID) in 1916 to run its educational Introduction evolved into today’s Van Alen Institute, programs and administer the Paris Prize, which works with civic and institutional a traveling fellowship that sent the top stu­ partners on issues that some might not dent each year to study at the École. With even see as design problems. There are competition programs like 1919’s A Capitol some pivots and adjustments, but, ulti­ Building for the League of Nations and mately, what has remained constant is a 1924’s A United States Veteran Hospital, belief in the value of design as a trans­ the BAID advanced its ideas about the role formative force, and a sense that a civic of architecture in public life. Its success is organization can play an important role in evident in downtowns all over the country, making that transformation happen. What where the banks, town halls, and public has changed, however, is how we under­ libraries built by proud civic fathers in the When Van Alen Institute announced itself ago is still here, and that, as an organization, stand design and its scope. It is no longer early 20th century still stand. to the world in 1995 with the motto “Pro­ we continue to look for new and compel­ limited to a particular approach to archi­ jects in Public Architecture,” there was a ling ways to use design to improve cities tecture, but is a set of analytical and As Modernism took hold in America, the palpable energy around it, and a sense that and the daily experiences of people who creative tools that can address social, organization began to move away from this was a group of architects, landscape live in them. For us, a part of that process ecological, and cultural challenges at strict adherence to the Beaux Arts, which architects, and planners who were going has been to look back and to trace the every scale. had none of the intensity and social pur­ to apply themselves to a very pressing evolution of these organizational values to pose that the Bauhaus had introduced. problem: the neglected public spaces of their roots. From its earliest days, the organization Paris Prize winners, who were by then New York City. While the city had emerged established itself as a group that purpose­ called Lloyd Morgan Fellows in honor of the from the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, repairing fully stood outside of academia, and whose BAID’s founder, were no longer expected its physical fabric was still pretty low on goal was to advance the quality, reach, to study full­time at the École. However, the to­do list at City Hall. The last signifi­ and appreciation of design in the United the competition programs continued to cant park to be created was Jamaica Bay States. At the time, that meant architec­ Park in 1954. As a young architect who ture, and, more specifically, architecture had started a firm just two years before, as understood and practiced by the Beaux it was this urgency and sense of purpose Arts movement. At a dinner in 1894, soon that led me to get involved. It was exciting after the SBAA had formally incorporated, to find a group of people who believed Ernest Flagg (1857–1947), who later de­ that designers could and should be pro­ signed the Singer Building—the world’s active about using their skills to make the first skyscraper—spoke about the values city a better place. The competitions were Future Ground workshop in New Orleans, 2015 that drove their work. “It is necessary to provocative, relevant, and brought atten­ firmly establish ourselves on the basis of tion to parts of the city that most people When we began the project of sifting the French school, but when this is accom­ weren’t thinking about as public spaces to through 120­plus years of the Van Alen plished we can drop French features so be shared and celebrated, like Governors archive to create this book, we were struck far as name and limitation of membership Island, Wall Street, and the East River. Future Ground focused on the long­standing challenge of by all the materials that conjure a vanished are concerned and take a more liberal vacancy in New Orleans, which became a much greater world. A draft of the organization’s charter attitude … Let us make of what is by many problem after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Van Alen asked I first got involved in 1993 with the Flatiron is written in fountain pen on stationary supposed to be a clique, a broad and design teams—which included architects, planners, Academy competition, and joined the landscape architects, and land­use lawyers —to come up from the Century Club, where the founders liberal influence for the encouragement of board in 2010. One of the great pleasures with short­, medium­, and long­term strategies to make undoubtedly met up for a whiskey after a good architecture and good architectural these lots ecologically, economically, and socially valuable of being a board member has been to day in the office, and it is decades before training in the United States.” In creating once again. Teams worked closely with Van Alen staff make sure that the sense of initiative that and local stakeholders to develop their ideas, and came women appear in any meaningful way. Yet this distinctly American school of archi­ drew me to Van Alen more than 20 years up with strategies that ranged from gardens to a land­ those boxes of fragile paper contain the tecture, Flagg and his colleagues wanted banking policy. 06 07 Fellowships at Van Alen Stephen Cassell Public Property transform the city itself. The first Van Alen was the competition served as a declaration of first major competition values: 1996’s Public Property: An Ideas launched under Competition for Governors Island chal­ the banner of lenged designers to show how the 172­acre the Van Alen Institute, and former military installation could become attracted teams an integral part of New York City’s public from around the life at a time when most New Yorkers never world to imagine the potential considered it at all.