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User:Lquilter/drafts/Elroy Webber

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  • b. 1905 Springfield, d. 2002
  • Architect
  • Harvard & MIT architecture
  • Joseph Urban

obituary

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  • Aug. 4 2002 Hartford Courant obituary - "Elroy Webber, a prominent New England architect, died on Tuesday, (July 30, 2002) of natural causes at the age of 96. Best known for his elegant houses in Massachusetts and Connecticut, his work combined a distinctive mix of Japanese simplicity and the formal economy of modernism. His houses reposed in a natural setting of terraces and trees, connected to the landscape by trellises and thoughtful planting. Mr. Webber was born in Springfield, MA in 1905. Educated at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he graduated from M.I.T. as an architect, teaching himself engineering from books. He first worked for Joseph Urban, then traveled to Europe, working in Paris in the atelier of Le Corbusier. A gifted draftsman, he made measured drawings of the armour collection for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as part of the W.P.A. and designed blimps for the Air Force during World War II. Mr. Webber opened his architectural practice in New York City with a signature office on Madison Avenue that featured a dark tunneling entryway opening dramatically into a sun-filled drafting room. He worked on large projects for the City of New York and the Amalgamated Lithographers Union before finding his love in designing beautiful houses with an economy of means. Mr. Webber and his family moved to Springfield, MA in 1951, where he designed schools, office buildings, and, of course, houses. Most can still be seen in the surroundings of Longmeadow and Hartford, many lived in by a new and adoring generation. ... Mr. Webber briefly interupted his career to chair the Architecture Department at Ohio University, returning in the late 1960's to re-open his practice in New Hartford. ... In his seventies, he won the New England Senior Ice Dancing Championship and in his eighties he cycled through the Loire Valley in France to re-visit the chateaus. ... Mr. Webber was a profound thinker and at the time of his death was writing a book on the evolution of aesthetics, a subject that interested him endlessly. He was also a skilled carpenter, proud to he able to build anything he needed just the way he wanted. He was a ``total architect, arranging everything from interior decoration to landscaping. His own life reflected a love of style from clothing to dishes, always seeking to combine functional design with classic beauty. His work became increasingly lush and romantic as he freely expressed his love of nature and his extraordinary love of life. Mr. Webber is survived by his former wife, Edith Webber; his daughters, Lucy Wolff of Springfield, MA and Alice Briggs of Natick, MA; a grandson, two granddaughters and a great - granddaughter. "

thesis

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  • vimeo / emily leibin - CC-licensed: "“Hidden Nature: Rediscovering Elroy Webber’s Modern Homes” examines this largely unknown residential work whose heyday was in the early 1960s. Webber (1905–2002) designed bespoke homes in the Connecticut Valley region and throughout the Northeast that were symbols of wealth and sophistication for an exclusive social niche. The homes remain to this day surprising bursts of modernism in an otherwise traditional suburban landscape that dates back to the Colonial era. Webber was a part of the secular Jewish creative community that defined the New York Intellectuals of the 1930s. He was a critic of the critics of modern architecture, and typically found himself at odds with the authoritative voices of his day. He even went so far as to participate in the pivotal 1931 exhibition modeled after the French Salon des Refusés, titled “The Rejected Architects.” By the 1950s Webber’s architecture had gained cachet, and by 1960 his designs were featured in nearly every home and architecture magazine of the era. But still his work remained on the fringes, both socially and geographically. Most of the homes he designed were situated in a region removed from urban centers of modernism like Boston and New York, and over time they (and he) faded from view. This lecture will address the relationship of Webber to the established canon of modern architecture, and illuminate the many contradictions that positioned the architect and his work outside of the mainstream. --- The School of Visual Arts MFA Design Criticism Department presented “Crossing the Line: The 2010 D-Crit Conference" organized by graduating D-Crit students at the SVA Theatre in New York City on Friday, April 30 2010."


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  • NYT - 20 homes chosen for design excellence
  • NYT - "Jobless Architect Wins: Elroy Webber Takes First Prize in Competition"


  • NYT series discussed at Patell & Waterman's History of NY class, book, blog - "Three such opinion pieces submitted to the New York Times document way in which professional opinion was highly considered in that period, suggesting that the citizen population was to some extent expected to accept whatever the newspapers led them to think, and the particular strength of the International Style architects in the papers. Philip Johnson, a functionalist, and Charles Downing Lay, a landscape architect, each contributed an article, drawing the conclusion that International Style was in the process repudiating functionalism, and that functionalism had been badly overdone, respectively. Elroy Webber followed up with a defense for functionalism that categorically undermined each argument Lay had proposed against it, though Webber showed a certain degree of respect for what Philip Johnson had achieved in the name of functionalism. According to one historical text, “Art Deco and its journalism were a pushover for the International Style critics with their verbal attack and defense, their sloganeering, and their emphasis on simplification rather than ambiguity. They implied that the Art Deco architect had had International Style intentions but that his resolve had failed him.”[6]" - [6] Charles Downing Lay, “Should Architecture Be Beautiful: Charles Downing Lay Probes ‘Functionalism,’ Finding It Too Often a Smoke-Screen to Hide Lack of Ideas and Weak Designs,” New York Times (16 Aug. 1931): 99; C. Robinson and Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Skyscraper Style (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976); Elroy Webber, “Architect Defends Functionalism” New York Times (6 Sept. 1931): 92-92.


  • Elroy Webber, “Architect Defends Functionalism” New York Times (6 Sept. 1931): 92-92.

longmeadow home list

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  • houses of architectural significance in Longmeadow, CT - http://www.longmeadow.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Areas-of-Historical-Significance-approved-11-2011.pdf
  • 167 Wheelmeadow (designed by Elroy Webber)
  • 19 Natanis Path (likely Webber)
  • 29 Natanis Path (likely Webber)
  • 218 Crestview Circle (designed by Elroy Webber)
  • 55 Druid Circle (probably Webber)
  • 111 Captain Road (probable Webber)
  • 47 Allen Road (designed by Elroy Webber)
  • 160 Englewood Dr.(probable Elroy Webber)
  • 189 Englewood Dr. (probable Elroy Webber)
  • 97 Tecumseh Drive (designed by Elroy Webber)
  • 81 Tecumseh Drive (probable Elroy Webber)
  • 84 Ardsley Road (designed by Elroy Webber)
  • 154 Ardsley Road (possible Webber)
  • 132 Prynwood Road (designed by Elroy Webber)
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