"I am aModernist"

Morris Lapidus and His Critics

GABRIELLE ESPERDY

New Jersey Institute of Technology

cover On the of his 1996 autobiography, the Amer National Design Museum honored Lapidus as an "Ameri Morris strikes ican architect Lapidus (1902-2001) can Original."3 a is confident pose (Figure 1). The photograph This article argues that Lapidus's transformation from is in his face framed from 1957; Lapidus dressed white, pariah to luminary reflected the architectural shift from a own against building of his design, the Aruba Caribbean modern to postmodern in the late twentieth century. As Hotel. With this unadorned cubic structure as a modernism's hierar backdrop, postmodernism dismantled aesthetic seems a in Lapidus like typical modernist architect working chies and blurred modernism's ideological boundaries, it a familiar International Style idiom. But the book's title and reshaped Lapidus's reputation. Nowhere is this more evi its jacket design subvert this notion. The photograph is dent than in critical responses to his hotels. Between the neon tinted robin's tgg blue and emblazoned with orange 1950s and the 1990s, criticism of Lapidus's hotels seemed to that credo: "Too much is nuance of cultural as the script proclaims Lapidus's design register almost every change rigid never taste to of mass enough."1 ity of elite gave way the permissiveness taste, was This parody of Mies van der Rohe's famous dictum as the deliberate exclusionism of the establishment of "less ismore" aptly describes the work for which Lapidus is undermined by the subversive pluralism the avant-garde, best known. His hotels of the 1950s and 1960s are charac and as high culture was infiltrated by low culture. was terized by their formal and decorative exuberance. Though The role Lapidus played in these upheavals largely as the hotels garnered widespread popular acclaim when they happenstance: his practice emerged in the 1930s mod a opened, evident in their financial success and their associa ernist architecture gained foothold in the United States; were as a tion with mid-century swank and glamour, they reviled he matured designer afterWorld War II during mod career in the 1960s as by the era's architectural establishment, especially by those ernism's ascendancy; his climaxed designers, critics, and academics associated with New York younger architects challenged modernism's limiting self City and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). By the definitions. As the architectural establishment secured and 1990s, however, Lapidus was in the midst of a critical reha then defended modernism's dominant position, Lapidus's were an test case of its bilitation, and historians, notably Alice T Friedman, work became inadvertent for claims legit to is beginning to give his work serious scholarly consideration.2 imacy. According Cornel West, such legitimacy defined Never how warrants or does not warrant the in If Rizzoli International's publication of TooMuch is by "authority way was an in this the culmi which are made."4 In because his Enough important step restoration, buildings Lapidus's case, nation came in 2000 when the Smithsonian Institution's work violated modernist decorum, the institutions and out of As a former he "to theatricality.5 aspiring actor, yearned work in this uninhibited new style."6 After working briefly for several New York City firms, Warren and a including Wetmore, Lapidus accepted posi store contractors to tion with Ross-Frankel and began a that mod develop formal language adapted European ernism for American retailing.7 Understanding that the first store was to attract principle of design attention, Lapidus to create utilized modernist visual and spatial elements eye that catching, complex compositions sequenced signage, and across and interiors. lighting, display fa?ades, vestibules, Two stores Lapidus designed in 1939 and 1940 for Post man's Gloves and Handbags inNew York City are typical of this approach (Figures 2, 3). In both, deep vestibules frame off-center entrances and offer unobstructed views to the

rear of the store. In the first store, Lapidus varied the in an vestibule displays plan and section, creating asymmet store's rical composition that underscored the modernity. He continued this theme inside with Bauhaus-inspired fix tures a treatment and Corbusian of the glass-partitioned mezzanine overlooking the double-height selling floor. In the 1940 Postman's, Lapidus refined his scheme, treating the entire store, including the vestibule, as a double-height 1 Morris in front of the Aruba Caribbean 1957 Figure Lapidus Hotel, volume. He articulated the vestibule display cases asfen?tres en longeur, emphasizing their horizontality by projecting them beyond the bulkheads. Especially when illuminated at the store a modernist night, they gave distinctly appearance. of architectural Ross-Frankel to his own lets mid-century authority marginalized By the time Lapidus left open as a for censure. This cen in his exuberant modernism featured Lapidus and used his work target practice 1943, recog sure was formulated in various ways at different times, but nizable combinations of biomorphic, circular, and stilted it was inextricably tied to modernism's trajectory from forms that were much copied by architects around the to mainstream. This work was also since dra avant-garde country.8 critically accepted were a in matic effects considered necessity retail design. Until the end of the 1940s, American architecture journals, From to Architect Designer including Architectural Record and Architectural Forum, pub as as on When Lapidus received his major hotel commissions in the lished his stores, well his articles commercial design, he was a well-known commercial a level of 1950s, designer. During indicating that he possessed respectable profes war some sional in the architecture the Depression and years, Lapidus produced of regard community.9 Despite pro the best modern design in the United States, among the fessional success, Lapidus was dissatisfied: "I felt that my to of were not architecture. ... I was embarrassed to be earliest betray the influence European modernism. shops Though trained in Beaux-Arts classicism at Columbia Uni known as an architect." Lapidus later recalled that he had versity in the 1920s, while he was still a student, Lapidus "exiled" himself from architecture and carried "a sense of was to the new architecture even credit to exposed mainly through guilt" about his stores, relinquishing design imported magazines and word of mouth. He recalled the Ross-Frankel.10 Through this refusal of authorship, Lapidus as appeal of modernism during his school days as both psy distanced himself from work he perceived unworthy of and A self-described "outsider"?a his vocation. It was when a editor insisted chological aesthetic. only magazine Jewish immigrant in the Ivy League?he appreciated the on proper credit that "Morris Lapidus, Architect" finally modernism the and in to he way challenged profession's traditions, appeared print. Resigning himself outsider status, the novelty of buildings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, refused to become a member of the American Institute of Erich Mendelsohn, and Le Corbusier appealed to his sense Architects (AIA) until the mid-1940s.11

"I AM A MODERNIST" 495 72 Nassau Street at John Figure 2 Morris Lapidus, Postman's, 436 Fifth Avenue at 39th Street, Figure 3 Morris Lapidus, Postman's, New York City, 1939 Street, New York City, 1940

meant This diffidence belied the calculated architectural style ing activity during the Depression that few architects and of his stores. Given the modernist tendencies of this work, could be choosy about work, many practitioners as a new retail considered com he should have been regarded champion of the accepted small-scale projects crassly as it was better known mercial in times.14 architecture, especially becoming prosperous a that store during the 1930s through exhibitions and publications, While Lewis Mumford, social liberal, argued con a "modern the including MoMA's Modern Architecture show and the design represented burgeoning vernacular," more it.15 In current book, The International Style. Curators Henry-Rus elitist Hitchcock and Johnson disparaged 1951, to as sell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson included commercial Hitchcock referred such work "drugstore modern," was work from Europe in the exhibition and catalog and implying that the high style cheapened by commercial acknowledged the inroads of modernism in small-scale associations.16 This criticism would have exacerbated the inse to a and a commercial design in the United States.12 But to achieve curities of Lapidus, who longed be "real architect" cultural dominance, modernism would need to ascend the creator of "total buildings."17 An opportunity presented itself estate was for architectural hierarchy toward public institutions and large in 1952 when real developer Ben Novak looking someone a to scale commercial typologies. With American architecture to design luxury hotel inMiami Beach be called was not The frequendy perceived as a gendemen's profession dominated the Fontainebleau. Lapidus Novak's first choice. Protestants who received most considered him an interior and by white Anglo-Saxon major developer primarily designer, minor that MoMA's curators a fee below the AIA standard in commissions, the buildings Lapidus accepted percentage were most order to secure the commission. saw the dismissed often designed by ethnic architects, Lapidus clearly as a in a including Jewish designers like Lapidus, Morris Sanders, Fontainebleau milestone his career, defining project store into an architect.18 and Horace Ginsbern.13 Of course, the contraction of build that would transform the designer

496 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 Functionalism: The Fontainebleau Beautifying simple, even elegant, and was frequently described as a Hotel modern "coliseum" whose "strong and clean lines" added Though Lapidus viewed the commission as a turning point, "considerable beauty" to Collins Avenue (Figure 4).25 He a his retail work had an inescapable influence on his first disposed the rooms in horizontal slab curved into a broad on "total building." In fact, despite the change of scale, arc that staggered its southern end to provide ocean Lapidus's stores are inseparable from his hotels, in terms of views and terminated on its northern end with cantilevered both his architectural approach and design philosophy. terraces. But for the circulation tower at its midpoint, the Throughout his career, Lapidus fused the functionalist west fa?ade was unbroken along its 440-foot length, while tenets a to east was of modernism with romantic responsiveness the fa?ade defined by the uninterrupted sweep of on human emotions, modulating the response according to his ribbon windows, projecting balconies of luxury suites the was a analysis of program and building type. For Lapidus, this upper floors, and, finally, roof deck (Figure 5). a way of avoiding modernism's universalizing tendencies Lapidus handled the rest of the program in resolutely while still working in amodernist idiom. In stylistic terms, modernist fashion derived from the planning strategies his approach meant that a synagogue would look different Gropius and Le Corbusier frequently used in large public from a store because the functions of worship and selling buildings (Figure 6). He separated the parts according to were different.19 But the functions of a store and a hotel their function and gave each a distinct articulation. To the was were consistent. Lapidus understood that a hotel guest north and west, Lapidus distinguished the low-rise blocks like a shopper: both were consumers to be dazzled and containing the reception area, offices, and ballroom from seduced. Thus, Lapidus felt that satisfying these require the main slab, with the hotel entrance marked by a trape ments was essentially functionalism; as he asserted in 1957: zoidal canopy. Even more dramatically, he enclosed the pro "I am doing justwhat Louis Sullivan advocated?my forms jecting garden lobby with a convex glass curtain wall as a follow the functions."20 counterpoint to the concavity of the east fa?ade looming Lapidus articulated this position in his 1946 essay above it.He placed the supper club in a low circular build "One of the Functions of the Functional Store is to ing connected to the hotel's southwest flank, treating every Attract." While proclaiming his adherence to Sullivan and programmatic element, from bandstand to bar, as an inde a as to the idea of store a "machine for selling," Lapidus pendent compositional unit. Beyond massing, Lapidus also a argued that it was also necessary to "beautify [the demonstrated mastery of modernist space planning. machine's] working skeleton."21 Here he echoed Le Cor Through the sectional interp?n?tration of the multiple lev busier's counsel to "the artist's to els of a bring sensibility... the hotel's lobby floors, Lapidus staged sequence of severe and pure functioning elements."22 But where Le spaces for viewing, display, and privacy.26 The supper club's Corbusier wanted architecture to a modern screens satisfy concept complex interplay of ramps, platforms, and allowed of beauty, Lapidus wanted architecture to satisfy "that service facilities to operate discreetly and efficiently in close intangible extra dramatic appeal which every human being proximity to dining and performance spaces.27 were desires." In his view, these very different things; yet, Lapidus's design was a veritable dictionary of Interna the difficulty was in achieving this extra appeal without tional Style themes and variations: ribbon windows, glazed to untutored tastes."23 These words would "bowing prove towers, parabolic pavilions, floating stairs, undulating para prophetic. In his stores and in the mid-size hotels for which pets, and folded walls (Figure 7). These architectural forms he served as interior designer, Lapidus struck a balance were sometimes exaggerated, but this was often justified by a or between function and drama, producing satisfying, small the project's scale, site, program. The Fontainebleau's same scale modernism.24 But when he rendered this formal great sweeping arc, which strongly recalled the exterior exuberance at a the results were differ large scale, entirely massing of Mendelsohn's Schocken Department Store at to ent, least according the detractors who emerged upon (1928), relieved the monotony of the 350-foot-long inte the Fontainebleau 's completion in 1954. rior corridors leading to the guest rooms by shortening the What was objectionable in the design of the sight lines (Figure 8). The bent slab of the 1962 Americana or Fontainebleau is not apparent in either plan elevation, New York was also functional, providing the most stable since these a laudable to a and tower. present response complex pro cost-effective form for the hotel's fifty-story Of of 565 ten a a gram guest rooms, dining areas, ballroom, course, Lapidus also preferred this form because it pos more a supper club, meeting rooms, lounges, shops, offices, recep sessed inherent drama than flat slab, as he made a a tion areas, and service facilities, plus swimming pool, 265 clear in series of comparative sketches of possible parti cabanas, and landscaped gardens. Lapidus's solution was (Figure 9).28 So comprehensive was his use of International

"I AM A MODERNIST" 497 Figure 4 Morris Lapidus, Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, Fla., 1955, Collins Avenue fa?ade

Figure 5 Fontainebleau Hotel, ocean fa?ade

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Figure 6 Fontainebleau Hotel, main lobby floor plan

"I AM A MODERNIST" 499 Figure 7 Fontainebleau Hotel, exterior path and stair leading to dining section

Figure 8 Fontainebleau Hotel, plan of typical floor

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Figure 9 Morris Lapidus, massing sketches for Americana Hotel, New York City, ca. 1959

Style forms that Interiors archly observed that "in trying to Roc (Miami Beach, 1956), the Americana (Bal Harbour, prove himself amodernist, Lapidus has only proved that he 1957), the Summit (New York, 1961), and the Americana reads the design magazines."29 New York (New York, 1962)?Lapidus's response to the was in a Zeitgeist made manifest riotous profusion of decor, both modern and traditional. Bold juxtapositions and shift "Une Bouillabaisse": Hotel Interiors ing scales were unlimited by stylistic conventions, chronolo Around the time of the Fontainebleau's completion, Lapidus gies, or geographies. Lapidus used rocaille molding, our declared, "I have always contended that buildings and free-form drop ceilings, spiraling columns, mirrored piers, their interiors should reflect the age we Uve in."30 It was in beaded curtains, decorative grilles, crystal chandeliers, exotic determining what form that reflection should take that and classical figurines, Mesoamerican motifs, hanging calf as a modernist was most tested. In even Lapidus's position sorely skins, plastic plants, and live tropical animals (Figures the Fontainebleau and the hotels that followed?the Eden 10, ll).31 If in their formal exhibitionism Lapidus's hotel

"I AM A MODERNIST" 501 Figure 10 Fontainebleau Hotel, entrance to La Ronde Supper Club

Figure 11 Morris Lapidus, Americana Hotel, Bal Harbour, Fla., 1956, lobby with decora

tive grilles and terrahum to the right. Photo graph by Ezra Stoller

502 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 y-^^^^^^^^^^B|^^^BB||BK;F;f entrance to ballroom

an interiors were a logical evolution from his commercial work, interior color schemes. On ocean-side field of pink they were different in at least one respect: his use of cement, he laid out formal gardens with parterres and ter overblown historicisms in the Frenchified Fontainebleau and races based loosely on the work of Le N?tre at Versailles, the Italianate Eden Roc, upon which the architect main but the flowers bloomed American style in red, white, and tained that his clients had insisted. blue (Figure 13). In the ballroom, Lapidus designed classi In the case of the Fontainebleau, developer Ben Novak, cally inspired rosewood paneling with plastic inserts, alu once seen the outside of the minum and a broad frame. In the having eponymous ch?teau, molding, sliding lobby, liked its catchy name and grandiosity. He instructed his he created a black-and-white inlay for the marble floor, but to a new a the set in was an abstraction of the architect design and luxurious Fontainebleau in pattern, sweeping rows, manner befitting the name. This demand presented another architect's signature bow tie. In the Eden Roc lobby, he crisis of legitimacy for Lapidus, and he experienced a adopted a classical Greek anthemion pattern for the ter of rationalization" as a modernist razzo it At "period doubt and since, floor but rendered wildly overscaled (Figure 14). architect, he felt that "to carry out the French Renaissance both the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc, he utilized in theme and decor was . . . won the shafts ovoid catastrophic." Lapidus vaguely classicized columns but gave pro dered if it was possible "to achieve this richness and glam files, inverted the fluting, added aluminum reeding, and dis our for the new Fontainebleau inMiami Beach and still not pensed with capitals in favor of recessed lighting. in was not the first architect to tweak violate [his] creed of working only the modern manner?" Lapidus certainly He attempted to infuse historicism with "amodern tempo" classical canons, but far from misusing classicism to deliber of form and material.32 ately thwart its canonical authority, Lapidus claimed he was In the entrance to the ballroom Lapidus placed repro cleaning up its forms and modernizing them. His densely not statues to obscure sim ductions of French, though Renaissance, against layered compositions tended, however, any gridlike faux-wood panels with a drop ceiling and terrazzo plification that had taken place. In the Fontainebleau's lobby, his modern version of a escalier to the mezza floors (Figure 12). He filled the interiors with eighteenth grande leading and nine?a trademark known as the "stair to and nineteenth-century Louis-style antiques juxtaposed Lapidus own a cantilevered marble them freely with twentieth-century copies and his nowhere"?was seductively stairway interpretations: gilded busts attached to planters; bronze in which thin gold-anodized aluminum rail supports statuettes to match turned into lamps; and furniture painted replaced traditional carved balusters (Figure 15).While their

"I AM A MODERNIST" 503 Figure 13 Fontainebleau Hotel, rooftop view of gar dens and cabanas

Figure 14 Morris Lapidus, Eden Roc Hotel, Miami Beach, Fla., 1956, lobby. Photograph by Ezra Stoller

504 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 ":: :i.".iii" .....: ... ..Figure 15 Fontainebleau i..~|? l: | ll || Hotel, lobby with "stair to nowhere"

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slimness heightened the stair's visual suspension, Lapidus Dinner at Eight (1933) and Top Hat (1935), with their free diffused the drama by adding many distracting elements wheeling modern eclecticism, informed popular concep including a serpentine pool, gold-trimmed teak panels, and tions of luxury before World War II, themed or festive a curved wall with a photomural of a view Rome adapted interiors such as La Fonda del Sol (1961) and L'Etoile from a Piranesi engraving. With methodological consis (1966), with their folk-inspired, sensual modernism, shaped tency, Lapidus was unconcerned that this view of the Campo them in the postwar period.36 Vaccino was French nor term to neither Renaissance nor, apparendy, Lapidus used the "potpourri" describe his pen that his enlargement reversed the image of the original 1772 chant for combining disparate, often incongruous elements print. As the mayor of Fontainebleau, France, succincdy put in a single composition.37 This blending produced a heady it during it the Fountainebleau's grand opening, the hotel visual mix that seduced as it overwhelmed?even more so was "une bouillabaisse."33 because he blended these forms and styles into a sophisti excess was not Lapidus's aesthetic of without precedent, cated plan that deftly handled, and frequendy exaggerated, paralleling both the eighteenth-century aristocratic pen physical and programmatic exigencies. The lobby of the chant for knickknacks and the "bricabracomania" of the Summit inManhattan is a case in point. There Lapidus was Gilded Age bourgeoisie.34 In its oscillating references and constrained by a 100-by-2 00-foot lot that had to accommo quotations, this aesthetic of excess also shares characteristics date retail and restaurant space on both its street frontages, with the posh decorator mode of Elsie deWolfe and the making a grand lobby impossible. His solution was to knowing surrealism of Dorothy Draper.35 But in satisfying deflect the main (Lexington Avenue) entrance 20 degrees the consumerism of street use it to parvenu postwar prosperity, Lapidus's from the line and establish the lobby axis, work was also aesthetically and chronologically midway torquing it 20 degrees beyond its intersection with the ele between the Golden Age Hollywood movie sets of Cedric vator core (Figure 16). This bend diffused the lobby's tun Gibbons atMetro/Goldwyn/Meyer (MGM) and Van Nest nel-like quality and prevented entering guests from seeing Polglase at Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), and the whim the parking garage access at the far end of the corridor. To sical interiors of Alexander Girard, especially his work for further distract patrons from the lobby's stingy dimensions, Restaurant Associates in New York City. If films such as Lapidus employed staccato-like visual shifts and demateri

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a of it was also a In alizing elements, including purple and blue pointillist overloading spatial flourishes, pastiche. a is a mix inspired wall mosaic; green, blue, and turquoise porcelain Frederic Jameson's conception, pastiche stylistic enamel of color ture of and ulterior motives of satire or panels; rugs swirling patterns resembling past present without layered sand art; foliate Grinling Gibbonsesque aluminum irony.38This was precisely Lapidus's architectural intention; as in 1957: "it's not done wall hangings; smoked mirror walls; and Lucite Jonquil he observed tongue-in-cheek."39 chairs from Erwine and Estelle Laverne's Invisible Group of He viewed his pastiche as having produced modern archi on he con furniture (Figure 17). Lapidus orchestrated these visual and tectural luxury. Reflecting the Fontainebleau, spatial arrangements and psychological manipulations with cluded, "People are hungry for the richness and charm and a panache and skill that indicated how well he had learned warmth that our modern interiors seem to have lost. We the lessons of both the Beaux-Arts and the Bauhaus. seem to have had an overdose of functional simplicity and Unfortunately, this flagrant combination did not sit scientific sophistication."40 Elsewhere he explained his more "we've man's well within the conventions of postwar architecture. By the achievements specifically: let primitive mid-1950s, it was clear that Lapidus's hotels represented desire for decoration come out and brought it up to his cul something other than the orthodox high modernism exem tural level."41 Lapidus failed to anticipate that this unleashed plified by the work of Mies's American disciples, notably desire would trigger the anxieties and hostilities of the Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings andMerrill, whose American architectural establishment. Lever House was completed in 1952, the year Lapidus work on the Fontainebleau. The "otherness" of began Architectural Lapidus's hotels operated on several formal and cultural lev Transgressions els and was tied to class-based notions of propriety and taste In the late 1950s, Lapidus admitted to feeling marginalized as a at me as a mis that informed critical responses to his work. modern architect: "the profession looks On a formal level, Lapidus's hotel work was undeniably guided individual fighting windmills."42 While this may modern, but with its layering of decorative devices and have been true, the architectural establishment could not

506 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 Figure 17 Summit Hotel, lobby ./?%iMi^^?^^ta^^fc '' ^?^?Fwm HnP before renovation ^ k ^ttsi Ml^ "*'W?H???????l?m^

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as a as simply ignore Lapidus quixotic figure: his hotels gar such Muzak and artificial plants in public spaces and gold nered mass media attention and his an designs raised issue? telephones and bidets in the bathrooms.46 The Eden Roc the role of ornament in architecture?that had was an an long "less example of architecture than extension of troubled modernist practice. Instead, the establishment the Carnival Midway in concrete lighted up at night like the directly attacked his hotels in the architectural press while entrance to the Tunnel of Love."47 The Summit in Man to them in hattan was Bronx simultaneously refusing publish monographic "something between Baroque and Mexi form.43 In the not addition, major architectural journals did cali modrum"; and while its vertical, illuminated signage his articles about hotel was publish design, though they had reg deemed worthy of "a bowling alley in Paramus, N.J." in featured his store work. In this the establish was ularly respect, the final analysis, the hotel simply "too far from the ment's criticism of as strategic Lapidus functioned what beach."48 While such condescension was typical of high Michel Foucault identified as those "techniques and tactics brow critique, the rarified irony and insistent aestheticizing of domination" that all of be a extreme to support operations power, they represented pejorative used condemn Lapidus or cultural.44 In was political Lapidus's case, the criticism for his perceived flouting of prescribed norms of taste. to extremely effective, causing him modulate his opinions Critic and humorist Russell Lynes, author of such over the course of several as he to decades attempted avoid 1950s best sellers as The Tastemakers and Snobs: A Guidebook, censure and was of in gain professional acceptance. Eventually, openly contemptuous Lapidus's work his review of even Lapidus would rewrite the original architectural inten the Americana and the Summit for Art inAmerica: "We are tions of his work, altering itsmeaning in direct response to snobbishly intolerant in New York of the subculture of its critical within architectural circles. and we wish . . . not our nest reception Florida, they would foul with Until around was over taste. 1970, Lapidus's reception their Ours is bad enough already; we need no help with assessments based on a distinc from the a veneer of whelmingly negative, provinces."49 Despite self-deprecation, tion between what the critics saw as mass taste Lapidus's Lynes deliberately reinforced Lapidus's outsider status by and their own urban sophistication. They denounced his qualifying his own position as a highbrow (a term he coined ornamental excess as abandon" and con "profligate "gaudy in 1949) within the dominant culture of New York.50 That fusion."45 out those of the hotels that was also a New Yorker was since They pointed aspects Lapidus inconsequential were most outr? to apparendy and distasteful purist aesthet Lynes located Brooklyn (the architect's home borough) and ics, especially the nonarchitectural details Lapidus specified, Miami on the same lowbrow subcultural axis?one charac

"I AM A MODERNIST" 507 was now as terized by a Jewish ethnicity. Lynes not entirely wrong; badges of honor, which served perverse validations as Alice Friedman has shown, Lapidus's hotels were targeted of his continued outsider status. Once self-imposed, this iso was now cut toward a largely Jewish, prosperous middle class.51 But in lation critically ordained because his work taste as a the of architectural using the of the Anglo elite critical hinge, Lynes against grain contemporary practice. to dismissed Lapidus's work and consigned him provincial and professional exile. The Profession or the A similar strategy of critical condemnation appeared in People 1955 in the magazine Interiors, which pointedly compared Though Lapidus appeared satisfied with this outsider status, the architect to the entertainer Liberace: "Here is a man, in 1957 he told theNew York Times that he was conflicted as a a to who having found candelabra, sets his stage and acts part whether he should "conform and get accolades from the ... with no concern for its effects. While our pianist's sole pur profession or design things people like."57His struggle pose is to entertain, Mr. Lapidus should comprehend that intensified in 1961 after the opening of the Summit Hotel. to his success carries with it a corresponding responsibility first Reportedly the first luxury hotel be completed inNew to second to his York since theWaldorf-Astoria in this antici the profession and audience."52 1931, highly was Liberace was then at the height of his fame, if not his pated project had added meaning for Lapidus: it his first legendary flamboyance. He was the world's highest-paid large-scale building in his hometown. Lapidus assured the entertainer and one of the most popular, with a devoted press that it would depart from his Florida work since for to a resort be ridicu middle- and working-class following and an attentive cadre the Summit resemble beach would "as as a to in a of critics enraged by his glittering theatrics, exuberant lous for girl walk up Fifth Avenue bikini."58 for ele gaucheness, and overwrought interpretations of classical Instead, Lapidus aimed the "bigness, richness, and and modern composers. He was also in the midst of several gance" he deemed appropriate forManhattan.59 But when a assessment was libel suits, fighting to keep his homosexuality secret.53 the hotel opened, the unanimous critical was too in Lapidus, who knew Liberace because the pianist head that it "tooMiami Beach," flamboyant its bright lined at the Fontainebleau, may have understood the impli colors and flashy materials.60 In the era of white-brick apart cations of the comparison. Like Liberace, Lapidus was well ment buildings and glass office towers, the Summit's blue as was few paid?with more work on his boards in the 1950s than, and turquoise cladding criticized (though had a in Interiors dryly observed, "Mies, Corbusier, and Gropius objected when Gordon Bunshaft used similar blue the [had] to show for their collective lifetimes."54 Like Liberace, spandrel panels of the Lever House a decade earlier). Three he was becoming something of a celebrity with power to months after the Summit opened, its developers, Laurence too to conservatives" "formulate public taste" in architecture, and Lapidus and Preston Tisch, bowed "New York's not exte was accused by critics of pandering to the lowest common and announced that, while they could change the tone its vivid denominator and making "a strange specialty [of] bad taste" rior, they would down the lobby, replacing with his "bastardization of architectural styles."55 In the hues with sober browns and its Lucite chairs with tradi the association of his sen tional furniture straidaced McCarthy era, design upholstered (see Figure 17).61 Though off the assessments as the sibility with the musical and visual style of the barely-in Lapidus shrugged negative carp was an critics rather than hotel the the-closet entertainer attack that derogated Lapidus ing of sidewalk guests, lobby by connecting his decor with the glitzy effeminacy of Lib renovation must have hurt. on continued to oscil erace. The critique, predicated simultaneously class and In the years that followed, Lapidus and the both sexuality, reinforced the censorial dimensions of architec late between the profession people, asserting In an tural authority as itwas used against Lapidus. his modernist conformity and populist transgressions. was to out of he "I am a The architect's response make virtues unpublished essay of 1962 declared, modernist," to vices, and in the late 1950s he embraced even the harshest but he also argued that modernism should be married as an to A assessments of his work. Lapidus defended himself "traditional styling" satisfy the average patron.62 year confirmed architect not by refuting such criticism, but by disavowing later, he emphatically his independence during to ALA at his own Americana Hotel in its negativity. Itwas not disparaging to compare him Lib the annual conference a erace and condemn his "showmanship" because his sole Bal Harbour, Florida. On bright blue stage with three as a was to It was historian Nikolaus purpose hotel architect entertain. useless dimensional glow-in-the-dark panels, critic Ada Louise and modernist archi to complain about his "Roxy Theater era" scenic effects Pevsner, Huxtable, tects Paul andWal because his hotels were supposed to look like glamorous Basil Spence, Robert Anshen, Rudolph, as for in 1930s movie sets.56 Lapidus accepted these critiques lace Harrison debated "the quest quality

508 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 architecture," something they found lacking in the Ameri cana itself.63 They dismissed the hotel for its vulgarity of form, cheapness of materials, and incompetence of plan ning. Though they conceded that the hotel made them feel were to "completely away from home," they careful distin the Americana guish themselves from average patrons who, in order to Spence argued, needed vulgarity enjoy them selves. Lapidus, who was sitting in the audience, finally stood up to be heard and asked the panelists what was wrong with "vulgarity" when the hotel was designed "for to come was people who wanted here and have fun?" What wrong with "cheapness" as long as the hotel gave people "pleasure"? Not the critics, but the hotel guests would "tell [Lapidus] what bad architecture it is."64 By freely admitting the "badness" of his hotels, Lapidus refuted the dominant architecture culture and aligned him self with his middle-class audience. He claimed that his appropriation of modern and traditional high styles were knowingly directed toward middle-class hotel guests who, as Friedman has shown, responded enthusiastically to his modernized version of Old World European glamour.65 In this revision, his work became an antielitist polemic: his work was intended to appeal not to mid-century American "initiates" to tastemakers and their but the mid-century Figure 18 Summit Hotel, exterior American taste of the "lay public" who rejected Interna as tional Style modernism "sterile and barren."66 By the late 1950s, Lapidus seized this "profession ver sus people" dyad as a critical hinge and came to believe that the establishment excoriated his work not for what it was? fact, New York critics complained about the Summit's for it was mod "snake dance" and the Americana's "folded shirt cardboard" populist luxury?but what not?orthodox ernism. of was not because these forms were for modern Lapidus's understanding orthodoxy inappropriate on a as were crass of predicated simplistic definition of modernism "cold, architecture, but because they the by-product a to cram hundreds of extra rooms into clinical unadorned architecture [of] rectilinear, geometrical money-driven effort design," a definition that was outmoded by the time the impossibly tight urban sites (Figure 18).71 Fontainebleau was finished.67 Lapidus thought his work, curves was with its sweeping and sinuous folds, criticized Emotion in Architecture because it deviated from what he called the "acceptable In some as his anti-Mies crusade was forms" of the International Style, but by the late 1950s, ways, what emerged were numerous Le there respected architects, Corbusier proof of Lapidus's populist sympathies since, by focusing and Frank Lloyd Wright among them, rejecting the cubic on its undecorated quality, he defined modern architecture as as man in Modern build forms of the prewar period. Even Hitchcock had modified simplistically the the street.72 his former a of effects" in mod were little more than skele position, conceding "range ings, Lapidus claimed, "ugly ern not race architecture; it is inconceivable that his notion of tons" that made "99% of the human unhappy."73 embraced the work of his earlier admiration for the "flamboyant modernism" could have Despite European modernists, Lapidus.68 Lapidus was aware of such critical shifts: he Lapidus now disavowed them, placing most of the blame on admired the "new sensualism" of Oscar Niemeyer and cited for this architectural unhappiness Mies's shoulders. as an attacks on Mies varied in tone and content. In his organic forms influence.69 Nonetheless, Lapidus Lapidus's held fast to a dogmatic idea of modernism and angrily 1961, he refuted Mies's assertion that the public "must be insisted that critics dismissed his work because it departed taught to like what the profession thinks it should like" and 74 is more" as "nonsense." In he dis from "the steel and glass grid ofMiesian architecture."70 In he rejected "less 1962,

"I AM A MODERNIST" 509 missed the curtain wall of the Seagram Building as "trompe nately had not yet shaken modernism's foundations. l'oeil" because the spandrel glass looked like awindow, and Though the idea of undecorated architecture, which had Mies to the status of aMosaic was he charged with trying "glamorize" his fa?ade "nearly commandment," "flouted the use of in it was "never in was through bronze.75 practice," queried theory."84 Lapidus was an This not the easy target sniping with which post exception. He queried it in theory and denounced mod modernists would later attack modernism.76 For Lapidus, ernism as "a shallow tributary" that had diverted architec more was at stake than the righting of professional wrongs tural design from its Vitruvian/Wottonian foundations in or the creation of an accessible and venustas It was laymen's architecture, and delight.85 symptomatic of Lapidus's utter that with moral seriousness he accused Mies of eradicat increasing iconoclasm he embraced ornamentation ing "our primitive emotional craving for enrichment and with a fervor articulated by few of his peers. This does not an mean adornment."77 As American Jew of Russian and Polish that his earlier insecurity had disappeared; it cannot descent, Lapidus had larger social reasons for questioning be accidental that Lapidus never used the word "ornament" the "imported theories" of a German Christian likeMies. in "AQuest for Emotion in Architecture," as if in refusing Indeed, it is apparent that Lapidus misguidedly associated to name it he might avoid its taint. But other words signi the rigid discipline of Mies's architecture with German fied just as powerfully, and Lapidus ultimately disclosed his con totalitarianism, overlooking the fact that theNazis had aesthetic orientation by aligning himself with architects who demned avant-garde modernism as degenerate and had were also accused of pushing modernism beyond acceptable favored kitsch cultural artifacts with parallels to Lapidus's stylistic limits: "I do not know what form that love of adorn own work.78 ment and enrichment will take?whether it will be finally Despite the sincerity of Lapidus's "quest for emotion exemplified by folded roof plates, or hyperbolic paraboloid in architecture," his equating of emotion with adornment domes, or [Minoru] Yamasaki's neo-Gothic arches."86 made it easy for the architectural establishment to dismiss In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Yamasaki, along with his solemn intonations as irrelevant schmaltz.79 At its foun Eero Saarinen and others, shared an interest in exploring dation, however, his argument paralleled that of Adolf Loos, the expressive potential of reinforced and precast concrete. whose 1908 essay "Ornament and Crime" Reyner Banham From the neo-expressionism of Saarinen's Ingalls Hockey a had recendy described as foundational text of modernist Rink atYale (1958) to the neo-Gothic of Yamasaki's McGre doctrine. Loos viewed the desire for ornament as a basic gor Conference Center atWayne State University (1959) human urge, though he concluded that modern man had in Detroit, their buildings tested the boundaries of ration in alism and functionalism. In Yamasaki articulated evolved beyond it and, the twentieth century, only prim particular, and still decoration.80 a vis-?-vis modernism that was not all that distant itives, peasants, degenerates required position this that his contem "A Lapidus reversed conclusion, arguing from Lapidus's. In Humanist Tradition for America," these "enrichment and adorn same as "A poraries should accept urges: published the year (1961) Lapidus's Quest for ment to our Yamasaki modernism's and will provide the only path the final phases of Emotion," rejected regularity us not he "an architecture for all architecture today. Let be ashamed of these basic and modularity. Instead, sought peo content primitive emotions."81 ple" imbued with emotional derived from forms These comments appeared in "AQuest for Emotion in that reworked Gothic, Moorish, and Japanese traditions in Architecture," Lapidus's article in the AIA Journal in 1961. modern materials and methods.87 seem was In light of the establishment's censure, itmay strange Yamasaki's work frequently disparaged for its eclec that Lapidus was given an opportunity to express himself in tic and mannerist tendencies, especially the way modernist a prominent professional publication. However, by that year, ideals of structural expression and functional revelation gave to an even resolution of form. many of the issues Lapidus raised had been circulating for way overly dramatic, decorative, a contri ornamen several years. In fact, the article represents genuine As Timothy Rohan has shown, this discomfort with bution to discussions about ornament that, after having been tation was informed not only by the architectural establish was suppressed in modernist historiography, emerged in archi ment's concerns that modernism being polluted by tectural discourse in the late 1950s.82 These discussions sentimentality and nostalgia but also by larger cultural anxi included the postrationalist eclecticism of the Italian Neolib eties about masculinity, femininity, and sexuality in popular were the erty movement and the curatorial investigations of MoMA, culture.88 Nonetheless, these architects spared which mounted an art nouveau exhibition in 1959.83 intense criticism often directed at Lapidus, at least in part was as The focus on ornament not welcome in all quar because critics viewed their work experimental and ters. Banham saw it as a which fortu toward a new direction for modernism.89 disturbing regression, exploratory, pointing

510 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 The fact that Lapidus saw himself in relation to Saari gold-leaf ceiling, gold-anodized ball-chain curtains, gold nen and Yamasaki indicates that he failed to grasp the mesh balcony panels, and light fixtures faceted to look like nuances of his critical condemnation. Lapidus thought his oversized gems. With modernist austerity still dominant, work was rejected because it transgressed the norms of the Hitchcock admitted that itwas "almost shameful to note" how International Style as did Saarinen's and Yamasaki's, but he well the decor worked.95 James Burns, writing in Progressive was were not was mistaken. While critics uniformly enchanted Architecture, less impressed. What Johnson had produced Saarinen's elaborations and Yamasaki's orna was a to with sculptural "candy box frou-frou" and failed attempt "?pater les mentalist tendencies, they accepted their derivation from bourgeois"; Lapidus, at least, had never been accused of fail concerns intrinsic to the solution. crit to stun design By contrast, ing his middle-class audience.96 Critical dissatisfaction ics found Lapidus's work objectionable because he privi with Johnson's turn away from high modernism had already leged issues they felt were extrinsic to the design solution: begun before the theater opened. In fact, he was among the . decor, color, and unnecessary architectural elements that architects, including Yamasaki, Rudolph, and Edward Durell were applied to?not generated by?the design. Lapidus Stone, whom critics in the late 1950s had dubbed the "ballet believed these were necessary to provide the emotional sat school" because of their ornamental modernism.97 saw as a isfaction that he functional requirement of hotel The charges directed at Johnson and Lapidus were to his was the same: one man's was man's Lib design. Yet, critics, Lapidus simply misusing func nearly "ballet" another tionalism for commercial ends to produce an architecture erace. Despite the class distinction between classical dance they excoriated as flashy exhibitionism redolent with "the and popular musical entertainment, these indictments sweet smell of excess."90 derived their critical edge from the same implications of effeminacy and homosexuality. Johnson's impeccable schol arship notwithstanding, he may have seen Lapidus as a kin The Camp Sensibility dred spirit, though one as distant in terms of aesthetics as In the late 1950s one critic began to reassess Lapidus: New Canaan was from Miami Beach. As a critic observed in "Whatever you say, he's trying to do architecture. It may Art in America a decade later, "Johnson is the Lapidus of or not be my kind of architecture your kind of architecture, good taste, just as Lapidus is the Johnson of bad taste."98 so want but... he is apparendy convinced that people that But empathy does not adequately explain the willingness of sort ofthing?that rounded, lush form?that he's willing to Johnson, whose refined judgment had been crucial to Amer no fight for it, and that's little achievement."91 Philip John ican high culture since the 1930s, to pardon Lapidus's sup son most likely said this in 1957, while working with Mies posedly vulgar tastes. Johnson appreciated a dimension of on the Seagram Building. Though Johnson did not exactly Lapidus's work that the larger architecture establishment not not approve of Lapidus's work, he did dismiss it either, and would recognize for another decade. a few years later he declared on prime-time television that In her analysis of the Glass House (1949) in New he intended "to defend Morris Lapidus."92 While Johnson's Canaan, Connecticut, Friedman examined how Johnson comments about Lapidus are spiked with acerbic bon mots, negotiated the boundaries of normative American culture were articulated with more in the In as a they clarity and subtlety than postwar period. particular, she showed how, own man a many of Lapidus's interpretations. According to John gay in predominantly heterosexual society, he a son, Lapidus's work possessed "hearty vulgarity" and deployed specific strategies for deflecting and escaping the a was exemplified "boarding-house baroque" that utterly impact of homophobia, both personally and professionally. mass appropriate for "a great of people who don't know the These included a facility for irony and parody, an eye for difference between a architecture and Coney Island."93 the outrageous, and thick skin that blunted the sting of this as and Taken these are of Lapidus characteristically accepted praise began critique.99 together, strategies part the including Coney Island among his influences.94 "camp" sensibility. Though difficult to define, camp is a to cast Johnson's reluctance aspersions is understandable form of masking that allows homosexuals to "pass" in the since he was in the midst of his own with a critical in struggle eclecticism larger culture, necessity pre-Stonewall Amer in the late 1950s.When theNew York State Theater at Lin ica.More recently, camp has been interpreted as a strategy was was coln Center completed in 1964, Johnson accused of of oppositional critique that challenges the dominant cul not at to ture heresies unlike the charges leveled Lapidus due his by appropriating and transforming it.100Camp is also use of ornament a an or deemed questionable for modernist. The aesthetic stylistic strategy that mirrors, magnifies, and theater's most scrutinizes interiors attracted of the attention, especially those aspects of the dominant culture that most a a the Grand Promenade, triple-tiered reception hall with obviously embody?or defy?its codes and norms.

"I AM A MODERNIST" 511 are these more obvious in cultural Nowhere than produc ing the aesthetic hierarchies of abstract expressionism and tion such as architecture and sensi art in design. Johnson's camp high modernism and establishing pop their place.106 bility enabled him to appreciate the theatricality and artifice of Lapidus's hotels and to applaud work that other mod A Architecture ernist critics condemned. When Johnson told Mike Wal Pop lace on P.M. East that he'd been to the Fontainebleau and With the ascendancy of pop came a new generation of personally counted all forty-three colors Lapidus used in architects and critics who embraced Lapidus's work for the the public spaces, he was archly admiring how Lapidus very things their predecessors rejected: its theatrical exu defied the conventions of high culture by attacking the berance, its eclectic appropriation of modernism and clas "asepsis of modernism" and challenging the desires and sat sicism, and its transformation of these formal elements into isfactions of the Anglo elite.101 In the early 1960s, Johnson amode of design that overwhelmed with its synthetic sump acted as a gay interpreter of Lapidus's work; within a decade tuousness.107 These critics experienced Lapidus's hotels as his intervention was no but this was not a of at the hotels. longer necessary. camp, just way looking In fall 1964, Susan Sontag published "Notes on Using Sontag's now popularized construction, they found Camp" in the Partisan Review, offering fifty-eight theses camp in the work itself, emerging from the seriousness and that attempted to characterize the sensibility. Sontag sincerity of Lapidus's architectural intentions, from his orig asserted that camp was both a way of looking at things (a inal goal of making functional modernism to his subsequent vision) and a quality. This meant itwas possible to establish desire to create populist luxury unrestrained by modernist a "canon" of camp that included a range of objects, peo constraints. or ple, and performances, from Tiffany Lamps to Swan Lake, Despite the lack of parody cynicism in Lapidus's as well as "all elements of visual decor." Though Lapidus is objectives, the new critics aligned his work with the irony not mentioned in the essay, his hotels satisfied many of laden strategies of pop, particularly the polemics of Robert for a interior: "decorative art on Venturi Sontag's requirements camp Venturi and his attack modernist orthodoxies. sensuous and at the the in 1966 emphasizing texture, surface, style and Denise Scott Brown visited Fontainebleau that viewers could to in 1968 "A expense of content."102 Sontag argued and referred the hotel their article Signifi cance ignore content and experience awork as camp if itmet the for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas." qualitative criteria. She also identified certain attributes? Labeling its "Neo-Eclectic" style a "middle source" in in naivety, exaggeration, and self-consciousness?present architectural evolution, they traced Lapidus's approach back and not to of camp-as-vision camp-as-quality, though usually through Brazilian modernism the "International Style present in both. middle Corbu."108 They even invited Lapidus to Yale in the as a As careful as Sontag was to describe camp, she down fall of 1968 to serve guest critic for their famous Las to taste ismuch studio.109 This critical was played its relationship gay identity: "Camp Vegas gaze important, prompt more than homosexual taste."103 In detaching camp from its ing others to look at Lapidus's work with genuine interest. homosexual origins, Sontag rendered it safe for appropria This interest peaked in 1970 when the Architectural an tion by the heterosexual/dominant culture. The very pres League of New York announced exhibition of Lapidus's entation of "Notes on Camp" reinforced this effect since it work. "The Architecture of Joy" was organized by John was a it a freelance curator whose interest in the com essentially checklist for identifying camp, and would Margolies, as to mature work.110 be used such. Indeed, within months of the essay's mercial landscape led him Lapidus's appearance, both Time Magazine and the New York Times Though Margolies sensed his proposal might prompt no one Magazine published articles examining Sontag's essay. "Not debate, could have anticipated the acrimony that Good Taste, not Bad Taste?It's 'Camp'" exemplifies how ensued. Suddenly, through no fault of his own, Lapidus a the press interpreted Sontag's understanding of camp, gloss found himself at the center of pitched battle between the on new a contro ing her Note 34, which stated: "camp turns its back the old and guard of American architecture and to more good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment... offer versy that generated publicity for the architect than he two for art (and life) a different?a supplementary?set of stan had in the previous decades.111 were the the outcome of the contest dards."104 By the mid-1960s, these different standards Given changing culture, was never in doubt: the trounced saturating American culture. As Thomas Meehan observed, new-guard postmodernists over nom "camp taste is becoming dominant what is today gen the old-guard modernists under the de guerre of pop. was erally accepted as good taste."105This change especially The modernists and their apologists dismissed Lapidus's was as now was obvious in the art world where Andy Warhol overturn work they always had, though the critique

512 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 tinged with camp: Huxtable labeled Lapidus "the High entertainment was the primary goal of his hotels, she situ Priest of High Kitsch," and Lynes called him the "father of ated his work in an architectural tradition of "bourgeois fan Art Disco."112 Within the Architectural League, the most tasy."Within this tradition, Lapidus's architecture betrayed as as vociferous opposition came from historian Sybil Moholy its ideology legibly modernist social housing, repre Nagy and architect Ulrich Franzen, who angrily denounced senting the "hopes and dreams of an over-fifty Middle the exhibition as "aesthetic backlash" and "rampant anti American culture with recent or fairly recent European intellectualism" parallel to the conservatism that accompa roots." Josephson also found ample evidence of Lapidus's nied the rise of Richard Nixon.113 stated commitment to the actualization of basic human emo Peter Eisenman, then director of the Institute for Archi tions and cravings. His architecture and decor, dedicated to tecture and Urban Studies, represented the postmodern fac the pursuit of human pleasure, became "amedium for vis tion. In a letter to the Architectural League board, which he ceral and tactile fulfillment." So thoroughly were sensual sat had just joined, Eisenman argued that the overwhelming isfactions met in a Lapidus hotel that his work amounted to success of Lapidus's work made it worthy of investigation, a "pornography of comfort" that guests experienced and and he precisely identified the key issue of the controversy: consumed through sight, touch, and sound.118 is with was as accurate "By accepted conventions Mr. Lapidus's work supposedly Josephson's analogy pornography assumed to be in 'bad taste.' However, the question righdy as itwas provocative.119 Not only did she get to the core of can be asked 'by whose convention?'" He chided fellow the work itself, she simultaneously exposed the nature of its board members for attempting to "limit debate and codify critical reception since pornography is a form of cultural some a taste" by denying the exhibition a place on the league's expression deemed obscene by segment of society. a schedule. Instead, Eisenman concluded, the league should For two decades, Lapidus's work was form of cultural an encourage contemporary discussion of these central issues: expression effectively deemed obscene by architectural own "architecture considered as a populist phenomenon and establishment that regarded it as offensive to its as an as architecture considered elitist fantasy."114 accepted standards of aesthetic decency.120 Just those who or As its curator, Margolies described the exhibition as a object to pornography attempt to either suppress regu serious investigation of the architecture of the "silent major late it, so the establishment attempted to constrain Lapidus ity," the middle class battered by social and political through its criticism. But, like pornography, Lapidus's work upheavals that were challenging their core values and found that it could operate successfully outside of such insti beliefs. He called Lapidus "an eloquent spokesman of pop tutional authorities by attaching itself to what Josephson work con as ular taste" and "a sophisticated humanist" whose described the "hedonism [of]materialist culture."121 sistently privileged the needs of "the people."115 Despite However incisive her analysis, Josephson did not depart such claims, the exhibition betrayed an attitude of ironic from the standard critical view of Lapidus's position in the condescension characteristic of pop. It focused almost class-based hierarchy of American culture. Like others in on exclusively retail and hotel interiors and ignored Lapidus's new cadre of critical supporters, she judged his taste Lapidus's housing projects, schools, and religious and civic to be just as bad as the architectural establishment had always restraint were now was buildings whose decorative and sobriety dic claimed. The difference, Lapidus realized, that bad tated by the architect's long-standing programmatic func taste was not such a bad thing?if you did it on purpose. In tionalism.116 While including these projects would have response to this latest critical shift, Lapidus altered his archi presented amore balanced view of Lapidus's oeuvre, they tectural intentions once again, arguing that his design also would have diluted the exhibition's pop/camp sensibil method consisted of knowing appropriations and purposeful ity, evident in the piped-in Muzak and the supergraphics of ironies: "I've simply done something as a pop artist might do not entirely complimentary quotes about Lapidus, drawn it," and "I design these hotels with tongue in cheek."122 If from two decades of negative criticism that aligned his work Lapidus was aware that this statement represented a 180 with "the hot Mozart school of design" and "the epitome degree reversal of his original position, he kept it to himself. of the as an was new apogee."117 After years outsider, he suddenly "in" with the While the exhibition blurred the line between cynical architecture generation, including not only Venturi and Scott celebration and serious cultural analysis, it stimulated at least Brown, but also Charles Moore, who participated in a panel one thoughtful example of the latter. InAn inAmerica, Mary discussion about Lapidus at the Architectural League, and Josephson's assessment moved beyond hyperbolic critique Tom Wolfe, who portrayed Lapidus as aminor hero inFrom toward a sophisticated Barthian investigation that examined Bauhaus toOur House. At last Lapidus could bask in the seem on Lapidus his own terms. Beginning with his notion that ing adulation of those who, inHuxtable's words, "savor every

"I AM A MODERNIST" 513 nuance of legitimate psychology and outrageous parody" work analyzes Lapidus's hotels in the context of their clients and guests, how the hotels satisfied the and of a manifest in his work. What they appreciated, Huxtable con examining yearnings aspirations pros middle class in America. own interest in was perous Jewish postwar My Lapidus cluded, Lapidus's "supercamp."123 stems from my dissertation research on modern store design, and I pre sented my initial work on Lapidus and his critics in a paper titled "Mod ernism's Man: Morris and Architectural at the From Modern to Postmodern and Back Straight Lapidus Camp" College Art Association Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 1999. Other Friederike As the pop fringe became the postmodern elite, the critical early scholarship includes Martina Duttmann and Schneider, Morris Architect theAmerican Dream (Basel, 1992). fortunes of Lapidus continued to rise. In 1977, Charles Lapidus: of 3. See National Design Museum National Design Awards, "2000 American Jencks referred to his singular approach to interiors as Original," Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, http://www.cooper Ersatz" in the influential The Post-Mod "Lapidus Language of hewitt.org/NDATWINNERS/2000/AMERICA^OmGINAI./mdex.shtml. ern Architecture}2* In when face the on 1980, Lapidus's graced 4. Cornel West, "ANote Race and Architecture," in Keeping Faith: Phi cover of the Italian design magazine Domus, editor Alessan losophy and Race in America (New York, 1993), 45. 5. TooMuch isNever 60-64. See also Rosemarie dro Mendini applauded his work as "acquiescent instead of Lapidus, Enough, Bletter, "Modernism Rears its in The an 1881-1981: him "a Head," Making of Architect, repressive toward the masses" and declared post-mod Columbia University in the City ofNew York, ed. Richard Oliver (New York, ern architect before his time."125Around the same time, firms 1981). such as Rem Koolhaas/OMA and Arquitect?nica appropri 6. Morris Lapidus, untitled autobiographical typescript, 1955, p. 2, box 1, to ated his signature forms willfully exploit the modernist Morris Lapidus Papers [hereafter MLP], Special Collections Research Cen idiom. In the 1990s, as the postmodern elite became the post ter, Syracuse University Library. modern mainstream and American culture suffered what 7. Lapidus was not the only architect to deploy modernism's most recogniz able forms and motifs in retail design. Victor Gruen and Morris Ketchum humorist Paul Rudnick called "the irony epidemic of hetero were also actively promoting modern store design in this period, but Gruen sexual with anMTV interview, camp," Lapidus, complete did not emigrate to the United States until 1938, the same year Ketchum became a cult to an educated class whose members figure finished architecture school at Columbia. See M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall viewed life through a frame of endless cultural quotations.126 Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream (Philadelphia, 2004). 8. dubbed these forms and In 1996 with the publication of TooMuch isNever Enough and Lapidus signature "woggles," "cheeseholes," "bean poles." See Lapidus, TooMuch isNever Enough, 98. its accompanying lecture tour, it was evident that Lapidus 9. For stores, see "Stores," Architectural Forum 65 (Oct. 1936), had for his published finally gained professional recognition flamboy 318; "Portfolio of Current Modernization Work," Architectural Forum 70 ant Critics now his free of style. applauded breaking high (Feb. 1939), 94-95; and "Stores," Architectural Record 100 (Aug. 1948), 92-94. modernist orthodoxy and his dismanding of its formal and For his articles, seeMorris Lapidus, "The Retail Store and its Design Prob Architectural Record 97 and "Store Mod theoretical strictures.127They also elevated his hotels to clas lems," (Feb. 1945), 96-102; Lapidus, without Architectural Record 92 71-78. not as in a final twist of ernizing Metals," (Oct. 1942), sic status, proto-postmodernist, but, 10. quoted in John W Cook and Heinrich Klotz, Conversations with as its man Lapidus cultural fate, modernist?in distinctive mid-century Architects (New York, 1973) 150, 162-63. ifestation to be sure, but with the and archi stylistic pastiches 11. If Lapidus's attitude toward his retail work was not injurious enough to tectural intact. Such reversal of fortune was transgressions his professional self-esteem, an additional blow came from the AIA, at least was as not surprising since the pieties of monolithic modernism according to Lapidus's recollections. His application endorsed, two members in these members?Mor brought to bear upon Lapidus's work at mid-century could required, by good standing, though ris Sanders and Francis X. Gina?were both prominent store designers, a hardly withstand the pressures of critical relativism character fact which likely did nothing to relieve Lapidus's anxieties. But before his istic of postmodern culture. At the end of the twentieth cen membership was approved, the admissions committee of the New York architecture's institutions and authorities were at least tury, chapter informed him that several of its members had requested that the as as as a taste was on store was not pluralistic those of society whole, and elite committee reject his application the grounds that design In the it did not he was in more catholic and less effective than it had been fifty years architecture. end, matter; granted membership 1944. recounts this situation in Too Much isNever Enough, 91. before. By the time Lapidus died in January 2001, he had got Lapidus file does not indicate with his ten what he had wanted: as amodernist Lapidus's membership any problem applica always recognition was tion to the AIA. On his application he stated that he "associated with and "the esteem of the architectural as gods."128 Ross Frankel, Inc., serving their Architect, through 1942." See "Morris Lapidus," AIA Membership Files, AIA Archives, Washington, D.C. 12. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style (1932; rpt. New York, 1966), 45, 76, 50-51. Notes 13. In a 1986 interview, Lapidus recalled that "the hardest thing in the world was a to a in "Morris 1.Hahn Smith Design of Toronto designed the book jacket. See Morris for Jewish architect get job." Quoted Scott Cohen, Interview 16 148. For a brief discussion of Lapidus, TooMuch isNever Enough (New York, 1996). Lapidus," (Sept. 1986), Jewish store as to see 2. See Alice T. Friedman, "The Luxury of Lapidus: Gender, Class, and identity and design it relates Gruen and Lapidus, Hardwick, Architecture," Harvard Design Magazine (Summer 2000), 39-47. Friedman's MallMaker, 19-24.

514 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 as was to as a 14. For a discussion of store design and architectural practice in the 1930s, 35. Eager he establish his reputation designer of buildings not to see Gabrielle Esperdy, "The Odd-Job Alleyway of Building," Journal of rather than interiors, Lapidus would have wished himself compared Architectural Education 58 (May 2005), 24-40. these society decorators. As a journalist noted in 1957, "architects fell into 15. Lewis Mumford, "New Facades," The New Yorker (20 Nov. 1937), 85. the habit of referring to him as an interior decorator and interior decora as an 16. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, "The International Style Twenty Years tors angrily thought of him architect." Millstein, "Architect De Luxe n. After," Architectural Record (Aug. 1951), rpt. in Hitchcock and Johnson, ofMiami Beach," 36 (see 18). On Elsie deWolfe, see Penny Sparke, Elsie International Style, 240. de Wolfe and the Birth ofModern Interior Decoration (New York, 2005). On a an see 17. By "total building" Lapidus meant building that started with empty Dorothy Draper, Mitchell Owens, "Living Large: The Brash, Boda as lot and involved all aspects of design and construction, opposed to his cious Hotels of Dorothy Draper," Journal ofDecorative and Propaganda Arts store work. See Lapidus, TooMuch isNever Enough, 168. 25 (June 2005), 254-87. 18. Once he felt secure calling himself an architect, Lapidus actually com 36. On film sets, see Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers, Screen Deco mended the destruction of much of his early retail work. Lapidus, untitled (New York, 1985); and Donald Albrecht, Designing Dreams: Modern Archi n. tecture are autobiographical typescript, p. 3 (see 6). This is repeated inGilbert Mill and theMovies (New York, 1986). Themed interiors discussed in et stein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," New York Times Magazine (6 Robert A. M. Stern al., New York 1960 (New York, 1995), 522-31. The Jan. 1957), 36. editors o? Interiors compared Lapidus unfavorably to Girard in "What Do 19. This modulation is evident when comparing, for example, Lapidus's You Think of the Summit?" Interiors 121 (Oct. 1961), 138. n. Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Community Center (1951-55) to his Craw 37. Cook and Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 157 (see 10). ford Clothing Company (1948-50, demolished 2005) inManhattan. They 38. See Frederic Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," in The a have a similar massing scheme defined by a tower with single-pitch roof Anti-Aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle, 1983), 114. and low-rise block, but Lapidus's deployment of materials produces two 39. Lapidus quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe ofMiami Beach," 42. distinct effects: the synagogue is internalized and privatized while the cloth 40. Lapidus, "The Fontainebleau," 3. n. ing store is open and attention grabbing. 41. Lapidus quoted in "Hotels," 91 (see 25). 20. Quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 42. 42. Cook and Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 9; and Lapidus quoted in 21. Morris Lapidus, "One of the Functions of the Functional Store is to Millstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 38. were Attract," typescript, 1946, p. 1-4, box 2, folder: Writings and Essays 43. His hotels occasionally included in building-type studies. The inte 1946-59, MLP (see n. 6). The essay was subsequently published in Contract rior design press did publish his hotels, but they did not always review them Interiors 106 Qune 1947), 98-99, 142. positively. Correspondence in his papers indicate that, before 1954, Lapidus 22. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells was in regular and even friendly contact with editors of the professional (1931; rpt. New York, 1986), 127. journals, including Thomas Creighton o? Progressive Architecture. See box 1, 23. Lapidus, "One of the Functions of the Functional Store is to Attract," folder: Correspondence 1946-66, MLP (see n. 6). 4-5. 44. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, ed. and trans. Colin Gordon (New 24. These projects included the Sans Souci, the Biltmore Terrace, the York, 1980), 102. Delano, and the Nautilus, all inMiami Beach and completed between 1949 45. Ada Louise Huxtable, "Our New Buildings: Hits andMisses," New York and 1952. Times Magazine (29 Apr. 1962), 17. 25. "Pleasure Palaces," The New York Times, sec. XX, 12 Dec. 1954, 9. For 46. See for example, Walter McQuade, "Architecture," Nation 193 (Dec. n. the best documentation of the Fontainebleau at the time of its completion, 1961), 457; and "Talk of the Town: Playful," 20-21 (see 33). see "Hotels," Interiors 114 (May 1955), 88-95. 47. Millstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 26. as 26. In effect, lobby occupants performed, simultaneously, actors/audi 48. "First Since Waldorf," Time (4 Aug. 1961), 49; McQuade, "Architec ence in a theater and as hosts/guests in a living room. Lapidus characterized ture," 457; and Russell Lynes, "New York Hotels (with Reservations),"^?? as his design for the Fontainebleau lobby "30 living rooms blended into in America 51 (Apr. 1963), 60. See also "Crazy Hat, Bright Tie," Time (9 one." Morris Lapidus, "The Fontainebleau," typescript, n.d., p. 4, box 2, May 1960), Time Magazine Archive, http://www.time.com/time/archive/. folder: Writings and Essays, MLP. 49. Lynes, "New York Hotels," 59. See also Russell Lynes, Snobs: A Guide to 27. Lapidus describes his solution of tucking the kitchen underneath the book Your Friends, Your Enemies, Your Colleagues and Yourself (New York, tiered dining platforms as "ingenious." See ibid., 5-6. 1950); and Lynes, The Tastemakers (New York, 1954). 28. Lapidus, sketch of the Americana New York, n.d., box 1, folder: Archi 50. Russell Lynes, "Highbrow, Middlebrow, Lowbrow," Harper's (Feb. tectural Work, Original Drawings, item #23, MLP. 1949), 19-27. 29. Olga Gueft, "Resort Hotels," Interiors 116 (Apr. 1957), 111. 51. See Friedman, "Luxury of Lapidus," 39^-7 (see n. 2); and Alice Fried 30. Lapidus, "The Fontainebleau," 1. man, "Merchandising Miami Beach: Morris Lapidus and the Architecture were 31. There originally birds and alligators in the terrarium of the Amer of Abundance," Journal ofDecorative and Propaganda Arts 25 (Spring 2005), icana to provide an element of Florida contextualism. 216-53. on 32. Lapidus, "The Fontainebleau," 1-3. 52. "Debate the Fontainebleau," Interiors 115 (Sept. 1955), 8. see 33.Mayor Paul S?ramy quoted in Lapidus, TooMuch isNever Enough, 183 53. On Liberace, Margaret Thompson Drewal, "The Camp Trace in n. a same (see 1). Several years later, writer for The New Yorker used the Corporate America," inMeyer, The Politics and Poetics of Camp, 149-81 (see n. term to describe the lobby of the Summit; see "Talk of the Town: Playful," 34). The New Yorker (5 Aug. 1961), 20-21. 54. Gueft, "Resort Hotels," 103 (see n. 29). 34. On these diverse aesthetic trends, see Thomas A. King, "Performing 55. "Debate on the Fontainebleau," 8;McQuade, "Architecture," 457; and 'Akimbo'," in The Politics and Poetics of Camp, ed. Moe Meyer (New York, Mary Josephson, "Lapidus: Pornography of Comfort," Art in America 59 1994), 23-50; and Remy G. Saisselin, Bricabracomania (New Brunswick, (Mar. 1971), 108. 1984). 56. Lapidus quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe ofMiami Beach," 36,42.

"I AM A MODERNIST" 515 57. Ibid., 38. tecture, ed. Ulrich Conrads, (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 19-24. 58.Morris Gilbert, "Proving Ground for Hotels," New York Times, sec. XX, 81. Lapidus, "A Quest for Emotion in Architecture," 58. 8 Jan. 1961,1. 82. This repression of ornament especially marks Sigfried Giedion, Space, 59. Ibid. Time and Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1941). The repressed history of 60. Ibid. modernism in the 1920s and 1930s is charted inMark Wigley, White Walls, 61. "Summit Gives in,Modifies Decor," New York Times, sec. I, 20 Oct. Designer Dresses (Cambridge, Mass., 1995). 1961, 30. 83. This show featured the work of Antoni Gaudi, Victor Horta, and Henri 62. Morris Lapidus, "A Pictorial Primer of Restaurant Design," typescript, Guimard. It also included the work of Louis Sullivan, whose ornamental n. was 1962, box 2, folder: Writings Essays 1960-66, MLP (see 6). language finally given its due after being largely overlooked by mod 63. See "The Quest for Quality in Architecture," AIA Journal 39 (Apr. ernist historians. See Peter Selz and Mildred Constantine, eds., Art Nou veau: at 1963), 49-53. Though Rudolph and Harrison were, like Lapidus, occasion Art and Design the Turn of the Century (New York, 1959). ally accused of apostasy?Rudolph for his mannerism, Harrison for his the 84. Reyner Banham, "Neoliberty: The Italian Retreat from Modern Archi atricality?they were firmly of the establishment. Rudolph was then the tecture," Architectural Review 125 (1959), 230-35; and Banham, "Ornament chair of architecture at Yale University. Harrison, a Rockefeller by mar and Crime," 86. riage, was overseeing the design of Lincoln Center, having previously super 85. Lapidus, "A Quest for Emotion in Architecture," 55. vised Rockefeller Center and the United Nations. Spence's recently 86. Ibid., 57. was completed rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral controversial, but 87. Minoru Yamasaki, "AHumanist Tradition for America and Its Relation a mainly because itsmodernism represented departure from traditional reli to the Traditional Architecture of Japan," Zodiac 8 (1961), 142^3. It should was gious architecture. be noted that Yamasaki not pleased with the character of the landscapes were 64. Lapidus quoted in "The Quest for Quality in Architecture," 50-51. See inwhich the majority of Lapidus's buildings located. InMiami Beach, also Anshen and Spence as quoted by Fred Sherman of the Miami Herald, for example, Yamasaki found "complete chaos" engendered by too many cited inMorris Lapidus: Architecture ofJoy, Architectural League exhibition architectural forms and shapes competing with each other for attention: "I pamphlet (New York, 1970), n.p. literally felt ill when Iwas there," 143. n. 65. See Friedman, "Luxury of Lapidus" (see 2). See also Rhonda Lieber 88. Timothy Rohan, "The Dangers of Eclecticism: Paul Rudolph's Jewett man, "Miami Fantasia Part I," Art Forum 32 (Feb. 1993), 8, who described Arts Center atWellesley," in Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Post war the public's response to Lapidus's creation of a "pseudo-European dream Architectural Culture, ed. SarahWilliams Goldhagen and R?jean Legault scape." (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 192-94. 66. Morris Lapidus, "AQuest for Emotion in Architecture," AIA Journal 36 89. See Nikolaus Pevsner, "Forward to the Pelican Edition (I960)," in Pio (Nov. 1961), 56. neers ofModern Design (1936; London, 1975), 17. For criticism of Saarinen, 67. Ibid., 55, 57. see "TWAs Graceful New Terminal," Architectural Forum 108 Qan. 1958), n. 68. Hitchcock, "The International Style Twenty Years After," 239 (see 78-85. On Yamasaki, see Ada Louise Huxtable, "Pools, Domes, Yamasaki? 16); and Gueft, "Resort Hotels," 107 (see n. 29). Debate," New York Times, sec. VI, 25 Nov. 1962, 36+. See also William 69. Lapidus met Niemeyer during a trip to Brazil in 1949. See Cook and Jordy, "The Formal Image: USA," Architectural Review 111 (Mar. 1960), Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 174 (see n. 10); and Lapidus, TooMuch 157-65. n. new see n. is Never Enough, 149 (see 1). On the sensualism, Thomas 90. McQuade, "Architecture," 457 (see 46). n. Creighton, "The New Sensualism, I and II," Progressive Architecture 40 91. Quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 38 (see (Sept./Oct. 1959), 141-47, 180-87. Though Creighton knew Lapidus, he 18). Though the speaker is identified only as "a noted architect who prides on did not include his work in these articles. himself his fairness of mind," subsequent comments by Johnson and 70. Lapidus quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 42 Lapidus, along with the arch tone of the statement itself, point to Johnson (seen. 18). as the probable speaker. See also Cook and Klotz, Conversations with Archi n. 71. Lynes, "New York Hotels," 60 (see 48); and Peter Blake quoted in tects, 153 (seen. 10). P.M. East with Mike Wallace, transcript, 1961, n.p., box 2, folder: Writings 92. Johnson quoted in P.M. East (see n. 71). Johnson's defense of Lapidus was Essays 1960-66, MLP. caused Blake to respond that Johnson "cracking up." Lapidus also see on 72. Reyner Banham identified this as "the layman's recognition check;" appeared this program and attacked Mies. Banham, "Ornament and Crime: The Decisive Contribution of Adolf 93. Millstein, "Architect De Luxe of Miami Beach," 36. n. Loos," Architectural Review 121 (Feb. 1957), 85. 94. See, for example, Gueft, "Resort Hotels," 111 (see 29); and Cook and 73. Morris Lapidus, "The Architectural Form and Concept of the New Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 147. In his autobiography, Lapidus as a Americana," typescript, 1962, p. 3, box 2, folder: Writings and Essays recalled visiting Coney Island child and observed that its atmosphere was 1960-66, MLP echoed in much of his work. See Lapidus, TooMuch isNever Enough, n. 74. Lapidus quoted in P.M. East, n.p. 32-36 (see 1). 75. Lapidus quoted in Press Release JE8-4152, Helen Baum/Public Rela 95. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, "Introduction," in Philip Johnson, Philip tions, 1955, p. 1, box 2, folder: Writings and Essays 1946-59, MLP. Johnson: Architecture 1949-55 (New York, 1966), 18. on 76. See Robert Venturi et al., Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, Mass., 96. James T. Burns, "Critical Trialogue Johnson's Lincoln Center The 1972); and Tom Wolfe, From Our House to Bauhaus (New York, 1981). ater," Progressive Architecture 45 (May 1964), 58-59. n. see 77. Lapidus, "A Quest for Emotion in Architecture," 57 (see 66). 97. On Johnson and the so-called ballet school, Franz Schulze, Philip 78. Morris Lapidus, The Architecture ofJoy (Miami, 1979), 214. Johnson: Life and Work (New York, 1994), 253-63. For attribution of the see 79. Lapidus, "A Quest for Emotion in Architecture," 55-57. term "ballet school" to Banham, Timothy Rohan, "Rendering the Sur 80. See Banham, "Ornament and Crime." See also Adolf Loos, "Ornament face: Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building at Yale," Grey Room 1 on 106. and Crime" (1908), rpt. in Programs andManifestoes 20th Century Archi (Fall 2000), 98,

516 JSAH / 66:4, DECEMBER 2007 n. 98. Josephson, "Lapidus: Pornography of Comfort," 109 (see 55). going president of the Architectural League; letters from Architectural are 99. Alice Friedman, "People who Live in Glass Houses," inWomen and the League members supporting and vetoing the show reprinted in Lapidus, n. Making of theModem House (New York, 1998), 149-52. The Architecture ofJoy, 211-15 (see 78). 100. The literature on camp is considerable. See David Bergman, ed., Camp 114. Peter Eisenman, "Letter to Arthur Rosenblatt, President, Architec Grounds: Style and Homosexuality (Amherst, 1993); Friedman cites Jack tural League of New York," 17 July 1970, rpt. inMorris Lapidus: Architec Babuscio's essay "Camp and Gay Sensibility" in Bergman's volume. See also ture ofJoy. Meyer, The Politics and Poetics of Camp (see n. 34); and Andrew Ross, "Uses 115. John Margolies, "Now, Once and For All, Know Why I Did It," Pro of Camp," inNo Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture (London, 1989). gressive Architecture 51 (Sept. 1970), 118-23. was 101. Johnson quoted in P.M. East. 116. This work included in the first comprehensive exhibition of on 102. Susan Sontag, "Notes Camp," (1964), rpt. in Sontag, Against Inter Lapidus's work, "Forty Years of Art and Architecture," held at the Univer pretation (New York, 2001), 275-92. sity of Miami in 1967. 103. Ibid. Sontag's downplaying of the relationship between camp and the 117. Quoted in Huxtable, "Show Offers 'Joy' of Hotel Architecture," 60. gay identity may have been partly a defensive strategy since, in the mid Alan Lapidus, the architect's son, designed the exhibition. own n. 1960s, Sontag was in the midst of her struggle with homosexuality. 118. Josephson, "Lapidus: Pornography of Comfort," 108-9 (see 55). 104. Thomas Meehan, "Not Good Taste, Not Bad Taste?It's Camp," New 119. Lapidus himself appears to have not fully understood Josephson's on as an York Times Magazine (21 Mar. 1966), 30, 113-15; and Sontag, "Notes analysis and mistook her analogy accusation. See Lapidus, The Archi Camp," 286. tecture ofJoy, 221. was was 105. Meehan, "Not Good Taste, Not Bad Taste," 114. 120. Like pornography, Lapidus's work something that existed but was at 106. Because Andy Warhol's queer identity largely ignored the time, better left undiscussed. This parallels Lapidus's recollection of what Frank to the relationship between camp and pop was overlooked. On Warhol, see Lloyd Wright said him when they met in the mid-1950s: "Miami Beach? Jennifer Doyle et al., eds., Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Durham, N.C., 1996). You've done some work down there? Well, if I were you I wouldn't talk a 107. Johnny Sex, go-go dancing member of Warhol's entourage, com about it."Wright quoted by Jack Kassewitz inMiami News, 24 Feb. 1964, mented memorably on these aspects of Lapidus's work: "I stayed at the rpt. inMorris Lapidus: Architecture ofJoy. a wear Fontainebleau when I was child and have been trying to the lobby 121. Josephson, "Lapidus: Pornography of Comfort," 109. ever since." Quoted in Cohen, "Morris Lapidus," 149 (see n. 13). 122. Lapidus quoted in Cook and Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 157 n. 108. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, "A Significance for A&P (see 10); and Douglas Davis, "Architect of Joy," Newsweek (2Nov. 1970), or even so to Parking Lots, Learning from Las Vegas," Architectural Forum 128 (Mar. 103. Lapidus went far as reject is earlier functionalism, claiming an 1968), 38. They visited the Fontainebleau again in 1972, this time in the in interview with Margolies that he curved the Fountainebleau simply company of Lapidus from whom, as Scott Brown recalled, they hoped to because he wanted to and not for any programmatic reason. See John Mar an learn "how a skilled designer creates stage sets for recreation." Scott Brown, golies, "Excerpts from Interview with Morris Lapidus, March 1970," in "MyMiami Beach," Interview 16 (Sept. 1986), 156. Morris Lapidus: Architecture ofJoy. 109. John Margolies, "Morris Lapidus: Pro and Con," inMorris Lapidus: 123. Huxtable, "Show Offers 'Joy' of Hotel Architecture," 60. n. Architecture ofJoy, n.p. (see 64). 124. Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977; rpt. was 110. The phrase "architecture of joy" borrowed from Louis Sullivan's New York, 1987), 10. an Autobiography of Idea (1924; rpt. New York, 1956), 258: "The free spirit 125. Alessandro Mendini, "Dear Mr. Lapidus," Domus 610 (Oct. 1980), 1. is the spirit of joy." Subsequently, Lapidus would claim that using "joy" was 126. Paul Rudnick, "The Irony Epidemic," Spy 3 (Mar. 1989), 35. his idea, but in his 1979 autobiography, he recalls expressing skepticism 127. See Joel Sanders, "Kontaminierte Moderne," Bauwelt, 31Mar. 1995, an when Margolies suggested it.Margolies confirmed this in interview with 600-5; Beth Dunlop, "Lapidus Laughs Last," Architectural Record 184 (Sept. Gabrielle Esperdy, Apr. 2004. 1996), 92-97; and "Lapidus Cuts Loose," Architecture 86 (Feb. 1997), 41^3. 111. See, for example, "Show a Success but the Backers Walked Out," Pro 128. This is according to his childhood friend Manfred Lee, author of the as gressive Architecture 51 (Oct. 1970), 28; "Lapidus Subject of Exhibit," Archi Ellery Queen mysteries, quoted inMillstein, "Architect De Luxe of tectural Record 148 (Nov. 1970), 37; andMartin Pawley, "The Emperor Did Miami Beach," 38 (see n. 18). Have Clothes After All," Architectural Design 41 (Feb. 1971), 72. 112. See Ada Louise Huxtable, "Show Offers 'Joy' of Hotel Architecture," Illustration Credits sec. New York Times, I, 15 Oct. 1970, 60; and Russell Lynes, "Architecture Figure 1.Gelberg-Victor. and Illusion," Architectural Digest 37 (Oct. 1980), 48. Figures 2-5, 7,10,12,13,15,17,18. Gottscho-Schleisner Archive, Library 113. Ulrich Franzen, "The Joy Boy," Architectural Forum 133 (Oct. 1970), of Congress was 67. Moholy-Nagy and Franzen also implied that Lapidus seeking to Figures 6, 8, 9, 16.Morris Lapidus Papers, Special Collections Research an legitimize himself through association with the august Architectural Center, Syracuse University Library even was League, though the show had not been his idea. Franzen the out Figures 11, 14. Ezra Stoller/Esto

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