Voting Station

Ada Louise Huxtable

Please vote to see the next celebrity.

Critic

The Resume

    (March 14, 1921-January 7, 2013)
    Born in New York City, New York
    Birth name was Ada Louise Landman
    Architectural critic for The New York Times (1963-82) and The Wall Street Journal (1997 - 2013)
    Books include ‘Architecture, Anyone? Cautionary Tales of the Building Art’ (1988), ‘Kicked A Building Lately?’ (1989), ‘The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered’ (1993), ‘The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion’ (1999), ‘On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change’ (2008) and 'Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life’ (2008)

Why she might be annoying:

    She was very prim.
    She titled her first book ‘Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger.’
    When Dick Cavett asked her if the paper dress she wore on his show was see-through or not, she flatly answered: ‘I don’t need to answer.’ (July 21, 1969).
    Her New York Times obituary read: ‘She had no use for banality, monotony, artifice, and ostentation’ and ‘she did not shy in print from comparing the worst of contemporary American architecture to the totalitarian excesses of Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin’ (harsh).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She cited Groucho Marx and Lewis Mumford as influences.
    She was the first full-time architecture critic employed at a major newspaper.
    She raised the public's awareness of the urban environment.
    She established the field of architecture and urban design journalism in America.
    She was an annual jury member for The Pritzker Architecture Prize from 1987 to 2005.
    She was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1970.
    Architecture critic and Pulitzer winner Paul Goldberger said: ‘Before Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture was not a part of the public dialogue.’

Credit: BoyWithTheGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review: