Ahead, I plan to leave three posts. What you will see is a severely abbreviated version of a larger essay that I composed some years back, without the included citations.
Five Architects who became ‘The New York Five’
In the late 1960s in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) brought together the work of five would-be Architects, all of whom had no particular uniformity, but were placed into the same ... circumstance. Looking back to this time, one prominent observer stated that all the Architects involved were “scarcely known,†but indicative of the success of the exhibit, they would collectively be known ... as “The New York Five.†This ... mis-labeled group, ...[has] since become a high-water mark in Architectural history, and for several reasons … To the extent that Architects are known to the ... public... , these five men were [still] fairly obscure, but within this group, at least three were in the process of ‘becoming’ ...
Richard Meier and Michael Graves ... were a mere three months apart in age, Graves was the elder … Meier was making a name for himself with Smith House, which was a seminal work in his early career. His signature ‘white style’ in ... homes began with that commission, but Meier had deeper roots invested in ‘white’ that went back to Le Corbusier. … Graves was not yet the ‘Post-Modernist’ we think of today, but rather a vaguely aligned ‘fellow traveler’ as ... (one person) disdainfully commented. … In 1964, Graves had established a practise in the same town as he taught – Princeton, New Jersey – but his ambition was greater than just the nearby community. … Money was a strong motivator for Graves, it led to a change in style to attract future patrons, this was the beginning of a pattern for him over the next decade. ...
{The third} was the brilliant Peter Eisenman, the budding Neo-Deconstructivist, who was known more for his theories about architecture than his actual work in architecture. Eisenman published frequently in professional journals, and occasionally outside them, with his elaborate interior designs that were often left unrealised apart from the image in print. Eisenman was on a path that few dared to explore ... he went so far as to state that exteriors themselves were secondary ... "These (Eisenman interiors) look more like Escher prints than architectural spaces," according to one [observer]. ...
The remaining two of The New York Five – Charles Gwathmey and John Hejduk – were not only lesser known, but if one were to inspect the publications of that period, their names were sometimes left out entirely from The New York Five … There were instances where Gwathmey’s models are confused with Hejduk ... Of the two, Gwathmey emerged, over time, as the much talked about talent behind Siegel + Gwathmey; Hejduk, on the other hand, became more a teacher than an Architect ... and he lapsed into obscurity.
In 1972, a small book with the simple title of Five Architects, was ... published. Materials were specifically drawn from the exhibition at MoMA. … It was a poorly designed book with ... an unpolished look. First editions of this book, resembled mimeographed assemblages found in Universities for "internal use only." … A close friend of Meier, the English-born Colin F. Rowe … Architecture Professor at Cornell, was in this period, the 'Modernist' counterpart to Vincent J. Scully, the Art and Architecture Professor at Yale. Rowe eventually wrote what some called one of the more “uninspired†introductions to an important book …
Rowe published infrequently, but his influence was widespread ... He eventually abandoned the Modernist cause, and with his abandonment, the friendship he had with Meier faded noticeably. ...
