Clausen, Meredith L. 1942-
(Meredith Leslie Clausen)

PERSONAL:

Born June 10, 1942, in Hollywood, CA; daughter of Leslie Paul (a professor of music) and Margaret (a homemaker) Clausen; married Peter P. Kissin (a professor of philosophy; died, 1981). Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Scripps College, B.A.; University of California—Berkeley, M.A., 1972, Ph.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Art, Box 353440, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3440. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA, teacher, 1976; Colorado College, Colorado Springs, teacher, 1976-77; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, acting assistant professor, 1977-78; University of Washington, Seattle, assistant professor, 1979-85, associate professor, 1985-93, professor of architectural history, 1993—. University of California, Berkeley, teacher, 1977; Stanford University, visiting assistant professor, 1984, 1985-86, visiting associate professor, 1987; Tokyo Institute of Technology, visiting professor, 1996. National Committee on Multicultural Teaching of Architectural History, chairperson, 1991—; State of Washington, member of Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 1979-85; Northwest Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in Italy, member of board of directors, 1991-94; Stained Glass Census of America, regional director.

MEMBER:

American Institute of Architects (affiliate member), Society of Architectural Historians (member of board of directors, 1986-90), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, American Philosophical Association on Aesthetics (Pacific Division).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright fellow, 1973-74; grant from National Endowment for the Arts, 1977; American Council of Learned Societies, fellowship, 1977-78, grant, 1987; J. Paul Getty grant, 1985; grant from National Endowment for the Humanities, 1988; Governor's Award from State of Washington, 1993, for Spiritual Space: The Religious Architecture of Pietro Belluschi; Paul Mellon visiting senior fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, 1994; grant from Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, 1995; Arts and Sciences Curriculum Development Award, 1997; Humanities Center grant, 1998, for "Vienna 1900" Web project.

WRITINGS:

Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory and Criticism, E.J. Brill (Leiden, Netherlands), 1987.

Spiritual Space: The Religious Architecture of Pietro Belluschi, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 1992.

Pietro Belluschi, Modern American Architect, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994.

The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

Contributor to books. Contributor of articles and reviews to professional journals, including American Historical Review, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Victorian, Journal of Architectural Education, and Landmarks: Magazine of Northwest History and Preservation.

SIDELIGHTS:

Meredith L. Clausen's first book, Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory and Criticism, is the biography of an influential architect associated with the Art Nouveau movement. Jourdain was not a prolific architect, but his design for the Paris department store La Samaritaine, completed in 1910, is considered to be one of the hallmarks of a new kind of urban sensibility. Its glass and steel facade emphasized "function through form," according to Michael Miller in the American Historical Review. Miller praised Clausen's book as an "excellent study of the man and the building." He also praised Clausen's grasp of the larger picture, adding: "Thinking about buildings, by the turn of the century, required thinking about the machine age and about life in the city. This book shows how the connections were made."

Clausen considered the significance of another noteworthy structure in The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream. The Pan Am Building, finished in 1963, was the first of many large "glassbox" buildings on Park Avenue in New York City. The building is sometimes linked with the moment in architectural history when maximizing the cubic footage of a commercial property took precedence over modernist ideals. Clausen traces the building's history, beginning with the 1958 announcement that it would be built, and provides detailed information on the complicated business dealings that allowed it to be brought to completion. The central human characters in Clausen's study are Walter Gropius and Pietro Belluschi, the lead architects on the Pan Am project.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 1988, Michael Miller, review of Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory and Criticism, p. 1344.

Architectural Science Review, December, 2005, review of The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream, p. 378.

Interior Design, February, 2000, Stanley Abercrombie, review of Pietro Belluschi, Modern American Architect, p. 108.

Publishers Weekly, December 20, 2004, review of The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream, p. 51.