Anthony Alofsin (born June 22, 1949 in
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
) is an
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
,
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
,
art historian
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
,
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
, and
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
.
[''Who's Who in America'' - 2012, 66th Edition (pub. 2011), Marquis Biographies on Line. http://search.marquiswhoswho.com/profile/100023439524]
Educated at
Memphis Academy of Art
Memphis College of Art (MCA) was a private art college in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in Overton Park, adjacent to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. It offered Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts in Art Education and ...
and
Phillips Academy, Andover
("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness
, address = 180 Main Street
, city = Andover
, state = Ma ...
, he received from
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
and the
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...
, respectively, a Bachelor Arts (1971) and Master of Architecture (1981). From Columbia University, he obtained a Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology (1987).
Alofsin has written books on modern architecture and published numerous essays on architecture, art, and culture that have appeared in a variety of journals and reviews including ''The Times Literary Supplement'', the ''Burlington Magazine'', the ''New Criterion'', and ''American Art''. He was named Roland Gommel Roessner Centennial Professor Emeritus in Architecture in 2020 in recognition of his scholarship and teaching over thirty-three years at the University of Texas at Austin where he founded and directed the Ph.D. program in
architectural history
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...
.
In 2017 he began donating material to establish the Anthony Alofsin Archive at the University of Texas in Austin. The vast collection contains research materials, his teaching collection, and professional papers.
Publications
He is the author of ''Wright and New York: the Making of America's Architect.'' ''The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' described it “as an exciting story, a cultural drama about power and intrigue, featuring Wright’s ambiguous love/hate relationship with New York City." He wrote ''Dream Home, What You Need to Know Before You Buy,'' a guide for consumers buying a home in the suburbs. His ''Frank Lloyd Wright, Art Collector,'' is the first publication of Wright's unknown collection of German and Austrian art prints. His book ''When Buildings Speak: Architecture as Language in the Habsburg Empire and its Aftermath, 1867-1933'' won the Vasari Award from the
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
.; a German language edition was published by the Verlag Anton Pustet in 2011. He is editor of ''A Modernist Museum in Perspective: The East Building, National Gallery of Art.'' He is the author of ''The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard,'' the history of the Harvard Graduate School of Design from its beginnings through the 1960s.
Much of his scholarly writing has focused on issues of influence, how ideas are transmitted and transformed, on the concept of artistic transition as well as reception as an index of cultural and social meaning. He conducts a broad range of research activities including
American modernism, Central European modern architecture, the history of
ornament, the history of design education in architecture,
landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
, and
city planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
as well as ongoing research on
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
. He has written on the role of
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...
in architecture and on the origins of
regionalism in modern architecture.
International recognition
Alofsin is internationally recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and as an expert on modern architecture.
In 2006, he received the Wright Spirit Award from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. The award honors an individual who, through artistic, architectural, scholarly, professional or other endeavors embodies the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright. ' His pioneering study, ''Frank Lloyd Wright: the Lost Years, 1910-1922'', is acknowledged to be one of the most important books on Wright in the last forty years;
the book was a winner in the monograph category in the American Institute of Architects International Book Awards. Alofsin's other publications include the five-volume reference work, ''Frank Lloyd Wright: An Index to the Taliesin Correspondence'', which won the Vasari Award of the Dallas Museum of Art.
Alofsin was ranked “Best of the Best” and in the 90th percentile of research professors, academics, and dons among an international evaluation of schools of architecture by the Key Centre for Architectural Sociology.
Alofsin has been named a Fellow, Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center; Fellow, Bogliasco Foundation, Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities; Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; Fellow, MacDowell Colony; Fellow, the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna; Visiting Scholar, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation; Visiting Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design; and Fulbright Professor, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
In 2017 Alofsin was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, one of the highest honors given by the profession.
Advice and practice
He has been active as a curator and adviser to several architectural exhibitions. He was consulting curator for the major retrospective ''Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect'' at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York. He curated ''Prairie Skyscraper'' on Wright's
Price Tower
The Price Tower is a nineteen-story, 221-foot-high tower at 510 South Dewey Avenue in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It was built in 1956 to a design by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only realized skyscraper by Wright, and is one of only two verticall ...
in
Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Bartlesville is a city mostly in Washington County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 37,290 at the 2020 census. Bartlesville is north of Tulsa and south of the Kansas border. It is the county seat of Washington County. The Can ...
, and the exhibition ''Wright's Wasmuth Folios: Representing the Ideal,'' at the Ross Gallery, Columbia University.
Alofsin maintains an architectural practice and his projects, which range in scale and style, have been frequently published. The sites of his projects include
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. He also lectures internationally.
Books
* Alofsin, Anthony ''Wright and New York: The Making of America's Architect,'' New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019..
* Alofsin, Anthony ''Dream Home: What You Need to Know Before You Buy,'' Austin:InnerformsLtd.com, 2013. .
* Alofsin, Anthony ''Frank Lloyd Wright, Art Collector,'' Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012.
* Alofsin, Anthony ''Architektur beim Wort nehmen. Bildhaft sprechende Baukunst des Habsburgerreiches und seiner Nachfolgestaaten 1867-1933,'' Salzburg: Verlag Anton Pustet, 2011. .
* Alofsin, Anthony ''Halflife, A Fictive Memoir.'' Austin, TX: InnerformsLtd.com, 2009. .
* Alofsin, Anthony, editor and essayist, ''A Modernist Museum in Perspective: The East Building, National Gallery of Art'' (Studies in the History of Art Series). Editor and essayist. New Haven: Yale University Press and National Gallery of Art, 2009.
* Alofsin, Anthony, ''When Buildings Speak: Architecture As Language in the Habsburg Empire and Its Aftermath, 1867-1933'',
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, Chicago and London 2006,
* Alofsin, Anthony, editor/co-author ''Prairie skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower'', Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville OK; Rizzoli, New York 2005,
* Alofsin, Anthony, ''The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard'', W. W. Norton, New York and London 2002,
* Alofsin, Anthony, editor, ''Frank Lloyd Wright: An Index to the Taliesin Correspondence'', Garland Publishing, New York 1988
ive volumes* Alofsin, Anthony, editor, ''Frank Lloyd Wright: Europe and Beyond'',
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, Berkeley CA 1999,
* Alofsin, Anthony, ''Frank Lloyd Wright--The Lost Years, 1910-1922: A Study of Influence'',
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, Chicago 1993,
References
External links
*
Anthony Alofsin FAIAAnthony Alofsin Architect
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alofsin, Anthony
Living people
20th-century American architects
American architecture writers
American architectural historians
American biographers
American male biographers
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
1949 births
Architecture academics
Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni
Harvard College alumni
Phillips Academy alumni
21st-century American architects