terra non firma

going postal

The Chicago Tribune (via A Daily Dose of Architecture) discusses the US postal service's new series of architecture stamps celebrating "modernism." LA is the only city west of the mississippi with a stamp in the collection for gehry's disney hall. chicago's gripe? they only have two stamps and they think they're far more worthy than connecticut's two. and they're also bitching about the chrysler building's inclusion. and the vanna venturi house.


The twelve buildings that made the cut:

• Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright
• Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry
• Yale Art and Architecture Building by Paul Rudolph
• Chrysler Building by William Van Alen
• 860/880 Lake Shore Drive by Mies van der Rohe
• High Museum of Art by Richard Meier
• Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi
• East Building of the National Gallery of Art by I.M. Pei
• Phillips Exeter Academy Library by Louis I. Kahn
• TWA Terminal by Eero Saarinen
• Glass House by Philip Johnson
• Hancock Center by SOM

I could make the argument that LA deserves more than one as well, particularly with its preponderance of case study houses, the new caltrans building (I'll admit - a bit early to declare it an icon), the neutras, the schindlers, and the getty (far more orthodox in its "modernism" than disney hall). but with only 12 stamps total, I'll take what we can get.

posted by marissa @ 9:24 PM