Bloomer, Kent C.

After studying physics and architecture at MIT, Mr. Bloomer received B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees in sculpture at Yale. He was an instructor for five years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and a frequent critic at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Texas at Austin. He has lectured internationally. His professional activities focus on sculpture and large-scale architectural ornament. His work is in the permanent collections of the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as the Avery Architectural Archive at Columbia University. Major projects in public art and architectural ornament include the tree-domes for the New Orleans World Exposition, roof ornaments of the Harold Washington Library (Thomas Beeby, architect) in Chicago, a large tracery for the new Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which was designed by Cesar Pelli, and, most recently, the decorative frieze on the Public Library in Nashville, Tennessee, which was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. In addition, he has designed light fixtures for Central Park and Eighth Avenue in New York City and for several university campuses. Mr. Bloomer's scholarly work includes the principal authorship, with Charles Moore, of Body, Memory, and Architecture and twenty-nine articles and contributing chapters in other books. His most recent book, The Nature of Ornament, was published in 2000.