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Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker Book Talk
THE ARCHITECTURE OF GROSVENOR ATTERBURY

July 13,2010

(W.W. Norton & Company 2009)

The first close look at an innovative architect and inventor who held that traditional styles could be successfully adapted for modern times. In the final decade of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, the United States experienced exponential growth and a flourishing economy, and with it, a building boom. Grosvenor Atterbury (1869–1956) produced more than one hundred major projects, including an array of grand mansions, picturesque estates, informal summer cottages, and farm groups. However, it was his role as town planner and civic leader and his work to create model tenements, hospitals, workers’ housing, and town plans for which he is most celebrated. His Forest Hills Gardens, designed in association with the Olmsted Brothers, is lauded as one of the most highly significant community planning projects of its time.

As an inventor, Atterbury was responsible for one of the country’s first low-cost, prefabricated concrete construction systems, introducing beauty and inexpensive good design into the lives of the working classes. The Architecture of Grosvenor Atterbury is the first book to showcase the rich and varied repertoire of this prolific architect whose career spanned six decades and whose work affected the course of American architecture, planning, and construction. Illustrated with Jonathan Wallen’s stunning color photographs and over 250 historic drawings, plans, and photographs, it also includes a catalogue raisonné and an employee roster. It is the definitive source on an architect who made an indelible imprint on the American landscape.

Peter Pennoyer is the principal partner of the eponymous architecture firm that has a national practice in classical and traditional architecture. The Pennoyer firm has designed houses and institutional projects from New York to California. The firm’s work is recognized for combining an inventive spirit with an erudite grasp of architectural history and has been widely published and exhibited. Pennoyer serves on the boards of the Institute for Classical Architecture and Classical America, the Morgan Library, and the Whiting Foundation. He is the coauthor of The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich and The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore.

Anne Walker holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from Columbia University. She is the coauthor of The Ford Plantation Architectural Pattern Book, with Donald M. Rattner; The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich; and The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore.

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The exhibitions and programs of The Skyscraper Museum are supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.