Iannelli Studio, Park Ridge
There is a movement afoot to try and save the Alfonso Iannelli studio in Park Ridge. This blog covered the unfortunate demolition of one of the five Cedar Court houses designed in 1923 by Barry Byrne and Alfonso Iannelli in the suburb where Iannelli lived and worked for 50 years. His work with Byrne alone is phenomenal – I have just published an article in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians “Barry Byrne: Expressing the Modern” which details the highlights of their half-century partnership and details their 1924 visit to the modernists of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Here is one of the Felicity Rich photos from the article. Continue Reading
Tulsa
This isn’t Larry Clark’s Tulsa, although the few denizens of the windswept downtown recall the subjects of that epochal photography book. This is the Tulsa of historic preservationists and architectural historians, and five days there produced a herd of precious insights, small delights and the occasional belly laugh. It was here we had the National Preservation Conference and it was here we sampled the felicities of architectural child prodigy Bruce Goff and I praised the preservation of Barry Byrne’s Christ the King church which had an integrity and vibrancy exceeding most of the sites I saw. We danced to Asleep At The Wheel, as some Oklahoman was when they named a chain of gas station mini-marts “Kum ‘n Go.”