1931 in architecture

The year 1931 in architecture involved some significant events.

Events

• December 5 – The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (1883) is dynamited.
• The first of the Architects (Registration) Acts is passed in the United Kingdom.
• The first of the historic districts in the United States is designated in Charleston, South Carolina, by the city government.

Buildings

Villa Savoye

• January 23 – Viceroy's House, New Delhi, India, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, first occupied.
• May 1 – The Empire State Building is completed in New York City as the tallest building in the world.
• July 1 – The rebuilt Milano Centrale railway station opens in Italy.
• July 19 – Sudbury Town station on the London Underground Piccadilly line opens as rebuilt by Charles Holden, the first of his iconic modern designs for the network.^[1]
• Villa Savoye in Paris, designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, using reinforced concrete and demonstrating Le Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture, is completed.^[2][3]
• Commerce Court North is completed in Toronto, Ontario and becomes the tallest building in the British Empire (1931–1962).
• George Washington Bridge the longest suspension bridge in the world by the length of central span (1931–1937), is completed.
• Royal Corinthian Yacht Club clubhouse, Burnham-on-Crouch, eastern England, designed by Joseph Emberton, is opened.^[4]
• St Olaf House (Hay's Wharf head offices), Tooley Street, London Borough of Southwark, designed by H. S. Goodhart-Rendel.^[5]
• Raleigh Bicycle Company head offices in Nottingham, England, designed by Thomas Cecil Howitt, completed.^[6]
• Aiton & Co. factory office, Derby, England, designed by Norah Aiton and Betty Scott, completed.^[7]
• India Tyres offices at Inchinnan, Scotland, designed by Thomas Wallis of Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, completed and opened.
• Atlantis House and Robinson Crusoe House in Böttcherstraße, Bremen, designed by Bernhard Hoetger, complete the street's construction in the style of Brick Expressionism.^[8]
• City Hall, Hilversum, North Holland, designed by Willem Marinus Dudok, is completed.
• India Gate in New Delhi is completed.

Sudbury Town Station

• Student Union at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, designed by Sven Markelius and Uno Åhrén.
• Washington Singer Building on the Streatham Campus of the University of Exeter in England, designed by Vincent Harris.
• New Synagogue, Žilina, Czechoslovakia, designed by Peter Behrens, is completed.
• High and Over, Amersham, one of the first modernist houses in England, designed by Amyas Connell, is completed.
• House for two brothers in Brno, designed by Otto Eisler, is completed.
• Apartment Building at 342, Muntaner Street, Barcelona, designed by Josep Lluís Sert, is completed.
• The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois is demolished.

Awards

• Royal Gold Medal – Edwin Cooper.
• Grand Prix de Rome, architecture: Georges Dengler.

Robinson Crusoe House and Atlantis House on Böttcherstraße in Bremen

Births

• April 23 – Roland Paoletti, British architect (died 2013)
• May 3 – Aldo Rossi, Italian architect and designer (died 1997)
• May 7 – Ricardo Legorreta, Mexican architect (died 2011)
• July 17 – Edward Cullinan, English architect
• July 23 – Arata Isozaki, Japanese architect
• August 16 – Alessandro Mendini, Italian architect and designer

Deaths

• March 7 – Theo van Doesburg, Dutch polymath, leader of De Stijl (born 1883)
• July 17 – William Lethaby, English Arts and Crafts architect and designer (born 1857)
• September 1 – Nahum Barnet, Melbourne-based Australian architect (born 1855)
• September 20 – Max Littmann, German architect (born 1862)
• December 3 – Frederick Walters, Scottish architect of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, notable for his Roman Catholic churches (born 1849)

References