Ada Louise Huxtable

Architectural Critic and Historian Class of December 1981
location icon Location
New York, New York
age iconAge
60 at time of award
age iconDate Deceased
January 07, 2013

About Ada's Work

Ada Louise Huxtable was an architecture critic and architectural historian.

As architecture critic for the New York Times (1963-1982) and member of the Times’ editorial board (1973-1983), Huxtable was the first full-time architecture critic for an American newspaper.  Her criticism dealt with architecture both as a creative art and as a city-shaping product of politics, economics, and law.  After leaving the Times, her work focused on the history of the stylistic development of the skyscraper and the changes in contemporary architectural theory and practice.  Her many books included Pier Luigi Nervi (1960), Classical New York (1964), Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (1970), Kicked a Building Lately? (1976), The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The Search for a Skyscraper Style (1985),  Architecture, Anyone? Cautionary Tales of the Building Art (1987), Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger (1987), The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion (1997), and Frank Lloyd Wright (2004).

Biography

Huxtable was the architecture critic for the Wall Street Journal and served as an architectural advisor for institutional and government projects that affected the public environment and public art. 

Huxtable received an A.B. (1941) from Hunter College and later studied at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. 

Last updated January 1, 2005.

Published on December 1, 1981

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