Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable was a prominent American architectural critic, author, and advocate for urban architecture, born on March 14, 1921, in New York City. She graduated magna cum laude from Hunter College in 1941 and later pursued graduate studies in writing and architecture at New York University. Huxtable gained early experience as an assistant curator at the Museum of Modern Art and earned a Fulbright fellowship to study architecture in Italy. Her influential career began in earnest when she became an architecture critic for The New York Times in 1963, where she promoted thoughtful urban design and critiqued the destruction of architectural heritage.
Recognized for her forthright assessments, Huxtable received numerous accolades, including the first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1970. Her writings, such as her collection "Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard?" and her biography of Frank Lloyd Wright, showcased her deep understanding of architecture's relationship with its environment and its impact on urban life. Huxtable continued to engage with architectural discourse through various platforms, including a column for The Wall Street Journal, cementing her legacy as a leading voice in architectural criticism and urban planning. Her work remains influential in discussions of contemporary architecture and city development.
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Ada Louise Huxtable
- Born: March 14, 1921
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: January 7, 2013
Biography
Ada Louise Landman, the daughter of Michael Louis and Leah Rosenthal Landman, was born in New York City on March 14, 1921. Her father was a physician. In 1940, Landman worked as a salesperson at Bloomingdale’s Department Store in New York City. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1941 from Hunter College, graduating magna cum laude. She married L. Garth Huxtable, an industrial designer, on March 19, 1942. Between 1942 and 1950, she worked on graduate studies in writing and architecture at New York University. She was employed as an assistant curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City between 1946 and 1950.
Huxtable studied advanced architecture and design as a Fulbright fellow in Italy from 1950 to 1952. Between 1952 and 1963, she wrote freelance articles about various topics on architecture and design. Her first book, Pier Luigi Nervi, dealt with the life and works of the Italian architect and engineer. Soon thereafter, she decided to write a series of books about the architecture of New York, but only completed one, The Architecture of New York: A History and a Guide, Volume I—Classic New York: Georgian Gentility to Greek Elegance.
After becoming an architecture critic for The New York Times in 1963, Huxtable devoted her time to promoting feasible urban architecture through her newspaper writings. For her features on architecture, she received the First Page Award from the Newspaper Women’s Club of New York in 1965. She was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism by the College Art Association in 1967. Her first collection of Times articles was published in 1970 under the title of Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? Many of those essays dwelt on speculative buying, the unnecessary destruction of architectural treasures, and unjustified design.
In 1970, Huxtable was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Not influenced by others’ opinions, Huxtable gained recognition and respect for her straightforward, forthright assessment of architectural design. She considered all aspects of a building, including its structure, how it fit its surroundings, and how suitable and comfortable it would be for those using it. For her precise architectural criticism, she was awarded the Strauss Memorial Award by the New York Society of Architects in 1970.
In 1973, Huxtable joined The New York Times’ editorial board and wrote an architecture column for the Times Sunday edition until 1982. Huxtable was the Hitchcock Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley in 1982. In 1984, she revised and published her Hitchcock lectures as The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The Search for a Skyscraper Style. It contained a history of skyscrapers from the late 1800’s to the early 1980’s.
In her later years, Huxtable wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal. It continued her legacy as a bold, clear, effective communicator about all aspects of architectural design. She has not only tackled the issues associated with particular building projects, but also the broader issues of city and regional planning. Her biography titled Frank Lloyd Wright contains an elegant summary of Wright’s life and his achievements.