ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION AT CORNELL: 1928-1950 BETWEEN MODERNISM AND BEAUX-ARTS

Abstract

Cornell University’s School of Architecture, the second oldest in the United States, enjoyed for many years a reputation as a quintessential "French" school, based on the teaching methods of the École de Beaux Arts in Paris. Its students and alumni did very well in design competitions, and went on to successful careers all over the country. When the author attended architecture school in Caracas, the majority of the faculty were Cornell alumni from the 50s. Their focus was on modernism, and when they reminisced about Cornell they talked mostly about what they learned studying Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Gropius, among others. For this thesis the author reviewed documents in the university’s archives and corresponded with alumni of the era, in order to look at the transitional period between those two phases in the life of the Cornell school.