Natalie de Blois

David Dunlap has a retrospective on the work of the architect Natalie de Blois, who died last week in Chicago, at the age of 92. Ms. de Blois was one of the first women to make it into the competitive upper echelons of American commercial architecture, during the mid-20th century. I walked past Lever House a few weeks ago, and was unaware of her role in designing it. I did notice that it was part of a really interesting cluster of green-tinted, curtain-wall type buildings in the blocks north of Grand Central along Park Avenue. It’s an interesting pocket that seems to capture the modernity of post-war New York City, while also offering an interesting contrast with the older buildings in the neighborhood. One can get a good sense of the aesthetics by periscoping around in Google Street View from this location.