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nce upon a time, there was a Oboomtown called * There was more than enough n money to go around. People remodeling o r building a new home called up a contractor and let him loose with their money. How times have changed. In La Belle : The Crescent, 1986, Shepard + Boyd (USA and John Burgee Architects with Philip Now, no matter who you are, any Johnson, architects change that costs money has to be Citesurvey worth i t It has to be right the first time and have true value. Dallas Through the Finally, people in Houston are demanding the same quality, Looking Glass dependability, and workmanship Malcolm Quantrill The latest acquisition on view at the picture frame of the Museum of Art that have satisfied our customers Dallas Museum of Art is a townscape, a window or close up, then perhaps as you prospect of a piece of the city as it was or sweep into the complex between the for over 13 years. might he. in the French manner. There is 18-story office tower and the luxurious something strange in the composition, Crescent Court hotel. For amid the flurry something not quite surreal, yet still of high-styled women and European cars, decidedly reminiscent of Magrittc. But we might indeed be somewhere else, in the confusion of effect is not that of a another urban fragment across the moonlit building beneath a sunlit sky. Atlantic, and not in Dallas at all. Rather it is the change of effect that results from the grouping of images of The limestone is as yet loo fresh to give o N O N familiar objects of varying scales, so that us more than a hint of history, as yet SW2 LA BRANCH. HOUSTON, 77004, (71)) 52

7rrMElNlMILDXORKS Architectural model. The Crescent (School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin) Cite Fall 1987 23 Citeations creating the feeling thai in the Crescent Court hotel you can have an elegant good New York 1930 and time. This is nowhere more (rue than in the Beau Nash brasserie, with its assured LA Lost and Found balance of lighting, darkness (mahogony), and color. Once inside the New York, 1930, Architecture and hotel - the entry court with its tempietto Urbanism Between the Two World Wars WBfof has too much parking for the right effect Robert A.M. Stern. Gregory Gilmartin. ! - you are, indeed, in another place. But it and Thomas Mellins with David Ftshman is the interior design and not the and Raymond W. Gastil, New York, architecture that transforms both place Rizzoli, 1987, 847pp., $75 and people. And there arc tough jostlings of intention between these two realms, LA Lost and Found. An Architectural although I fear that much of this vulgar History of Los Angeles struggle is lost on the usual guest. In the Sam Hall Kaplan, New York: Crown Hall great entrance hall, for instance, the Publishers Inc.. 1987. 224 pp., $27.95 circulation across to the second court is rudely interrupted by the intrusion of the Reviewed by Stephen Fox second-floor gallery, like a piece of intimate apparel fallen from its proper place. Bui the marble floor of this space At 847 pages New York 1930, successor to must be seen to be believed and is a Stern, Gilmartin, and Massengale's New material triumph over mere spatial and York 1900, is not a quick read. It is a architectural adversity. voluminous account of architecture built in New York (principally in , In the Beau Nash brasserie, the struggle hut also including the outer boroughs), is between the ceiling and the arched between 1917 and 1942. This is organized windows on both sides, in which the by building and institutional types - « windows are defeated and depressed by public buildings, entertainment and retail the sheer weight of the mahogany beams buildings, residential buildings, and tall that might easily have been omitted along office buildings - and concludes with a the wall spans. But this is a space that is short section on urban improvements and already popular with local residents and the World's Fair of 1939. The book is therefore always busy and noisy with the illustrated with a stunning array of period enjoyment of its excellent cuisine. Dinner photographs (some of them a bit muddy and Sunday brunch bring back memories in printing) and fewer architectural of the best smaller European restaurants; drawings than one might wish. Although while breakfast in the greenhouse is ritzy urbanism figures in the subtitle, it is to in the true sense. architecture that the book is dedicated; typological organization virtually ensures The elevators are by far the most efficient that the text becomes a catalogue of to be Ibund anywhere. They deliver you buildings. into a crescent-shaped corridor, of 22 East Fortieth Street, 1931, Kenneth Franzhelm course, where perspective is canceled out The cultural trajectory that Stern, by the illusion of infinite distance. Long Gilmartin, and Mellins trace through stays arc not suggested by the layout and buildings is dramatically inclined. It furnishings of the rooms, however, which spanned from the end of the Progessive body of movie palaces are recognized; the diversity, texture, or patterns of arc nevertheless very comfortable if Era, with its "high" concept of civic Harric T. Lindcbcrg turns up on development that characterize the place undistinguished. One expects each room grandeur, expressed in the nobility of Bcekman Place; and Kenneth or of the multiple architectural cultures, to have its French window hut this, alas, classical architecture, to the raucousness Franzheim's 22 East Fortieth Street, a and their sources of patronage, that often opens onto a shelf rather than a balcony. of the Jazz Age and its delight in the 42-story office tower completed in 193I have occurred simultaniously in Los Putting a hesitant foot out you soon sophisticated novelty of art deco (or what for Jesse H. Jones, is illustrated with a Angeles and the many distinct towns that realize why. The view from the room, Stern, Gilmartin, and Mellins prefer to Berenice Abbott photograph. The surround it. The book is sustained only unlike those down the corridors, is call Modern Classicism), to the crisis of Houston architect William Ward Watkin by Julius Shulman's architectural strictly one-point: you are intended to the Great Depression, which propelled a makes several surprise appearances in his photography. There are no architectural look across the courtyard and not up and renewal of engagement with sociological role as an occasional commentator on the drawings. down the crescent. If you break the rules, problems and lent the Modern Movement course of American architecture in the the illusion is destroyed, because the in architecture a certain moral urgency early 1930s. Architectural histories of American cities crescent is open-ended and the urban upon its American appearance, arc needed. Too much has been lost and fragment not a complete entity in itself. Underlying this trajectory the authors New York 1930 is not the concise social - too little is remembered, even of discern two gradual but inexorable historical profile that its title might seem buildings and architects that in (heir own The harsh reality of the urban landscape trends: the dissolution of what they call to imply. It is, however, a rich, discursive time achieved some degree of critical intrudes beyond the garden wall to the the "metropolitan ideal" of 1900 before chronicle of the ways that social and recognition. New York 1930 redresses the right and the swimming pool to the left. the tendency to suburbanize and cultural circumstances affected building general lack of knowledge, but it is over- domesticate, and the supplanting of the development and intersected with ambitious and unwieldy; the cataloguing Returning to the townscape viewed from Progressive notion of civic virtue with architectural trends during the 1920s and of buildings (a commendable enterprise the museum gallery, I am reminded of the financial speculation and social 1930s. in itself) constantly competes with the way in which the skylines of both Dallas engineering. accounts of historical developments. LA and Fort Worth are delineated by Any temptation to criticize New York Lost and Found is too superficial and profiling buildings with light bulbs. This In the chapters on theater, retail, and 1930 for its profusion of detail is checked unresearched to communicate an magical transformation of a city's form at exhibition design especially, the authors' by a quick flip - and there's no adequate sense of historical particularity. night is achieved by a simple and vulgar compilation of examples enables one to compelling reason to slow down - M, Christine Boyer's Manhattan device - the very same one used in the follow clearly the leading developments through LA Lost and Found by Sam Hall Manners, Architecture and Style, interior of Dallas's N.J. Clayton-designed in taste, techniques, and attitudes that Kaplan, design critic of the Los Angeles 1850-1900 (Rizzoli. 1985) provides a Santuario dc Guadalupe Cathedral to characterized this trajectory. In other Times. Kaplan merely repackages what more appropriate model lor an accentuate the arches. In the case of the chapters, however, these themes emerge Gebhard, McCoy, Winter, Banham, architectural history of a city (or an skyline, distance is the essential less clearly as the authors seemingly race Hincs, Polyzoides. Chase, and Hess have epoch in the city's development). It does component of the illusion. There is no from subtype to subtype and example to already written about architecture in the not include every notable work of illusion in the Santuario. however; it is example. In citing then-contemporary Los Angeles region, stringing it all architecture built in or proposed for New impossible to escape its reality. In the assessments of building projects, a together with some light-weight and often York in the last half of the 19th century, case of The Crescent, distance does not critical dimension is introduced, along repetitious anecdotal historical detail. In but it does examine, quite cogently, aid the illusion: the hotel is frankly too with some unanticipated revelations (for dealing with periods of LA architectural patterns of development and surreal to be believed. But at close instance: the general opprobrium that history that have not been written about, redevelopment through architecture, quarters the Crescent Court is more Rockefeller Center encountered when like most of the 19th century, Kaplan's supplementing textual information with accommodating in its interior imagery. first announced). But although it is limp grasp on American architectural maps and charts that condense data This may not be architecture - it avoids evident that the authors regret the history becomes apparent. Equally graphically to support the textual findings. being monumental in spite of itself- but rejection of Progressive civic and frustrating is his curl dismissal of the it's a great backdrop for fun and games. architectural standards in the interwar current SCI Arch-Santa Monica-Venice If urban architectural history is to have a And it is just possible to be in Dallas and era, they do not articulate a coherent school, which he describes as "funky and public agenda - informing citizens why glimpse Paris through Mr. Johnson's critical interpretation of this epoch that punk designs" of "strained geometry and cities have developed as they did, looking glass. That is, if you arc willing might bridge between evaluations in the perverted materials" satisfying only "an identifying important works of to play at mistaking the image of lujeime past and evaluation from the perspective often parochial, preconceived view architecture, and serving as a catalyst for fillc for that of la belle dome of the present. among critics and peers of a spaced-out, historic preservation (one of the stated mondiane. • LA architecture scene." What Kaplan purposes of LA Lost and Found) and Houston's favorite New York architects doesn't seem to understand is that this urban conservation - then greater crop up from time to time in the work is appreciated not because it methodological discipline than is evident, narrative. Alfred C. Bossom is "represents" Los Angeles, but because it for opposite reasons, in New York 1930 mentioned, although none of his is ingenious, inventive, and lyrical. and LA Lost and Found must be brought buildings arc illustrated; John Eberson's Kaplan exhibits as little feeling for the to bear on the presentation of historical three major contributions to New York's city as its history. One gets no sense of material. •