User:MarqyF/sandbox

Introduction
Albert Szabo was an American architect, educator and artist. He was born in Brooklyn, NY on November 7, 1925, to Benjamin Szabo of Felso Veso, Hungary (1885-1964) and Jeanette Szabo (née Margolies) of New York, NY (1895-1980). Szabo was a tenured professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES). He co-founded the latter, together with Eduard Sekler in 1968. He was author, with his wife, architect, Brenda Dyer Szabo, of “Preliminary Notes on the Indigenous Architecture of Afghanistan” (Harvard Graduate School of Design, 1978) and, with anthropologist, Thomas Barfield, of, “Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture” (University of Texas Press, 1991). He died in Cambridge, MA on December 17, 2003.

Biography
Albert Szabo was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1925. He studied Science and Fine Arts at Brooklyn College from 1942 to 1947 under the guidance of architect, Serge Chermayeff. There was a break in his education during World War II when he  volunteered to join the war effort in 1941 and was called to service in 1943. He received an honorable discharge as an Aviation Cadet when the war ended in 1945. During his time at Brooklyn College he spent summers as apprentice to Bauhaus architect, Marcel Breuer. He was graduated from Brooklyn College in 1947. Following the advice of Chermayeff, he then moved to Chicago, where he studied at the Chicago Institute of Design (1947-1948). His involvement at the Chicago Institute of Design led to his first teaching appointment which was also at the ID. In 1948 he went back to Harvard to earn his degree in Architecture (1952) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, then chaired by Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus in Germany. In 1954 he was invited to join the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he taught for 42 years.

From 1974 to 1976 he was a lecturer for the Fulbright Program in Architecture at Kabul University, Afghanistan. While there, he studied the country’s indigenous architecture, which led to the publication in 1991 of the book, “Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture”, named an outstanding academic book by the American Library Association.

His experiences in the Middle East also led him in 1979 to create a seminar on indigenous architecture, the first of its kind at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Teaching the class helped him to further develop his theories regarding the relationship between culture, climate, and context as basic to the evolution of form and purpose in indigenous and contemporary architecture. In addition to teaching, Szabo maintained an architectural practice with his wife, Brenda Dyer Szabo, also a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Szabo Associates.) Szabo also had an architectural practice with architect Jerzy Soltan, the Nelson Robinson Jr. Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Soltan/Szabo Associates.)

Szabo retired in 1996. His post-retirement years were chiefly occupied with the making of art, particularly the creation of sculpture from found objects such as tool handles, barrel staves, and shoe forms. In summer 2001 the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts held an exhibition of his work, titled “Inventions + Interventions.” An exhibition catalogue was issued by the Carpenter Center.

Education

 * 1952 Master of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
 * 1947-1948 Chicago Institute of Design (formerly New Bauhaus)
 * 1946-1947 Fine Arts Studies, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY
 * 1942-1944 Science Studies, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY

Academic Experience

 * 1991-1996 Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
 * 1967-1996 Professor of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
 * 1990-1992 Acting Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
 * 1970-1991 Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
 * 1983 Visiting Professor and Consultant on Curriculum, King Faisal University, Al-Hofuf, Saudi Arabia
 * 1974-1976 Fulbright Lecturer in Architecture, Kabul University, Kabul, Afghanistan
 * 1974 Acting Curator, Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
 * 1970-1972 Chairman, Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
 * 1967-1968 Visiting Professor of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
 * 1964-1968 Chairman, Department of Architectural Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
 * 1954 Joined Faculty of Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
 * 1951-1954 Instructor, Chicago Institute of Design (formerly New Bauhaus)

Major Professional Experience

 * 1952-1992 Private practice with Brenda Dyer Szabo (A.B. 1948, M.Arch. 1951, Harvard University)
 * 1974-1975 Consultant, Government of Afghanistan and U.S. Agency for International Development, Kabul, Afghanisatn
 * 1972 Fulbright Consultant to Municipality of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
 * 1967-1971 Principal, Soltan/Szabo Associates, together with Jerzy Soltan, Cambridge, MA
 * 1964-1967 Senior Associate, Albert D Anderson Architect, Sherborn, MA
 * 1956-1960 Job Captain and Associate, Compton and Pierce Architects, Cambridge, MA
 * 1955-1956 Job Captain, Carleton B Richmond, Jr. Architect, Cambridge, MA
 * 1953-1954 Project Manager, Howard T. Fisher and Associates Architects and Engineers, Chicago, IL
 * 1947-1948 Apprentice, Marcel Breuer Architect, New York, NY

Major Awards and Honors

 * 1988-1991 Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture, Harvard University/M.I.T. grant to prepare materials for publication, “Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture”
 * 1984, 87 Milton Fund Grant, Harvard University, assist preparation of manuscript, “Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture”
 * 1980 National Endowment for the Arts Project Design Fellowship for Expansion of Afghan Indigenous Domestic Architecture Study
 * 1978 Graduate Society Fund, Harvard University, Research Into Light and Transformation of Mass and Space
 * 1977 Milton Fund Grant, Harvard University, for Preparation of Drawings and Text for Publication Describing One Typical Afghan Village
 * 1975 The American Society of Kabul and the American Women’s Association of Kabul Grants for Field Research and Documentation of Afghan Architecture
 * 1974 Senior Fulbright Hayes Award as Lecturer in Architecture at Kabul University, Kabul, Afghanistan
 * 1972 Senior Fulbright Hayes Award as Lecturer and Consultant to Municipality of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
 * 1972 Milton Fund Grant, Harvard University, Research into Housing Designs Generated by User Need Analysis
 * 1963 Wheelwright Travelling Fellowship, Harvard University
 * 1952 Alpha Rho Chi Medal, Department of Architecture, Harvard University

Selected Publications

 * Szabo, Albert and Barfield, Thomas J	 'Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture', Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
 * Szabo, Albert and Szabo, Brenda Dyer 'Preliminary Notes on the Indigenous Architecture of Afghanistan', Harvard University, 1978.
 * Szabo, Albert 'Housing Generated by User Needs', Harvard University Press, 1972.
 * Tyrwhitt, Jaqueline and Sert, Jose Lluis 'The Shape of Our Cities, A Series of Experimental Study-Discussion Programs on Urbanism', Graphic design by Albert Szabo and Joseph Zalewsky, Harvard University, 1957.