Aloha High School, Portland, Oregon Architects: Hewlett, Jamison & Atkinson, Portland,
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On Reader Service Card, Circle 301 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF William Marlin
MANAGING EDITOR 4 LETTERS Paul R. Violi 11 BOOKS ASSOCIATE EDITORS Janet Bloom 14 FOCUS Suzanne Stephens
ART DIRECTOR 18 FACETS Terrence Edwards A monthly review of events and ideas.
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT 23 FORUM Cindy Tarver
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT 24 FORMED UP JN FAITH Joel H. Cleveland The Christian Science Center in Boston's Back Bay embodies a regenerative attitude toward our society and cities. CORRESPONDENTS Carleton Knight II I (Wash. D. C.) 40 RETURN OF THE MEGASTRUCTURE Roger Lang (Boston) A one-building campus counters contemporary thinking George McCue (St. Louis) but has been warmly received by users and public. M. W. Newman (Chicago) Peter Papademetriou (Houston) 48 ROSEMARY AND TIME Imponderables become instructive elements of this well-sited Connecticut school. CORRESPONDENTS-AT-LARGE Edward K. Carpenter 56 SENSUOUS SURFACES Fran P. Hosken Glossy materials and geometric forms dramatize a new headquarters for a savings bank.
BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS 60 EUROPEAN TRAVELERS Vernon R. Alden Visitors to 19th century America made many interesting Bertram Berenson and acerbic criticisms of its architecture. Charles William Brubaker, FAIA By Mireille T. Ayoub. Donald Canty 66 NOTES FROM A PASSING CAR Ivan Chermayeff The problems of art in a mobile environment. George A. Dudley, AIA By James Wines. Henry Fagin, AIP 79 PRODUCTS Martin Friedman R. Buckminster Fuller 86 PRODUCT LITERATURE C. Richard Hatch Philip H. Hiss Cover: The Christian Science Center's Colonnade Samuel Kaplan building photographed by Yukio Futagawa. Donlyn Lyndon, AIA i Charles W. Moore, FAIA John Naisbitt Edmund D. Pellegrino M.D. Roger Schafer Patwant Singh Barbara Ward Beverly Willis, AIA
Douglas Haskell, FAIA
1 PUBLISHER Charles E. Whitney
THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM: Published 10 by Whitney Publications, Inc., subsidiary times a year, combining Jan./Feb. and of Billboard Publications, Inc., all rights July/Aug. issues, at 130 E. 59th St., New reserved. Title registered ® in U.S. Patent Whitney Publications subsidiary also pub York, N.Y. 10022, by Whitney Publications, Office. The contents of this publication lishes Industrial Design, Interiors and books Inc., subsidiary of Billboard Publications, may not be reproduced in whole or in Inc. EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING OFFICES: part without consent of the copyright in the Whitney Library of Design. Other owner. Controlled circulation postage paid Billboard publications include Amusement 130 E. 59th St., New York, N.Y. 10022. at Cleveland, Ohio 44114, and New York, Business, Billboard, Gift & Tableware Re Telephone: (212) 764-7300. Sent without N.Y. 10022. Postmaster, please send 3579 to porter, Merchandising Week, Photo Weekly, charge to architects registered in the U.S. Whitney Publications, Inc., 2160 Patterson Vend, American Artist, High Fidelity, Stereo, and Canada. Qualified persons are invited to Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45214. write the Circulation Manager on company Modern Photography; Music Week and OTHER ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES: Chi letterhead, giving principal state of archi Record Mirror, London; World Radio-TV cago: 150 N. Wacker Drive, Zip 60606. Handbook, Copenhagen; Billboard Japan/ tectural registration, title and kind of work (312) 644-6763. San Francisco: Cole, Sweeney Music Labo, Tokyo. done. All others: $2 a copy. Yearly subscrip & Anthony, 85 Post St., 5th Floor, Zip tion price in U.S. and possessions, $14; 2 94104. (415) 397-7279. Los Angeles: Cole, years, $26; 3 years, $36; Canada, $15 a year; elsewhere, $30. Send subscriptions Sweeney & Anthony, 1830 W. 8th St., z;p with payment to: Architectural Forum, Sub 90057. (213) 388-0521. Hilton Head Island, scription Department, 2160 Paterson Street, S.C.: Paul Yergens, 6 Cedar Waxwing Rd., t?ABP Cincinnati, Ohio 45214. Copyright © 1973 Zip 29928. (803) 671-2740.
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On Reader Service Ca rd, Circle 304 pilotis; order = column grid, and all architecture can fall the critical policy issues which light; view = free facade). These claim to, no architectural issues must be resolved if the United five points indicate a general were discussed. States is to have a housing as [ETTERS] rather than a specific attitude Unfortunately if Colin Rowe's sistance program of any major towards building. This attitude article was more carefully con dimension in relationship to the is amplified by the metaphoric sidered, important issues might housing needs of low income and symbolic content alluded have been discovered, such as families. Messrs. Hirshen and to in Colin Rowe's article as the discussion of the schism be LeGates have performed a valu the "spirit of the age." (A de tween formal content and social, able service by introducing the FIVE ON FIVE sign symbolizing a rocket ship moral and political constructs. dialogue into The FORUM. FORUM: Next in the develop or 747 would be closer to Corb's It can be argued that a one-to The article should really be ment of the "Five Architects" ideas than steamships, an o n e relationship cannot be entitled "Low Income Housing's polemic (May '73) could be a eclectic attitude similar to copy found, however one must also Dreary Deadlock Revisited", for rebuttal by the original Five, a ing column capitols which was ask if any significant architec the reasons why public housing criticism of the second Five by decried by Corb.) This gen ture can be produced without has not been "widely embraced" another Five or a presentation eral attitude is most clearly ex both present, or the former or "become a popular and ac of the second Five's work in emplified by the houses in the tested by the latter. Or what cepted program" are that, even order to clarify their positions. 1910 - 1929 Oeuvre Complete. effect does the 'hope' or 'guilt' in its limited scope, it continues To avoid a time lag and to Villa Meyer, Maison Cook, Villa of the architect have on the to probe and test the unpopular continue to spark public dia a Garches, Villa Savoye are building's meaning? Can there issues which must be resolved logue, I urge you to give the studies and statements for the be a rich architecture based on in any low income housing ef second Five the opportunity to Immeuble Villas proposal of form alone, or must it not be fort. Basically, these issues are: publish their work. minimum housing requirements tested, informed and enriched • Where shall low-income fam New York, N.Y. ANDREW MacNAIR for workers. Maison Citroen, by polemics? Can forms be ad ilies live in a community? Guiette, and Weissenhof led to mired when they serve only the • What kind and quality of The original Five were given the Unite. "decor de la vie for Greenwich, housing shall be made available the opportunity to reply but There is enough information Conn.," a too often unescapable to them with public assistance? they declined.-ED. in the "Five Points" to realize and unchallenged trap for to • How shall housing manage- 1 that the "Five Architects" have day's architects? ment be geared to total oppor FORUM: It was stimulating to little in common with LeCor JON ;';fICHAEL SCHWARTING New York, N. Y. Architect tunities for the family: employ read such literate observations busier. None of the buildings ment, health and education? on architectural design, a sub represent a conviction or defin BAL-KRISHNA DOSHI • What level of federal assist ject so seldom discussed in re ite attitude toward these ideas. FORUM: The basic honesty and ance is required, and will have cent years. They are either generalized pro humaneness of Bal-Krishna Do acceptance for a low-income Venturi certainly deserves posals about other ideas (Eisen shi's work (May '73) and its housing program? much of the credit for creating man, Hejduk), or they are great good sense and humility No program, other than pub this provocative atmosphere. very specific and do not explore offer a refreshing antidote to lic housing, has wrestled with WILLIAM HAMILTON ROEHL Neu1 York, N. Y. Architect problems other than those re the steady diet of conceptual these issues for so long, on so lated to the building. (Nor are clutter and high style that broad a scale, and with such FORUM: Neither the "Five Arch they a development of these FORUM is so fond of dishing up. a variety of approaches. The itects" nor the "Five on Five" ideas, for neither clarity nor Another rare exception (in the story of this experience has can, in general, be considered useful, or essential compromise same issue, yet!) was "Five on never really been told in a com to be particularly didactic, since has ensued.) And furthermore, Five," a sensible and well-writ prehensive or incisive way. It the few incidences of inspiration they are not a mannerist ma ten collection of critical essays, would be a major contribution, seem to be lost in the inten nipulation of "a self-conscious, if there ever was one. if FORUM would undertake a tions of each of the overall pre dissenting, frustrated style", as DAVID GUSTAFSON series of articles on the public Minneapolis, Minn. Architect sentations. However, some bas the indices to "a period of tor housing experience geared to ic generalizations have been menting doubt, and rigorous en these policy issues. NAHRO NEAL AWARD made which are obviously dis forcement of no longer self-un would gladly assist in develop FORUM: Congratulations for re torted and attention should be derstood dogma, as the external ing such articles. ceiving the Jesse H. Neal Edito given them. effects of mental disquiet, dis Public housing, over its 35- rial Achievement A ward. There It becomes apparent after the equilibrium, schism." (From year history, has had success aren't many magazines which statements are presented, criti Rowe and Slutzky's Transpar as well as failures, as HUD can do more than pick out pret cized, and re-criticized, that the ency II, Perspecta 13, 14.) Per Assistant Secretary for Housing ty pictures, and we are all grate name and work of LeCorbusier haps an argument could be Management Norman Watson ful to you for lending an in has become the fulcrum of this made that they are Baroque, but observed on leaving office on sightful, intellectual approach see-saw battle. Moreover, it is Baroque space was never close January 20: to the issues of the day. served as both a shield and a ly related to Renaissance "There are some g re a t I should have written earlier sword and therefore leads one thought, as the Five are like strengths in the local agencies. to comment on the San Fran to question the substance of wise unrelated to LeCorbusier. "Sure, they can be criticized cisco issue. Many people men both offense and defense. In light of this, the critical re for not changing their way of tioned it to me, and all with One can examine for exam views by the second Five that doing business, being a bit con praise. ple, LeCorbusier's "Five Points" based their argument on the servative-but they haven't had G~:RALD M. McCUB, FAIA as a check-off list: 1) Pilotis affinity of LeCorbusier and the San Francisco, Ca. the money to hire expensive 2) Roof garden 3) Free plan first Five were either naive or consultants and buy advanced 4) Horizontal strip windows 5) attempting to perpetuate mis DREARY DEADLOCK REVISITED technology. Free facade. These are formal de understanding. In either case, FORUM: I believe that the Hir "They still have the greatest vices for resolving and express it renders the criticism some shen - LeGates article (March body of experience, in satisfying ing technological proposals (col thing less than instructive. By '73) is a timely and useful sum and providing housing for the umn - slab = free facade, free dismissing the work as 'neo mary of some of the recent pub low-income population. You may plan) and social proposals (pro Corbusian', except for the kind lic housing experience. There not always agree with their so- gram cc_ free plan, roof garden, of picayune criticism that any is need for a deep probing of (Continued on page 8)
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On Reader Service Card, Circle 306 PPG: a Concern for the Future history, that public housing ap units, it appeared that public years of public housing experi peared on the verge of a break housing might reach the annual ence indicates that such an ap through was in the early 1960's levels of 150,000 to 200,000 units proach will not be easy to I when a new authorization for annually projected in the orig formulate. [ETTERS ROBERT W. llIAFFI" 100,000 housing units in the inal 1968 Housing Goals. Two Executive Director 1961 Housing Act was coupled things occurred at this point: National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (Continued from page 4) with a drive for good though ( 1) the increasing impact of in Washington, D.C. modest, housing design, and a flation on public housing operat lutions, but they understand the program to house low-income ing costs (the Urban Institute FORUM: Messrs. Hirsh en and problems. elderly. This approach to pub has estimated that four-fifths of LeGates' analytical article pro "While problems of public lic housing did, in fact, succeed, the increase in public housing vides useful and, I believe, an housing 'are just fantastic' in resulting in the development of costs in the years 1965 to 1968 encouraging review of the sig major cities, in communities say public housing in large and small was due to inflation); and (2) nificant reforms in public hous of 300,000 or less there's out communities in almost all of the the progressive financial impact ing development and subsidy standing public housing, nothing 50 states. By 1966, over 30 of the 1969, 1970 and 1971 techniques that have been wrong with it." percent of public housing was Brooke Amendments, w h i c h adopted since recommended six The chief failure of public occupied by elderly. moved the public housing pro teen years ago. (Mr. Hirshen's housing is that it has not been Yet, even here, although the gram further in the direction of views, for one, are important able to devise an approach barriers to the first three critical serving the very lowest income because he himself has quarter- i a comprehensive housing policy issues were broken, there was families, (by mandating that no backed many recent reforms in -which will respond to all of no massive expansion in re family should pay more than improved tenants' rights and the four critical issues noted sponse to the need, or to local 25 percent of its adjusted in ably defended the democratiz above in a way to permit a requests for assistance. Look come for rent) including those ing new lease and grievance large-scale low income housing ing at some of the public hous who had zero incomes after the procedures against court at effort. ing for the elderly in the m,id authorized deductions and paid tack.) Three times, since 1949, it ap l 960's and seeing the enthusi no rent. Within the short space The quality and scope of the peared that public housing might astic response of the elderly oc of three years, housing authori improvements are impressive, be on the verge of a major cupants,. a Professor from a ties all over the country were particularly because most have , breakthrough: in the early large eastern university (the di in deep financial crisis, because taken place since 1964 and in 1950's, in the early 1960's and rector of a Ford Foundation the federal operating subsidies, view of the fact that public ' in the period from 1968 to 1971. project to assist the elderly be intended to absorb the losses housing has held a low place The Housing Act of 1949 ing displaced) remarked: "This in rental income mandated by in the priorities of HUD at linked an expanded goal for is an answer-we should build the Congress, as well as main least since 1968. public housing of 810,000 new public housing like this for the tain adequate operating serv Nevertheless, t h e "revisit" housing units over six years, to elderly all across the country." ices and maintenance, were not does not end upbeat. While the a newly-launched urban rede Yet, it has not happened in a forthcoming from the Admin authors would be the last to velopment effort which was de volume truly responsive to the istration either quickly enough run up the flag, there is re vised to provide the comple need. Nor has the effort to or in the volume required. Yet, flected in their article a preva mentary support of new neigh extend the types of public hous even with an inadequate re lent mood that the public hous borhood facilities and services, ing available to the elderly sponse to fund the legislation ing program has been under making possible a "suitable liv through "congregate housing" mandate, the operating subsidy siege too long to survive. ing environment." Yet, the de facilities, been permitted to be in public housing rose from a The authors accurately point cade of the 1950's became a tested in any significant way. level of $15 million in fiscal 1969 out the controversies over place period of restrictive and short There seems no answer as to to an estimated $300 million in ment of family projects in mid sighted federal policies: cut why these things do not hap fiscal 1973. dle class neighborhoods, the backs in public housing starts; pen except to conclude that the The Administration has begun effect on public housing units heavy restrictions on housing federal government is not will to slow-down new public hous of inner city deterioration, ad design and quality; lack of sup ing to make the financial com ing contracts-from 101,000 new ministration impoundment of port for social services; and mitment-the fourth critical pol units in the fiscal year ending needed funds and that the pro local battles by real estate in icy issue has not been sur June, 1972, to an estimated gram "has not gained broad terests against new public hous mounted, even with the appeal 46,000 units for the year end public popularity." ing locations. Rather than bene of the elderly. ing in June, 1973. The fourth There is a creeping readiness fiting as a partner in the urban The third time that public critical policy issue-acceptance among some longtime supporters redevelopment effort, p u b 1 i c housing appeared in a position of the estimated cost-became of public housing to plead guilty housing often became the "hous to make a breakthrough, fol a controlling factor. On Janu to the popular charges that pub ing of last resort" for disad lowed the adoption of the 1968 ary, 1973, an 18-month mora lic housing has failed. The plea, vantaged families displaced by Housing Goals, and the increas torium on all new federally-as I believe, is like that of an in the renewal activity. The end ing acceptance of the Section sisted housing commitments was nocent man who has been im product of the federal policies 23 leasing of private housing, announced by the Administra prisoned too long and who be which dominated public hous and the growing involvement of tion, covering FHA-assisted gins to think that he must have ing in the 1950's in major Amer the private builder through the housing and public housing. done something warranting the ican cities were massive "proj "Turnkey" construction method. It may be that there is an indictment. ects" located in declining and The annual level of new public approach, other than those That public housing-a social blighted neighborhoods, increas housing contracts had grown tried in the public housing pro program-is not "popular" nor ingly occupied by concentra gradually from the 20,000 to gram, which can succeed in reached expected goals is not tions of the poorest families who 30,000 unit level of the 1950's, gaining the measure of support surprising. Good grief! Has could not join the rush to the to a level of 50,000 in the mid necessary for a large-scale low there been such progress or pop suburbs. Local communities l 960's, to a record level of over income housing effort. But any ularity in school desegregation, were given the option of ac 101,000 units in the fiscal year such approach must confront all job re-training, inner-city edu cepting public housing on these ending in June, 1972. With a of the four basic policy issues cation, suburban integration, terms, or not at all. backlog of requests from local which control the fate of low- tax reform, income redistribu- The second time, in recent communities of almost 500,000 income housing. Thirty-five (Continued on page IO)
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10 cisco, are reclaiming this bit of evenings. He quotes an English city for their spacious homes in 19th-century America in a joint man writing in the 1820's: "It the suburbs or they were mov effort by people who care as is customary to sit on the steps ing into high-luxury apartment well as by governmental and that ornament the entrances of buildings on the fashionable private institutions. the houses." East and West Sides. Hundreds IBDOKSI In "Bricks and Brownstone" Pointing to a developing trend of brownstones were demolished Charles Lockwood takes the to uniformity of scale and ap for high-rise apartment build BRICKS AND BROWNSTONE. By reader on a nostalgic journey pearance, he says that by the ings and hundreds of others Charles Lockwood. Published by into the past, a detailed study 1830's, New Yorkers "had be were turned into rooming McGraw-Hill, New York. $17.95. of the evolution of this sort of gun to tire of the usual street houses. citified housing. built up haphazardly, wherein But the death and burial of Mr. Lockwood outlines and each house is of different height the brownstone was not to be REVIEWED BY CHARLES E. DOLE discusses the major architectural and composed of different ma as a new generation began to styles and their effect on the terials." The Le Roy Place and buy up and restore some of the American city, notably New Depau Row blockfronts emerged remaining buildings which were, York-the Federal, Greek Re which "afford a new evidence in effect, pulled from the scrap vival, Italianate, Anglo-Italian of the surprising improvements heap. "Besicles making for a ate, and Second Empire. He be visible in the city," according to healthier city," concludes Mr. gins with Gotham in 1783. The a guidebook to New York writ Lockwood, "the brownstone re British were beaten and so was ten in the 1830's, "and have a vival also has saved thousands New York, in effect. Before the uniform color, and present an of fine nineteenth-century war, the city was a thriving so imposing appearance." houses and several architectural cial and commercial metropolis. Supplanting the Federal tradi ly distinguished neighborhoods After it, in 1783, it showed mute tion was the emergence of the for the enjoyment of Americans evidence of the horrors of war Greek Revival style in the 1830's as yet unborn." and no city in the fledgling new with their superb free-standing An architectural purist, Mr. nation had suffered as much columned doorway porches. "The Lockwood gets right down to physical damage. Its popula late 1840's and early 1850's were the stone and mortar of his sub tion was halved, from 25,000 to years of architectural ferment ject. "I systematically walked about 12,000. Yet this was the in New York," writes the au off the blocks with remaining platform from which a new city thor. "After decades in re nineteenth-century row houses was to rise; and by 1790, its strained red-brick-front Federal throughout Manhattan and population was up to 33,000. and Greek Revival style row Brooklyn to examine the archi The author picks up the houses, New Yorkers now tectural styles and to become growth of the city from this yearned for picturesque and im acquainted with these areas," he post-Revolutionary War nadir, pressive dwellings which would says. "I visited numerous up through a series of building reflect the wealth, social com houses to view interior archi booms, and concludes with the petition, and the rising Roman tectural design of the different decline of the brownstone after tic movement in architecture," eras." the turn of the 20th century. he adds. The Italianate style Part of the book's treasure New York City quickly oblit appeared in the late 1840's. is its scores of masterful pic erated any trace of its early It was inside the front door tures, many of which show in Dutch beginnings. The archi that one found the full richness delicate detail the architectural tectural style for its developing of the architectural mode. The features which the author row houses after the Revolution wood and plaster of the interior chooses to emphasize. Informa With the never-ending need for was the Federal, a link between were far easier to work than tion in the book provides valu better housing in urban America, the English Georgian style of the brownstone of the street able documentation and guidance the venerable brownstone offers prewar days and the Classical front, says Mr. Lockwood. "We in the proper way to restore fresh hope, a substantial alter revivals to come. The houses must peep within the palaces some of the tarnished old build native to suburbia, to thousands were modest in scale and orna if we would comprehend the ings to their onetime glory. of people. ment. "The narrow front of a full extent of their splendor," Many of these in-city renovators Long ignored and too often row house," the author adds wrote a newspaper describing are people of less than great allowed to decay, there is now "also discouraged a pretentious the dwellings rising along Fifth affluence but rather those who an awakened interest in this architectural treatment"-even Avenue after the Civil War. He have tired of the suburban rou architectural genre. In some so, they had dignity. goes into some detail about the tine and cookie-cutter sameness cities such as New York, it's a Of the nearly universal front marble used in the marvelous or else have an overriding de literal revival, where the brown stoop, Mr. Lockwood says it did buildings; and quotes, for ex sire to upgrade the urban fabric stone row house has been serve a practical as well as ample, from an 1853 Godey's by helping to reweave a portion wrapped in a protective coat decorative function. "Because Lady's Book magazine which of it. They have vision even ing by, for example, the big Manhattan and Brooklyn blocks visited a marble-mantel works if not too much cash. city's Landmarks Preservation rarely had service alleys behind in Philadelphia. In the "stone "Bricks and Brownstone" is Commission. The old stone the houses, as in fine streets in cutter's department, workmen one of a number of row-house structures, in short, are again Philadelphia or Baltimore, the carved elaborate forms and revival books, but this one is respectful. doorway under the stoop pro ornament into the marble with oriented more toward the archi Whole neighborhoods, from vided a much-needed separate steel tools and wood mallets." tectural history of the brown Boston to Savannah, Chicago to entrance to the kitchen by way The final chapter deals with stone than as a how-to-do-it Richmond, and Washington, of the basement hallway." the New York row house from book for novice renovators. D.C., and Baltimore to San Fran- Also, in the early 19th cen 1875 to 1929 and pinpoints the Mr. Lockwood knows whereof tury, well-to-do New Yorkers al gradual decline and the reasons he writes. After all, he owns ready had discovered the pleas behind it. Many wealthy fami a century-old brownstone in Mr. Dole is the real estate editor of The Christian Science Monitor. ures of "stoop sitting" on warm lies were beginning to quit the Brooklyn.
FORU M-SEPTEM B ER-1973 11 •
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9Keep informed. Every member automatically receives the AJA J OUmal 1Hal offer for non-members: six months ofservices for 510. and the MEM0' a twice- American Institute of Architects 1735 New York Ave., N .W., Washington, D.C. 20006 month! y newsletter. ( Note to D Please send me details of your six-month trial offer. members:If points 1 through D Please send me more specific information on point(s)#__ above.
8 come as a surprise, you Name haven't been reading these Address, ______. hone.____ _ publications.) _c_ity_-~_-_-_ -_ -_ -- ---_-_-_sra_te::::~~~~~~~-z_ip======......
On Reader Service Card, Circle 308 13 IFOCUSI
SPORTING WITH NATURE hour's drive from San Juan. grove and golf course and a hill In a joint venture Architects There will be no high rises, nor side village that will be devel Niddrie/Todd/Cabrera have de their shadows, nor honky tonk oped later. signed a tennis village for Pal neon. The land use patterns are The developers reserve the mas Del Mar, Puerto Rico. The based on the best found in right to modify the master plan developer is a subsidiary of Sea European resorts. Amenities in according to their most recent Pines Company which built Sea clude nature trails for walking research and input sought from Pines Plantation in South Caro and riding; a tropical conservan residents. Architectural guide lina, the first community in the cy with 20-foot ferns and wild lines, administered by the com United States to receive the orchids; six miles of coast and pany's Architectural Review AIA's Citation for Excellence in four miles of crescent beaches. Committee, discourage fads Private Community Planning. In The terrain includes a former either historic or modern-yet keeping with their other efforts, sugar plantation, flat lowland, encourage keeping the Mediter Palmas de! Mar will conserve rolling hills, and rocky promon ranean in mind along with the natural configurations and open tories in a climate continually best in tropical climate design. space by a predominantly cluster moderated by tradewinds. The There is an odd taboo-some development. residential area is to cover 60 what contradictory to both of The tennis village in its first percent of the site. The balance these directives-against the use phase (photos) will have 24 will be green belts, golf courses of white or light cream colors villas and 19 courts, with an and other recreation areas con on residential buildings, which ultimate capacity of 800 villas, nected by walks and bike paths. are to be colors of the forest, 40 courts and a 2,500 seat na The total development over ten hillsides and coast. White is re tural amphitheater for tourna years will ultimately include served for an occasional public ments, exhibitions and clinics 4,750 villas (attached housing), building. Allowable materials staged by resident tennis stars. and 850 individual homesites. are displayed in the building This village is one of four in The social and nautical center standards room. And the com the 2,300 acre Palmas de! Mar will be Harbour Village with pany will gladly furnish a list of community which has an antici plazas for sidewalk cafes and architects. We hope the stric pated first phase cost of $15,- discotheques connected by ca tures are challenges to the best 000,000. The development is on nals. There will also be a beach conservatism rather than ready the island's southeast coast, an village amid a 150 acre coconut rubber stamps of mediocrity.
14 LOOP DE LIU Site work is just starting on tom, be years off. the Koo residence in Hong Kong Though this house looks ex by Liu Urban Design Associ pensive, it won't be in Hong ates, based in New York. It Kong where complicated form is a most pleasing relief to dis work can be done without pay cover that this first-glance fan ing a penalty. (Mr. Liu says the tasia turns out to be a highly reason for building boxes there pragmatic and ingenious solu now is that it's the "latest tion to an extremely steep, thing" rather than representing tight site where zoning allowed what available labor can best only 15 percent coverage and do.) With the exception of the only three floors of enclosed over ten-foot-high spaces, and space. With an open loggia the curved living room windows below, overlooking the pool, a requiring custom mullions, the semi-open carpark above, and architect feels the house is a three split levels in between, straightforward response to the Henry Liu has not only made challenge of climate and ter the most of the situation but rain. We find it exhilarating provided cross-ventilation for all and are reassured to see that enclosed spaces pending instal the straightforward can still be lation of air-conditioning (re such. The Forum will publish qumng no tearing away of the Koo residence upon its com walls) which may, as is the cus- pletion in mid-1974.
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15 A-COURTIN' ON TIMES SQUARE island and intersection to a wings are a sequence of ter New York is slated to have its pedestrian oriented space with raced rooms and skylights il very own Portman hotel on a large plaza and extended side luminating the court (section). Times Square between 45th and walks. Efforts are also being The go-ahead for the build 46th Streets on the west side made to control the physical de ing awaits approval (perhaps of Broadway, opening in 1977. sign and uses of the building in August) of three items by Incorporating a new and re frontages by creation of a the City Planning Commission modeled theater, it will help special district. and the Board of Estimate. One, bring back the Great White Way The hotel is an offshoot of a zoning remapping to permit glitter which has succumbed to planning for the controversial the back half of the site to equal less spirited theaters built in Convention Center (by SOM) the front half in floor area ratio; recent office buildings as a re on the Hudson River. Mr. Port i.e., bringing the back half to 15, sult of a concomitant bonus in man says, "It would have to the highest FAR in midtown and floor space offered by the city's meet all the needs of a person lower Manhattan. Additionally, special Theater District zoning coming to New York to attend two special permits are re aimed at keeping the area alive. a large convention-legitimate quired: One for a 20 percent The Office of Midtown Plan theater, shopping, gourmet din bonus in floor area, and modi ning and Development regards ing, and night life. Of course, fications of height and set back the project as the chief catalyst it would have first-class meet regulations, in exchange for for the redevelopment of the ing and exhibition spaces. We providing a theater and other area which, despite its seedy felt that if we could offer all amenities. The Office of Mid undergrowth, is expected to be these with a controlled environ town Planning and Development the next major area of mid ment which also created a sense is recommending the full 20 per town development, comparable of closeness with nature and the cent Theater District bonus to and an extension of that soaring dimensions of New which equals an FAR of 21.6; which has taken place on Sixth York's skyline, we would have the announced design assumes Avenue in the last decade. There a truly new experience for our the full bonus. The second per will be considerable public in guests." mit is for a public parking teraction with the new hotel The feature attractions of the garage to serve business gen building, given its seven-story building are two central courts: erated on site, mainly by the retail space, two revolving one seven stories high through hotel and theaters. restaurants and a sidewalk the retail section, the other 37 The project is being developed cafe, several ground level public stories high through the hotel. by Portman Properties and areas including an extension of Twelve glass elevators rise Peter Sharp both reportedly en Schubert Alley, over 2,000 through reflecting pools at the joying initial responses to the rooms, a new 1,050-seat theater, base of each of the two courts, building including such descrip a renovated 1,340-seat 46th St. one at the lowest shopping tions as: A wishing well, a Theater, and a 400-car garage. level and one at the level of bottomless pit, your mother's Further development for the the hotel lobby. In the hotel old washboard. From our stand area, now being contemplated, portion, the rooms open onto point, any Portman in a storm emphasizes the transformation balcony corridors overlooking (especially that of Times of Times Square from a traffic the court. Between the side Square) will do just fine.
HOUSE OF DECKS The Snell house in Amagansett, time. And the night lighting, of which three boys have their an outdoor shower. The V-cuts Long Island, the first residence on dimmers, very sensitively ac bedrooms, each with its own in the front exposing the para designed by Franklin Israel, 27, commodates reading and listen outdoor exit. The kitchen is pet wall and the vertical detail has all the spaciousness, open ing to music. The frame on open to the central dining area on the north give centrality to ness and light one could hope the north elevation reduces glare as well as a walled-in, roofless the facades. The cedar siding for in a beach house. The cli in the sitting areas of the mas outdoor dining room. The mas has weathered to a very satis ents are most pleased by the ter bedroom upstairs and the ter bedroom sundeck is the only fying, light, light, sandy grey. light. The sun hits the multi living room downstairs. A clere place from which one can see PHOTOGRAPHS: Page 14, Louis Check plicity of decks at just the right story illuminates the hall off the water. Under its steps is man. I 1, 11"1 '
16 A Yale solution to a Brandeis University problem.
"College students love challenges. Sometimes a school's locks and security hardware become that challenge. "They duplicate keys. Create new ones. And that can be a problem for a school with thousands of doors, like Brandeis University. "So when Brandeis came to us for a solu tion for their Art & Theater Buildings, we went to the Yale specialists. "And, together, we worked out a new and special grand master key system. It consists of Yale® bicentric cylinders with highly restricted key blanks.
oav1d H. Eskin "Special service? Of course. But that's the D. H. Eskin Co, Inc., Boston, Mass Yale Distributors Way We like to do things-big Or Small'.' That's just like a Yale distributor. They help architects with consultations, specifications and hardware schedules. For contractors they carry a full line of architectural hardware and building materials. They co-ordinate hollow metal doors and frames. And troubleshoot on jobs. Last but not least, they offer the owner post-construction service, maintenance, and problem solving. So why not consider all this before your next job? For further information write: Eaton Corporation, Lock and Hardware Division, Yale Marketing Department, P.O. Box 25288, Charlotte, N .C. 28212. I!' , 9"" • N Security Products Ii • l. &Systems On Reader Service Card, Circle 309 17 office, for detailed development. fire hazard. Above the altar ter. A final link in the chain Again the result was a wooden at the west end, the wall was of events was a gift of money structure so Spartan that it left open to reveal the organ to be used solely for new con could be built for slightly under pipes, continuing the general struction. In 1965-66 the firm \FACETS I $10,000 or about $1.60 per sq. functionalist character of the of Sotwald and Kelly designed ft., an economic achievement design. (The altar end was ex a church for the new site. even in 1910. panded in 1954, and a new or All this has not happened The church was built adja gan, unfortunately no longer without protest. A portion of the cent to the original hall. Though exposed, was installed.) The congregation, composed of old PRESERVATION much larger, it retained a low clerestory at the east end has and new members, argued vigor keyed, residential quality in a simple, Celtic cross worked ously for keeping the church ST. JOHN'S keeping with the general char into its tracery. Originally, t11is even though not on the present Sally B. Woodbridge, a friend of acter of t h e neighborhood. was all that marked the build site. A feasibility study was ours in Berkeley, California, is un derstandably upset about the care Known as the "south of cam ing as a church, but the con made for moving the 1910 struc less treatment of the local St. pus" area because of its prox gregation was unsatisfied with ture, called the sanctuary, to the John's Presbyterian Church. One imity to the University of Cali this understatement and a wood new site, but was rejected. of the early landmarks of the San fornia, the area was well-settled en cross of the same design was Although the congregation has Francisco Bay Region Style, St. John's is being cast aside by the by 1910 with University person mounted on the roof. decided to sell the building com naive majority of its congregation, nel. Even today, after a heavy Still St. John's remains stun plex, they are determined at who think the new is better than population increase severely tax ningly pure. Its rhythmic inte this point to find a buyer who the old at any price. Mrs. Wood ing existing housing, the area rior, stained a warm, reddish will preserve it. bridge wrote us at length about St. John's and her story is worth retains the finest stand of shin brown and accented by wheel St. John's case would be hope sharing: gle-style residences in the Bay shaped, wooden chandeliers ful if funds for the lively arts In 1908, a newly formed con Area. studded with round bulbs has were not shrinking along with gregation commissioned Julia Julia Morgan, along with her apparently withstood urges for those for churches. A social Morgan to design their church. former employer and close inappropriate embellishment. repertory theater is interested Miss Morgan, who had already friend, Bernard Maybeck, de The structure is sound, unaf but, at this writing, unsuccess achieved distinction as the first signed several houses in the fected by rot or termite dam ful in completing plans for pur woman graduate of the Beaux neighborhood. Maybeck's mas age. Its major need is for a chase. Perhaps similar inter Arts in Paris, had started a terwork, the First Church of sprinkler system to meet fire ests will come forth. If not, thriving residential practice in Christ Scientist, is two blocks code regulations. Twenty-two St. John's fate will become more the area. She had also estab from St. John's. Also built in rows of pews, seating 600 per and more problematic. Should lished a relationship with the 1910, it cost over four times sons, are ranged along its slop the congregation lose its resolve Hearst family which was to cul as much. While Maybeck's ing floor. Additional structure to sell to a conscientious buyer, minate years later in her most church reveals his genius for was added behind the church the local community stands to famous work, San Simeon for combining disparate styles with for what in 1922 was the largest receive, in place of St. John's, William Randolph Hearst. an innovative use of modern, Sunday school in the State. And another of the ticky-tacky apart Within St. John's stringent industrial materials, Miss Mor yet the congregation has re ment buildings which are erod budget, she produced a simple gan's is a single - minded, solved to move to a new church ing the homogeneous, single hall with an exposed redwood straightforward expression in two blocks away on the same residence character o( the neigh structure. There were no orna one material, much like a per street. borhood. The larger commun mental features except for light fect barn. Why? The answer reflects, in ity of those interested in the ing. The total design exhibited On a recent visit to St. John's, part, the influence of the post country's architectural heritage an economy of means and ma Walter Steilberg, who at 88 World War II building fever. would also suffer a significant terials consonant with the ideals still lives in Berkeley, talked During this restless period the loss because, unlike much of St. of the Craftsman Style then about the design of the build rector found the building's stark John's broad company of shin burgeoning in California. ing. The structure is Douglas expression aesthetically unsatis gle style buildings, it is a unique Two years later the congre fir, since by 1910 large redwood fying. A feeling grew that "the statement by a remarkable fig gation returned to Miss Morgan timbers were too costly. Steil old barn" would not be attrac ure in the history of architec with a request for a larger berg lightened the appearance tive to the youth of the newly ture. If it is destroyed there space, also to be delivered with of the roof truss by leaving out affluent times. So in 1965 the will not be another comparable , in a bare-bones budget. Her de the vertical member along the congregation decided to pur example waiting to be saved sign was passed on to Walter ridge; he exposed the framing chase land down the street for when a more propitious time Steilberg, first draftsman in her members of the wall to reduce the construction of a youth cen- rolls around.
Walter Steilberg (left) checks St. John's Presby terian Church. The other photographs show how the church looked in 1910.
18 CONTROVERSIAL COURTHOUSE it summarizes the best in mid Plaster aggregate was sprayed plate glass would have been The Woodbury County Court west architecture of the previ over the arched ceiling in the available when the building was house (1918) is, according to ous quarter century, harking Board of Supervisors room. built, the architect would have architectural historian H. Allen back to Sullivan's Wainwright Despite these changes, the used it." Neither the sugges Brooks, the only major civic Building in St. Louis ( 1890), courthouse remains an exciting tion nor the statement delighted building built by architects of Wright's project for the Smith building, adequately housing those who would keep the build the Prairie School. William Bank (1904), and Purcell and courtrooms and public services ing as it once was. The Sioux Steele, executive architect on Elmslie's own masterpiece, the (tax, registration and licensing land Council of Arts and Sci the project, had been a drafts Merchants Bank of Winona offices). ences has urged the Board to man for Louis Sullivan and was (1911-12)." Yet controversy surrounds it. help prevent further deteriora associated on the project with Over the past 55 years the The debate is not whether to tion of the Courthouse and has Purcell and Elmslie of Chicago. courthouse has been patched, tear down the building and offered to set up a committee George Elmslie had taken Frank painted, and plastered, not nec start anew. It is a matter of to give them advice on how to Lloyd Wright's place as head essarily in keeping with the whether to replace the struc do it. draftsman in the Sullivan office original. On the top floor, a ture's many leaded glass win Just what will come of the when Wright went off on his false ceiling now obscures over dows with bronze tinted ones. offer is not now known. But own in 1893. So the court head windows. Marble counter According to one source, the the matter of the windows may house's antecedents are not hard tops were replaced by Formica. leaded glass leaks when it rains be resolved by cost. New bronze to trace. Air conditioning units obtrude and several windows have al tinted windows might cost as Brooks writes: "The Wood through leaded glass windows. ready been replaced with clear much as $250,000. Patching the bury County Courthouse is a The original front doors, changed glass. An architect engaged by old leaded ones would probably landmark which has never by a contractor, were lost. A the Board of Supervisors ad be much less expensive and it due to its geographic isolation Roman water fountain was vised them to put in bronze would keep what William Steele, -received the notice it so rich boarded up and in front of it tinted glass and is quoted as son of the original architect, ly deserves. In many respects, a stainless steel unit installed. saying: "I feel that if bronze calls their "lace-work image."
urally Tati is also in the film, FILMS managing to slip into this anti pathetic environment, looking PLAYTIME IN PARIS very out of place. The puns "Playtime" a newly released and gags that follow in his wake film produced and directed by are predictable. But neverthe Jacques Tati (and distributed less, photographed in such an by Continental Distributors of overwhelming context, (using The Walter Reade Organiza long shots and disorienting quick tion) should be required movie cuts with no center to the pic going for all architects, particu ture) the numerous jokes be larly those who like to design come serious and incisive state office towers. (Although the ments. sense of deja vu may prove to Throughout the film, little of be de trop.) the old Paris seems to be left, Mission Inn Clock Tower. The entire film takes place in and little humanity oozes out : a complex of anonymous high from any of the anonymous sur MISSION PROBABLE cy agreed to put up $2,575,000 rises somewhere in Paris. They faces until the restaurant scene. The 100-year old Mission Inn in a couple of months ago, and could be anywhere; and this A new terribly chic (also grey) Riverside, California, is out work is underway. Urban Hous commonly felt lack of orienta restaurant opens to le tout rageous, ornate, funky, spider ing hopes to have a restaurant tion applies at a specific level: monde of Paris (plus tourists) webbed across an entire city operating in the Spanish Garden It is almost impossible to dis minutes after (actually minutes block, full of memories, and in by late this summer. The 1903 cern the various uses these before) it is finished. Natural need of a face lift. (FORUM, lobby will be restored, and a buildings serve, whether airport, ly during the course of the March '72). wing of hotel rooms adapted for retail store or hotel. On top of evening, the restaurant begins Though the Inn is a national, 137 apartments. That's just a this, Tati has made the film in to fall apart, even with the state and local landmark, it had start. This September they will color - although the predomi architect still on the premises been allowed to decay in recent begin converting the romantic nant color scheme is grey-from presumably overseeing construc years, and only 30 days before rotunda into 40,000 sq. ft. of the brushed aluminum surfaces tion, or cooking in the kitchen. its scheduled demolition, the office space. of the buildings, to the sleek Yet when the setting begins to Urban Housing Company of Los Following that, the remaining marble floors, to the grey tai collapse a human quality starts Angeles stepped in to save it. hotel rooms will become more lored suits of men and women. to emerge, encouraged by the A young firm with six years apartments, the art gallery and The film opens as a very energetic efforts of a brash experience in rehabilitation flyers museum will be restored, middle - American tour group corn-ball American. He takes work, Urban Housing began a and the lower level will house pulls up to the complex. One over one section of the restau two-year search for financing. colorful specialty shops. All of of the tourists appropriately rant that has caved in to make Their plan was to convert the which is great news, considering asks "You mean this is Paris, it his bistro, and even the chic Inn into a sort of city-apart how worn the old way-station France?" Indeed this is, since Parisians seem to enjoy the re ments, restaurants, shops, arts had become. With its patina they never seem to leave the sults. At this point, more and and crafts studios, exhibit intact, and in the hands of a complex, and only c a t c h more French touches begin to rooms, a wine tasting cellar. sensitive architect, Bruce Beebe, glimpses of the other, older sneak into the film, giving the After interminable inspections the Inn will now remain an Paris in reflections on mirror environment a bizarre but still the Connecticut General Life indelible part of the River like surfaces, or by stumbling somewhat French identity. Yet Insurance Company and the side scene-a small usable, over a forlorn flower vendor the sense of disorientation nev Riverside Redevelopment Agen- money-making landmark. outside one of the towers. Nat- er leaves, continuously under-
FORU M-SEPTEMBER-1973 19 I FACETS I
scored by the depressing mo notony of the modern milieu. Surprisingly, Tati had to erect a set in a studio to film "Play time." He could almost as easi ly have come to Sixth Avenue in New York-of which he's probably had enough: The film, made in 1967, was originally 70 mm, but the few theaters with a wide screen capacity were unwilling to show it, thus requiring Tati to convert to 35 mm. While the film is without Rejuvenated Chicago River will cut through South Loop Town. doubt dated in 1973, so few direct commentaries exist about At least that's the outward im and the Arno in Florence are the psychic effect of the physi pression given in a plan pre examples of what it can be." cal environment on its inhabit Bl
20 PLANNING ABOVE CAYUGA gorge-gashed campus, looking Architect Philip Will, Jr., is on afar over lake and valley." the Board of Trustees at Cornell That ragged hilltop is what University, where he schooled. the trustees hope to preserve Appropriately enough, he is also by channeling the obvious pres chairman of Cornell's trustee sures for future physical growth. committee on buildings and Their design policies range from properties. the more obvious to the less When he read our treatment obvious: Maintaining the beauty of San Francisco's Urban De of the environment, controlling sign Plan (FORUM, April 1973), costs, insuring comfort (air con he wrote to remind us that ditioning, or provision for it, though official policies to guide should be in all new buildings). design are rare, they are not Among the more obvious pol unique to cities. But Cornell, icies is the priority of keeping as Mr. Will points out, may be the campus's long views open unique among universities in across the valley to the west,
that it's had such policies in up Lake Cayuga, and down the ,j effect for almost a year. With valley to the southwest. Also "Interface" sketches of downtown Providence in the 1890's. advice from interested persons stated is the need for landscape all over the campus, Cornell's design, funds for which should THE FIRST CARLESS CITY? policies statement was passed be part of every building budg It's not so far fetched as it may unanimously by the full Board, et. "Like buildings well con sound. Providence, Rhode Is and, says Mr. Will, "will have ceived," says the statement, land wants to be a place you more impact on the develop "landscaping also contains and can walk across in 15 minutes, ment of the campus over time proportions space." despite the fact that the auto than any number of long range Space is what the trustees mobile and its so-called ameni physical plans." want to shape and preserve. ties now take up an estimated We read through a copy of One policy calls for vertical de one third of downtown. the statement and despite its velopment, producing a campus It quickly occurred to a stu academic title (Comprehensive profile that is low at the cen dent group at Rhode Island Policies for the Physical Plan ter and higher at the edges, the School of Design that banning ning and Design of the Ithaca high buildings forming a sort cars could open up endless pos Campus of Cornell University) of frame for the low. sibilities-but, of course. found it a lucid, wise approach Where they touch on actual In a class taught by Gerald to the future growth of that par design of future buildings, the Howes, a former head of the ticular institution. policies become more complex architecture department, the It starts with a quote from and controversial. In an era of students worked out a scheme Morris Bishop that might bring rapid change, spaces within in for a noiseless city laced with a tear to the eye of a Cornell dividual buildings are, the com malls, outside cafes, water, trees grad: "How inspired was Ezra mittee found, remodeled many and flowers, and they decided Cornell to choose his ragged times to meet new requirements. the plan was easy enough to vehicles according to destina hilltop farm for his University. Hence the policy: "Only for implement by 1980. tion and trucked in on non-pe A hundred thousand Cornellians compelling educational needs With public and private grants destrian routes. keep close in memory their should the personal and unique of more than $11,000, some An important segment of the i requirements of the first user students stayed on this summer plan calls for rediscovering the take precedence over the flexi to do feasibility studies. Com city's waterfronts. The old Cove, bility required to extend the plementing this, they have been filled in long ago for a parking useful life of the space for the taking a slide show to the lot, would be uncovered. More tenants who will follow." More Chamber of Commerce, the over, it could be connected to over, facilities (whether built statewide planning agencies, the Woonasquatucket and Provi whole or as a segment to be newspapers, the Bicentennial dence Rivers, and lined with added to later) should be given Commission, anyone else who parks. over to a single use-i.e., class will listen. The Providence Jounrnal and rooms, rather than to multiple Briefly, their plan: Ban the the Evening Bulletin is backing functions, such as classrooms car. Have workers (some 33,- the plan. Chief editorial writer, and laboratories and offices 000 at present) commute into George Favre, himself a noted under one roof. the city either by high-speed authority on urban affairs, Finally, Cornell policy now trains to Union Station, or some writes: "It is a bold and vision calls for quality of materials type of people-moving system ary plan. Some will say an and equipment in any building carrying them from parking sta impractical one as well-be program. If buildings can be tions on outer ring road garages cause the planners are students inexpensively maintained - goes to 16 sites within. These ring of urban design, not men of af the old argument, the savings road garages, having more park fairs; because cost estimates are will quickly pay off any added ing than now found downtown, not available; because it has initial capital investment. would be no more than a seven never been done before. Already Cornell's policy state minute walk from the com "But it can be done ... with ment is being sought by other muter's office. existing technology ... What institutions. Mr. Will says that What about freight distribu an inspiration Providence could by late spring the University tion? All incoming freight be to those wondering how we had 40 requests for copies from would be unloaded at terminals will live during our third cen- Arts Quadrangle Cornell University. outsiders. outside the city, put on smaller tury." (Continued on page 76) FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 21
Someone recently asked what, if anything, do I know now that I didn't know a year ago. The answer is-quite a bit less. I do know that The FORUM is still in ferment, as I wrote then, and had better never not be. I know that architects are fun to lunch with, prefer French cuisine, get a truffle angry talking about each other, and sometimes pick up the tab. I know they do not mind being criticized in the least, as long as we give them color, cover and 20 pages. And I know they love issues devoted to one architect, especially if they are next. Some other things: I know that an issue about the Energy Crisis causes one; that San Francisco is absolutely the best city to be overcome by; and that people who design prison facilities should be in them. I know, too, that Philip Johnson is beyond monuments, FORUM hangs Andy Warhol likenesses of himself in the bedroom, is SEPTEMBER 1973 VOL. 139, NO. 2 too clever for words and, nowithstanding the ones he has eaten, too profound for them. As you can see, this is quite a bit less to know, yet quite enough. Another thing, I know, is the incredible knowledge I have had access to: Your ideas, initiatives and concern, your faith in The FORUM, and because of that, your confiding in it, constructively criticizing it, and your taking The FORUM to task, but rarely for granted. It has all helped us come to terms with the magazine's traditions and helped us to keep in keeping with those of you who have been part of these traditions. When I came on as editor, several people said I should have had my head examined. Being editor, I soon found out, was the same as having my head examined. So it seems, should being a reader. We share a responsibility to analyze events, get to the essence of what brought them about, and what trends they represent. It is a responsibility to discern the lessons which connect otherewise isolated efforts-a template of procedure or philosophy to lay over future ones. It is a responsibility to know quite a bit less an,d a way of knowing quite a bit in the end. After all, ferment means distillation, and it is a process we must take seriously as professionals, if architecture's role is ever to be made clear to those it affects. A sorting out never so much needed as today.-WILLIAM MARLIN
)n Reader Service Card, Circle 310 23
FORMED UP IN FAITH
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CENTER IN BOSTON'S BACK BAY EMBODIES A REGENERATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD OUR SOCIETY AND CITIES On the scale of centuries, Christian Science is a very new religion-founded in 1879. But if you are "into Science," as its younger members put it, you are into a way of thinking which is also very old-grounded in prayer, contemplation and common sense as sources of constructive action. A new source, a summing up, has now been etched in the cityscape of Boston, counterpointing the vertical thrust of towers to the east, edging up from the row house scale of Back Bay and the South End. The way of thinking became the way of building this Christian Science Center-a timeless composition of old and new which lets you "into Science," and much more besides. The Center was designed by I.M. Pei & Partners in con cert with Cossutta & Ponte. Araldo Cossutta, until recent ly one of Mr. Pei's three senior associates, shepherded the project over a ten-year period-one in which the tenets of religion, science and art were rediscovered, made whole and symbolized by means of precision-poured concrete. It is a work of repose, resolving structure and space into the unifying element: Architecture. On 15 acres, once hemmed in by blight, the Center's fabric consists of the Original Mother Church of Romanesque design (1894) and the powerful, domed presence of its Extension (1905). Across from them on narrow Norway Street, now a walkway lined with grown linden trees from the old Church park, is the neo-classical home of the Christian Science Publishing Society (1934). Newly woven, the fabric continues-spatially, structurally: The Church Administration tower, 28 stories containing 275,000 sq. ft., announces the Center as you come upon it from Copley Square to the east. It houses the 15 general departments of the Church; information, reception and lounge areas on the ground floor; and the Directors' offices and Board Room on the top two. The Sunday School, three stories containing 35,000 sq. ft., can house up to 40 classes of ten students each, has a nursery, teaching and office areas for a staff of 60, and a general auditorium seating 1,100. Whereas the Administration building announces the Center, the Sunday School is a gentle terminus-back to back with old Horti cultural Hall, opposite the Mother Church and Extension. Attention is deflected to them by the School's quarter circle cantilever. Connecting the Administration building and School is a shimmering axis of water-a lake-size pool 670 feet long, 110 feet wide, two feet deep. The connection is further enhanced by rows of linden trees, flower beds and benches which enliven the axis. Beside the Administration building is an 80-foot-diameter fountain, springing a dome of spray 40 feet high. Opposite the tower, looking across the fountain and down the pool toward the older Church building, is the low-slung Colonnade, five stories contain ing 175,000 sq. ft., stretching 525 feet. The Colonnade houses maintenance shops in the basement, media studios on the top floor, a fourth-floor cafeteria, Publishing So ciety offices, exhibit galleries and, on its townside, a Christian Science Reading Room. The Colonnade columns range along the pool, providing rich cadence for the pool and promenade. The pool, in turn, contributes richly: Water is flush with, and spills over an elegantly rounded -'~ j~R='"=~=== lip of Minnesota red granite. The brick pavers of the promenade reach over and into the new buildings. Con ' \ cealed beneath all this is parking for 550 cars. The pool itself serves as a cooling tower for the Center's
26 -=-~ l __ Ji------=== ==--= -
HUNTINGTON AVENUE
27 SYMPHONY HALL HORTICULTURAL HALL SUNDAY SCHOOL BUILDING MOTHER CHURCH EXTENSION
air-conditioning system. point of having to walk 600 feet or so from the Mother The placement of the three new structures around Church; the School's present siting cuts this down to 250 the pool, along the axis, was practical as well as feet. Also, mid-way through planning, Horticultural Hall philosophic. informed the Church that it had no funds to rebuild The Administration tower, on the east end of the site its eastern facade facing the Center. This would have by Huntington Avenue, has a pylon effect and discretely meant having a rather banal, barn-like wall as the end of picks up the vertical theme of the $200-million Prudential the axis. As pointed out, the Sunday School presents a Center nearby; at the same time, you get the feeling congenial, curving touch, nudging the Hall's alley-side that there was no effort to compete, for the tower is wall from view. an element of transition from Prudential's 52-story office As for the Colonnade, its placement was determined building to the lower profile of western Back Bay. In by the need for having the Church's educational, media addition, the tower serves as a kind of "cropping frame" and publishing programs proximate to each other; hence, for the Mother Church at the other end of the pool, the way in which it wraps around the end of the older thus calling attention to the seat of Christian Science. Publishing Society building, angling off from it to be- The Sunday School activities, as originally designed, come an emphatically horizontal element parallel to the were to have been consolidated in what is now the axis. Looking from the east end of the site, the Colonnade Colonnade. But this proved impractical from the stand- leads your attention to the Mother Church; walking
SUBWAY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING SUNDAY SCHOOL BUILDING COLONNADE BUILDING •L MOTHER CHURCH COLONNADE BUILDING
alongside it, the columns endow your experience of the the fact that the elements of the Center change roles space with needed scale; looking out from it, across the with great facility, depending on where you happen to be. pool and past the Administration tower on Huntington, On one hand, the leading character is the Administration the rows of trees and flowers opposite carry your view tower; on the other, the Sunday School. A few steps on to the Sunday School. further, they have changed roles, become the chorus By way of becoming immersed in this composition, to continue Mr. Cossutta's analogy. Whatever element you quickly grasp how everything connects. The great seems leading at any given moment is that to which sheet of water, besides having its traditional Christian the other elements deflect your attention. It is all a connotations, reflects-for some, with a vengeance. compelling exchange of views; everything is answerable. Quite literally, the effect is one of suspension. Com This effect will be further enhanced when Phase plementing this, the structures deflect, one to the other. Two of the Center is complete late next year: A semi And defer. As Mr. Cossutta explains, some are called on circular portico for the Mother Church, facing Massachu to be leading characters; others are called on to be the setts across a stretch of tree-planted grass. Until re- chorus. Nothing is diminished, for harmony results. cently, the old administration building and a row of old "Harmony is the very essence of architecture," he says, storefront buildings separated the Mother Church "like weight is to gravity." from the A venue. These have now been demolished and, A true test of how harmonious this is rests with already, it is possible to envision how the curve of the
Sunday School and the portico of the Mother Church will complement each other. Moving toward them from the east end of the site, those elements will gradually release your view to the Massachusetts streetscape, across which are a continuous bank of new apartments by The Architects Collaborative. Standing across Massachu setts from the Mother Church, the effect will be one of your being drawn into the composition-again gradually. It is clear that this easy going give-and-take is a result of deeply principled planning. And one dividend of the ease is being put in a position, or a series of them, to contemplate and enjoy these essential dimensions of the project. While it is true that the walking distances between, say, the Publishing Society and Administration tower are abnormally great, it is also true that physical distance is rewarded with another kind of proximity that of preoccupation with the Center's scale, its rhythms, that of noticing how those concrete elements take possession of light and shadow, that of respectful orientation to surrounding neighborhoods, that of engaging encounters with different people in an ecumenical setting. A thousand feet extra is not so far to walk, given the kind of distances that have so long separated society distances which the Center symbolically spans. In strict architectural terms, referring to techniques of construction, the tactic is similarly engrossing. Con crete is Araldo Cossutta's forte. And his "pours," to use a field term, are nothing less than poetic, but also nothing less than pragmatic. What makes poetry and pragmatism synonymous is that everything is structurally and mechanically integrated. These elements interweave as gracefully as the buildings interweave with each other: An exposed waffle-like grid of concrete beams is, in fact, the ceiling of all interior space. Each module, measuring four feet and eight inches by six feet and two inches, has supply and return for air-conditioning, electrical, lighting and tele phone connections, and is acoustically treated. In combina tion with the double plenum principle, this system dras tically cuts down the inordinate volume usually given over to structural and mechanical requirements. With respect to the loadbearing wall system, Mr. Cossutta orchestrated his columns and beams in such a way that they serve as sun shields without demeaning the view toward outside. In all cases, glass is used, great polished plates of it; but the glass is also protected-recessed as much as six feet in some places, like the Administra tion tower. The result is an interpenetration of materials, shadows and light-each savoring the other. Given the vast amount of open space along the axis, between the buildings, the result is wholly suitable; for the materials help give that space identity and discipline something a metal-mullioned curtain wall could not. It is strange, yet perhaps not so strange, that Mr. Cossutta's concrete configuration comes off looking much less heavy, far more "light," than curtain-walled buildings of comparable size. It goes back to his definition of structure as "the spring of clarity"-and that which is clear tends not to weigh heavy on the human senses. Mr. Cossutta: "The clarity of the composition stems from the fact that our buildings are well-toned muscles in an overall anatomy. You don't see any stratification between architecture and structure; only synthesis;
Sunday School building (left), opened since 1971, provides a gentle terminus to the reflecting pool, containing classrooms, nursery, office space and an auditorium for 1,100.
31 The ramp of the Sunday School building (opposite) is a study in three dimensional experience, leading up to the multi-use auditorium (above). Its mezzanine reads out as a curving cantilever over the ground floor entrance, and is seemingly suspended from an array of concrete spokes emanating from above the stage. The School's ground floor (near right) is typical of the interpenetration of structure and space characteristic of the complex. Note how furnishings are integral with the building and how deftly glass is slid into the concrete. Burned-brick pavers within pick up those of the plaza. The Colonnade and the Original Mother Church are seen through the window on the left; the Administration tower is glimpsed in the distance on the right.
GROUND FLOOR TYPICAL FLOOR
= only element leading to element without any apparent separation." The synthesis he is speaking of is evident down to the minutest detail. The concrete for example. It picks up the color of the limestone of the Mother Church Ex tension and Publishing Society building. Those burned brick pavers, lined with black granite-they pick up the coarse texture and color of the Original Mother Church. And the glass-it slides effortlessly into the concrete, is mitered at corners, sans window frames throughout. All muscle, no fat. The Center's genesis and unfolding is lesson-laden in other respects-certainly from the standpoint of a client architect relationship but, more instructively, from the standpoint of how social, political and economic forces are orchestrated. Early in 1962, The Christian Science Board of Directors, intent on a less-cloistered pace (and image) contacted Carl B. Rechner, then a prominent real estate developer in Kansas City, Missouri, and an active Christian Scientist. This was done at the insistence of Erwin D. Canham, Editor in Chief of The Christian Science Monitor, an international daily newspaper which has consistently advocated a more enlightened attitude toward architecture and urban planning. Mr. Rechner, in business since 1924, was about to leave for Europe with his wife. But on the way, he stopped off in Boston for a meeting with the Board, a review of its plans, and a look at its miscellaneous land holdings around the Mother Church. Upon re turning from Europe that fall, he informed the Board (a five-member body with annual rotation of chairman ship) that he would be ready to undertake a full study beginning spring of 1963. By April, it was clear to Mr. Rechner that a thorough professional planning study was needed. He had con ferred with the Church Realty Trust, its Maintenance Department, the directors of its chief activities, and with Edward J. Logue, then head of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (now president of the New York State Urban De velopment Corporation). Preliminary checks had also been made into public transit affecting the Church area, traffic patterns, parks and recreation, and the rental market. All this was done during 16 trips between Boston and Kansas City; and by June 1963, it was grievously clear to the Board that it needed a full-time development director. The Rechners made the move. Resettled (barely), he set about interviewing a number of architectural firms around the country-finally meeting I.M. Pei, who had worked closely with Mr. Logue as chief planning consultant for Boston's Government Center and, before that, as chief architect for William Zeckendorf. A planning contract ensued, along with Mr. Pei's appointment of Araldo Cossutta, a native of Yugoslavia, well-versed in urban history and contemporary conditions, a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Art and Harvard. At this decisive point, Vincent Ponte was brought in as planning consultant. Together, Cossutta and Ponte walked around the site, bundled up for Boston's winter, trying to get a handle on the problem. The problems were legion: First off, the Mother Church and Extension had never enjoyed an open setting, having been locked in among one to four story buildings, most 60 to 80 years old-and, until Prudential came along, located next to a 31-acre railroad yard. The Sunday School and nursery, now consolidated, were
34 The Colonnade (left) ranges 525 ft. parallel to the Center's major axis, and contains five floors of publishing and educational activity, exhibit areas, media studios, and a fourth floor cafeteria (top photo). The building wraps around the end of the existing Publishing Society building where a narrow linden-lined walkway, formerly Norway Street, abuts the axis (above).
35 The lobby of the 28-story Administration tower (above) indicates the structurally spare nature of these buildings. A late, rather lyrical Matisse is seen hung from the waffle-like grid which is repeated throughout and combined with a double plenum principle, consolidates and condenses air conditioning ducts, electrical, lighting, and communications equipment. A typical office floor (left) photographed shortly after occupancy, dramatizes the three dimensional coffered effect of this system. In this way mechanical and structural elements are integrated, lending continuity and flexibility to office space in this and other buildings.
GROUND FLOOR
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I I I I I I I -• I 0WI ~ split up in three locations; administrative functions in Between April of 1964 and the end of that year, six. Horse-and-buggy streets criss-crossed the site, often negotiations for purchase of remaining parcels were used by through traffic, adding to the noxious atmosphere. underway, the Church Trustees and staff were briefed, But there were advantages, as Mr. Rechner points out: the Master Plan was informally presented to then One of the more invaluable was, of course, an enlightened Mayor John Collins and Mr. Logue; federal underwriters client which realized the meaning of architecture were consulted about the possibility of financing the and its expressive role. Church accumulation of land, private phase of the Master Plan surrounding the though incomplete at the time, represented what Mr. Center, and innumerable city officials, neighborhood Rechner calls "the best urban ownership of a close groups and institutions were invited to study and com to-downtown area of a major city in the United States." ment upon the Plan. Further, Prudential Center, despite its subsistent Excepting the understandable concern on the part of esthetics, had become a definite shot in Back Bay's arm: some tenants about having to move, the Master Plan A 52-story office tower, a plaza (where pools are hung received warm reviews-even from the tenants. with nets to catch people blown into them by the Perhaps one reason for this has to do with the way wind) , shopping concourses, a 3,000-car garage, several the Church paid for the Center's development: Its 26-story apartment buildings, the 30-story Sheraton cost involves no mortgage, no temporary financing, Boston Hotel with 1,012 rooms; and adjacent to that, a no funding campaigns or pledges. According to present $15-million civic auditorium. Now that the Christian Board Chairman David Sleeper, the former Texas oil Science Center is substantially complete, Sheraton is executive, "Just the need was made known." Indeed, adding still another hotel tower, triangular in plan, 29 he has announced that the full $75-million for the stories high, situated directly across the street from Center is in hand-all from members' contributions the end of the Church Colonnade. branch churches and Church friends. ' Other advantages of the site included location of Another reason for the City's warm reception may rapid transit stops-one for Prudential and the Symphony; have had something to do with the Church's attitude another at the civic auditorium. In addition, the Massa toward temporal responsibilities-including, not least of chusetts Turnpike, which Prudential bridges, has a all, taxes. Only the Mother Church, the Extension Huntington Avenue interchange. and the new Sunday School are exempt. Taxes are paid Responding to these conditions, the preliminary Master on all other buildings, including the Publishing Society. Plan was presented to the Board in April of 1964, In Boston, where something over 60 percent of all land addressing itself to 32 acres, and subdivided into three is nontaxable, due to educational or religious use, areas of study: The first dealt with the triangular parcel that's saying something. where the Christian Science Center has risen; the Still another reason for the warm reviews has to do second, with seven development parcels along Hunting with the Church's considerable influence in helping se ton, across from the triangle, where the new Colonnade cure financing for perimeter development. These parcels Hotel now stands; the third, with four parcels along will be leased to qualified, design-conscious developers Massachusetts Avenue, opposite the Mother Church on a 60-year basis; the architects of the Master Plan Extension, where the TAC complex of apartments and retain review and approval over anything done, which arcaded shops was built, and recently opened. Taken has already borne fruit in the case of the Colonnade Hotel. together, the 1964 Master Plan represented a floor-to This perimeter phase called for new apartments along area ratio of less than three and a half. Huntington Avenue between the Colonnade Hotel and
IJOARDHOOM FLOOH TYPICAL OFFICE FLOOR -lI ~-I __I I __ I LJ l-----==T ~-- ~1 rJ I_,; -~: ~r .--.-, - ·~
FORU M-SEPTEM BER-1973 37 the Massachusetts Avenue intersection. Scale-wise, these approval and preparation of construction documents would be nine stories high and financed for low-income went on to April of 1968, at which time contract bids families. At the intersection, the Plan calls for two 34- were taken. Center construction began the following story towers, ear-marked for the elderly, with possible August. mix of some commercial and office activity at the The second dramatic aspect of the Center's birth base. Another apartment tower, also 34 stories high, concerned relocation of tenants-a good many not mem is proposed for the intersection of Massachusetts bers of the Church. Instead of a 30- or 60-day notice, Avenue and Boylston Street. As noted, the low-lying TAC they were advised months in advance. Relocation ex building, stretching from Symphony Hall along Massa penses in line with BRA practices at the time, ranging chusetts Avenue toward Boylston, is already complete from $60-110 a family-were paid by the Church. anticipating fulfillment of other perimeter development. So was a reputable rental agent to assist those being For the time being, this has been imperiled by a hand inconvenienced. As a result, some 200 people, occupying ful of South End residents who insist, ironically, 42 old buildings, found new quarters-and did so without that the Church's plans should be halted until assurances the rancor so often associated with evictions brought on are given that the new apartment buildings are targeted by "urban renewal." for community-oriented uses, and low-incomes-a guiding The Christian Science Center is urban renewal in a factor in its perimeter development dealings all along. timeless sense-that which improves human and com Another factor which makes this recent problem even munity attitudes about what is possible. stranger is that the Church, as part of the Center's It is architecture as religion. construction, undertook a voluntary training program Or perhaps religion as architecture. so that minority, unskilled workers might move toward Both have become tangible elements in Boston's union apprenticeship; further, equal opportunity practices everyday life, becoming to the better instincts of by the contractors involved were consistently checked by its people. From its founding, the primary objective the Church. of Christian Science has been to restore the "lost element Looking back, the Center established much more of healing." In far more than a metaphorical way, than a benchmark with respect to design and planning the Center found it.-WILLIAM MARLIN standards; it established one with respect to human and FACTS AND FIGURES: The Christian Science Church complex, Massachu community values. This took two dramatic forms. setts and Huntington Avenues, Boston, Mass., consisting of four buildings The first was the BRA's creation of a Fenway Urban the Center Administration Building, Church Colonnade Building, Sunday School Building and Open Space Building. Architects: l.M. Pei & Partners Renewal Area, consisting of over 500 acres to the and Cossutta & Ponte (Associates-in-Charge: Joseph V. Morog). Engineers: west and south of the Center. At the time, 1965, (structural) Weiskopf & Pickworth; (electrical and mechanical) Syska & the BRA was eager to tap the federal credits then available Hennessy; Landscape Architect: Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay Associates. Interior Designer: l.M. Pei & Partners. Consultants: (planning) Vincent Ponte; for improving public and private property. Although (traffic) Travers Associates; (graphics) Page, Arbitrio, Resen Ltd. Contrac there was some hot City Council debate-many tors: (general) Aberthaw Construction Co.; (electrical) Fishbach & Moore; Bostonians look upon BRA improvements as impositions (mechanical) Limbach Co. Building areas: Administration Building-275,000 sq. ft., or 25,548 m'; Colonnade Building-175,000 sq. ft., or 16,258 m'; the Fenway plan was approved six to two late in Sunday School Building-35,000 sq. ft., or 3,252 m 2 ; Open Space Building December of 1965. This gave the green light for pre- (paving area) 9.1 acres. Team: Araldo Cossutta, Joe Morog, Arvid Klein, Ronald Kolbe, Leonard Perfido. Ken McKenzie, Sid Goldstein. paring full preliminary plans of the Center which were PHOTOGRAPHS: Copyright Yukio Futagawa; except pp. 37 and 39, Barth J. completed early in 1967. Review, refinement, schematic Falkenberg, The Christian Science Monitor. Drawings: Ilona Rider.
f-ORU M-SEPTEMB ER-1973 Rapidly changing educational, relegated for obvious political RETURN OF social, and architectural cli and economic reasons to new mates could easily discourage campuses, instead of cities. Scar the most intrepid architect borough College in Ontario by THE MEGASTRUCTURE from designing campus facilities. John Andrews, and Simon Fraser Between design and completion, University in British Columbia A one-building campus a total reversal in approach can by Erikson/Massey, became two take place, bringing about in historical models for a building counters contemporary thinking but has been stant obsolescence. Accordingly, type that has yet to truly warmly received by users and public Rhode Island Junior College's emerge. Elsewhere in the mid Knight Campus, a "megastruc sixties, monumental forms of a ture" on a hill in Warwick, brutalistic esthetic were domi conjures up the epithet "gen nant campus images, and univer eration gap architecture." sity complexes still occupied hill· At the time the building went top sites, separated from the into design, the "megastructure" towns surrounding them. -loosely defined as a mono In the meantime, however, the lithic building that is ideally too well-known uprisings of the open-ended, additive, modular following years prompted a de and plugged into a service trans centralization of the isolated portation framework--<:aptured autonomous university; a dema the imagination of urban design terialization of the building as ers and architects. Its actual object; an emphasis on relat application was rare, however, ing campus to town. If the
40 Knight Campus sits on a rolling hill side site outside of Warwick, Rhode Island. Large concrete piloti lift the building off a slope with a front to back gradient of five perc ent. Rec tangular classroom / commons wing is separated from circular library and auditorium by a 65·foot high void so that the auditorium can accommodate community functions at n ight. Curved brow to right of entrance ramp indi cates end wall of a double height space in bookstore. Inside the build ing, a 200-foot·long and four-story high central space (left) provides an analogue to the traditional university and college campus. Classrooms, labs and offices wrap around the com mons which is used mostly for study ing. socializing, eating or art exhibits. Two 40 ·foot- deep, 20 · foot· diameter cylindrical skylights, constructed of plaster and painted an aluminum color inside, allow natural light to permea te the common space. The glass is t i nted, unfortunately giving off an artificial cast, and is set in radial mullions.
41 The basic structure is reinforced con· crete columns, slabs and roof, with concrete spread-footing foundations. At the west elevation (left), concrete block end walls, plastered over, will facilitate later expansion. A 1,700· car parking lot was mandatory for the 3,000 commuting students, but since it was too expensive to cover or conceal, it was concentrated at one end of the building (opposite) near the entry ramp and theater. The effect is similar to a shopping center.
1. CAMPUS 2. GYMNASIUM 3. AUDITORIUM STAGE 4. HEAVY LABS 5. COMMONS 6. LOUNGE 7, ENTRANCE RAMP 8. ADMINISTRATION 9. FACULTY 10. DATA PROCESSING 11. LABORATORIES 12. BOOKSTORE 13. CLASSROOMS 14. FUTURE LIBRARY EXPANSION 15. CORRIDOR/LOUNGE
Knight Campus were being de model. Perkins & Will pushed of circulation, including a 190- who might later find themselves signed now, the design archi for a "megastructure," not so foot long entrance ramp slicing working side by side in the real tects, Perkins & Will of White much for the same reasons as the through the 65-foot high void world." Plains, New York, might just Canadian architects (climate, re separating the rectangular class This constant meshing was decide to take the factory the sponse to site and circulation, room wing from the circular reinforced in the architectural students were using previously plus ease of expansion) but be theater /library wing. solution, not only through the in downtown Providence, and cause of the need for a three The concept of centralizing commons space and the exten renovate that. dimensional central organizing the school's academic, vocational sive use of exterior and interior Ironically, while the campus space that could bring the 3,000 and technical functions in one glass partitions, but through a could be typified as a mid-six students together. 380,000 square foot building ap kind of layout overlap. For ex ties solution, it does respond to A junior college differs from pealed to both the President of ample, study and reading areas present specific needs of the ed a university in that it functions Rhode Island Junior College can be found not only in the ucational program. In terms of day and night, year round, with system, William Flanagan, and library, but on the floor of the image, the school, the first in diverse activities, none being to the Dean of Knight Campus, commons (where studying would a series of three state campuses residential. Perkins & Will Robert Henderson. Their par also entail socializing) as well to be built for the Rhode Island sought to reinforce this identity ticular educational philosophy as in the first and fourth floor Junior College system, had to with a one-building solution involves an understanding that lounges. convey a distinctive demeanor promising an intensity of activity students in vocational programs According to Mr. Henderson, for a two-year commuter college and interaction suitable for a have been treated as "second the intention of the program as in close proximity to ivy-covered short two-year program. Their class citizens" by other students. expressed by the design solu Brown University. Renovating proposal then was to wrap Mr. Henderson thus viewed the tion is working well. Any visit a factory just wouldn't do. classrooms, labs and faculty of proposed solution as a method to the school while it is in ses In terms of program, the fices around a four-story high of encouraging a mixture of sion reveals its stunning success initial master plan had indeed central court, 200 feet long. pupils and disciplines, "a kind of as a social and spatial entity. closely approached the campus Ramps are the primary means rubbing of elbows between those Aside from the question of the
42 design's relation to the program, 20 ft. in diameter. (The main outset, despite the fact that elec at some level from the ground questions remain regarding the mistake is in having tinted the trically driven chillers take ex -sort of like ship decks. Actual desirability of the megastructure glass blue, so that it gives off cess heat from interior spaces accessibility to the wooded model, the success of the form an artificial cast.) Additional to create hot water for heat knolls requires exit down the in terms of image, and the natural light suffuses horizontal elsewhere. And although some gangplank ramp. building as a determinant of ly through the building because of the building's exhaust air is An unconscious extension of town-and-gown relations. of generous fenestration and recycled for ventilation, it would the ship analogy to the build From a psychological view glazed partitions separating the appear that elaborate ventilation ing's formal details aptly applies, point, the most obvious draw classrooms and labs. Further systems are really only needed since the building seems more back of a megastructure is the more the panoramic views of for the laboratories. Other like a gigantic land-locked ves concentration of all activities in the college's surrounding 204 needed ventilation could well sel than an honest-to-God mega doors. Knight Campus over acres alleviate a sense of con have come by way of windows. structure. (At least more so comes this problem to a large finement. Since the mechanical system is than the linear add-on kind.) extent. Because of the variety On the other hand, a total mounted and exposed within the Wide corridors or low-ceilinged of spaces and their differentia environmental control system, building proper, the "back lounges look out onto the coun tion from large-open to small maintaining a steady indoor ground" noise level reaches dra tryside through expansive glaz closed, students and faculty temperature year round, would matic heights, and most serious ing, much like the passenger comment that they hardly no seem to neutralize these advan complaints about the building ships of the Twenties that Le tice they're spending most of the tages, particularly since the win derive from this din. Corbusier wrote about. day indoors. Large quantities dows are not operable. As it turns out, going out In fact thoughts of Corbu of natural light permeate the With regard to energy ex doors is still the only way to come awfully easily with this interior through skylights over penditure the electrically driven experience a different environ building. His common vocab the central court and the li heating and cooling system is in ment thermally and acoustically. ulary is there; the beton brary-these being 40 ft. deep, contestably exorbitant at the There are outdoor terraces, but brut (poured-in-place concrete)
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 43 Ten-foot deep beams, (that were poured 55 feet in the air) span 72 feet to carry the classroom floor above the commons, and cantilever over exterior ramps (above). The beams, plus rough concrete, ramps and rounded elongated windows re· call Le Corbusier, but the effect is marred by badly placed mullions and hand rails. A 190-foot-long entrance ramp leads from the parking lot at one end of the building (below) to the second floor where the bookstore and supply shop are located (above, right). Interior ramps give access to the four levels embracing the com· mons (opposite, bottom). Glass parti· t1ons, allowing visibility, acoustically separate faculty and administration offices from student traffic on ramps. Exposed mechanical equipment is hung within the building, and painted with chrome aluminum or bright yellow. Rigging and catwalks are also exposed, painted red.
44 An arena stage theater (below) has been incorporated into the cylindrical wing of the megastructure. Double coiled wood screens roll on tracks and can divide the 1000-seat theater into four quadrants for various uses. This wing, connected to the class· room building by roof and a glass enclosed bridge, can operate as a community center at night without the rest of the building being open. Poured concrete beams, ten feet deep, span 88 feet over the auditorium in a cross-arrangement to carry the library above. - I'
structure, ramps, piloti, the screamed, clutched his heart, an architectural artifact but as brise-soleil fenestration on the and confessed, "There it is, and a building that can provide a southern exposure, the silo-like I have to be prepared to live unique kind of space, contained utility and rest room cores at with it." But the interior space in a specific kind of envelope, the periphery of the commons. and plan "were not out of the for certain activities and certain Specific references come fast book," Reilly, felt. (Even so, persons, it works. The students and thick: The closely spaced don't the central court and and faculty have responded en concrete mullions of La Tourette ramps remind one a trifle of thusiastically to the building; and the Carpenter Center for the Museum of Western Art in the desired mix is happening. Visual Arts, the ramp/void/ Tokyo, or a touch of the Mu The significance of aggressive, round form relation at entry of seum at Ahmedabad?) unpretentious but still formal the Carpenter Center, the con While the relation of some of design elements conveys the de crete entrance canopy recalling the most Corbusian motifs lacks sired image. Trustees were the brow of Notre-Dame-du-Haut his complexity on a formal level, afraid the building would look at Ronchamp, or the Palace of one hesitates to call it a pas like a factory, too technical a Assembly at Chandigarh, the tiche or crib sheet. Watered tableau for the benefactors who rounded windows of that city's down Corbu, maybe? Despite had dreams of ivy-covered halls. Courts of Justice. any blatant predilections for And true enough, the exposed When former Perkins & Will his sculptural forms of the Fif mechanicals-despite vivid col project designer Robert Reilly ties and Sixties, Knight Campus ors-visible workshops and labs (who conceived and designed has to be judged on the kind of would reinforce the factory as most of the building) was asked space it creates, its workability sociation were it not for the about these direct allusions, his and the appropriateness of its sculptural details. Forms that answer was straightforward. He formal qualities. Taken not as were hard for the lay public
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 45 The three-level library (above) re· ceives natural light through a 40-foot· deep, 20-foot-diameter skylight, as well as through exterior fenestration. A fourth level (top photo) now con· tains classrooms, but can be con verted into another level for the 100,· 000-volume library's future expansion. The school plans to fit all study carrels with audio-visual equipment. Fenestration and low horizontal lounges (above, opposite) recall the enclosed decks of large passenger ships. Much of the furnishing is rela tively expensive, including the "Ball" and "Gyro" chairs designed by Eero Aarnio. But the school reports there has been little wear by students in the first year of operation. A corridor like space on the top level of class rooms (right) is empty of furniture so that students can sprawl out on the floor. Inoperable windows are double glazed and set in anodized aluminum frames. Since most of the classrooms on the top floor occupy the interior, glass partitions set in metal frames have been used to create an open feeling (far right). The metal walls and ceiling have been painted bright colors.
46 to accept 15 years ago now be and Samuel Noe, Jr., point out would be an architectural fad come fascinating. in University-Community Ten defying the fate that events Image aside, there exists still sion and Urban Campus Form, (and education) impose. another issue, the town-gown "The process of physical change -SUZANNE STEPHENS relations. Current thinking would and its rate are far more criti cal." Ironically the building, a find it a little strange that 3,000 FACTS AND FIGURES students would come together creature of the mid-Sixties zeit Knight Campus, Rhode Island Junior under this hilltop roof to learn geist, almost an anachronism by College, Warwick, Rhode Island. Archi about going out into the "real the time of its completion, finds tects: Perkins & Will Partnership, New world" in two years' time. The itself not only responding well York; Howard Juster, A.I.A. (from de to current needs but perhaps to sign inception to construction); Robin school could point to its work son, Green & Beretta, Providence, study program with nearby hos the newest thinking. R.I.; and Harkness & Geddes, Provi pitals, department stores and It should be remembered that dence. Engineers: (structural) Wiesen the like. But the school can't the needs of the Rhode Island feld & Leon; (electrical and me chanical) Segner & Dalton; Land avoid its physical and symbolic Junior College system-both scape Architect: Carrier, Anderson & isolation from the town, buf functional and symbolic-are Geda, Hartford, Conn. Interior Design fered as it is by all those trees. specifically aligned with a cer er: Joan Hilliers and Co., Inc. Con Because educational zeitgeist tain educational program. Were tractors: (general) Dimeo Construction Co., Providence; (electrical) Crawford is subject to vicissitudes (like this "megastructure," emphasiz Electric Co.; (mechanical) Wallen H. anything else), it is no surprise ing centrality, isolation and im Alsop. Building area: 380,000 sq. ft. that recent findings suggest that age, used indiscriminately else Building cost: $10, 701,000 (excluding the physical form has little where, it would be, at worst, a sitework, furnishings, fees). PHOTOGRAPHS: Nathaniel Lieberman, effect on town-gown tensions. "repressive" response to dis except pp. 44 (bottom), 45 (bottom As Robert Carroll, Hayden May order and dissent and at best, it right) Robert Reilly.
47 The delight was almost boyish. we didn't want something that Architect James Stewart Polshek one prays in front of, or throws ROSEMARY loped around the New England flower petals on, but we wanted contours, his Rosemary Hall the buildings eventually to dis carefully folded into them. Al appear entirely-which they ready, the contours were begin will do." AND TIME ning to reclaim the buildings; The formal, vehicular ap ivy had begun to grow. He proach to Rosemary Hall is a pointed out every tree that drive curving up and around sev Imponderables become instructive had died, every place one was eral levels of girl's playing needed-"to break the formal fields. For a long time, the elements of this well-sited ity"-and how fast the white buildings remain invisible. Then, Connecticut school pines would grow. He'd said at nearing the high area, simple the very beginning of the project roof lines of concrete fascia ap that someday the woods would pear, barely brimming the fields. come out and eat up the build Nothing intrudes above the tree ings, devour them. He was say line, nothing's in profile except ing as much again: "The longer one building-the gym, he ex you wait the better it gets. In plains. From this approach, one a couple of years it's going to discovers the buildings of the be spectacular-all encrusted in academic complex cascading 50 wood. It's one of the nicest feet down a hillside, forming a commissions I ever got. We did little amphitheater (above), used not want to build a monument, for outdoor classes, at the base
48 The academic complex of the Rose· mary Hall campus cascades down from the administration building, viewed from under the headmistress's office towards the library (opposite), and filters into the surrounding woods (left). It culminates (below) in the crux of the classroom building.
of the undulating central court. sides, they are essentially the and furniture from the old between conflicts of program, The passionate humility of his same. If you draw a line from school buildings-all create a between the design alternatives design is evident in its adher the gymnasium across to the quiet, inviting intrigue, one which a program may suggest. ence to the hillside contours library and flip those sides over, manifesting humility towards His remarks to Rosemary Hall's (minimum blasting was done) they are quite different. Design the contours of school tradition 1972 graduating class carried and the rigorous geometry of ing a complex of buildings this with a sentiment as strong as this concern further as he en classroom buildings and dor way leads to th~ creation of that for these old hills. couraged the girls to redefine mitories. many accidents, planned acci Mr. Polshek recalls, "I be their roles: "The degree to which "Perhaps by coincidence," Mr. dents. Courtyards for instance, came less concerned about es we accept the role constraints Polshek says, "most buildings I all of which are very different; tablishing an artistic and his imposed on us from outside has have designed bear a relation the teachers' conference rooms torical continuity between each created a kind of behavioral ship, in their geometry, to the -a very serious attempt to vary job I did," showing an increas prison that inhibits our ability human body. We are essentially the treatment of these spaces, ing concern for himself-and to become a creative force in symmetrical if you cut us back avoiding a sense of sameness architects in general-as both bringing about positive change." to front, but if you cut us side and predictability." a servant of and spokesman for In this, it is important to stress to side, we are totally asymme In plan, the geometry may client needs, enabling a client that he has not called for an trical. If you look at the plans seem contrived. In fact, Mr. to define more precisely what end to constraints, but a scru of the academic buildings, you Polshek now feels he might those needs are, perhaps enabl tiny of where constraints upon will see that one axis is quite have been a little less formal. ing a full understanding of what us should really lay. In his own formal. The other is very in But the surprises you come "needs" are. field, architecture, Mr. Polshek formal. It is symmetrical along across-the odd shaped rooms This means being a social seems to be saying that the a line drawn from the headmis and courts, a little white lion servant-making social defini architect is increasingly con tress's office down to the class or cupid on an outside brick tions and social decisions-as strained by circumstance, by room building. If you flip the wall, gorgeous wooden carvings well as being an able arbiter conditions, by the tenor of our
FORU M-SEPTEMB ER-1973 49 The academic area is triangulated by paths in the undulating central court yard (above), a geometry which re lates to that of the dormitories (site plan). The library furniture (opposite, top left), designed by Polshek, includ ing the card catalogue, is much appreciated, especially the fiberglass tables which are great for putting feet on. The dining room (opposite, top right) is ingratiating in the best way; a clerestory light; brightly colored old tab.les and new carpets; up and down, quiet and bright lights by Polshek; indoor-outdoor eating. The bridge (right) "triangulates" off from the classroom building towards the dorms. And the interiors of the ad ministration building are a lovely combination of modern straightfor· wardness and accumulated grandeur (far right).
SITE PLAN KEY ADMINISTRATION 2 DINING 3 LIBRARY 4 CLASSROOMS 5 GYM 6 BRIDGE 7 DORM 1 8 DORM 2 9 DORM 3 10 HEADMISTRESS'S HOUSE 11 FACULTY HOUSING 12 MELLON ARTS CENTER times, to adopt a new set of schools, the role of secondary, dents always entered by window, "something that was not senti constraints, including-as he in independent education in the courtyards, medieval fake machi mental, but possessed a suffici sists-the role of the architect U.S.-all relative to a "ruling colations, Spanish grillwork and ent romantic aspect to legitima as a social servant, as an arbi class." An amalgamation like tiles. It was a melange of eclec tize itself in the eyes of the ter, as one who can move be this, he told himself, might turn ticism, but not corny he recalls; client. My responsibility was yond the concern for superficial out to "be an important though and was built at a time when to help clarify potentially devi consistency of style to a more subtle social factor." the "ruling class" could still af sive issues between Rosemary intrinsic source of style. Regarding the past, Polshek ford "to school" (an old guard and Choate-overlapping claims Rosemary Hall was founded fondly describes the old Green verb) among the niceties of life. in the use of physical space, in 1890 at Rosemary Farm, wich campus, where Rosemary "There really was a little nostal walking distances to classes owned by Judge William Choate, Hall moved in 1900, a decade gia for it," Mr. Polshek con and to help interpret, without be in Wallingford, Connecticut. It after its founding. He and tinued. "It wasn't tacky, and ing maudlin about it, the pos merged with Choate in 1970. The his wife, then working in it had quality." sibility of maintaining their merger is referred to as "co his office, attended school there He feels the principal genera identities. At Rosemary, espe ordinate education" (to deter for three weeks in 1969. "Some tor of his design was "the trans cially, he was challenged "to any possible alumni fears of co of the buildings were funny, lation of the spirit of the total transmit the general spirit of education, one presumes). And happy, little ones; others were school, which had been in one that old assemblage of buildings, it was part of Mr. Polshek's job kind of elegant; some were very place for a very long time, to a which was something of an ad to sustain a sense of separate delicate; one looked like Hansel new place with a new set of hoc thing, to something planned identity for Rosemary Hall. He and Gretel. The whole campus circumstances, without losing in one fell swoop. Naturally, was involved in a social and was extremely charming with its the spirit of the old, but at the there were a lot of other things, financial experiment, with both little courtyards, the little objets same time not compromising the such as rooms that work, build schools, the role of secondary, d'arts, the variety, and chance for open-endedness of changing pro ings that were relaxed with the doubts, and with trustees grow privacy." It had no stiffness, grams and a new, progressive site and each other, ones you ing and changing in their atti marvelous old trees, a lot of spirit." He also feels the trans could walk through, not just tudes about education, boarding hidden places, a classroom stu- lation was successful in creating around. And most important of
51 all, something which may be peculiar to a lot of buildings that I do-whenever it's possible -to see the building as a means to something else, not as just an end. Although in this case I had a client who clearly saw buildings as ends, as set pieces that meant immortality." Mr. Polshek's sense of the site is similar, "I recognized the site as the single most important de sign determinant, because it was there first and will be there long after." Sure enough, in walking about Rosemary, there is the feeling that the buildings are a means to something else, in cluding a sense of site which might not have been apparent, or compelling, had not these buildings been done. This sense of site, of tradi tion, contrasts with the asser tive character of I.M. Pei's near by arts center. According to the master plan combining Choate and Rosemary, Mr. Pei's building was to be a kind of gateway between them. This is one constraint Mr. Polshek deviated from, putting his build ings on top of the hill (now the high area of the approach road), instead of along the The lecture hall (above) is brilliant suavely inclined and stunning in diagonal through the art center, color with bright red seats and blue as decreed by the master plan. carpet. Polshek says the students' As a result of placing his contributions to the school each year include planting which he hopes will buildings on the hillside, the pre fill the now gravel-covered courtyards ferred route to them from of the classroom building (opposite, Choate is a casual short cut top). He designed the modular tri which weaves around the hos angular tables for classrooms (below) which well serve the flexibility of the pital, a pond and through some pie-shaped rooms (especially the con woods-not exactly the trium troversiality and currency of the phal procession which would political science curriculum). The gym have resulted from the dramatic (opposite, right) is bright and airy because of the open gallery. 45-degree cut, but much pre ferred even though there is a cafe in the arts center that was conceived as meeting ground be tween schools. The headmis tress heavily hinted that the cafe is a problem, students shy away from it, and would love to have the new Rosemary li brary converted into the "meet ing ground" they were supposed to have had in the first place. In the gentle landscape, with a scattering of brick buildings, the arts center is a high-handed, if somewhat heady experience. After passing it on approaching the schools, one is aware that the campus is bisected by a high CLASSROOM BUILDING PLAN KEY speed thoroughfare, and that TOP LEVEL any ";:ateway" should have re 1 CLASSROOM 2 TEACHER'S CONFERENCE ROOM lated to bridging it. 3 WAITING AND GROUP CONFERENCE Mr. Polshek, who once worked 4 COURT at the Pei office, has a high re GROUND LEVEL 5 LECTURE HALL gard for the work, and didn't al 6 CHAPEL together flout the arts center: "I 7 LANGUAGE LABORATORY 8 LABORATORY
52
The bridge (below), piece de resistance of the campus, approaches the nar row entrance to the dorm plaza. The dorms (center) have bedroom furni ture (bottom, left) easily turned into tunnels, sleeping bag hideouts; and upstairs lounges (bottom, center), with stepped "layouts," by Polshek, reiterating aspects of the whole cam pus plan. Dorm plans (bottom, right) are well conceived.
54 consciously adopted, as general literally, they caress each other geometric guidelines, a kind of in the academic complex. The tone that would be at ease gymnasium and dormitories are with Pei's building. The general light, cheerful. Bright colors, geometry which is derived on especially in the dorms, carry a 45-degree angle, with respect over into the dining and lec to pedestrian movement also re ture halls. The administration lates to the movements in this building is demure, suitably so. building. And we used exposed The teachers heartily indulge concrete on the academic com their private conference rooms, plex which is closest to the Pei arranged in clusters by discipline building." and as the headmistress puts it, Mr. Polshek points out, how there is a sense of being in "a ever, that he didn't put any ef community of scholars." fort or money into fancy con The decision to separate the crete, just to be in keeping with dormitories from the academic the arts center, although he complex seems valid, even nat found its formwork so attrac ural, partially because both tive that he used it to panel groupings are derived from Mr. the walls of Rosemary chapel. Polshek's "same set of coordi Next in importance to making nates." The dorms relate to the the Rosemary buildings unobtru triangular shapes and movement sive was providing variety of patterns of the academic area experience. Speaking of the and are impressively angu classroom building, he gestured, lar in form, but, compared to "Every place you look you get the academic buildings' exte views into trees or views into riors, there is something nicely courtyards. Despite its overall indeterminate in their effect. organizational symmetry, which This may be a very personal re is really quite formal, formality action or attributable to some is not the feeling one gets at all. failings Mr. Polshek sees in the Actually, it's extremely random. dormitory detailing, especially In line with this is the sepa the windows. One can see that" ration of the dormitories from a switch to brick cladding fol the academic complex, provid lows from the decision to sepa ing "a whole other world", as rate the two functions, but the the headmistress describes the exposed structure of the aca dorms, giving the girls a sense demic area is so handsome it of independence if only by way was obviously hard to equal it. of a trip over the bridge. This, however, is small fault to The people, the ivy, the forest find in a complex, on-budget clambering over the complex job. all end up seeming more im Rosemary Hall is a memorable portant than the buildings. "I example of how simplicity can don't want the building to fall redeem complexity-of how the down," Mr. Polshek cracks, "but constraints Mr. Polshek alluded it does mean that that which it to can be used to free up a contains is the reason why the building for richer participation building should be there." With by those learning in it, indeed these attitudes, and his nonsub from it. Appropriately enough, missive geometry, he has cre these are the emotions which ated intimate, idiosyncratic loom large-large in proportion spaces which utterly defy insti to the way these buildings delib FIRST FLOOR tutionality, or institutionalized erately do not.-JANET BLOOM 1 STORAGE 2 FACULTY APARTMENT critical response. His view is 3 HOUSE ADVISOR'S APARTMENT neither non nor anti-architec FACTS AND FIGURES 4 LIVING ROOM tural. He has served both the Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Connec· 5 STUDENT KITCHEN client and the contours as he ticut. Architect: James Stewart Pol· 6 MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT found them, weaving into the shek & Assoc. Owner: Rosemary Hall/ SECOND FLOOR The Choate School. Associate·in· 7 DOUBLE complex a variety of seams be Charge: Dimitri Linard. Project Man· 8 SINGLE tween people, buildings and ager: Michael Herlands. Engineers: 9 LOUNGE nature. He strikes balances pfisterer, Tor & Assoc. (structural); 10 SHOWERS among them rather than allow Cosentini Assoc. (mechanical and 11 TOILETS electrical). Landscape Architect: Clarke 12 TUB ROOM ing or forcing any one element & Rapuano, Inc. Interior Designer: THIRD FLOOR to dominate. James Stewart Polshek & Assoc. Con· 13 LAUNDRY Both students and teachers tractors: George B .H . Macomber Con· 14 SUN DECK struction Co. (general); Buckingham were specific in their ease with Routh (mechanical); M.B. Foster (elec Mr. Polshek's not-so-random trical). Building Area square feet: randomness. The not-so-random 130,000. land and Site Development reads out, as one would expect, cost: $652,600. Construction Cost: $4,499,700. Furnishing and Equipment in the form of impeccably de Cost: $335,000. tailed columns and slabs; quite PHOTOGRAPHS: Nathaniel Lieberman.
55
SENSUOUS SURFACES Glossy materials and geometric forms dramatize a new headquarters for a savings bank.
A rather striking apparition has hoped that establishing a new appeared in an isolated setting headquarters in Hancock might in upper Michigan. Recalling in spur some economic life in this its formal qualities and imagery remote spot. But they wanted both the grain silos of the Mid a landmark-no difficult task, west as well as recent Japanese considering the size of a town architecture (e.g. Kenzo Tange's with a population of about 6,000. Shizuoka Newspaper Co.), the For their part, the townsfolk building will be the home office seemed intrigued with this gi for Detroit & Northern Savings gantic piece of metal and glass & Loan Association in Hancock, sculpture in their back yard. Michigan. Five thousand villagers turned The structure is simply and out for the dedication, and many subtly comprised of a 65-foot have returned since, some just square cube for offices tautly to ride the elevators. wrapped in gold-tinted reflective Besides the highly visible em glass, and a 40-foot diameter blematic requirements, the build service elevator/lobby tower, ing also had to provide a cer sheathed in copper-bonded stain tain symbolic association with less steel. The bank's eight the glorious past. Thus copper, stories ( ll8-foot high) guaran steel and wood materials were tee its somewhat dubious emphasized in the structure. achievement of being the tallest However, since copper costs so building in those parts. much now, a composite of cop But there are reasons for its per molecularly bonded to steel size. The once prosperous Ke was chosen. The framing itself weenaw Peninsula in northern is steel, although the first and Michigan has now fallen into mezzanine floors of the office depressed times, with only des block are poured-in-place con ultory iron, lumbering and cop crete-as is the parking level per activities left. When De tucked beneath the bank's slop troit & Northern Savings & Loan ing site. Association, the third largest The structure of the office savings and loan bank in the block, based on a five-foot state, needed new headquarters, module, was designed to permit Copper molecularly bonded to stainless steel sheaths the cylindrical service core and street level columns, while gold·tinted reflective glass in a bronze it decided to build in the little large interior spans for the anodized aluminum frame wraps tightly around the office block. The building town of Hancock, where the 54,600-sq. ft. building. Pairs of sits on a reinforced concrete parking level that's been inserted into the 12·foot firm was founded during the corner columns carry a perime drop of the sloping site. On its roof a plaza was created, paved in native copper boom in 1889. Rather ter girder which links to a stone aggregate. Retaining and planter walls on the plaza have been sand· blasted for textural effect. than building in a large city, north/south girder supported by most of them 300 miles away, an interior column. This girder the Detroit & Northern people in turn carries seven trusses
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 57 Curved elements throughout the office building (above) relate visually and that span 40 feet on the east In terms of space allocation, thematically to the form of the cylindrical tower. Thus a seating and fireplace and 25 feet on the west, to the elevator lobby core, whose niche is circular, as is the tellers' counter bound by spiral stairs leading to the mezzanine. Wood materials, seen in the stained oak ceiling design, were used support the concrete and steel size makes sense in terms of extensively in the building, as a tribute to the region's historic lumber indus deck floors. Air conditioning the proportion of cylinder to try. Each of the eight levels in the lobby/elevator core contains photographic ducts have been placed within cube, is obviously greater than murals by regional artist Homer Mitchell (opposite). The subject matter of the the three-foot-deep trusses, and needed to serve the existing of murals depicts Keweenaw Peninsula"s history. the cellular steel decking accom fices. The T.M.P. principal in modates electric raceways, and charge of design, Maurice Al allows addition of electronic and len, acknowledges the excess 1 LOBBY communication circuits in the circulation, but points to the future. possibility of expansion facili 2 TELLERS In the cylindrical tower, the tated by the separation of serv 3 VAULT architects designed two rings of ice core from office block. Thus, columns spaced 15 feet on cen another office structure could be ter connected by diagonal added onto the fenestrated sec braces to provide the cylinder tion of the service core. with lateral wind-bracing. Thus, The building represents a cost in effect, fabricated-in-place ver ly investment for the bank. If tical trusses have been created. it does succeed in restoring Rounded perimeter girders and pride in Hancock, and spurs the wide flange beams comprise the Jagging village economy, the ex rest of the framing. pense may be well worthwhile. While the bank is formally and structurally interesting, cer tain nagging inefficiencies re FACTS AND FIGURES main. Since the building enve Detroit and Northern Building, Han· lope uses reflective glass, 85 cock, Mich.; Owner: Detroit & North· percent of the sun's rays are de ern Savings & Loan Assn. Architects: Tarapata I MacMahon I Paulsen Corp. flected, thereby reducing the size Principal in charge of Project & De of the mechanical system needed sign: Maurice Allen. AIA; Associate for air-cooling the building. Nev Architect: Gordon Andringa, AIA. Engi ertheless, considering the cold neer (structural, mechanical and elec· trical): T.M.P. Corp.; Landscape Archi climate, one would expect that tect: Prote/Krause Associates; Interior solar radiation could be useful Designer: T.M.P. Consultants: Homer for some heat in the winter, Mitchell (murals artist); Beverly Seger and that air conditioning in this (art collection). Contractor (general): Herman Gundlach, Inc.; (electrical) northwestern lakeside site is the M.J. Electric, Inc.; (mechanical) In· least of the office workers' prob dustrial Piping Co. Building Area: lems. (The choice of reflective 54.600 sq. ft., plus parking structure, glass, one suspects, is, after all, 29,000 sq. ft. Construction cost: With· held at request of owner. (For a primarily due to its sleek sur listing of key products, see page 79.) faces.) PHOTOGRAPHS: Balthazar Korab.
58
Architecture is everyman's art. Professional architectural criti Unlike music, literature, sculp cism is a fairly new field, dating EUROPEAN TRAVELERS ture or painting which are, by from the turn of the century and large, private art forms when Montgomery Schuyler 19th century visitors to America meant to please a fairly select wrote his first articles in the often made interesting and acerbic comments or exclusive audience, archi now-defunct Herald Tribune. tecture is probably the only art Dilettante criticism is nothing on its emerging architecture form that directly influences the new. Man is dedicated to his average man's life, and unfail opinionated views, and some BY MIREILLE T. AYOUB ingly attracts his immediate form of architecture has always criticisms. been present, close by and Our environment is an archi therefore tempting. A person's tectural one, and our apprecia inherent feeling of superiority, tion of the art form, whether we his unfailing certainty that his actually recognize it as one or knowledge must be and is su not, comes at an early age. Our perior to that of his neighbor, earliest memories often hinge has since the very beginning upon some landmark, barely re nurtured a veritable army of membered yet influential: a mu backseat drivers and sidewalk seum we were trundled through, superintendents. a grandparent's home, a dark America, a land where archi-1 apartment which frightened us. tectural progress has in two Architecture has become a hundred years surpassed and status symbol: our wealth, so outclassed the rest of the world's cial standing, past, present and achievement, has naturally future aspirations, all are mir enough drawn and mesmerized rored in our dwellings, homes a plethora of critics from every and offices. nation. They come to inspect, ; It's actually of little wonder, compare and generally state '. then, that the architectural art their superiority. form has suffered so much This development is more , criticism from the artistically than apparent in recent years. ignorant, whether it was de What is surprising is that it is served or not. by no means a modern phe- nomenon. Few countries have Dr. Ayoub is an Art Historian now in their history been so plagued living in Maryland. by cultural critics whose com-
Mrs. Trollope's Bazaar from Third Street.
The Eastern front of the Nation's Capitol in 1839.
60 ments have involved everything from foreign policy to internal politics. Between 1836 and 1860, ac cording to Berger's The British Travelers in America, 1836-1860, at least two hundred thirty British travelers came to the United States and tried to re cuperate from the expense of their voyage by publishing, in their home country, diaries or commentaries of their trips. Some were rich, others poor, most middle class. They came to make their fortunes, for the most part, as tourism had not really established itself in the United States. They left, gen erally poorer than when they came, and often in their memoirs emphasized the unusual as op posed to the commonplace in A 1903 engraving of New York City's Tombs prison. hopes of creating a best-seller. As such, their judgment turies. America has not. Ameri ing, could not. Her literary efforts, highly should often be taken with a cans, proud of their individuali I have chosen as my first critical yet imbued with an hon certain amount of skepticism. ty, striving to break away from travelers two quite opposed est naivete, read like a trave They were writing, after all, to an already established environ tourists, interested in America logue: touristic impressions and sell, and often resorted to what ment and create a new one, had, for quite different reasons. subjective reasonings abounded. i might now be called "shock ap quite literally, no time to learn. Mrs. Francis Milton Trollope's She seemed unable to write peal" to please their readers. Most inhabitants were first work, my first choice, is a clas without comparing her present Yet some writers were honest, or second-generation immigrants, sic, read, possibly, by a larger whereabouts to earlier and gen particularly after travel became owning their first home. They percentage of the population erally superior places. widespread and popular. Still did not really care to refine it. than any other "travelogue." Though she manifested no their honesty was often of a The fact that they owned it Charles Dickens must also be great knowledge of architecture, stinging variety, and their com was enough. mentioned, if not for his literary she was wont to criticize it as ments should not always be An average house in Europe fame, then for the fact that he quickly and as easily as local taken too seriously. can be a few hundred years old. dealt fairly extensively in criti religions, mores, entertainment The architecture of nineteenth It has been lived in by any cism of the New World's archi or the quality of fruits. century America was much like number of families, each of tecture, and became therefore a Mrs. Trollope was not by na the country itself: representative which has left its mark. Ameri particularly accessible source of ture a highly complimentary of a struggle both against the ca, in short, did not have the information. woman. The architecture of the environment and the past; a European patina of age upon On the fourth of November, New World, she thought, was in yearning to break away from its art. 1827, one Mrs. Francis Milton no way superior to that of her the tried and true forms of American architecture, then, Trollope, largely bankrupt and native country, though she ad European thinking. America, it could be roughly divided into accompanied by two daughters mitted being impressed by the must be remembered, in the five spheres of unequal volume, and one son, set sail from Lon Capitol building: "None of us, nineteenth century had almost the domestic, religious, govern don to America in order to os I believe, expected to see so im no culture in the European mental, recreational, and com tensibly view for herself "the in posing a structure on that side sense of the word. mercial and industrial. fluence which the political sys of the Atlantic.":; Indeed, she A British visitor with a vir The American people, in their tem of the country has produced was so impressed that she cate tually ingrained sense of cus haste to build, govern and in on the principles, tastes and gorically decided that "Wash tom and tradition would hardly habit a new and promising coun manners of its domestic Jife." 1 ington [was] a more agreeable find America civilized. try, were not always too aware She returned some three years abode than any other city in the A French artist, with some of the aesthetic. Functionality and six months later to write an nation."' 0 fifteen centuries of artistic his was the bylaw. There was little amusing book entitled Domestic Her comments were probably tory and philosophy to bolster sense in building too ornately. Manners of the Americans. The justified. Nineteenth century his opinion, could not find in Money, and more important, book created a furor and prob Washington did include some of the emerging country a Mecca time and manual labor, could ably helped to widen the already the best architectural forms of for the arts, architectural or be put to better use. existing British-American gap. the emerging nation. Like the otherwise. A house, unless one was rich, Mrs. Trollope's conclusions were capital of any new and young A French aristocrat traveling was a house and not a castle. many, the most notable of which country, Washington was a the country and particularly in It might and often did have a was to warn all her British showpiece, if one kept within terested in the architectural de garden, but again, a functional countrymen to "hold fast by the the bounds of the good neighbor velopment (an interest which in one. constitution" which blesses gov hoods. itself would be unlikely) would Literature, painting and sculp ernment by the few instead of It was a city meant to im find little to charm him-little ture were considered to be not by the many, Jest they "incur press foreign dignitaries and which, according to his particu quite as useful as farming or the fearful risk ... and univer visitors with the grandeur and lar standards, he could accept industry. A weathervane, door sal degradation which invariably hopes of the United States. It as genuinely beautiful. step or even tombstone could follows [the placing of] all the housed heroes and leaders, France, for example, has been be put to use. A fine piece of power of the state into the presidents and congressmen in architecturally active for cen- music, a masterpiece of paint- hands of the populace."2 gracious gentility along the
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 61 her fortune and found that the the gaiety of the signs and New World was not at all what houses, the cleanliness of the she expected it to be. One gets city itself. Dickens seemed par the impression that she sought ticularly fascinated by hospitals, a land of plenty, a gentlemanly mental asylums and jails. He land where money was for the left Boston a short time after taking, where all comers would his arrival, after visiting the find streets paved with gold. Home for the Deaf and Blind, More, she envisaged a regal the jail, and the hospital. He treatment, for she considered journeyed to Worcester, where herself far above the lowly mass he visited a local asylum, then of pioneers who had come be traveled to New York. fore her. The fact that they, The city was a revelation, quite naturally, did not exert though the metropolis was by themselves too much to make "no means as clean as the city her feel like a queen left her of Boston."11 He found in New quite affronted. York a foul jail called the It's interesting to note, in com Tombs, which he described with parison, the comments of a man evocative ire. The Lunatic Asy New York's Broadway. who had already made his for lum did not escape his glance. banks of a slowly flowing river city's expansion-"Situated on tune and established his fame He saw Sing-Sing, which he de and left nothing to be desired an island, which I think one day as a literary artist. scribed as a "model prison," in its architecture. The Capitol it will cover"-and predicted Charles Dickens came to and harshly criticized the black building was an imposing sight: suburbia even before the word America in 1842, fifteen years neighborhoods which he de 1 From the base of the hill on or concept had been created: after Mrs. Trollope's departure scribed as "a kind of square of which the Capitol stands ex- "The great defect in the houses from her native land. leprous houses, some of which tends a street of most magnifi- is their extreme uniformity- His comments are so dissimi are attainable only by crazy 10 cent width. . . . This street, when you have seen one, you lar from his predecessor as to wooden stairs without." which is called Pennsylvania have seen all." 10 make a reader wonder whether But nevertheless, for all his A venue, is above a mile in Possibly to combat the archi both he and Mrs. Trollope are criticism of the squalid side of length, and at the end of it is tectural conformity of the United writing of the same country. the city, he did find in New the handsome mansion of the States but more likely to ward Whereas she found little to make York at least one place which President." off impending financial doom, her exclaim, "How beautiful," struck him as unique-Broad Mrs. Trollope, amazed by this Mrs. Trollope decided to build, Dickens, seemingly, could not way: Was there ever such a pearl of beauty in such a primi- in Cincinnati, a large building restrain from often praising the sunny street as this Broadway? tive country, gave the city the which would house a store, a beauty of the land, the people The P.avement stones are pol most generous of her dub- barroom, private meeting and and the general idea of what ished with the tread of feet un ious accolades: "[Washington] dining rooms, a ballroom, a pic America was. til they shine again; the red , reminded me of our fashionable ture gallery and an "exchange Mrs. Trollope implored Eng bricks of the houses might be watering places."il coffee house."'' The design of land to remain a monarchy, as yet in the dry, hot kilns .. y; Georgetown, too, did not fail the building was concocted by all else would fail. Dickens, He found in the growing city to please her critical eye: "It Mrs. Trollope herself, but she quite to the contrary, simply a resemblance to London: there is a very pretty town, command- commissioned a local builder of said: "I hope and believe that were as many by-streets, as ing a lovely view, of which the "classical taste in architecture," it [America] will successfully filthy as the ones in his capital. noble Potomac, and the almost Seneca Palmer, to supervise the work out a problem of the high "There is one quarter, common nobler Capitol, are the great construction. est importance to the whole hu ly called the Five Points, which, features."' The results can only be man race." 1 ~ in respect of filth and wretched Mrs. Trollope's ebullience and deemed to be poetic justice. It Dickens came to the United ness, may be safely backed generosity were soon lost as she had Gothic windows, Grecian States as somewhat of a social against Seven Dials, or any other 17 traveled northward. Philadel- pillars, and a Turkish dome. scientist. He had already writ part of famed St. Giles." phia, though a growing city, did It was architecturally prepos ten numerous books which told Dickens' views of New York not display the splendors of terous and economically a fail of Britain's seamy side, and was were not inaccurate. In his Washington. Its architecture ure. Mrs. Trollope, broke and now interested in seeing if the search for the other side of the was largely utilitarian and of- disheartened, returned to the great promise of America had coin, he found what, basically, 1 fered little to her discriminating longed-for shores of her native or could come true. No Trollope resembled any port town in the taste: There is no Place Louis England, abandoned business by any means, he strained to world: beautiful buildings backed Quinze, or Carrousel, no Regent and took up the pen which she discover the country in a way by slums, pauperism side by Street, or Green Park, to make wielded in a more satisfactory which few writers have attempt side with wealth. one exclaim "how beautiful"; all manner, it seems. Where her ed and even fewer have suc The New York of the mid is even, strait (sic) uniform and ! business acumen failed her acicl ceeded in doing. lSOO's was a bustling city, site uninteresting.' comments succeeded. Her Do- Dickens set sail upon the of the New York stock ex She did concede, however: mestic Manners of the Ameri- steam packet Britannia on the change, heart of the financial "Nothing can exceed its neat- cans restored her wealth and so- third of January, 1842. He atmosphere of the new country. ness; the streets are well paved, cial standing. stopped at Halifax, then traveled Well-paved streets were para!- 1 the footways . . . are of brick, It's conceivable and entirely to Boston of which he wrote: leled by knee-deep mud alleys. like the old Pantile walk at probable that Mrs. Trollope's "The city is a beautiful one and In 1790, the population of , Turnbridge Wells."'' caustic descriptions of the cannot fail, I should imagine, New York stood at 33,131. In New York, it was decided, United States were no more than to impress all strangers very 1850, it was 515,390. What 1 was a beautiful city, worthy of ' a vengeance meant to hurt a favourably." " He was en Dickens was witnessing was pos some praise, though, with a country which, she thought, had chanted by the shops he found sibly one of the world's first flash of insight, she foresaw the ! failed her. She came to make in the merchants' districts, with population explosions. The city's
62 architecture could not keep up ' ington, to impress, with such
' with its immigration. The prob- ! standards of colonial architec lems of dealing with the influx ' ture as the Old State House, of newcomers were taxing the built in 1732. It was a Mecca city and its facilities to the limit, for the artistic class, distin- preventing any semblance of or- guished by the presence of such ganization. The architecture notables as Gilbert Stuart, Wil- was largely catch-as-catch-can. liam Rush, Thomas Sully, and The Tombs resembled a "dismal- architects William Strickland fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, and Thomas U. Walter. Though like an enchanter's palace in a Dickens' visit came after the melodrama." It was, Dickens city's golden age, Philadelphia wrote, "a long narrow lofty was still a worthy representative building, stove heated as usual, of the social, cultural and even with four galleries, one above architectural advances of the the other, going around it and nation. communicating by stairs." 1" The British author's southern Yet a city capable of building traveling expedition was bound and running such a dismal es- to pass by Washington. Again, tablishment as the Tombs was his opinion of the capital was The Water Works in Centre Square, Philadelphia also capable of housing a three- far different than that of the story stone theater called the notable Mrs. Trollope and only lack great thoroughfares to rows, and go in and come out, 2 1 Park, which cost some $180,000. ' it should be quoted in full: ornament ... : as at a play or a concert. 25 By 1840, there were more than Take the worst part of City For a man who, in the preface Dickens was referring to the five theaters and two profes- Road and Pentonville, or the of his works, stated: "Preju Statuary Hall, which was origi sional opera houses operating. straggling outskirts of Paris, diced, I am not, and never have nally built as the House of And yet, beyond the resi- where the houses are smallest, been, otherwise than in favour Representatives by Latrobe. dential center of Union Square preserving all their oddities, but of the United States,"21 such a Like Mrs. Trollope, he appreci were little more than open especially the small shops and diatribe is hard to comprehend, ated the Georgetown area, as ' fields, until late in the nine- dwellings, occupied in Penton- particularly if one is to com "free from some of the insalu teenth century. ville [but not in Washington] pare his impressions of the brities of Washington."26 The i New York, as Charles Dick- by furniture brokers, keepers of capital with Mrs. Trollope's President's mansion left him un ens discovered, was a paradox poor-eating houses, and fanciers earlier writings. It is strange impressed, as, incidentally, did of social structure, capable, as of birds. Burn the whole down; to note that what she found the President. He described the it still is, of great beauty and build it up again in wood and breathtaking, and, I might add, residence as somewhat resem even greater ugliness, mixed and plaster; widen it a little; throw the only thing she found breath bling an English club. Quite side by side in an uneasy peace. in parts of St. John's Wood; put taking, was viewed by a pro pleasant, all in all, but not really From New York, Dickens green blinds outside all the pri- American author as such an as "comfortable" as it should went to Philadelphia, which he vate houses, with red curtains architectural shambles. be. He was struck by the fact labeled a "handsome city, but and white ones in every window; George Washington envisaged that the gardens looked as if distressingly regular." 1" He was plough up all the roads; plant a national capital eventually as they "had been made yesterday, particularly struck, naturally, by a great deal of coarse turf in large as most European cities. which is far from favorable the Eastern Penitentiary but every place where it ought not The fact that the city's plan to the display of such beau seems to remember, most of all, to be; erect three handsome ning and building was plagued ties ...." 27 But it was pleasant. "a handsome building of white buildings in stone and marble, by delays, that the original All in all, Washington, the capi marble, which had a mournful, anywhere, but the more entirely architect's concepts were modi tal, was not all it should have ghostlike aspect, dreary to be- out of everybody's way the bet- fied after his dismissal and been. Dickens resumed his hold ... It was the memorable ter; call one the Post Office, one that, perhaps more important, travels, heading for the "far 2 United States Bank."2 " the Patent Office and one the money to back the construction West." ' Philadelphia's straight and Treasury; make it scorching hot of the Capitol was short, cannot Dickens' commentaries on the right-angled streets, all neatly ' in the morning and freezing fully account for Dickens' dis United States were those of an aligned, made him feel after an cold in the afternoon with an paraging remarks. author whose professional writ ! hour or two's walk that: "I : occasional tornado of wind and True, Washington was an un ings often dealt with the socio would have given the world for dust; leave a brick field with- finished city. Niggardly federal economic problems of the lower a crooked street."" 1 out the bricks, in all central ' appropriations made for great classes. His visit was punctu The Philadelphia waterworks, places where a street may nat- difficulties. There was constant ated by a mania largely cen buil t and planned as a func- urally be expected: and that's talk from irate politicians of tered around correctional or lional public garden, pleased his ' Washington . ... It is sometimes moving the capital back to less health institutes, never the best sense of the useful and beauti- called the City of Magnificent provincial Philadelphia. Yet the side of a society's standing, or, ful. He praised its tastefulness Distances, but it might with city was growing, and should for that matter, of a society's and cleanliness though seemed greater propriety be called the not, I believe, have been subject architecture. slightly cynical in his descrip- City of Magnificent Intentions; to such harsh criticism. What was and should remain tion of the water "which is for it is only in taking a bird's In order to be fair, we must of interest to the traveler is not showered and jerked about, and eye view of it from the top of say that Dickens' criticism was how or where the one percent turned on and poured off every- the Capitol that one can at all somewhat tempered by his com live, but how and where the where.""" comprehend the vast design ... ments concerning the House of population as a whole resides. What Dickens overlooked was and lead nowhere; streets, miles Representatives: (It) is a beati Two other travelers to the the fact that Philadelphia was long, that only want houses, ful and spacious hall of semicir United States should be men somewhat of an architectural roads and inhabitants; public cular shape supported by hand tioned, though neither actually pioneer in the United States. buildings that need but a public some pillars. One part of the had that much to say on the As the sometime-capital of the to be complete, and ornaments gallery is appropriated by the architecture of the country.
1 new nation, it sought, like Wash- of great thoroughfares, which ladies, and there they sit in front Both were artists, though far
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 63 neither an artist nor a hopeful of two storeys. The facade is of businessman. He was, by trade, tiled brick, with no particular a surgeon attached to the Ans decoration, but in comparison, bach troops which landed in regular and handsome. In this North America in 1777. His case, also, the providing of a hobby was America, and he large square in front has been seems to have devoted to this neglected, and this would have hobby a large amount of time lent distinction . ..." 1 and study. He then described a num He wrote, before his death in ber of landmarks of old Phil 1800, a number of books and adelphia, the Pennsylvania Hos scholarly treatises on the geol pital, which he noted was in a ogy and ichthyology of the new "very cleanly state,"''" though country, but managed to see unfinished. The New Jail was not only with the coldly scien a "large but quite plain build tific eye of the researcher but ing where the British prisoners
with the insightful look of the of war found no great cause to ! enlightened-tourist, unencum praise American philanthropy ' bered by the romanticism of an and magnanimity."'"; The Col- i The U.S. Bank in Philadelphia. artist. His travels took him to lege of Pennsylvania lacked "the many American cities, notably distinguished and handsome ap Philadelphia, the City of Broth pearance of the College of New removed in both their talents composer, came to the United erly Love, for whom he had this York.""7 and personalities. One, the Vi States in 1876, for the Centen acid yet lucid comment: "Uni His travels, after ten days comte Francois Auguste Rene de nial of the United States. versal love may be easily im spent in Philadelphia, led him Chateaubriand, the French writ Offenbach considered himself agined and preached, but, in a to Germantown, which he de er credited with originating the the Darling of the New Society, growing colony, may not so scribes appropriately enough as Ecole Romantique, once de and was certainly much more easily be practiced."2 being "really fine,""' then to scribed the Indian pyramids he concerned with the impression The city struck him by its Nazareth, Carlisle, Ohio, the claimed to have seen along the he gave than with the impres functionality: It is easily seen West, and finally Pittsburgh and banks of the Mississippi. The sions he received. His com that the Quakers drew the plans Delaware on the return trip. fact that no such pyramids ments on American architecture and dealt frugally with the Schoepf was the only author existed, though they might have are few, far between and gen space.... It is a pity that when I have found to devote such en been Indian burial mounds, did erally uninteresting. He seemed the town was laid out, there was ergy to the description and not hinder the author, nor did highly fascinated and pleased such a total neglect to provide travel of such small towns: Al it stop the selling of his fic with the mechanical aspect of open squares, which lend an es lentown, Maguntchy, Kutztown, tional novel, Atala, written a the various houses he resided pecial beauty to great towns. ! Hummelstown, Carlisle. All few years before he came to in: . . . In Philadelphia, there is came under the good surgeon's the United States. Not only is there central heat nothing but streets all alike, the scrutiny, though it must be men His Travels in America should ing in all the apartments, gas houses of bricks, of the same tioned to be fair that towns of not be looked upon as a source in every room, hot and cold height, mostly, and built by a German origin seem to have of reliable information. The au water at all hours; but also in plan that seldom varies . .. _:;:: fared better than other non thor's imagination, added to the a room on the ground floor are Dr. Schoepf's statements, Teutonic cities. gleaned readings of some thirty lined up three little pushbut though written some sixty-five During his second trip, Dr. years' worth of generally un tons which have great impor years earlier than those of Schoepf, who had earlier limited trustworthy works, coupled fi tance .. _::o Charles Dickens, manifest the his travels to the northern and nally with a certain amount of The pushbuttons of great im same irritation with the city's western lands, decided to visit wish-fulfillment make the book portance called the porter, news "regularity". the southern portion of the wildly implausible. boy and policeman. In fact, according to both united new country. He passed What, perhaps, is interestir.g, Offenbach also commented on writers, it seems that Philadel through Maryland, Virginia, find is the fact that Chateaubriand's the simplicity of the city plan phia, though at the height of its ing nothing there to tickle his work, for many, was America. ning, saying that "the Ameri power during Schoepf's visit, architectural fancy. Maybe one lucid, accurate state cans ordinarily do not give to did not really change all that Jamestown, a Mecca now to ment emerges from his book: their streets the names of the much. It remained clean, or visitors of the East Coast and Philadelphia is cold and monot governing patronage nor change derly and rectangular; function a historical name to even the onous. In general, the cities these names everytime the gov ality was supreme. Strangely, youngest students, did not fare ' of the United States are lack ernment changes. Our French of all the visitors mentioned so well under Schoepf's pen: ing in monuments, especially custom would be too incon far, it is Schoepf who seems to Jamestown, or merely the rub old monuments. Protestantism, venient for this republic which manifest the greatest interest bish of a town so called; for which sacrifices nothing to the elects its President every four in American architecture. Per notwithstanding it is described imagination and which is itself years . ...":n haps it is another proof that here and there in the newer new, has not raised those towers We have dealt with both architecture was not yet an art geographies as a place of 80- and domes with which the French and British visitors. It in the new country, and there 100 houses; one or two, and they ancient Catholic religion has is perhaps necessary, in order fore would appeal more to a are ruinous, is all the town con- 1 crowned Europe. Almost noth to get a fairer view of the late functional man such as a sur tains at present.'"' ing at Philadelphia, New York, eighteenth century tourist's out geon than to an imaginative and So much for Jamestown. In Boston, rises above the mass of look and opinion on American artistically bent individual. deed, both settlements seemed walls and roof. zn architecture, to listen to a Ger He tied architecture and his to be, by and large, uninterest The fact that Chateaubriand's man visitor's opinion of the tory in his description of the ing and undeveloped, as com visit was in 1791 makes this country he was seeing for the Philadelphia State House, built pared to the cities like Phila criticism ridiculous. first time. in 1732: The State House [is] a delphia. He was, as usual, fas Jacques Offenbach, the famed , Johan David Schoepf was large but not splendid structure cinated by the flora and fauna
64 of both places and viewed the been interesting to view and surrounding country as a natural 1 compare his objective if incisive scientist's heaven. ' comments with those of more The southern states, in the romantic or subjective authors end of the eighteenth and the as Dickens, Chateaubriand, and beginning of the nineteenth cen Trollope. turies, were largely barren of As time passed and travels architecture. Most towns were became easier, visiting America small, consisting of a hundred became commonplace and no or less houses. The residents longer the daring adventure it were planters and businessmen once was. More visitors came, whose living depended on the for a multitude of reasons: trade routes earlier established preachers and politicians, scien between the North and the tists and quacks, diplomats, South. soldiers, matrons and fortune Few visitors, strangely enough, seekers. ever made a complete tour of British civil authorities sta the United States, including the tioned in Canada took their holi southern states. Max Berger, days in the United States, letting
in British Travelers in America, their travels range to the far The St. Nicholas Hotel on Broadway. 1836-1860, wrote that "No soon Western frontiers. er was the Mason-Dixon line By 1886, European travelers crossed than poverty, decay and were greeted by the Statue of grew to cities, and the roads be country's advance ...45 retrogression stared the travel Liberty. tween them straightened, no By the late nineteenth cen ler in the face. . . . Unpainted The hotels became more opu longer forced to follow the tury, the United States had well windows, sloth, filth and inertia lent. W.E. Baxter, in America curves of the hills, or avoid the established its independence and appeared on every side ...." rn and the Americans, described mountains. leadership. Charleston, according to Ber the St. Nicholas Hotel, a New The covered bridges vanished, The demand for great com ger, "resembled a West Indian York City landmark, as being to be replaced by metal-cable mercial buildings in which height port rather than an American "more like the palace of an suspension bridges which could was a necessary component to city, with its wooden buildings eastern prince than a hotel. . . . more easily weather floods and house various enterprises in a painted white, its large veran Every chimney piece and table bad winters. restricted area caused the de- 1 dahs and its venetian blinds."' 1 slab is of marble, every carpet Lewis F. Pilcher has written: velopment of new architectural A contrasting judgment is is of velvet pile, chair covers It has been the experience of forms. Schoepf's earlier description of are made of skin or satin all civilizations that a national The United States had come ' that city: the finest of damask... " 1 ~ art is not attained until there into its own, and in so doing American Cities, Philadelphia More books were written, has been developed a suitable impressed the fact that it was excepted . ... The city contains some biased, some not, all with centralized authority, possible architecturally independent and a number of tasteful and ele a certain degree of interest. only with the establishment of original on an often critical and gant buildings . . . most of the By the end of the nineteenth a political and commercial inde unbelieving world. houses have spacious yards and century, it took less than nine pendence. The skyscraper, to many non gardens ... the chief streets are days to cross the Atlantic A nation achieves such a Americans, is now a symbol of wide, straight and cross at right Ocean from Great Britain to position after a long struggle, the United States (whether we angles ... '2 New York. The country grew, and, from the times of primitive like it or not), and it is quite Charleston, during Schoepf's added states and territories, conditions, each step in the for doubtful that foreign tourists, visit, was still considered to be grew richer and more educated mation of an effective national leaving America after having and often called the "Lima of and, slowly, began creating its life is marked by architectural seen at least a part of it, will North America." It was the own culture. and constructive methods which cease to be impressed by the center of one of the most ex Architecture underwent an al punctuate the epochs of the architecture of the new land. tensive and valuable Indian most violent revolution, out
1 trades in the British colony, be stripping the rest of the world fore the United States achieved in a few short years. its independence and later be Immigrants from Europe and 1Mrs. Francis Milton Trollope, Do '"ibid., p. 323. came one of the rare ports to the East grappled for land in mestic Manners of the Americans "Ibid. (Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society), intro '1."]bid., p, 327. carry on a still fruitful com the Midwest, largely aided by duction. '1.!o!Francois Auguste Rene de Chateau merce in indigo during the war the ever-reaching fingers of de 'ibid intro. briand, Chateaubriand's Trat:els in "ibid:; p. 167. America (L€Xington, Ky.: University of of the Austrian Succession. veloping railroads. Chicago, •Ibid., p. 168. Kentucky Press, 1969), p. 14. 5]bid. :rnJacques Offenbach. Orpheus in It was a center of learning jn which in I 835 had only a couple GJbid., p. 167. America: Offenbach's Diary (Indiana the South already in 1770, site of thousand inhabitants, sudden •Ibid., p. 174. University Press, 1957), p. 53. 0 Ibid., p. 205. 31Jbid., p. 54. of a college, then later host to ly was mobbed by land specula 9Jbid., p. 204. :i2Johan David Schoepf, Travels in lOJbid., p. 269. the Confederation, vol I (Bergman the Charleston Library Society, tors who struggled to make one 11navid Van Zanten, Article, The Publishers. 1911). p. 57. a museum and a historical so sale after another. Journal of the Society of Architectural :l'IJbid., P. 59. Historians, October, 1970, p. 256. :i !Jbid., p. 69. ciety. Cincinnati, where Mrs. Trol 12charles Dickens, Pictures from "Ibid., p. 70. Italy and American Notes (Pollard and :lo>Jbid. It was also the site of a hand lope had opened her ill-fated :Moss, 1885), preface. '"Ibid., p. 73. some "state house and ... two marketplace, is another example '"ibid., p. 121. ::~g:~-, ~: g~: :> 1•Schoepf. Travels, vol. II. p. 87. churches ... all designed after of this growth. In 1842 Dickens 15Jbii: p. 286. to.Max Berger. The British Travelers 1 in America, 1836-1860 (New York: good plans ... " i:.; called it a beautiful, cheerful ~~·§~:~:' p. 276. Columbia University Press, 1943). p. 43. 41Jbid. Schoepf's travels did not take city full of neat, elegant, private 1sfbid., p. 279. 4 HJbid., p. 296. '.!Schoepf, Trm;els, vol. II. p. 164. ..i:iJbid.' p. 165. him to the usual and oft-visited residences. By 1850, it had be :!.OJbid., p, 295. 4 -tBerger. British Travelers, p. 25. cities such as New York, or come the pork capital of the ~~§~~~:' p. 296. 15Encyclopedia Americana, vol. II. p.183. Washington. This in itself is United States and its population "'ibid., p. 314. unfortunate, as it would have had more than tripled. Villages :HJbid., preface. ILLUSTRATIONS: Smithsonian "ibid., p. 317. Institution.
FORU M-SEPTEM B ER-1973 65 ·.:.·····••tlilf···h1·pt.. ·······.· The protir~mtof~rfi~ ~ m6t'iit~ ~nvlrdh.
"By the year 2000 it may be safe Saul Alinsky, the late political be predicated upon those With the exception of road to assume that in Europe and activist, is reputed to have had changes of philosophy which af side advertising, the visual arts the United States 75 percent of little patience with most radical fect the intrinsic content of art have paid only token attention all families will have some form factions of our society-dismiss (and its relation to other art), to the motorist. The idea of of private vehicle. Others will ing them because of their "re but it is a content that has been art conceived to be read at 60 have two or more, and 25 per fusal to begin with the world conditioned by an assigned be miles per hour is in direct con cent will possibly have none." as it is." An unrealistic rejec havior pattern for the spectator. flict with the sanctity of contem -Brian Richards, New Move tion of prevailing evidence is Art may change, yet it is tacit plation (a traditional qualifica ment in Cities. not peculiar to social revolu that the audience position re tion) even though there is no tionaries alone. It seems to be mains the same. Superficially, substantial evidence to support " ... in a future perhaps remote the special malignancy of our an assessment of the growing the assumption that art is more (we shall see) the end of art entire civilization. Inclusive volume in gallery and museum accessible while standing still as a thing separated from our within its scope is everything attendance offers reassuring con than perceived in transit. Quite surrounding environment, which from abortion repeal to anti fidence in the traditional specta obviously, retinal reception is is the actual plastic reality. But pornography legislation. Or, in tor dutifully moving from sta different where motion is in this end is at the same time point, any endeavor where so tion to station in order to view volved; the gallery object can a new beginning. lutions are pursued or decisions art from a fixed position. This not be automatically translated Art will not only continue but imposed without regard for the brisk business at exhibition for use in an urban context, will realize itself more and spontaneous course of human turnstiles pales to insignificance and the dialogue between the more. By the unification of nature. Reality (if acknowl when compared to the potential spectator and the art is radical architecture, sculpture, a n d edged at all) becomes an incon audience cruising by outside in ly altered. The failure of art painting, a new plastic reality venient obstruction interfering the passing automobile. The to address this mobile audience will be created. Painting and with aspirations for an instant museum-goer is a dedicated par effectively may assign it forever sculpture will not manifest and total reversal of the system. ticipant in the art experience to remain as an institutional themselves as separate objects, Also, reality is cumbersome, te who is willing to channel his commodity perpetuating old nor as 'mural art' which de dious, unromantic, and seldom perceptual habits to fit conven values, rather than suggesting stroys architecture itself, nor as merits TV coverage. tional directives. However, in new ones. The automobile-or 'applied art', but being purely With respect to the visual the comprehensive picture of ur some manifestation thereof constructive will aid the crea arts, these delusions are indi ban life today, the relatively cannot be reasonably denied on tion of a surrounding not mere cated by rigid assumptions con small percentage of ambulatory any level without underestimat ly utilitarian and rational but cerning the role of the audience. art lovers represents the pro ing the very foundations of also pure and complete in its Vanguard activity continues to longation of an outmoded ritual American (and now European) beauty." process. The real audience is life-style. Mr. Wines is head of SITE, Inc., a New -Piet Mondrian, Plastic and York based group of artists and tech· locked in the traffic jam or A convincing thesis could be Pure Plastic Art-1937. nicians involved in Environmental Art. speeding down the thruway. proposed on why the contem-
66 The automobile Is the totally inhabitable womb where the unfettered $S0° can expand and where containment and acceleration become the direct extension of personal fantasy.
porary urban-suburbanite should the ideal scale reference, the present status of the automo to discourage much optimism never get out of his car. There totally inhabitable womb where bile. The problem, in the face for its future (a footnote to are few who could deny that the unfettered ego can expand, of vociferous arguments for this observation being the in euphoric sense of security the a cathartic condition where the public walking space, is precise credibly short time lapse be motorist experiences upon the world can show you while you ly who would do the walking? tween "the giant step for man return to his waiting automobile show the world. Containment Certainly not the eco-freak rac kind" on the surface of the after a few hours spent navigat and acceleration become the ing his engine en route to com moon and the arrival of the ing hostile concrete on foot. direct extension of personal mune with nature; nor the Lunar Rover). Stating the con And yet, security is only one of fantasy - erotic-virile-religious Maoist-radical lamenting his ditions for this argument is one the multiple factors which con economic - aggressive - escap parking problems; nor the two thing, dealing with the broad tribute to this love affair. The ist - masturbatory - maternal - car family about to become the implications of a rationale is sociological and psychological parternal-patriotic-the essence three-car family; nor General quite another. First it is neces implications are so vast that of status and self-assertion in Motors resisting the pollution sary to examine the state of only the sketchiest examination a detached environment. Under free time-table; not the political art in our time and some perti of the subject is possible, save the circumstances, almost any candidate who left his limousine nent social and cultural in full treatment in a volume or activity requir;ing the motorist idling; and certainly not the Fed fluences which have generated two. For the driver, mobility to leave the asylum of his car eral Government with the largest the present climate of activity. may be the raison d'etre, but must be viewed suspiciously as auto fleet in the world and A similar treatment must be IDENTITY is the obsession. To unreasonable, unAmerican, and promises of cleaner air by 1982. given to the problems of design strip the urban dweller of his most certainly unrealistic. Although each of these well ing new public spaces. And car is to leave him as a victim Naturally, all of these specu meaning factions pays consider finally, the two fields of en of total anonymity. The city to lations run into head-on collision able lip service to the anti-auto deavor must be brought into day is built for service and the with the rhetoric of ecological mobile campaign, their plati focus as part of a common ob overwhelming mass to result and social reformers who would tudes are barely audible above jective with examples and a from this "function" axiom has have us denounce the automo the roar of their engines. program for the future. reduced man to insect dimen bile and resurrect those great The premise for this essay is Since the Renaissance, public sions. These perilous conditions congenial parks and walking the development of a case favor art has been reduced to little for the pedestrian have left no spaces of the Renaissance. As ing art and all urban struc more than a "handmaiden" to alternative than escape into his we have observed, the refusal tures, for that matter, which architecture, an irrelevant and mobile microcosm with its pro to accept formidable evidence to are conceived for the motorist. superfluous intrusion into the tective shield of glass and its the contrary would suggest that To declare the pedestrian obso cityscape, or something one provision of safe vantage from these nostalgic piazzas might be lete is not likely to sit well with leans against while waiting for which the outside world may impossible to maintain without the physical culture enthusiasts; a taxi. A commodity oriented be cautiously observed. a forfeit of the conveniences but evidence against walking, as value system has completely The Automobile establishes and reassurances offered by the we have observed, is sufficient eclipsed the classical view of
FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 67 Having psychologically crippled the pedestrian with overwhelming canyons of concrete, the architect provides token little anachronisms borrowed from antiquity and somehow intended to salvage the situation. These include potted trees, do-nut benches, geyser fountains, and works of sculpture.
urban design wherein art, archi sive pseudo-minimal sculptures longer necessary as a reminder comes the substance of interpre tecture, and walking space were which pock-mark every metro of the artist's personal evolution tation. By forfeiting the time inseparable from city infrastruc politan center are prime exam and the dialogue in the mind of honored convention of careful ture. The objectification of art ples of this process in action. the spectator became more sig perusal, immediate perception (and everything else), private Gallery art is meant to be nificant than the reassurances and memory determine the final ownership, and the isolation of studied over a time span which of a magnum opus. effect of art on the roadway. the "masterpiece" have given us allows the spectator a period of Current developments in con The United States is an in an environment composed of visual digestion. Art in the ceptual and earth art have ex terior oriented nation. The fin disparate and conflicting ele streets, on the other hand, must tended this position both inside est examples of architectural de ments. The "work-of-art," as a assert its identity in the face and out of the gallery context. sign are saved for the articula thing apart, has become synony of urban confusion, establish a In concept art, the emphasis on tion of lobbies, hallways, of mous with the definitions of art rapport with total space, and be philosophical content has led to fices, and living rooms. Exte and architecture. legible to the rapid transit a revocation of all media and rior urban space, on the other Only more recent vanguard big city dweller. procedure characteristic of the hand, has always been treated attitudes in conceptual and en Although inseparable from the familiar definitions of art. The as the hostile domain to be tra vironmental art have begun to gallery context, the work of Du more physical work of the earth versed en route to work or the puncture holes in these unquali champ established c~rtain atti and process artists has been less safety of home. This attitude fied hypotheses. The much ear tudes which are indirectly ap concerned with polemics than has probably been inherited lier and fundamental breakdown plicable to a state of accelerated with space, scale, incident, and from a combination of influ of traditional references found visual response. He recognized non-focality. The proverbial in ences-including the Puritanical in the work of Duchamp has the merits of an art "idea" gredients of painting and sculp disapproval of pleasure, the ob provided two generations of art which could not be embodied in ture-form, color, technique, session with service and econ ists with a liberation from the the conventional framework of style-have always been con omy, and the residual fears re criteria of formal content. Un painting or sculpture and by sidered media in the service of maining as a result of the Ameri fortunately this influence has eliminating the study of art in "expressing" information. For can conquest of the wilderness. been manifested in all aspects terms of form, manual tech new art sharing the Duchamp As compressed into urban life of private art; but very little has nique, and the artist's psyche, legacy, information is the media. the consequences of these moti been carried into the streets. he suggested that art could gen Translated into urban art to be vations have resulted in the de Private art has asked all of the erate a new kind of reaction by seen from the moving automo velopment of architecture and interesting questions and sup functioning as a semaphore of bile, this concept is particularly planning that ignores man's plied most of the interesting information. Accordingly, one appropriate. Retinal reception personal identity. Almost any answers, while public art has does not contemplate a signal, in a state of mobility must be aerial view of a contemporary functioned as an outsized, but but instead tries to decode its instantaneous and spectator as city exposes the U.S. system of inferior, translation of the gal message. The continued presence similation must be based on priorities. The largest blocks lery aesthetic. All of those mas- of the object of art was no data retention which then be- of space are allotted to service
68 Views of the Piazza Signoria and Piazza Duomo in Florence, Italy-demon strating perceptual differences in and out of the automobile. The piazzas were conceived for walking and all of the elements are meant to be seen to best advantage on foot. The frame of the auto window awkwardly defines the vertical and horizontal limitations of vision.
buildings (office towers, park fountain or sculpture or both. with. The much admired Euro traffic and leave them with the ing facilities, factories, etc.); the The elements are borrowed from pean plaza grew organically out appearance of preserved relics second largest percentage of the grand tradition of European of the needs of the people to as isolated masterpieces out of land is given to roadways; and public spaces; but lacking a communicate in the streets, to synchronization with the tech those cramped ribbons of con genuine urgency, the contem maintain open markets, to pro nological environment. Thus, a crete defining the base of every porary counterparts are seldom vide landmarks for orientation, basic problem remains whether structure are for the people. relevant when juxtaposed with and to sustain religious and cul to resist the automobile, with The pedestrian sidewalk, like the traffic jam. There is the tural legacies. The piazza was awkward results, or to accept the peripheral edge of the wagon obvious problem of exhaust conceived for walking and all its inevitable cultural force and trail, is fraught with dangers fumes and pollution. Also, most of the elements intrinsic to its try to deal with it creatively. both physical and psychological. commuters consider the distance final resolution are meant to be A true recognition of this phe The paving has improved since from air-conditioned car to air seen to best advantage on foot. nomenon cannot be sustained the Old West, but the chances conditioned lobby too long as The frame of an automobile win under conditions of nostalgia. of violence, loss of property, it is. Then there is the prob dow, for instance, abruptly de· The piazza, whatever its historic geographical confusion, un lem of piazza concept. fines the vertical and horizontal virtues, does not lend itself to charted byways, and lack of The evolution of great com limitations of spectator vision, resurrection in the contem watering holes remain pretty munity spaces has certain in the act of riding removes all porary city. There are frequent much the same. gredients which, in addition to contact with the stationary plot attempts to do so, but most of The field of architecture, sens clean air, include a temporate of land, and speed determines these spaces are left dormant ing the precarious destiny of the climate, a cultural estate, a the nature of illusion and re- and unused. Some others are city dweller, has provided its highly developed sense of com sponse. more frequented, but usually own brand of tokenism in the munity, an absence of hostility, Ironically, the advent of the end up by providing fertile con form of the "piazza-plaza." Hav and respect for leisure. The automobile traffic in Italy has ditions for the growth of such ing psychologically crippled the United States is universally violated this initial purpose by anti-social behavior as drug pedestrian with overwhelming noted for its dreary weather, creating a confusion of emphasis pushing, molestation, and theft. canyons of concrete and glass, philistine attitude toward art, which neither the walking public Aside from the ever-present po these little anachronisms are suspicious temperament, Jove of nor the driver can reconcile. If lice in a waiting patrol car, most somehow expected to salvage violence, and distaste for idle navigated by auto, there is the of these piazzas accommodate the disaster and offer sanctuary dalliance. Aesthetically, as well, dual frustration created by pe only the handful of pedestrians for a communion with nature the plaza doesn't fit into the destrian congestion and a lim who have strayed too far from and one's fellow citizen. Inevi American urban pattern. The ited visual access. The alterna their cars, are waiting to be tably these piazzas assume a premise of a design solution for tive proposition, recently ven picked up by cars, or belong to typical format inclusive of pav the city which does not accom tured in Rome and other Euro that fading species who, for ing, rock gardens, potted trees, modate the motorist's view of pean cities, has been to close some inconceivable reason, have do-nut benches, and a geyser the world is erroneous to begin these piazzas to automotive rejected cars and prefer to walk.
F ORU M-SEPTEM B ER-1973 69 Spanish Steps, Rome, Italy (top). 'r1te baSio fi>tn;ut.1. for• s\Jfyiv'I ~l'\ th~ oomwe~olal,s~rtl>. h;i~ !)jt~n. t.he ·aPj)eat Houston, Texas U.S.A. (above), of ad¥ettl~ing, Wffhout. bjt~e:fl~ ~ ~·~.t:te~sf~ \tff:sf)~y •Of tPa If the piazza is a dead issue, its convenience to the motorist. ever leaving the security of his entire family on safari, remain the suburban shopping center is Those commercial enterprises car, the driver can be inundated impervious to the attack of very much alive and spontane which have forced him to get from without by seductive wild beasts in air-conditioned ously providing the conditions out of his car (supermarkets, media, include a family of six comfort, and make it back to and visual vocabulary of the boutiques, hardware stores) are at a moderate price, remain McDonald's by dinnertime. future. So powerful is the mag less representative of auto only a key-turn away from in With respect to a new urban netism to these roadway strips theory than the genuine drive stant motion, and enjoy a physi art, the four examples of drive that the urban centers are be in context where traditional cal freedom in his seat (not the in facilities described above are ing drained to the breaking functions have really changed to least of which is sexual) forbid particularly germane. Unlike point of people, services, and adapt to mobility (drive-in den in the rigid confines of a those services which have be money. Unlike cities, which banks, theaters, bars, and food cinema theatre. Other services grudgingly "adjusted" to the au have usually been frozen into services). on this list which have become tomobile, the drive-in cinema, their infrastructures by obsolete It is significant to observe synonymous with auto trans bank, car-hop restaurant, and planning systems, the commer which of the multiple drive-in portation are the drive-in bank zoo have undergone a complete cial strip is fluid, readily ex services have evolved most and the drive-in restaurant. In metamorphosis to oblige the pandable, and totally at the serv naturally with the automobile both cases the ultimate shape motorist. Similarly, if public art ice of the automobile. The in in mind, and others, resisted of service structures, mecha is to have any meaningful ef structive potential of these dramatic change. Food markets, nisms, and publicity has been fect on the environment, it can sprawling market places is im for example, still cater to a predicted upon the theory that not remain as an inflated fac measurable. No considerations show-and-select process remi a customer is always right ... simile of gallery aesthetic; but of art in the public domain can niscent of fruit and vegetable in his car. must change fundamentally in avoid the example of the "drive stands on the street. Their Perhaps the most laudatory terms of concept and resolution. in" syndrome. Although strip acknowledgement of the auto triumph indicating the course The proliferation of monumental architecture has been complete mobile has been to provide of tomorrow is the advent of sculptures newly decorating ly pragmatic in its development, broad acres of land for park the drive-in zoo. It first made our cities seems to suggest that it is that very lack of artifice ing, curb pick-up of purchases, an appearance in Texas; but a depressing and opposite sit that makes it worthy of scrutiny and roadway advertising. But now has moved nationwide with uation prevails. and comparison to the less suc other functions have been modi new menageries opening in New The basic formula for survival cessful piazzas of the cities. As fied more radically or designed Jersey, California, and Florida. on the commercial strip has it stands now, the general ap from the outset with the mo Indeed, with the drive-in zoo, been the appeal of advertising. pearance of most commercial torist as premier consideration. we have the best of three Without benefit of a successful strips is one of vitality, but ap At the top of the list is the worlds: the ecological front display of roadway information palling vulgarity as well. The drive-in movie, wherein technol meeting commerce and mobility any merchant is doomed to fail fundamental key to the success ogy has confronted reality with in a condition of total harmony. ure. It is a simple reality that of the shopping center has been commendable results. Without The auto operator can take his strip enterprises, unlike the tra- 70 If the park and plaza are dead issues, the suburban shopping centers are very much alive and spontaneously providing the conditions and visual vocabulary of the future. ditional marketplace, cannot Another potential pitfall in Inc. since the group started a land parcel adjacent to a large rely on time-consuming prod designing for the roadway is three years ago in New York brick apartment building at the uct and service comparisons the danger of inordinate distrac City. SITE is a corporation of corner of a main intersection, when the client is in a state tion. The considerable difference artists, writers, and technicians Academy and Broad Streets. of high velocity. All communi between arrested interest and organized with the purpose of The location was selected be cation is, ultimately, evaluated screeching brakes can literally exploring and developing new cause of its proximity to a maj on the degree to which the driv mean the difference between concepts for the use of art in or point of entry into the city. er eases pressure on the ac life and death. The case of an an urban situation. Among the The rather precarious relation celerator. The lessons of strip X-rated drive-in cinema in Buf group's recent commissions, there ship of the site to the roadway advertising should be cautiously falo, New York, with its screen are two projects dealing with (a main intersection at the en evaluated before application to in full view of a highway is an roadside conditions. The first trance to the township), pre art, for fear of succumbing to excellent illustration of these of these, in Peekskill, New York, cludes considerations for its de various seductive traps. Any hazards. Throbbing nudity on is part of an urban development velopment as a participatory thing as urgent and gut-level the nocturnal horizon sent at program and the second is also space. Also, the area is domi as roadside publicity has an in least two vehicles a night cata for urban renewal in Bingham nated by outscaled brick walls evitable vitality-its somewhat pulting into a ditch, until the ton, New York. Each site is belonging to the middle-income less than exalted purpose not screen was finally turned in proximate to a major thorough housing units. If the aesthetic withstanding. Somehow, the re the opposite direction. Success fare, production budgets were was considered at all during the ality of popular culture is al ful road art should establish limited from the outset, mate planning stages of this section ways a little better than art be a point of reference in the spec rials had to be readily available, of the community, it was an in cause of its ingenious quality. tator's mind-an awareness of and construction services pro significant factor subjugated to Case in point is the relative a change of pace in his visual vided locally. Also, SITE was in functional objectives. failure of a good deal of pop art surroundings-but not frustrate vited to consider each project The solution for the Peekskill to transcend its origins in vul his curiosity to the point of in in a trouble-shooting capacity apartments is to relax the se gar source material which al viting peril. As he drives by, as the areas in question had verity of a rectangular brick ready exists as a kind of art. there should be visible clues been destroyed by indifferent mass by "melting" the base of The esoteric and facetious pos to engage attention. He may even planning or oppressive architec the building into the surround turing of pop only infrequently turn his car around for a second ture and it was the objective ing landscape. The effect is in elevates the interest level above look, but this should not be com of the clients to remedy exist tended to achieve a release of that of the original raw mate pulsory. The dialogue in his mind ting situations. In summary, tension in the static walls and rial. For this reason the ef as he continues toward his des SITE was asked to provide art to imply that the internal co fect of roadway conditioning tination is the real message. for more-or-less abandoned hesion of the architecture has on perceptual habits is more The problems of art to be spaces too dreary for most ar begun to respond to the forces significantly worthy of study viewed from the passing car chitects to consider. of gravity and the burden of than specific imagery. have been the concern of SITE The site area in Peekskill is its own existence. This is not in- FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 71 Two views of Academy and Broad Street site (above) with Crossroads Apartments-Peekskill, New York. tended as a literal statement; during any stage of assignation. mobilized audience which has the objective of the Urban Re but, more significantly as sculp In some ways the work of SITE encouraged the extension of the newal Agency and the Valley ture elements which become in parallels these assumptions. By idea on a municipal scale. By Development Foundation (who trinsic to the site and still re using function, phenomena, and establishing the reasons for in jointly retained the services of tain the essential character of architecture as media, it is in verse reactions to familiar sit SITE) to preserve local land the land and brick dwellings. evitable that a considerable de uations, to be perceived from marks and prescribe guidelines When perceived from the road gree of subjective attitude will the passing car, SITE has to help maintain the integrity of way, the motorist must reconcile be reflected during the trans opened up broad potentials for the original city plan. These an inversion of process, and formation into art. A bad work a new urban art. endeavors have proved to be anarchy of materials, which in of architecture, for example, can The Binghamton, New York somewhat futile in the face of timates that things may not be become workable data when site presented a more complex omnivorous real estate specula routine or predictable. The evaluated in the context of a set of conditions than Peekskill. tion and a new master plan project also challenges the cate total environment. The bad or In this case SITE had to deal modeled along the standard gorical distinctions between good judgements become irrele with a series of land parcels, business center format. All of earth as "left-over" space next vant after being recycled in the each assigned to a different pur the ingredients are present, in to architecture and the com art making process. The specta pose. Also, the community has cluding pre-cast concrete neo pleteness of a work of archi tor driving by the Peekskill proj been radically disrupted by an brutalist high rise, watered tecture as an object independent ect is confronted with existing urban renewal program con down Miesian bank style, acres of context. structures and existing circum ceived in complete disregard for of oppressive concrete paving, Questions arise concerning stances which must be ration the essential character of the lollypop trees, post card piaz the right of the artist to utilize alized from a standpoint com early township. Binghamton is zas, and charm bracelet sculp the work of an architect as the pletely contrary to the dogmas situated upstate in New York tures by famous artists. The par raw material for art. The his of architecture practice. The and the character of its central ticular areas allotted to SITE torical precedent was certainly "melt" is not injected as an ex commercial property has been were, again, those peripheral established in the work of hibitable work of art and not as determined by casually spaced, refuse spaces considered ex Duchamp, whose province it be a formalistic site improvement; turn-of-the-century, one to five pendable after the business tow came to equate life and art by but rather as an information story buildings. There is little ers were nearing completion. using each as a metaphor for basis requiring the urban-sub evidence that the creative use of The only explainable reason for the other - without emphatic urbanite to become involved in public space was ever con city agencies to award this commitment to which is which. the entire question of meaning sidered important. The merging terrain any attention is because Hence, his Bicycle Wheel could in his city environment. Although of two rivers, Chenango and of its proximity to the super be simultaneously interpreted Duchamp's "assisted" ready Susquehanna, define the bound slick central complex. Once this as art, a utilitarian item, or mades may have anticipated aries of the mercantile core and, glossy vocabulary had been in neither, without being condi this kind of dialogue, it has at one time, provided an active troduced, it could not be severed tionally devaluated aesthetically been the arrival of a universally waterway commerce. It has been abruptly without creating an 72 rhe "Peekskill Melt" project (above) designed by SITE, Inc. suggests a ;eries of melting corners coming from the existing buildings and fabricated n the same brick as the walls. The effect is intended to achieve a ·elease of tension in the static walls and to break down the categorical lifference between earth as "left·over space" next to architecture and :he completeness of a work of architecture in itself. awkward transition into the these are the rivers and sur tical articulations of a wall ends and· as linear directionals more modest older sections. rounding mountains which, al three blocks away. The material exaggerating the horizontal per SITE's role was complicated by though clearly in evidence, have to be used is fire-resistant, spectives. municipal indifference, confused been completely ignored by the heavy beam, wood-14 inches The rolling dock is compara scale references, overlapping new city plan. Albeit, truck wide, 4 inches thick, and 20 ble to wharf structure only in architectural styles, and a flat routes have stripped the Che feet long. The beams will remain its allowance for pedestrian pas characterless terrain. The site nango and Susquehanna of their natural and untreated with col sageways to building entrances itself, located behind the former commercial urgency, but the or or varnish. The dock struc and alleyways. It has been a city hall, is adjacent to State waterways are still determining ture evolved for several rea principle of SITE to avoid those Street, a main thoroughfare. In factors in any consideration of sons. Wood construction is syn prov1s10nary measures (bench cluded were a park, access al Binghamton. onymous with cities proximate es, walkways, stairs, etc.) which leyways, a street crossing, a The town also retains a strong to waterfronts and contributes tend to be additive and unre pedestrian mall, and an end utilitarian character by virtue of a pleasant relief to the dominant solved concessions to function land site without particular pur local industries which produce use of concrete in the metro in most public places. These pose. An effective resolution construction materials. Finally, politan area. The material of practical features must be ac to compensate for these multi there is the decisive effect of fers cohesive and infinitely counted for, but not as clumsy ple factors had to embrace both highway and street construction variable modules, so that the intersections. The wood beam visual and participatory ex on the entire question of munic relative sprawl of the individual modules supply endless vari periences. ipal orientation. It is a commu sites can be visually coordinat ables for seating and walking, In Binghamton, the existing nity which depends upon the ed. The dock generates a kind without the conformity that premises for a design idea were state thruway for economic sur of raw power which is directly recognizable park furniture en diametrically opposed. The vival and most of its internal associated with the construc forces. The main objective of choice was to endorse the ac streets are designed to accom tion process. This process be the undulating dock is to create tively progressing high-rise modate this traffic. State Street, comes the key to aesthetic and an intriguing vista for the State core, or resist this decision and in particular, is wide, fast, and serves to avoid the look of a Street motorist. To heighten a try to reaffirm the community's uncompromisingly dreary. "finished" work by retaining a sense of fluidity and kineticism, indigenous character and nat The SITE concept for Bing complete visual biography of its the beams open on the higher ural environment. The dangers hamton involves a series of evolution. When viewed from elevations to reveal the internal of the first option ran the risk massive, undulating, dock-like, the automobile on State Street, grid construction and close like of subscribing to tedious mod structures which roll through the collective effect should pre a boardwalk on the flat surfaces ernism, while reiteration of the length of State Street park, sent a dramatic change in ele to facilitate traversal. As a re "rustic" legacies was clearly re become overhead grids in the vations and the illusion of great sult, this proposal becomes actionary. SITE responded in alleyways, reappear on the walls distance. The individual lengths moderately functional, allows stead to some regional influ and floor of the shopping mall, of wood will be seen primarily the pedestrian a freedom of ences. The most important of and are finally resolved as ver- as a series of interlocking butt choice in terms of physical use, FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 73 o? Roadside house near Barcelona, Spain In the work of Duchamp, life and art became author, anonymous metaphors for each other. Hence his "Bicycle Wheel" could be simultaneously interpreted as art, a utilitarian item, or neither without being conditionally devaluated aesthetically at any stage. and the unity of the concept is The mails today are glutted eluded from this challenge. In evolution; projections and super not sacrificed to an accommoda with "ban the automobile" lit deed, the artist, since the 19th video as intrinsic to city walls; tion of utility. erature. Some of the most elo Century, has played only a minor and structures which are built It is important to remember quent public appeals of our role in the determination of en up and torn down in an endless that both SITE projects, Peek decade have been written in vironmental criteria. At best continuum. skill and Binghamton, are pred favor of a return to walking his function has been that of But ideas are in cheap sup icated upon urban information space in the modern city. So peripheral decorator, willing to ply and offered every day by and that each serves as a place exhausting is the responsibility forfeit the absolute security of the design professionals. The of special identity to the motor for this crusade, it is small a museum interior for the slight real problems are sponsorship vehicle operator. When he wonder that the fatigued au ly less secure ambience of a and implementation. For the drives p'.lst, he is arrested by, or thors of anti-car rhetoric find public plaza. The transition has past 50 years, architects, de has reconfirmed, certain clues the drive home at night ex been relatively effortless and velopers, and construction com to his immediate environment. ceptionally tedious. At this point the effect on concept and aes panies have united in the cre The Peekskill melting building in time, the suggestion of a total thetic inconsequential. Although ation of an urban ugliness un becomes a rather perverse meta reversal which cannot be realisti SITE has given the problems paralleled in history. Our cities phor recalling distant hills now cally implemented and does not of civic art for the mobile age have been totally founded on severed from view by architec recognize that the automobile its considerable attention, the money and the condition that tural bulk, and the land-locked is here to stay because people group feels that it has hardly every square foot be accounted dock suggests that the river crave its convenience, is ques scratched the surface of a com for as immediate cash dividend. cannot be too far away. Al tionable as a serious proposal. pelling endeavor. The potential Aesthetic has been completely though none of these concepts Obviously pollution must be re for future development is vir submerged in that convenient is intended to be interpreted on duced, safety enforced, conges tually unlimited and must cer Bauhaus catch-all "form follows such patently referential terms; tion relieved, public transporta tainly include innovational con function"-or, translated into the the fact remains that, from the tion improved, ecological bal tributions utilizing the new pragn1atists' rationale, "serv vantage of high velocity, these ance maintained, and the pedes wealth of technological media. ice is good enough". The prob simplistic messages initiate the trian accommodated. The objec Possibilities which come to mind lem, therefore, is not the auto incentive for a more considered tive is not to find ways to are: synchronized illumination mobile per se; but the unimagi response. eliminate a necessity which systems for highways which native and omnivorous way in Art for the gallery and ·nu has determined the shape of the perform practical, kinetic, and which our cities have been con seum has the advantage of be modern world; but, instead to aesthetic functions; earthworks structed around it. The corpo ing showcased where the spec rally the best cultural and scien to articulate miles of highway; rate interests responsible for tator is predisposed to absorb tific resources available to meet computerized and serial infor this tragedy are in direct col more slowly. Art on the high the challenge of dealing with mation as street art; inter lusion with government agen way cannot afford this luxury the facts as they really are. changeable parts for fixed en cies. of time for contemplation. The visual arts cannot be ex- vironments to oblige a need for All concerned publish their ·The stte:,. l.n¢; · Coocept f()1:. Sioghamton involves a series of massive, undulatlri.g"d~-Uke structures which roll through the length of the State Street Park,. become overhead grids in the alleyways, and reappear on the walls aod flo~t of the shopping mall. periodic reports advocating im gracefully absorbed into the done to successfully transform cipitates the international ten provement of the environment fabric of civilization as the the postulates into imaginative dency toward greater conformity in the grand European tradition; much-heralded, but fading, pe solutions. and duplication of services. It but too often these communica destrian. The architects and planners, cannot be too long before the tions are so lacking in viable Constructive action must be by and large, have been will fields of planning and design programs for realization that based upon a candid evaluation ing to sell out to propriety in the "master-builder" tradi the idealistic jargon becomes of the axioms: and opportunism. The real tion will exist only as a part worthless. • Walking space may be ap estate industry has responded of quaint mythology. There are also more sinis proaching the threshold of ob mainly to the lure of exploita If there are to be any com ter implications in all of this solescence. tion. City agencies have played municative cultural forces at all grandiloquence. The perpetra • According to a recent survey along for convenience and the (and many in di cations suggest tors are fully aware that the published by Citizens for Clean political advantages of accommo the end of art as we know it) it aspirations for splendorous Air, the car-owning commuter dating big business. The art mu will be the artist most capable parks and plazas cannot be spends about 20 percent of each seums have encouraged the of dealing with urban structure achieved under the present sys day in driving-and about 90 perpetual string of commis who will inherit the responsibil tem of priorities. But the plati percent of his in-transit viewing sioned monumental sculptures ity. tudes read well in the press and time sacrificed to the intermin in order to consolidate their in He can hardly expect to ac the infeasible idealism insures able boredom of concrete walls vested interests in certain art complish this feat locked into that civic deterioration will con and banal roadway advertising. ists. And the Federal Govern the privacy of his studio, pro tinue for the profit of all con • Skyscrapers, whatever their ment has been negligent in the ducing isolated objects, and cerned. virtues as space savers, do not enforcement of construction nourishing an ambulatory-elit The automobile is the deter provide in their height a pano codes which require a percent ist audience. mining factor in the design of rama which is comprehensible age of each new building to The challenge is out on the contemporary environment. from the interior of an auto be spent on art, (a catch-all the strip, the boulevard, and Its presence can be widely de mobile. The motorist sees best easily circumvented by consider the sidewalk. The vanguard structive when the negative in those structures which articu ing everything from powder art of this century has rede fluences are allowed to prolifer late a low horizon. blue urinals to lobby mirrors as fined the nature of art many ate without control. If the state • Art in the cityscape which art). times over; but infrequently the of mobility means only the fast does not provide information The course of architecture in role of the artist. It is a time est route to selfish gratification about its environment becomes the future is being clearly de of new definitions and, in all and profit, the world is doomed a sterile intruder, more at home fined by the computer and soon probability, the new visions are to acute emphysema and end in the private collection. only the most exceptional build likely to come from the new less visual blight. All of these components have ings will be "designed" by the artist with his foot on the ac On the other hand, the car been recognized for many years, individual. The massive stand celerator. and its operator can be as but incredibly little has been ardization unquestionably pre- PHOTOGRAPHS: Michelle Stone. FORU M-SEPTEM BER-1973 75 seum is itself part of the art handed over, the commissions • "The Design Necessity" ex it is meant to display, holding may come off looking like a hibit from the First Federal De some 500 pieces of his wide coercive, limiting instrument in sign Assembly held last April I I ranging work. This includes stead of the tool of environ in Washington, D. C., is tour FACETS paintings, woodcuts, prints, mentally sensitive development ing nine states. It has already (Continued from page 21) sculpture-in wood, stone and they were conceived to be. appeared in DesMoines and Mil ceramics, furniture, and utensils. As for Dr. Picchi, he couldn't waukee. The remainder of its Wood was his favorite medium. be more sensitive to the idea schedule: September 15-0ctober Initially, he used only imported of enhancing scenic views, and 7, Chattanooga; October 20-No ebony, rosewood and padouk, all the rest. That's the reason vember 11, Kansas City, Mo.; later switching to local woods he wanted to build at Sea November 24-December 16, oak walnut, cherry. "If I can't Ranch. One wonders what the Bloomington, Ill.; January 6-27, make something beautiful out of local commission would have Minneapolis; February 9-March what's in my backyard, I'd bet said if he had wanted to build 3, Detroit; March 16-April 7, ter not make anything." a $5,000 snack stand a la the Columbus, Ohio; April 20-May The Wharton Esherick muse brothers Greene. 12, Lexington, Ky. Sponsored um is open on Saturdays and by the Federal Council on the Sundays by reservation only. Arts and the Humanities, the ex hibit illustrates "ten" criteria of effective design. LAND USE Dr. Joseph Picchi has something SCHEMES of a problem. Five years ago, he laid out $7,000 for a site at RURAL HOUSING Sea Ranch, that potpourri of "Out of sight out of mind" ap weekend retreats north of San plies to most of the nations sub Francisco. Since then, he's spent standard housing. Few of us another $10,000 on architect's see these dilapidated homes, be fees, water and power lines, and reft of plumbing or heat, tucked a septic tank. away as they are far from the Unfortunately, Dr. Picchi classy, glassy, big-city expo can't build his house. Califor Palladio. sures. But the latest census re nia voters, approving an end to veals that 56 percent of all sub developmental vandalism of the standard housing is located in state's 1,072-mile coastline, have EXHIBITS towns of 2,500 persons or less. set up six powerful commissions This statistic is not surpris to regulate all coastal construc PALLADIO ON DISPLAY ing. Rural poor are not organ tion. By 1976, each must sub Visitors to Venice this fall can ized, have no collective voice mit a master plan to the State make an easy side trip to Vicen and, with few exceptions, are which will then approve or dis za, where Andrea Palladio lived unequipped to handle a prob approve a statewide planning and worked. On display are lem so diffuse and mammouth. document. drawings and models of his vast, It matters little that the Farmers Stairway in the Esherick Museum. Dr. Picchi is not the only one influential output. At least a Home Administration or the caught in the dilemma. If, in dozen of his flawless villas are FHA have subsidy money avail fact, it can be called such. Any nearby. able if there is no agency or LECiACIES structure costing more than Perhaps the most copied archi group to request and receive it. $7,500 and to be built within a tect of his time, Palladio was To make a start at closing BEAUTY FROM THE BACKYARD thousand yards of the shoreline boldly innovative. He is said the housing gap, The Office of Wharton Esherick, who died in must receive commission ap to have been the first to color Economic Opportunity set up 1970 at age 83, didn't like archi proval. While we have no quar stone with whitewash, to place a private, non-profit agency tects much. "The east end of rel with the objectives of the columns high on pedestals, to known as the Housing Assis a horse going west," he called California plan, there is some put thermae windows with mul tance Council. Its mission is to them. But in 1956, when build reason for caution when six dif lions into churches, and to em assist rural housing develop ing a workshop near his studio ferent commissions start apply ploy optical devices to unify ment corporations with money in Paoli, Pa., he went to his ing six different sets of criteria separate spaces. and guidance. It will show friend Louis Kahn for help. The in deciding what will be ap Despite his classicism, Pal groups how to set up a housing result was three hexagonal units proved between now and the ladio was contemporary in op corporation, and will loan money beneath three diamond shaped time the statewide plan is posing what he called "useless to put projects into motion. roof planes, covering 600 sq. ft. adopted. Furthermore, making decoration," elements th a t Originally, in the fall of 1971, Now Esherick's daughter Ruth, such decisions on a case by case served no function such as shed the OEC granted the Housing and her husband Architect basis has turned out to be arbi ding water or holding something Assistance Council $4 million, Mansfield M. Bascom, are out trary, and time consuming. erect. At the same time he half of which was set aside for fitting the workshop as a house Lest the concept of growth gave most of his villas a sort a revolving loan fund charging for themselves. The old studio control and land use manage of hubristic pomp by fronting no interest. Today the Council has been converted to a mu ment die aborning, let's hope them with temple-derived por has programs under way in 40 seum, and inasmuch as Esherick the commissions can get to ticos supporting triangular pedi states and Puerto Rico, and is built it himself-carefully sculpt gether on a list of points that ments. Hubristic or not, his looking for more. ing doors, hinges, windows, win can be applied equally and fair lessons in proportion, spatial re The Council's board of direc dow sills, latches, lightswitches, ly to all cases. Otherwise, long lationships and the use of light tors has stated that funds are cabinets, sinks, stairs-the mu- before their master plans are are an enduring achievement. to be employed to meet the 76 needs of the poorest people in thinking along these lines, it the urgency of and giving higher at least to see that it becomes the most rural areas. will have done much; but the priority to international efforts orderly and undestructive. It is Eventually, it will make re planning now in progress prom to improve housing and human probably a rare architect who commendations for an overall ises action. A central part of settlements, especially in the de has not run into a sewer or gas strengthening of housing pro the program will be the presen veloping countries. moratorium, a ban on building grams for the rural poor. tation of demonstration projects A small preparatory group permits, new zoning restrictions, in a form which can subse for Confex '76 is functioning in or hastily enacted size and quently be used world wide for New York, headed by Senator height limitations. Can wise educational purposes. These Helena Benitez of the Philip orderly growth come from ac projects are to show what can pines and Eric Carlson, former tion that is piecemeal, local and UN and is being done under many chief of housing of the UN riddled with alarm? One unpublicized instance of different economic, political and Centre for Housing, Building To find out and to suggest our failure to face the problems physical conditions rather than and Planning. A May advisory solutions, President Nixon's of human settlement, reported what might be done under op group meeting of world ex Citizens Advisory Committee on by Narelle Townsend of the UN timum conditions. Among the perts, chaired by Lady Barbara Environmental Quality appointed Centre for Housing, Building criteria for selecting demon Ward Jackson, a member of a 12-member task force, chaired and Planning, is that there are stration projects: Offer solu The FORUM'S Board of Con by Laurence S. Rockefeller, to roving bands of homeless teen tions rather than define prob tributors, outlined conference undertake an eight month, pri agers and infants in Asia and lems; show how public and themes and proposals for the vately funded study of land use Africa-half of them under 15 private obstacles can be over scope and content of demonstra problems associated with urban and unemployed; and children come; be capable of wider ap tion projects which are now growth. In July the task force sleeping in boxes in Bogota. plication; insure a balance be being further studied and de published its findings: The Use There are, or course, millions tween rural and urban projects tailed. The six themes recom of Land: a Citizens' Policy plagued by less sensational-or and those presented by devel mended by the group: Human Guide to Urban Growth. more accepted-problems. oped and developing countries; needs in the environment of The Rockefeller committee is The Executive Director of the be endorsed if not conceived by human settlements; the role of cautiously hopeful. Mr. Rocke United Nations Environment their government; demonstrate settlements in national develop feller has summed up the prob Programme ( UNEP), Maurice imaginative, innovative use of ment; the structure and quality lem as consisting "of learning Strong, estimates that by the local resources and skills; dem of the environment of human to do what we have not yet suc year 2000 over 200 cities will onstrate multiple uses. It is settlements; special problems in cessfully accomplished on any have populations in excess of estimated that 135 countries human settlements; managing scale: The creation of communi two million and many of these will produce over 150 projects human settlements; internation ties that are socially open and will have pitifully inadequate of interest to architects. All al cooperation. environmentally sound." construction resources. Another countries are expected to have The first session of the UNEP How can the problem be ap way of putting this is that in presented their suggestions for Governing Council, held in Ge proached? The report suggests the next 25 years world popu demonstration projects by June neva in June, gave priority to a combination of governmental lation will nearly double and 30th, 1974. establishing a fund or financial and private decisions. Policy for the first time in history the Confex '76 will not be held institution providing seed capi guidelines for individuals and majority of mankind will live in just a hall. It is projected tal for human settlements in localities would be laid down in urban areas of more than that all of Vancouver become developing countries. Former by higher governmental authori 20,000 inhabitants. Two-thirds a classroom for conferees. U. S. Ambassador to the UN ty. Vacant land, not used for of this population will suffer In outlining this and related Economic and Social Council, recreation, would be held pri from poverty; malnutrition; in UN efforts for The FORUM, Mr. Bernard Zagorin, appointed vately but subjected to govern adequate shelter, health and Narelle Townsend described by Mr. Strong, is chief of staff mental regulations to see that transport services; and unem them as follow-ups of the his for this study and began his neither its beauty nor its eco ployment. The buildings re toric Stockholm Conference on assignment August 15. logical significance were harmed. quired to accommodate them the Human Environment (June Open areas within urban regions will have to exceed all con '72) where a 106-point Action would be preserved and grouped struction ever undertaken by Program w a s unanimously if possible. Farmland zoning man. agreed upon by the 110 mem ENVIRONMENT practices would be overhauled Mr. Strong has also stated: ber states present. to preserve farms where essen "In the past, the overriding con The Conference recommended LAND USE REPORT tial, and to preserve them cern with the macro-economics establishment of the United Na It's an old story. Too many peo permanently, not just for a of development has in many tions Environment Programme ple in too little space. Not only period of years. cases obscured one of the funda with a 54-member Governing are there more of us, but we've The report is frank in point mental objectives, which is the Council, an environment secre decided to crowd into or near ing out that laws surrounding satisfaction of human aspira tariat, and an environment fund the same kind of place-big the preservation and control of 1 tions," which he lists as follows: to which governments would cities. land are far from exact. Some "Safeguarding the identity of make voluntary contributions. It's not just architects who individuals feel that any regula the individual within the com The headquarters for this, as of are hearing the cries of anguish, tion of land owned by an in munity; equality of access to October 1, will be in Nairobi, nor just the persons being dividual is an infringement of public services and facilities; so Kenya, with liaison offices in crowded. In Orr, Minnesota constitutional rights. Cases are cial interaction and popular par New York and Geneva. Mr. (population 350), many resi pending on such regulations in ticipation in community affairs; Strong, the Canadian Secretary dents are bitterly opposed to the several states but perhaps the cultural stimulation and oppor General of the Stockholm Con new Voyageurs National Park most crucial regarding center tunities for personal develop ference, was appointed Execu which is expected to bring one city real estate involves the ment; creative recreation; priva tive Director of UNEP for a four and a half million persons a battle over the air rights above cy, peace and quiet; personal year term. year into that previously un Grand Central Terminal in New security; freedom of movement The UN General Assembly spoiled area of the north woods. York. and choice." in December '72 gave its full Across the country, cities and The owner of the rights and If Confex '76 does nothing endorsement to this program, towns of all sizes are trying to the Penn Central Railroad were more than get more people and adopted resolutions noting put the brakes on development, prevented from building a 56- FORUM-SEPTEMBER-1973 77 Rockefeller task force. "The been established by Virginia stressed Concrete Institute's an- answer has to be a mix of solu Polytechnic Institute and State 1 nual convention, at Chicago's tions that involves primary re University in conjunction with Palmer House. liance on regulations, backed by Senco Products, Inc. The Fel • A seminar for architects in !FACETS/I property-tax assessments that lowships, administered by the industry will be held October ' reflect present use value. Sewer school's College of Architecture, 1-3 at the new AJA headquar story office building above the systems and roads, which attract are for "increasing the knowl ters, 1735 New York Avenue, Terminal by landmarks legisla housing, for instance, should be edge of continuing research in N. W., Washington, D. C. 20006. tion, and they are suing the planned in such a way as to the mechanical fastening of It will deal with ways in which city for $8 million a year in steer growth away from the wood and wood-base products architects in industry work with damages. lands that needed to be pro and, specifically, for the sup consulting architects, engineers "What is needed," says the tected from development." port of one or more research and contractors; and with new Rockefeller report, "is a changed This December, The FORUM fellows selected annually by the concepts and technologies such attitude toward land, not simply will go into the subject of land University to undertake studies as systems building. For infor a growing awareness of the im use management in depth with in the wood research and wood mation approach Maurice Payne, portance of stewardship, but a report by Robert Cahn, the construction laboratory of the the AIA's Director of Design separation of commodity rights ! Pulitzer Prize-winning environ College of Architecture." and International Relations. from urbanization rights." ment editor at The Christian • A seminar in the Techniques Some states are starting to Science Monitor. The same issue of Noise Control will be held take action of their own. In will also include a recount of October 11-14 at the Shoreham Florida, where the population "The National Conference on CONFERENCES Hotel in Washington, D. C. In- has more than tripled in 25 years Managed Growth," taking place ' formation may be obtained from to eight million, the legislature in Chicago, September 16-18. "Design of Precast Segmental the Institute of Noise Control earmarked $200 million to pur For conference information, con Bridges" will be the subject of Engineering, NOISE-CON 73, chase environmentally endang tact Urban Research Corpora a full day seminar offered Sep NBS-233, AI47, Washington, ered land. And plans are under tion, 5464 South Shore Drive, tember 25th, during the Pre- D. C. 20234. way to set up regional planning Chicago, Illinois 60616. boards to enforce density regula tions. Most of Florida's growth has come on the east coast near Miami where Dade, Broward and PEOPLE Palm Beach Counties house a third of the state's population. E. G. Hamilton of Dallas is the Harvey Ruvin, a Dade County ' new president of the National Commissioner, sees good news ' Council of Architectural Regis- along with the bad. "By 1980," tration Boards. he says, "the bad news will be • Herbert H. Swinburne is now that we'll be drinking raw sew chairman of the Building Re age. The good news will be that search Advisory Board of the there won't be enough to go National Research Council. around." • William K. Reilly, former ex Last fall, Boca Raton, in Palm ecutive director of the Task Araldo Cossutta Beach County, became the first Force on Land Use and Urban city in the country to set an up Growth Policy, is the new pres per limit to population. It did so ident of the Conservation Foun PROSPECTS by legislating a grand total of dation. dwelling units allowed within Araldo A. Cossutta, the archi city limits: 40,000. tect, and Vincent Pasciuto ~ . Also in Florida, as the result Ponte, the planner, have entered into partnership. The New York -~~~,,,,,,~ of a statewide vote, the entire ACADEME Q1 ''"";fl'', =~-,,,_ based firm will be known as coastline is to be controlled APPOINTMENTS .~ Cossutta & Ponte; and, if our within 1,000 yards of the shore. Harlyn E. Thompson is the new hunch is right, known for a In California almost identical dean of the school of architec good deal more before long. legislation is in effect. ture at the Newark College of Mr. Cossutta thus leaves I. M. Nor is land use legislation Engineering. Thompson assumes Pei & Partners where, with Mr. . .. and Vincent Pasciuto-Ponte. limited to the most populous his new duties in September, fol- i Pei, Eason H. Leonard and states. Oregon, New Mexico and lowing five years as chairman Henry N. Cobb, he helped gen process: Buildings in Paris, Vermont have land-use laws. of the department of architec erate a sequence of work which Lyon, Madrid; planning assign New York State passed a ture at North Dakota State Uni may well be without parallel in ments in Winnepeg, Columbus, $1.5-billion environmental bond versity. Post-war America. Mr. Ponte's Ohio, Charlottsville, Dallas, Bos issue which sets aside $175 mil • Dorian Hunter takes over the contributions in the field of city ton. So far as we know, this lion for the purchase of open duties of president of the Uni planning center on the design is the first time that an archi space. But the question persists versity of Southern California's and redevelopment of major tect and planner have come to whether such wholesale land Architectural Guild, support downtown areas in North Amer gether. It will be a heady, cer acquisition by governments is group for USC's School of Arch- ica, Europe and Australia. Both tainly instructive experience to really the answer. itecture. Ms. Hunter is corpo- men have worked closely on a watch. "If the open space determina rate president of Dorian Hunter number of projects; most per PHOTOGRAPHS: Cornell University, tion is framed for the public in Interiors, Inc. terms of 'buy it or lose it', we tinently, Boston's Christian pag2 21 (bottom); Susan Sherman, 76 (top); William F. Howland, 76 (cen· FELLOWSHIPS Science Center (page 24). Each would surely lose most of our t2r); Culver Pictures, 76 (right); Bruno scenic countryside," says Wil A. G. Juilfs Research Fellow brings to the partnership sev Barbier, 7B (top); Pa·.JI Gelinas, 78 liam Reilly, staff director of the ships in Wood Construction have eral more, either pending or in (bottom). PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES Owens-Corning Fiberglas re open into furniture for sleeping, cently completed an exhibit in entertaining and dining. Also New York called "Here Comes featured is a bathroom for to Tomorrow." morrow, called a revitalization Pinpointing various trends in room because of the added PRODUCTS American life-increasing mo equipment and appliances for bility, more time and money for grooming, hygiene and physical leisure-the exhibit shows how fitness. these trends may influence the Pictured here is a solution to way we live in the next ten or the space problem of two chil 15 years. Exhibit designers dren in one small room. The Buchsbaum and Korensten of unit includes two beds, two Design Coalition have created desks, storage, shelves for three modules resembling huge books and a built-in ladder to suitcases that completely fur the upper level. nish a multipurpose room. They D On Reader Service Card, circle 101 H.1.0. FAMILY SIZE Three new lines of fluorescent, fluorescent troffers, both static incandescent and H.I.D. re and air moving models in grid cessed lighting fixtures, identi or flange mounting types, sized cal in design and appearance, from Yi'x4' to 4'x4'. Incan have been developed into the descent and H.I.D. square first "Modular Family" by Guth modules in static and damp Lighting, Division of Sola Basic location units are offered in Industries. Aimed at uniform 12", 16" or 24" square sizes. ity and compatibility, with All units are available in iden illumination requirements in tical flush or regressed "pic mind, the "Modular Family" of ture frame" doors and the fluor fers a complete line of identical escent troffers also are availa ly matched recessed fixtures. It ble in "full frame" doors. includes a complete line of On Reader SenJice Card, circle 100 The following is a listing of MATERIALS: (Styrofoam "RM" Insu house Lamps. PLUMBING: American tural Metals. BRICK SEALER: Solarine the key products incorpo lation): Uniroyal. THERMAL INSULA· Standard; Church. UNIT HEATERS: Co. CAULKING & SEALANTS: Tremco TION: ("Foamglas"): Pittsburgh Plate Trane. VENTILATORS, RADIATORS & Manufacturing Co. CEILING LIGHTS: rated in some of the build Glass Co.; ("Fiberglas"): Owens CONVECTORS: Trane; lndeeco. PIP Neo-Ray Products. CONCRETE FORMS: ings featured in this issue: Corning Fiberglas Corp. ACOUSTICAL ING, VALVES & CONTROLS: Sarco Concrete Accessories Corp. ELEVA MATERIALS: (Simplex ceilings): Valves; Johnson Service Co. Al R CON TOR CABS: Boston Metal Door. Owens-Corning Fiberglas. FENESTRA DITION ING: York. DIFFUSERS, DUCTS, GLAZING: General Electric Silicone; CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH CEN· TION: Fiske Architectural Metals. PUMPS, etc.: (Diffusers): Mitco; Tremco "Mono." GRANITE: Canadian TER, Boston, Mass., including Ad· GLASS: Pittsburgh Plate Glass. IN· (Pumps): Skidmore. FANS & VENTI· National Granite; La Croix Co., Can ministration Building, Colonnade TERIOR PARTITIONS: U. S. Gypsum. LATORS: York; Trane; Bayley. IN ada; Cold Springs Granite Co.-all Building, Sunday School Building and ELEVATORS & ELECTRIC STAIRWAYS: TERCOM SYSTEMS: Executone. RADIO by Peter Bratti Associates. MARBLE: Open Space Building. ARCHITECTS: Stanley Elevator Co., Inc. and West· & TV SYSTEMS: Philip; RCA; Conrac; Bordesi, Italy. MISCELLANEOUS MET· l.M. Pei & Partners and Cossutta & inghouse Electric Co .. Inc. EXTERIOR Ampex. AUDIO VISUAL EQUIPMENT: AL: Potomac Iron Works. POST· Ponte. (Materials and Manufacturers & INTERIOR DOORS: (Exterior): Crane Kodak; Honeywell. PNEUMATIC TENSIONING: Stressteel Corp. PRE· as submitted by the architects.) Fu/view Glass Door Co. and Flour City TUBES & CONVEYORS: Pneumatic CAST: Allied Building Systems, Inc.; FOUNDATION WATERPROOF! NG: Architectural Metal; "Alumi-line" by tubes, power regulator. SPRINKLER/ Cambridge Cement & Stone Co. (Damp proofing), "lronite": Toch Fiske: (Interior): Williamsburg Steel FIREPROTECTION SYSTEMS: Carlysle REINFORCING STEEL: Bethlehem Brothers, Inc. PILING (Deep piles): Products. LOCKSETS, HINGES & Sprinkler System; Pyrotronics; Steel. ROLLING DOORS: The Kinnear Franki Foundation Co., Raymond Con· CLOSERS: (Cylinders): Best Lock Co.; (Pumps): Peerless, House & Fire; Manufacturing Co. RUST REMOVER: crete Pile Div. WATERPROOFING: Uni· (Locksets & Closers): Sargent; HVAC Weinman; Federal Sump Angler Chemical. SKYLIGHTS: Ickes royal, Inc. CONCRETE & CEMENT: (Hinges): Stanley Rixon. INTERIOR Pumps. WATER COOLERS: Halsey Braun; Glass Houses. TRAFFIC Wrentham Special Red. BRICK, TILE & PLASTIC: U. S. Ceramic Tile Taylor drinking fountains. MOVABLE DECKS: Robson Corp. TRUCK DOCK BLOCK & STONE: (Brick paving): Co.; Natural Linen by Scalamandre PARTITIONS: Mills Co. MAIL DIS· LEVELERS: Kelly Co.. Inc. TRUCK Capitol Clay Products; ("Glazon" Silks. PANELING: (Cabinet work): TRIBUTION: (Conveyor) Lamson Div.; TURNTABLE: Macton Machinery, Inc. block): Plasticrete Boston Corp. Monarch Industries, Inc.; Loughman Diebold Corp. KITCHEN, LAUNDRY, STRUCTURAL STEEL: Bethlehem Cabinet Co.; John Langenbacher Co., LABORATORY EQUIPMENT: Adama· ROSEMARY HALL. Choate School, Steel Corp. (Fabricator): West End Inc. PAINT: Glidden; Pittsburgh Plate tion; A. F. Underhill, Inc.; (Labora Wallingford, Conn. ARCHITECT: James Iron Works and A. 0. Wilson Struc· Glass. ELECTRICAL SWITCH ES, tory) Joseph M. Linsey Corp. Stewart Polshek and Assoc. (Mate tural Co. FLOOR & DECK SYSTEMS: LIGHTING & BREAKERS: General FLOORING, CARPETING: Kewaunee rials and Manufacturers as sub (Coffered slab forms): Rudkin-Wiley Electric; (Standby emergency): Onan; Scientific Corp.; Roxbury Carpet Co. mitted by the architect). FOUNDA· Corp.; (Finish floor decking): Granco (Lighting fixtures): Pemco, Devoe, FURNITURE: Endicott Church. ARCHI· TION WATERPROOFING: Asphalt Steel Products. ROOFING, GUTTER Omega & Lightolier; and Westing· TECTURAL METALS: Fiske Architec- Dampproofing; Minwax. WATER· (Contimiecl on page 82) FORU M-SEPTEMBER-19'13 79 THE WHITNEY LIBRARY OF DESIGN Watson-Guptill Publications has enlarged its publishing program to include these highly successful books on architecture and design. PROBLEMS A guide to Business Principles OF DESIGN and Practices for Interior Designers BY GEORGE NELSON. This is a book that brings understanding of those areas of the modern world having to do with architecture, the arts, and design. Its 26 essays offer factual information, appro priate illustration, and clear analysis of the world of modern design. Included arE chapters on: problems of design; art; architecture; planning; and interiors. 206 pages. 81/2 x 81/i. 116 illustrations. Soft Cover. ISBN 0-8230-744Q-4. $3.95 THE INTERIOR DESIGNER'S DRAPERY SKETCH FILE BY MARJORIE BORRADAILE HELSEL. This book is a comprehensive collection of drapery designs that can be used as a working tool, catalog, or design idea book. Sketchfile tracings can be used to substitute for designer sketches. It con tains an impressive selection of drapery :lesigns you can "show" without time consuming sample collecting or expensive sketches. 188 pages. 8 1/i x 11. 292 illustrations. Index. ISBN 0-8230-7289-4. $10.00 DRAWINGS OF ARCHITECTURAL A GUIDE TO BUSINESS INTERIORS PRINCIPLES AND EDITED BY JOHN PILE. Only the realism PRACTICES FOR INTERIORS BOOK of a sketch, perspective, or "rendering," INTERIOR DESIGNERS OF HOTELS AND showing a space in more or less realistic fashion, can become the basis for explain BY HARRY SIEGEL, C.P.A. This book is a MOTOR HOTELS ing a design proposal. For students and must for those who know much about BY HENRY END. The author, a leading serious designers, drawings play a vital designing but not enough about making professional in the field has chosen the part. They give the first-and sometimes money. The author explains everything survey as the format for this commentary the only-true visual reality to design from the mechanics· of setting up as a on the design of hotels and motor hotels. ideas. This handsome book, compiled by professional to estimating job time, bill Intended specifically for designers, archi an architect, designer, writer, and teacher, ing, and collecting. This guide includes tects, and hotel men, this book examines contains a rare selection of sketches repre actual samples of specialized work forms, the design principles of in-town, resort, senting the work of 89 outstanding archi letters of agreement, and contracts. Siegel and international hotels and motels. Each tects and illustrators, among them Le sets forth the basic principles, procedures, of the chapters is accompanied by a Corbusier, Florence Knoll Bassett, Frank and office systems designed to bring photographic portfolio of the particular Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies van order out of chaos, to solve the financial hotel or motel type. der Rohe, Richard Neutra, and I. M. Pei. and operational problems of interior de signers. 264 pages. 9x12. 256 illustrations, 3 in 172 pages. 9 1/2x13. 146 illustrations, 29 color. Bibliography. Index. ISBN 0-8230- in color. Index. ISBN 0-8230-7155-3. 176 pages. 9x12. Over 40 illustrations. 7280-0. $16.50 $23.50 ISBN 0-8230-7251-7. $13.95 PERSPECTIVE A New System for Designers BY JAY DOBLIN. The serious designer, faced with the problems of solidifying and transmitting design ideas, finds no single tool more effective than skill in perspec tive drawing. This book is not just an other text on the subject, it is a unique development, created by a practicing de signer for his own use in the classroom, calculated to exclude error and develop freehand drawing skills. For designers it offers a simple method of visualizing any three-dimensional object accurately and INTERIORS SECOND quickly and eliminates complex mechan ical drawing. BOOK OF OFFICES 68 pages. 9x12. 150 illustrations. ISBN EDITED BY JOHN PILE. This is the up-Io 0-8230-7419-6. $6.50 date, complete, and practical sourcebook on office design. An excellent cross-sec tion of office design today, this is a book of extreme usefulness for the client in PENTAGRAM: THE WORK PHOTOGRAPHING planning as well as for the designer. Pile ARCHITECTURE presents every detail of office plan and OF FIVE DESIGNERS decor, materials, furnishings, and finishes. AND INTERIORS DESIGNED BY PENTAGRAM: This hand 288 pages. 9x12. 486 illustrations. List of some book is a representation of the BY JULIUS SHULMAN. This is the basic data and standards. Index of designers, architectural, graphic, and industrial de "how to" book for amateur and profes planners, and architects. ISBN 0-8230- signs of five top-notch professionals: Theo sional photographers. The author explains 7304-1. $19.95 Crosby, architect; Alan Fletcher, Colin the hand camera, the view camera, the Forbes, and Mervyn Kurlansky, graphic principles of composition in general, and The Whitney Library of Design designers; and Kenneth Grange, industrial those of architectural photography in WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS designer. These talented men have pooled particular. The liaison between photog 2160 Patterson Street their abilities in these areas to create a rapher and architect or designer is thor Cincinnati, Ohio 45214 dynamic, creative organization, Penta oughly explored as well as rates and rights gram. This book includes stunning exam for photographic work. All designers of Please send me the books listed ples of their designs, along with the buildings and interiors can learn from below. I understand they may be strategy and methods they use in keeping this book how to make the most of returned within ten days of receipt up with the latest innovations in the field. photography in recording and promoting for full credit or refund if I am not their work. 216 pages. 81/4 x 73/4. Over 150 black and satisfied. white illustrations. 36 color plates. Text in 160 pages 9x12. 175 illustrations, 4 in (Please print) English, French, and German. ISBN 0- color. Bibliography. Index. ISBN 0-8230- 8230-7415-3. $7.50. 7427-7. $14.95 Title ______ Title ______THE MEASURE OF MAN ANATOMY FOR Title ______INTERIOR DESIGNERS Human Factors in Design Title ______Third Edition Revised and Enlarged Edition BY JULIUS PANERO. ILLUSTRATED BY BY HENRY DREYFUSS. This portfolio, com D I enclose payment (check or NINO REPETTO. This third edition, with piled specifically for the special needs of money order only). Publisher twice the amount of material as the first, the industrial designer, is the most com pays mailing costs. plete source of human design measure is a comprehensive book of graphic D Bill me (plus mailing costs). standards for designers of interiors. It ment data in print. For anyone whose contains all the data the reader needs for designs will be used by people, this com Note: Add sales tax where ap designing around people, designing peo pilation of design information is a useful, plicable. Orders over $40.00 must ple in and designing things for people to practical, informative, and time saving be accompanied by payment. use. This book is one of the most useful tool. The portfolio of anthropometric data and informative handbooks for designers is accompanied by a 20 page book of Name ______and proof positive that statistics need not design specifications and bibliography. It be dull. There are chapters on the basis also contains 32 charts, including two of Street ______of design, residential and commercial ap life-size, standing human figures. plicaitons, and lighting. 20 pages of design specifications and bib City ______160 pages. 9 x 10. Over 300 illustrations. liography. 2 charts, 25 x 76. 30 charts, Tables. ISBN 0-8230-7026-3. $8.95 91/4 x 121/i. ISBN 0-8230-7370-X. $13.95 State ______Zip ____ 1765 Eaton Gordley Products. MAIL BOXES HEATERS: Trane. UNIT VENTILATORS, Owens Ford. INTERIOR PARTITIONS: AND CHUTES: Auth. VENETIAN RADIATORS, CONVECTORS: Vulcan National Gypsum. ELEVATORS AND BLINDS AND SHADES: Riviera Slim Radiation, Trane. CONTROLS: Honey ELECTRIC STAIRWAYS: Otis Elevator. /PRODUCTS/ line. KITCHEN, LAUNDRY, LABORA well. AIR CONDITIONING COM DOORS: Stanley (exterior); Holcomb (Continued from page 79) TORY EQUIPMENT: Westinghouse; PRESSOR: Trane. DIFFUSERS: Titus. & Hoke (interior partition). HARD Kewaunee; Bernard Hotel Supply Co. SPECIAL FANS: Joy. INTERCOM SYS WARE: General Lock; LCN. INTERIOR PROOFING: Nervastral. CONCRETE & FINISH FLOORING AND CARPETING: TEMS: Executone. TV SYSTEMS: Bloh MATERIALS: Vermont Structural Slate, CEMENT: Plasticrete; Paquetle Mason Armstrong V.A.T.; Milliken Carpet. der Tongue. PNEUMATIC TUBES, Romany Spartan. VINYL PANELING: ry. STRUCTURAL STEEL: Adlerhurst FURNITURE AND SEATING: Kaz Co.; CONVEYORS: Movable Partitions-Coil Genon-Division of Dwoskin, Vicratex. Ironworks; GYM. CURTAINWALL: A.H. John Stuart International; General Wall Partitions; Newcastle. SPRIN PAINT: Martin Senour; Glidden; Pratt Leeming (wood); Mirawall. THERMAL Fireproofing; Inter/Graph. FABRICS: KLER SYSTEM AND FIRE PROTEC & Lambert. ELECTRICAL EQUIP.: Tork; INSULATION: Styrofoam. ACOUSTI- Boris Kroll; Souveran Fabrics; C.I. TION EQUIP.: Automatic Sprinkler M.H. Rhodes; Edwards; Murphy; l.T.E. CAL MATERIALS: U.S. Gypsum. Designs; Design Tex; Kaz Co. GYM Corp. WATER COOLERS: Halsey W. STANDBY EMERGENCY POWER: FEN EST RA Tl 0 N: A.H. Leeming. FLOOR: Haywood-Berk. Taylor. TRASH CHUTES: Wilkinson. Onan. LIGHTING FIXTURES, LAMPS: GLASS: Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. LABORATORY EQUIP.: Southern Desk Lightolier; Keene. PLUMBING FIX INTERIOR PARTITIONS: U.S. Gypsum. KNIGHT CAMPUS. 400 East Ave., Co. KITCHEN, LAUNDRY EQUIP.: TURES: Kohler; America n Standard. DOORS: E.H. Friedrich. HARDWARE: Warwick, R.I. ARCHITECTS: Perkins Jacob Licht. FINISH FLOORING: Ress PIPING: North American; Thrush. Sargent. INTERIOR MATERIALS: Ce and Will. (Materials and Manufac Flintcoat. CARPETING: Lees. SEAT HEATING BOILERS: Bryant. UNIT ramic Tile; Quarry Tile. PANELING: turers as submitted by the architects.) ING: Irwin Seating. FURNITURE: Lab HEATERS, VENTILATORS, RADIATORS Mirawal; Kaiser Aluminum. PAI NT: FOUNDATION WATERPROOFING: Bar Southern Desk. DRAPERIES: Ben & CONVECTORS: Trane. HEATING Glidden. ELECTRICAL DUCTS AND rett. WATERPROOFING: Barrett, Trem Rose Fabrics. DRAPERY: Graber Co. VALVES, PIPING & CONTROLS: Fluid WI RI NG: Westinghouse. ELECTRICAL co. CONCRETE: M.A. Gammino. CE MASTER TIME PROGRAM & FIRE tech Corp. AIR CONDITIONING: (Roof EQUIPMENT (switches and breakers): MENT: Penn Dixie. BLOCK: Rhode ALARM SYSTEM: Simplex. UNDER top): Mammoth Div. DIFFUSERS, Westinghouse. LIGHTING FIXTURES, Island Cinder Block. FLOOR AND DOOR DUCT: Walker. ROLLING DUCTS, PUMPS, etc.: Keene Special LAMPS: Prescolite; Harry Gitlin; Light DECK SYSTEMS: Navydek. ROOF GRILLS: Kinnear. VALVES: Fairbanks. 100 System. SPECIAL FANS & olier. PLUMBING FIXTURES: Kohler. MATERIALS: Barrett. THERMAL IN PUMPS: Allis Chalmers. VENTILATORS: Environmental equip· HEATING BOILERS: Patterson Kelley. SULATION: Owens-Corning. ACOUSTI ment. INTERCOM: Executone. PNEU UNIT HEATERS: Nesbitt; Chromolux. CAL MATERIALS: Simpson Timber. DETROIT AND NORTHERN BUILDING. MATIC TUBES & CONVEYORS: UN!T VENTILATORS, RADIATORS, FENESTRATION: Alumi Glass Corp. Hancock, Michigan. ARCHITECTS: (Dumbwaiter): Otis Elevator. CEILING CONVECTORS: Nesbitt; Chromolux. GLASS: Pittsburgh Plate. ELEVATORS: Tarapata/MacMahon/Paulsen. (Mate MATERIALS: Keene Corp. Special HEATING VALVES, PIPING, CON Otis Elevator. DOORS: Roddis; Pio rials & Manufacturers as submitted Module. MOVABLE PARTITIONS: Con TROLS: Allenco. AIR CONDITIONING neer Fireproof Door Co. HARDWARE: by the architects.) WATERPROOFING: Wed. KITCHEN, LAUNDRY, & LAB COMPRESSOR, FAN UNIT: Davidson; Russwin. PANELING: Kayser Alumi GAF. CONCRETE AND CEMENT: Trin ORATORY EQUIPMENT: Dwyer Kitch Chelsea. UNIT AIR CONDITIONERS: num. PAINT: Kyanize. ELECTRICAL ity Buff, General Portland Cement Co. en. FINISH FLOORING & CARPETING: Nesbitt. DIFFUSERS, DUCTS, PUMPS: DUCTS & WIRING: Rome Cable; STRUCTURAL STEEL: U.S. Steel. Stratton Industries; Mort West. Carnes (louvers). INTERCOM SYS Jones & Laughlin Conduit. ELEC CURTAIN WALL: H.H. Robertson FURNITURE: Harter, Tri-Mark, Gun TEMS: Auth. RADIO AND TV: Burns TRICAL EQUIP.: Westinghouse. Cupples Products Division. FLOOR locke, James Murray, Jens Rison, Electric. AUDIO VISUAL EQUIPMENT: STANDBY EMERGENCY POWER: Onan. AND DECK SYSTEMS: Cellular OL Knoll, Steelcase, Lehigh, Stendig, Ultima Series Electronic Educator. LIGHTING FIXTURES: Sylvan, Lite Flooring-H.H. Robertson. ROOF MA General Fireproofing, Vecta Contract. SPRINKLER SYSTEM AND FIRE PRO craft, Lite-0-Lier, Visa. LAMPS: West TERIALS: GAF. THERMAL INSULA- DRAPERY HARDWARE: Isabel Scott; TECTION EQUIP.: Allenco. CEILING inghouse, General Electric. PLUMB TION: Owens Corning Fiberglas. 0.B. Masco. FABRICS, UPHOLSTERY MATERIALS: Textured Spraypaint; ING FIXTURES: American Standard. ACOUSTICAL MATERIALS: Keene & DRAPER! ES: Knoll; Isabel Scott; U.S. Gypsum. WATER COOLERS: HEATING BOILERS: Chromalox. UNIT Corp.; U.S. Gypsum. GLASS: Libbey Design-Tex. Divide and Profit Attractively _____A_,,,,__ __ OPERABLE WALLS ANo?UJi:Walb. PARTITIONS PATENTED Both R-W Operable Walls (left) and Air Wall portable partitions assure efficient partitioning , enhance room decor. Richards-Wilcox wall systems quickly, efficiently let titions are manually positioned. • Full perimeter seals you partition meeting and dining room facilities, help provide complete privacy. Operable Waifs seal mechan you serve any size group. • Operable walls move ically with the flip of a lever; Air Wall portable partitions smoothly, effortlessly into and out of their storage are pneumatically sealed. • Unlimited surface patterns space on inconspicuous ceiling tracks. • Portable par- to match the decor of any room. .... Richards-wilcox FREE FULL LINE BROCHURE One of rhe Whtie Consolidated lndustnes .. MANUFACTURING COMPANY [JfJ!JrtU 110 Third Street • Aurora, Illinois 60507 I Phone: (312) 897-6951 On Reader Service Card, Circle 311 PRODUCTS Our You'll find a new heading on our classified page. photoelectric Beginning with this issue, we are accepting classified advertising to be listed under the new heading. smoke PRODUCTS We hope you will find this service useful detector and helpful whether you are a buyer or a seller. In order to maintain the continuity story. and relevance of all editorial matter in each issue, there is a requirement that the prod ucts offered for sale be industry-related. This advertising opportunity is being of fered in response to many requests for a PRODUCTS category on the classified You should pages. read it. Rates per issue for PRODUCTS: 70¢ per word-$50.00 minimum. Straight copy only. r:,ur stol)' clears up a lot of misconcepti::'I No illustrations or logos. about what photoelectric smoke detectors do I Remittance must accompany order. (reflected light type). And about what ionization smoke detectors do (or don't do). It points out I that photoelectric detects the incipient fire and Already included on these well-read pages are that ionization rarely does. That photoelectric I the classifications of Position Available, Posi requires less maintenance than ionization. That tion Wanted, Services. Please see Classified I photoelectric is more reliable than ionization. Page for these rates. It points out that more and more key people in I government agencies, testing organizations, in THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, surance firms and OEM's are realizing these I facts. And that many of these people are now Classified going photoelectric. I One Astor Plaza, New York, N. Y. 10036 Please. You've got big investments to protect. I You should know the truth in this area. You should Please run my ad as follows in your next learn the facts. Just send this coupon to Pyro- I ____issues. tector, 333 Lincoln Street, Hingham, Mass. I 02043. Or call Joe Petkunas at (617) 749-3466 for some straight, hard facts. I And after you read our photoelectric story, we I think you will specify our photoelectric smoke I detectoffi I Under D PRODUCTS D Position Avail able D Services D Position Name I Wanted I Company ______NAME ______Address I Company ______I City State __ Zip ___ Address ______City ____ State ___ Zip __ I PYROTECTOR I The photoelectric way. Telephone ______L .J On Reader Service Card, Circle 312 85 /PRODUCT LITERATURE I To order any of the literature described, circle the indicated number on the self-addressed Reader Service Card on page 83 INDOOR LUMINAIRES incorporation into bidding and plan retention, plus high chemical re series; included are illustrations and " in-motion" photographs. On Reader Data sheet from Holophane Co. de ning proposals. On Reader Service sistance. Information contained in scribes two Prismpack II lOOOW Card, circle 205. Bulletin # 22 from Su box. On Reader Service Card, circle 216. mercury indoor luminaires. Designed Service Card, circle 210. for wide variety of high-bay industrial, SEATING & TABLES ROOFING SYSTEMS sports arena, and coliseum applica A 64-page Seating & Tables catalog SLIDING DOORS Full color 4-page brochure demon tions. Provides info on photometrics, from R-Way Furniture Co., encom Folder of continuous ball bearing strates use of patented Kalwall Trans dimensions, electrical characteristics, passing a comprehensive view of hangers to support heavier-than-av lucent Panel system as " skylites" decorative and functional accessories. traditional, colonial, and modern erage interior and exterior communi· and " skyroofs." Outlines applications; On Reader Service Card, circle 200. seating and table variations. Pictured eating doors, partitions, and sliding provides technical data, detail draw and described are upholstered pieces, glass doors. Available from Grant ings, and short form specifications. PLYWOOD WALLS high and low back chairs with or Hardware Co. Photographs of appli Ka lwall consists of two fiberglass 32-page publication contains detailed without arms, met al and wood frames, cations, sectional view drawings, load reinforced face sheets permanently sketches on uses of trim and mill lounge, side and colonial seating; ratings, minimum tolerances, related bonded to a structural aluminum 1- work in producing walls free of occasional and restaurant tables to data. Indoor/ outdoor. Doors up to 35 beam grid core. " Sandwich" panel visible joints. Entitled " Architectural complement seating, described as to lbs., heavy doors, partitions, and walls said to be shatterproof with insu la tion options. On Reader Service Card, Plywood Walls," brochure available sizes, finished bases, leg styles. 230 up to 300 lbs. On Reader Service from the American Plywood Associa pieces available. On Reader Service Card, circle 211. circle 217. tion. Sa id to be useful as an immedi Card, circle 206. ate design problem solver or as a GLASS FRAMING WATERPROOFING stimulant of new approaches to wall ELEVATORS A new four-page color brochure is Illustrated brochure on TREMproof available from Kawneer Company Waterproofing Systems for a variety construction. Design concepts for Pre - engineered, pre - manufactured which describes Core-Wall, high per of below, on, and above-grade con application to wide variety of single electric passenger elevators for high formance, aluminum glass framing for struction applications available from and two-story structures. On Reader rises up to 30 stories described and one to three story buildings. The Tremco Mfg. Co. Describes water Service Card, circle 201. illustrated in publication from Otis brochure illustrates how the shallow proofing security at low cost for Elevator Co. Completely automatic, exterior metal face complements occupied areas and gives application BRASS LAVATORY FIXTURES maximum load of 16 passengers; glass appearance, especially with data for complete line of liquid Artistic Brass, a division of Norris speed of 200 ft./minute for rises to tinted or reflective glasses. Economi polymers, masonry preservatives, Industries, has introduced a new 16 stories, 350 ft./minute to 30 cal, straight-i n glazing uses and face transparent preservatives, all-level "Tomorrow Line" of decorative bath stories. Automatically coordinated for and gutter mullion assemblies are drains, and adjustable KingPin Ped room fixtures and accessories. Line prompt response. On Reader Service discussed. On Reader Service Card, estals. On Reader Service Ca rd, circle presently composed of 4 basic de Card, circle 207. signs-Pisces, Aquarius, Aries, and circle 212. 218. Libra. Each available in lavatory and tub sets; matching accessories in ARCHITECTURAL GLASS INSULATIONS FIRE SECURITY eluded. On Reader Service Card, Comprehensive guide to architectural W .R. Grace Construction Product Di 12-page technical report on smoke circle 202. glass products for windows and vision has issued an 8-page brochure detector location for automatic closing doors, '" PPG Glass Products for Archi describing Zonolite insulations, ma fire/smoke doors available from WASHROOM FIXTURES tecture," from PPG Industries. Full sonry fill, polystyrene foam, and Rixson-Firemark, Inc. Report describes color reprint of PPG's '73 Sweet's Bradley Corporation introduces their thermostud system. In addition to tests conducted at the "Project Cor Architectural File insert, guide out 1973 catalog on their washroom fix photographs, t he brochure includes r idor" facility, with the consent of the lines performance, appearance, char tures. Following cost comparisons of various technical and specification California Fire Marshal. Includes acteristics of firm's vision glasses lavatories versus wash fountains, product data. On Reader Service Card, complete details on test procedures, clear, tinted, and reflective in single each product group within the line is circle 213. facilities, results. On Reader Service and double glazing. Also describes presented within a blocked area for Card, circle 219. PPG's new '"Total Vision System'" clear definition. Color selections and STOCK COMPONENTS concept. Other features: Silhouette specifications and layout drawings are 4 bulletins presenting Julius Blum & CARPET INSTALLATION and Herculite doors and frames; i ncluded. On Reader Service Card, Co. stock component line, containing Architectural guide specification for stiles, rails, safety glass selections, circle 203. condensed information on expansion glue-down installation of double jute glazed panels. On Reader Service joints, tubing, bars, shapes, screen backed carpets, already in 15th Card, circle 208. LAVATORY, HOSPITAL LINE ing, railing systems, and new printing, available from Jute Carpet 1973 Washroom and Hospital Equip Carlstadt Avrylic/ Wood Handrailing. Backing Council. Gives detailed in ment Catalog, issued by Bobrick ALUMINUM PANELS On Reader Service Card, circle 214. stallation instructions; explains why Washroom Equipment, Inc., features '" Alcoa Alply Panels," a quick refer jute' s porosity and affinity to line of more than 600 design co ence guide from Alcoa, provides up-to MOSAIC TILE standard adhesives allow no-pad ordinated products, many new, and date look at all-purpose prefabricated Color brochure illustrating American glue-down installation. On Reader several redesigned for improved per construction panels with finished Olean's line of glazed, quarry, and Service Card, circle 220. formance. Photos of stainless steel interior and exterior facings. Lists ceramic mosaic tile. Featured are and laminated equipment. Guide available finishes, colors, and shows both the silicone rubber factory WINDOWALLS, GLIDING DOORS specification and listing units are panel edging, ioonong, assembly grouted Redi-Set ceramic tile system 1973, 52-page Andersen Windowalls included. On Reader Service Card, methods. Also lists authorized Alcoa and the Redi-Set 200, ceramic mosaic and Gliding Doors catalog, features circle 204. wal l systems contractors. On Reader sheets with polyurethane grout. De Andersen Corporation's complete line: Service Gard, circle 209. scribes color co-ordination, architec Prefinished Flex-Pac window units in SUSPENSION CEILING SYSTEMS tural specificat ions, and commercial white and terratone, Perma-Shield Eastern Products Corporation ah VINYL RESIN COATING applications. On Reader Service Card, gliding windows, decorative Perma nounces new and updated literature A chemically resistant vinyl resin circle 215. Shield shutters for windows, entry on its line of suspension ceiling sys coating introduced by Subox Coatings, doors. Lists unit sizes, glazing op tems in demountable wall systems. BASF Wyandotte Corp. Series VL-200 FILES tions, window/door combinations, and The information can also be had in based on a non-hydrolyzable, internal Brochure on Steelcase' s 3000 Series installation data for wood-framed, the form of catalogs for a quick, easy ly plasticized vinyl copolymer resin, file, detailing styling, construction, brick-veneer, and solid-masonry walls. reference or as individual pieces for combining excellent gloss and color optional features of vertical file On Reader Service Card, circle 221. On Reader Service Card, Circle 313 On Reader Service Card, Circle 314 EXCLUSIVE------. Ciood original art ff from a beautiful investmen( U NATIONAL GUARD PRODUCTS- Adjustable 2-piece interlocking aluminum threshold for floors offset from v.i" to 1" For wood or metal doors-inswinging or outswinging, 1" clearance required. ~ H/4"-1 450 alum T Pat. No. 1.7 lbs. per ft. 7/8" 2,837,786 ~ '-i'I ~ ~' ~~ ~ A~~itional j \~-..200 ~ Risaburo Kimura "City 156" ~ta~ \ .... __'-~--,--:.::------,1 ...... '------...! Rare original lithographs & etchings signed by f------5-1/4"------l Boulanger, Calder, Chagall, Dali, Kimura, Vasarely, f------5.7 /16"----- Young and other important artists can be yours ex clusively. Send today for free color brochure. Samples Available. See us in Sweet's Architecural File. Readily available from all contract hardware Dept. AF-1 distributors. Original NATIONAL GUARD print collecton ~i~ PRODUCTS, INC. group, Ltd. Box 7353-Memphis, Tenn. 38107 501 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 ~ ------· H • the illustrated • guide to: •DESIGN • CONSTRUCTION Complete with a glossary of real estate terms and a bibli •SYSTEMS ography, HOUSES is over 400 pages with over 150 illustrations ... only $15. Order now! Get into HOUSES! Here's a book for everybody in HOUSES: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF Contractors, architects, salespeople, lawyers, lenders ... any REAL ESTATE BROKERS one who needs to know about houses-needs HOUSES! of the NATIONAL What's in a style? That's what's in HOUSES. A section of 57 ASSOCIATION home styles and their major features: Queen Anne, Cape Cod, Salt Box ... they all mean more when you see each illustrated OF REALTORS" and noted with their major characteristics. Dept. AF, 155 E. Superior Street But let's get inside HOUSES: their construction ... wood, • • • • • • Chicago, Illinois 60611 • • • • • • • cement. brick ... but more important we show you room-by-room layout with size and design requirements and interior zoning. Systems? HOUSES has many, and we give you a detailed, illus NAME trated discussion of heating, water, electrical, sewerage, air con ditioning and many other systems you'll find in any home. FIRM Get the book that helps the architect to plan, the builder to ADDRESS build and the buyer to decide and buy. HOUSES, the book that helps you to make the thousands of judgments necessary in CITY /STATE/ZIP obtaining maximum shelter and amenities within an allocated budget. On Reader Service Card, Circle 315 87 ADVERTISING INDEX AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS Case & McGrath Inc..... 12-13 ANACONDA ALUMINUM COMPANY Peitscher, Janda/Associates, Inc...... 9 DU PONT COMPANY (SCHUMACHER) N.W. Ayer & Son, Inc...... IBC EATON CORP., SECURITY PRODUCTS & SYSTEMS Fuller, Smith & Ross, Inc...... 17 FELDMAN COMPANY, THE Timmerco Advertising ...... 88 LCN CLOSERS Alex T. Franz, Inc...... IFC LIBBEY-OWENS-FORD Campbell-Ewald Company ...... 2-3 MODINE MANUFACTURING COMPANY The Biddle Advertising Company ... 22 NATIONAL GUARD PRODUCTS INC. Brick Muller, Swearingen, Dorrity ...... 87 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF REAL ESTATE BROKERS Gillis/Graphix . 87 ORIGINAL PRINT COLLECTORS GROUP LTD. Leon Auerbach & Co., Advertising ...... 87 PPG INDUSTRIES Ketchum, Macleod & Grove, Inc ...... 6-7 PYROTECTOR, INC. Conrad, Inc...... 85 RICHARDS-WILCOX MANUFACTURING COMPANY Attractive. Adaptable. Hanson Advertising, Inc...... 82 Available ... only at Feldman. SUPREME EQUIPMENT & SYSTEMS CORP. Chalk, Nissen Hanft, Inc. 5 UNITED STATES GYPSUM COMPANY A versatile linear or wrap-around wall lighting Needham, Harper & Steers Advertising Inc...... BC system. Unique and serviceable.for home, WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS ...... 80-81 office or commercial use. Perfect for enhancing the person, the place, the product. Two systems: candelabra base or standard-medium base sockets; finished in satin brass; satin chrome, polished chrome or oxidized bronze; CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? for the candelabra base, a wide variety of We need those numbers on the address label. colorful metal reflectors. Interchangeable They help speed up the change-for which please components allow you to customize to your allow up to six weeks. precise requirements. (Affix old address label below-or fill in former address) (New Address) NAME FIRM ADDRESS CITY ____ STATE ____ ZIP ____ lNDIVlOUAL INDIVIDUAL WRAP-AROUND HORIZONTAL MOUNTING VERTICAL MOUNTING INSTALLATION Also, if you write us about your subscription, be sure to give both old and new addresses, the THE FELDMAN COMPANY type of subscription and your ZIP code. 612 South Wall Street Cut out and mail to: Los Angeles, California 90014 Circulation Manager, ARCHITECTURAL FORUM Dept. A -2 2160 Patterson St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45214 On Reader Service Card, Circle 316 New THERMAFIBER® fire-safety system for high-rise construction. THERMAFIBER Curtain Wall Insulation proved its effectiveness Furnace fire comparison test at the U.S.G. Research Center in recent 2 and 3-hour fire tests witnessed and certified by recog 4 resulted in complete disintegration of polyurethane foam nized consulting engineers. Temperatures were controlled to insulation within five minutes. follow the ASTM E119 standard time-temperature curve. THERMAFIBER Curtain Wall Insulation protects spandrel panels, exterior column covers, window and track fillers. This quality fire-resistant product is available in regular blankets or foil-faced to eliminate need for separate vapor barrier. Attachment is mechanical using impaling clips or fasteners. See test pictures at left for the revealing results of this highly effective fire-safety system component. THERMAFIBER Sating Insulation also proved its superior fire resistance in a separate 3-hour fire test. Furnace temperatures conformed to the ASTM E119 time-temperature curve. Results showed a melt point of over 2000°F. The Fire Hazard Classifi cation for unfaced curtain wall and sating, tested in accordance with ASTM E84, is Flame Spread 15, Fuel Contributed 0, Smoke Developed 0 (foil-faced: 25-0-0). THERMAFIBER Sating Insulation provides the compressibility to allow it to be installed between the floor and curtain wall; yet it's sufficiently resilient to seal the gap tightly. Insertion on support brackets or impaling clips is recommended. THERMAFIBER is non-corrosive to steel or aluminum, vermin-proof, moisture resistant and mildew-proof. Add thermal efficiency and sound control and you'll readily see Identical fire testing of glass fiber curtain wall insulation 4 why this fire-safety system, made up of THERMAFIBER Curtain resulted in melting and general deterioration within twenty six minutes. Wall and THERMAFIBER Sating Insulation, has Same test, dramatically different result. After a 2-hour ex been so well received. Just a few new buildings posure, THERMAFIBER Curtain Wall insulation remained now employing this advanced system are ,,... intact and still afforded protection to the aluminum panel. Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower, Cleveland's Diamond Shamrock, Detroit's Detroit Edison, and Milwaukee's Wisconsin Center Building. See your U.S.G. representative for specifics. Or write to us at 101 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Ill. 60606, Dept. AF-93. THERMAFIBER Curtain Wall Insulation THERMAFIBER Sating Insulation UNITED STATES G!,f!f!!':!. /J