Biography
Anne Tyng was born in China. Her parents were Episcopal missionaries from the USA. She was the fourth child out of five siblings and lived in China until she was 14 years old.
Her parents came back to the USA periodically in sabbatical years, but Anne stayed permanently in 1938 to study fine arts in Radcliffe College, where she was graduated in 1942. During her last year, she studied in the architecture programme of the Cambridge School for Architecture and Landscape Architecture, the first organism offering a design programme only for women. Subsequently, she studied in the School of Architecture at Harvard University. Walter Gropius, Marcel Brauer and Catherine Bauer were some of her professors. It was this training that gave her a marked direction towards Bauhaus concepts, the fervour for the "box" and the pure forms of the International Style.
In 1944, she worked in New York for different design firms, such as Van Doren, Nowland & Schladermundt and Knoll Associates.
In 1945, she moved to Philadelphia with her parents. She began to work in the studio of Louis Khan & Stonorov and participated in projects of residential dwelling and proposals of urban planning. She became Khan's partner when Stonorov left the firm. Her involvement in the firm's projects was quickly intensified, as was her influence on them and the dependence of Louis Khan in her decisions and project resolutions. Geometry in Louis Khan's architecture is due to structural and geometric concepts introduced by Anne Tyng. Without these concepts, the Yale Art Gallery, Trenton bathrooms or the proposal of the City Tower cannot be understood, although, in reality, Kahn did not recognise her.
According to Buckminster Fuller, the renowned architect of that time, Anne Tying "was the geometric strategist of Louis Khan".
At the same time, in 1947, she developed the Tyng Toy, veneer wooden pieces that children could easily assemble and disassemble and that was exhibited in the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, as well as in Germany and Austria through the American Federation Arts.
In 1953, she did not accept the Fulbright grant and travelled to Rome, where she gave birth to Khan's daughter, Alexandra Tying, in 1954, in order to avoid scandal, since Khan was a married man. Tying took advantage of staying in Rome and studied engineering with Pier Luigi Nervi.
Nowadays, letters sent by Khan to Tyng in which he asked about a lot of projects' questions are famous, and Khan's professional dependency on Tyng can be observed. These letters were published in 1977 entitled The Rome Letters 1953-1954.
In 1955, she returned to Philadelphia and reinstated to work with Khan as co-author of several projects.
At the same time, she carried out theoretical and teaching activities.
She taught morphology and published essays related to geometry, form and design.
In 1965, she received a grant from Graham Foundation to develop the topic of the Anatomy of Form.
In 1975, she got her PhD at University of Pennsylvania and became member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 1995, she stopped teaching at University of Pennsylvania.
Throughout all her years of professional activity she has received numerous awards, prizes, grants; she has held exhibitions of her research work, published books, etc.
In 2005, she gave all her writings and drawings to the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania and moved to Greenbrae, Marine County, California.
In 2011, she created a new project based on Platonic solids: Inhabiting Geometry, an installation and exhibition of the Institute of Contemporary Art of the University of Pennsylvania.
She died on the 27th of December 2011.
https://zaguan.unizar.es/record/76564/files/TAZ-TFG-2018-3661.pdf
(retrieved on 09/11/2021)
