Artist Statement: Warren Boeschenstein
A registered architect, Warren Boeschenstein taught architectural and urban design at the University of Virginia School of Architecture where he was the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Architecture. Before coming to UVa, he studied art, design, and painting at Amherst College, Washington University in St. Louis, and Harvard University.
Boeschenstein’s background in architecture has shaped his approach to painting. Form, structure, rhythm, and proportion are critical to architecture and art. A sense of space and scale are also fundamental to both, and the qualities of certain lines, including how to “enter” a painting, have architectural parallels. The subtleties of color, however, so essential to painting, are often neglected in architecture. Artfully used, color offers possibilities for associative meanings, nuanced relationships, startling applications as well as pure visual delight. With color, and free of functional and client constraints, painting opens new expressive worlds to explore.
During his architecture career, Boeschenstein traveled widely in this country and abroad to study outstanding examples of design. Rather than individual structures, he was drawn to groups of buildings and public spaces because of the ways in which they reflect the aesthetic tastes and social demands that converge on and constitute civic places over time. These experiences became fodder for his paintings. Urban street views, vernacular buildings, particularly those in small towns, and wall compositions, as well as graffiti details are recurring themes in his work. Abstracting these images, in turn, with the memories they sustain, offers even more visual and expressive material.
Prices for the artworks are available on request.
Biography as Architect and Academic
Warren Boeschenstein retired in 2011 from University of Virginia School of Architecture, after teaching there for thirty-eight years. Professor Boeschenstein is a nationally recognized scholar in the general area of urban design, town planning and transportation. His book, Historic American Towns Along The Atlantic Coast (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) chronicles the detailed histories, qualities, and issues of nine representative coastal towns. He was also a consulting architect on a variety of private and public projects. His interests in urban design and transportation led him to develop plans for transit-oriented communities along the Washington, DC / Richmond Corridor and in Northern Virginia, work that received national and state design awards. He assisted the City of Charlottesville in a range of projects from the initiation of the City's greenbelt to work redeveloping the West Main Street Corridor. In addition to research and teaching Prof. Boeschenstein served as Associate Dean for Students. He was recognized by the Washington University in St. Louis School of Architecture with a Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2002 was the Thomas Jefferson Visiting Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge University, England. Professor Boeschenstein received a B.A. from Amherst College, a B.Arch from Washington University in St. Louis and a M.Arch from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University
