dbo:abstract
- Jan Ruhtenberg (a.k.a. Alexander Gustaf Jan Ruhtenberg or Alexander Gustav Jan Ruhtenberg, born Alexander Gustaf Rutencrantz von Ruhtenberg, 28 February 1896 – died, December 1975) was an architect who "made significant contributions in introducing modern architecture to the United States as a teacher and a modern architect". Ruhtenberg was involved in the Bauhaus movement in Germany, studying under Mies van der Rohe and worked with Philip Johnson. In The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 Johnson acknowledges Ruhtenberg as one of two “kind friends” who have read and criticized draft texts. Johnson and fellow author Henry-Russell Hitchcock included Ruhtenberg’s 1930 Berlin apartment house interior among their illustrations of modern design. In his biography of Philip Johnson, architectural historian Franz Schulze refers to Ruhtenberg as Johnson's new friend during the latter's travels in Germany in 1929. The two visited the Bauhaus in Dessau together. At the time Ruhtenberg was a public relations aide to designer Bruno Paul. Johnson, working with Henry-Russell Hitchcock, was gathering material for The International Style: Architecture Since 1922. Ruhtenberg was traveling with them. Schulze cites Johnson's letter of 17 September 1930 to J. J. P. Oud, a Dutch modernist architect, in which Johnson called Ruhtenberg his best friend, describing him as a beginning architecture student. Three years later in another letter to Oud, Johnson tells him that he is building a house in Manhattan with his friend Jan Ruhtenberg. He was active in many areas of country such as New York City with both his architectural skills (the renovation of that was reviewed by Architectural Forum in 1937); He is "credited" with the interior design of Nelson Rockefeller's Penthouse at 810 Fifth Avenue (62nd Street) by the New York Times; and his opinions on the progressive housing movement which were recorded for the Library of Congress. He was a professor at Columbia University in New York City, where he was hired to teach the "new architecture" in 1934 by Joseph Hudnut. He married Polly King Ruhtenberg on August 4, 1935 in New York City. (en)