Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (born Dorothea Maria Pauline Alice Sybille Pietzsch; October 29, 1903 – January 8, 1971) was an architectural and art historian. Originally a German citizen, she accompanied her second husband, the Hungarian
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
artist
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...
, in his move to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. She was the author of a study of his work, ''Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality'', plus several other books on architectural history.
She was an outspoken critic of what she regarded as the excesses of postwar modernist architecture. After her death in 1971, fellow writer
Reyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...
eulogized her as "the most formidable of the group of lady-critics (Jane Jacobs, Ada Louise Huxtable, etc) who kept the U.S. architectural establishment continually on the run during the 50s and 60s".
Biography
Sibylle Pietzsch was born in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
on October 29, 1903 to architect Martin Pietzsch (
Deutscher Werkbund
The Deutscher Werkbund (English: "German Association of Craftsmen"; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern arch ...
)
and Fanny (Clauss) Pietzsch. Her father also headed the Dresden Academy.
Her family was prosperous, including two older sisters and an older brother. She left her secondary education in the Municipal Lyceum at Dresden‐Neustadt at 16. She attended the graduate schools of the Universities of Leipzig and Frankfurt, but never finished a university degree.
After working at a variety of jobs (including clerical work for
Leo Frobenius
Leo Viktor Frobenius (29 June 1873 – 9 August 1938) was a German self-taught ethnologist and archaeologist and a major figure in German ethnography.
Life
He was born in Berlin as the son of a Prussian officer and died in Biganzolo, Lago ...
in 1923),
she became an actress, performing on stage and in a couple of films. While performing she went under the stage name "Sibyl Peech". In 1929, she married the Frankfurt intellectual and industrialist Carl Dreyfuss, a close friend of social philosopher
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blue ...
.
In 1931, she left Frankfurt for Berlin, working as a scriptwriter and editor for
Tobis Film
Tobis Film was a German film production and film distribution company. Founded in the late 1920s as a merger of several companies involved in the switch from silent to sound films, the organisation emerged as a leading German sound studio. Tob ...
Berlin.
There she met the former
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
professor, artist, and photographer
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...
(1895–1946) who was trying to get support for what would become his most famous film, ''A Lightplay black white gray''. They became a couple by 1932, and had a daughter Hattula the next year, 1933.
Due to the rise of
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
, László Moholy-Nagy worked for a year in Amsterdam in 1934, while Sibyl and Hattula remained in Berlin. The family reunited in London in 1935, where the couple formally married.
A second daughter, Claudia, was born in 1936.
In 1937, the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Chicago. There, Moholy-Nagy assisted her husband in opening the
New Bauhaus
Institute of Design (ID) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design.
History
The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is a school of design ...
in October 1937, which was sponsored by the Association of Arts and Industries. After the New Bauhaus closed in June 1938, Moholy-Nagy helped her husband open his own school, the School of Design in Chicago in February 1939. In 1944 this school was reorganized and renamed the Institute of Design. Her husband died in November 1946 (ten years later, the Institute of Design became a department of the Illinois Institute of Technology,
IIT Institute of Design
Institute of Design (ID) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design.
History
The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is a school of design ...
). She finished copyediting her late husband's book ''Vision in Motion'', which was published in 1947.
After her husband's death, Moholy-Nagy decided to become an architectural historian and teacher, beginning a productive career publishing many articles and books.
Her writings built on knowledge from her father, and from her friendships with
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
and
Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion (sometimes misspelled Siegfried Giedion; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich) was a Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. His ideas and books, '' Space, Time and Architecture'', and ''Mech ...
, who she had met through her husband.
Although she lacked formal credentials, her deep knowledge of architectural history allowed her to secure successive teaching positions in Chicago, Peoria, San Francisco, and Berkeley.
In 1951, Moholy-Nagy was hired as associate professor of architecture history at
Pratt Institute in New York City.
She taught courses on such subjects as urban history and design, becoming Pratt's first female full professor in 1960.
She became a respected and acclaimed teacher, a commanding classroom presence using her experiences in acting.
In spite of this, she retained a secret insecurity about her lack of extensive formal university training.
Moholy-Nagy resigned in 1969 over a conflict with other faculty about the future direction of the school, then became a visiting professor at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1970.
Writings
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Moholy-Nagy had a parallel career as an architecture critic, maintaining professional relationships with such figures as
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...
and
Carlos Raul Villanueva. In 1945 she published a novel, ''Children's Children'', under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"S. D. Peech".
In 1950 she wrote a biography of her husband, ''Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality''.
In 1952, the
Architectural League
The Architectural League of New York is a non-profit organization "for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines".
The league dates from 1881, when Cass Gilbert organized meetings at the Salmagundi Club for ...
of New York awarded her an
Arnold Brunner
Arnold William Brunner (September 25, 1857 – February 14, 1925) was an American architect who was born and died in New York City. Brunner was educated in New York and in Manchester, England. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wh ...
research grant to study
vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. This category encompasses a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, bo ...
, and she subsequently produced ''Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture'' (1957), one of the first books on vernacular design for architects, calling attention to traditional buildings compatible with the natural environment.
One of her most important books, ''Matrix of Man: An Illustrated History of Urban Environment'' (1968), focused on the development of cities and the influence of landscape, regional climate, tradition, culture, and form.
She made numerous contributions to architecture magazines, such as ''
Architectural Forum
''Architectural Forum'' was an American magazine that covered the homebuilding industry and architecture. Started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1892 as ''The Brickbuilder'', it absorbed the magazine ''Architect's World'' in October 1938. Ownership ...
'' and ''
Progressive Architecture The Progressive Architecture Awards (P/A Awards) annually recognise risk-taking practitioners and seek to promote progress in the field of architecture.
History
The editors of ''Progressive Architecture'' magazine hosted the first Progressive Arch ...
''. She was one of the first critics to study postwar Latin American architecture in depth.
In her architectural writings, she was not afraid to criticize the postwar architecture of her husband's former colleagues. In 1968, she published an essay in ''
Art in America'' titled "Hitler's Revenge". She started this polemic with the words:
In 1933 Hitler shook the tree and America picked up the fruit of German genius. In the best of Satanic traditions some of this fruit was poisoned, although it looked at first sight as pure and wholesome as a newborn concept. The lethal harvest was functionalism, and the Johnnies who spread the appleseed were the Bauhaus masters Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer.
Personal life
Moholy-Nagy married
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...
and had two daughters, Hattula (born 1933), and Claudia (1936–1971).
She died in New York City on January 8, 1971.
Awards and honors
*1953 – Arnold W. Brunner Grant, The Architectural League, New York City
*1967 – John Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation
*1970 – American Institute "Critic of the Year"
Selected publications
*
Hilde Heynen (2019). ''Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: Architecture, Modernism and its Discontents'' . London, Bloomsbury. , 9781350094116
* ''Children's Children'' (writing as S.D. Peech). New York: H. Bittner, 1945
*
* ''
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
: Pedagogical Sketchbook'' (Introduction and translations). New York: Praeger, 1953 (rev. 1968)
* ''Native Genius In Anonymous Architecture''. New York: Horizon Press, 1957.
* ''
Carlos Raul Villanueva and the Architecture of Venezuela''. New York: Praeger, 1964.
* ''Matrix of Man: An Illustrated History of Urban Environment''. Preager, 1968
* ''The Architecture of
Paul Rudolph''. (Introduction). Praeger, 1970
*
commentary on the proposed Grand Central Tower ProjectOriginally published in ''Art in America'' 56, no. 5 (September/October 1968): p42–43)
References
* Paine, Judith, "Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: A Complete Life", ''Archives of American Art Journal'' 15:4 (1975), 11–16.
External Links
Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl
1903 births
1971 deaths
American art historians
American architectural historians
American architecture critics
German film actresses
German emigrants to the United States
American women historians
20th-century German actresses
Women art historians
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers