Behind every great building are engineers—the people who make sure it stands up, withstanding natural forces and human abuse alike long into the future. For Philadelphia’s most famous and celebrated architects of the modern era, those engineers were Carl A. Baumert, Nicholas L. Gianopulos, and Thomas J. Leidigh, longtime principals at the firm of Keast & Hood Co. After a 1963 plane crash took the lives of the firm’s founding principals, the young trio found themselves at the firm’s helm. Working together over the following decades, they built it into one of the city’s—and nation’s—most respected structural engineering firms, with projects ranging from Louis Kahn’s National Capital of Bangladesh to Robert Venturi’s Vanna Venturi House in Chestnut Hill. Humble and dedicated to their craft, these engineers never sought acclaim—even as the structures they designed won worldwide recognition. This retrospective, for the first time, illuminates the scope and importance of their work. Through an array of never-before-exhibited drawings, models, and documents, their decisive role in the design and construction of an array of 20th century landmarks at last emerges.

Architectural historian Izzy Kornblatt will speak more on this exhibition.