From the Executive Director

Posted by on Aug 13, 2021 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director Throughout the pandemic, we at PHMC have had the opportunity to share Pennsylvania’s rich history with people well beyond our borders through virtual programming. Over the last year we have seen visitors join us from across the country and around the world. Although we have learned how important virtual engagement is, much of what we do remains grounded in the physical world. We have buildings,...
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Historic Districts in Pennsylvania: An Evolving Sense of Place

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Historic Districts in Pennsylvania: An Evolving Sense of Place Jim Thorpe, originally named Mauch Chunk, is a small and picturesque borough of well-preserved 19th-century buildings perched on the side of a mountain along the Lehigh River in Carbon County. It once served as an important railroad and coal shipping center. As these industries waned in the 20th century, the town sought new economic purpose by marketing its scenic appeal as the “Switzerland of...
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Modernizing Center City: Philadelphia’s Penn Center

Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 in | Comments Off on Modernizing Center City: Philadelphia’s Penn Center Modernism came to Philadelphia in September 1947. It had been creeping up on the city for some time, but that’s when the citizenry who for decades had come to expect little from the machine that controlled city politics came to see how a modern Philadelphia could look. It was a 10-part vision of Modernism presented by the City Planning Commission’s Better Philadelphia Exhibition that was...
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Louis Kahn and Midcentury Modern Philadelphia

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Louis Kahn and Midcentury Modern Philadelphia “A city should be a place where a little boy walking through its streets can sense what he would someday like to be.” For Louis I. Kahn, arguably the most influential American architect of the late 20th century, that city was Philadelphia. Kahn spent nearly his entire life in Philadelphia, attending grade school through college, teaching, practicing and designing a number of...
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Greenbelt Knoll

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Greenbelt Knoll Greenbelt Knoll was built in 1956 by Morris Milgram (1916-97), an award-winning leader of the open housing movement in the United States. Designed by the firm of Montgomery & Bishop, in association with architect Harry Duncan and landscape architect Margaret Lancaster Duncan, with Louis Kahn as a consultant, it was the first planned integrated housing development in Philadelphia and one of...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter The 50th anniversary of The State Museum and Archives Complex gives us the opportunity at PHMC to commemorate the significance of not only our particular architectural treasure but also the many buildings, furnishings and designs of a similar mode created in the Keystone State during the mid-20th century. Accordingly, Midcentury Modern in Pennsylvania has been adopted as the agency’s...
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Wilson Eyre: The Philadelphia Domestic Ideal

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Wilson Eyre: The Philadelphia Domestic Ideal At the turn of the twentieth century, Wilson Eyre was at the height of his architectural powers. For sixteen years he had had a successful practice in Philadelphia, one of America’s major architectural centers. The United States bad become a world power, with money to give con­crete evidence of this in the buildings of her great cities, and Philadelphia’s blend of conservative...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architec­ture by David Bruce Brownlee and David G. De Long Museum of Contemporary Art and Rizzoli International Publications, 1991 (448 pages, paper, $34.95) Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) had strong ties to Philadelphia during his internationally acclaimed architectural career. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1906, and was encouraged by the Graphic Sketch Club, Central...
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A Passion for Wood: The Life and Legacy of Wharton Esherick

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Passion for Wood: The Life and Legacy of Wharton Esherick When Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) left Philadelphia for the countryside and heavily wooded hills near Valley Forge in 1913, he was a disillusioned painter struggling to find his artistic identity. By the time of his death nearly six decades later, he had not only discovered his identity but had become renowned for his sculptural furniture which earned for him the title “the dean of...
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The Value of Pennsylvania History

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Value of Pennsylvania History George W. Bush won the presidential election of 2000 because the fifty states cast more electoral votes for him, even though more people actually voted for his opponent, Albert A. Gore Jr. The election reminded Americans about a curious institution called the Electoral College, and an equally peculiar system known as federalism in which each state conducts elections according to distinct laws...
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