Edward Durell Stone

Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 Fayetteville, Arkansas - August 6, 1978 New York City, New York) was an American modernist twentieth century architect.

Stone was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a small college town in the northwest corner of the State. His family had been early settlers of the area, and were owners of a prosperous dry goods store. One of his childhood friends was J. William Fulbright, the future United States Senator from Arkansas, and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stone and Fulbright remained friends for the rest of their lives. Stone attended the University of Arkansas, where he was encouraged by an art teacher to develop an interest in architecture. His older brother, James Hicks Stone, was already a practicing architect in Boston, Massachusetts, and James encouraged his younger brother to join him there. While in Boston, Stone attended Harvard University, The Boston Architectural Center and MIT, but he never received a degree.

While studying in Massachusetts, he won the prestigious Rotch Travelling Fellowship (now called the Rotch Travelling Scholarship), which afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and North Africa on a two year stipend. During his travels, Stone maintained sketchbooks and produced exquisite watercolor drawings in the Beaux-Arts style which were ultimately submitted to the Rotch Committee. Other winners of the Fellowship include the architects, Ralph Walker (of Vorhees, Gmelin and Walker), Louis Skidmore (of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill), Wallace K. Harrison (of Harrison and Abramovitz) and Gordon Bunshaft (also of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill).

Stone returned to New York City in October 1929, just at the onset of the Great Depression. He had been offered a job, while in Stockholm, by Leonard Schultze of Schultze and Weaver, and on joining the firm, Stone designed the main lobby and grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. He then moved on to work in the offices of Reinhardt, Hoffmeister, Hood & Fouilhoux, who were among the architects associated on the Rockefeller Center project. Stone was the principal designer on the Radio City Music Hall, and he worked in conjunction with the interior designer, Donald Deskey. His relationship with Deskey ultimately led to his first independent commission in 1933 for Richard Mandel, whose family owned the Mandel Brothers department store. Stone produced a startling, volumetric modernist home in Mount Kisco, NY for Mandel, with elements suggestive of the European modernists, Erich Mendelsohn and Le Corbusier.

The acclaim generated from this commission led to other prominent residential commissions. Similarly, his work on the Rockefeller Center project also brought him to the attention of the Center's lead architect, Wallace K. Harrison and Nelson Rockefeller. When the time came for an architect to be selected for the new Museum of Modern Art, Stone's name was put forth by Harrison, and in turn by Rockefeller, over the objections of Alfred Barr, the Museum's director. Stone was selected as the design architect for the Museum in association with Philip Goodwin, the only architect on the Museum's Board. It was at this point that Stone formally opened his architectural practice in New York City.

Stone continued to employ the modernist vocabulary for the remainder of the 1930's, but during an automobile trip across the United States in 1940, Stone began to fuse the experience of his Beaux-Arts training, bucolic origins and dissatisfaction with the austerity of modernist aesthetic. A visit to Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in Arizona at the end of the trip encouraged Stone to seek new forms that expressed a warmer architecture that was more rooted in American vernacular architecture.

The onset of World War II interrupted Stone's exploration of this new approach to architecture, and Stone enlisted in the United States Army Air Force in August of 1942. Stone entered the Army as a Captain but was promoted to the rank of Major in November of 1943. During his war service, Stone was stationed in Washington D.C. where he was the Chief of the Planning and Design Section. His principal responsibility was the planning of Army Air Force bases. Stone was separated from the Army in November, 1945.

Stone reopened his architectural practice in 1945 in a townhouse at 50 East 64th Street in New York City. He continued to explore vernacular architectural forms while also incorporating Wrightian motifs. His commissions during the 1940's were principally single-family homes.

In the 1950's Stone departed from modernist strictures and developed an individual, idiosyncratic style which included patterns of ornament. By some accounts, this was through the influence of his wife. Treated as a renegade, Stone continued to receive major commissions in the United States and abroad. Two of Stone's sons, Edward Durell Stone, Jr. and B. Hicks Stone perpetuate their father's design legacy, the former as a land planner, whose firm EDSA, is based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and the latter as an architect, whose firm, Stone Architecture, is based in New York City, NY.

Recently, his life and career have received renewed attention due to the destruction or alteration of some of the structures he designed. Among these are the demolition of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri and a major alteration to 2 Columbus Circle in New York City. Additionally, the North Carolina State renovated its chamber, covering over Stone's brass decorations with white neoclassical pilasters and pediments.

Interest in landmarking Stone's 2 Columbus Circle began in 1996, soon after the building turned thirty years old and became eligible for landmark designation. In this year, Robert A. M. Stern included it in his article " A Preservationist's List of 35 Modern Landmarks-in-Waiting" written for the New York Times. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D91F3BF934A25752C1A960958260] [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D81F3BF934A25752C1A960958260] In 2004, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called it one of America's "11 Most Endangered Historic Places," and in 2006 it was listed as one of the World Monuments Fund's "100 Most Endangered Sites." Despite a serious preservation effort, The Museum of Arts & Design has radically altered the building for their occupation in 2008.

Selected works

*Radio City Music Hall, in Rockefeller Center, New York City (with Wallace Harrison and Donald Deskey, 1932)
*Museum of Modern Art, New York City, (with Philip S. Goodwin, 1939)
*Ingersoll Steel, Utility Unit House, Kalamazoo (1946)
*Fine Arts Center, University of Arkansas (1950)
*Harvey Mudd College (1955)
*Edward Durell Stone House, New York City (1956)
*Park Lane Residence, Dallas (1956)
*United States Embassy, New Delhi, India (1958); the city hall in Paducah, Kentucky reused the same design.
*U.S. Pavilion at Expo '58, Brussels (1958)
*Carlson Terrace, Fayetteville, Arkansas (1958, partially demolished 2005, 2007)
*Robert M. Hughes Memorial Library, Old Dominion University (1959)
*Gulf Oil Gasoline Station, John F. Kennedy International Airport, (1959)
*Arie Crown Theater, Chicago (1960, altered 1997)
*First Unitarian Society's church, Schenectady, New York (1961)
*Phoenicia Hotel, Beirut, Lebanon (1961, Altered 1997)
*2 Columbus Circle, New York City (1962, altered 2006)
*North Carolina State Legislative Building, Raleigh, North Carolina (1963)
*New Town Center (Maryland), Hyattsville, Maryland (1963-64)
*Beckman Auditorium, California Institute of Technology (1964)
*National Geographic Building, Washington, DC (1964)
*Ponce Museum of Art, Ponce, Puerto Rico (1964)
* [http://www.wtcno.org/ World Trade Center of New Orleans] (1965)
*Claremont School of Theology (1965)
*Busch Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri (1966, demolished 2005)
*Garden State Arts Center, Holmdel, New Jersey (1968)
*State University of New York at Albany (1968)
*Davenport Public Library (1968)
*Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC (1971)
*Georgetown University Law Center's Bernard P. McDonough Hall, Washington, DC (1971)
*Standard Oil Building (now known as Aon Center), Chicago (1972)
*First Bank Building (now known as First Canadian Place), Toronto (1975)
* [http://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/cityhall.htm City Hall] , Fort Worth, Texas (1975)
*Florida State Capitol (1977)
*University of Alabama School of Law, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (1977)
*PepsiCo World Headquarters Complex, Purchase, New York
*Stuhr Museum, Grand Island, Nebraska
*W.E.B. DuBois Library, University of Massachusetts (1973)
*Museum of Anthropology, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico (1986)

Gallery

ee also

*Rockefeller Center
*Rockefeller family
*Museum of Modern Art

Bibliography

* Stone, Edward Durell. The Evolution of An Architect. New York: Horizon Press, 1962.
* Stone, Edward Durell. Edward Durell Stone, Recent and Future Architecture. New York: Horizon Press, 1967.
* "Unearthing Stone," "Metropolis magazine", Urban Journal, January 2008 by Jeffrey Head

External links

Warning: the following link is a very subjective view on the future of 2 Columbus Circle that does not attempt to represent all sides to the argument.
* [http://www.waltlockley.com/2columbuscircle/2columbus%20circle.htm Page on 2 Columbus Circle, with photographs]
* [http://www.architecturallysignificanthomes.com/Architecture/Architects/Architects/architect_edward_durell_stone.asp Photographs of a Modern Home in Dallas, Texas by Architect Edward Durrell Stone]