Raymond Hood
| Raymond Hood | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
29 March 1881 Pawtucket, Rhode Island |
| Died | 14 August 1934 (aged 53) Stamford, Connecticut |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Brown University, MIT, École des Beaux-Arts |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings | Tribune Tower, Comcast Building, New York Daily News Building |
Raymond Mathewson Hood (March 29, 1881 – August 14, 1934) was an American architect who worked in the Art Deco style.
Hood was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and attended Brown University before enrolling at MIT. As a post-graduate, Hood worked as a draftsman at the architecture firm Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson in Boston. He was accepted into the École des Beaux-Arts in 1911 and earned a degree.
In 1922, New York architect John Mead Howells, who had met him at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, invited Hood to become his partner in the Chicago Tribune building competition in which Howells had been invited to compete. The design submitted by Howells and Hood won the competition, and Hood, 41, become touted as one of New York's best architects.
Hood did not consider himself an artist, but saw himself as "manufacturing shelter", writing:
There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect, painter and sculptor; nowadays, the collaborators are the architects, the engineer, and the plumber. ... Buildings are constructed for certain purposes, and the buildings of today are more practical, from the standpoint of the man who is in them than the older buildings. ... We are considering effort and convenience much more than appearance or effect.
Hood's design theory was aligned with that of the Bauhaus, in that he valued utility as beauty:
Beauty is utility, developed in a manner to which the eye is accustomed by habit, in so far as this development does not detract from its quality of usefullness.
Despite this paen to utility, Hood's designs featured non-utilitarian aspects such as roof gardens, polychromy, and Art Deco ornamentation. As much as Hood might insist that his designs were largely determined by the practicalities of zoning laws and the restraints of economics, each of his major buildings were different enough to suggest that Hood's design artistry was a significant factor in the final result.
While a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, Hood met John Mead Howells, with whom he later partnered. Hood frequently employed architectural sculptor Rene Paul Chambellan both for architectural sculptures for his building and to make plasticine models of his projects. Hood is believed to have coined the term "Architecture of the Night" in a 1930 pamphlet published by General Electric.
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