Wallace Harrison

Harrison was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 28, 1895. He studied engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and architecture at the Boston Architectural Club. In the 1920s, he attended École des Beaux-Arts and, two years later, won the Rotch Taveling Scholarship in 1922.

Harrison's work in the mid-20th century comprised large, modernist public projects and office buildings. He worked for McKim, Mead & White and Bertram Grovesnor Goodhue from 1916 to 1923, and later formed a series of architectural partnerships. Harrison participated with the architectural teams involved in the construction of Rockefeller Center in New York City, completed in 1939. His brother-in-law was married to John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s daughter, AbigailIcons of American Architecture: From the Alamo to the World Trade Center By Donald Langmead and Harrison served as a designer and architectural adviser for Nelson Rockefeller, notably in the years when Rockefeller was governor of New York.

In 1941, Harrison joined with Max Abramowitz to form the firm of Harrison & Abramowitz. In partnership with Abramovitz, Harrison designed scores of university and corporate buildings, including the Time & Life (1959) and Socony-Mobil (1956), both designated New York City landmarks.Caroline Rob Zaleski, Long Island Modernism (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2012): Pg. 26

Among Harrison's most noted projects are the Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York. He also served as Director of Planning on the United Nations complex, which was built on slaughter house property contributed by the Rockefeller family (the Rockefellers owned the Tudor City Apartments across First Avenue). Harrision developed the design for the Pershing Memorial in Washington, D.C., which is now home to the National World War I Memorial.Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 545. In addition to his architectural work, Harrison served as master planner and supervising architect for a number of important Long Island-based projects, including the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964 in Flushing, Queens, and LaGuardia and Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy) airports.

Harrison's major projects are marked by straightforward planning and sensible functionalism, although his residential side-projects show more experimental flair. In 1931, Harrison established an {{convert|11|acre|ha|adj=on}} summer retreat in West Hills, New York, which was a very early example and workshop for the International Style in the United States, and a social and intellectual center of architecture, art, and politics. The home includes a {{convert|32|ft|m|adj=on}} circular living room that is rumored to have been the prototype for the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. Two other circular rooms complete the center of Harrison's design. Frequent visitors and guests included Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Moses, Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, Alexander Calder, and Fernand Léger. Harrison's expansive country property also exhibited his relationships with contemporary architects. For example, shortly after purchasing the property in 1931, Harrison and his wife bought the Aluminaire House, an iconic, compact, ready-to-assemble steel-and-aluminum structure designed by Swiss architect Albert Frey and then editor of Architectural Record, A. Lawrence Kocher.Caroline Rob Zaleski, Long Island Modernism (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2012): Pg. 29

Harrison collected works by Calder and Léger and commissioned new ones for buildings that he designed, including his country house in West Hills, New York on Long Island, a pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, parts of Rockefeller Center; and the United Nations headquarters.Eve M. Kahn (May 8, 2014), [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/arts/design/a-glimpse-of-leger-a-good-look-at-lalique.html A Glimpse of Léger, a Good Look at Lalique] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160601051244/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/arts/design/a-glimpse-of-leger-a-good-look-at-lalique.html |date=June 1, 2016 }} New York Times. Léger waited out part of World War II by painting a mural at the bottom of Harrison's swimming pool. Léger also created a large mural for the home's circular living room and sculpted an abstract form to serve as a skylight. Calder's first show is said to have taken place at the home.{{citation needed|date=November 2012}} In 1965, Harrison was appointed to a commission to choose modern art works for the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY.{{cite book |title=The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection and Plaza Memorials |date=May 3, 2002 |publisher=Rizzoli International Publications |isbn=0847824551 |page=11}}

Between 1941 and 1943, Harrison designed and built the Clinton Hill Coops, a 12-building coop complex split between two campuses along Clinton Ave. in Brooklyn, to house the Brooklyn Navy Yards workers.{{Cite web |url=http://architectuul.com/architect/wallace-kirkman-harrison |title=Article in "Architectuul" |access-date=October 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013065914/http://architectuul.com/architect/wallace-kirkman-harrison |archive-date=October 13, 2017 |url-status=live }}

Harrison's architectural drawings and archives are held by the Drawings and Archives Department of Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.{{Cite web |url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_3460617/ |title=Wallace K. Harrison architectural drawings and papers, 1913–1986 bulk 1930–1980 |access-date=October 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029194218/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_3460617/ |archive-date=October 29, 2014 |url-status=live }}

Harrison was a member of the United States Commission of Fine Arts from 1955 to 1959. In 1967, Harrison received the AIA Gold Medal.Luebke, Civic Art; Richard Guy Wilson, The AIA Gold Medal (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984). In 1938, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1948.

Harrison married Ellen Hunt Milton (1903–1995) in 1926. They had a daughter, Sarah, and lived in Manhattan and Seal Harbor, Maine.Goldberger, Paul. "[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/03/obituaries/wallace-harrison-dead-at-86-rockefeller-center-architect.html Wallace Harrison Dead at 86; Rockefeller Center Architect] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170324012339/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/03/obituaries/wallace-harrison-dead-at-86-rockefeller-center-architect.html |date=2017-03-24 }}" The New York Times, December 3, 1981. Article retrieved May 27, 2014.

{{for|work from 1941 through 1976|Harrison & Abramovitz}}

File:UNO New York.JPG at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City]]

• 185 Montague Street (1929–1930)
• Rockefeller Center, part of the Associated Architects, 1931–1971
• The Rockefeller Apartments (with J. André Fouilhoux), commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller, facing the Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden, 1936
• Trylon and Perisphere for the 1939 New York World's Fair
• 10 Rockefeller Plaza (formerly the Eastern Airlines Building), part of Rockefeller Center, 1939
• The Clinton Hill Co-ops, Brooklyn, New York, 1941–43
• The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 1951
• Sophronia Brooks Hall Auditorium, Oberlin, Ohio, 1953
• The First Presbyterian Church ("The Fish Church"), Stamford, Connecticut, 1958
• 1271 Avenue of the Americas (formerly the Time-Life Building) at Rockefeller Center, New York City, 1959
• The Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, his last major project, 1959–1976
• File:Hopkins-Center-for-the-Arts-Wheelock-St-Hanover-New-Hampshire-05-2018a.jpg at Dartmouth College]] Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, whose details foreshadow the Metropolitan Opera House, 1962
• Lead architect for the headquarters of the United Nations (including United Nations Secretariat Building, United Nations General Assembly Building, and Dag Hammarskjöld Library), coordinating the work of an international cadre of designers, including Sven Markelius, Le Corbusier, and Oscar Niemeyer, 1952
• Erieview Tower, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963
• The New York Hall of Science at the 1964 New York World's Fair, New York City, 1964
• Air traffic control tower, LaGuardia Airport (1964) (demolished 2011){{cite news|last=Dunlap|first=David W.|title=La Guardia Loses Swiss Cheese Ice Cream Cone, and Some History|url=http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/la-guardia-loses-swiss-cheese-ice-cream-cone-and-some-history/?hp|access-date=November 26, 2011|newspaper=New York Times|date=November 25, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111129033202/http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/la-guardia-loses-swiss-cheese-ice-cream-cone-and-some-history/?hp|archive-date=November 29, 2011|url-status=live}}
• Hilles Library, Harvard University, 1965
• Metropolitan Opera House and the master plan for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, coordinating the work of Pietro Belluschi, Gordon Bunshaft, Philip Johnson, and Eero Saarinen, 1961–1966 (The Opera House opened in 1966)
• Master plan for Battery Park City, New York City, 1966
• 1221 Avenue of the Americas (formerly the McGraw-Hill Building) at Rockefeller Center, 1969
• 1251 Avenue of the Americas (formerly the Exxon Building) at Rockefeller Center, 1971
• The National City Tower, Louisville, Kentucky, 1972
• Jasna Polana Mansion, Princeton, New Jersey, about 1975

{{Commons category|Wallace Harrison}}

• Nelson Rockefeller
• Rockefeller Center
• Lincoln Center

{{reflist}}

• Newhouse, Victoria. Wallace K. Harrison, Architect. New York: Rizzoli, 1989.
• Reich, Cary. The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer 1908–1958. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
• Sudjic, Deyan. The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful—and Their Architects—Shape the World. New York: Penguin, 2005.
• Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. Viking Penguin, 2003.

• [http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3460617/ Wallace K. Harrison architectural drawings and papers, 1913–1986 (bulk 1930–1980)][http://library.columbia.edu/locations/avery/da.html/ Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives], [http://library.columbia.edu/locations/avery.html/ Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University]

{{Rockefeller Center}}

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Category:1895 births

Category:1981 deaths

Category:20th-century American architects

Category:20th-century American businesspeople

Category:Architects from New York City

Category:Architecture firms based in New York City

Category:American ecclesiastical architects

Category:Rockefeller Center

Category:Architects from Worcester, Massachusetts

Category:People from West Hills, New York

Category:Modernist architects from the United States

Category:Fellows of the American Institute of Architects

Category:New York Hall of Science

Category:Recipients of the AIA Gold Medal

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters