Academia is the architectural beneficiary of an ambitious conversion of a former 1897 library into a state-of-the-art education and worship center at Union Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education: Glave & Holmes is architect. And the University of Richmond continues its embrace of Collegiate Gothic traditions with completion of Lakeview, a dormitory designed by Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company near the athletic complex.
Worldwide, the 500th birthday of late Renaissance architectural genius Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) is being marked, and Richmond joins the party. The architect's continuing influence is examined in an exhibition at the Virginia Center for Architecture, Italian Dressing: Palladio and American Classicism, continuing through Oct. 5. And on Nov. 14, the Virginia Commonwealth University Art History Department presents Palladianism and Its Alternatives, an all-day conference at the Virginia Historical Society (for information call 828-2784).
And the architecture center fast forwards to the 1940s and 1950s with The Furniture of Eero Saarinen: Designs for Everyday Living (Oct. 23). Although we experience an Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) space every time we visit Dulles International Airport, this exhibition will remind us how he influenced domestic-scaled objects.
