Architectural Design As Costume
Architects dressed as the buildings they designed (via NYT)
If you’re in need of Halloween costume inspiration, look no further.
The extraordinary image above is one of few remaining from the Beaux-Arts Ball of 1931, for which several dozen architects from the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects (now the Van Alen Institute) dressed up as their own architectural design. Shown here, from left to right, are A. Stewart Walker as the Fuller Building; Leonard Schultze as the Waldorf-Astoria; Ely Jacques Kahn as the Squibb Building; William Van Alen as the Chrysler Building; Ralph Walker as the Wall Street Building; and Joseph Freedlander as the Museum of the City of New York.
A 2006 New York Times article recounts the quirky history of the Society’s spectacular annual costume balls. Despite the onset of the Great Depression, the 1931 gathering was dubbed “Fête Moderne – a Fantasie in Flame and Silver,” optimistically looking toward a new age of architecture – and boy, did people have fun running with that theme:
An orchestra directed by the architect Kenneth Murchison consisted of pneumatic riveting machines, live steam pipes, ocean liner whistles and sledgehammers. A puppet show designed by the puppeteer and children’s book illustrator Tony Sarg presented robots on strings with bodies of metal coils. Ballet dancers rendered a modernistic impression of the blues… The Times said that the committee had promised that any guest in a conventional sailor, cowboy, chef or police officer’s costume would be barred, but that “a traffic cop from Mars” would be welcomed.
Those guys knew how to throw a party. Now, if you were going to a similar event today, what contemporary building would you want to see made into a costume?
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