25 Facts About Sibyl Moholy-Nagy

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was the author of a study of his work, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality, plus several other books on architectural history.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was an outspoken critic of what she regarded as the excesses of postwar modernist architecture.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was an intelligent and rebellious girl who did well in school but suffered from extreme anxiety.

In 1931, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy would move to Berlin with the support of her career, now working as a scriptwriter and editor for Tobis Film Berlin.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's husband died in November 1946.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy finished copyediting her late husband's book Vision in Motion, which was published in 1947.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's writings built on knowledge from her father, and from her friendships with Walter Gropius and Sigfried Giedion, who she had met through her husband.

In 1951, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was hired as associate professor of architecture history at Pratt Institute in New York City on the recommendation of Jose Luis Sert.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy had fabricated her CV that she had studied at prestigious German universities.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy positioned herself as a teacher for the next generation of architects.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy taught courses on such subjects as urban history and design, becoming Pratt's first female full professor in 1960.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy became a respected and acclaimed teacher, a commanding classroom presence using her experiences in acting.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy resigned in 1969 over a conflict with other faculty about the future direction of the school, then became a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1970.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy died in New York City on January 8,1971.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy first found success with a semi-autobiographical essay submitted to Harvard that described her experience living in Germany before and after 1933.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy went on to publish prolifically both fiction works and, in her later professional life, on the topic of architectural theory.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's writing was innovative in terms of advancing an understanding of architecture that considered form, material, and climate as essential.

In pursuit of a more regionalist and less abstract version of modern architecture, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy turned her focus to contemporaries of modern architecture.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was the most American among the masters, giving America an intrinsically American architecture, rooted in his geocentric empathy for the land: 'Wright's claim to genius lies with his autochthonous design of the house.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy showed less support for architects moving towards a more abstract, industrial architecture, such as Le Corbusier, Mies, and architects following the Bauhaus movement.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was one of the first critics following MoMA's Latin American Architecture Since 1945 exhibition to study postwar Latin American architecture in depth.

For example, in 1957 Sibyl Moholy-Nagy commented on the university complex in Mexico City in an article titled 'Mexican Critique' for Progressive Architecture, questioning the success of the development in meeting the needs and culture of the university.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was critical of Jane Jacobs' 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, denouncing Jacobs' critique of architects harming the livability of the city.

However, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's work was not always received as she intended.

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's broader teaching philosophy was rooted in the conviction that architecture is not a matter of style or taste, but of ethical and historical consciousness.