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Huxtable (Ada Louise) papers, 1859-2013 (bulk 1954-2012)
2013.M.9
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Title: Ada Louise Huxtable papers
Date (inclusive): 1859-2013 (bulk 1954-2012)
Number: 2013.M.9
Creator/Collector:
Huxtable, Ada Louise
Physical Description:
239.5 Linear Feet
(433 boxes, 27 flatfile folders. Computer media 17.151 GB [5,533 files])
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Metadata Rights:
Abstract: The Ada Louise Huxtable papers contain the writing and research of the
outspoken architecture critic and ardent advocate of the contemporary preservation movement. Huxtable wrote 11 books and worked
as a dedicated
architecture critic at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. This collection is comprised of correspondence, typescripts,
photographs,
awards and research files spanning her career as a writer and one of the most important voices in the field of architectural
criticism during the
second half of the twentieth century.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory
through the
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for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language: Collection material is in English.
Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman, 1921-2013) was considered the most important voice in architectural criticism over the last
50 years. Born and
raised in New York City, she graduated from Hunter College in 1941 and subsequently studied architectural history at New York
University's Institute
of Fine Arts. Ada Louise married the industrial designer L. Garth Huxtable in 1942. Because of their related interests, the
couple frequently
collaborated throughout their marriage. Together they worked on the design of tableware and serving pieces for New York's
Four Seasons restaurant,
and Garth's influence was also evident in her sporadic writing about the field of industrial design and through the numerous
photographs he took to
illustrate her writing. In 1946 Huxtable was hired by Philip Johnson to work as an assistant curator in the Department of
Architecture and Design at
the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She left MoMA in 1950 upon receiving a Fulbright Scholarship which provided her the opportunity
to travel to Italy
and research Italian architecture and engineering. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958 to support her research
on the structural and
design advances of American architecture. While Huxtable wrote freelance articles during the 1950s for several journals including
Arts Digest,
Progressive Architecture and the
New York Times
Sunday Magazine
, her writing career was truly established with the publication of her first book based on her Fulbright research,
Pier Luigi Nervi (1960).
The New York Times hired Huxtable to write about architecture
full time in 1963 when their art critic Aline Bernstein, the wife of Eero Saarinen, felt that she could no longer cover architecture
without a
conflict of interest. These unique circumstances placed Huxtable as the first ever dedicated architecture critic for an established
daily
newspaper.
Huxtable's writing on architecture focused on the importance of its humanistic meaning and artistic power; she often reserved
her displeasure for
projects that lacked civic engagement. With her writing occasionally appearing on the front page of the
New York
Times
, Huxtable made architecture a more prevalent part of the public dialogue. Her approachable and irreverent or sarcastic style
made
for astute reviews of the city's built environments that were appreciated by readers and architects alike. Her hold on public
opinion was so great
that it was commemorated in
New Yorker cartoons in 1968 and 1971. Her popularity and success can be attributed to a
manner of treating architecture holistically, not solely considering a building's formal and aesthetic features, but also
examining the social
relations and material conditions of its particular context. She was an advocate for preservation over urban renewal and her
essays championed the
conservation of many important landmarks in New York and elsewhere in the country, eventually influencing the establishment
of the Landmark
Preservation Commission. In 1970 she received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the first year the category
was established. Three
years later Huxtable joined the newspaper's editorial board. Huxtable remained at the
New York Times until 1982,
when she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. A bibliography of her work at the
New York Times is available
here . Following her departure from the
New York Times Huxtable committed herself to
conducting research, publishing writing and advisory work. Subsequently, in 1997, Huxtable became the architecture critic
for the
Wall Street Journal where she contributed work until 2012.
Throughout her extensive career Huxtable published 11 books, some of which were curated selections of essays from her
New
York Times
oeuvre compiled to explore specific themes such as
Architecture Anyone? (1986),
On Architecture (2008) and
Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (1970). Huxtable
was particularly adept at seeing how different groupings of her published articles expressed various themes. She also wrote
several long-form books
including
The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered (1985),
Unreal America
(1997) and
Frank Lloyd Wright (2004).
Over the years Huxtable became such an important figture in the world of architecture, design and preservation that she was
invited to participate
in numerous juries and committees. She served as a juror for the Pritzker Architecture Prize and Praemium Imperiale of Japan
and served as a member
on the Architectural Selection and Building Design Committees for the Getty Center and Getty Villa, as well as many others.
Huxtable was regularly
lauded for her work in criticism and preservation activism and received numerous distinguished awards and honorary degrees.
Her contributions to the
fields of architecture criticism/writing and preservation are indelible.
Ada Louise Huxtable's
New York Times bibliography can be found
here .
Open for use by qualified researchers. Audio visual materials and digital files are unavailable until reformatted.
Contact
Library Reproductions and
Permissions
.
Ada Louise Huxtable papers, 1859-2013, bulk 1954-2012, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2013.M.9.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2013m9
Acquired in 2013.
Laura Schroffel processed and cataloged the collection under the supervision of Ann Harrison from 2013 to 2014. Laura Schroffel
processed born
digital content betweeen 2017 and 2019. Files require further processing before access copies can be made available.
Laura Schroffel added an accretion, box 433, to the collection in 2020.
The Getty Research Library also holds the L. Garth Huxtable papers 1932-1983, Special Collection accession number 2013.M.2.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection chronicles the work of the esteemed writer and architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable. The Huxtable papers
provide a comprehensive
record of the evolution and accomplishment of her extensive writing career. But Huxtable's research papers, which were integral
to her writing, also
serve as documentation of the shifting landscape of architectural design, planning and urbanism in America and the world during
the second half of
the 20th century.
Series I contains correspondence and email records comprised mostly of letters to Huxtable extending requests for her coverage
of a specific site or
building, advocating the preservation of certain buildings or to comment to her on a previously published article. Included
in this correspondence
are letters from architects who felt compelled to pen their agreement or disagreement with what she had written about other
architects, and
sometimes themselves. All of these letters constitute a record of the popular reception of modern and contemporary architecture
as well as the
professional discourse on both new buildings and preservation in the latter half of the 20th century. Other correspondence
includes scheduling and
work requests between Huxtable and her colleagues. Huxtable corresponded with numerous architects, politicians and scholars
including Richard Meier,
John Lindsay, Philip Johnson, Moshe Safdie and Walter Muir Whitehill.
The material in Series II is writing by Huxtable comprised of typescripts for journal articles, books and lectures. Huxtable
often kept drafts of
earlier versions of her work with corrections and improvements in her hand, as well as the research, illustrations and related
correspondence for
each project. The bulk of this series is almost a complete archive of clippings from Huxtable's contribution to the
New
York Times
, including her editorials, which often did not attribute her as author. This series reveals that Huxtable's journalistic
process was a practice of patience, and she often waited for other critics to place their stories on a building before she
formalized her own
opinion. Along with all of Huxtable's papers for her published works, Series II also contains the writing and research for
The Architecture of New York: A History and Guide which comprises a large portion of this series though Huxtable only
completed one of five volumes for the publisher. Other incomplete writing projects found in Series II include the foreword
and research for her book
on ranch house style and research for a book on extreme architecture, which were both unpublished.
Series III contains architect research files that Huxtable maintained, with documentation spanning the careers of some of
the most prominent
architects of the 20th century. The files represent her habit of meticulously saving all materials related to a particular
architect or firm such as
press releases and brochures, biographical/firm files, announcements, typescripts or drafts of essays, clippings or entire
issues of journals,
letters, slide carousel lists, and sometimes plans. This series is rich in photographs, as Huxtable always requested original
photography from
architects and never relied on copy prints. Some of Huxtable's most robust files are for Tadao Ando; Norman Foster; Frank
Gehry; Herzog & de
Meuron; Johnson & Burgee; Le Corbusier; Richard Meier; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Renzo Piano; Eero Saarinen; Skidmore Owings
and Merrill; and
Minoru Yamasaki.
The rest of Huxtable's research files are in Series IV. This series contains research on subjects of interest to Huxtable
and often relate to themes
explored in her published writing. The research files focus on subject matter related to geographical locations internationally,
nationally, and
with a substantial portion devoted to New York City. Other particular locations of interest to Huxtable were Boston, Washington,
DC, and Great
Britain. It is in this series that research on design, planning, preservation and urbanism are more thoroughly explored. Files
are typically
comprised of clippings, but sometimes also include photographs, plans, official reports and promotional materials.
Series V contains papers regarding Huxtable's participation on juries and advisory committees. Because of Huxtable's prodigious
and respected
critical writing career she was invited to be a member of several honor societies celebrating artists of letters. She was
also invited to
participate on advisory committees and councils for cultural institutions embarking on new architectural design projects,
selecting architects,
awarding prizes in architectural excellence, or shaping architectural scholarship. Huxtable's impact in her field was so great
that often
organizations that had awarded her prizes asked her back to participate in the selection of future prize winners, such as
the MacArthur Prize and
the Guggenheim Fellowship. Files typically include correspondence, meeting minutes, institutional reports, architect submissions,
travel
itineraries, expenses and sometimes certificates or medals. This series also contains papers and recordings from Huxtable's
speaking
engagements.
Series VI is comprised of Huxtable's personal papers including the substantial collection of awards and honors that she received.
These honors
include diplomas and certificates (often large format), academic hoods, medals, three-dimensional awards and commemorative
objects. Huxtable
received more than 33 honorary degrees during her long career as well as the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize,
MacArthur Award and
various honors from the City of New York and the American Institute of Architects. This series also includes clippings from
articles and interviews
about Huxtable, publicity materials, ephemera, Huxtable's annual calendars and heavily annotated address book, research resources,
papers regarding
her retirement from the
New York Times and some of her personal art. Series VI also contains the
bulk of Huxtable's photographs including images from (national and international) trips and of her residences, documenting
the household settings
and changing environs that the Huxtables shared during their life together.
Finally, Series VII describes the extent of the born digital media in Huxtable's collection. This series describes the media
at the aggregate level
while individual files are described more specifically in other series of the finding aid. Filenames have also been added
to notes throughout the
finding aid in order to disambiguate between other content on shared media. Information regarding media labels, file counts
and size, as well as
identified file format types are found in Series VII. The digital materials have been preliminarily processed but are unavailable
until fully
reformatted. Contact reference for reformatting.
Organized in seven series: Series I. Correspondence, 1949-2012; Series II. Writing, 1934-2012; Series III. Architect files,
1886-2012; Series IV.
Research files, 1859-2012; Series V. Advisory committees, juries and speaking engagements, 1889-2012; Series VI. Personal
papers, 1912-2013;
Series VII. Digital media, 1980-2012. Born-digital materials are integrated into their corresponding series based on content.
The original order
of the files is retained when viewed through the provided links.
Lindsay, John V. (John Vliet)
Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005
Whitehill, Walter Muir, 1905-1978
Safdie, Moshe, 1938-
Yamasaki, Minoru, 1912-1986
Foster, Norman, 1935-
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965
Piano, Renzo
Saarinen, Eero, 1910-1961
Andō, Tadao, 1941-
Gehry, Frank O., 1929-
Wall Street Journal (Firm)
Johnson & Burgee
Richard Meier & Partners
Herzog & de Meuron
New York Times Company
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Architectural criticism
Architecture -- Conservation and restoration
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century
Architecture -- Designs and plans
Architecture, Postmodern
Washington (D.C.)
New York (N.Y.)
Boston (Mass.)
Gelatin silver prints -- 20th century
Color photographs
DVDs
Videotapes
Hard disks
Color slides
Correspondence
Compact discs -- 20th century
Huxtable, Ada Louise