Over the last one hundred years there has grown up a belief among many architects that the modern era requires a new architectural language. Proponents of this point of view have written architectural histories that would have us believe that the mainstream of modernism moves from one avant garde, or radical new movement, to another, for example from the so-called Chicago School and Frank Lloyd Wright to Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies. This idea is no more logical than believing that to write modern fiction English is inadequate and some new language is necessary. This panel will examine a number of architects who believed that they could create dramatic new forms within the classical language.
Moderated by Robert Bruegmann
Jane Lepauw holds a B.A. from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, studied at the Sorbonne, and co-founded with Didier Lepauw, the Benjamin Marshall Society in 2002. Her father an architect, her mother an interior designer and realtor, her interest in architecture became a passion while living in Paris for 22 years where she landed as a reporter sent by the CBS Television affiliate in Miami. After becoming involved with the Japanese Embassy in Paris under the auspices of His Honor, Hisashi Owada, presently judge on the International Court of the Hague, she began giving lectures on Japonism: The Influence of Japanese Art and Culture on French Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the music of the period. She is extremely proud to bring Benjamin Marshall back to the forefront of Chicago consciousness and dialogue.
Robert Bruegmann is a historian and critic of architecture, landscape, preservation, urban development and the built environment, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of numerous books and articles including the award-winning volume The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago 1880-1918, published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997, the controversial Sprawl: A Compact History published by the University of Chicago Press in 2005 and, most recently, The Architecture of Harry Weese, published by W. W. Norton in 2010. He is also a frequent lecturer, contributor to magazines and blogs and guest on radio and television shows.
Stuart Cohen holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Cornell University.
Cohen’s work and the work of his firm has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally, receiving awards for design excellence from Progressive Architecture magazine, Interiors magazine, the American Institute of Architects and the American Wood Council. One of twenty architects chosen to represent the United States at the 1980 Venice Biennale, he is a partner in Cohen & Hacker Architects LLC, an educator, lecturer and author of four books on Chicago’s historic residential architecture, including Transforming the Traditional: The Work of Cohen and Hacker Architects, North Shore Chicago Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs:1890-1940, Great Houses of Chicago:1871-1921 and most recently Inventing the New American House: Howard Van Doren Shaw, Architect.
John Zukowsky was Curator of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978-2004. There, he organized award-winning exhibitions and books on architecture and design. John has a PHD from Binghamton University and is a recipient of awards and honors from the American Institute of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the republics of Austria and France. He has held executive positions within museums in Ohio, Chicago and New York. He was commissioned 2013 by the Benjamin Marshall Society to organize a monograph on that architect, and his latest book published in 2015 is Why On Earth Would Anyone Build That? Modern Architecture Explained.
Paul Florian graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1973, after which he studied in London 1975-78 at the Architectural Association, and then earned his MA at the University of Illinois in Chicago 1981-82. He has practiced in Chicago since 1983, his current firm Florian Architects established 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and his buildings earning him numerous design awards, local and national. Paul has taught and reviewed design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Yale University.
