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The Philadelphia School
The Philadelphia School was a movement in architecture, city planning, and landscape architecture from 1951 to 1965 centered around the Graduate School of Fine Arts (GSFA) at the University of Pennsylvania [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pennsylvania ] (UPenn) in Philadelphia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia] Pennsylvania. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania ] The Philadelphia School was a unique convergence of city, practice, and education, all in renewal, under the leadership of Dean G. Holmes Perkins.
A note on names. The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, PA. It is not to be confused with Pennsylvania State University, a public, state-related, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, which also has an architecture school. Both are often called “Penn.” Thus the use of “UPenn” here. During the period under discussion the architecture school at UPenn was known as the Graduate School of Fine Arts (“GSFA”). It later became the School of Design of the University of Pennsylvania (shortened to PennDesign), and in 2019 it was renamed the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pennsylvania_School_of_Design] It essentially comprised architecture, city and regional planning, and landscape architecture, with some painting and sculpture. During the period under discussion and subsequently it added numerous urban related research initiatives.
The city of Philadelphia has numerous architectural traditions, including Federal and Georgian brick townhouses and Greek Revival public buildings of the 1700s in the area now known as Society Hill; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_Hill ] the muscular mannerist architecture of Frank Furness; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Heyling_Furness ] the Benjamin Franklin Parkway [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Parkway] and the Philadelphia Museum of Art [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Museum_of_Art]; and the PSFS Building, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSFS_Building] the first International Style [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Style_(architecture) ] skyscraper. But the term the Philadelphia School is usually used to refer to the period and movement under discussion here.
According to John Lobell, in The Philadelphia School and the Future of Architecture, during that time at the GSFA and in the architectural profession Louis Kahn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Kahn] was transforming modern architecture, Robert Venturi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Venturi ] was pioneering post modernism, Romaldo Giurgola [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaldo_Giurgola ] was applying continental philosophy to architectural theory, Robert Geddes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Geddes_(architect) ] was exploring social and psychological issues, Robert Le Ricolais was building experimental structures, August Komendant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Komendant] was pioneering pre-stressed, pre-cast and post tensioned concrete, Ian McHarg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_McHarg ] was questioning Western civilization and advancing urban and regional ecology, Herbert Gans [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans ] was moving into Levittown, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown ] and Denise Scott Brown [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Scott_Brown ] was bringing together European and American planning theory and discovering popular culture. And in the city of Philadelphia, Edmund Bacon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bacon_(architect) ] was directing the most active city planning commission in the country.[i]
By the 1950s American architecture was dominated by the International Style (identified for the United States in 1932 by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in their Modern Architecture: International Exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the accompanying book, The International Style) that was characterized by the glass and steel architecture of Mies van der Rohe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe ] and the white boxes of Le Corbusier. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier ] By the mid 1950s there was a feeling that this approach was inadequate. (The feeling was later expressed in a series of books on “the failure of modern architecture.”)[ii] While the Philadelphia School was fully modern (even Venturi insisted that he was a modern, not a postmodern architect), the Philadelphia School was in large part a corrective to the limitations of the International Style and a furthering of thinking about modern architecture.
Philadelphia School architectural theory included a renewed interest in history, a strong commitment to urbanism and the urban context, engagement with cultural and social issues, looking at popular culture, and understanding and serving the building’s institution.[iii]
Philadelphia School buildings were varied, but were generally characterized by a clarity of construction, structure as a giver of order, expression of mechanical equipment (HVAC), a preference for masonry and concrete over steel, an emphasis on plan rather than section, and an interest in geometries.[iv]
Some key Philadelphia School buildings and projects include the Trenton Bath House, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trenton_Bath_House ] Trenton NJ, 1959 by Louis Kahn; the Richards Medical Research Laboratories, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richards_Medical_Research_Laboratories ] Philadelphia, PA, 1957–60, by Kahn; the Salk Institute [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_Studies ], La Jolla, CA, 1962, by Kahn; the Pender Laboratories, Philadelphia, PA, 1958, by Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham; the Boston City Hall Competition Entry, 1962, by Romaldo Giurgola with Ehrman B. Mitchell and Thomas R. Vreeland, Jr.; and the Vanna Venturi House [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanna_Venturi_House ], Chestnut Hill, PA, by Venturi and Rauch, 1962.[v]
The first outside recognition came in an article by Jan Rowan in the April 1961 issue of the magazine Progressive Architecture titled “Wanting to Be The Philadelphia School.”[vi] It was followed by numerous publications. Philadelphia School architecture had a wide influence. We see Kahn’s strong forms in Philip Johnson’s 1972 addition to the Boston Public Library, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Public_Library ] and his articulation in the towers of I. M. Pei’s 1967 National Center for Atmospheric Research, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Atmospheric_Research ] among many other examples. Kahn’s exposed concrete and expression of construction both influenced and paralleled Brutalist architecture. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture ] Venturi’s use of historical (particularly classical) ornament can be seen in much postmodern architecture, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_architecture] including in the work of Robert A. M. Stern, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._M._Stern ] Philip Johnson, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnson ] Charles Moore, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Moore_(architect) ] and Michael Graves [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graves ] among others. Influence also came from the fact that many GSFA graduates went on to teach as well as to practice.[vii]
1. Backgrounds
1.1. Philadelphia
The Philadelphia School saw strong relationships between city of Philadelphia, the GSFA, and the architectural profession. Edmund Bacon, Director of the City Planning Commission, was part of the GSFA faculty; the dean of the GSFA, G. Holmes Perkins, was chairman of the City Planning Commission; several architects with practices in the city were teaching at the school and doing research and design projects for the Planning Commission; and most of the projects students did at the school were sited in the city. And the city, the school, and the profession were all undergoing renewal.
Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape ] The first European settlers were Dutch, but in 1681 the Quaker [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers] leader William Penn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn ] received a charter from the English king to establish the colony of Pennsylvania, although he also bought the land from the local Lenape to ensure peace. He established Philadelphia as its capital, laying it out with five squares, and although settlement was initially along the banks of the Delaware River, the plan was respected as the city expanded, and Penn’s five squares are still part of the city’s identity. [LOCATE ILLUS 2.1. NEAR HERE]
Philadelphia was the meeting place for the nation’s founders and became an industrial center and railroad hub in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After World War II, populations and affluence in Philadelphia and other old northeastern and mid-western cities peaked and then declined. A series of federal programs provided funding and legal powers for various forms of urban renewal.
The end of the war found Philadelphia in decay, both physically and politically with elevated railroad tracks penetrating the center of the city. A group of young Philadelphia civic leaders began to meet, including politicians Joseph Clark [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_S._Clark_Jr. ] and Richardson Dilworth; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Dilworth ] lawyers Wendell Phillips and Henry Sawyer; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_W._Sawyer ] and architects Edmund Bacon, Oscar Stonorov, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Stonorov#Career] and Louis Kahn, to envision a better future for the city, including the ouster of Philadelphia’s corrupt machine politicians. In 1952, the reformers won, Joseph Clark became the reform mayor and the City Planning Commission was given a new role.
Today the attractiveness of Philadelphia’s Center City, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_City,_Philadelphia ] Edmund Bacon’s creation, makes it one of our more livable cities, a tourist destination, and a desirable location for service industries. Its many universities, colleges, research institutions, and museums make it an educational center.
1.2. The University of Pennsylvania and the Graduate School of Fine Arts
The predecessor of UPenn was founded by Benjamin Franklin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin] in the mid 1700s and in 1791 it became the University of Pennsylvania. In 1765 it founded America’s first medical school, the first of its many professional and graduate programs. In the 1870s it moved to its current location in West Philadelphia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Philadelphia ] Its Department of Architecture was established in 1890 and came to wide attention under dean Warren Laird [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Powers_Laird ] (serving from 1891 to 1930) and Professor of Design, the Beaux-Arts master, Paul Philippe Cret [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Philippe_Cret] (serving from 1903 to 1929). Today UPenn is ranked by US News among the top fifteen universities in the world.[viii]
1.4. The architectural profession
During the period under discussion, Philadelphia also saw a renewal in the architectural profession. The city had had figures of architectural importance in the past: Frank Furness, Paul Philippe Cret, George Howe, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Howe_(architect) ] Oscar Stonorov, and Vincent Kling, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kling_(architect) ] among many others.
But in the 1960s, the city blossomed with new offices, some of which were to become major forces in American architecture and some headed by architects teaching at the GSFA: Louis Kahn; Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham; Mitchell/Giurgola; Venturi and various partners; Wallace, McHarg, Roberts, and Todd; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Roberts_%26_Todd ] etc. These offices put into practice the theories being developed at the school.
2. The renewal of Philadelphia
2.1. Bacon’s approach
The physical renewal of Philadelphia began with the 1947 Better Philadelphia Exhibition in Gimbels department store created by Edmund Bacon, Oscar Stonorov, Robert Mitchell, and Louis Kahn. The exhibit was huge, filled with maps, models, films, and light shows and was publicized throughout the country.[ix] [x]
Bacon, in his role as Executive Director of the City Planning Commission (from 1949 to 1970), had no power and only a tiny budget, so throughout his tenure, he used the power of ideas, including what he called “structuring the dialogue.” He retained architects to produce images of what could be and used those images to stimulate discussion. Thus projects would take on lives of their own, and some were competed years after they were initially proposed. [LOCATE ILLUS 2.2. NEAR HERE]
2.2. Penn Center
Main article: Penn Center, Philadelphia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Center,_Philadelphia]
Bacon’s first Center City project was Penn Center, a large area cleared when the Pennsylvania Railroad removed a section of tracks elevated on a massive stone structure designed by Frank Furness and known as the Chinese wall. Bacon initially hired Louis Kahn to develop images for the project, but they had a falling out and Bacon then retained Vincent Kling. The project aspired to be something like New York’s Rockefeller Center. Eventually, some uninspired office slabs were built. The Pennsylvania Railroad, not the City, owned the property, and the project provided Bacon with good training on how to persuade others.[xi] [xii] [LOCATE ILLUS 2.4. NEAR HERE]
2.3. Market East
The area to the east of City Hall [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall ] was dominated by
Philadelphia’s department stores, which were closing as the affluent moved to the suburbs. Bacon believed that Philadelphia could compete with its suburbs as a desirable place to shop and hired Romaldo Giurgola to produce an image of a new kind of urban shopping mall that eventually became Market East, a multilevel shopping mall stretching along Market Street [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Street_(Philadelphia) ] east of City Hall.[xiii] [xiv] In 1977 the Rouse Company [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rouse_Company] opened Gallery at Market Street, which was initially highly successful, but shopping eventually declined.[xv] [LOCATE ILLUS 2.5. NEAR HERE]
2.4. Society Hill
Main article: Society Hill [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_Hill]
Philadelphia was initially settled in its southeast quadrant, an area known as Society Hill that by the 1940s was a decaying slum. Under federal, state, and city programs old houses were restored and William Zeckendorf’s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Zeckendorf ] firm Webb and Knapp [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webb_and_Knapp ] created modern high-rise towers designed by I. M. Pei [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei ] that harmonized with the old architecture. Society Hill is a huge success; it is one of the nation’s more desirable (and therefore expensive) urban residential neighborhoods. The narrow streets lined with brick Federal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_architecture ] and Georgian [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture] style houses are charming, green walkways cut through blocks, and small squares frame Greek revival churches and public buildings.[xvi] [xvii] [LOCATE ILLUS 2.6. NEAR HERE]
2.5. Delaware Riverfront
The Delaware Riverfront was also in need of renewal. Bacon chose Robert Geddes to produce an image of what it could become. Geddes’s design included a tree-lined promenade and parking along the river bank, a boardwalk embarcadero and a tower at the end of Market Street marking the edge of the city.[xviii] [xix] [LOCATE ILLUS 2.7. NEAR HERE]
3. The Graduate School of Fine Arts
3.1. Paul Philippe Cret
Main Article: Paul Philippe Cret [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Philippe_Cret]
Paul Philippe Cret (October 23, 1876 – September 8, 1945) was a French-born Philadelphia architect and industrial designer educated at the École des Beaux-Arts. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_des_Beaux-Arts ] From 1903 to 1929 he taught a studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
Cret was a charismatic teacher. His success at UPenn can be measured objectively, as New York’s Beaux-Arts Institute of Design [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_Institute_of_Design ] sponsored competitions to which students in schools across the country submitted entries. During Cret’s tenure, UPenn students won the most prizes. [LOCATE ILLUS 3.1. NEAR HERE]
The Philadelphia School approach was a rejection of the Beaux-Arts, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_architecture ] but there was one holdover. The Beaux-Arts went beyond the use of Greek and Roman orders to also include a comprehensive approach to urbanism known as the City Beautiful Movement, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Beautiful_movement ] focused on bringing modern sanitation, light, and air; vast parks; tree-lined boulevards; monumental buildings for cultural institutions; and grand railroad stations to American cities. The Philadelphia School’s comprehensive approach to urbanism owes much to the City Beautiful Movement and to its prime document, Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnham_Plan_of_Chicago]
After Cret retired in 1929 the GSFA’s new dean, George Koyl (dean from 1932 to 1950), chose continue in the Beaux-Arts tradition despite the rise of modern architecture. (Frank Lloyd Wright’s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright ] Robie House [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robie_House ] was in 1909 and his Fallingwater [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater ] was in 1936. Mies van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Pavilion ] was in 1929. Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Savoye ] was in 1931.) In 1950 a group of former GSFA students met with UPenn’s president to ask for a change, leading to G. Holmes Perkins’s appointment as the new dean.[xx]
3.2. Hudnut at Harvard
Main article: Joseph Hudnut [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hudnut]
Perkins’s approach in introducing a modern architectural education was influenced by what Joseph Hudnut (1886–1968, dean of the Harvard’s Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) from 1936 to 1953), had done at Harvard. Hudnut attended Harvard and the University of Michigan, and after bringing modern architecture to Columbia University, he was invited to do the same at Harvard. At Harvard he had departments of architecture, city planning, and landscape architecture, an approach Perkins brought to the GSFA. Perkins had served as Hudnut’s chair of the city planning department at Harvard, while Walter Gropius, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Gropius ] founder of the Bauhaus, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus ] served as his chair of architecture.[xxi]
Hudnut disliked Gropius’s approach of beginning architectural education with basic design and Gropius’s approach to housing which produced slabs that negated the street, a point Jane Jacobs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs] later made in her book, Death and Life of Great American Cities.[xxii][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities ] Reacting to the sterility of modern architecture, Hudnut advocated for a richer postmodern architecture, although he never specified what that might be. The Philadelphia School might be seen as the architecture Hudnut was looking for.[xxiii]
3.3. G. Holmes Perkins’s vision
Perkins came to the GSFA with several intensions. First was to convert the school from a Beaux-Arts curriculum to a modern curriculum (as Hudnut had done at Harvard). Next was to establish landscape architecture and city planning departments and create a strong relationship between them and architecture. And finally to treat the city of Philadelphia as a laboratory for the testing and implementation of new ideas. Geddes remarked, “He actually saw the possibility of the city being the laboratory for architectural and planning education. In this case, it was Philadelphia. If he had been asked to be a dean in Chicago, he would have done it there. He saw the city as the laboratory. In fact, he saw it as the equivalent of a scientific laboratory for his fields.”[xxiv] [LOCATE ILLUS 3.3. NEAR HERE]
3.4. Programs
3.4.1. The unity of design
Perkins envisioned architecture, city planning, and landscape architecture as ideally becoming one discipline, although he realized that was unlikely. Martin Meyerson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Meyerson] (on the faculty at the GSFA and later president of UPenn) remarked, “I’d say that Holmes’s aim was to do better than Hudnut to make the ties between architecture, planning, and landscape real, to do it without the acrimony between Hudnut and Gropius. I think he pretty much succeeded.”[xxv]
3.4.2. Professional architecture program
When Perkins arrived in 1951, the architecture program at the GSFA was entered from high school, was five years, and offered a Bachelor of Architecture degree. By 1959 it had been converted to a three-year program requiring a college degree for entry and eventually offering a Master of Architecture degree.
The curriculum was conventional: Studio courses designing buildings culminating in an independently executed thesis project, supported by technical, history, and architecture and city planning theory courses. What was exceptional was the content of these courses and the faculty teaching them. The approach was comprehensive, looking at all aspects of architecture from pragmatic rather than ideological points of view, emphasizing the urban contexts within which buildings typically exist.
In the 1960s the four choices for studio were often Robert Geddes, Romaldo Giurgola, George Qualls, and Robert Venturi, each of whom taught with a junior, visiting, or rotating critic. Geddes was the most orthodox modern architect on the faculty, Giurgola explored artistic and philosophical ideas, Qualls explored large urban complexes, and Venturi explored many of the issues of developed in his book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.[xxvi]
The history theory courses included a history of art survey and a course in modern architecture taught by the art history department; an architecture and city planning course taught by Denise Scott Brown which looked at American and European planning theory; an architecture theory course taught by Robert Venturi which looked non-chronologically at various issues in architecture and contained some of the material which would appear in his book; and an architecture theory course taught by Romaldo Giurgola, that looked at theories of modernism in architecture and culture. The courses available as electives included art and architecture history courses taught by the art history department, Man Environment Systems by Ian McHarg, Experimental Structures by Robert le Ricolais, Advanced Structure by August Komendant, and History of Landscape Architecture by George Patton.[xxvii]
3.4.3. Kahn’s studio
In addition to its three-year professional architectural degree program, the GSFA had a non-professional one-year Master of Architecture program that featured a studio course taught by Louis Kahn with two colleagues, Norman Rice and Robert Le Ricolais. The program attracted students from around the world.[xxviii] [LOCATE ILLUS 3.17. NEAR HERE]
The studio was an important vehicle for Kahn to develop and express his architectural and philosophical ideas. In his 2015 book, Kahn at Penn, James Williamson wrote:
He was worshipped by some of his students as a prophet, or like “Merlin . . . a little old man with a thatch of winnowed hair and wistful blue eyes. . . . His world was the world of the fairies, gnomes and goblins whom he loved, and of magic. . . .” For these students the Master’s Class was enveloped in a “general sense of awe; the belief that we were witnessing something truly amazing, meaningful, in the total scheme of things.[xxix]
Many of Kahn’s students went on to have flourishing careers, and many also taught. Williamson feels that one of Kahn’s greatest influences was as a teacher of teachers.
3.4.4. Land and City Planning
Both landscape architecture and city planning had been part of the GSFA in the 1920s, but were dropped due to lack of enrollment during the Great Depression. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression ] At Harvard, Hudnut had sought (with limited success) to integrate architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning,[xxx] and when Perkins came from Harvard to UPenn, he brought that vision with him, hiring Robert Mitchell to build a new city planning department. The department focused on housing, transportation, modeling, land use, and theory; encouraged collaborations between the planners and architects; and built ties between the school and the city.[xxxi]
Ian McHarg recalled, “with [Lewis] Mumford, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford ] [Chester] Rapkin, [Herbert] Gans, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans ] [John] Dyckman, [Martin] Meyerson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Meyerson] [who later became UPenn’s president], Perkins, Bacon, [Charles] Abrams, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Abrams ] and then ultimately [Erwin R.] Gutkind, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Anton_Gutkind ] dear God, there was nobody else. Mitchell and [William] Wheaton had preempted effectively the entire leadership of the planning movement.”[xxxii] Other faculty included Britton Harris, Denise Scott Brown, Paul Davidoff, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davidoff ] and David Wallace. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Wallace][xxxiii]
3.4.5. Landscape Architecture
Perkins hired Ian McHarg (1920 – 2001), who had studied with him at Harvard, to create the GSFA’s landscape architecture program. McHarg challenged the domination of nature in Western culture, stating in 1957: “One of the most conspicuous failures of 20th century western society has been the environment created. Squalor and anarchy are more accurate descriptions than are efficiency and delight. This should cause no surprise when we consider that prevailing values esteem the ephemeral consumer product over landscape and townscape. Indeed the new yet obsolescent automobile or refrigerator are much more highly prized than the enduring social and physical environment. Despoliation of landscape and the accretion of ugliness are inevitable consequences of such prevailing values.”[xxxiv] [LOCATE ILLUS 3.4. NEAR HERE]
The department’s faculty included John Fogg, George Patton, George Tatum, and Anthony Walmsley. Guest critics included Douglass Bayliss, Garrett Eckbo, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Eckbo#Professional_work_and_philosophy ] Lawrence Halprin, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Halprin ] and Philip Johnson. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnson ] One of McHarg’s later appointments was Peter Shepherd, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Shepheard ] who succeeded Perkins as dean.[xxxv]
3.4.6. Civic Design
Architects typically focus on individual buildings, while city planners focus on social policy. Between the two are complexes of buildings, addressed by what is today usually called urban design, and what was called civic design at the GSFA. Perkins retained Clarence Stein [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Stein] to do a proposal for the department Civic Design, which Robert Geddes eventually headed.
3.4.7. Fine arts
When Perkins arrived in 1951, UPenn’s Graduate School of Fine Arts had little fine arts. Perkins hired Piero Dorazio [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Dorazio ] from Rome to build a department. Dorazio brought in David Smith, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith_(sculptor) ] Robert Motherwell, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Motherwell ] Barnett Newman, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman ] and others for crits.[xxxvi] In addition, Perkins launched the Institute of Contemporary Art [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Art,_Philadelphia ] at UPenn to feature the work of major artists.[xxxvii]
4. Philadelphia School Philosophy
Philadelphia School architectural philosophy included a renewed interest in history, a strong commitment to urbanism and the urban context, engagement with cultural and social issues, engagement with popular culture, and understanding and serving the building’s institution (found in the question Kahn would ask at the beginning of a new project, “What does this building want to be?”[xxxviii]).
Robert Geddes described this concern for cultural and urban context as “civic,” stating: “… it was a school that was learning from where it was. The key was that we agreed on the possibility of civic design. Instead of urban design which had been Josep Sert’s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Llu%C3%ADs_Sert ] idea at Harvard—he invented the idea of urban design—we worked toward civic design. Civic design has many many layers of meaning. You can have a civic design of a single building. You can have a civic design of objects. It all has to do with the sharing of career. It’s civic, it’s civil. And one of the joys of my life was that, by the time I got to be a full professor in this university, I could be a professor of architecture and civic design.”[xxxix]
5. Philadelphia School Buildings
Philadelphia School buildings were varied, but were generally characterized by a clarity of construction, structure as a giver of order, expression of mechanical equipment (HVAC), a preference for masonry and concrete over steel, an emphasis on plan rather than section, and an interest in geometries.
Some key Philadelphia School buildings and projects include the Trenton Bath House, Trenton NJ, 1959 by Louis Kahn; the Richards Medical Research Laboratories, Philadelphia, PA, 1957–60, by Kahn; the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA, 1962, by Kahn, the Pender Laboratories, Philadelphia, PA, 1958, by Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham; the Boston City Hall Competition Entry, 1962, by Romaldo Giurgola with Ehrman B. Mitchell and Thomas R. Vreeland, Jr.; and the Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, PA, by Venturi and Rauch, 1962.
6. Key Philadelphia School Figures
6.1. Edmund Bacon
Main article: Edmund Bacon (architect) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bacon_(architect)]
Edmund Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005) was born in Philadelphia and studied architecture in the Beaux-Arts tradition at Cornell University. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University ] After working in Shanghai, China, studying with Eliel Saarinen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliel_Saarinen ] at Cranbrook Academy of Art, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranbrook_Educational_Community#Cranbrook_Academy_of_Art ] and a stint as a city planner in Flint, Michigan, Bacon returned to Philadelphia in 1939 where he held several planning roles, culminating as Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970. [LOCATE ILLUS 2.3. NEAR HERE]
In the 1940s Bacon was part of a reform movement in the city and in 1952 they succeeded with the election of Joseph Clark as a reform mayor and the adoption of a new city charter providing a leadership role for the City Planning Commission and rationalizing the city’s operating and capital budgets.
As the City Planning Commission did not have real powers, Bacon used a strategy of creating proposals with strong images for a series of interrelated projects. These included Penn Center, with images by Vincent Kling; Market East, with images by Romaldo Giurgola; and the Delaware Riverfront with images by Robert Geddes. All of these were eventually realized, as was the renewal of Society Hill to become one of the most desirable urban residential areas in the country.
Besides his role as Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Bacon also taught a course on city planning at the GSFA which formed the basis of his book, Design of Cities[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_Cities ] (1967, revised 1976). The book is divided into a survey of the physical development of cities throughout history and a description of his approach to planning in Philadelphia.
Some of Bacon’s key ideas include:
Commitment to one place: Bacon served in various planning roles in Philadelphia from 1939 until his retirement in 1970, after which he remained a gadfly regarding urban issues.
Structuring the dialogue: a planner should neither impose a completed plan, nor survey users as to what they want (as they are not planners, they don’t know what is possible); rather a planner should put forward an image to which constituents can react and provide feedback. To explain this approach Bacon referred to Pope Sixtus V [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sixtus_V ] who created an image of connecting boulevards in Rome and placed a series of obelisks in key spots, leading to the completing of the connecting boulevards long after his death.[xl] Using this approach Bacon was able to initiate projects that were realized even after his retirement.
The urban whole: What is important in architecture is not single buildings but how buildings work together to create an urban whole.
The second man: Bacon presents the example of how Antonio da Sangallo the Elder [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_da_Sangallo_the_Elder ] and Baccio d’Agnolo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccio_d%27Agnolo ] subsumed their opportunity to be original and imitated Brunelleschi’s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi ] arcade for the Foundling Hospital [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital] in Florence [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence ] to create one of the great urban spaces. In Design of Cities, Bacon writes: “This design set the form of Piazza della Santissima Annunziata and established, in the Renaissance train of thought, the concept of a space created by several buildings designed in relation to one another. From this, the principle of the ‘second man’ can be formulated: it is the second who determines whether the creation of the first man will be carried forward or destroyed.”[xli]
6.2. Robert Geddes
Main article: Robert Geddes (architect) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Robert Geddes (December 7, 1923 – February 13, 2023) was born in Philadelphia and grew up in New Jersey. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He taught at the GSFA from 1951 to 1965, when he left to become Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University. [LOCATE ILLUS 5.11. NEAR HERE]
Geddes described Philadelphia School architecture as civic design, stating: “Civic design has many many layers of meaning. You can have a civic design of a single building. You can have a civic design of objects. It all has to do with the sharing of career. It’s civic, it’s civil. And one of the joys of my life was that, by the time I got to be a full professor in this university, I could be a professor of architecture and civic design.”[xlii]
Geddes’s interest in collaborating beyond architecture can be seen in a report he did in 1967 with Bernard Spring for the American Institute of Architects titled “A Study of Education for Environmental Design.” They write: “Emerging from the study was a process for planning and evaluating the unprecedented diversity of new programs that are needed if teams of well-educated individuals are to develop who can work together and effectively design a more humane environment.”[xliii]
In 1953 Geddes co-founded the firm Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham: Architects, which designed the first Philadelphia School building to be completed on the UPenn campus, the Pender Laboratories, an addition to the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. The building’s exposed pre-cast and cast-in-place concrete and brick typified Philadelphia School architecture. [LOCATE ILLUS 5.12. NEAR HERE]
In the mid 1960s Geddes collaborated with Dr. Humphry Osmond [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Osmond] who advocated that the arrangement of spaces in architecture could enhance mental health, an approached Geddes’s students used in a project in his studio and Geddes used in the plan of his Residence Hall Group for the University of Delaware that recall the plan of Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage.[xliv] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.14. NEAR HERE]
6.3. Romaldo Giurgola
Main article: Romaldo Giurgola [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaldo_Giurgola]
Romaldo “Aldo” Giurgola (2 September 1920 – 16 May 2016) was born in Rome, served in the Italian armed forces during World War II, and was educated at the Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Rome, and Columbia University. In 1954 Dean Perkins recruited Giurgola from Cornell University to teach a studio and a theory course at the GSFA. [LOCATE ILLUS 3.13. NEAR HERE]
Giurgola’s theory course focused on the development of architectural theory from 1750 until today. The course addressed schools (the École des Beaux-Arts and the École Polytechnique [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_polytechnique] ); movements (Beaux-Arts, Art Nouveau, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau ] Bauhaus, etc.); utopian visions, the industrial city, and new towns (Fourier, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier ] Owen, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Owen_(architect) ] Garnier, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Garnier_(architect) [ Howard, Le Corbusier, Wright); the impact of developments in other fields, including Einstein’s theory of relativity [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity], Cubism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism], Futurism, phenomenology; and cultural, psychological, symbolic, functionalist, linguistic, and spatial approaches to architecture. The course was early to apply phenomenology and linguistics to architecture.[xlv]
In 1958 Giurgola formed the firm Mitchell/Giurgola Architects with Ehrman B. Mitchell. Their 1963 Walnut 32 Parking Garage near the UPenn campus featured massive Y-shaped concrete members and exemplifies the Philadelphia School emphasis on structure. [LOCATE ILLUS 5.16. NEAR HERE]
The Boston City Hall Competition Entry, 1962, by Romaldo Giurgola with Ehrman B. Mitchell and Thomas R. Vreeland, Jr. would have been one of the most important Philadelphia School buildings, but it did not win and was not built. The April 1963 issue of the magazine Progressive Architecture featured it along with the winner, stating: “No one can deny, however, that this design team has succeeded, as they set out to do, in making their new City Hall ‘an intimate part of the restructurization of the area, and not an isolated monument.’ In this, many believe, the design surpasses the winner.”[xlvi] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.17. NEAR HERE]
Giurgola left the GSFA in 1965 to become chair of architecture at Columbia, and moved to Australia after winning a competition to do a new Australian parliament building in Canberra.
Giurgola’s concern with the deep search can be seen in his remark, “People are born in, live in, and die in our buildings.”[xlvii]
6.4. Louis Kahn
Main article: Louis Kahn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Kahn]
Louis Kahn (March 5 [O.S. February 20] 1901 – March 17, 1974) was born in Estonia and was brought to Philadelphia at the age of five. He studied architecture at UPenn from 1920 to 1924 under the Beaux-Arts master, Paul Philip Cret. After some years of lack of focus in his architecture, in 1959 Kahn designed the Trenton Bath House about which he later said: “From this came a generative force which is recognizable in every building which I have done since.” The building exhibited a strong geometry and rather than hiding the structure, used it to define the architectural order. Geddes remarked, “The evening Lou presented the Trenton Community Center, there was a feeling of being at the absolute frontier of architecture.”[xlviii] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.5. NEAR HERE] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.6. NEAR HERE]
In 1957 Kahn moved his teaching from Yale University to UPenn, and from 1957 to 1965 his Richards Medical Research Laboratories was constructed on the UPenn campus. The buildings attracted world-wide attention including a one-building-exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It separated the pavilions for the laboratories from the service spaces, exposed its precast, prestressed, post tensioned concrete structure, and pulled its HVAC ducts to the exterior of the building in brick clad concrete towers.[xlix] Thus the building was highly articulate in contrast to the smooth surfaces of the International Style typical of the time and exemplified by Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building of 1958, about which Kahn remarked: “Take the beautiful tower made of bronze that was erected in New York. It is a bronze lady, incomparable in beauty, but you know she has corsets for fifteen stories because the wind bracing is not seen.”[l] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.7. NEAR HERE] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.9. NEAR HERE]
Jonas Salk saw a presentation of Richards and commissioned Kahn to do his Salk Institute in La Jolla, California (1959–1965) which drew much positive attention. The Salk Institute corrected key limitations of Richards, including making the laboratory spaces more contiguous, providing overhangs for protection from the sun, giving mechanical equipment in the ceiling its own spaces, and providing clearly separate spaces for the scientists’ studies.[li]
Kahn described his architecture in spiritual and poetic terms, often using “Silence” and “Light” as metaphors, stating:
Inspiration is the feeling of beginning at the threshold where Silence and Light meet. Silence, the unmeasurable, desire to be, desire to express, the source of new need, meets Light, the measurable, giver of all presence, by will, by law, the measure of things already made, at a threshold which is inspiration, the sanctuary of art, the Treasury of Shadow. I likened the emergence of Light to a manifestation of two brothers, knowing quite well that there are not two brothers, nor even one.[lii]
Kahn would famously begin a project by asking, “What does this building want to be?” By attributing “wanting” to something that is inanimate and does not exist, Kahn is asserting that there is a realm of potential (Kahn’s Silence) and that there is an “existence will.”
The GSFA had a non-professional one-year Master of Architecture program that featured a studio course taught by Louis Kahn accompanied by two of his colleagues, Norman Rice and Robert le Ricolais.
Kahn was regarded as the spiritual head of the GSFA and it was assumed that when it got a new building (which was needed because the school had outgrown its long-time home), he would design it. However, the UPenn administration vetoed that possibility due to what it regarded as less than professional performance by Kahn’s office in the design of Richards. Another architect was chosen for the new building, leading to a dispiriting in the school and contributing to the ending of the Philadelphia School.[liii]
6.5. August Komendant
Main article: August Komendant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Komendant]
August Komendant (October 2, 1906 – September 14, 1992) was an Estonian and American structural engineer who attended the Technical Institute in Dresden, Germany. He was a pioneer of pre-cast, pre-stressed, and post-tensioned concrete and was Louis Kahn’s engineer on Richards and many of his subsequent buildings. He was also the engineer for the 1962 Philadelphia Police Administration Building by Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham and two parking garages near the UPenn campus by Giurgola. Komendant was also the engineer for Moshe Safdie’s 1967 Habitat 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Komendant taught a course in advanced structures at the GSFA and was usually present on Kahn’s juries.
6.6. Robert le Ricolais
Robert le Ricolais (1894–1977) was born in western France. His formal studies in mathematics and physics were interrupted by World War I and were never completed. Le Ricolais had a widely ranging mind exploring structures in nature and pursuing a range of engineering issues. At the GSFA he taught the Masters Studio with Louis Kahn and Norman Rice and Experimental Structures, a course exploring bone structure, radiolaria, the topology of surfaces, and structures that combined tension and compression using non-quantitative mathematical analysis, always reaching for “zero weight, infinite span.” [LOCATE ILLUS 3.15 NEAR HERE] [LOCATE ILLUS 3.16. NEAR HERE]
6.7. Ian McHarg
Main article: Ian McHarg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_McHarg]
Ian L. McHarg (20 November 1920 – 5 March 2001) was born in Scotland and served as a parachute combat commander during World War II. He attended the Graduate School of Design at Harvard where he was a student of Perkins and where he received degrees in landscape architecture and city planning in 1949. Perkins invited McHarg to create a landscape architecture department at the GSFA.
McHarg’s notion of landscape architecture went beyond gardens, stating in 1957: “One of the most conspicuous failures of 20th century western society has been the environment created. Squalor and anarchy are more accurate descriptions than are efficiency and delight. This should cause no surprise when we consider that prevailing values esteem the ephemeral consumer product over landscape and townscape. Indeed the new yet obsolescent automobile or refrigerator are much more highly prized than the enduring social and physical environment. Despoliation of landscape and the accretion of ugliness are inevitable consequences of such prevailing values.”[liv] Thus McHarg announced that his program would be questioning Western civilization and advancing urban and regional ecology.
One of McHarg’s courses was Man and Environment, which had weekly guests including Ray Birdwhistell, Ed Deevey, Julian Huxley, Robert MacArthur, Jack McCormick, Margaret Mead, Lewis Mumford, Paul Sears, Paul Tillich, and Alan Watts, among many others.[lv]
Two of his courses, History of Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecology became the basis of his 1969 book Design with Nature in which he presents nature as process and advocates that we need not just clean up the environment, but that we need to develop a totally new mode of living, thus anticipating deep ecology[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology]. He writes: “Clearly the problem of man and nature is not one of providing a decorative background for the human play, or even ameliorating the grim city: it is the necessity of sustaining nature as source of life, milieu, teacher, sanctum, challenge and, most of all, of rediscovering nature’s corollary of the unknown in the self, the source meaning.”[lvi] Lewis Mumford compared its importance for the environment to the works of Thoreau and Rachel Carson. Today Design with Nature is on Amazon’s lists of the top 100 books on landscape architecture, urban and land use planning, and architecture.
McHarg’s advocacy for the environment extended beyond the school and included numerous media appearances, including his own television show on CBS in 1960. He was a co-founder of Earth Day. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day]
McHarg co-founded the firm Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT) which produced major urban design and environmental projects.
6.8. Stanislawa Nowicki
Stanislawa (Sasha) Nowicki (c. 1915– 2018) was born in Poland, studied at Warsaw Polytechnic Institute, and worked for Le Corbusier. She taught at North Carolina State University and was recruited to the GSFA by Dean Perkins in 1951. Perkins remarked, “Lewis Mumford told me that Sasha was someone I must have. Getting her was a coup; she could well have been the best teacher we had.”[lvii] Nowicki’s approach was rigorous, intended to train a disciplined hand and a critical eye and to instill design judgment. [LOCATE ILLUS 3.5. NEAR HERE]
6.9. G. Holmes Perkins
G. (George) Holmes Perkins (1904–2004) was born in Cambridge, MA, attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard where he studied chemistry and then architecture. He taught architecture at the University of Michigan and returned to Harvard to chair the city planning department while Walter Gropius chaired architecture under dean Joseph Hudnut. In 1951 he became dean of the GSFA with a mandate to convert it from a Beaux-Arts to a modern curriculum and the ability to fully replace the faculty, enabling him to make twenty-two new faculty appointments in his first two years.[lviii] [lix] [lx]
Perkins’s brilliance was his ability to pick young faculty who would develop into strong figures. Peter Shepard, who followed Perkins as dean, observed: “Holmes’s virtue was not to try and find people whom he agreed with. He didn’t care what they were talking about as long as they had what I call steerage-way; they had full sail, they had their hand on the tiller, and they knew where they were going. They had their own direction. What Holmes seemed to enjoy, actually—strange because he was such a pacific man—he seemed to enjoy the lovely arguments.”[lxi]
Besides his role as dean of the GSFA, Perkins was also Chairman of the City Planning Commission, and he served in numerous other civic roles, helping cement the relationship between the school, the city, and the profession. He saw the city as a laboratory for implementing the ideas under development in the school. Geddes stated: “... the intention to have ... the Philadelphia School, was due to one person, G. Holmes Perkins. When Holmes Perkins came here to the University of Pennsylvania, he came with this intention.... Holmes Perkins did one more thing that was remarkable. He actually saw the possibility of the city being the laboratory for architectural and planning education. In this case, it was Philadelphia. If he had been asked to be a dean in Chicago, he would have done it there.”[lxii]
Perkins’s envisioned a strong relationship between architecture, city and regional planning, and landscape architecture, even hoping that they might become one profession, and he arranged for students in the three disciples to share the same first year studio, although that arrangement did not last.[lxiii]
Perkins was both dean of the GSFA and chair of undergraduate architecture and controlled the curriculum, encouraging philosophical discussion among the faculty. Robert Geddes states: “There was sense that a new architecture and a new urban design was evolving. It was unselfconscious and was not looking elsewhere, except, to Corbu and Mies. We didn’t go elsewhere to see what was happening; people came to Philadelphia, including Smithson, van Eyck [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_van_Eyck], and Bakema [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaap_Bakema].”[lxiv]
6.10. Denise Scott Brown
Main article: Denise Scott Brown [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Scott_Brown]
Denise Scott Brown was born Denise Lakofski in Rhodesia in 1931 and studied in South Africa before going to England where she studied at the Architectural Association and where she met Robert Scott Brown whom she married in 1955. They both went to Philadelphia to study at the GSFA where Robert Scott Brown was killed in an automobile accident in 1959. Denise continued her studies at the GSFA, began to teach there, and became friends with Robert Venturi, also on the faculty. She sought to serve the GSFA’s goal of relating architecture and city planning by teaching basic design to city planning students and city planning to architecture students. She joined together European and American planning theory and began an interest in popular culture. Her theory course addressed “Contemporary theories with special attention to their relevance to current professional problems in the design of the urban environment.”[lxv][LOCATE ILLUS 3.12. NEAR HERE]
Scott Brown explored popular culture, publishing “On Pop Art, Permissiveness and Planning” in 1969 in which she identified popular culture as a source of contemporary meaning. While Venturi’s references to pop art were to Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Scott Brown’s was to Edward Ruscha’s paintings of gas stations and photographs of Los Angeles parking lots.
Scott Brown left the GSFA in 1965 and taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles. During this time she photographed the Southwest, particularly Los Angeles and Las Vegas, a project that eventually lead to the book Learning From Las Vegas which she coauthored with Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi married in 1967 and she joined his firm in 1969. In 1989 the firm became Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates.
Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, are regarded as among the most influential architects of the twentieth century, both through their architecture and planning, and theoretical writing and teaching.
6.11. Anne Tyng
Main article: Anne Tyng [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Tyng]
Anne Griswold Tyng (July 14, 1920 – December 27, 2011) studied at Radcliffe and Harvard. She worked with Louis Kahn and contributed to the geometric forms of some of his projects, including his Trenton Bath House, early versions of his Bryn Mawr Dorm, and particularly their City Tower of 1952-’57. Tyng brought together Carl Jung [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung ] and geometry in a theory of the evolution of culture and conscious and played a major role in the Philadelphia School’s interest in geometries.[lxvi] [LOCATE ILLUS 5.1. NEAR HERE]
6.12. Robert Venturi
Main article: Robert Venturi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Venturi]
Robert Venturi (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was born in Philadelphia into a family with an Italian background and was raised as a Quaker. He studied architecture at Princeton University in the Beaux-Arts tradition under Jean Labatut [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Labatut_(architect)]. He worked briefly for Eero Saarinen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinen ] and Louis Kahn and was awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Prize ] at the American Academy in Rome [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_in_Rome] in 1954, where he studied and toured Europe for two years photographing and gathering some of the material that later appeared in his book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and in his course at the GSFA, Theories of Architecture. [LOCATE ILLUS 3.14. NEAR HERE]
He taught at the GSFA from 1959 to 1965, primarily a design studio and a lecture course, Theories of Architecture, which consisted of:
… architectural analysis and historical comparison employed as tools of criticism and techniques in the architect’s design process. Its method is the breaking up of architecture into Vitruvian [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius ] elements, and further, into alternating considerations, concrete and abstract, conceptual and perceptual; of the juxtaposition of the ideas of site and background, structure and form, material and texture, use and space-movement-light-scale, and the elements of composition—for the purpose of analysis. Fragmented elements are evolved from specific examples: contemporary and historical examples are compared non-chronologically.[lxvii]
Venturi’s 1966 book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, was one of the first challenges to modern architecture, arousing a storm of controversy. In it he advocates for “the difficult whole,” and champions then forgotten figures such as Frank Furness, Edwin Lutyens [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Lutyens], and John Soane [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane]. Venturi also referred to Italian mannerism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerism ] and to pop art [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art]. And he advocated for the messy vitality of the American landscape, writing: “... is not Main Street almost all right? Indeed, is not the commercial strip of a Route 66 almost all right?”[lxviii] Venturi later develop this thought in Learning From Las Vegas [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_from_Las_Vegas ] which he coauthored with Denise School Brown and Steven Izenour [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Izenour].
His design of a house for his mother, the Vanna Venturi House of 1964 in Philadelphia, was another assault on modern architecture with its sloped roof, broken pediment, applied ornament, and mannerist perversities. [LOCATE ILLUS 5.28. NEAR HERE]
Venturi’s other work during this period include renovations of the James B. Duke House, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Robert Venturi, Cope and Lippincott, Associated Architects in 1959. Here, he leaves intact all of the original interiors, an approach now referred to as historic preservation.[lxix] A project for a Beach House in 1959, reaching back to the Shingle Style [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingle_style_architecture] Low House [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Low_House ] rather than to European modernism.[lxx] [lxxi] Renovations for Grands restaurant in West Philadelphia with William Short in 1962. The giant coffee cup on the façade reintroduced signs into modern architecture. The long narrow space is mannerist, the sides of the booths are minimalist sculptures [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism], the repeated sugar shakers and catsup bottles on each table celebrate boring repetition, and the giant lettering on the wall introduced supergraphics.[lxxii]
Venturi felt himself to be the “black sheep” of the faculty and left the GSFA in 1965 due to what he felt was a lack of support.[lxxiii]
7. End of the Philadelphia School
There were three contributors to the ending of the Philadelphia School: faculty leaving, Kahn not designing the school’s new building, and campus unrest. Robert Geddes dates the ending of the Philadelphia School as 1965 with the departure of numerous faculty to take leadership roles at other architecture schools. Geddes left to become dean of architecture at Princeton University, Timothy Vreeland to become dean at the University of New Mexico, Gerald A. P. Carrothers became dean at York University, and David Crane dean at Rice University. Romaldo Giurgola became chair of architecture at Columbia University. Rapkin and Gans also went to Columbia. Venturi left because of what he felt was a lack of support and Scott Brown left to teach in California. Perkins later observed that he could have responded better to this loss if he had been younger and more in touch with architects across the country.[lxxiv]
The school had outgrown its building and it was assumed the Kahn would design a new building, but he was blocked from any more buildings on the campus due to what the university administration felt was less than professional work on the Richards Medical Research Laboratories. The rejection led to a wide feeling of bitterness in the school.[lxxv]
The late 1960s brought upheavals on college campuses, including at UPenn. The Book of the School remarks, “There was excitement, anger, resentment, challenge, innovation—in sum, a time of stimulating turbulence, though it may not have seemed so to all of the faculty.”[lxxvi]
8. Recognition and Influence
Recognition of the Philadelphia School and some of its key figures was uneven, perhaps in part because it was in Philadelphia rather than in New York which was at the time the center for architectural practice and publications.
The first outside recognition came in an article by Jan Rowan in the April 1961 issue of the magazine Progressive Architecture titled “Wanting to Be The Philadelphia School.”[lxxvii](“Wanting to be” came from Louis Kahn’s asking, “What does this building want to be?” at the start of a project.) Also in 1961 New York’s Museum of Modern Art presented an exhibit of Kahn’s Richards Laboratories.[lxxviii]
In 1962 the prominent architectural historian, Vincent Scully, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Scully] published Louis I. Kahn, the first survey of Kahn’s work. It has been followed by dozens of books on his architecture, and several books on his drawings, his structural technology, and his philosophy.
In 1965 several Philadelphia School figures, including Kahn, Venturi, and Giurgola, were covered in the Yale Architectural Journal, Perspecta 9/10, edited by Robert A. M. Stern.[lxxix]
In 1966 Stern included Venturi and Giurgola in 40 Under 40, an exhibit at the Architectural League of New York.
Also in 1966 the Museum of Modern Art published Robert Venturi’s book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, with an introduction by Arthur Drexler, Curator of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, and an extensive introduction by Vincent Scully.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was hugely controversial, drawing numerous negative reviews, including one by the architectural editor, Peter Blake, in Architectural Forum.[lxxx] Venturi followed up with Learning from Las Vegas, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_from_Las_Vegas ] coauthored with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, and with several collections of his essays. There have been dozens of books about his firms’ architecture.
Today the major Philadelphia School figures are widely respected, with Wikipedia stating about several of them:
Louis Kahn: “At the time of his death he was considered by some as ‘America’s foremost living architect.’“ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Kahn]
Robert Venturi: “... one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Venturi]
Denise Scott Brown: “Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, are regarded as among the most influential architects of the twentieth century, both through their architecture and planning, and theoretical writing and teaching.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Scott_Brown]
Romaldo Giurgola: “In 1982, he was awarded the AIA Gold Medal by the American Institute of Architects.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaldo_Giurgola#Honours_and_awards]
Edmund Bacon: “... his visions shaped today’s Philadelphia, the city in which he was born, to the extent that he is sometimes described as ‘The Father of Modern Philadelphia’.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bacon_(architect)]
Ian McHarg: “McHarg was one of the most influential persons in the environmental movement who brought environmental concerns into broad public awareness and ecological planning methods into the mainstream of landscape architecture, city planning and public policy.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_McHarg]
Similar laudatory comments can be found elsewhere about other Philadelphia School figures, including G. Holmes Perkins, Robert Geddes, August Komendant Robert Le Ricolais, Stanislawa Nowicki, etc.
Philadelphia School architecture had a wide influence. We see Kahn’s strong forms in Philip Johnson’s 1972 addition to the Boston Public Library, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Public_Library ] and his articulation in the towers of I. M. Pei’s 1967 National Center for Atmospheric Research, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Atmospheric_Research ] among many other examples. Kahn’s exposed concrete and expression of construction both influenced and paralleled Brutalist architecture. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture ] Venturi’s use of historical (particularly classical) ornament can be seen in much postmodern architecture, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_architecture] including in the work of Robert A. M. Stern, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._M._Stern ] Philip Johnson, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnson ] Charles Moore, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Moore_(architect) ] and Michael Graves [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graves ] among others. Influence also came from the fact that many GSFA graduates went on to teach as well as to practice.[lxxxi]
Note: For permission to use images form The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, and for a high-resolution file, contact the Archives: https://www.design.upenn.edu/architectural-archives/home.
[i] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 1.
[ii] Books attacking modern architecture include: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, by Robert Venturi, 1964. The Failure of Modern Architecture, by Brent C. Brolin, 1976. Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn’t Worked, by Peter Blake, 1977. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, by Charles Jencks, 1977. From Bauhaus to Our House, by Tom Wolfe, 1981. The Decorated Diagram: Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the Bauhaus Legacy, by Klaus Herdeg, 1983.
[iii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 77.
[iv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 117-121
[v] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 121-143.
[vi] Rowan, Jan, “Wanting to Be the Philadelphia School,” Progressive Architecture, April 1961, pp. 130–163.
[vii] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
[viii] 2022-2023 Best Global Universities Rankings. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings
[ix] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 46-53.
[x] “Philadelphia Plans Again,” Architectural Forum, December 1947, pp. 65–88.
[xi] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 274-282.
[xii] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 89-115.
[xiii] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 284-287.
[xiv] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 136-151.
[xv] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 140-148.
[xvi] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 296-297.
[xvii] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, p. 117-136.
[xviii] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 298-301.
[xix] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, p. 134-136.
[xx] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 131.
[xxi] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, pp. 64-85.
[xxii] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, pp. 144, 162.
[xxiii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 85.
[xxiv] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 178.
[xxv] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 134.
[xxvi] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 59.
[xxvii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 42-63.
[xxviii] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
[xxix] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. 271.
[xxx] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, p. 61-64.
[xxxi] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139
[xxxii] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139.
[xxxiii] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139.
[xxxiv] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 139-140.
[xxxv] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 140.
[xxxvi] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 142.
[xxxvii] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 142-143.
[xxxviii] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, p. 5.
[xxxix] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 179.
[xl] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. xx.
[xli] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 109.
[xlii] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 179.
[xliii] Geddes, Robert and Spring, Bernard, “A Study of Education for Environmental Design,” p. 1.
[xliv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 53.
[xlv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 58-59.
[xlvi] “Runner-Up in the Boston City Hall Competition,” Progressive Architecture, April 1963, p. 152.
[xlvii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 10.
[xlviii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 38.
[xlix] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, pp. 77-90.
[l] https://www.binubalakrishnanarchitects.com/blog/post/67/TRAVEL_Seagram_Building_New_York
Original text from "Voice of america - Louis Kahn. Recorded November 19, 1960.
[li] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, p. 107.
[lii] Lobell, John, Between Silence and Light, p. 20.
[liii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 72.
[liv] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 139–140.
[lv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 103.
[lvi] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 19.
[lvii] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 136.
[lviii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 37-38.
[lix] Perkins, Philadelphia Architects and Buildings.
[lx] Perkins, University of Pennsylvania Almanac.
[lxi] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 135.
[lxii] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 178.
[lxiii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 41.
[lxiv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 38.
[lxv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 55-56.
[lxvi] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 5, 119.
[lxvii] From Venturi’s course syllabus, quoted in Lobell, The Philadelphia School, pp. 59-60.
[lxviii] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 104.
[lxix] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 107.
[lxx] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 108.
[lxxi] Scully, Vincent, The Shingle Style Today, pp. 1, 43.
[lxxii] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 112.
[lxxiii] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 52.
[lxxiv] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 72-73.
[lxxv] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 145.
[lxxvi] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 146.
[lxxvii] Rowan, Jan, “Wanting to Be the Philadelphia School,” Progressive Architecture, April 1961, pp. 130–163.
[lxxviii] https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2556
[lxxix] Perspecta 9/10, the Yale Architectural Journal. Edited by Robert A. M. Stern, 1965.
[lxxx] Blake, Peter, “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,” Architectural Forum 126, June 1967, p. 98.
[lxxxi] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 1.
[1] Books attacking modern architecture include: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, by Robert Venturi, 1964. The Failure of Modern Architecture, by Brent C. Brolin, 1976. Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn’t Worked, by Peter Blake, 1977. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, by Charles Jencks, 1977. From Bauhaus to Our House, by Tom Wolfe, 1981. The Decorated Diagram: Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the Bauhaus Legacy, by Klaus Herdeg, 1983.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 77.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 117-121
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 121-143.
[1] Rowan, Jan, “Wanting to Be the Philadelphia School,” Progressive Architecture, April 1961, pp. 130–163.
[1] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
[1] 2022-2023 Best Global Universities Rankings. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 46-53.
[1] “Philadelphia Plans Again,” Architectural Forum, December 1947, pp. 65–88.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 274-282.
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 89-115.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 284-287.
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 136-151.
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, pp. 140-148.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, pp. 296-297.
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, p. 117-136.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 298-301.
[1] Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon, p. 134-136.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 131.
[1] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, pp. 64-85.
[1] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, pp. 144, 162.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 85.
[1] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 178.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 134.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 59.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 42-63.
[1] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
[1] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. 271.
[1] Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism, p. 61-64.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 138-139.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 139-140.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 140.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 142.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 142-143.
[1] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, p. 5.
[1] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 179.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. xx.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 109.
[1] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 179.
[1] Geddes, Robert and Spring, Bernard, “A Study of Education for Environmental Design,” p. 1.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 53.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 58-59.
[1] “Runner-Up in the Boston City Hall Competition,” Progressive Architecture, April 1963, p. 152.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 10.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 38.
[1] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, pp. 77-90.
[1] https://www.binubalakrishnanarchitects.com/blog/post/67/TRAVEL_Seagram_Building_New_York
Original text from "Voice of america - Louis Kahn. Recorded November 19, 1960.
[1] Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, p. 107.
[1] Lobell, John, Between Silence and Light, p. 20.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 72.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, pp. 139–140.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 103.
[1] Bacon, Edmund N., Design of Cities, p. 19.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 136.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 37-38.
[1] Perkins, Philadelphia Architects and Buildings.
[1] Perkins, University of Pennsylvania Almanac.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 135.
[1] Geddes, Robert, “The Philadelphia School,” talk transcribed in The Philadelphia School, by Lobell, p. 178.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 41.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 38.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 55-56.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 5, 119.
[1] From Venturi’s course syllabus, quoted in Lobell, The Philadelphia School, pp. 59-60.
[1] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 104.
[1] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 107.
[1] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 108.
[1] Scully, Vincent, The Shingle Style Today, pp. 1, 43.
[1] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, p. 112.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, p. 52.
[1] Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School, pp. 72-73.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 145.
[1] Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School, p. 146.
[1] Rowan, Jan, “Wanting to Be the Philadelphia School,” Progressive Architecture, April 1961, pp. 130–163.
[1] https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2556
[1] Perspecta 9/10, the Yale Architectural Journal. Edited by Robert A. M. Stern, 1965.
[1] Blake, Peter, “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,” Architectural Forum 126, June 1967, p. 98.
[1] Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn, p. xx.
References
editReferences
The Architectural Forum, Volume 87, Number 6, December 1947.
Bacon, Edmund N. Design of Cities (Viking Press, January 1, 1967) ASIN: B001NBO6YG (Revised Edition: New York, NY: Penguin Publishing Group 1976. ISBN-10: 0140042369, ISBN-13: 978-0140042368)
Bacon, Edmund N. Form, Design, and the City (1962) A film presented by the Reynolds Metals Company in cooperation with the American Institute of Architects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GGqSkDXOSg
Burnham, Daniel and Bennett, Edward H., Plan of Chicago (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993, reprint of the 1909 original). ISBN-10 : 1878271415, ISBN-13 : 978-1878271419
"G. Holmes Perkins, Dean & Architect," obituary in the University of Pennsylvania Almanac, September 7, 2004, Volume 51 Number 2. https://almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volumes/v51/n02/death_ghp.html
Geddes, Robert L. and Spring, Bernard P., “A Study of Education for Environmental Design” (Sponsored by the American Institute of Architects, 1967).
Geddes, Robert L., “The Philadelphia School,” talk given at the University of
Pennsylvania, 2017. Transcript Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School and the Future of Architecture
Heller, Gregory L., Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). ISBN-10 : 0812223594, ISBN-13 : 978-0812223590
Lobell, John and Kahn, Louis, Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn (Boston, MA. Shambhala, September 9, 2008; 2nd edition (September 9, 2008) ISBN-10 : 9781590306048, ISBN-13 : 978-1590306048
Lobell, John, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy (New York, NY: 2020), ISBN-10 : 1580935281, ISBN-13 : 978-1580935289
Lobell, John, The Philadelphia School and the Future of Architecture (Routledge Research in Architecture, August 5, 2022) ISBN-10 : 1032015233, ISBN-13 : 978-1032015231
McHarg, Ian L., Design with Nature (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969.) ISBN-10 : 047111460X, ISBN-13 : 978-0471114604
Pearlman, Jill, Inventing American Modernism: Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus Legacy at Harvard (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007). ISBN-10 : 0813926025, ISBN-13 : 978-0813926025
Rowan, Jan, “Wanting to Be the Philadelphia School,” in Progressive Architecture (April 1961).
“Runner-Up in the Boston City Hall Competition: Romaldo Giurgola, Elirinan B.
Mitchell, and Thomas R. Vreeland, Jr.,” in Progressive Architecture (April 1963).
Scully, Vincent, The Shingle Style Today: Or The Historian's Revenge (New York, NY: George Braziller Inc., 1974) ISBN-10 : 0807607606, ISBN-13 : 978-0807607602
Strong, Ann L. and Thomas, George E., eds., The Book of the School: 100 Years, The Graduate School of Fine Arts the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 1990) ISBN-10 : 9991482474, ISBN-13 : 978-9991482477
Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York, NY:
Museum of Modern Art, 1966, 1977). ISBN-10 : 0870702823, ISBN-13 : 978-0870702822
Venturi, Robert, Scott Brown, Denise, and Izenour, Steven, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977). ISBN 10: 0262036967, ISBN 13: 9780262036962
Williamson, James F., Kahn at Penn: Transformative Teacher of Architecture (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2015). ISBN-10 : 113822927X, ISBN-13 : 978-1138229273