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Archival Collections Portal > Avery Drawings & Archives Collections > Finding Aid: Peter Blake architectural records and papers
Peter Blake architectural records and papers,
1910-2006
(bulk 1980-2002)
Preferred Citation
Peter Blake architectural records and papers, Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library,
Columbia University.
COinS Metadata
available (e.g., for Zotero).
Summary Information
At a Glance
| Avery ID: | D&A Blake View CLIO record |
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| Creator(s): | Blake, Peter, 1920-2006. |
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| Title: | Peter Blake architectural records and papers,
1910-2006
(bulk 1980-2002)
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| Physical description: | 11.25 linear feet (22 manuscript boxes), 441 drawings (40 rolls and 1 print box), 11 audiocassettes (1 card file box).
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| Language(s): |
Materials are in English, German, French, and Italian.
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| Access: |
This collection is available for use by qualified readers by appointment in the Archives
and Drawings' Reading Room, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia
University. For further information and to make an appointment, please call (212) 854-4110 or email avery-drawings@libraries.cul.columbia.edu
More information » |
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| Types of Materials in the Collection: | Correspondence
,
typescript papers
,
carbon typescript papers
,
holograph papers
,
printed papers
,
photographic prints
,
film negatives
,
photographic transparencies
,
architectural reprographic prints
,
mixed media drawings
,
audiocassette
,
postcards
,
lithographic print
, and one
photomechanical print
.
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Arrangement
Arrangement
Materials are organized in the following series: Writing and Lectures; Professional Papers, Project Records, Faculty Papers;
Personal Papers. Materials are aranged alphabetically in series but Project Records, which are arranged geographically.
Return to top Description
Scope and Content
This collection contains materials related to a full range of Blake’s personal, professional, and academic lives. The bulk of the
collection dates from the 1980s through the early 2000s. His professional and faculty papers document many of his interests, and
primarily include published and unpublished lectures and articles. Although Blake delivered his lectures at various architectural
schools in the United States and abroad, the specific locations of the lectures are not usually recorded on the documents. In addition,
many articles he wrote for publication appear as annotated typescripts. There are also significant papers related to publication of his
memoir
No Place Like Utopia
(Knopf, 1993), including correspondence and some production records.
Throughout the professional and faculty papers are also found a large number of reference files relating to modern architecture, art,
design, urbanism, technology, and current events, compiled over many decades. The collection also contains correspondence with
personal friends, clients, and professional and academic colleagues. There is an especially significant amount of correspondence and
clippings related to Patwant Singh, a Sikh writer, commentator, journalist, editor, and publisher, with whom Blake was a close friend.
There are also many materials including correspondence, typescripts, and book production records related to Philip Johnson and Paul
Rudolph, with whom Blake was also close. Architectural project records include original and reprographic drawings and photographs
for 40 residential and institutional designs, located primarily in New York City and the surrounding region. Of particular note are
drawings and papers related to Blake’s important Pin Wheel House (1954) in Water Mill, New York. In addition, there are drawings
related to the American National Exhibition in Moscow (1959). Finally, there is a significant number of drawings, photographs, and
correspondence related to the Benjamin Gerson Residence (1999-2003) in Johnsonburg, New Jersey, one of Blake’s last architectural
projects.
Return to top Using the Collection
Access Restrictions
This collection is available for use by qualified readers by appointment in the Archives
and Drawings' Reading Room, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia
University. For further information and to make an appointment, please call (212) 854-4110 or email avery-drawings@libraries.cul.columbia.edu
Restrictions on Use
Columbia University is providing access to the materials
in the Library's collections solely for noncommercial educational and research purposes. The unauthorized use, including,
but not limited to, publication of the materials without the prior written permission of Columbia University is strictly prohibited.
All inquiries regarding permission to publish should be submitted in writing to the Director,
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For additional guidance, see
Columbia University Libraries' publication policy.
In addition to permission from Columbia University, permission
of the copyright owner (if not Columbia University) and/or any holder of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) may also be required for reproduction, publication, distributions, and other uses. Responsibility for making an independent legal
assessment of any item and securing any necessary permissions rests with the persons desiring to publish the item.
Columbia University makes no warranties as to the accuracy of the materials or their fitness for a particular purpose.
Preferred Citation
Peter Blake architectural records and papers, Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library,
Columbia University.
Related Materials in Other Collections
Materials related to Blake's tenure at
Architectural Forum
may be found in the
Douglas Putnam Haskell papers
held by Avery Library’s Department of Drawings & Archives.
Correspondence between Blake and Chermayeff may be found in the Serge Chermayeff architectural records and papers
held by Avery Library’s Department of Drawings & Archives.
Selected Bibliography
Blake, Peter.
Marcel Breuer, architect and designer.
New York, N.Y.:
Museum of Modern Art,
1949.
Blake, Peter.
The master builders.
New York, N.Y.:
Knopf,
1960.
Blake, Peter.
God’s own junkyard; the planned deterioration of America’s landscape.
New York, N.Y.:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1964.
Blake, Peter.
Le Corbusier, architecture and form.
Baltimore, MD.:
Penguin Books,
1964.
Blake, Peter.
Frank Lloyd Wright, architecture and space.
Baltimore, MD.:
Penguin Books,
1964.
Blake, Peter.
Mies van der Rohe, architecture and structure.
Baltimore, MD.:
Penguin Books,
1964.
Blake, Peter.
Form follows fiasco: why modern architecture hasn’t worked.
Boston, MA.:
Little, Brown,
1977.
Blake, Peter.
No place like Utopia: modern architecture and the company we kept.
New York, N.Y.:
Knopf,
1993.
Blake, Peter.
Philip Johnson.
Basel; Boston, MA.:
Birkhäuser Verlag,
1996.
Blake, Peter.
The architecture of Ulrich Franzen: selected works.
Basel; Boston, MA.:
Birkhäuser Verlag,
1999.
For Further InformationFor more information about using the collections and conducting research in the Department of Drawings & Archives, please see our FAQ. Return to top About the Finding Aid / Processing Information
Finding aid written by Daniel B. Fox, Mellon Graduate Intern,
under the direction of Annemarie van Roessel, Archivist,
Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
Processing Information
This collection was processed and the finding aid written by Daniel B. F. Fox, Mellon Graduate Student Intern in Primary
Resource Collections, Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, in 2007-2008.
EAD instance generated by Annemarie van Roessel from Microsoft Word file, August 7, 2008 and from Excel spreadsheets, March 3, 2009
Finding aid written in English.
CLIO ID: 6029399 View CLIO record Return to top Index Terms
The names and terms listed below are represented in this collection. Links below allow searches at Columbia University through the Archival Collections Portal and through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, as well as ArchiveGRID, a consortial/union catalog offered by OCLC that allows users to search the holdings of multiple archives and libraries. All links open new windows.
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Return to top History / Biographical Note
Biographical Note
Born Peter Jost Blach in Berlin in 1920, he was educated at the Grunewald Gymnasium in Berlin (1928-1934) and was sent to the
Bootham School, York, England (1935-38) following the Nazi party’s rise to power in Germany. He then attended the University of
London (1938) and Regent Street Polytechnic, School of Architecture, London (1939). While in London he was an apprentice to the
architect Serge Chermayeff (1938-39). He then immigrated to the United States and attended the University of Pennsylvania’s School
of Architecture (1941). In Philadelphia, he was apprentice to George Howe, Oskar Stonorov, and Louis Kahn, Architects (1940-42).
In 1944 he became a United States citizen and changed his surname to Blake. During World War II, Blake served for the U.S. Army
as an Intelligence Officer, U.S. 5th Armored Division (1944-45) and Staff Intelligence Officer, G-2 Division, U.S.F.E.T., in Frankfurt,
Germany (1945-47). After the war, Blake continued to work in West Germany as an Intelligence Officer. Upon returning to the United
States, he settled in New York City and completed classes in English through the General Studies program at Columbia University
(1947-48). He subsequently met architect Philip Johnson, who appointed him curator of the Department of Architecture and Industrial
Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (1948-1950). He finally received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the
Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture in 1949.
Blake was a prolific editor and author, writing 17 books and numerous columns, articles, and essays for both the professional
architect and the layperson. While at MoMA, Blake wrote a monograph on the architect Marcel Breuer titled Marcel Breuer: Architect
and Designer (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949). Following his work at MoMA, he served on the editorial staff of
Architectural Forum
from 1950-1972--he was associate editor from 1950 to 1961, managing editor
from 1961 to 1964, and editor-in-chief from 1965 to 1972. After
Forum
folded, Blake founded
Architecture Plus
magazine, where he served as editor-in-chief from 1972-1975. He was also on the
editorial staff of
House & Home
and
Magazine of Building
, and
published articles in
Harper’s
,
The Atlantic Monthly
,
The New York Times
,
New York
magazine, and
Interior Design
,
where he had a regular monthly column from 1983-1995.
His most notable books include
The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright
(Knopf, 1960) and
God’s Own Junkyard: The Planned Deterioration of America’s Landscape
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), a polemic against billboards and "honky-tonk" whose thesis he would later revise,
ultimately appreciating the "pop art" aspect of architecture and urbanism that he had once deplored. By 1977, he had become frustrated
with contemporary iterations of modern architecture, writing
Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn’t
Worked
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).
Although he practiced architecture intermittently, Blake designed several important residences. He established an architectural
practice in 1956 and designed projects in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Berlin.These include the Pin Wheel House (1954),
designed by Blake for his family in Water Mill, New York. The writer Alastair Gordon called this house "A platform for viewing...a kind of
Action Architecture realized--a house that could respond to the weather, the views and the personal moods of its inhabitant." Later, in a collaboration with R. Buckminster Fuller and other architects, Blake designed an exhibition of U.S. architecture at the American National Exhibition in Moscow (1959), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which included a model suburban house. Its kitchen was the site of the infamous "Kitchen Debate," where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev shook his fist at then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon. He was elected to the American Institute of Architect’s College of Fellows.
Blake also taught architecture, serving as chairman of the Boston Architectural Center (1975-1979) and chairman (1979-1986) and
professor (1979-1991) at Catholic University’s Department of Architecture and Planning. He was also a visiting professor at the
School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis (1991-1993) and was a visiting lecturer at numerous institutions, including
Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Tulane, the Pratt Institute, and the E.T.H. Zurich. He also taught the history of modern art and architecture with
some regularity at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Throughout his life, Blake maintained close friendships with
many prominent architects and artists, publishing a memoir of critical reflections and anecdotes in
No Place Like Utopia: Modern Architecture
and
The Company We Kept
(Knopf, 1993). Blake was married three times, first to Martha Howard, then to Loretta Nelson, and finally to the artist and critic
Susan Tamulevich. Blake had two children, Christina and Casey. He died near Branford, Connecticut, in 2006.
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