On the 9th of April 1880, the Czech architect Jan Letzel was born in the town of Náchod, Bohemia. After succeeding as a prolific architect in Bohemia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Cairo, in 1907, he moved to live and work in Japan, where together with his friend, Karl Hora, he established his own Tokyo-based architectural […]
Category Archives: Architecture
Grete Schütte-Lihotzky: House Maker, Not Homemaker
posted by ArtLark
On the 18th of January 2000, Austria’s first female architect, Nazi resistance, as well as Marxist activist Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky died in Vienna five days before her 103rd birthday. Lihotzky became the first female student at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Vienna, where important modern artists such as Hoffmann, Hanak and Kokoschka were teaching. She obtained her place with difficulty, […]
Moisei Ginzburg’s Constructivist Architectural Utopia
posted by ArtLark
On the 7th of January 1946, Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg, one of the most celebrated constructivist architects in Soviet Russia, died in Moscow. He was the founder of the OSA Group (Organisation of Contemporary Architects), which promoted principles of constructivist architecture – a style combining advanced technology and engineering with socialist ideas. In 1928, OSA established […]
Cliff Palace and the Ancient Pueblo People
posted by ArtLark
On the 18th of December 1888, Richard Wetherill, explorer, guide and excavator to-be, along with his friend Charlie Mason, both cowboys from Mancos, found Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde after noticing the ruins from the top of the highland. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America, its structure built by the Ancient […]
Wassily Kandinsky: Architect of the Future of Art
posted by ArtLark
On the 13th of December 1944, Wassily Kandinsky, an influential Russian painter and art theorist, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. He has been credited with painting the first purely abstract work in the history of modern art. In the summer of 1922 he began teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where in the same year he […]
Disney’s Architectural Aspirations in EPCOT
posted by ArtLark
On the 16th of November 1965, Walt Disney announced that his company had acquired 27,443 acres of a Florida swampland, twice the size of Manhattan, where he had plans to build the utopian Epcot Center: Experimental Prototypical Community/City of Tomorrow. In his own words, “EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies […]
The Cracking Story of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling
posted by ArtLark
On the 1st of November 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was first unveiled for public view. Michelangelo, and his five assistants, worked on this gigantic artistic enterprise for about four years, yet they managed to include three hundred and thirty-six figures on this 40.5-metre long and 14-metre wide ceiling. According to certain mathematical […]
Christian Dior – Architect or Fashion Designer?
posted by ArtLark
On the 23rd of October 1957, Christian Dior died in Montecatini, Italy. His death was as sudden as his entry into the world of haute couture ten years earlier. At the beginning of 1947, Dior’s first collection changed the entire fashion world. After years of war asceticism, scarcity and rationing this collection brought hope for […]
Grand Designs: André Le Nôtre and the Gardens of Versailles
posted by ArtLark
On the 15th of September 1700, French landscape architect, and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France, André Le Nôtre died in Paris. Regarded as one of the greatest landscape designers of all time, Le Nôtre was responsible for the design and construction of such famous French gardens as Chantilly, Fontainebleau, Saint-Cloud, Saint-Germain, […]