Hitchcock, Henry-Russell

Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 1903–87, American architectural historian, b. Boston. Educated at Harvard, Hitchcock taught at Smith College and New York Univ. His writings, which helped to define modern architecture stylistically during the course of its development, are among the foremost in the field. Hitchcock's writings include The International Style: Architecture since 1922 (with Philip Cortelyou Johnson, 1932), The Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times (1936), In the Nature of Materials (1942), and Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1958).

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Hitchcock, Henry-Russell (1903–87) architectural historian; born in Boston, Mass. He trained at Harvard. Regarded as the founder of modern architectural historiography, Hitchcock combined rigorous scholarship, an acute critical eye, and a physical love of buildings in a stream of publications on an unparalleled range of art historical subjects. Early in his career he brought European modernism to America; Modern Architecture (1929), the first English-language book on the subject, was followed by his seminal International Style (he is credited with coining the term) exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and his accompanying book (with Philip Johnson, 1932) and monographs on H. H. Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright. He published volumes on 19th- and 20th-century architecture before turning to Rococo German and Austrian architecture and the German Renaissance late in his career. Hitchcock influenced generations of architects as well as younger scholars through his many years of teaching (among them twenty years (1948–68) at Smith College) and his leading role in the Society of Architectural Historians.