News & Events

Forthcoming Lectures

Is Palladio Boring?

Guido Beltramini, Director, Centro Internazionale di Studi de Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza, and Kress Foundation Fellow, Italian Academy at Columbia University.

Monday 23 November, 2009
Taylor Hall Auditorium
Vassar College, 5:30 p.m.

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3.5 recent projects

Tobias Armborst, Architect and Urbanist, Vassar College, Department of Art and Urban Studies Program

Monday 30 November, 2009 Taylor Hall 203, 5:30 p.m.

Back to the Future: The New Vassar College Art Library

The Vassar College Art Library is a rare example of a complete early modernist interior from the pre-World War II period in the United States. Built in 1937, the interior was designed by John McAndrew, an architect as well as educator, who taught architectural history and drafting in the Vassar College Department of Art from 1931 to 1937.

The clarity, openness, and textured warmth of the space is in keeping with the American or what McAndrew termed a "naturalized" version of the machine style, which he would go on to promote in his role as Curator of the Department of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art between 1937 and 1942. The design also has elements in common with the streamline style of Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes. McAndrew's Art Department colleagues referred to this dynamic and forward-looking space as the expression of a new functionalism in architecture.

As a learning environment it was exactly that, an elegantly-crafted machine in which every surface, volume, and element was shaped and illuminated for the efficient appropriation of a knowledge of the history of art through group and individual study. McAndrew's space is now being carefully renovated to recover its original function through the introduction of new visualization technologies as well as through a restoration of the original interior on designs by another architect/educator, the late Paul Spencer Byard, and his partner Charles A. Platt, of the New York-based firm of Platt Byard Dovell White. To view a slideshow of the original space as it appeared in 1937, follow this link. For Quicktime VR panoramic images of the main reading room pre- and post-renovation, click here. For a pre-construction rendering by Paul Byard and Charles Platt, click here.

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