Collection Details
Archival collections in design cover the areas of architecture, community and regional planning, Iowa artists, landscape architecture, and urban design. The collections include departmental records from within the College of Design and faculty and alumni papers as well as those of individuals and organizations not affiliated with the university.
Collections Highlights
- Ken Smith Workshop collection: Smith is a graduate of Iowa State University and Harvard University School of Design. He founded the Ken Smith Workshop in 1992. The collection consists of projects completed between 1984-2019, including design competition entries. The project files include drawings, negatives, photographs, models, mylars, project guidelines and manuals, and project boards. The projects were located across the country and some internationally, including the Iowa Statehouse, Santa Fe Railyard, the MOMA rooftop garden, London Olympic Park, and the Abu Dhabi hotel.
- Warren Manning papers Manning, a landscape architect, was a pioneer in two principal areas: resource-based design and planning, and community-based participatory design. A disciple of Fredrick Law Olmsted, the collection contains material related to Manning's work on the National Plan, speeches, articles, reports, client lists, drawings and plans from more than fifty of Manning's projects, glass lantern slides, and photographs.
- Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunk (HLKB) Architecture records Des Moines-based firm that designed buildings throughout the Midwest. The collection consists of three firms: Charles Herbert and Associates, Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture (HLKB), and Knowles Blunck Architecture. It documents the work of the firms on academic buildings, civil buildings, commercial buildings, cultural heritage projects, and residential projects.
- Iowa Artists John Bloom, Howard C. Johnson, and Christian Petersen: DeWitt, Iowa native Bloom studied art at St. Ambrose College, Tri-City Art League School, the Chicago Art Institute, and Grant Wood’s Stone City Art Colony. He worked on the murals in Parks Library on the Iowa State University campus, as well as murals in the DeWitt and Tipton post offices. Johnson was a Griswold, Iowa native, and attended the Stone City Art Colony. He participated in a number of government art programs in Iowa during the Great Depression including mural work with the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) (December 1933- May 1934), mural and easel painting with the Treasury Relief Art Program (TRAP) (November 1935-July 1937), and easel and mural painting along with design and exhibition work with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) (1937-1941). Petersen emigrated from Denmark with his parents to the United States in 1894 and studied art in the northeast. During the Great Depression, he came to Iowa and worked under Grant Wood as part of the Public Works of Art Project in Iowa City. In 1934, he started work on relief sculptures for ISC’s Dairy Industry Building and was appointed Campus Artist-in-Residence in 1935, the first such position in the United States.
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