Edward Durell Stone - Legacy

Legacy

Stone's life and career have received renewed attention due to the destruction and alteration of some of his buildings. Among these are the demolition of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri and a major alteration to the vacant Gallery of Modern Art building at 2 Columbus Circle in New York City. Interest in landmarking Stone's 2 Columbus Circle began in 1996, soon after the building turned thirty years old and became eligible for landmark designation. Robert A. M. Stern included it in his article " A Preservationist's List of 35 Modern Landmarks-in-Waiting" written for the New York Times. In 2004, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called it one of America's "11 Most Endangered Historic Places," and in 2006 it was listed as one of the World Monuments Fund's "100 Most Endangered Sites." Despite a serious preservation effort, The Museum of Arts & Design radically altered the building, which reopened in 2008.

Stone is survived by four of his five children. Stone’s youngest son, Hicks Stone is a practicing architect whose firm, Stone Architecture, LLC, is based in New York City. He has written his father's biography, Edward Durell Stone: A Son's Untold Story of a Legendary Architect, which has been published by Rizzoli International Publications. Stone’s eldest son, the late Edward Durell Stone, Jr., was the founder and chairman of EDSA, a planning, landscape architecture and urban design firm based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Stone's legacy—of giving form to the aspirations of the emerging consumer culture and of reconciling Modernism with the dynamism of the age—is established in the critical survey, Edward Durell Stone: Modernism's Populist Architect by Mary Anne Hunting, PhD.