Ada Louise Huxtable

Ada Louise Huxtable
Born(1921-03-14)March 14, 1921
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedJanuary 7, 2013(2013-01-07) (aged 91)
OccupationArchitectural critic
EducationHunter College (BA)
New York University
SubjectBiography
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize for Criticism
SpouseGarth Huxtable

Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was an American architecture critic and writer on architecture. Huxtable established architecture and urban design journalism in North America and raised the public's awareness of the urban environment.[1] In 1970, she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In 1981, she was named a MacArthur Fellow. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, also a Pulitzer Prize-winner (1984) for architectural criticism, said in 1996: "Before Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture was not a part of the public dialogue."[2] "She was a great lover of cities, a great preservationist and the central planet around which every other critic revolved," said architect Robert A. M. Stern, dean of the Yale University School of Architecture.[3]

The concourse in 1962 of Penn Station, two years before demolition. "Not that Penn Station is the Parthenon," Huxtable wrote, "but it might as well be because we can never again afford a nine-acre structure of superbly detailed travertine, any more than we could build one of solid gold. It is a monument to the lost art of magnificent construction, other values aside."
  1. ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 366. ISBN 9780415252256.
  2. ^ Dunlap, David W. (January 7, 2013). "Ada Louise Huxtable, Champion of Livable Architecture, Dies at 91". The New York Times. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
  3. ^ Miller, Stephen (January 8, 2013), "Lover of Cities Was Dean of Architecture Critics", The Wall Street Journal, p. A6, retrieved January 7, 2013