Edward Durell Stone


Edward Durell Stone was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City; the Parliament House of Pakistan in Islamabad; the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico; the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India; The Keller Center at the University of Chicago; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the EcoTarium, formerly known as the New England Science Center in Worcester, Massachusetts; and the campus of Windham College in Putney, Vermont.

Early life

Stone was born and raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He attended the University of Arkansas, where he joined the Sigma Nu fraternity, Harvard and M.I.T., but did not earn a degree. In 1927, he won the Rotch Travelling Scholarship, which afforded him the opportunity to travel through Europe on a two-year stipend. Stone was impressed by the new architecture he observed in Europe, buildings designed in what would come to be known as the International Style. He returned to the United States in 1929 and took up residence in Manhattan.

Career

Hired by the architectural firm of Schultze and Weaver, he designed interiors for the new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He subsequently worked for the Associated Architects of Rockefeller Center and became the principal designer of Radio City Music Hall.
Stone was an early advocate of the International Style. His first independent commission was the Richard H. Mandel House, in Mount Kisco, New York. This was followed by the Ulrich Kowalski house, also in Mt. Kisco, and the Albert C. Koch house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1936, Stone was chosen as associate architect for the new Museum of Modern Art in New York City, designed in collaboration with Philip L. Goodwin. Stone also designed a private residence for MoMA president Anson Conger Goodyear, the A. Conger Goodyear House, in Old Westbury, NY. Both the Richard H. Mandel House and A. Conger Goodyear House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At the outset of World War II, Stone enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was promoted to the rank of major and served as chief of the Army Air Force Planning and Design Section. Returning to New York after the war, Stone was commissioned to design the ten-story El Panama Hotel in Panama City, Panama, the University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center in Fayetteville, and the 850-bed Hospital del Seguro Social del Empleado in Lima, Peru.
Stone's best-known work was the Embassy of the United States in New Delhi, India. Tasked with creating a modern building that respected the architectural heritage of its host country, he designed a temple-like pavilion on a raised podium. Frank Lloyd Wright called the embassy one of the most beautiful buildings he had ever seen, and it won a first honor award from the American Institute of Architects. Subsequent commissions such as the Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company in Pasadena, California, and the United States pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, repeated elements originally designed for the embassy. The Stuart building and World's Fair pavilion both won awards from the AIA, and Stone was elected to the Institute's College of Fellows in 1958.
Described as romanticist, Stone's ornate designs brought him commercial success. By the 1960s, his firm was among the largest architectural practices in the United States, with over 200 employees and offices on both coasts. Buildings from this period include the North Carolina State Legislative Building in Raleigh, the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in Nilore, the National Geographic Society building in Washington, D.C., the Museo de Arte in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the uptown campus of the University at Albany, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the General Motors Building in New York City, the PepsiCo World Headquarters, in Purchase, New York, and the EcoTarium in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Florida State Capital complex in Tallahassee, and the Standard Oil building in Chicago, Illinois.
Stone also was the architect of the former Windham College in Putney, Vermont. Windham closed in 1978 and its abandoned campus was taken over by the present-day Landmark College in 1985.
Furthermore, Stone also designed Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. Harvey Mudd College is a highly ranked private liberal arts college, and according to Travel and Leisure Magazine in 2013, is one of "America's ugliest college campuses".
Stone retired in 1974 and died in 1978. Following a New York City funeral his ashes were buried in his hometown of Fayetteville.

Honors and awards

Honorary degrees