The New York Five was a group of

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

whose work was featured in the 1972 book ''Five Architects''. The architects, Peter Eisenman,

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, as well as principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Gr ...

Charles Gwathmey Charles Gwathmey (June 19, 1938 – August 3, 2009) was an American architect. He was a principal at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, as well as one of the five architects identified as The New York Five in 1969. Gwathmey was perhaps be ...

John Hejduk John Quentin Hejduk (July 19, 1929 – July 3, 2000) was an American architect, artist and educator of Czech origin who spent much of his life in New York City. Hejduk is noted for having had a profound interest in the fundamental issues of shap ...

and Richard Meier, are also often referred to as "the Whites." Other architects and theorists have been associated with the group, including Werner Seligmann,

Kenneth Frampton Kenneth Brian Frampton (born 20 November 1930) is a British architect, critic and historian. He is the Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York. He has b ...

Colin Rowe Colin Rowe (27 March 1920 – 5 November 1999), was a British-born, American-naturalised architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and teacher; he is acknowledged to have been a major theoretical and critical influence, in the second h ...

, and Gwathmey's partner Robert Siegel.

Five Architects

The work featured in ''Five Architects'' was originally developed in a series of meetings held by the Committee of Architects for the Study of the Environment (CASE) at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

. The director of MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design,

Arthur Drexler Arthur Justin Drexler (13 March 1925 – 16 January 1987) was a museum curator and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for 35 years. Life Drexler was born in Brooklyn and attended the High School of Music and Art, and The Cooper Union st ...

, invited a group of architects to present photographs of recent built projects to a panel of critics. Another meeting followed in 1971. Drexler edited a volume of work by five of these architects, published in 1972 by Wittenborn & Company and reprinted by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

in 1975. ''Five Architects'' featured a preface by Drexler and critical essays by

and

. Later editions included a postscript by

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

. The name "Whites" was used to refer to the group in the architectural press by 1973.

later stated that he did not know who originally coined "the Whites," but

was the first to refer to the group as "the New York Five." "The Whites" describes the frequent use of white paint in the built works of the New York Five, as well as the white cardboard models they frequently presented. It also alludes to the group's affinity with the work of Le Corbusier, such as the white exterior surfaces of

Villa Savoye Villa Savoye () is a modernist villa and gatelodge in Poissy, on the outskirts of Paris. It was designed by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931 using reinforced concrete.Courlan ...

. This affinity would later be used by many critics disparagingly, to suggest that the work of the New York Five was excessively uncritical of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, or that their work was an unimaginative copy of Le Corbusier's.

Response and legacy

In response to ''Five Architects'',

Robert A. M. Stern Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern (born May 23, 1939), is a New York City–based architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, also known a ...

organized a forum of responses, titled "Five on Five," that was published in the May 1973 issue of ''

Architectural Forum ''Architectural Forum'' was an American magazine that covered the homebuilding industry and architecture. Started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1892 as ''The Brickbuilder'', it absorbed the magazine ''Architect's World'' in October 1938. Ownership ...

''. The five responding architects were

Romaldo Giurgola Romaldo "Aldo" Giurgola AO (2 September 1920 – 16 May 2016) was an Italian academic, architect, professor, and author. Giurgola was born in Rome, Italy in 1920. After service in the Italian armed forces during World War II, he was educated ...

Allan Greenberg Allan Greenberg (born September 1938) is an American architect and one of the leading classical architects of the twenty-first century, also known as New Classical Architecture. He was the originator and leading practitioner of "canonical c ...

, Charles Moore, Jaquelin T. Robertson, and Stern himself. This group would come to be known as "the Grays" and were closely associated with

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phil ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

architect

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with h ...

and the emerging interest in

vernacular architecture Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. This category encompasses a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, bo ...

, New Classical Architecture and early postmodernism, with three of "the Grays" and one of "the Whites" eventually winning the prestigious

Driehaus Architecture Prize The Driehaus Architecture Prize, fully named The Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame, is a global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture. The Driehaus Prize was ...

. The work of the New York Five has been characterized by architectural historians as an important moment in the history of postmodernism and critiques of

References

External links

Art & Culture.com, "Five Architects"''Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier'' (MOMA 1972) WorldCat record
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Five, The Architecture groups American architects Museum of Modern Art (New York City) exhibitions Quintets New Classical architecture