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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Bookshelf

Fountains of Philadelphia: A Guide By Jim McClelland Stackpole Books, 2005 (80 pages, paper, $14.95) Fountains of Philadelphia: A Guide, replete with eighty color photographs, several maps, and a bibliography, celebrates the artistry of the city’s famous – and not-so-famous – fountains, from the monumental Washington Monument on Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum...
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Edwin Austin Abbey, A Capital Artist

For those familiar with his majestic works of art – particularly his grand public murals – it seems improbable that Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) had little formal training. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for just one semester, where fellow students observed he rarely finished a drawing as assigned, preferring instead to produce sketches of his own design. Abbey was the...
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A Trio of Philadelphia Maritime Painters

Oceans and seas have long challenged civilization’s adventurous spirit. Sailors and their ships have struggled against billowing winds and sweeping tides, as well as fires, piracy, collisions, and warfare. All of this has been celebrated in story and song — and in works of art. Artists of the day captured both the beauty and the rigors of those wonderful ships in their coveted canvases. Three of...
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