Ah, to have instant memory of every name, every arcane factoid.
The architect of the base of the Statue of Liberty, whose name I fumbled, is Richard Morris Hunt. He is also the author of the central portion of the Fifth Avenue facade of the Metropolitan Museum, in New York City.
His stately, magnificent buildings certainly do owe a great deal to the training he received at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_des_Beaux-Arts ); and what is even more interesting to me is that he is only one of two architects in honor of whom a monument has been erected (the other being Charles Garnier, architect of the old Paris Opera, which is now - aptly enough - called the Opera Garnier.)
Here's Hunt's monument, located along Fifth Avenue, in New York's Central Park.
And for good measure, Garnier's monument in Paris:
I think Architect Garnier received rather better homage, don't you agree?
But I digress. The California Case Study Architect whose name escaped me, and his iconic Case Study House #22 - built for owner Buck Stahl in 1959, perched high above Los Angeles, is Pierre Koenig.
Another interesting California Case Study House (#8) - perhaps the most famous of them all, in fact - is Charles and Ray Eames' own home in Santa Monica:
At left, the house and site - a lightly forested meadow near the beach; and below, an illustration of the working/living concept of the house:
Last, although Esther McCoy was indeed a party to the inception of the California Case Study House challenge - as I mentioned in the program, it was John Entenza who was the author of the idea. Here is what the Eames Foundation has had to say in their website:
"Entenza, publisher of Arts and Architecture . . . announced that [the magazine] would be the client for a series of architect-design homes to be built and furnished using materials and techniques derived from the experiences of the second World War and best suited to express man's life in the modern world. Each home built would be for a real or hypothetical client taking into considerations their particular housing needs."
As regards Entenza's house, I was wrong: Entenza was the client, not the architect of his house - Case Study #9 - which is the next door neighbor to Eames! -
it was designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen.
A view of the Entenza house:
Thanks for listening, and talk to you next time at:
http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/programs/18-Burning-Down-The-House
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