Marshall D. Meyers architectural records and papers, 1945-2001 (bulk 1957-1980).

ArchivalResource

Meyers, Marshall D. (Marshall David), 1931-2001. Marshall D. Meyers architectural records and papers, 1945-2001 (bulk 1957-1980).

Marshall D. Meyers architectural records and papers, 1945-2001 (bulk 1957-1980).

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/122612879

The collection comprises student drawings, project-related architectural drawings, photographic materials, professional and personal papers, writings, lectures, interviews, audio tapes, motion pictures, and architectural models. A large portion of this collection relates to the architectural works of Louis I. Kahn. See the Louis I. Kahn Collections (Coll. 030, Coll. 217) for other materials in the Architectural Archives related to Kahn's professional practice. Examples of Meyers' student drawings from both Pratt Institute and Yale University are preserved, along with an extensive number of project-related architectural drawings. Most important is the extensive documentation of the Yale Center for British Art, a project begun in 1967 by Louis I. Kahn and completed after his death by Meyers and Anthony Pellecchia. The collection contains 580 drawings related to this project - presentation, design, construction, and shop drawings, dated 1972-1978. The collection contains plexiglas study models for the Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs. Meyers was a skilled photographer who produced a remarkable body of images documenting numerous projects by Kahn as well as his own works and travels. Meyers extensive photography of Kahn's Richards Medical Research Building, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Yale Center for British Art, are unparalleled in quality and variety of views. The collection also contains a small number of images by the following photographers: Elna Wilkinson; Eileen C. Ahrenholtz; Bob Wharton; Gabriel DeLobbe; George Cserna; Cervin Robinson; and Tom Brown. In addition to project photography, the collection includes numerous travel photographs and motion pictures. Of particular note are photographs of the Triennale di Milano, Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation (Marseille), and the studio of noted sculptor Henry Moore (all taken in 1954), and motion picture images of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies (under construction in 1964) and Expo 67 in Montreal. The collection includes a number of photo portraits and motion pictures of Meyers and his family as well as Louis I. Kahn and B. Frank Schlesinger. One of the most extraordinary items in the collection is an eight minute black & white print (with negative) of the 1961 holiday party at Louis I. Kahn's office. This motion picture is a rare, informal look at Kahn, his staff and friends. Attendees included: Robert Venturi, Alan Levy, Richard Saul Wurman, Robert Le Ricolais, David C.S. Polk, among others. Meyers preserved a substantial number of project and office files. Files related to Kahn projects include "drafting room" files for the Kimbell Art Museum, Inner Harbor project, Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs, and the Yale Center for British Art. Also related to Kahn are papers documenting his involvement in the planning of the Louis I. Kahn Retrospective project for the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and his pivotal role in preventing a proposed expansion to the Kimbell Art Museum. His files include correspondence with William Jordy, Louis I. Kahn, George Kubler, Paul Mellon, Henry Moore, Robert A.M. Stern, Walter Gropius (to Kahn) and Robert Venturi. Materials related to his professional life are found in his resume and AIA fellowship files. Meyers' experiences working for Kahn are well documented by his numerous writings, lectures and interviews. Of particular note is a lecture he gave on the occasion of the exhibition, "The Construction of the Kimbell Art Museum," held at the Museo d'arte, Mendrisio, Switzerland in 1997-1998. The collection includes his notes for this lecture, a transcript and book manuscript, as well as the slides used (found intact in a carousel). In addition, transcripts and audio tapes document interviews of Louis I. Kahn conducted by Meyers and William Marlin (of Architectural Forum), both from 1972, and William Jordy, from 1973. Personal and family items include richly illustrated reports and figure drawings completed while Meyers was a student at Niagara Falls High School, as well as yearbooks spanning the years he attended that school (1947-1949). Photography, home movies, letters and other family materials are included in the collection along with several notable books, many of which are autographed. These include Robert Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour's Learning From Las Vegas (a first edition with original dust jacket), Scully's Architecture: The Natural and the Man Made, and Fred Angerer's Surface Structures in Building (cited as the source for the cycloid vault used at the Kimbell Art Museum).

Architectural drawings 1154 sheets : various media.Student drawings 61 items.Photographs 490 photoprints, 1431 photonegatives, 2168 slides, 500 transparencies : col.Architectural models 2 items.Files 10 cubic ft.Additional materials 2 cubic ft.

University of Pennsylvania, Architectural Archives