Theatre Architects

Born: 1902 (Fayetteville, Arkansas)

Died: 1978 (New York, New York)

Edward Durell Stone was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Stone was the youngest of four children. He displayed an aptitude for drawing at an early age. After attending the University of Arkansas, Stone moved to Boston in 1922. He took classes at the Boston Architectural Club (now Boston Architectural College), Harvard University’s School of Architecture (where he earned a scholarship), and MIT, though he never earned a degree.

Stone began his career as a draftsman at the Boston-based firm Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott. He moved to New York in 1929, joining the firm of Schultze & Weaver, where he designed the main lobby, grand ballroom, and private dining rooms of the Waldorf-Astoria. He received his first independent commission in 1933.

Stone traveled often to Italy and drew upon European precedents in his work. He became an early pioneer of the New Formalist style, whose classically inspired forms and materials countered the stark minimalism of the International Style.

Stone retired in 1974 and died on August 6, 1978. His firm, Edward Durell Stone & Associates, continued until 1993.

Stone’s best-known works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India, the Keller Center at the University of Chicago, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Stone worked for the Associated Architects of Rockefeller Center and became the principal designer of Radio City Music Hall.

Information sourced from Wikipedia  and the Los Angeles Conservancy .

Theatres on this website in which this architect was involved:

Radio City Music Hall, New York, New York, USA