Tag: philadelphia

Exhibition Tour with curator Bruce Laverty

2017-05-11 Laying Tracks poster

Thursday, May 11 at 6:00 p.m.
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S. 6th Street
Cost: Free, but space is limited.  Open to SAH Phila Chapter members and their guests only. Registration required at ffaphila@hotmail.com

The introduction of railroads in the 1830s initiated a revolution in the development of American industry, land use, and social patterns. The new technology challenged the nascent American professions of architecture and engineering to create entirely new building and structural types to meet railroad needs— passenger waiting stations, bridges, train sheds, repair shops, grand downtown depots, and even bedroom suburbs. For more than 100 years, Philadelphia’s most important designers met this challenge, including William Strickland, Thomas U. Walter, John Notman, Theophilus P. Chandler, the Wilson Brothers, Frank Furness, Horace Trumbauer and Paul P. Cret. This exhibit features drawings, prints, photographs, and manuscripts that document how these Philadelphia architects and engineers transformed not only their own city, but much of the American landscape.

The exhibition is on view February 13 through May 12, 2017.  http://www.philaathenaeum.org/

 

PALAZZOS OF POWER: CENTRAL STATIONS OF THE PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC COMPANY, 1900-1930

2017-04-13 PECO Allegheny Ave District Off

An exhibition and book talk by by Joseph E. B. Elliott and Aaron V. Wunsch
Harvey and Irwin Kroiz Gallery, Architectural Archives
Lower Level of the Fisher Fine Arts Library
220 South 34th Street, University of Pennsylvania
Exhibition: March 20 – June 14, 2017
Reception and Book Talk: Thursday, April 13, 6:00 .p.m.
Free and open to the public.  No registration required.

This exhibition explores a series of colossal neoclassical power stations erected by The Philadelphia Electric Company between 1900 and 1930.  Presented through the photographs of Joseph E. B. Elliott (Professor of Art, Muhlenberg College) and scholarship of Aaron V. Wunsch (Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania), the show accompanies their recently released book, Palazzos of Power (Princeton Architectural Press): https://www.amazon.com/Palazzos-Power-Stations-Philadelphia-1900-1930/dp/1616895004

 

Annual Pizza & Pictures Party

pizza & pix

Tuesday January 24, 2017 at 6:00 p.m.
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S. 6th Street

Pizza and beverages will be provided.  Please feel free to bring a dessert to share if you wish.  There is no charge for Philadelphia Chapter SAH members AND each member is invited to bring one guest as a prospective member.  Additional guests are welcome at $15.00 each.

Please RSVP to William V. Kriebel, Phila SAH Treasurer at kriebewv@drexel.edu or 215-735-3697.

If you would like to bring a few digital images to give a short (5 minute/10-15 image) talk on a recent project, current research, or “what I did on my summer vacation,” please contact Bruce Laverty at laverty@PhilaAthenaeum.org or 215-925-2688.  Digital images should be placed on a thumb drive as individual image files or in a Power Point file.

Please join us for an evening of fun and good food!

SNOW DATE THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2017

The American Country Club: Architecture For Suburban Sports

2016-12-04-country-clubs-wilmington-de-cc

by Anne E. Krulikowski, Assistant Professor of History, West Chester University
Sunday, December 4 at 2:00 p.m.
Union League Golf Club at Torresdale
3801 Grant Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19114

$15 for SAH members, $20 for non-members.
Light refreshments will be served.
Advance registration and pre-payment required.  Space is limited.
Registration and questions by email at info@philachaptersah.org or by phone at 610-566-2342.  Once your registration is confirmed, please mail your check to William V. Kriebel, Phila SAH Treasurer, 1923 Manning Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

The Golden Age of the American Country Club extended from the 1890s to the Great Crash of 1929.  These suburban institutions originated from several sources, including men’s city clubs and resort casinos.  The great suburban migration beginning in the 1890s increased the popularity of the sporting life for entire families.  Country club design became a notable part of some architectural practices and national architectural journals began featuring clubhouse designs and plans.   Clubhouse exteriors represented mainly traditional styles, while floor plans reflected gender roles, class hierarchies, and social values.

While not as formal as the Union League on Broad Street, the Golf Club requests that you wear business casual.

Preservation Pioneer: The Life and Legacy of Charles E. Peterson

An exhibition tour with with Bruce Laverty, Curator of Architecture

2016-10-25-petersonposter
Tuesday, October 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S. 6th Street

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia is pleased to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service and the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, with this exhibition.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Peterson founded the Historic American Buildings Survey, authored America’s first historic structures report, oversaw the creation of Independence National Historical Park, and created significant endowments that encourage building scholarship, documentation, and publication.

Peterson is credited with coming up with the neighborhood moniker “Society Hill” after discovering that William Penn’s real estate group, the Free Society of Traders, had set up shop in the area in the late 17th century.  He lived in Society Hill from 1954, when he purchased two row houses on Spruce Street for $8,000, until his death at age 97 in 2004.

This event is free, but registration is required as space is limited. Email info@philachaptersah.org

If you are unable to attend the tour the exhibit is on view through December 30, 2016. Free Admission. Gallery hours: Monday-Friday 9:00 am-5:00 pm and occasional Saturdays, check the Athenaeum website www.philaathenaeum.org

Palazzos of Power: Central Stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company, 1900-1930: A Lecture and Book Signing

palazzos-cover_

with author Aaron V. Wunsch and photographer Joseph E. B. Elliott
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Center for Architecture + Design, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia
Lecture 6:00-7:00 p.m., Reception & book signing 7:00-8:00 p.m.

“If it isn’t Electric, it isn’t Modern.” Such was the slogan of the Philadelphia Electric Company, developer of an unprecedented network of massive metropolitan power stations servicing greater Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century.  These once-brilliant sentinels of civic utility and activity were designed to convey ‘solidity and immensity’ in an age of deep public skepticism.  They now stand vacant and decaying, a blight in the eyes of city planners and a beacon to urban explorers.  Join Aaron Wunsch, assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, and Joseph Elliott, renowned photographer and Professor of Art at Muhlenberg College, as they discuss the first book on the buildings and machines that made possible the electrification of the United States.  Books will be available for purchase and signing.

This event is free, but registration is required at
http://aiaphiladelphia.org/events/palazzos-power-central-stations-philadelphia-electric-company-1900-1930-0

Sponsored by AIA Philadelphia’s Historic Preservation Committee, the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance, the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Association for Preservation Technology, the Philadelphia Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians, and the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology.

Celebrating an Architectural Masterpiece: The 100th Anniversary of the Harrison Rotunda at the Penn Museum

Penn Musuem lecture_rotunda

Sunday, Nov 8, 2:00 p.m.
Penn Museum, 3260 South Street
Free with Museum admission
http://www.penn.museum/

One of the grandest domes in the country, the Penn Museum’s Harrison rotunda, completed in 1915 and long home to an internationally renowned collection of Chinese art, soars an impressive 90 feet high. David Brownlee, Ph.D., Shapiro-Weitzenhoffer Professor of the History of Art, shares his insights into the historical architectural significance of the rotunda and the auditorium that rests directly below. The completion of the rotunda, he notes, demonstrated the University’s great and modern rationality and its sustained commitment to its museum master plan, designed to accommodate infinite expansion of the museum as its collections grew. It also demonstrated the continued experimentation with architectural vocabulary by its very creative architects. Finally, it was assuredly a bravura display of the nearly magical structural capacity of the Guastavino vaulting system.  Alessandro Pezzati, Museum Senior Archivist, shares stories about the construction and opening of these iconic spaces.

Architectural Surprises of Upper East Falls (Queen Lane Manor) Walking Tour

2015-10-03 East Falls tour Queen Lane Manor Apt Bldg 2

Saturday, October 3, 11:00 a.m., Queen Lane SEPTA station

Free for Phila Chapter SAH members, $10 for their guests, payable on site.

Space is limited, registration is required at info@philachaptersah.org

Within a few blocks the upper or eastern part of East Falls, formerly known as Queen Lane Manor, contains excellent examples of a range of architectural styles: grandiose Beaux Arts, clean and crisp International, Art Deco, Georgian Revival, Gothic revival, Jacobean, and more. The history of the Queen Lane Manor district, The Oak Road, the Queen Lane Reservoir and Filters, and more, will also be discussed. Our guide Steven J. Peitzman, professor of medicine at Drexel University and a long-time architecture enthusiast, developed this tour for the East Falls Historical Society. We will also be joined by Ken Hinde, an authority on Philadelphia architecture and former Director of the Foundation for Architecture’s Tour Program.

The tour will start at the Queen Lane SEPTA station (Chestnut Hill West Line), 5319 Wissahickon Ave. at W. Queen Lane. If coming by train consult SEPTA schedules (www.septa.org). There is ample free parking on weekends at the station if coming by car. The tour will take about 2 hours. Comfortable walking shoes are advised. Bring water or refreshments if you wish, but rest rooms cannot be assured, so plan accordingly. Rain date will be Sunday, October 4. If the tour is moved to Sunday those registered will be emailed no later than 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, it will also be posted on the Phila Chapter SAH website www.philachaptersah.org under Chapter Programs.

CURATOR’S TALK AND TOUR

2015-09-10 Feats of Clay cropped

Thursday, Sept. 10 at 6:00 p.m.
The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania
Harvey and Irwin Kroiz Gallery, 220 South 34th Street

John curator’s Frank G. Matero and William Whitaker for a gallery talk and tour of the exhibition, “Feats of Clay: Philadelphia Brick and Terracotta.” This exhibition traces the rise of the brick and terra cotta industry in Philadelphia and its far reaching influences on American architecture and building technology.  The exhibition also seeks to raise the awareness and appreciation of the region’s wealth of historic brick and terra cotta architecture and long craft tradition, as well as their relevance to contemporary sustainable design.

Free and open to Philadelphia Chapter SAH members and their guests.  Registration requested at info@philachaptersah.org.

150th Birthday of the Wagner Free Institute of Science’s historic building

Wagner Free Inst Building 150th talk image 237-PR-026

PHILADELPHIA 1865: A CITY ON THE EDGE
Delivered by Bruce Laverty, Gladys Brooks Curator of Architecture at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia
Wednesday, May 20th, 2015, 6:00 to 8:30 p.m.
1700 W Montgomery Avenue, Philadelphia

Join us for a lecture, cake competition, and member reception in honor of the 150th Birthday of the Wagner Free Institute of Science’s historic building.

Lecture:
In 1865 Philadelphia was a city on the edge; a city on the edge of grief; a city on the edge of growth; and a city on the edge of genius. That year saw Philadelphia’s joy of Northern victory dashed by the overwhelming shock and grief brought on by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Less acute, but even more sobering, was the growing realization in 1865 that Union victory and the abolition of slavery were by no means the end of race problems in the City of Brotherly Love. In 1865 Philadelphia commenced the most rapid physical growth in its history; by century’s end the built portion of the city had more than doubled in size. Finally, 1865 was the year when the genius of local entrepreneurs, both individually and collectively, through the efforts of scientific, benevolent, and educational associations, achieved the critical mass that launched Philadelphia into modernity.

Bruce Laverty, a life-long resident of Philadelphia and graduate of LaSalle College, has been Curator of Architecture at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia since 1983. He prepared that institution’s first catalog of architectural drawings. During his tenure at the Athenaeum, the architectural collection grew from 30,000 to more than 220,000 drawings and he oversaw the creation of nearly 8,000 Visual Materials records documenting them. He has served as curator for more than a dozen exhibitions at the Athenaeum and in 1998 he received the Preservation Achievement Award for his work as curator, editor and co-author of “Monument to Philanthropy: The Design and Building of Girard College, 1832-1848.”

Cake Competition:
For this event we will also be running a cake competition that gives entrants the opportunity to represent the Wagner in cake. Entries are being accepted until May 1st, 2015. All information about the competition, including deadlines and baking parameters, can be found on the Wagner’s website.

Reception:
Following the talk, at 7:30 pm, Wagner members are invited to join us for the Annual Member Reception. Members are welcome to bring one guest to the reception. Non-members and extra guests are asked to pay $10 to attend the event.

For more, visit the event page on the Wagner’s website.
http://www.wagnerfreeinstitute.org/syllabi%202014-15/Philadelphia1865.htm

Registration is encouraged but not required and can be done through Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/philadelphia-1865-a-city-on-the-edge-lecture-and-member-reception-tickets-9445428531