Anne Griswold Tyng (July 14, 1920 – December 27, 2011) was an

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 ...

and professor. She is best known for having collaborated for 29 years with

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whil ...

at his practice in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. She served as a professor at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

for 27 years, teaching classes in

urban morphology Urban morphology is the study of the formation of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area, city, town or village by examining ...

. She was a fellow of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach progr ...

and an academician of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

. She is the first woman licensed as an architect by the state of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Early life and education

Tyng's parents, Ethel Atkinson (née Arens) and Walworth Tyng, were from old New England families. They were living as

Episcopalian Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protes ...

missionaries in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

when, in 1920, Tyng was born in Lushan, Jiangxi province. Tyng received her bachelor's degree from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

in 1942. Later, she studied with

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

and

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981) was a Hungarian-American modernist architect and furniture designer. He moved to the United States in 1937 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1944. At the Bauhaus he designed the Was ...

at the architecture school at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In 1944, she was among the first women to graduate from Harvard. Tyng was the only woman to enter the architecture licensing exam in 1949. At the test, one of the male proctors turned his back on her and refused to cooperate. She was awarded her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

by the

in 1975. Her dissertation was titled, "Simultaneous Randomness and Order: the Fibonacci-Divine Proportion as a Universal Forming Principle". Tyng's collected papers are held in the university's architectural archives.

Career

Tyng was a theorist known for her passion for mathematics and her pioneering work in

space frame In architecture and structural engineering, a space frame or space structure (Three-dimensional space, 3D truss) is a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometry, geometric pattern. Space frames can ...

architecture, in which interlocking geometric patterns are used to create light-filled spaces. She was particularly interested in

platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a Convex polytope, convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the face (geometry), faces are congruence (geometry), congruent (id ...

s and in Jungian thought. Her Ph.D. thesis entitled "Simultaneous Randomness and Order" pursued her interests in hierarchical symmetry and organic form. Designing an addition to her parents' farmhouse in Maryland, she was also the first architect to frame a traditional peaked-roof house with fully triangulated three-dimensional

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as Beam (structure), beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so ...

. In 1945, Tyng moved to

and became employed at Louis Kahn's architectural practice, Stonorov and Kahn. Her fascination with complex geometrical shapes had a strong influence on several projects, most notably on the five cubes that comprise the Trenton Bath House and the triangular ceiling of

Yale Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and period ...

. Tyng also said that the concept for Kahn's famous "City Tower" design was largely her invention, although when the model was included in a show at the Museum of Modern Art, at first, Kahn left her name off of the credit label. The two also collaborated on the Esherick Studio and on Bryn Mawr's Erdman Hall. This project lead her to develop other projects that implemented complex geometries. Tyng showed her developed sense of mathematics and design early in her life. Her invention of the Tyng Toy, at the age of 27, illustrated her mastery of form. A construction set for children, the Tyng Toy allowed a small selection of plywood pieces to be combined into a wide variety of toys and pieces of furniture, ranging from a stool to a rocking horse. After a nine-year relationship with Kahn, she became pregnant and, because of the potential scandal, turned down a Fulbright Scholarship and departed for Rome in the autumn of 1953. Their daughter,

Alexandra Tyng Alexandra () is a female given name of Greek origin. It is the first attested form of its variants, including Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus ...

, was born there. During her year in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, Tyng studied with the structural engineer and architect,

Pier Luigi Nervi Pier Luigi Nervi (21 June 1891 – 9 January 1979) was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and was known wo ...

, and wrote weekly to Kahn. After a falling-out in 1964, Tyng left the firm, where she had been a partner. Tyng designed the Four-Poster House in

Mount Desert Island Mount Desert Island (MDI; ) in Hancock County, Maine, is the largest island off the coast of Maine. With an area of it is the List of islands of the United States by area, 52nd-largest island in the United States, the sixth-largest island in th ...

, Maine. Using logs and cedar shakes, she sought to make the house seem like an outgrowth of its natural environment. The house also was structured around the concept of a four-poster bed, with four central columns, each made from a cluster of four tree trunks. The entirety of its top floor was given over to a master bedroom. Evidence of her style may be seen in aspects of her former residence in Philadelphia's

Fitler Square Fitler Square is a 0.5 acre (0.20 ha) public park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and a surrounding neighborhood of the same name. The square is bounded on the east by 23rd Street, on the west by 24th Street, on the north by Panama ...

. It is known as the Tyng House. On its third floor, the building features a pyramidal timber-framed ceiling and slotted windows. Its staircase uses the openwork metal screens that she had chosen for the Yale Art Gallery project. For her work in this field, in 1965 she became the first woman to receive a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. In a letter recommending her to the Graham Foundation,

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

called her, "Kahn's geometrical strategist". In 1989, Tyng published the essay, "From Muse to Heroine, Toward a Visible Creative Identity", which was a study of the development of creative roles by women in architecture. In it, she wrote, "The steps from muse to heroine are accomplished by very few. Most women trained as architects marry architects. No longer the women behind the man, the woman architect in partnership with her husband may nevertheless be barely visible beside (or slightly behind) the hero", further noting, " e greatest hurdle for a woman in architecture today is the psychological development necessary to free her creative potential". The Institute of Contemporary Art held a retrospective exhibition of her work in 2010.

Kahn documentary

While Tyng is named in many sources as Kahn's partner and muse, it was not until late in her life that her influence on Kahn's work was recognized. At 82, Tyng appeared in

Nathaniel Kahn Nathaniel Kahn (born November 9, 1962, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American filmmaker. His documentaries '' My Architect'' (2003) – about his father, the architect Louis Kahn – and '' Two Hands'' (2006) were nominated for Academy A ...

's documentary about his father, '' My Architect'', discussing her insights into the work of Louis Kahn and her experience as his partner. During the filming, Tyng returned to the Trenton Bath House for the first time since its completion, finding it neglected and in disrepair. This is the building on which she and Kahn first collaborated. Due in part to the attention that the film drew to the condition of the bath house, the building was completely renovated in 2009.

References

External links

Anne Tyng, "Number is Form and Form is Number". Interview by Robert Kirkbride, ''Nexus Network Journal'', vol. 7 no. 1 (Spring 2005)

IAWA Anne Tyng Inventory

Philadelphia Architects and Buildings - Tyng, Anne Griswold

Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry
*Allison, Lara. 2012. “Primordial Form: Anne Tyng’s Geometrical Vision: Review of Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry at the Graham Foundation.” ''Design Issues'' 28 (1): 97–100. *Jacobs, Karrie. 2018. “Anne Tyng and Her Remarkable House.” ''Architect (Washington, D.C.)'' 107 (2): 81. *Tyng, Anne Griswold, and Robert Kirkbride. 2005. “Anne Tyng: Number Is Form and Form Is Number.” ''Nexus Network Journal'' 7 (1): 127–38. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tyng, Anne 1920 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American architects American women architects Radcliffe College alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Design alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty American expatriates in China Muses (persons) 20th-century American women inventors Architects from Philadelphia American women academics 21st-century American women