Joseph Urban, From Palm Beach to New York City

Trained as an architect, Joseph Urban may be best known today for his elaborate theater designs. In 1912 he moved to the United States from Austria to create sets for the Boston Opera Company. By 1917, as a naturalized US citizen, he had shifted his attentions to New York and the Metropolitan Opera. Urban went on to become scenic designer for the Ziegfeld Follies. The extravagant theatricality of his scenic designs made Urban a perfect fit to create some of the opulent architecture in Palm Beach, Florida before Americas Great Depression. Born: May 26, 1872, Vienna, Austria Died: July 10, 1933, New York City Full Name: Carl Maria Georg Joseph Urban Education: 1892: Akademie der bildenden KÃ ¼nste (Academy of Fine Arts), Vienna Selected Projects: 1904: Austrian Pavilion, St. Louis Worlds Fair (received Gold Medal)1904-1914: Set designs throughout Europe1911-1914: Boston Opera Company, set designs1917-1933: Metropolitan Opera of New York, set designs1926: Bath and Tennis Club, Palm Beach, Florida1927: Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, with Marion Sims Wyeth (1889-1982)1927: Paramount Theatre, Palm Beach, Florida1927: Ziegfeld Theatre, New York City (demolished in 1966)1928: Bedell Department Store, 19 West 34th Street, New York City1928: International Magazine Building (Hearst Building), New York City, with George B. Post—78 years later, in 2006, Norman Fosters Tower was built on top (view photo)1930: New School for Social Research, New York City Art and Architecture Together: Joseph Urban designed interiors like an architect, incorporating skyscraper-like setbacks and Classical Greek columns into theatrical scenic designs. For Urban, art and architecture were two pencils with one point. This total work of art is called Gesamtkunstwerk, and its long been a working philosophy throughout central Europe. In the 18th Century, Bavarian stucco master Dominikus Zimmermann created Wieskirche as a total work of art; German architect Walter Gropius combined the Arts with Crafts in his Bauhaus School curriculum; and Joseph Urban turned theatre architecture inside out. Early Influences: Otto WagnerAdolf Loos Making Connections: Actress Marion Davies was a Ziegfeld girl while Urban, too, worked on sets for Florenz Ziegfeld. Davies also was the mistress of the powerful publisher, William Randolph Hearst. Its been widely reported that Davies introduced Hearst to Urban, who then designed the monumental International Magazine Building. Why is Urban Important? Urbans importance lay in his virtually unprecedented use of color, his introduction to American theater of many of the techniques and principles of the New Stagecraft, and his architectural sensibility at a time when most stage designers came from a background or training in visual art.—Professor Arnold Aronson, Columbia University Some of his buildings, like the New School for Social Research on West 12th Street in Manhattan, are good enough to be considered critical early works of modernism in America. Many others, like his extravagant house in Palm Beach for Marjorie Merriwether Post, Mar-a-Lago, if not as important theoretically, are spectacular visual triumphs....To look at Urbans work today is to be awed at the ease with which he worked in all kinds of styles, from the Vienna Secession of his early years to the International Style modernism and monumental classicism of his final years.—Paul Goldberger, 1987 Learn More: International Magazine BuildingJoseph Urban by John Loring, Abrams Publisher, 2010Joseph Urban: Architecture, Theatre, Opera, Film by Randolph Carter, Abbeville Press, 1992 Sources: Joseph Urban entry by Paul Louis Bentel, The Dictionary of Art, Vol. 31, Jane Turner, ed., Grove Macmillan, 1996, pp. 702-703; Architect of Dreams: The Theatrical Vision of Joseph Urban by Arnold Aronson, Columbia University, 2000; Joseph Urban Stage Design Models Documents Stabilization Access Project, Columbia University; Private Clubs, Palm Beach and Architects of the Boom Bust, Historical Society of Palm Beach County; At the Cooper-Hewitt, Designs of Joseph Urban by Paul Goldberger, The New York Times, December 20, 1987; Hearst Magazine Building Designation Report by Janet Adams, Landmarks Preservation Commission, (PDF) [accessed May 16, 2015]