The Beaux Arts Ball

Architizer News

The Beaux Arts Ball

September 24, 2010

As architects around the city prepare to migrate (far! 155th Street!) uptown tomorrow for the 2010 Beaux Arts Ball at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about one of the oldest traditions in the architectural community.

The Beaux Arts Ball has its origins as a party thrown by the students of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, founded in the mid-17th century. At the École, the event was “a riot, a revival of paganism, known elsewhere only in Italy. It is also, in its way, a hymn to beauty, a living explosion of the senses and the emotions.” (Via) Characteristically, it was not without a review: at midnight, a costumed jury would judge a parade of student-made floats. After being imported to New York by Paris-trained Americans, the Ball took on a society vibe: themes tended towards the classical & romantic.

The roof of the Astor Hotel (where the famed 1931 Ball took place), which was demolished in 1967 to make way for the hideous One Astor Plaza. Image via NYcago.

Right on schedule with the l’esprit nouveau of the late 20s and 30s, the Ball took a turn for the modern in 1931. Perhaps the most storied of Beaux Arts Balls, 1931’s “Fête Moderne – a Fantasie in Flame and Silver” reflected the architectural exuberance of 30s New York: the Empire State Building had just been completed, surpassing the Chrystler Building only 11 months after its completion. We imagine that the Great Depression also had something to do with the spiritual upheaval of a society event like the Ball – elegance and high-society mores traded for humor and self-parody.

From left: A. Stewart Walker (the Fuller Building), Leonard Schultze (Waldorf-Astoria), Ely Jacques Kahn (the Squibb Building), William Van Alen (the Chrysler Building), Ralph Walker (the Wall Street Building), Joseph Freedlander (Museum of the City of New York). Image via the NYT.

So what was the event like that year? Let’s just say that architectural history fanboys/girls will giggle at the description, which is really a perfect summation of that era of Modernism. In Christopher Gray’s excellent article about the Ball, he writes that “…the ballroom’s gilt decoration was blocked out with jet-black material, against which were hung enormous festoons of flaming red and silver. A small-town Main Street was built as a midway but redesigned in the Cubist style, with modernist trees dotting the village green. 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.” Epic.

Gray calls 1931′s Ball “one of the great parties of the last century.” We’re interested in the idea of a party being a catalyst for progress (think Yves Klein and his eponymous methylen blue cocktails). In the 70 years since the Fête Moderne, the Ball has become a way to showcase up-and-coming talent in the profession. Each year, several young architects — coming from firms like WORKac and LTL — are chosen to conceptualize the theme and installations in the event space. Tomorrow’s Ball is themed “Unseen Worlds,” and will feature light and interactive installations against the backdrop of the land-marked Beaux Arts American Academy of Arts and Letters. Look for a roundup on Monday, once the dust has settled.

See you tomorrow evening – here’s to hoping someone shows up dressed as CCTV.