Wittkower, Rudolf, (22 June 1901–11 Oct. 1971), Slade Professor of Fine Art, Cambridge, 1970–71; Professor of Fine Arts, Columbia University, New York, 1956–69, now Avalon Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Humanities; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1971–72

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 891-930
Author(s):  
Carolyn Strange

Reconstruction was an uncertain time in New York City, the nation's foremost metropolis, riddled with political corruption and rocked by popular protest. Stabilizing efforts took numerous forms, including the brutal suppression of workers' rallies and the prosecution of municipal politicians and officials. Public faith in the criminal justice system and its capacity to prosecute and punish criminals had also reached a low ebb by the 1870s, prompting the state government to investigate the district attorney's office in New York County and its court system. In the words of a veteran member of the city's criminal bar, the “deplorable uncertainty” of punishment was making “a mockery of justice.” A Columbia University medico-legal expert agreed, claiming that murder, “if not yet cultivated as one of the fine arts … [was] a matter of daily occurrence.” High-profile trials in the wake of the Civil War tested public and professional criticism of jury independence, particularly jurors' disinclination to find killers guilty of murder, compounded by defense attorneys' growing use of “moral” and “emotional insanity” defenses. Every time apparently sane killers, such as William McFarland (tried and acquitted on grounds of “temporary insanity” in 1870 for the murder of his former wife's lover) escaped conviction on the basis of questionable insanity defenses, newspapers announced “the insanity dodge,” and medico-legal experts squabbled over the growing problem of “feigned insanity.” Occasionally Manhattan's murderers did face the gallows, especially the poor and friendless, as the execution of William Foster in March 1873 confirmed, but it seemed that well-financed and well-defended murderers, like Edward Stokes, murderer of financier Jim Fisk, could exploit the technicalities of the law if the vagaries of medicine failed to secure acquittals. A justice system of this sorry character had little hope of deterring would-be murderers, the New York Times despaired: “MURDER AND HANGING-Examples Wanted-Strangle All Our Murderers Together.”


Author(s):  
Miloš Perović ◽  
Jean Gottmann

The author is Professor of History of Modern Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, received his M.Sc in architecture and town-planning in Belgrade and at the Athens Center of Ekistics, Athens, Greece, and his Ph. D at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade. He is the author of many books including Computer Atlas of Belgrade (Belgrade, 1976, second edition in Serbian and English as Research into the Urban Structure of Belgrade, Belgrade, 2002), Lessons of the Past (Belgrade, 1985), four volumes on the history of modern architecture in the world 1750 to present, Serbian 20th Century Architecture: From Historicisim to Second Modernism (Belgrade, 2003), and numerous articles published in scientific and professional journals. He has had one-man exhibitions of his experimental town-planning projects in Ljubljana (1977), Zagreb(1978), Belgrade (1978), Paris (1981), Dublin (1981), and at the Gallery of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London (1986). He has lectured at New York University, the Institute of Fine Arts (New York), Princeton University, Columbia University (New York), Ohio State University (Columbus), Athens Center of Ekistics, University of Cambridge (UK), and the Royal Institute of British Architects. The text that follows was one of several interviews of Dr Perovió with selected participants in the Delos Symposia (international meetings on boardship organized by the Athens Center of Ekistics, 1963-1972) first published in the journal Sinteza (Ljubljana) and later in a separate book entitled Dialogues with the Delians in both Serbian and English, Ljublijana, 1978.


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