Exhibitions: Architectural Renderings

July 27, 1971: Student Exhibit in Community Gallery Commences New Cooperation Between Pratt Institute and The Brooklyn Museum

The first exhibit of architectural drawings to be shown in the Brooklyn Museum’s Community Gallery will open on Sunday, August 1. Admission is free. Entitled “ARCHITECTURAL RENDERINGS”, the unique show will feature more than 75 drawings by multi-racial undergraduates at Pratt Institute who are majoring in interior design, industrial design, architecture and graphics. Executed in various media, including watercolor, rapidograph, airbrush, woodcut and silkscreen, the works depict famous contemporary buildings and structures as well as exceptional buildings of a previous architectural period. The students have also been encouraged by their instructors to draw city landmarks, street scenes, city-scapes, and neighborhoods.

The exhibition, coordinated by Albert Lorenz and Robert Zaccone, faculty members in Pratt’s School of Architecture, signals a “new cooperation” between Pratt and the Brooklyn Museum. Last spring at a meeting held by Henry Saltzman, president of Pratt Institute; Henri Ghent, black director of the Brooklyn Museum’s Community Gallery; Sidney L. Delson, A.I.A. Pratt alumnus, and present chairman of the Community Gallery Advisory Committee, and several distinguished members of the Pratt faculty, extensive plans were made in an effort to promote a more effective cooperation between the two venerable Brooklyn Institutions. In addition to planning a series of joint projects over the years, it was unanimously agreed that all such activities should focus on the cultural development of the community.

“Community involvement takes many forms, social, political and cultural,” said Mr. Saltzman of this new alliance. “This new program of cooperation with the Community Gallery enhances and enriches Pratt’s involvement in the cultural development of the community. The second cooperative effort by Pratt and the Community Gallery is expected to be a major exhibition/sale in the Gallery this fall comprising the works of Pratt faculty members to help the Museum raise funds for the preservation of the Community Gallery, as well as expand its already diverse activities. We are delighted that we can help each other this way.”

Under the direction of Henri Ghent, the Community Gallery has won international plaudits since its auspicious inauguration in September, 1968 as the first facility of its kind ever to be operated within the walls of a major American museum. “We’re constantly expanding our activities and enlarging our community family,” he said of the Pratt association, “and we hope that Pratt’s Interest and assistance will help us to continue to enrich the life of the community."

Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1971, 040-41. View Original 1 . View Original 2