Tony Smith Architecture

Documenting the extraordinary breadth of architectural production by American artist Tony Smith (1912–1980), this comprehensive book reveals the depth and complexity of Smith’s work in architecture.

The Tony Smith Architecture Catalogue Raisonné Volume 2 presents the full extent of identified production in architecture by Tony Smith. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced, the catalogue raisonné spans Smith’s influential intellectual and creative pursuits in the field. It is the first volume to offer a complete record of Smith’s architectural output and is the most comprehensive documentation to date of Smith’s built and unbuilt works. Combined with Against Reason: Tony Smith, Architecture, and Other Modernisms, these two books devoted to architecture are part of the Tony Smith Catalogue Raisonné Project, which presents Smith’s complete oeuvre in sculpture and architecture, while positioning his transdisciplinary practice in dialogue with contemporary voices in art and architecture.

Smith often reflected in writing on art, architecture, literature, and culture, yet his writing was not published like many of his contemporaries. This book presents never-before-published writings by Smith. The texts complement architectural projects presented in the catalogue raisonné while serving as a core sample of the voluminous writing in the Tony Smith Archives yet to be studied by future researchers.Preface
James Voorhies

Reader’s Guide
James Voorhies and Sarah Auld

On Building: The Architecture of Tony Smith
John Keenen

The Archive of a Creative Mind
Cynthia Davidson

Chronology
John Keenen and Christopher Ketcham

Catalogue Raisonné: Architecture
Entries by John Keenen and Christopher Ketcham

Tony Smith: Writings on Architecture

Why must the house be a cube? (ca. 1945)

Notes for letter to Editor, Architectural Forum, re Loeb House (August 23, 1946)

Architecture (September 22, 1950)

On the Way to a City. Part I (June 19, 1954)

The City as an Image (1954)

To Start with a Chicken Coop (1954)

Exhibitions
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Photography Credits
IndexJames Voorhies is an American curator and historian of modern and contemporary art. He has authored several books including Postsensual Aesthetics: On the Logic of the Curatorial (MIT Press, 2023) and Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968 (MIT Press, 2017); he is coeditor of a two-volume catalogue raisonné of the work of American artist Tony Smith, and editor of two companion volumes of essays and projects related to Smith (all MIT Press, 2024–2025).Voorhies is based New York, has taught at Bennington College and Harvard University, and holds a PhD in modern and contemporary art history from the Ohio State University, USA.


Sarah Auld has been the director of the Tony Smith Estate since 1990. Her responsibilities include the oversight of the artist’s archive, which holds over 2000 drawings and sketches as well as maquettes for sculptures, architectural models, and Smith’s writings and correspondence.