Werner Seligmann

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Werner Seligmann (March 301930-November 12, 1998), architect, urban designer, and educator Werner Seligmann Image:Werner seligmann portrait.jpg Werner Seligmann was born on March 30, 1930 in Germany. His father was a violinist from which Werner derived a life long appreciation for music and the arts in general. He, together with his family, spent the latter part of the Second World War in concentration camps from which his mother and sister never returned. After the war he was reunited with his father, in Holland. From there he was sent to the US to live with relatives, in Groton, in upstate New York, a short distance from Cornell University in Ithaca.

He received his B. Arch. degree from Cornell in 1955 and went on to do graduate study at the Technische Hochsschule in Braunschwieg, Germany in 1958-59. From there he returned to the states and taught as an Instructor at the University of Texas at Austin from 1956-58. It was there that he became part of a small group of faculty that would later become nicknamed The Texas Rangers, a group that included Colin Rowe, John Shaw, Robert Slutzky and John Hejduk. After the group was dismissed from Austin he returned to Europe and became an Assistent at the Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule (the ETH), in Zurich, Switzerland from 1959-61.

From 1961-74, he was an Associate Professor of Architecture at Cornell and an Associate Professor of Architecture at Harvard University from 1974-76. He became the Dean and Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University where he served from 1976-90. He was subsequently named the Distinguished Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University. From 1990 to 1994 he was a Professor of Architecture at the ETH in Zurich. He was named a Fellow, American Academy in Rome (FAAR) in 1981. In 1994 he was the Thomas Jefferson Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, and has held many visiting appointments in the US and abroad, including the ETH in Zurich, Kanto Gakuin University in Japan, Yale University, Harvard University, and Cornell University. In addition to serving as visiting critic, Seligmann wrote and lectured extensively on the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and other contemporary architects and issues.

Throughout his long teaching career he maintained a practice and entered many competitions, including the invited competition, “Topography of Terror”, Berlin, Germany in 1993. His firm, Werner Seligmann and Associates, Architects and Urban Designers, was based in Cortland, New York. Launched in 1961, the firm placed in national and international competitions and work of the firm was exhibited often both in the US and abroad.

Seligmann’s contributions to the educational pedagogy of architecture have been noteworthy and the list of former students who have gone on to teach and practice can be matched by very few individuals in architectural education. Indeed, the influence of his being a role model both as a teacher and professional architect made teaching an honorable career choice for many of his students. Among his former students are several past and current deans, chairs and distinguished faculty. His contribution as dean of the School of Architecture at Syracuse for a period of 14 years was one of program invention, instilling quality teaching and creating pedagogical focus. The emphasis on a rigorous thesis process; the creation of the M. Arch. I program; the implementation of the Syracuse study abroad programs in Florence, Italy in 1980, served as a model for others of its type. The Soling competitions were examples of his initiatives during his tenure as dean.

As a teacher at Texas, Cornell, Harvard, the ETH and Syracuse, he consistently taught with passion, rigor and conviction. The studios were known for the effort that he made personally and the expectations he had for his students. The technique of writing original and thought provoking design problems was a hallmark of his studios. The use of half scale sections, beautiful ink drawings with emphasis on contour and profile, proportional rigor and plan development were normative expectations in a Seligmann studio.

As a professional, the work of Werner Seligmann won two Progressive Architecture Design Awards, was illustrated on the cover of PA three times and placed or won several national and international design competitions. His work on developing housing prototypes for the New York State Urban Development Corporation in the 1970’s and 1980’s established his reputation in the area of housing. His buildings are meticulously detailed, technically researched and spatially inventive. The Synagogue in Binghamton remains for its time a significant synthesis of Wright and Le Corbusier.

As a scholar he published numerous articles on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and modern architecture in general. His preparation of measured drawings of the Carpenter Center by Le Corbusier are models of technique combined within real information. He visited almost every significant modern building of the 1920’s and 30’s in Europe and documented them thoroughly.

All of his activities as a teacher, practicing professional, and scholar had one goal - the perpetuation of the discipline of architecture as a noble and useful profession. In 1998 he was awarded The Topaz Award in Architectural Education jointly from the ACSA and the AIA, their highest award for an architectural educator.

Written by Katryn Hansen, Assistant Dean, Syracuse University School of Architecture. Subsequent editing by Bruce Coleman, Professor of Architecture, Syracuse University School of Architecture.