Architect Hicks Stone to Present Edward Durell Stone Lecture on May 10 in Little Rock

Photo Submitted

Hicks Stone, principal of Stone Architecture LLC, will deliver a lecture about the life and work of his father, the late Edward Durell Stone, on May 10 at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock.

LITTLE ROCK — Hicks Stone will present a lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, at the Arkansas Arts Center, at Ninth and Commerce streets in Little Rock. The lecture, titled "Edward Durell Stone: American Modernist," will follow a 5:30 p.m. reception.

This lecture is part of the Architecture and Design Network's 2015-2016 lecture series.

Stone, AIA, is principal of Stone Architecture LLC, with offices in New York City and Roxbury, Connecticut. He is also the youngest son of the late Edward Durell Stone.

In his talk, Hicks Stone will document the breadth of his father's career and a life that had its beginnings in Arkansas. In 2011, Rizzoli published his biography of his father, Edward Durell Stone: A Son's Untold Story of a Legendary Architect.

Born in 1902 to a prominent pioneering Fayetteville family, the elder Stone was, at the age of 27, awarded a prestigious Rotch Travelling Scholarship, which enabled him to travel throughout Europe and North Africa. From that point on, his vision expanded and evolved. Having first embraced the aesthetic of Frank Lloyd Wright, Stone turned toward European Modernism in the 1930s. Finding the latter too austere, Stone embraced a "warmer and more referential architecture attuned to his American origins" that led to commercial success and critical acclaim.

Among some of his best known projects are Radio City Music Hall and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York; the U.S. Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair; the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India; and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The elder Stone designed several structures in Arkansas. Among them are the UAMS Medical Center, Little Rock (1949), the University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center, Fayetteville (1950) and the Pine Bluff Civic Center complex (1963). In 1950, he designed a home for the Felix Smart family in Pine Bluff.

Hicks Stone, a graduate of Hamilton College, received a Master of Architecture from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Prior to establishing his own firm, he was a project manager and senior designer for Philip Johnson and John Burgee Architects.

The 2015-2016 Art of Architecture lecture series is sponsored by the Architecture and Design Network, with support from the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and community members.

In addition, this lecture is sponsored by Jay S. Stanley & Associates in North Little Rock.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and no reservations are needed. For more information about this and other ADN programs, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.