"I Am a Modernist"

"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,

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