590 Madison Avenue - Architect Edward Larrabee Barnes

Architect Edward Larrabee Barnes

Edward Larrabee Barnes is one of the greatest modernists in American architecture history. He was born in 1915, Chicago, Illinois, the son of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer who graduated from Harvard, and Margaret Ayer Barns, a successful writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Years of Grace” in 1931. He studied English, art history, and history of architecture in Harvard. After one year teaching in Milton Academy, he returned to the school and studied architecture in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In the school, he was influenced as a modernist under the leadership of two German immigrant architects, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. After travelling in Europe on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, he moved to New York to start his practice. His work ranged widely between residential, commercial, educational, and cultural projects. The style of his work can be described as pure modernist. He often used simple and geometrical forms to approach in his project. His selflessness led him to build projects that corresponded to site and context, client preferences, user friendliness, and he often achieved a good balance in the limited budget and various regulations. The quality of his work contributed to the development of American modern architecture. He died in Cupertino, California, 2004, at 89 ages.

Representative work

• Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas (1978–83,84,93)
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1966–71, 84)
• Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine (1958–61, 79)