Francis Morrone Fall 2025
As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I am going to be leading a trip to London and Bath in April. I have to tell you that this is a dream trip for me. It is a combination of walking, house, and musuem tours with access that simply isn't possible any other way. We will start in London, with some walking tours, including Bloomsbury, Marylebone, and Kensington. We will get inside tours of the extraordinary Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Leighton House, and the Wallace Collection (my favorite London museum). We’ll then take a bus to Bath—the most magical all-classical city on earth—where there will be walking tours and some other rare inside visits. (If you saw the Morgan’s recent, delightful exhibition on Jane Austen, then you might like to know that we’ll see her house in Bath.) Next is nearby Wells, where England’s—possibly Europe’s—greatest cathedral stands. I will show you around Wells Cathedral. We will then return to London. I admit it isn’t cheap, but it will be truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me—and I think for you, too. It will be an in-depth study of British architecture and town planning in the Georgian, Regency, and Victorian eras. We will be staying in lovely hotels and will have some excellent meals together. We have only a few spots left, so if you want to do this you should register as soon as possible. Here is the link.
On September 30 I will lead a walking tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—but with a difference. This tour will focus on the Met’s architecture, inside and out. We’ll walk the perimeter of the building’s exterior, then go inside for a look at several important spaces. The tour will take about two hours, from 1:00 to 3:00. This is for the Scarsdale Adult School. Here is the link.
I’m teaching a continuing education course at NYU called Words on the Street: Architecture and Typography, about a passion of mine, which is lettering on buildings and signage in the urban environment (not least in the New York City subway system). Lettering, in the form of inscriptions, has been a very important part of architecture since ancient times. The course will focus on New York City, where Roman-style inscriptions appeared on buildings into the 20th century. I believe such inscriptions are an integral, not an incidental, part of buildings and monuments. (Think of the splendid inscriptions on the former General Post Office, now the James A. Farley Building, on Eighth Avenue.) Sometimes the lettering did not follow strict Roman precedents but went off in all sorts of creative directions. There is also plenty of Medieval-style lettering. Such lettering was not based on print typefaces but followed rules and precedents that were specific to architecture. Later, actual print typefaces were adapted to buildings, for example in the lobby of the Empire State Building or on the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. Or in the use of the Akzidenz Grotesk and Helvetica typefaces in subway system signage. Speaking of the subway, some of the lettering rendered in terra cotta, mainly station names, ranks high among the beautiful things to look at in New York. Along the way, we will discuss the history of letterforms and of typography, and also look at New York architects, such as Bertram Goodhue, who were also typographic designers. (Both The New York Times and L.L. Bean use a typeface designed by the architect of St. Thomas Church and St. Bartholomew’s Church.) It may sound like a niche subject, but I guarantee that it will get you looking at the city around you in a whole new way.
The course is eight weeks, on Mondays from September 29 to November 17, 1:00–2:40, and will be held at NYU’s Midtown Center, 20 West 43rd Street.
To whet your appetite, I direct you to a short piece I wrote recently for the online magazine Peacham (named for the English rhetorician Henry Peacham [1546–1634]).
That’s it for now, a little less than usual, as I frantically try to finish the book I have been writing for four and a half years. Authors sometimes like to say that if you’re writing a book, it must be the only thing you’re doing. That’s only in a fantasy world. In reality, most writers don’t get advances large enough to live on while they write. That means you have to write when you can—for me, that’s between classes and tours and lectures. Since all of those are quite time-consuming, it’s a wonder I can find time for writing at all. But there comes a point, with the finish line in clear view, when you just have to focus everything on the writing, and just get the thing over with (and stop the harassing emails from your editor). Before the year is out, however, I will have a number of tours and talks lined up, including a couple of Sunday tours for the Municipal Art Society. So much of what I’ve done lately has taken place on weekdays that it’s left out the people who, well, have jobs. I miss you! So I’m going to try to do more weekend stuff. I’ll also have a new series coming up for 92nd Street Y. I’ll send a notice when all of these are confirmed. Stay tuned.
I hope to see you soon.
Francis