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Great Fortune: the Lipic of Building (New York, 1930)

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Great Fortune: the Lipic of Building (New York, 1930) 34 f e l l | 2 o c 4 IC i t t (.2 Planning and Chance and applied the lessons to later projects Okrent keeps us turning the pages for and ihey commissioned him to create such as the American Radiator Building news of every one of them. murals in the center's lobby. Rivera, {New York, 1924) and the Daily News The matter ol the second half of the as every other schoolboy knew, was a Great Fortune: The lipic of Building (New York, 1930). Okrent has book, however, is not quite as compelling. Socialist and saw this project as an oppor- Rockefeller Center the highest praise for these two works Stories ol filling the building and turn- tunity to place a critique in this temple ol by Daniel Okrent. Published by Viking, (but no pictures ol them, and not enough ing it on are not as interesting as tales of capitalism. The Rockefellers sold tickets 2003. 544 pp., $29.95 pictures of anything he writes about) and the project's growth out of a "six-year to the public to watch Rivera paint! But makes them his primary evidence that charrette." Hood's realization that this when he wouldn't remove Lenin's face Reviewed by Jerrence Doody I lood ».K urn In temperament a maestro skyscraper was not going to have a single from the allegory, they paid him off and but a thorough pragmatist. He believed street-side facade and his understand- tore down the wall. The question remains: When the financier Otto Kahn wanted that "Utility produces beauty" and would ing of how to use setback laws to shape Who was more naive in all of this than an elegant new house for his great love, have been perfectly comfortable with the volume seem of more lasting value than whom? Did the Rockefellers think their the Metropolitan Opera, lie gathered a formulation "Form follows finance." He solving the problem of the Sixth Avenue money could bin everything? Did Rivera group ol investors that included John I). was a great architect who had almost hi, And the star characters of the book's think that art will always triumph? It is Rockefeller II, and their eyes fell on a no ego and absolutely no theories. And second phase are of a lesser magnitude. fun for the rest of us to contemplate how piece ol midtown Manhattan owned by although Philip Johnson included Hood's Donald Deskey's elegant, influential Art great a space such naivete occupies in Columbia University. Columbia president McGraw Hill Building (New York, 1930) Deco interiors are beautiful, but not as egos of this magnitude. Nicholas Murray Hurler was eager to sell in the Museum ol Modem Art show that historically important as the center's set- Okrent has two final statements the property in order to finance a new defined the International Style, Hood was ting and function. And while Samuel about the meaning ol Rockefeller Center. campus in Morningside I leights. Butler as unimpressed and unconcerned as he Lionel Rothaplel, like the Swiss hotelier The first has to do with its relation ro got Columbia's new house, Kahn didn't was by Lewis Mumford's performance. Cesar Ritz, became a brand name him Junior. "If Junior ever saw |it| as his get the Met's, and Rockefeller wound up Okrent calls Mumford a Savonarola self—he was called Roxy, and Okrent own triumph," Okrent writes, "he never with the center that would bear his fam- because he hated Rockefeller Center as calls him the Johnny Appleseed of movie said so. His natural diffidence would not ily's famous name. The account of how it was going up (as almost everyone else theaters—the catastrophe that defined have allowed him to brag. I lis self-image planning and chance work (and don't did) then recanted and decided he liked it the grand opening ot his Radio City would have made linn reluctant to exalt work) together is the big story Daniel (again, as almost everyone else did), but Music Hall is this epic's moment of farce. the success of an endeavor that may have Okrent tells in Great Fortune: The Epic of without explaining or apparently remem- But there's another angle here. If i lood begun with a socially beneficent objective Rockefeller Center. Okrent's book offers bering his earlier views. In one of the and Todd were perfect partners, Roxy |a new Opera house| but, through two many other stories, including the history hook's best asides, Okrent reports how and Junior in.u have been dark twins. decades ol great fortune, had concluded of the center's architecture, the mysteries much be Corbusier, who hated New York Though he was a teetotaler, Junior wasn't in a thoroughly commercial success." of real estate, the power of money, and City, loved Rockefeller Center—so much entirely abstemious: His summer place After its completion, Junior said, "1 really the even greater power of personality, all that he endowed it with "that most pre- in Si-.d I larbor, Maine, had 107 rooms, belong in Williamsburg." of which surface in his accounts of the cious gilt tor ambitious architects: 44 fireplaces, and 22 bathrooms, and In his second and more important characters who people this epic narrative. a theory." Okrent hints that Riverside Church, one conclusion, Okrent writes, "Why had Some of these are truly great characters; Although Hood was the lead designer, o) Junior's great philanthropic ventures, is none of the scores of office or cultural Okrent is a powerful storyteller, and this many other prominent architects worked a Koxy-likc cathedral. complexes all over the country, every one is a terrific book. on the huge project team, and often later Junior's philanthropy is important ol iheiu uispnvd b\ Km kelt-ller ( riili-r, John D. Rockefeller II is the most rook full credit. Okrent, however, gives to his personal story; it is his conscious even approached the original's aesthetic, important figure in the hook, and cer- a large share of responsibility for the reparation for his father's ruthlessness. He commercial and—there's no other word tainly the most interesting. H.L. Mencken center's success to the developer John R. funded, in addition to Riverside Church, for it—emotional success?...a point vivid- called him John the Baptist—he was a Todd, the project's CKO and enabling the rebuilding of the cathedral at Rheims, ly illustrated barely a mile uptown, amid teetotaler ami Sunday school teacher—but visionary. Todd was as brilliant as blood Colonial Williamsburg, the Cloisters, the desolate daytime expanses of Lincoln everyone else called him Junior (which is and a much more imperious personage. and (through his wife, Abby) M o M A . Center," the home that Otto Kahn almost all wc need to know to guess what When Junior asked how much of his rime Building Rockefeller Center also created originally wanted for his beloved Met. he was like). The burden of his father's he was willing to devote to the project, a huge number of Depression jobs, and "Rockefeller Center's placement, right in imperial success made Junior timid, ill at Todd said, "All of my time. One-half on Junior was as sympathetic to labor as a the heart of.,.the city's grid, made it real ease, eager to lose himself in the million the job and one-half as far away as trains Rockefeller could be. I lowever, the need in a way that, say, a development never details, and brilliant at delegating respon- and steamers can carry me, to places to fill the center led to practices that could be." It is more than another build sibility to powerful men who knew their where 1 can get the hair out of my eyes Okrent says come right from the Standard ing or destination; it is, Okrent writes, places in the Rockefeller cosmology. and a clearer and better view of things." Oil playbook, such as buying other build- "organically, the city itself." Just as compelling a character, though Todd's authority was responsible for ings, evicting their tenants, and forcing Great Fortune wasn't built in a perhaps simpler, is the architect Raymond every aspect of the building's realization, them to rent in Rockefeller Center. day, but it suggests on every page that Hood. Working for the son of the novel- from the start through to its comple- Greet Fortune is in part a family Okrent, despite the effort spent research- ist William Dean I lowells, 1 lood did the tion and then to the way in which clients biography. Second son Nelson Rockefeller ing and shaping his story, enjoyed himself winning design for the Tribune Tower were strong-armed into tenancy. The receives a lot of attention as the story immensely, and his pleasure is now ours. in Chicago in 1922. John M. Howells project was massive in every respect; the moves on; after all, he is the one respon- Moreover, as we watch the World Trade took most of the prize money, but he did Depression made it more significant; and sible for realizing the center as the family's Outer being rebuilt, with all the conflict- give Hood his share of the credit. 1 lood the early failure of its rival, the Lmpire flagship. But Okrent's best story about ing demands as to what it is to be and do, did even better: He knew Lliet Saarinen's State Building, made its success a fable him is not exactly to his credit.
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