The "New Empiricism-BayRegion Axis": KayFisker and PostwarDebates on Functionalism, Regionalism,and Monumentality

STANFORDANDERSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Danisharchitect Fiskeris as a Kay presented rep- time necessity of efficient production and dominant polemicizing historian of the resentative in the WarII archi- figure post-World in archi- movement and of the In- tecturaldebates on functionalism,regionalism, action, assertedly realized modern modern secretary and monumentality.Fisker participated in a trans- tecture, seemed equally necessary in the ternational Congress of Modern Architec- atlantic on these mattersthat linked exchange condition of massive rebuilding after de- ture (CIAM), closely allied with both Scandinavia,the Englishconception of "newem- cades of and war. Countries that and Le an ar- piricism,"and the teachingand architectural depression Gropius Corbusier, published practiceassociated with two notedAmerican had been less affected by the war could be ticle titled "The Need for a New Monu- schoolsat the MassachusettsInstitute of Technol- identified as extended in a work like Le andthe of Californiaat having successfully mentality"2-finding ogy University Berkeley. Corbusier's for the ProminentAmericans in this programfor a mod- modernist paradigms: Switzerland, Sweden, competition design ern architecturethat confronted the moredomi- and Brazil.' The United States-blessed League of Nations the roots for a monu- nant of the International included ideology Style with victory without destruction and also mentality that could open all of society's LewisMumford, William Wilson Wurster, ,and LawrenceB. Anderson. with vast needs and equally great re- needs to the modern architect. sources-seemed poised to take a lead in Others, even those less squeamish proving the feasibility of modern architec- about functionalism, felt that modern archi- ture in addressing postwar problems. In ar- tecture should reveal a close attention to in- THE ARCHITECTURALSITUATION FOLLOWING chitectural education, too, the United States dividual and social conditions that they World War II required an international re- took a lead with modernist giants like found wanting in the more aesthetically ab- assessment of the condition and direction of Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der stract or technically derived variations of . the focus on a Despite Rohe at the head of notable schools that modernism. The Architectural Review of white, abstract architecture in such promi- soon set the agenda for all other schools. London, surveying the development of ar- nent events as the Weissenhof Siedlung in That Gropius and Mies held such chitecture in Sweden during and just after Stuttgart (1927) and the International Style positions was an aspect of an increasingly the war, editorialized: exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art successful polemical group centered on the (1932), the prolific and much more diverse Museum of Modern Art in New York, abet- So far no strong reaction is evident modern architecture of the twenties had not ted by a network reaching into architectural against the principles upon which undergone a process of selection and ma- publishing and education. If a new thrust of functionalism was founded. Indeed, tured to a more singular mode of design. modern architecture appeared inevitable, it these principles were never more rel- On the contrary, internal to architecture, is not surprising that the agency for that evant than now. The tendency is, the work of major figures like Le Corbusier impetus seemed to be vested in the heroes of rather, both to humanise the theory and Alvar Aalto in the thirties challenged the Museum's International Style exhibition on its aesthetic side and to get back to any foreseen convergence of the form of of fifteen years earlier: Gropius, Mies, and the earlier rationalism on the techni- modern architecture. Simultaneously, exter- Le Corbusier. cal side. [This Swedish attempt to nal political forces sometimes eroded the Still, there were questions. The orga- humanize may] be called The New asserted moral status of modern architecture nizers of the International Style exhibition, Empiricism. through co-optation and more often Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip [Then, quoting Swedish archi- reawakened the development of conven- Johnson, strenuously asserted that their tect Sven Backstram:] tional architectural styles. master architects were notfunctionalists. Yet "The years passed, and one 'ob- Yet in the postwar period, the impe- in pragmatic lands like Britain and the jective' house after the other tus of modern architecture was so strong United States, marked by depression, war, stood ready for use. It was then that its confrontations were to Uecome in- and recovery, modern architecture was that people to ternal rather than external. The defeated gradually began dominantly "sold" as just that: functional. discover that the 'new objectiv- powers appeared to have been more closely That such a perception of modern architec- ity' [Neue Sachlichkeit] was wedded to traditional architectural forms ture could soon limit the scope of activity not always so objective, and the and thus further discredited them. The war- allowed to modernists was recognized early houses did not always function and from within the dominant circle. Al- so well as had been Journal ofArchitectural Education, pp. 197-207 expected. ? 1997 ACSA, Inc. ready during the war, Sigfried Giedion, the They also felt the lack of many

197 Anderson of the aesthetic values and the the English became interested in Sweden what it does. A house, as the Uru- little contributions to cosiness and affirmed a "new empiricism" (which guayan architect Julio Vilamaj6 has that we human beings are so they also recognized in Switzerland), Lewis put it, should be as personal as one's dependent upon, and that our Mumford, the American social critic and clothes and should fit the family life architectural and domestic tra- frequent commentator on architecture, just as well. This is not a new doctrine dition had nevertheless devel- championed for similar reasons the distinc- in the United States. People like Ber- oped. ... One result of this tive regional work of the American West nard Maybeck and William Wilson growing insight was a reaction Coast in opposition to the imported mod- Wurster [Figures 2 to 4], in Califor- against all the too-schematic ernism of his East Coast colleagues. From nia, always practiced it .... I look for architecture of the 1930s. To- within their own fashionable journal, the the continued spread, to every part of day we have reached the point New Yorker,Mumford affronted the eastern the country, of that native and hu- where all the elusive psycho- architectural establishment: mane form of modernism one might logical factors have again begun call the Bay Region style, a free yet to engage our attention. Man Meanwhile, new winds are beginning unobtrusive expression of the terrain, and his habits, reactions and to blow, and presently they may hit the climate, and the way of life on the needs are the focus of interest even backward old New York. The Coast.... Some of the best examples as never before. To interpret very critics, such as Henry-Russell of this at once native and universaltra- such a programme as a reaction Hitchcock, who twenty years ago dition are being built in New En- and a return to something that were identifying the "modern" in ar- gland. The change that is now going is past and to pastiches is defi- chitecture with Cubism in painting on in both Europe and America means nitely to misunderstand the de- and with a general glorification of the only that modern architecture is past velopment of architecture in mechanical and the impersonal and its adolescent period, with its quixotic this country."3 aesthetically puritanic have become purities, its awkward self-conscious- advocates of Frank Lloyd Wright. ... ness, its assertive dogmatism. The Although these comments relate to Sigfried Giedion, once a leader of the good young architects today are famil- Sweden and its less disrupted architectural mechanical rigorists, has come out for iar enough with the machine and its development in the war years, the thrust of the monumental and the symbolic, products and processes to take them the argument could also apply to the thought and among the younger people an in- for granted and so they are ready to and production of Kay Fisker, a leading clination to play with the "feeling"el- relax and enjoy themselves a little. Danish architect (Figure 1). Indeed, in just ements in design-with color, That will be better for all of us.8 these years, Fisker took theoretical positions texture, even painting and sculp- and gave honor to earlierarchitects and their ture-has become irrepressible.... The architectural circle of the Mu- precedent-setting buildings, which made ... The rigorists placed the me- seum of Modern Art could not let such him a leading international exponent of such chanical functions of a building above heresy go unchallenged. The museum in- a program. Consider, for example, his essay its human functions: they neglected duced Mumford to confront his old associ- on C.F.A. Voysey, H.M. Baillie-Scott, and the feelings, the sentiments, and the ates in a symposium titled "What Is Heinrich Tessenow,4 that on Louis Sullivan,5 interests of the person who was to oc- Happening to Modern Architecture?"' his study for an English audience of Danish cupy it. Instead of regarding engi- Alfred Barr, the director of the museum, domestic architecture,'and especially his two neering as a foundation for form, they wittily undermined the regionalism, essays on functionalism.7 It is this contribu- treated it as an end.... Americanism, and seriousness of the pre- tion of Fisker, and particularlyhis increasing Well, it was time that some of sumptive alternative West Coast architec- participation in related transatlanticdebates, our architects remembered the non- ture by labeling it with variants of the old that I wish to consider. mechanical and non-formal elements slogans for the museum's "rigorous" mod- First, I must develop further that in architecture, and that they remem- ernism: He saw in the Bay Region works an transatlantic discourse. In just the time that bered what a building says as well as "International Cottage Style" and a "Neue

February1997 JAE50/3 1 98 Paralleling this resistance of attention to the individual and the everyday, Giedion continued his advocacy of a new monu- mentalism. An appropriate new venue was a lecture to the Royal Institute of British Ar- chitects (RIBA) in 1946, closely following his article of two years earlier.The RIBA lec- ture ended with only a slight variant of this last paragraphof the original version:

Everybody is susceptible to symbols. Our period is no exception. But those who govern must know that spec- tacles, which will lead the people back to a neglected community life, must be re-incorporated into civic centers, those very centers which our mecha- nized civilization has always regarded as unessential. Not haphazard world's fairs, which in their present form have lost their old significance, but newly created civic centers should be the site for collective emotional events, where the people play as important a role as the spectacle itself, and where a unity of the architectural background, the people and the symbols conveyed by the spectacles will arise."

Such a vision, as applicable to the shaping of the Nuremberg Nazi party rallies as to whatever Giedion envisioned, could not be universally accepted by modern ar- chitects. Such advocacy revealed what the Museum of Modern Art and its Interna- tional elite had invited: that modern- 1. KayFisker and C.F. Meller, apartment house on Vodroffsvej,, 1930. Viewof Style exterior.(Copenhagen, Kunstakademiets Bibliotek, Samlingen af Arkitekturtegninger.) ism in architecture be considered a matter of style, a historicist "style of our times," to be sure, but a style nonetheless, capable of dis- Gemiitlichkeit." Henry-Russell Hitchcock, citing the Errazaurishouse in South America. placing earlier styles in all their ambitions. now distinctly a historian rather than a critic Perhaps the museum's greatest success in For those for whom modern architecture and, as Mumford had noted, as attentive to subduing their antagonist was achieved by was part of a modernism that disavowed Wright as to the Europeans, sought to dis- putting the gentlemanly Mumford in the authoritarianism and placed new value on a miss Mumford's challenge by asserting that, chair, where he was renderedleast effective in social vision of the everyday, this advocacy anyway, Le Corbusier had already done it, defending his own cause.'o had to be challenged.

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February1997 JAE50/3 200 chology, sociology, and especially ecology alism evidenced by a much wider range of (in the sense of human and urban ecology). modern architecture. With the advocacy We are returned to the confrontation of the stemming from New York, Mumford per- "new empiricism" with a more abstract and ceived the International Style polemic as a formal modernism now escalated to monu- covert imperialism of the great world mega- mentality. lopolises. He preferred the more free unity A more pragmatic and crude version of the broader view of modern architecture of this argument appeared as an editorial in to what he saw as the uniformity engen- the American journal ProgressiveArchitec- dered by such imperialism. Nonetheless, ture of December 1948 and deserves men- Mumford also immediately warned against tion if only for the range of notables who chauvinist regionalism and classic revival. responded with letters in the two following What is this broader view that issues.13 Bay Region architects (Gardner Mumford valued and that might unite Dailey and Ernest Kump) and those associ- modern work? Mumford had earlierwarned ated with the Massachusetts Institute of of the "insidious meanings" of Giedion's Technology (MIT) (William Wurster and will to reinstate such terms as monumen- Robert Woods Kennedy) wrote in support; talism, symbolism, hierarchic order, aes- critics from the New York area opposed thetic expressiveness, and even civic dignity. (Christopher Tunnard and C.L.V. Meeks of Later he returned to a consideration of sym- Yale, Talbot Hamlin of Columbia, and bolism in modern times: Philip Johnson and Peter Blake of the Mu- seum of Modern Art). Hitchcock, then Now we live in an age that has not 4. StevensHouse. View from the garden.(Courtesy of Thomas teaching the history of architecture at MIT merely abandoned a many his- Hille.) great took a measured position. There can be toric symbols but has likewise made an little question but that the intellectual effort to deflate the symbol itself, by weight and the call for more rather than less denying the values which it represents. The Architectural Review provided a dialogue favored the opponents, but this is Or rather, our age has deflated every forum, incorporating a version of Giedion's in no small part due to the inadequate for- form of symbolism except that which "monumentalism piece," presumably close mulation of the originating editorial. it employs so constantly and so un- to the RIBA lecture and with contributions In early 1949, Lewis Mumford joined consciously that it fails to recognize it by Gregor Paulsson, Hitchcock, William what had been two separate but related de- as symbolism and treats it as reality it- Holford, Giedion, Gropius, Lucio Costa, bates: that of the Museum of Modern Art in self.15 and Alfred Roth.12 Paulsson of Sweden was resistance to Mumford's claims for the Bay both the most interesting commentator and Area Style and the London debates around I find this a telling statement that un- the most challenging to Giedion's position. Giedion's new monumentalism. Writing in derlies the profound resistance of thinkers Paulsson resisted the call to a new the London journal Architectural Review, like Paulsson and Mumford to the impetus monumentalism, relying on his reading of Mumford reflected on their symposium in that Giedion would give to modern archi- modern architecture as fundamentally allied an article titled "Monumentalism, Symbol- tecture at that moment. Mumford contin- with democracy. He viewed the asserted ism and Style."'14Mumford saw no reason to ued, laying the ground for his competing "need for monumentality" as a recognition reject the architecture that had come to be tendency: "Becausewe have dethroned sym- of the inadequacy of modern architecture to labeled "International Style," but rather to bolism, we are now left, momentarily, with date-but this inadequacy should be de- recognize that it is selected work stemming but a single symbol of almost universal va- fined and solved not by a return to old mo- from certain centers like Paris and Berlin. In lidity: that of the machine."'' Mumford tives, but by extending the range of issues this sense, the International Style was more gave honor to the already long history of the that modern architecture addresses: psy- particular than the deep-seated internation- exploitation of the machine as symbol from

201 Anderson Rennie, Paxton, and Roebling to Le that functionalism as a style was dead but ally derived architecture with parallels in Corbusier. But, that its program was not. He traces func- other parts of the world. After a historical tionalism from the nineteenth century and survey of American architecture, extending What we are beginning to witness to- its agency in victory over the then-prevailing from houses of colonial New England and day is a reaction against this one-sided eclecticism. More than the critics and archi- Jefferson's University of Virginia to H.H. symbolism and this distorted picture tects we have surveyed thus far, Fisker Richardson, Sullivan, , of modern civilization. We can no wishes to retain the intellectual and moral and the Greene brothers, Fisker enters on a longer treat the machine as an exclu- impulse of the call to functional design. The quite extensive survey of West Coast archi- sive architecturalsymbol at a moment necessary further development of this func- tecture, emphasizing those whom he consid- when the whole ideology of the ma- tional design is very like the advocacy of ers the two great figures: Pietro Belluschi chine is in dissolution, for culture is Paulsson and Mumford, though with less of (Figures 5 and 6) and, especially, William passing now from an ideology of the Mumford's insistence on the individual: Wilson Wurster (Figures 7 and 8).25 Strong machine to an ideology of the organ- "Now, after the first victory of the early raw as is the claim for a broader understanding ism and the person. ... As an integral functionalism, we should be concerned with of functionalism and for such work as that of part of modern culture, the machine the development of the more vigourous and Wurster and Belluschi as exemplars, the ar- will remain as long as modern culture human side of functional architecture: a gument is blunted for Fisker, as it was for remains. . . . [But] we must erect a clear and functional frame around modern Mumford, by the almost total domination new hierarchy of function, in which existence, created with new means; further of single-family houses. The only other types the mechanical will give place to the development of tradition, perhaps, but not to appear are Wurster's small office building biological, the biological to the social, a return to forms past and gone. The barren for the Schuchl Canning Company in the social to the personal .... On qualities of functionalism came not from Sunnyvale, California, and the communal these terms, Frank Lloyd Wright, in the relinquishment of the old, but rather buildings of the large public housing estate 1900, was far in advance of Le from the failure to utilize in a sufficiently Chabot Terrace in Vallejo, California, by Corbusier in 1920.17 imaginative manner the possibilities of the Franklin, Kump and Wurster. It could be new-new materials and construction, new argued, and was, that the principles behind Mumford's interest in the architec- social conditions."22 the houses of this alternative modernism ture of the West Coast is not premised on The illustrations to "The Moral of were generalizable to other tasks. It is curi- regionalism so much as the claim that it par- Functionalism" were largely European: his- ous, however, that neither Mumford nor ticipates in an important shift in modern torical, modern, and vernacular. The more Fisker extended the range of examples in or- culture and architecture that could also be extensive 1950 essay, "The Functional Tra- der to forestall the rejection of their position observed elsewhere: a shift from mechanis- dition," is about American architecture, as the "International Cottage Style." Could tic metaphors of understanding and design with only a small coda on a few Swiss and not their position lay claim to the works of to an ideology of organism and the person. Scandinavian wood-frame buildings. A re- Aalto at least as plausibly as did the propo- He cites the paradigmatic ecological and vealing bibliography23includes Mumford's nents of the International Style-or to the planning principles of Sir Patrick Geddes"8 New Yorkerarticle on the Bay Region style works of modernists rejected by the Interna- and the philosophy of Alfred North White- and the publication of the ensuing debate at tional Style such as Johannes Duiker, Hugo head'9 as well as the architecture of Frank the Museum of Modern Art. From these Hiring, and others?To return to the subject Lloyd Wright. These models are Anglo- Fisker is launched on what he sees in of Fisker's essay, Wurster did not shrink American, but the argument is very similar America as the contrast "between a refined from asserting his position even in the con- to that which Paulsson had advanced. European imported emigrant architecture text of the competition for such a represen- It is this world of discourse into and a more robust original American archi- tational building as the U.S. Chancery in which Kay Fisker places himself in the es- tectural form; Mr. Mumford has called this London: "Architecture is not a goal. Archi- says mentioned earlier,20 especially in his the Bay Region Style."24 Further, his prefer- tecture is for life and pleasure and work and two essays on functionalism.21 In "The ence is to see such architecture not as for people. The picture frame and not the Moral of Functionalism," Fisker allowed uniquely American, but rather as a region- picture."26

February1997 JAE50/3 202 6. Belluschi,Equitable Building, Portland, Oregon, 1947-1948. Photoby G.E. Kidder-Smith. (Rotch Visual Collections, MIT.)

5. PietroBelluschi, Coats House, Netarts Bay, Oregon, 1941. (Courtesy of MarjorieBelluschi.)

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203 Anderson More important in the present context was the presence of Lawrence B. Anderson28 as ...... head of the of Architecture, for ...... Department :?:.... ?.?:...... :: ? :??. it was in these that Anderson estab- ...... :?!"" ...... years ::i::: :i?!::liliiii~ii~ l ??????.:...::?. i: .. lished and maintained an between :..::.!...:;'"iii~li::... :~...... exchange ....l,~:iir~li:i;iijiiii~...... ?::.r:.:..... the Academy in Copenhagen and MIT, of :.?..??... ..?:?.?'':.....: .::.: :..:i::::::!.i.:.: :!i::...... :...... I: ? which Fisker'svisits were an important part. Anderson was the main figure to in- : ...... troduce architectural modernism to MIT. As a student at the University of Minnesota, a young professor at the University of Vir- ginia, a masters' student at MIT, and then a Paris prize fellow in the early thirties, Anderson knew the lessons of classical train- ing well. When he began his long teaching and administrative career at MIT in 1933, the school was still strongly marked by that classical tradition, even as it was being trans- formed under the then-current approaches Andersonand HerbertBeckwith. Alumni MassachusettsInstitute of 9. LawrenceB. SwimmingPool, and Technology,Cambridge, MA, 1939. Viewof the exterior,ca. 1939. (TheMIT Museum.) often referredto as "stripped " "art deco." In his teaching and design, Anderson worked through such transforma- In the bibliography to Fisker's 1950 tions to be the architect, in 1939, of one of functionalism essay, the most recent entry the first modern buildings on an American was a issue of L'Architecture the Alumni Pool at ???~ special campus, Swimming r, i d'aujourd'hui, "Walter Gropius et son MIT (Figures 9 and 10). 6cole" edited by Paul Rudolph.27 From Anderson was an ardent Francophile, January 5, 1953, for three months, Fisker but this extended more to the entire land was a visiting professor at Gropius's Gradu- and culture of France, its historic architec- c,*; ate School of Design at Harvard University. ture, and to an early modernist like Tony *r:1 ; r From 6 to the end of he was at Garnier than to Le Corbusier. Anderson was r April May, '-" the Department of Architecture of the also a Danish-American who had traveled in nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technol- Scandinavia, and it is these connections that ogy. Associated with these schools were are more evident in his built work, as witness many of the figures in the critical debate the Swimming Pool, built in the year that to induce )I Fisker had already engaged in both his writ- Giedion at Harvard was seeking ten and built works. In addition to Gropius, American interest in his thought and Giedion was regularly at Harvard. MIT had Gropius's work. The Swimming Pool nei- still stronger ties to the other pole of the ther offers a cold blast of Nikolaus Pevsner's debate. Although Wurster, who had been modern Zeitgeist29 nor is it derivative. It is dean of MIT's School of Architecture and an excellent work with a vision of physical Planning from 1944 to 1950, was now culture. It is also a key element in building again in California, as chairman of the De- the campus, as can be seen from a street of of Architecture at Pietro related to the west, other athletic 10. AlumniSwimming Pool. Interior photograph by Dr.Harold partment Berkeley, buildings Edgerton.(The MIT Museum.) Belluschi had come to MIT as his successor. facilities on the West Campus, and the un-

February1997 JAE50/3 204 fortunately lately demolished Van de Graaff generator that was the eastern neighbor of the Swimming Pool until 1990 (Figure 11).30Though a younger man and dominant in an institution rather than in a larger realm, Anderson's development, thought, and work have remarkable parallels with those of Fisker. Anderson himself invited comparison of his Swimming Pool with the contemporary work of Fisker for the Univer- sity of (Figure 12). The Swimming Pool and continuing work by Anderson at MIT share a position with later works by Fisker, including, for example, the school at Voldparken of 1952 to 1956. One should also mention, at least briefly, other ties that establish the axis of an alternative modernism running from Scandinavia through MIT to Berkeley and the Bay Area. At the invitation of John Ely Burchard, then director of housing research under the Bemis Foundation, it was to MIT that Alvar Aalto came to conduct his own 11. Andersonand Beckwith, Van de GraaffGenerator, MIT, 1948. Viewof the exterior,ca. 1948. (TheMIT Museum.) research on housing and settlements in 1939. He served as a research professor in 1940 to 1941 before returning to the de- commitment to it as a social art, centrally mands of war-torn Finland. It was Wurster involved with the issue of social housing. who brought Aalto back, partially as a Throughout the remainder of her life, teacher, but primarily as designer of Baker Catherine Bauer Wurster remained one of House at MIT in the period 1946 to 1949. the most important voices for public hous- Wurster and Anderson also brought ing in the United States and for the social to the MIT faculty young designers who fig- and political dimensions of modern archi- ured in the larger notion of a social architec- tecture generally. ture with roots in New England as well as In the Wurster circle was also the West Coast: Robert Woods Kennedy,31 Mumford, who then served as an MIT Carl Koch, and Vernon DeMars, the latter Bemis visiting professor at intervals in the of whom had made a significant contribu- fifties. Indeed, when Kay Fisker returned for tion in depression-era migrant housing and his second visit to MIT from February to wartime housing in California and soon re- May 1956, Mumford was also a visiting pro- turned to continue his work from a position fessor. We may recall that it was Mumford at Berkeley. who curated the modern housing exhibition In 1940, Wurster married Catherine that paralleled the International Style exhi- Bauer, whose book Modern Housing32dem- bition at the Museum of Modern Art in not her 1932-a of the exhibition that was vir- 12. KayFisker, C.F. Moller, and Povl Stegmann. , onstrated only extensive knowledge part Aarhus,, 1932. FromHans Erling Langkilde, Arkitekten of European modern architecture, but her tually suppressed in favor of the stylistically KayFisker (Copenhagen: Arkitektens Forlag, 1960), p. 55.

205 Anderson selected buildings of Hitchcock and modern architecture played an important, 10. Therewas a repriseof theseconfrontations when RobertWoods "The Small House in Johnson's International Style. Catherine even seminal, role that is not yet exhausted. Kennedy, New England,"Magazine ofArt 41/4 (Apr. 1948): Bauer Wurster's well-established as- already 123-28, sought to identify the strengthsof a contex- sociation of modern architecture with social tual and traditionalyet modern house of a given re- justice, particularly in housing, may have Notes gion and was answeredby Philip Johnson and Peter and weighed in the association of MIT in these Blake, "ArchitecturalFreedom Order,"Magazine in (Oct. 1948): 228-31. years with both of Mumford's campaigns: This essaywas written 1992 for a volume to ofArt41/6 celebrate the centennial of the birth of Kay Fisker In "BayRegion Domestic,"Architectural Re- regionalism and antimonumentalism. view 104/622 the editorsof that (1893-1965). It appearedin Danish only and with an (Oct. 1948): 164-70, Another member of the Danish Acad- Mumford for incorrecttitle as partof TobiasFaber, et al., KayFisker Londonjournal, citing favorably,argued the of the architecture emy who made significant contributions to (Copenhagen:Arkitektens Forlag, 1995). fifty-yearpedigree Bay Region as well as the essential of its the teaching programs of both MIT and 1. Philip Goodwin, with photographsby G.E. modernity contemporary state, as in the two illustratedhouses by AlbertHenry Berkeley in these years was Steen Eiler Kidder Smith, Brazil Builds:Architecture New and York:Museum of Modern Hill. "To sum up, the Bay Regionstyle is not, like the Rasmussen.33 Like Fisker, his architectural Old, 1652-1942 (New Art, 1943); G.E. Kidder Smith, Sweden Builds, 2d ed. New Empiricism, the architectureof a land which was based commentary deeply historically (New York:Reinhold, 1957); and G.E. KidderSmith, feels that it has comethrough the ModernMovement, and rooted in the understanding of architec- SwitzerlandBuilds: Its Native and ModernArchitecture but is rathera paralleldevelopment to the Modern in ever less ture as a social art. At Berkeley, his favorable (New York:A. Bonnier, 1950). Movement, local origin though becoming so in effect" attention to and Greene and 2. Sigfried Giedion, "The Need for a New (p. 164). Maybeck close to the Museumof Monumentality,"in PaulZucker, ed., NewArchitecture EdgarKaufmann, Jr., Greene could have resulted in the article Modern Art but also a student of and and CityPlanning (New York:Philosophical Library, group Wright written Fisker.34 heir to chose the noted Cali- actually by 1944), pp. 549-68. Reprintedin SigfriedGiedion, Ar- Wright'sFalling Water, fornia ArtsandArchitecture to a con- The years of Fisker's visits to MIT, chitecture,You andMe (Cambridge,MA: Harvard Uni- journal attempt that both International 1953 and 1956, were just the years of the versity Press, 1958), pp. 25-39, and in Harvard ciliatory position gave Style ArchitectureReview 4 In and Bay Region theirplaces according to varyingsites emergence of Team Ten, the younger (Spring1984): 52-63. Swed- and demands. Kaufmann,Jr., "WhatIs to the modern masters ish in Byggmiistaren27/24 (Dec. 1948): 439-45. Edgar Hap- generation's challenge 3. "The New Sweden's latest pening to ModernArchitecture?" Arts andArchitecture from within their own Empiricism: organization, style," ArchitecturalReview 101/606 (June 1947): 66/9 (Sept. 1949):26-29. CIAM.35 Team Ten criticism was in large 199-204. 11. Giedion, "The Need for a New Monu- 568. part based on issues of the individual and 4. Kay Fisker,"Tre pionererfra aarhundred- mentality,"p. 12. GregorPaulsson, H.-R. Hitchcock, Wil- society as generators of architecturaland ur- skiftet,"Byggmistaren 26/15 (Aug. 1947): 221-32. liam Holford, S. Giedion, W. Gropius,L. Costa, and ban form. These architects extended a dis- 5. KayFisker, "Louis Henry Sullivan,"Forum (Amsterdam)3/12 (Dec. 1948): 347-55. A. Roth, "InSearch of a New Monumentality:A Sym- course not unlike that of the "New ArchitecturalReview 6. Kay Fisker,"The History of Domestic Ar- posium," 105/621 (Sept. 1948): Empiricism-Bay Region axis" to other cul- chitecturein Denmark,"Architectural Review 104/623 117-28. 13. Thomas "Architecture- tures and to a wider range of social needs and (Nov. 1948): 219-26. Creighton, ed., It is then not that 7. Kay Fisker, "Die Moral des Not Style,"ProgressiveArchitecture 29/12 (Dec. 1948): building types. surprising 12 Funktionalismus,"Werk 35/5 (May 1948):131-34; 49, 120, 122, 138; letters (Jan. 1949), pp. 8, 10, MIT's ties with Scandinavia and Berkeley and 12. versions appearedin English, "The Moral of Func- (Feb. 1949), pp. 8, 10, slackened as Giancarlo Di Carlo, Aldo van 14. Lewis tionalism,"Magazine ofArt 43/2 (Feb. 1950):62-67, Mumford,"Monumentalism, Sym- bolism and ArchitecturalReview 105/628 Eyck, and the young Herman Hertzberger and in Italian,"Lo stile funzionalee morto, le ragioni Style," (Apr. 174-80. appearedin the halls of the school. However, del funzionalismo non muoiono," Domus 248-249 1949): 15. Ibid., 177. as I have to show, the (July-Aug.1950): 1-3, 101. The secondessay is "Den p. sought groundwork 16. Ibid. had been laid since the thirties. At MIT funktionelleTradition. Spredte indtryk af amerikansk arkitektur,"Arkitekten 52/5-7 (May-June 1950):69- 17 Ibid., pp. 177-78. alone, Anderson's Pool, Aalto's 18. Sir Patrick Citiesin Evolution:An Swimming 100; also published as an offprint with new pagina- Geddes, Introductionto the Town Movementand to the Baker House, and Eero Saarinen's Chapel tion, precededby a two-pageEnglish summary. Planning Civics rev.ed. posed alternatives without risking denigra- 8. Lewis Mumford, "The Sky Line: Status Studyof [1915], (London:Benn, 1968). New Yorker 19. Alfred North Whitehead,Science and the tion as "cottage style." In the postwar decade Quo ['Bay Region Style']," (Oct. 11, 1947): 104-10. ModernWorld[1925] (New York:Macmillan, 1967); from the midforties to the midfifties, with and Alfred North Adventures Ideas 9. "WhatIs Happeningto Modern Architec- Whitehead, of York:New American the MIT-Danish Royal Academy exchange ture?A Symposium,"special issue, Museum ofModern [1933] (New Library,1964). 20. See notes 4 to 6 above. as one resource, this axis of an alternative Art Bulletin15/3 (Spring 1948).

February1997 JAE50/3 208 21. See note 7 above. chitecture until 1959 and then as dean of the new Col- 28. LawrenceB. Anderson(b. Geneva,Minne- 22. Fisker, "Moral of Functionalism," p. 66. lege of Environmental Design until 1963. See Thomas sota, 1906; d. Boston, 1994) receivedhis architectural 23. Fisker, "Den funktionelle Tradition" [off- Hille, Insidethe LargeSmall House: The Residential De- degree from the University of Minnesota and an print], p. 32. Also included in the bibliography are signLegacy of WilliamW Wurster(NewYork: Princeton M.Arch. at MIT, where he won the Paris Prize. He the Architectural Review symposium on monumental- Architectural Press, 1994); and Marc Treib, ed., An Ev- taughtat MIT from 1933 and was head of the depart- ity, many of the items cited in the present essay, and erydayModernism: The Houses of WilliamWurster (Ber- ment from 1947 until 1965, when he succeeded an article by Eric Westerberg, "Tre begrepp," keley: University of California Press, 1995). Belluschias deanof the school, servinguntil his retire- Byggmiistaren 27/24 (1948):429-35 (the three con- Pietro Belluschi (b. Ancona, Italy 1899; d. ment in 1972. cepts being New Empiricism; Bay Region Style; Portland, Oregon, 1994) was educated as an engineer 29. Nikolaus Pevsner,Pioneers ofModern De- Monumentality). This article is followed by one on in his native Italy. After immigrating to the United sign: From WilliamMorris to WalterGropius, 2d ed. Giedion by Lennart Holm and Giedion's article on States, he served from 1927 as chief designer in the (New York:Museum of ModernArt, 1949). the need for a new monumentality. firm of A.E. Doyle in Portland, Oregon, succeeded to 30. These MIT buildings were done in part- 24. Ibid., first page of the unpaginated English that practice, and established his own in 1943. In the nership with Herbert Beckwith. In 1984, Anderson summary. years before and after the World War II, he established gaveprincipal responsibility for the generatorbuilding 25. Given Fisker's acclaim for Wurster and a reputation for his evocative yet restrained houses and to Beckwith. Belluschi, some biographical details may be supplied: churches in wood construction. There were also larger 31. See note 10 above. William Wilson Wurster (b. Stockton, CA, 1895; d. commissions, including the elemental green glass and 32. CatherineBauer [Wurster], Modern Hous- Berkeley, CA, 1972) was educated at the University of aluminum Equitable office building in Portland. He ing (Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1934). California, Berkeley, and designed a large number of succeeded Wurster as dean at MIT, serving from 1951 33. I would not want to miss this opportunity houses, especially in northern California, before World to 1965. He received the Gold Medal of the American to recordmy indebtednessto Steen Eiler Rasmussen War II. Then, as now, these houses were innovative and Institute of Architects in 1972. See Camillo Gubitosi (1898-1990) for the rich personaland intellectualre- impressive in their adaptation of both vernacular and and Alberto Izzo, eds., Pietro Belluschi: Edifici e wardsI receivedwhile servingas his assistantin a sub- modern forms to the specifics of climate, site, and use. progetti 1932-1973 (Rome: Officina, 1974); and ject in the history of architecture at Berkeley in During the war, he was on the East Coast, studying MeredithClausen, PietroBelluschi: Modern American 1958-1959. Among Rasmussen'swritings: London: housing and urbanism at Yale and Harvard. In 1944, he Architect (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). The Unique City [1937] rev. ed. (Cambridge,MA: was chosen as the first dean of the School of Architecture 26. William Wurster, "Competition for U.S. MIT Press, 1982); and ExperiencingArchitecture [in and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- Chancery Building, London," Architectural Record Danish, 1957; English, 1959], 2d ed. (Cambridge, ogy (MIT) in Cambridge. Serving until 1950, together 119/4(Apr. 1956): 222. MA: MIT Press,1962). See also SteenEiler Rasmussen: with the Head of the Department of Architecture 27. Paul Rudolph, ed., "Walter Gropius et son Architect,Town-Planner, Author (Aarhus, Denmark: Lawrence B. Anderson, he oversaw the rapid growth of ecole," sp. no. of L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui 20/28 School of Architecture,1988). the school at the end of the war, bringing in a diverse (Feb. 1950, spec. issue), including Michel Aime, 34. Kay Fisker, "Bay Region-stilens and strong faculty. Wurster also won the Baker House "Climat de l'enseignement de l'architecture aux Etats- ophavsmand,"Arkitekten 64/2 (an. 1962): 17-27. dormitory commission for Aalto and other commissions Unis," pp. 48-49 (English translation, pp. 112-13, 35. Alison Smithson, ed., Team 10 Primer for his young faculty. In 1950, he returned to Berkeley, incorporating a chart of the architecture curriculum at (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1968). where he served as chairman of the Department of Ar- the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

207 Anderson