Review: <Bold>American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture</Bold>

Review: American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture by Alice T. Friedman Review by: Robert Bruegmann Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 70, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 540- 541 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2011.70.4.540 . Accessed: 16/03/2013 13:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Society of Architectural Historians are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:35:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Clinton Piper, Sally McMurry, and result is the best-paced and most accurate marks] the first time these Pennsylvania Franklin Toker, this is the third volume of Toker’s writings on Pittsburgh and architects have been drawn together in a in the BUS guidebook format introduced Allegheny County. That said, it is worth single book. We hope this will inspire fur- in 2008. A “How to Use this Book” section noting some important errors and omis- ther studies of those whose bodies of work is followed by a foreword, acknowledg- sions. Claiming that “Modernism came to merit in-depth research” (x). Discovering ments, introduction (with endnotes), and the fore in the 1930s with Frank Lloyd the regional work of architects based in five chapters: “The Western Capital— Wright’s office in the Kaufmann Depart- Pittsburgh, learning about the work of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County”; “Roll- ment Store and . Fallingwater” (41) architects based elsewhere in Western Penn- ing Hills and Rolling Mills,” on eight slights the important early modern work sylvania, and finding architectural gems— counties surrounding Allegheny County; of Titus de Bobula (of Hungary), Richard a Furness carriage house in Clarion “Ridge and Valley,” on seven south-central Kiehnel (of Germany), and Frederick County, a Halsey Wood church in McKean counties; “Great Forest,” on ten north- Scheibler, all of whom were either trained County, a Breuer house in Westmoreland central counties; and “Oil and Water,” on in or immersed in the literature of Austro- County, a Neutra house in Fayette County, five northwestern counties. There is a Germanic Secessionist architecture and and many others—these make this volume glossary, bibliography, illustration credits, design and began working in Pittsburgh an indispensible guide and architectural and an index. shortly after 1900. Pittsburgh’s 210 Sixth reference book to the buildings of Western Each chapter begins with a map of the Avenue (originally One Oliver Plaza, Wil- Pennsylvania. county or counties discussed and there are liam Lescaze, 1968) has not “retained” the albert m. tannler detailed maps of individual communities. lobby murals by Pierre Soulages (commis- Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Regrettably, there is no map showing all sioned by Lescaze) and Pittsburgh artist Foundation thirty-one western counties within the Virgil Cantini (49); both murals, unfortu- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Such a nately, were removed from the building in map does appear in the more recent Phila 2009. Gordon Bunshaft’s Heinz Vinegar Alice T. Friedman delphia and Eastern Pennsylvania volume by Works (1950–52, not 1949) is acclaimed as American Glamour and the George E. Thomas.) While the introduc- “the first use of the International Style Evolution of Modern Architecture tion includes endnotes, such documenta- among Pittsburgh corporations,” but New Haven and London: Yale University tion does not appear elsewhere in the text; readers are not told that the “blue-colored Press, 2010, ix +262 pp., 40 color and the inclusion of notes throughout would glass curtain wall” is now covered by cor- 125 b/w illus. $65.00, ISBN 9780300116540 enhance the book’s value as a reference rugated metal siding (97–98). Several work. Finally, nine thematic sidebars pro- other small but significant errors—of mat- You might imagine, from a quick glance at vide concise but wide-ranging informa- ters such as date or attribution—mar this the dust jacket, that this volume would fall tion. “Planned Communities” (98–99), for otherwise informative chapter. into the category of “coffee-table book.” example, guides the reader through Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania’s Certainly the glossy image of poolside enter- regional examples from 1804 to 2002. most significant contribution comes in its taining at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Other sidebars include: “Inclines: A Trio chapters on Allegheny County’s neigh- Desert House in Palm Springs would sug- of Diescher Inclines” (76); “Urban Parks” bors. (Of these thirty neighboring coun- gest a title like Hot Resorts of Southern (110); “Bridges and Dams” (138); “National ties, only one, Washington Country, has California or The New American Desert Road” (258–59); “Coal Patch Towns and been surveyed during the past seventy-five Style. The first part of the title, American Reclamation” (270); “Mighty Iron and years, and that survey, conducted in 1973– Glamour, rendered in large letters that Steel” (312–13); “State and Federal Parks” 74, was limited to pre–twentieth-century pick up the tint of the swimming pool, (448); and “Barns: Vernacular and Spec- structures.) The research and writing here does nothing to dispel this impression. tacular” (500). The sidebars, unfortuna- are pioneering and rigorous. The archi- Title and image appear calculated to sug- tely, are not listed in the table of contents tectural histories of the thirty counties are gest that this is not a stuffy work of schol- or in the index; according to series editor told for the first time, and knowing them arship. Left at that, the reader might well Karen Kingsley they will be in future BUS enriches our understanding of each county assume it was another breezy romp volumes. and of all thirty-one together. The book’s through the lifestyles of the rich and The Allegheny County chapter—the general introduction characterizes West- famous. Only with the second line of the book’s longest at 93 pages, compared to ern Pennsylvania as a whole, noting that title is there an indication of how much 427 pages for the other thirty counties only four of the thirty-one counties are higher the author has set her sights. combined—was adapted from Franklin considered urban, and it articulates the In fact, this book is one of the most Toker’s Buildings of Pittsburgh, published importance of topography, farms, and intriguing and compelling studies to date by SAH in 2007 to coincide with the Six- industrial sites, as well as architecturally on modern architecture, at least on a key tieth Annual Meeting held in Pittsburgh. significant buildings. Donnelly states: group of American midcentury examples The editors have preserved the best ele- “This volume . introduces the many of it. American architecture after World ments of Buildings of Pittsburgh and the end architects active in the five regions, [and it War II has inspired a great wave of recent 540 JSAH / 70:4, DECEMBER 2011 This content downloaded on Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:35:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions work ranging from the ponderously eru- great empathy for her architects, their General Motors Technical Center itself dite to the breathlessly enthusiastic. With clients, the buildings and their users. glamorous or was its aura of glamour due this book Alice Friedman, a professor of From her description of the underground primarily to the cars that came from it? art history at Wellesley College, weighs in “seraglio” of Philip Johnson’s Guest Would Johnson’s Glass House (1949–50) with a contribution that manages to be at House, in New Canaan (1949–50, remod- be glamorous if your Aunt Agatha lived once scholarly and highly readable, deeply eled in 1953), with its seductive dimmer- there, with her television, overstuffed researched and richly provocative. controlled lighting, to the aspirations of armchairs, and many cats? The question The main body of the book consists of Temple Beth Sholom’s Rabbi Mortimer J. raised here—to what extent do buildings a series of five essays, each focusing either Cohen, she offers mostly sympathetic por- speak for themselves and to what extent is on a single building—Richard Neutra’s traits, although not without recognition of their meaning determined by the context Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs ambiguities and problems. The writing is in which they are seen—has been a peren- (1947) and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Temple vivid and evocative. Reading Friedman’s nial debate in all of the visual arts. This Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania pages, it is easy to imagine the swish of silk book does more to raise further questions (1959)—or a group of buildings by an dresses in the lobby of Lapidus’s Hotel about these matters than to answer them. important architect—Philip Johnson, Fontainebleau in Miami (1955) or the These last remarks are not intended as Eero Saarinen, and Morris Lapidus. In her smell of new upholstery in Saarinen’s criticism. They are, rather, observations introduction Friedman explains the quali- Styling Dome at the General Motors provoked by Friedman’s fascinating case ties she believes unites all of the major Technical Center in Warren, Michigan studies of buildings that have mostly not, buildings she discusses.

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