A Lawrence Technological University professor of architecture has received two grants to support his work on a new book on the architecture of Minoru Yamasaki.
Serenity and Delight: The Architecture of Minoru Yamasaki, is being written by LTU architecture professor Dale Allen Gyure. It is to be published next year by the Yale University Press.
The book is an examination of the work of Yamasaki, whose designs included the doomed World Trade Center towers in New York City, as well as several landmarks in Detroit, including One Woodward Avenue, originally the headquarters of Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., and the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University.
Yamasaki moved to Detroit in 1945 to join Smith, Hinchman & Grylls as chief designer, and practiced in the city for more than 40 years. He was known for mixing modern materials and functional touches with historical elements, and was a vital – and occasionally controversial – figure in mid-century architecture.
The book received a $7,500 Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant from the College Art Association, as well as a $7,500 grant from the Chicago-based Graham Foundation.
The CAA administers the Wyeth grant, which goes to the publisher to cover the printing cost of the book. The Graham grant is used to pay for the rights to copyrighted images used in the book. The Wyeth Foundation is based in Wilmington, Del., the CAA in New York City.
Gyure joined LTU in 2001. He earned his PhD in architectural history from the University of Virginia, and also earned a law degree from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Ball State University. Gyure’s research focuses on American and modern architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has published two books: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Florida Southern College (2010) and the Graham Foundation-supported The Chicago Schoolhouse, 1856–2006: High School Architecture and Educational Reform (2011), as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews. He has served on the boards of directors for the Society of Architectural Historians and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, and is a member of the Michigan Historic Preservation Review Board.