This week, The Usonian travels to Cleveland to uncover the story of a Neo-Byzantine monument to a forgotten American president.
You can find the post here. Thanks for reading!
Tag: Architecture
“Region,” a new volume of architectural essays from Routledge, to be released in July
I’m thrilled to have an essay titled “Southwestern Fantasy: Pueblo Revival and architectural authenticity in New Mexico” in a new volume of architectural essays from Routledge.
Region, edited by Simon Richards, Cagri Sanliturk, Robert Schmidt III, and Falli Palaiologou, is the latest in a series from the Architectural Humanities Research Association. The book will be published in late July 2023; the articles in the volume center around questions of regionality in architecture and urban studies. Learn more about the book here.
I will be writing more about my contribution to the volume in The Usonian newsletter in the months to come. Cheers!
Reflecting on the 2021 AHRA Conference: “Region”
I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to present my paper, “Southwestern Fantasy: The Strange Case of Pueblo Revival Architecture in New Mexico,” for the 2021 Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) conference “Region” at Loughborough University, UK.
Though the conference was virtual, I’m very glad for being able to “attend” and learn from so many exciting scholars in the field of architecture and urban studies. You can browse from a list of the conference’s abstracts here.
Read “Paul Revere Williams, Versatile Architect of Tomorrow” in Nevada Humanities
Thrilled to publish a short piece in Nevada Humanities on one of the most influential figures in American architectural history: Paul Revere Williams, the first African American architect in the American Institute of Architects, one of the designers of LAX and thousands of buildings across California and Nevada. Read the article here.
Paul Revere Williams’s legacy in Nevada will be further explored in an exhibition from the Nevada Museum of Art scheduled for next year.
Photo Credit: Cartoon of Paul Revere Williams. (Drawing by Charles Alston, 1943, Public Domain, USA).
Read “Architectural designer Angeline C. Jacques on designing for animals & climate change” in The Usonian
In this week’s Usonian newsletter, I’m proud to present an interview of Angeline C. Jacques, an architectural designer who recently won a design competition to generate a concept for the new facility for the International Owl Center in Houston, Minnesota.
Read the article to to learn more about how Angeline designs for animals and climate change!
(Image courtesy Angeline C. Jacques).
“Falling” to be published in Flying Ketchup Press’ “Tales from the Deep” in Spring 2020
I’m thrilled to announced my short story, “Falling,” will be published this spring in Tales from the Deep, an anthology of fantasy, horror and science fiction.
The anthology will be the product of Flying Ketchup Press, a small press based in Kansas City, MO, and be published sometime after May 2020.
“Falling” is a gothic horror retelling of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House for the Kaufmann family in Pennsylvania.
In the story, retail scion Edward Zeliger Jr. (a fictional representation of E. J. Kaufmann Jr.) becomes fascinated with a mysterious architect (a portrayal of Wright), who Edward Jr.’s father has hired to build their family’s country house. But The Architect’s sublime (and perhaps supernatural) work strives to achieve harmony with nature, a process which has devastating effects on the Zeliger family—and leads Edward Jr. along the dark path constructed by the master builder.
In July 2019, Fallingwater was proclaimed a World Heritage Site. So it is fitting that, a year later, this short story—an appreciation yet cautionary tale about Wright’s work—will reach the wider world. Thanks to all the beta readers who helped shape it!
Fallingwater. Photo by Harrison Blackman, August 2018.
Watch “The Visionary in the Marsh,” lecture at Benaki Museum on blod.gr
On September 15, 2018 I had the extraordinary opportunity of giving a talk at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, where I discussed the 1960 plans of architect Constantinos Doxiadis for Eastwick, Philadelphia, featuring some ‘cameo’ appearances from Robert Kennedy and Kevin Bacon. You can watch the talk here, courtesy the Bodossakis Foundation. Many thanks to Simon Richards and Mantha Zarmakoupi of the Delos Network for inviting me and allowing me to speak on this subject, one that has occupied my globetrotting research for the past three years.
The Delos Network is an initiative sponsored by the UK Arts & Humanities Council, with academic support from University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, and the University of Pennsylvania. This was the second of three conferences to discuss the work of global architect and urban planner Constantinos Doxiadis (1913-1975), the first such conferences in over a decade.
Thanks to the Delos Network and the University of Nevada, Reno, for financially supporting my visit.
Harrison Blackman 