Background
He was born into a rich Jewish family in Grozny, Russian Empire (currently Chechen Republic)on October 8, 1900, but moved to England at an early age where he received his education.
(Spanning a fifty-year period, these writings exhibit much...)
Spanning a fifty-year period, these writings exhibit much of the variety of form and scale found in Serge Chermayeff's designs, which range from city plans or the total environment to the individual house, from a seashore park to an item of furniture. Chermayeff's generation brought forth a number of outstanding innovators in design, architecture, and planning, but standing apart from most of his contemporaries, Chermayeff has also produced a body of writing that equals and complements his work in design. The forty essays, articles, and lectures are grouped under three general headings: Pathology of Environment; The Professional Condition; and Education for Design. They reveal Chermayeff at the height of his intensity. Throughout his life he has been at the center of the kind of controversy that resolves itself into a higher level of understanding, a new direction of endeavor. Many of these concerns are addressed here; for example, Chermayeff's fear that modernism was deteriorating into just another "style" rather than serving as a means for resolving social and environmental conflicts. The book as a whole preserves the creative tension and tone of Chermayeff's career by presenting his views on particular issues as he saw them at specific moments, conveying the passion and immediacy of the original occasion. One of the notable teachers of his generation, Chermayeff was also a critic and reformer of the educational process. Like the best of that breed, he teaches even as he entertains or muses aloud, and he continues to do so throughout this book. Serge Chermayeff was born in the Russian Caucasus in 1900, but from the age of ten he has lived, studied, taught, and created in England and (since 1940) in the United States. He has practiced architecture on both sides of the Atlantic and his formal teaching was centered at the Chicago Institute of Design, MIT, Harvard, and Yale. Richard A. Plunz is Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University.
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(Gemeinschaft und Privatbereich im neuen Bauen. Auf dem We...)
Gemeinschaft und Privatbereich im neuen Bauen. Auf dem Weg zu einer humanen Architektur. [Serge Chermayeff, Christopher Alexander]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3786114692/?tag=2022091-20
He was born into a rich Jewish family in Grozny, Russian Empire (currently Chechen Republic)on October 8, 1900, but moved to England at an early age where he received his education.
Serge Chermayeff received his education at Peterborough Lodge Preparatory School (1910-1913), the Royal Drawing Society School (1910-1913) and the Harrow School (1914-1917). From 1922 to 1925, he received training at various schools in Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands.
In 1928, Mr. Chermayeff became a British citizen. That year he and the French designer Paul Follot were placed in charge of the decorative arts department of Waring & Gillow. By 1930, he and the German architect Erich Mendelsohn briefly partnered to form their own architectural firm.
They created some very important works in the British modernist movement, notably the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, East Sussex, Cohen House, London, and Shrubs Wood (formerly Nimmo House) in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was also responsible for Shann House in Rugby, Warwickshire, and Gilbey House, an office and factory complex in Camden for gin distillers Gilbey's. These are all now Listed Buildings, being designated Grade I (De La Warr), Grade II* (Cohen House, Shann House, and Shrubs Wood) and Grade II (Gilbey House) respectively.
During the 1930s, Serge Chermayeff designed a number of bakelite radio cabinets for the British company EKCO. Mr. Chermayeff taught in 1940 and 1941 at the California School of Fine Arts. In 1942, he accepted a teaching position at Brooklyn College, now part of the City University of New York (CUNY). From there he went on to teach at Chicago’s Institute of Design, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1946, he was recommended by Walter Gropius to become the director of the Institute of Design in Chicago. He stepped down in 1951 when the institute merged with the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Between 1952 and 1970 he would continue to teach at several universities including Harvard, Yale, and MIT. Mr. Chermayeff retired in 1970. He wrote several books, including Community and Privacy with Christopher Alexander in 1964 and The Shape of Community with Alexander Tzonis in 1971. He died in 1996 in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
Mr. Chermayeff's architectural drawings, project records, photographs, correspondence, teaching and writing papers, and research files are held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives at Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.
(Spanning a fifty-year period, these writings exhibit much...)
(Important book on city planning tries to reconcile human ...)
(Gemeinschaft und Privatbereich im neuen Bauen. Auf dem We...)
(Humanities, Sociology, Art, Humanism)
They were members of the MARS Group.
Married Barbara Maitland March in 1928. His son Ivan Chermayeff is a prominent graphic designer and a founding partner of New York-based design studio Chermayeff & Geismar.
Another son Peter Chermayeff is a prominent architect best known for his design of aquariums, with colleagues, while a founding partner at Cambridge Seven Associates, from 1962 to 1998, at Chermayeff, Sollogub and Poole, 1998–2005, at Chermayeff & Poole, 2005–2009 and currently at Peter Chermayeff LLC.