Modern Architecture

Modern Beauty in Gary, Indiana: Edward Dart and St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

Posted on: February 20th, 2013 by David Robert Weible 22 Comments

Interior of St. Augustine's, 1960

In 1927, 30 African-Americans chartered a new Episcopal mission in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, just across the Illinois border from Chicago. Though the congregation struggled in its early years, it was strong and financially stable enough by the mid-1950s to commission its own place of worship. But a chance connection and the unexpected relationship that followed created more than just a house of God.... Read More →

David Robert Weible

David Robert Weible is an assistant editor at Preservation magazine. He came to DC from Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote for Sailing World and Outside magazines.

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JFK Airport’s Pan Am Worldport: A Jet Age Relic In Peril

Posted on: February 15th, 2013 by Katherine Flynn 6 Comments

A Boeing 707-100 aircraft sits at the Worldport in 1961.

The original architects of the Pan Am Worldport might have hoped that the building would fit in perfectly with the landscape of the new millennium.

The terminal at New York’s JFK Airport was built in 1960 by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects in the shape of a futuristic flying saucer. It made its mark on American cultural history by sending off the Beatles after their first U.S. tour and appearing in at least one vintage James Bond adventure. Pan Am shuttered its ticket windows in 1991, but the Worldport still serves as a reminder that air travel was once seen as an exotic luxury, rather than a nuisance-riddled necessity.

Although the Worldport is iconic, its current tenant, Delta Airlines, is planning to dismantle the structure, now known as Terminal 3, in 2015 to make way for a $1.2 billion expansion of neighboring Terminal 4. The original Worldport space will eventually be used as a parking lot for aircraft.... Read More →

Katherine Flynn

Katherine Flynn is an editorial assistant at Preservation magazine. Her work has appeared online at the Washington Post and in Consequence of Sound, a music and culture blog.

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[Interview] Elizabeth Ellsworth, Maven of Midcentury Modern

Posted on: January 28th, 2013 by David Robert Weible 1 Comment

Elizabeth Ellsworth stands in front of her Bimel Kehm house. Credit: Elizabeth Ellsworth

After retiring from a career as a marketing executive, Elizabeth Ellsworth began buying and restoring once-beautiful homes that had been tarnished by lack of maintenance or improper additions. In late 2012, she purchased the Island House. Built in 1954, it’s one of three residences designed by Bimel Kehm in New Canaan, Connecticut.

I called Elizabeth to get the skinny on the talented but enigmatic architect, her love for the house, and her restoration work.... Read More →

David Robert Weible

David Robert Weible is an assistant editor at Preservation magazine. He came to DC from Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote for Sailing World and Outside magazines.

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Edward Dart: Re-Discovering a Modernist Architect

Posted on: January 1st, 2013 by David Robert Weible 3 Comments

Water Tower Place, 1976. Credit: orijinal, flickr
Edward Dart's Water Tower Place in Chicago.

Although noted Chicago architect Edward Dart (1922-1975) designed everything from well-known public spaces and Modernist lakefront houses to iconic churches, I’d never heard of him. And as you’ll read in Lisa Skolnik’s article, “Discovering Dart,” in our Winter 2013 issue of Preservation, neither had the family who purchased one of his houses.

So, to get a better sense of who this accomplished but often overlooked architect was -- and why he was so obscure -- I called Matthew Seymour, a project manager for Central Building and Preservation in Chicago, who had written his master’s thesis in preservation on Dart and served as a source for our feature.... Read More →

David Robert Weible

David Robert Weible is an assistant editor at Preservation magazine. He came to DC from Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote for Sailing World and Outside magazines.

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Viva La Concha: Mod Motel Recast as Las Vegas’ Neon Museum

Posted on: December 14th, 2012 by Gwendolyn Purdom 1 Comment

Original La Concha Motel postcard. Date and photographer unknown.

They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, but when it has come to keeping the city’s glittering architectural history in place in recent decades, that adage has often been overlooked. So the October opening of the 1961 La Concha Motel’s dramatic lobby as part of the city’s Neon Museum after years of preservation efforts is an especially remarkable triumph.... Read More →

Gwendolyn Purdom

Gwendolyn Purdom is an associate editor at Preservation magazine. A Chicago native, Gwendolyn is passionate about the people and stories behind historic places – the quirkier the better.