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2006 Award for Excellence in the Arts: Alvin Holms |
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| The Newington-Cropsey Cultural Studies Center presented its eighth annual Award for Excellence in the Arts to Alvin Holm, AIA, on February 23rd at the Lotos Club in New York City. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the arts and society, furthering our understanding of how the arts inspire personal growth, responsibility and a sense of civic participation. This year’s recipient is the first architect to be selected. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Alvin Holm earned degrees at Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied architecture under Holmes Perkins and Louis Kahn. His career as a classicist is rooted in curiosity about what makes “all the old buildings across the board so much more pleasing than ninety percent of all the new built structures.” For the last thirty years his firm, Alvin Holm, AIA Architects, has been a leader in promoting traditional design and historic restoration. Major projects include the Civic Fountain in Kansas City, the nineteenth-century European collection galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a Palladian-style home in Alpine, New Jersey, and various commercial properties. The firm has become an important consultant for other architects in the field of classical design and historical restoration. Mr. Holm has taught at Temple University, Drexel University, the Philadelphia College of Art, the Art Institute of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the National Academy of Design, where for twelve years he presented a course in Drawing the Classical Orders. He is currently on the faculty of Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. For the past quarter-century, he has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Classical America and as president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America. |
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The Henry Clay Frick
residence, Alpine, New Jersey |
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| At the dinner on February 23rd, architect Steven W. Semes, a Fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America, spoke on Holm’s contribution to the revival of traditional architecture and restoration practice. On a personal note, Semes described the influence Holm, his mentor, had on the development of his career, comparing their relationship to the master-apprentice system of Renaissance craft guilds. James F. Cooper, Director of the Cultural Studies Center, presented the recipient with a cash award and a bronze statuette—created by Barbara Newington, Director of the Newington Cropsey Foundation—depicting the Archangel Michael, an ecumenical symbol of heroic virtue and light. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The projects Alvin Holm designs and the restorations he undertakes have had a beneficial impact on the built environment and thereby on American civilization itself. Like the other artists and scholars honored by the Award for Excellence in the Arts, he seeks to recover and maintain the vital links between the canonical masterpieces of the past and contemporary artistic practice. For more information on the award and a list of previous recipients, see the “events” portion of this site. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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