History

Beaux-Arts 1920S MIDCENTURY 1990s & 00s 2010s

It’s been 125 years. More than ever, Van Alen Institute’s legacy as a center for design innovation, bridging architectural education and professional practice, is pivotal to the Institute’s future as we investigate the most pressing social, cultural, and ecological challenges of tomorrow on a global scale.

A Restaurant on the Borders of a Lake, Frederic C. Hirons, 1906 1st Prize Winner of Society of Beaux-Arts Architects' 3rd Paris Prize in Architecture

Over a dozen decades, the organization has served the public under diverse titles, culminating in our 21^st-century mission that design can transform cities, landscapes, and regions to improve people’s lives. Let’s explore how Van Alen’s past set the stage for its present-day cross disciplinary research, provocative public programs, and inventive design competitions.

Beaux-Arts

Beaux-Arts Medals such as the 1895 one seen here, designed by Jules Edouard Roine and cast in bronze, were awarded by the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects to emerging architects and designers who achieved excellence in competitions.

The organization’s first iteration at the end of the 19^th century was informed by the prevailing architectural movement of the time, Beaux-Arts. This Neoclassical strain was rooted in its namesake educational institution, Paris’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts. But that the movement was so closely knit to the Continent left some aspiring American architects out of the loop.

To close the knowledge gap, a brigade of Ecole des Beaux-Arts alumni banded together in 1894 to found the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, dedicated to establishing a rigorous and highly competitive atelier-based architectural curriculum modeled after its French counterpart. The founding objective of the Society was to cultivate, perpetuate, and test the teachings of the original Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Central to this pedagogy was study of Greek models and Imperial Roman architecture, polished perspective drawings, and careful consideration of the urban public.

Available free of charge to any student admitted, the design ateliers proved enormously influential. While maintaining the Ecole’s design standards, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects broke down the hierarchy and culture of exclusivity that previously defined the scholars who made it across the pond – architectural education was suddenly accessible.

Sectional elevation of "A Colonial Institute" entry by George A. Licht, 1904 winner of the 1st Paris Prize

Courses revolved around a series of increasingly demanding competitions and design challenges, culminating in the Society’s nationally recognized Paris Prize in Architecture, which sponsored study at the Ecole for its annual recipient. The Paris Prize acted as a harbinger of the design competition serving as a vital educational tool for American architecture students.

In 1908, a 25-year-old Williamsburg, Brooklyn-born upstart architect was awarded the Paris Prize in a competition for the design of a theater. The recipient was William Van Alen, and his application was backed by a thorough design pedigree.

The Astor Hotel on Times Square is quintessential Beaux-Arts building, designed by the architects Clinton & Russell in 1904.

Prior to winning the Prize, Van Alen had already worked in the studio of Clarence True while a student at Pratt Institute. His professional life before studying at the Ecole was also defined by three years in the atelier of French émigré architect, Emmanuel Louis Masqueray. And at the firm of Clinton & Russell, he worked as a draftsman on the Hotel Astor — a green mansard roofed Beaux Arts jewel on the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, which would soon be renamed Times Square.

Once in Paris under the auspices of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, the young Van Alen was exposed to applications of elaborate ornamentation upon innovative cast-iron frames in the atelier of Victor Laloux. The soaring glass roofs that this technology allowed are evident in Laloux’s trademark structure, the Gare d’Orsay (now the Musée d’Orsay) and would later appear in Van Alen’s commissions.

The international dialogue and appreciation of innovative civic space that Van Alen gleaned at the Ecole would become trademarks of the organization that would eventually bear his name.

A leaflet announcing the Paris Prize Competition hosted by the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects from 1911.

When Van Alen returned to New York in 1910 and set up shop with H. Craig Severance at the Metropolitan Life Tower at 24^th Street and Madison Avenue, he found the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects flourishing as never before. By 1912, an independent network of over 100 Society of Beaux-Arts Architects ateliers thrived throughout the United States, where thousands of students and young professionals annually received courses of architectural instruction from established American architects.

As professional education in America shifted from the atelier system to colleges and universities, the Paris Prize and its affiliated fellowships continued to engage students in architecture programs across the country. The Society grew as a social organization promoting comradery among designers.

The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design's first building on the Upper East Side in New York City.

In 1916, the Society expanded from a club of ateliers to an interdisciplinary, degree-granting institution. The newly chartered Beaux-Arts Institute of Design was founded in cooperation with the National Sculpture Society and Society of Mural Painters. The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design became the overseer of many competitions as well as a breeding ground for skilled first-generation Americans in the building trades.

1920S

At the annual Beaux-Arts Ball, one-upmanship in costumes was the rule of the day. In 1931 William Van Alen and some friends dressed as buildings they had designed, and the resulting portrait has become a defining image of New York’s architecture world at that time. From left, A. Stewart Walker as the Fuller Building, Leonard Schultze as the Waldorf-Astoria, Ely Jacques Kahn as the Squibb Building, William Van Alen as the Chrysler Building, Ralph Walker as the Wall Street Building and Joseph Freedlander as the Museum of the City of New York.

The graduates of the Society’s earlier ateliers prospered in a heightened economic climate. Designers eschewed cornices and masonry for sheer glass facades, brash cantilevers, and ever-higher stories. In 1928, Van Alen was hired for his most recognizable commission — the Chrysler Building, briefly the world’s tallest building.

In keeping with the spirit of the roaring 20s, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects threw an annual ball, as the students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts had in Paris that served as the key fundraiser for the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design’s educational programs and activities. The balls involved elaborate costumes and performances covered extensively by The New York Times society pages.

MIDCENTURY

Spring 1957 issue of Balance. Issued four times during the school year, Balance was a publication "dedicated to the architectural student promoting better understanding between student and practitioner".

The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects remained in existence as a social organization and overseer of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design until dissolution in 1942. By then, the grandiose flourishes of the Beaux-Arts style were passé and schools leaned towards the Bauhaus and International Style. The Institute shed its Francophile cloak in 1956 and was renamed as the National Institute for Architectural Education (NIAE).

In a new spirit of openness, the NIAE was unaffiliated with specific design movements in order to elicit the most imaginative design work from the students and young architects across the United States who applied to the Institute’s competitions and fellowships.

William Feay Shellman Jr. from Princeton University submitted this drawing for a Class A Sketch Problem for "A Floating Restaurant". Shellman became a professor of architecture at Princeton University from 1941 to 1986. Among his students were Robert Venturi and Hugh Hardy.

In anticipation of the third major World's Fair to be held in New York City in 1964-1965, the 47th Paris Prize called for a "Theme Center for the 1964 New York World's Fair". Lloyd Guy Walter, Jr. of North Carolina State College won first prize.

Of the entries submitted to 1989's "Peace Station" competition, program author Michael Sorkin stated, "While I think most entries have preferred prosody to mechanics, the forms arrived at are so varied and lovely that I feel nothing but confidence for the future of architecture, on or off the planet." The drawing seen here was submitted by Maria Laura Salinas from Oklahoma State University.

Through a broad program of educational activities and an expanded awards program, including the Van Alen Memorial Prize and the Dinkeloo Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, the Institute functioned as a critical resource and facilitator to formal architectural education.

For the next four decades, the National Institute for Architectural Education (NIAE) hosted a wide spectrum of design challenges and projects, reflecting the modernist expansion of civic space as an architectural domain unfettered by the monumental public building.

1990s & 00s

The 1990 Van Alen Prize called for a hotel and museum complex at Angkor Wat, Cambodia. The competition program stated optimistically, "Despite the recent breakdown of peace talks in Paris and possible further impending civil war, there is hope that carnage and destruction can soon come to an end and that, once again, the glories of this beautiful country can be enjoyed by the world community."

In 1995, the NIAE was renamed in honor of Van Alen, who was survived by his wife Elizabeth following his death in 1954. The widow bequeathed half of the architect’s estate to the organization upon her death in 1970. The new Van Alen Institute assumed a more public, political role in the shaping of the public realm, while continuing to cultivate a network of practitioners and scholars and award excellence in design.

Curated by Van Alen Institut's Senior Curator Zoë Ryan and designed by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac, this major exhibition explored the reinvention of urban public spaces to meet the demands of 21st century recreation and leisure. The exhibition, held at Pier 40 in Manhattan, sought to demonstrate the importance of spaces for relaxation, exercise, social activity, and education in developing and maintaining a healthy and sustainable city.

The Institute entered the 21st century probing sites stretching from Taos and Toronto to Angkor Wat with innovative competitions. Local programs re-imagined critical New York City sites like Governors Island, sparking conversations that catalyzed the thriving public space that has evolved from a former federal military base, and the spectacular junction of Times Square, resulting in the construction of a new TKTS booth with a public roof made iconic by its vibrant red steps. On the sixth floor of Van Alen’s current Flatiron District location, exhibitions were mounted exploring the intersection of public space and recreation, urban air quality, and reimagining the landscape of Lower Manhattan after 9/11.

2010s

The Van Alen Books, Van Alen Institute's architecture and design bookstore and public reading room.

Van Alen Books, designed by LOT-EK and supported by Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, opened in 2011 as a temporary pop-up store gathering place devoted singularly to architecture and design publications. For three years, the initiative acted as a platform for debate of timely issues in the wake of international economic and environmental upheaval. The range of book launches and panels brought together audiences of architecture students and young professionals looking to share ideas and test new ways of thinking about design.

Public event in Van Alen Institute's new event space designed by Collective-LOK. Photo: Cameron Blaylock

A competition to further activate the street level of our Flatiron District site was launched in 2013, resulting in the opening in 2014 of a new space designed by Collective-LOK, a collaboration of Jon Lott (PARA-Project), William O’Brien Jr. (WOJR), and Michael Kubo (over,under). The joint program hub, gallery, and workspace is poised to facilitate the realization of Van Alen Institute’s mission as we continue to leverage design to rigorously investigate the most pressing social, cultural, and ecological challenges.