THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510130133
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Teresa Annas
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
CARLTON ABBOTT is among the state's most honored architects.
On Nov. 3, the Williamsburg architect adds to his growing list of kudos, which includes about 60 local and state design awards since 1968 from the American Institute of Architects - more than any other firm in Virginia.
Abbott, 55, will be handed the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Architecture Firm Award, which is ``the highest recognition a Virginia firm can receive,'' said Vernon Mays, editor of Inform, an architectural magazine published by the state AIA.
Every other year, the award honors a firm that has consistently produced distinguished architecture for a decade or longer. The ceremony will take place at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
A year ago, Mays featured Abbott among 10 state architects in recent decades ``who made a difference,'' he said.
``Without a doubt, Carlton is one of the most prominent architects in the state, if not in the mid-Atlantic region,'' Mays said. ``It's rare that we conduct the design awards program that he doesn't emerge as one of the winners.
``Often, he'll win two awards.''
Abbott's style is ``strongly influenced by modernism,'' Mays said. ``He never fell into the trap of post-modernism architecture. You won't find any classical columns, or Palladian windows.
``He has maintained a stiff loyalty to modernism, while managing to create buildings that are humane, warm and sensitive. Pleasant to be in.''
Abbott's firm, Carlton Abbott and Partners, increasingly is hired for projects across the country, from a new nature center at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina to helping plan creative uses for a 2,300-acre landfill in New Jersey.
Evidence of his firm's work abounds in Virginia.
Among his local projects are Williamsburg's Muscarelle Museum of Art, Virginia Beach Visitor Information Center and Carter's Grove Reception Center in James City County.
Area addition/renovation projects include the Peninsula Fine Arts Center and the Mariners' Museum, both in Newport News; the Jamestown Settlement; and the Farm and Forestry Museum at Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry.
``Carlton really is a Renaissance man. Many architects think of themselves as artists. And other architects concentrate more on the business of their profession,'' Mays said.
``Carlton is one of the few who successfully bridges both of those worlds, without compromising either one.''
Abbott also is an accomplished fine artist. He has been widely exhibited and won best in show at the 1972 Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show.
His father, the late Stanley Abbott, also was a Renaissance man who attained an international reputation for designing the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Landscape architecture has a prominent spot in Abbott's firm, which takes on nearly as many landscaping as building projects.
``Carlton deserves every award he gets,'' stressed Edward G. Carson, a Norfolk landscape architect and vice chair of Norfolk's design review committee.
Carson praised Abbott's latest building, the Norfolk Botanical Garden's Baker Hall Visitor Center, for ``its use of materials, its structural aspects, the heavy timbers, the clean appearance.'' He recently visited the finished structure and brought his camera along.
``I took a whole roll of film, even shot up through some of the timbers into the sky. It's a real architectural jewel, in my opinion. A piece of sculpture rising out of the ground. And it made me feel so good to see it.''
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