Who is the Architect of the Century?

 

“Archi­tect of the Cen­tury” was the head­line report­ing the award­ing of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects’ Cen­ten­nial Medal to Ralph Walker in 1957. Though no such claim could ever be incon­testable, Walker’s many con­tri­bu­tions to the archi­tec­tural pro­fes­sion, and sky­scraper design in par­tic­u­lar, are widely recognized.

An exhibit at 212 West 18th street (for­merly belong­ing to the New York Tele­phone Com­pany, but in light of recent remod­el­ing and mar­ket­ing as a mul­ti­pur­pose high rise, now known as the Walker Build­ing) high­lights select works from his career. Though few out­side the indus­try are famil­iar with his name, undoubt­edly mil­lions of New York­ers have seen his build­ings at one time or another.

The one-room exhibit cov­ers the period of Walker’s life from 1917 to 1959 and four major works within that period: the Barclay-Vesey Build­ing, the Irv­ing Trust Build­ing, his designs for the 1933 worlds fair in Chicago, and of course, Walker Tower.

If you can look past the shame­less self-promotion of an exhibit whose fea­tured archi­tect designed the very build­ing hous­ing the exhibit and whose lux­ury apart­ments (coin­ci­den­tally) go on sale this spring, you’ll enjoy a quaint and highly infor­ma­tive expe­ri­ence that includes period pho­tographs, movies and sound clips, some actual art deco fit­tings from his build­ings, and in the case of Walker Tower, an amaz­ing inter­ac­tive phys­i­cal model where touch screen con­trols oper­ate the lights in spe­cific apart­ments up for sale this spring. The expe­ri­ence is greatly aug­mented by one of the bet­ter tour guides I’ve had the plea­sure of lis­ten­ing to, being both highly infor­ma­tive and extremely recep­tive to vis­i­tors’ questions.

 

So who was Ralph Walker and why should you care? Well, he is one of the archi­tects whose body of work is highly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a bygone era. He’s one of the icons of early sky­craper design, rep­re­sent­ing a gilded age in which vast sums were spent on the opu­lence of both the facade and espe­cially the inte­ri­ors of sky­scap­ers. (The stock mar­ket crash of 1929 curbed such dis­plays of wealth). Early in the emer­gence of this new build­ing typol­ogy sky­scrap­ers were called cathe­drals of com­merce. A more apt nomen­cla­ture based on their entry­ways might be mon­u­ments to mammon.

It’s a shame that many of these build­ings now have restricted access in the wake of 9/11 since many of their lob­bies are truly exquis­ite works of art that deserve to be admired and not just glanced at in pass­ing between the street and the ele­va­tor banks.

Walker’s Barclay-Vesey Build­ing was actu­ally dam­aged by the attacks, but has since been repaired. How­ever, in addi­tion to this dis­tinc­tion it is also con­sid­ered the first art deco sky­scraper ever built, and it is one of the first build­ings to really take advan­tage of the 1916 New York zon­ing ordi­nance, which placed lim­its on a building’s height in rela­tion to its dis­tance from the street in an attempt to make the city more hab­it­able by allow­ing more sun­light to hit pedestrians.

Many of Walker’s build­ings (not men­tioned in the exhibit, but eas­ily spot­ted in their nat­ural habi­tat by walk­ing the streets of New York) are notable for their mas­sive bulk and huge foot­print, often occu­py­ing an entire city block and look­ing more like a small moun­tain than a con­struct of man. Con­struc­tion on this scale is almost unheard of in New York today, partly because it’s rare for any devel­oper to be able to seize an entire city block, but also because Walker did a lot of work for the New York Telephone

Com­pany whose build­ings had spe­cial require­ments for the tons of mechan­i­cal equip­ment and legions of switch­board oper­a­tors that needed to be housed within their bulk.

Sky­scrap­ers are an Amer­i­can inno­va­tion and no city in Amer­ica is more famous for its sky­scrap­ers than New York. From the Flat­iron to the Free­dom Tower our his­tory is pre­served in our build­ings. Exhibits like this one remind us not just of how our build­ings have evolved, but also of the socioe­co­nomic con­di­tions dri­ving that evo­lu­tion. They are a win­dow into our past and from hab­it­abil­ity issues to eco­nomic down­turns, they remind us that while the archi­tec­ture has changed it has all been in ser­vice to the same issues that con­cern us today.

Admis­sion is free, but by appoint­ment only. Call 212–335-1800 to make an appoint­ment or visit ralph​walk​erex​hibit​.com.