NEW YORK | TRI-STATE

2012 no. 2

Contents MODERN LANDMARKS AT VASSAR DEAR FRIENDS 3 The Vassar College campus in Poughkeepsie, NY, was indirect lighting bounced off severe white ceiling CHATHAM GREEN AT FIFTY 4 launched with a massive all-purpose Main Building in planes. Glass block inserts in interior partitions echo the French Second Empire mode (James Renwick, Jr., the grid pattern of the ample Gothic Revival windows. VILLA TUGENDHAT CELEBRATED 6 1865), which remains the iconic center of its campus. The interior-exterior split here apparently contrasts THE MARGINS: GUERON, LEPP But styles of subsequent buildings include Collegiate the progressive interests of the arts faculty with the & ASSOCIATES REHAB CENTER 7 Gothic, Jacobean, Georgian Revival—you name it. And college's demand for consistency on the exterior. among these stylistically varied specimens are some After this library, Vassar added hardly any new ROCHESTER’S TUBE TOWERS 8 scattered gems of mid-century Modernism. facilities until the 1951 completion of a landmark of MIDTOWN MODERN: CONTEXT, Vassar's earliest example of Modernism is strictly an Modernism, the Dexter Ferry Cooperative House by FILMS AND THE FUTURE 10 interior, but it is notable for its purity and for its com- Marcel Breuer. The donor chose Breuer, providing one pletion date of 1937. This suite of rooms, the school's of his earliest commissions for other than single-family MODERN LIBRARY 12 art history library, looks as if it were retrofitted in an houses. The building housed 26 students (all female, DISAPPEARING INTERIORS 14 older structure, but was in fact created simultaneously as Vassar didn't become coed until 1969) who carried with its Collegiate Gothic exterior. It is located in a wing out their own domestic duties. Ferry was originally to of the Gothic main library and designed by successors be located among older, traditional dorms but, facing to that building's designers, Allen Collens & Willis. The objections to its avant-garde design, the board of pioneering Modernist interior was designed by John trustees moved it to a less visible site behind Main, an For timely news sign McAndrew, with Theodore Muller. McAndrew was then area then dominated by the campus power plant and up for our monthly both a Vassar faculty member and successor to Philip other utilitarian structures. “News+Events” email Johnson as curator of architecture at the Museum of The building is a textbook example of the Inter- Modern Art—and he had accompanied Johnson on a national Style, as adopted for American construction. WWW.DOCOMOMO-NYTRI.ORG 1929 scouting trip to Europe. Student rooms are laid out in one long bar, hovering at The rigorously functional space, faithfully restored in the second level, with ground-floor common spaces 2008 by Platt Byard Dovell White Architects, has cork slipped partly underneath it. Breuer designed cabinet- floors, metal shelving finished in a muted blue, and continued

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NEW YORK/TRI-STATE CHAPTER [email protected] www.docomomo-nytri.org P.O. Box 250532 New York, NY 10025 DOCOMOMO US [email protected] www.docomomo-us.org Noyes House dormitory, Eero Saarinen & Associates, 1958. VASSAR CONTINUED

work for the rooms and specified furnishings such as quadrants of the Circle, but only this one was built. Saarinen chairs and Knoll fabrics. A 2002 restoration by Noyes House is a notable example of Saarinen's Herbert Beckhard Frank Richlan & Associates, successors efforts to reconcile Modernism with its architectural Welcome to Breuer's firm, included delayed execution of the origi- context. The scale and materials of neighboring build- nal landscape plan. ings are echoed in the four-story, brick-walled structure. With its small scale and its palette of white-painted Full-height angular projecting bays recall the verticality brick and wood, metal sunshades, and flagstone paving, and delicacy of Gothic precedents. These are juxtaposed DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-state’s commu- Ferry has always looked somewhat out of place in its insti- to rigorously Modern cast-in-place entrance canopies. nications objective is to keep you in tutional setting. Until recent years, its siting appeared to (Saarinen's roughly contemporaneous women's dorms the know about Modern architecture be strangely random, at the University of Chicago and the University of in our region—be it a lecture next but better integration Pennsylvania make no such bows to traditional architec- week, a building facing demolition into the campus has ture, but the Stiles and Morse residential colleges at or the whereabouts of cool Modern now been accomplished Yale, following these in 1962, respond to their context buildings you didn’t know existed. by the Fergusson Quad- with overtly Medieval allusions.)

We’ve got a few options for you: rangle (landscape archi- JOHN MORRIS DIXON Noyes's first-floor parlor is an all-white space, punc- tect Diana Balmori, tuated by swoopy structural supports revealing the Print. You have it in your hands. 2003) a minimalist rec- expressionist tendencies embodied in the TWA and Longer articles about wide-ranging tangle of sunken lawn Dulles terminals. A signature feature of this space is the topics, short notes about hot books framed at one end by and advocacy after-action reports. the Center for Drama Written by members and friends of and Film (Cesar Pelli & DOCOMOMO, the newsletter has Assoc., 2003) and on been our mainstay since 1999. the long side by Ferry. JOHN ARBUCKLE Social. Like to comment and quickly share things that pique your interest? Look for moderately pro- voking commentary, last-minute

announcements, event photos and WALLEN JONATHAN more on our Facebook page. www.facebook.com/docomomonytri Website. It’s our organizational archive and central news service. Noyes House, Eero Saarinen & Associates, 1958. “News” posts are the best way to keep up on advocacy issues. sunken seating area, dubbed the "passion pit" by stu- “Calendar” is the place to find your dents when it appeared, similar in concept to those in Modern architecture entertainments. Art history library, Allen Collens & Willis; interior architects, Saarinen's Miller House and the TWA terminal (allowing John McAndrew, with Theodore Muller, 1937. a group to occupy the center of a space without obstruct- Email. Once a month we’ll send ing the view across it). Complete with white-pedestaled current news and event announce- Modernism at full institutional scale arrived in 1958, Saarinen tables and chairs, the room was authentically ments collated from a plethora of with Noyes House by Eero Saarinen & Associates. A restored in 2000 by Leonard Parker of Minneapolis, who organizations right to your inbox. dormitory for 156 students, it was prominently located— had worked on it in Saarinen's office. We’re told email is old hat. Must be unlike Ferry—near most of the other dorms. Its design Following closely after Noyes House was Chicago Hall why our subscriber list continues to was closely integrated with its location on the Circle, an (Schweikher & Elting, 1959) designed to house Vassar's grow. We’re polite and we never open space 500 feet in diameter, laid out in 1864 as an modern language departments—and still doing so. Paul share email addresses. Visit exercise field surrounded by a track for running or riding. Schweikher is not well-known today, but his work had www.docomomo-nytri.org to sign up Saarinen drew up a master plan for this portion of the been included in the landmark 1933 Museum of Modern or use the QR code on page 1. campus, showing two arc-shaped dormitories along two Art exhibit that heralded the International Style, and in Modern architecture news. Have it 1959 he was head of the Architecture Department at the your way. Let it inspire you. Write an Carnegie Institute of Technology, having previously held article, attend events, plan a tour, the same post at Yale. (His partnership with Elting dis- advocate, donate. solved soon after this project, and his national visibility diminished.) —Kathleen Randall, editor JOHN ARBUCKLE Occupying a fairly central position on the campus, Chicago is an unassertive one-story structure. Its site was originally quite open, but it is now overshadowed by extensions of the main library (more about that below). Its cast-in-place structural frame features shallow vaults spanning only 6 ft. 8 in., with one bay allotted to each faculty office, two to each of the intimate language class- rooms, and several for an auditorium. Interior gardened courtyards assure daylight for every room. The building's Dexter Ferry Cooperative House, Marcel Breuer, 1951. DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 2 JOHN ARBUCKLE dear friends,

This is my first time writing this column. We rotated our board roles in May 2012 and I became chapter president. Nina Rappaport, a founding board member and long-serving president, has become a vice president focusing on development. We are very grateful to Nina for her many years of leadership and service to DOCOMOMO and her effective advocacy on behalf of Modern architecture. Chicago Hall, Schweikher & Elting, 1959. I am proud to also announce that we added two new members to our Board of Directors. John Kriskiewicz is a recognized architectural historian, educator and tour guide who has bristling air conditioning units are a reminder that cool- been actively involved in local preservation advocacy. Marissa Marvelli, a graduate of ing systems were rarely provided for school buildings of Columbia’s graduate program in Historic Preservation, has already enhanced our communi- the 1950s. cations program, most notably by giving NY/Tri-State a Facebook presence. Some other Modernist insertions into the campus I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of our dedicated continuing board have not fared as well. The Lockwood Addition to the members. Ours is very much a working board and our accomplishments are a direct result of repeatedly expanded main library (Hellmuth Obata & the time and experise generously shared by board members. Sincere thanks to: Kyle Johnson, Kassabaum, 1977) attached a Brutalist volume, with AIA (vice president), D’juro Villaran-Rokovich (treasurer), Kathleen Randall (secretary), John large glass areas framed by bold projections, to a Gothic Morris Dixon, FAIA, Leslie Monsky and Meredith Bzdak. Under the dedicated and effective Revival fabric. This obvious clash, at a central campus leadership of this board, NY/Tri-State has expanded its location, has since been largely masked by a further membership and its activities and become recognized as addition in the Postmodern mode (Hardy Holzman a leading regional voice in preservation. Pfeiffer Associates, 2001), though expanses of the From a year of great progress, let me share one recent Brutalist envelope can still be seen at the rear of the highlight. On October 7, as part of Open House New York sprawling complex. Weekend and DOCOMOMO US Tour Day, we co-sponsored an Meanwhile, in the sciences zone of the campus, a open house at Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center at JFK relatively recent Modern laboratory building is facing Airport. Approximately 1,500 architecture enthusiasts had the demolition. The anticipated 2015 opening of the pro- rare opportunity to see the interior and exemplary restoration posed Integrated Science complex, by Ennead Architects of one of the most celebrated icons of Modernism. is to spell the end for the Seeley Mudd Chemistry build- DOCOMOMO connects you to a community of architects, ing (Perry Dean Rogers & Partners, 1984). While display- historians, preservationists, students and architecture ing a lot of glass, metal framing, and exhaust ducts, enthusiasts working to advance a wider understanding Mudd has a compact, symmetrical massing similar to and appreciation of the Modern Movement in the U.S. three neighboring science buildings dating from 1901 to Memberships and tax-deductible contributions make it all 1926. There are good reasons, according to Vassar's possible—educational programs, effective advocacy and the head of buildings & grounds, why Mudd is doomed while opportunity to launch new projects. its older neighbors will remain: its 26 separate flat roofs result in chronic leak problems;its floor layouts, tailored We are looking forward to another great year and hope to a 1980s program, are not adaptable; it stands in a that you will both participate in our activities and consider formerly open quadrangle that Vassar wants to restore supporting DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State. under a 2009 master plan for the campus by Michael Van Valkenburgh. Over recent decades, Vassar has completed a number of Modern buildings and additions that are not discussed here, generally with careful consideration of their rela- tionships to existing buildings and open spaces. There John S. Arbuckle has been notable adaptive reuse of buildings formerly President, DOCOMOMO US New York/Tri-State used as workshops, laundries, garages, etc. to expand the school’s arts programs, and appealing open spaces have been rather ingeniously developed between them. The current master plan calls for phased reduction in the amount of the central campus area devoted to roadways and parking, promising more appealing landscaped set- tings for Vassar's landmarks of all periods. The campus is an easy day trip from anywhere in the New York metro area, and a 2004 guide in the Princeton Architectural Press Campus Guide series covers most of www.docomomo–nytri.org the works discussed here. It's a rewarding destination for donate online: look for the yellow “donate” button at the top of the homepage devotees of Modernism. by check: send to docomomo us new york/tri-state, p.o. box 250532, ny, ny 10025 —John Morris Dixon

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 3 CHATHAM GREEN AT FIFTY So much attention has been paid to Lower Manhattan’s Despite the fact that Chatham Green was to be subsi- Contri- Chatham Towers by Kelly & Gruzen over the years that dized middle-income housing, Gruzen wanted to imbue its slightly older sibling Chatham Green, also by Kelly & the structure with features and innovations more often butors Gruzen, has flown under the radar, its contributions to reserved for luxury buildings. The New York Times report- post-WWII modern architecture, public housing and the ed that Gruzen’s design sought “to avoid the monolithic, cityscape of New York overlooked. block type of buildings that have brought criticism to John Shreve Arbuckle, Assoc. AIA, Fifty years ago this past March, presiding over the large housing developments.” has been a NY/Tri-State board building’s official dedication ceremony, Mayor Richard One way Gruzen achieved this was by dividing the member since its incorporation in Wagner declared Chatham Green the city’s “newest land- sweeping curve of the building into smaller sections 2005 and now serves as president. mark in the growth and renewal of the city.” Designed by delineated by the brick clad north and south ends, two He has worked at Gwathmey Siegel Barnett Gruzen, this 21-story ribbon-shaped apartment intermediate brick clad vertical sections and three verti- & Associates and Beckhard Richlan building on Park Row just east of Foley Square, marked cal circulation towers expressed on the exterior of the Szerbaty & Associates and is currently the first of several buildings in and around New York’s building. The resulting subdivisions of the facade estab- co-chair of the AIA NY Chapter Civic Center realized by this firm and its successor firm lished a more intimate scale for each of the corridors Historic Buildings Committee. Gruzen & Partners. leading from the elevators to apartment entrances, •Christian Bjone is an architect in Noteworthy for its undulating facade, Chatham Green something often missing in large-scale projects of this New York City and has recently writ- was the first residential structure in New York City “to kind. The corridors themselves were unconventional in ten Art and Architecture: a strategy exploit the free-form design made possible by up-to-date that they were open-air vs. traditional interior hallways. for collaboration. •Gail Cornell is an methods of projecting reinforced concrete skeletons” as All of Chatham Green’s original 420 units, ranging architectural historian, lecturer, and the New York Times described it in October 1963. from studios to three-bedroom apartments, had been NYU adjunct faculty member. She is sold by February 1960, two years also a study leader for the National before the building was complete. Trust for Historic Preservation and The most attractive selling fea- the Smithsonian. •Michael J. tures were conceived in the early Crosbie, FAIA, is associate dean and design phase. The narrow width architecture department chair at of the building allowed all apart- the University of Hartford, West ments, even studios, to be floor- Hartford, CT. •John Morris Dixon, through thus providing residents FAIA, is the former chief editor of not only with stunning views Progressive Architecture and now from the higher floors, but two writes for magazines such as exposures (east and west) as well Architect and Oculus. He is the as through-ventilation. In addi- Connecticut resident on the NY/Tri- tion, most of the apartments State board. •Kimbro Frutiger is a above the sixth floor had terraces. New York City-based architect with Three entrance lobbies, a play- a research interest in postwar JOEL RASKIN; WWW.JRDIGITALMEDIA.COM ground, underground parking and American and Italian architectural Ribbons of windows and balconies alternate with those of brick on the east facade. a small shopping center were also cultures. kimbrofrutiger.com. part of the amenity package. •Hänsel Hernández-Navarro lives By the time of the dedication in March 1962, in New York City and is an architec- Chatham Green’s uniqueness had aroused such interest tural conservator and architectural that two apartments were kept vacant and made avail- historian specializing in the conser- able for public viewing. As the new residents of the other vation of historic buildings and 418 apartments were moving in, the two “show” apart- monuments and cultural resource ments were professionally furnished and decorated, then management. •Kyle Johnson is an opened from noon until 8:00 pm six days a week so that architect, architecture tour leader, the public and housing specialists could satisfy their independent curator and vice curiosity. president of DOCOMOMO NY/ Typical floor plan of one section showing floor-through Given its proximity to the Civic Center area and to apartment layouts. Tri-State. AND FINE ARCHITECTURAL LIBRARY ARTS AVERY the financial district, Chatham Green was, as Manhattan continued next page Borough President Hulan Jack put it at the time, a The narrow, curving structure is 637 ft. long and sits “central factor” in the city’s plans to revitalize lower on a 4.5-acre trapezoidal site. Gruzen was inspired by Manhattan as a “walk-to-work” community. the curvilinear designs of Affonso Reidy and Oscar Niemeyer whose work he had seen in Brazil. Most closely History of the Site Development related to Chatham Green, perhaps, is Reidy’s Pedregulho Wedged between the Civic Center, Chinatown and what outside of Rio de Janeiro. This seven-story serpentine- is now Police Plaza, Chatham Green’s site came about shaped government housing building from 1947 is situ- through a number of changes occurring in Lower ated on a hillside, its form following the contours of Manhattan in the 1950s. In 1955, the demolition of the the site. Third Avenue Elevated train that ran along Park Row opened up the eastern edge of Chinatown. Shortly there-

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 4 after in 1956 the city announced plans for a large-scale Construction was subsidized under the 1949 Federal housing development to be built just east of Chinatown’s Title I Program of the National Housing Act. This pro- traditional boundaries, south of Chatham Square and gram permitted private developers to buy land at north of the Brooklyn Bridge along Park Row. It was reduced prices from municipal redevelopment authori- Contri- given the name Chatham Green. ties. After the city acquired the land, it resold it to the The six-block site had been part of the old Five Points developer at a loss. The city assumed one-third of the butors neighborhood, but was now designated as part of the loss; the federal government the remaining two-thirds. 1958 Federal slum clearance project. By the 1950s the The Association for Middle Income Housing, Inc. area was mostly tenements, rooming houses and small headed by Mr. Shirley H. Boden, also developed the continued from previous page business. In May 1958 the city condemned and resold neighboring Chatham Towers two years later. Sponsors of the site and its derelict buildings to the Association of both projects were the Municipal Credit Union and the •John Kriskiewicz, Assoc. AIA, is Middle Income Housing, Inc., a nonprofit corporation/ Credit Union League. an architectural historian, assistant developer and relocated 410 families, a number of The Chatham Green project was not without contro- professor and chronicler of the boarders and 75 small businesses. versy. In 1957 after the Kelly & Gruzen plan had been under-appreciated mid-century approved and published, an Modern vernacular of New York city. architect hired by St. Joachim’s •Marissa Marvelli is the director of Catholic Church located on the marketing for BKSK Architects in proposed site, presented an alter- Manhattan as well as a DOCOMOMO nate design that would prevent NY/Tri-State board member. She the razing of the church. Vito consults on preservation-related Battista, founder of the Institute projects throughout New York City. of Design and Construction, put •Daniel Palmer, a self-taught archi- forth a modernist composition of tectural historian, has been reading rectangular slabs at right angles about, looking at and pondering allowing the 1888 Romanesque architecture since the late 1970s. Revival-style church to remain, In 2008 he started writing about it, tucked into one of the corners of and in 2010 authored Images of the new plan. Battista’s plan was America—Rochester's Downtown not accepted and the Kelly & Architecture: 1950–1975. •Kathleen Gruzen plan stood. Randall is an architectural historian and DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State Chatham Green Today board member who works at the How is Chatham Green faring Guttmacher Institute and in the off at the half-century mark? Still hours, on DOCOMOMO—since 1996.

GAIL GAIL CORNELL unique and somewhat of a curios- •Nina Rappaport is an architectural Articulated elevator towers leading to open corridors on the west facade of Chatham ity, its warm terra cotta brick soft- historian, critic, curator and educa- Green provide vertical overlay to the stacked apartment floors. ens what might have become a tor. She is the publications director more menacing “Great Wall of at Yale School of Architecture, and Chinatown.” It holds its own as a welcoming presence in author of Support and Resist, the neighborhood, particularly in the face of the dozen Structural Engineers and Design 15–17-story cruciform buildings of Alfred E. Smith Innovation. Her current project is Houses directly to the east with their more standardized the exhibition Vertical Urban public housing characteristics. However, Chatham Green Factory •Rich Ray earned an MA in never became a modernist icon. Paul Goldberger, in his American Studies with a focus on 1979 The City Observed, thought the building already political culture because it seemed a looked dated. reasonable thing to do at the time. Compared to the bold Brutalist forms of Chatham As a consequence, he views Modern Towers just to the north, Chatham Green’s painted rail- architecture through an unconven- ings, apartment doors in bright colors and concrete open tional lens. air corridors can take on a worn 1960s look. Facade and corridor repair work is currently underway, but patches of earlier poorly-done brick and mortar repairs are evident. Some of the landscaped areas along the back and sides of the building are in need of refurbishment. Post-9/11 security measures have resulted in barricades around much of the site and restricted vehicular use of the area. Still, Chatham Green apartments, no longer subsidized, provide Lower Manhattan with much needed middle- class housing and even in a down economy, they com- mand solid market prices. —Gail Cornell GAIL GAIL CORNELL Chatham Green’s serpentine form (foreground) holds its own against its formidable Civic Center neighbors.

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 5 “NEW YORK BRNO DAYS” HIGHLIGHTS VILLA TUGENDHAT New Yorkers had a chance in early city but out of reach to the local pop- October to be introduced to the ulation. After the Czechoslovak exceptional cultural and architectural Velvet Revolution in 1989 the villa genius loci of the city of Brno, Czech was briefly made accessible while Republic. Presented as “New York Brno remaining a government building. In Days,” the first day was dedicated to a 1994, after the creation of the new seminar on the iconic, UNESCO-listed Czech Republic, the villa was placed Villa Tugendhat (1930) designed by under the administration of the Brno Mies van der Rohe. The second day City Museum and subsequently presented the business, research and declared a National Cultural Monument development potential of the city in 1995. In 2001 it was declared a with an all-day conference entitled, Villa Tugendhat, as it appears from the street at the top of the sloping site. UNESCO World Heritage Site. “Brno—Knowledge Economy City.” Architects Tomas Rusin and Ivan The seminar, held October 1 at tecture. Architects Bohuslav Fuchs, Czechoslovakia during and after Wahla from Atelier RAW presented a Bohemian National Hall/The Czech Arnošt Wiesner and Josef Gocár built WWII. The family left the house in PowerPoint of the second restoration Center New York on Manhattan’s a remarkable group of buildings in 1938 and it served as a private office campaign. Between 2010 and 2012 Upper East Side, brought together six the city, many of which were featured by 1942. In 1945 it became barracks their firm, along with Omnia project panelists from the Czech Republic in architecture publications locally to a Russian cavalry unit that devas- and Architeam, carried out a three- who cleverly and clearly put into con- and abroad. tated the house and used the wood tiered project: a thorough conditions text Brno’s prominence, using the Architectural historian Iveta furnishings as fuel. The Tugendhats survey of the structure; research of Villa Tugendhat to tell the story not Cerna told the story of the genesis left Europe for good in 1948, settling the construction history and subse- only of the magnificent residence, of the Villa Tugendhat project and in Venezuela. The villa served as a quent interventions; and restoration but of the city itself. chronicled the building’s many lives dance school and as a physical of the monument. A group of archi- Vladimir Slapeta, professor at the throughout its eight decades of exis- therapy institute for children from tects and scholars created The University of Technology’s School of tence. Because Brno was home to 1946 to 1960. Tugendhat House International Architecture in Brno, spoke of the city wealthy textile merchants, prominent In 1967 Greta Tugendhat visited Committee (THICOM) to supervise in the decades after the decline of architecture was manifested in elabo- Brno, and along with Mies van der the restoration in an advisory capac- the Austro-Hungarian empire and rate mansions. Over the years 1928– Rohe and other concerned local ity. THICOM set their goal to return the creation of the new nation of 1930, wealthy Jewish residents Greta architects and scholars, began discus- the house, to the greatest extent Czechoslovakia in the early 20th cen- and Fritz Tugendhat had a house sions to restore the villa for cultural possible, to the state when the tury. A fierce determination in forg- built according to designs by Ludwig use. The less than sympathetic Tugendhat family lived there. The ing a national identity led to strong Mies van der Rohe. The house is cele- atmosphere after the Soviet occupa- restoration involved not only the development in the arts, including brated as one of the most significant tion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 structure, furniture and finishes, but architecture and design. Not only was villa structures in the world because brought considerations for rehabilita- restoring the electrical, heating, modernist pioneer Adolf Loos a native of its construction (first steel-frame tion to a halt for almost two decades. cooling and mechanical systems to ALL PHOTOS © DAVID ZIDLICKY, 2010 & 2012. COURTESY STUDY AND DOCUMENTATION CENTER OF THE VILLA AND 2010 TUGENDHAT. DOCUMENTATION STUDY & 2012. COURTESY ZIDLICKY, © ALL DAVID PHOTOS Foyer and stair down to main level. Greta Tugendhat’s room on the upper level. The onyx wall, polished aluminum cruciform columns and retractable window wall are signature features of the house. of Brno, the city was a prosperous villa in Europe), spatial arrangement, In 1980 the villa was transferred original operating capacity of the textile center due to its proximity to technical features, finish materials, from state ownership to the City of 1930s. The landscape, an integral Vienna. As such it was fertile ground Mies-designed furnishings and its Brno. From 1981 to 1985 the building part of the original design, was also for the founding of prominent techni- relationship with the surrounding underwent restoration, but without restored. cal schools and universities. During landscape. any historical research as a basis. The restoration was financed by the interwar years Brno became According to Cerna, the fate of The aim was to assure the structural the Ministry of Culture of the Czech synonymous with avant-garde design the villa and its owners is essentially integrity and water tightness. The Republic at a cost of approximately and Rationalist/Functionalist archi- a portrait of both Europe and villa remained the property of the $9 million. The Villa Tugendhat, now continued page 15 DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 6 ON THE MARGINS: GUERON, LEPP AND ASSOCIATES’ MANHATTAN REHABILITATION CENTER Hardly among the most visible civic A narcotics pusher is said to be same: a new situational pragmatism treatment. The MRC remained in works that New York City produced in capable of delivering a tiny drug that engaged, not erased, existing partial use until 1979 when it was the late 1960s but maybe one of the pellet by peashooter from 140’ patterns. The existing library and sold to Covenant House as a youth most telling, the former Manhattan away. Moreover, the women inmates hotel are adapted with a clear under- crisis shelter, which it remains today. Rehabilitation Center (MRC) on Tenth are just as likely as not to parade standing of their functional and for- The MRC’s evolving use over 45 Avenue between 40th and 41st Street nude before uncovered windows, a mal aspects worth retaining. The years suggests that some circum- is a snapshot of the era’s architectur- practice disconcerting to passers-by. architects also recognized the strip of stances call for refocusing preserva- al climate and social unease. Which is to say, openings visible “found” space between the buildings tion goals from a building’s physical The MRC was one of scores of from the street were forbidden. By as an amenity. To keep it open, the fabric to the continuity of its societal addiction treatment facilities opened the late 1960s, New York City archi- central dining hall is set partially role. The latter is hard to pin down, throughout New York State after tects had evolved a strategy for below grade and lit by clerestory win- and sometimes even to perceive: 1966 as part of the Rockefeller these kinds of unforgiving situations: dows. A narrow, glazed connection despite the many stories that can be administration’s Civil Commitment sculptural compositions of solid runs across at surface level, bisecting told about the MRC, it disappeared Program, an attempt to head off the forms that signaled the presence of the open space into an entry court at from the latest AIA Guide to New York escalation of heroin use and related occupation without revealing it. the north and a south-facing walled City to make more room for eye- crime by institutionalizing addicts, Gueron and Lepp’s terrace for recreation. gouging new developer towers along voluntarily or not. Many of these design was a partic- Otherwise, the central 42nd Street. Preservationists focused facilities were nothing other than ularly well- linkages are treated on the 20th century, however, have repurposed prisons, but of the few resolved as an under- become especially attuned to issues that tried to create environments ground of program, given that many that engaged with social needs, the Modernist structures are tailored to MRC stands out. specific uses and bereft without them As the Civil Commitment Program (Saarinen’s TWA Terminal springs to was being implemented, a group of mind). young architects including Henri At the MRC, the cultural value of Gueron and Stephen Lepp approached the “bricks and mortar” —accomplished New York State’s Department of as the design may be—is simply less Mental Hygiene with a portfolio of compelling than the buildings’ ongo- mostly residential work. Unexpectedly, ing societal role as a refuge. But they came away with a commission rather than take this as a rebuke to for a 400-bed treatment facility for example “tissue” preservation concerns, Covenant women addicted to narcotics, per- of this strategy. that reach- House’s occupation of the facility can haps because DMH hoped they would Gueron had recently es up to make be understood as a convincing bring a less institutional feel to an visited Corbusier’s capitol in selective interven- instance of “programmatic preserva- unglamorous project. Chandigarh and here he translated tions in the angular architectural tion,” extending and improving on The site, in the shadow of the its brise-soleil facades into serrated language of the intake building: an the mission of the 1960s design— Port Authority Terminal’s bus ramps, ranks of patient rooms opening away egress stair tower for the library and and thus maintaining its truly impor- included two existing buildings: a from the street. The resulting deeply a suite of support rooms on the tant core. By this measure, physical handsome terra-cotta faced public modeled façade of dark iron-spot ground floor of the motel. changes in the service of realizing library turned meat-packing plant brick is cut across by exaggerated The MRC’s design was recognized greater potential as a social refuge and the banal Riviera Congress concrete horizontals at the floor for making the most of very little could, rather provocatively, be seen Motel, built for the 1964 World’s Fair edges, while the narrow street end is (it appeared in Architectural Record as fundamentally aligned with the and immediately obsolescent. Given jogged around a partially embedded under the ill-considered headline ethics of preservation. the budget, there was no question stair tower. The corrugated resident “Architecture to help drug addicts Covenant House is, in fact, in the these buildings had to be reused. floors are topped by a tall entablature- calls for speed”) but it couldn’t course of long-term adaptations to The motel translated directly into a like level, which was, surprisingly, just resolve the hollow premise of the the Tenth Avenue complex. If these dormitory and the old library was a large storage attic. Civil Commitment Program. The are unlikely to be carried out with the restructured as common spaces The architects’ most forward- architects, along with many others, same inventiveness as the 1960s including a gym, reading room, and looking work, however, was knitting were dismayed to find that in the work, they nevertheless continue chapel. Adaptation of the existing together a modest campus by draw- absence of any successful treatment Gueron and Lepp’s strategies of reuse structures was completed in 1967;in ing on heterogeneous operations of model, addicts were simply held and adaptation. It may be that the 1969 Gueron, Lepp and Associates preservation, renovation, and aug- indefinitely. Then, in the early 1970s, MRC’s primary interest for preserva- added a new 50-bed “intake” building mentation. The MRC is a great exam- New York State’s narcotics policies tionists is the clear baseline it turned perpendicular to 41st Street. ple of the disintegration of Modernist were transformed by two contradicto- establishes in the effort to balance Its design exemplifies the struggles “clean slate” polemics finally reach- ry developments: the Rockefeller the values of physical fabric and with the fortress mentality of public ing the institutional level in New administration abandoned Civil programmatic continuity. construction at the time. In fact, the York City. And if the driving force Commitment in favor of aggressive —Kimbro Frutiger anxiety was even higher than usual, here was financial reality rather than criminal prosecution and the FDA as Progressive Architecture noted: urban thinking, the result was the conditionally approved methadone

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 7 TUBES: EXOSKELETON ENGINEERING AND THE many TOWERS THAT CHANGED ROCHESTER’S SKYLINE During the postwar period American urban centers were Xerox Tower (1965–1968), Welton Becket Associates thanks being reshaped as zoning favoring plazas and demand In 1959 the Haloid Photographic Company, following in for signature corporate towers converged. The isolated the footsteps of film giant Eastman Kodak, created a new tower on the plaza became an emblem of the modern industry in imaging: the photocopy. Later, the company DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State would like city, opening up dense blocks of low- and mid-rise build- would take the name that became the de-facto term for to express our sincere appreciation ings, many dating to the 19th century, to light and air. a photocopy. In the late 1960s the Xerox Corporation to Knoll for its ongoing generosity in Rochester, NY, is a prime example of the effect this considered building its world headquarters in the sub- hosting our “Modern Conversations” architecture and urban planning mindset would have urbs, closer to its manufacturing and research facilities, series in its beautiful Chelsea show- on smaller cities across the country. but eventually chose to build a tower downtown, the room over the past two years. Knoll’s Rochester’s Community War Memorial and Monroe tallest in the city—assuming that distinction from the classic furniture designed by Modern County Civic Center, both large-scale projects begun in older Kodak Tower. masters such as Saarinen, Breuer the 1950s, featured buildings of contemporary design Xerox chose Welton Becket Associates for the project. and Mies van der Rohe has provided sited adjacent to a large open space, but both were at The architects designed a concrete and garnet-aggregate- a particularly appropriate setting for the edge of downtown and lacked a blockbuster tower. faced tower rising a shear 400 feet above a flared base our talks. Thanks to everyone at It was not until the late 1960s, following Victor Gruen’s of 12 columns to a height of 443 feet in 30 stories. The Knoll and especially David Bright plaza incorporated a meeting hall and German Bosquez. and sunken ice rink. An addition- Knoll will be relocating its show- al tower was projected but was room to Midtown in 2013 and has never built. Sandblasting the kindly invited us to continue to hold concrete façade was meant to programs in the new space starting expose the garnet aggregate and in May. We hope you can join us for give the tower a gem-like twinkle more “Modern Conversations” at the but in the end only caused air new Knoll showroom in 2013. quality problems during blasting. —John Arbuckle Xerox Tower’s engineering combined a concrete “waffle” slab flooring system with a centralized core and a closely spaced external cage of concrete to provide the desired open floor plan. The effect on the façade is similar to that of Yamasaki’s destroyed World Trade Center towers. At certain angles

ROCHESTER MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES MUNICIPAL ROCHESTER the tower appears as a window- Rochester’s three tube-in-tube towers: L to R, Lincoln First, Xerox and Marine Midland. less solid, at others, a glass shaft.

mixed-use Midtown Plaza (1962) in the heart of down- town, that plans for a trio of ambitious corporate towers took shape: Xerox Tower, Marine Midland Bank and Lincoln First Tower. Advances in materials and engineering made possi- ble a divergence of approaches to tall buildings. What is unique about Rochester’s trio is that each used a tube structural system, essentially an exoskeleton that moved the load-bearing structure to the outside of the building, often with its members expressed on the façade. Interior spaces could be free of obstructions, thus providing more leasable space than would be possible with conventional engineering. This structural system was, in a way, a

throwback to the masonry load-bearing wall systems ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE that dominated construction before rigid frame and cur- tain wall construction made Modern skyscrapers possi- ble. Innovative structural engineers like Myron Goldsmith, Leslie Robertson, and Fazlur Rahman Khan worked closely with architects, often becoming an associ- ate architect of sorts, to bring about these advances. TOP: ROCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY, LOWER: LOWER: PUBLIC ROCHESTER TOP: LIBRARY, Marine Midland: The lower image shows Khan’s solution of vari- able column thickness to achieve the load transfer at the base. DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 8 Marine Midland Bank (1968–1970), SOM known than Welton Becket or SOM, the architect of the Fazlur Khan, engineer, and Bruce Graham, architect, were third tube tower, the John Graham Company, was a well-established visionaries by the time the Marine prominent West coast firm that counted the Seattle Midland Bank hired the two senior Skidmore Owings & Space Needle of the 1962 World’s Fair as one of its most Mod Con Merrill partners to design its Rochester tower. The site visible projects. The New York office, led by Jack Follette, was across the street from Xerox Tower and a block east was responsible for the design of the tower and its at Knoll of Midtown Plaza along a new stretch of road envisioned accompanying pedestal-style plaza. Unlike the two earli- by Victor Gruen as part of a system of loop roads that er tube-in-tube towers, Lincoln First Tower would be a would relegate the automobile to the fringes of the CBD, concrete/steel hybrid. The core was poured in place, fol- In 2011 DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State freeing the core for pedestrian use. lowed by the erection of the tapering external steel launched its “Modern Conversations” Khan and Graham developed and refined the tube-in- columns and floor beams. series of informal talks on subjects tube structural system in their Chicago buildings—most The tower thrusts upward and tapers from a wide base related to Modern architecture and notably John Hancock Tower (1965–1969) and Sears housing the banking operations to a square tower of design. Our second year proved even Tower (1974–1976). However in their earlier concrete- alternating white and black verticals. The white stripes more successful than the first. Below framed tube buildings (Brunswick Building, 1962–1964; are engaged columns, half of which are structural, the is a recap of the past year’s talks. and Dewitt-Chestnut Apartments, 1963–1966) they were other half house utility conduits. The black areas are dark If you have suggestions for future not completely satisfied with the solution for transferring tinted glass and anodized aluminum spandrel panels. programs or would like to volunteer the load of the upper structure’s closely spaced Aside from its whimsically Modern exterior, the vast- to help with organizing the programs slender columns to the stout, widely spaced columns ness of Lincoln First’s double height lobby resembles a please contact us at: required at the base. To do this, Khan had to employ a set piece from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The [email protected]. giant beam to transfer the load from the cage of con- white Carrara-marble-clad core and the flaring external To receive invites to the 2013 crete above to the base columns, thus making desirable structure are visible and the space is unobstructed “Modern Conversations series” be open space at the building’s entrances possible. This except for the twin escalators leading up to the lobby sky sure you are signed up for our solution irritated Khan’s purist tendencies. He became bridge and elevator banks. It is a very “groovy” space and monthly News + Events email list at: determined to solve the problem of routing the load of worth a look during business hours. www.docomomo-nytri.org the entire structure to the base columns without the use Like many of its contemporaries, the tower experi- of the transfer beam. enced problems stemming from improperly mounted The result of his quest to nix the transfer beam is marble panels and panels fabricated thinner than 2012 recap: visible in the unique way the concrete structure of the the architect had specified. In 1984, at a cost of $18 February 15: Mark Halstead Marine Midland Building seems to buckle and bend as Westport Modern: Victor Civkin and it lands on its pedestal of 12 travertine-sheathed Other Discoveries columns. Khan used computer modeling to map the gravity load on the external structure and either thick- April 17: Carla Yanni ened or reduced the size of the structural members as The Architecture of Residence Halls needed. This created a visible arching effect on the lower in the USA: Three Case Studies floors of the tower. Although a relatively unknown build- ing to most people, even in the field, the Marine Midland June 19: John Harwood tower in Rochester has been the subject of studies and The Interface: IBM and the thesis projects due to its unique structural solution and Transformation of Corporate Design, its importance in Khan’s career. 1945–1976 Lincoln First Tower (1969–1973) September 19: Caroline Zaleski John Graham Company Long Island Modernism 1930–1980 In 1969 Lincoln Rochester Trust Bank broke ground on a 400-foot, 28-story tower. Its flared profile and crenellat- November 29: John Kriskiewicz LEFT: ROCHESTER MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES; RIGHT: ROCHESTER PUBLIC ROCHESTER ARCHIVES; LIBRARY RIGHT: MUNICIPAL ROCHESTER LEFT: Park Avenue In Context, In Films ed roofline resembled a space-age turret, or to some Lincoln First Tower: John Graham Company’s tower design observers, the Atari video game logo. Though lesser started with a concrete core but switched to steel to form the external structure with its signature flaring base.

million, the marble was replaced with enameled aluminum on the exterior, while some of the original panels were retained inside at plaza level. Lincoln First is now Chase Tower, Marine Midland is HSBC Plaza and Xerox has lost the big red “X” at its roofline. All three buildings have undergone recent reno- vations that should allow them to continue to be viable real estate as well as the defining features of the Rochester skyline for decades to come. The forces shap- ing 1960s Rochester were not unlike those in other cities—urban renewal, civic optimism, corporate expan- sion. The engineers and architects of Rochester’s trio were the ones thinking beyond the box. ROCHESTER MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES MUNICIPAL ROCHESTER —Daniel Palmer Xerox Tower: Welton Becket Associates’ tower employed an exoskelton of narrow concrete columns resulting in a facade that changed dramatically depending on one’s the angle of view. DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 9 PARK AVENUE, IN CONTEXT, IN FILMS PARK AVENUE. The name alone conjures glamorous What’s in images in the popular imagination. For the historian, Park Avenue presents a series of mutable stages in New Midtown? York City’s development. For the film buff, the transfor- mation of Park Avenue from a Beaux-Arts boulevard of masonry apartments and hotels to a premier office dis- These are some of the standout trict of Modern glass towers is captured in a number of buildings in the proposed East classic mid-century films. Midtown rezoning that DOCOMOMO Sprawling and smoky, a noisy slum of rail yards and NY/Tri-State is following in its related industries—that was Park Avenue immediately advocacy work: north of 42nd Street’s Grand Central Depot in 1871. Between 1903 and 1913, the construction of a new 711 Third Avenue, William Lescaze Grand Central Terminal on the depot site and the sinking & Associates, 1956, including of the rail yards below grade made possible the construc- lobby interior tion of “Terminal City,” a concept by William J. Wilgus. Completed by 1931, Terminal City transformed the rail 777 Third Avenue/U.S. Plywood, yard slum into a Beaux-Arts-style landscaped boulevard William Lescaze & Assoc., 1963 of similarly scaled mid-rise limestone-trimmed brick Hope Lange in The Best of Everything (1959) 830 Third Avenue/Girl Scouts, SOM apartment buildings and hotels. The distinctive tower of (Roy Allen & William Meyer), 1957 Warren & Wetmore’s New York Central Building (1927), Avenue (1916), soon to be supplanted by commercial 909 Third Avenue/Post office and placed astride Park Avenue, acted as Terminal City’s focal development and the International Style. offices, Max O. Urbahn + Emery point—equal parts obelisk and arc de triomphe. Park In The Best of Everything (1959) director Jean Roth & Sons, 1968 Avenue’s solid Beaux-Arts homogeny would survive a Negulesco flies us over Manhattan for a lushly memo- mere generation. rable title sequence juxtaposing the prewar towers of the 270 Park Avenue/Union Carbide, A confluence of factors, immediately following the Financial District and Midtown with the slowly awaken- SOM (Gordon Bunshaft, Natalie end of WW2 transformed the Avenue: ing city. We land in front of Universal Pictures Building De Blois), 1960 as the camera pans down Park Avenue to the New York • continuation of wartime rent control made luxury Central Building, vividly exposing the construction a 280 Park Avenue, Emery Roth & apartment buildings unprofitable, decade has wrought. The camera is now in front of the Sons + Henry Dreyfuss, 1963 • mass movement of the managerial class to the recently completed Seagram Building (Mies van der 350 Park Avenue, Emery Roth & suburbs changed the demographics of the Avenue Rohe, Kahn & Jacobs, Philip Johnson, 1958), facing Sons, 1960 and consequently changed Grand Central Terminal’s north toward the green glass façade of the pioneering primary use from long-distance gateway to commuter 400 Park Avenue, Emery Roth & Lever House (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1952). Our portal, Sons, 1958 protagonist, Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) comes into • pent up demand for modern office space in the frame. Interviewing for an entry-level job in the secretar- 410 Park Avenue, Emery Roth & expanding postwar economy led to a boom in ial pool, she holds in her hand a help-wanted ad placed Sons + SOM (façade), 1959 commercial real estate development, by a publishing firm at 375 Park Avenue—the Seagram 445 Park Avenue/Universal • new technologies accelerated the rapid change Building. From her point of view the camera takes in the Pictures, Kahn & Jacobs, 1947 that was already occurring in the spatial needs of bronze and glass façade towering in splendid isolation in corporations. 450 Park Avenue/Franklin National its plaza. The Seagram Building represents to this young Bank, Emery Roth & Sons, 1972 These factors spurred development of a new high-end aspiring editor all the promise and adventure of the new office district within walking distance of Grand Central. 300 East 42nd Street, William post-industrial, postwar city. Upon entering the publish- The transformation was captured in a series of popu- Lescaze & Associates, 1963 er’s offices, Caroline—along with her audience—takes a lar films shot on location between 1948 and 1961. The 150 East 45th Street, Gibbons very newness of the buildings and the Avenue’s striking Heidtmann & Salvador, 1949; modern ambiance was used by filmmakers as short hand addition 1967 for progress, success, and on occasion romance. 225 East 43rd Street, Oscar I. Universal Pictures Building (Kahn & Jacobs, 1947), Silverstone, 1950 the Avenue’s first postwar office building in what had been a luxury residential district, plays a supporting role Landmarked buildings in the in Mark Hellinger’s ground breaking film of 1948, The rezone study area: Naked City. Riding a construction elevator, we follow Lever House detectives past the prismatic repetitiveness of floor upon Seagram Building floor of strip windows to the roof of the stepped back Socony-Mobil Building tower. Built under the 1916 zoning resolution but reflect- Pepsi-Cola Building ing the new aesthetic of the International Style, the Look Building Universal Pictures Building is an important link between the Avenue’s past and what it will become. As detectives question a construction worker on the roof, the camera captures the neoclassical masonry facades of the resi- dential avenue such as Warren & Wetmore’s 430 Park Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 10 moment to contemplate the brave new world of open plan modernity. She studies the distance she will have MIDTOWN SURVEY BACK IN ACTION to transverse between the open plan typing pool and the In response to the October scoping meeting on the draft Environmental Impact Statement private offices of the editors at the perimeter—furnished (EIS) for the East Midtown Rezoning, DOCOMOMO New York/Tri-State requested that specific in now classic pieces from Knoll, Herman Miller, Steelcase Modern movement buildings in East Midtown be evaluated as part of the study, as outlined and Lightolier. in Task 6 - Historic and Cultural Resources. The Proposed Action outlined in the preliminary Many melodramatic twists and turns later Caroline zoning would upzone a number of sites in the area and could compromise the historic con- has the job she dreamed of and strove for, but as she text of the targeted area and its architectural resources. walks in isolation across the Seagram Building Plaza she Fortunately, DOCOMOMO New York/Tri-State had completed intensive survey work on has to make a pre-feminist life choice: continue in her Midtown in 2004 making the current fast-track assessment feasible. Grants from the career or marry. Her handsome love interest is waiting. Untitled Foundation in 2003 and 2004 allowed us to conduct a preliminary study of 200 Wordlessly, with Park Avenue as the backdrop, she liter- buildings in Midtown Manhattan with the assistance of Columbia University GSAPP Historic ally removes her fashion-forward “editor’s hat” to signal Preservation students. This work became the Midtown Modern Survey, a database of images her surrender to domesticity. The camera pans up and and building information. We shared the Survey with the Landmarks Preservation away toward the New York Central Building and the ris- Commission staff as a reference tool for its future work. In addition, it was used as the basis ing Union Carbide Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, for an article published in the DOCOMOMO Journal (“The Midtown Modern Project,” Nina 1960) under construction, as the music swells and the Rappaport, September 2004). The article outlined the issues of safeguarding vernacular cor- chorus intones “Romance is still the best of everything”. porate modern buildings as the need for sustainable upgrading intensified, issues related to In Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) director Blake Edwards maintaining the character of individual buildings as well as distinct business districts born of pans from the now completed Union Carbide Building to the Modern movement. the plaza of the Seagram Building in one seamless shot The postwar years in New York City were in part characterized by a large-scale building as we see Holly (Audrey Hepburn) and Paul (George boom that transformed entire sections of the city. East Midtown Manhattan transitioned Peppard) contemplating the new International Style from masonry mid-rise structures to glass and steel skyscrapers. Much of the Midtown boulevard. Planning to leave the New York for a new life, Manhattan that one experiences today was developed during this period. East Midtown exemplifies both the cultural development of new businesses that established themselves in Midtown and the architectural achievements that comprise a distinct building type pioneered in New York City. The area under consideration for rezoning holds five New York City Landmarks: Lever House, Seagram Building, Socony-Mobil Building, Pepsi-Cola Building and Look Building. These buildings inspired numerous others in both their material innovation and siting on the street grid. The setbacks and plazas of these early Midtown sky- scrapers inspired a variegated streetscape that led to the 1961 New York City Zoning regulation. The standardiza- tion and mass production of curtain wall systems using extruded metal mullions and glass reinforced the system- ization of corporate culture. JULIE ROSEN The EIS study area includes numerous buildings designed and constructed between 1947 and 1975 that would be impacted both directly and indirectly if the sites proposed for zoning changes were to be upzoned. Specific clusters of these buildings have significance as potential historic districts, as together they embody a Robert Morse in How to Succeed in Business Without postwar corporate culture unmatched in any other city in the world at the time. Mixed in are Really Trying (1967) individual buildings, not yet landmarked, that should be considered for designation to safe- guard their special significance and architectural character. More recently, assisted by Julie Holly looks up the Avenue and exclaims; “They [her Rosen, we have continued to update and reformat of the Survey, and have shared a list of future children] must see this…Oh I love New York!” As target buildings with the Landmarks Preservation Commission as Requests for Evaluation. the couple sits on the low verde marble wall that defines —Nina Rappaport the Seagram Plaza, Paul asks; “Then why are you leaving?” In the golden light of an autumn afternoon, the calm of the plaza and bronze façade provides an intimate setting in the heart of the city as they sort out their futures. David Swift revisits the opening sequence of The Best of Everything in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967). In less than a decade, Manhattan has been transformed from the Battery to Central Park and beyond into a corporate capital of glossy glass towers and high-rise apartment complexes that stand in contrast to the soot-begrimed landmarks of an earlier generation. Shot from the roof of the recently completed Pan Am Building (Walter Gropius, Pietro Belluschi, Emery Roth & Sons, 1963) the camera reveals a Park Avenue completely transformed by the postwar boom and the continued page 15 DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 11 The Modern Library

careful framing, employing a window, tion, or one’s appreciation of the art, viduals to embrace modernity and handrail, or some other building ele- or one’s architectural consciousness. aesthetic unknowns. ment to link one image to another For it is through Stoller’s pictures Zaleski organized the book in 25 so you could understand the move- that our very knowledge of Modern chapters, each covering the work of ment through space. Stoller did not architecture has been shaped. an architect or firm. The narrative believe that one “money shot” could —Michael J. Crosbie benefits from research on 61 others truly represent a work of architec- that were part of Zaleski’s field ture. Instead, his rendering of a survey conducted for the Society for building was comprised of a series of the Preservation of Long Island narrative images that told stories. Antiquities. All 86 are included in Although he also shot in color, an appendix listing their completed Stoller’s fondness for black-and- buildings in Nassau and Suffolk white photography presented archi- counties. Zaleski’s detail-rich tectural form in its very best light narrative reveals several crosscut- and shadow. He sculpted space with- ting themes. in the two-dimensional confines of Exurbia begot suburbia. his view camera. Roosevelt Field Shopping Center Ezra Stoller, Photographer Architecture was just one of (1956, I.M. Pei’s first large-scale Stoller’s subjects. This book pres- project) replaced an airfield, and Nina Rappaport and Erica Stoller, ents images that he produced of Levittown, potato fields. The great editors estates were divvied up for prize- Yale University Press, December 2012 industrial processes, manufacturing 288 pages and the corporate world. Television view house lots or experimental $65 hardcover sets on an assembly line, the color SUNY campuses (Old Westbury and printing process, pharmaceutical Stony Brook, stories in themselves, Has a photographer ever been more manufacture, hydro-electric power are covered in fascinating depth). allied to an architectural era than generation, laboratory research— The Modernists were never afraid Ezra Stoller? His career spanned Stoller captured these subjects and Long Island Modernism of new materials. In 1934, Lawrence Modernism’s apogee in the U.S., more, using the same methodical 1930–1980 Kocher used painted canvas wall from the 1930s through the 1980s, story-telling narrative that he used panels to mimic aluminum on his a half-century during which he for architecture. Co-editor Nina Caroline Rob Zaleski weekend house. Domed Lucite sky- W.W. Norton, September 2012 documented the landmarks of the Rappaport writes about Stoller’s lights, probably some of the earliest, work as an industrial photographer 336 pages, over 300 photos/drawings found a place in a house by John movement. Recently released, Ezra $80 hardcover Stoller, Photographer, presents in its historical context, and reveals Stedman in 1953. Ultrasuede how he helped his audience under- debuted not just in Halston’s spring Stoller as a complex artisan whose It’s tempting to think that, as a stand modern manufacture and collection, but in Paul Rudolph’s work covered many aspects of result of a general familiarity with science. 1970 Deane house. Nor were they Modernism—not only architecture Long Island and a basic understand- Three essays about Stoller’s afraid to venture beyond the glass- (for which he is best known), but ing of architecture and planning dur- architectural photography give us laden frame building. The book’s industry, advertising and corporate ing the Modern period, one knows different views of his work. John images surprise at every page turn America. what was happening there: parkways Morris Dixon’s thorough examination and their large size pulls you into Stoller started his college educa- and expressways, beach bungalows of Stoller as the architectural pho- the design details. tion as an architecture student, but and big state parks, suburbanization tographer of his time is written with Particularly fascinating is the the tug of the camera came early. He and the rise of a weekend utopia at the benefit of Dixon’s actually being network of influence and exchange graduated from New York University the eastern reaches. Caroline there as it happened, in his many that crossed social and profession in 1938 with a degree in industrial Zaleski’s Long Island Modernism years as a distinguished editor of alliances on Long Island. It’s safe to design, and began taking photos for 1930–1980 has arrived to clarify architectural publications. Akiko say that the Harrisons, through his architecture classmates. In an what was really happening on the Busch writes about Stoller’s photos Wallace’s professional network or illuminating Preface by his daughter, longest, largest island in the lower of the postwar suburban home, Ellen’s family and social circles, were Erica (who describes him as a “story- 48, and why. while Andy Grundberg considers rarely out of the loop. Breuer was teller”) we come to understand The book is more than a field the artistic role of Stoller’s oeuvre. right up there. Stoller as methodical and disci- study. Zaleski weaves extensive And, of course, there are the When Zaleski writes that plined, an artist who documents archival research, interviews and photos, a portfolio of 112 architec- Rudolph’s houses have stood the test architectural design intent through miles on the byways into a social tural works, followed by 65 industri- of time because they “never lost the his photographs. Before beginning and cultural history of Modernism on al photos and a collection of 33 sense of being from the future,” she his shoot Stoller would talk to his Long Island. From the mid 1930s on, residential images. Followers of could be talking about much of architect-clients and spend hours architectural experimentation flour- Stoller’s work will find many old Long Island’s Modern architecture. or sometimes days at a building in ished, intensifying as the prevailing friends here, beautifully presented It’s there and this book will help you order to understand it thoroughly. exuberance of the postwar years led photographs that might have discover it. His storytelling helped lead the civic and business leaders and indi- viewer through the architecture with shaped one’s architectural educa- —Kathleen Randall

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 12 Weese was a pioneer in many All in all, the book provides a The Hunting book, Edward Durell ways. He was concerned with relating thorough and insightful account of Stone: Modernism’s Populist Architect, buildings to their neighborhood con- the wide-ranging career of an amaz- is the somber side compared to the text before such thinking became de ingly multifaceted architect, which is Hicks Stone book. It is measured and rigueur; his residential designs in long overdue. methodical in its singular argument Chicago often incorporated tradition- —Kyle Johnson that Stone is underestimated and al architectural elements like bay unfairly maligned in the profession. windows, masonry arches and quasi- Stone, in Hunting’s view, was part mansard roofs. He was interested in of the inevitable absorption of mod- historic preservation at a time when ernism into American culture that few Modern architects were; his proj- led to postmodernism (from a ects included restoration of Louis European to an American sensibility) Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre and and was an unfortunate lightning rod conversions of old loft buildings for for criticism of a larger group of The Architecture of residential use. His interests extend- architects including Yamasaki, Harry Weese ed beyond individual buildings to Saarinen and Johnson. urban design and planning; he pro- Hunting sees Stone as more Robert Bruegmann duced numerous schemes for improv- American than we would want to W.W. Norton, 2010 ing Chicago’s lakefront and transit admit when she says about the 240 pages system. These concerns bore fruit in Columbus Circle building: “…through $60 hardcover what is perhaps his most prominent the quality of kitsch—embodied in commission, the design of the the building’s stylized historical Aficionados of Modern architecture Washington, DC Metro system. memories, its challenge to the who are interested in “outliers” who Weese’s activities also strayed patently modern masculine disposi- have expanded the sometimes beyond architecture and design. He Edward Durell Stone: tion, and what’s more, its failed narrowly defined canon of Modernism collaborated with his wife, Kitty seriousness—Stone succeeded in (locally Edward Durell Stone and Modernism’s Populist Baldwin Weese, in establishing a engaging a general audience.” Stone Albert Ledner come quickly to mind) Architect retail business specializing in mod- had achieved popular success and should enjoy The Architecture of ern furnishings, for which Harry Mary Anne Hunting was therefore immediately dated in Harry Weese by Robert Bruegmann. designed the shop interior—an W.W. Norton, November 2012 the fast-moving trend cycle and A Chicago architect, Harry Weese enterprise not unlike Ben and Jane 176 pages, 190 photos; 48 drawings isolated from the more formal (1915–1998) may not be familiar to Thompson’s Design Research in $55 hardcover architectural status signifiers. New York architectural observers. Cambridge, MA. He engaged in real Hunting’s admirable and meticu- Even in Chicago, Weese was seen to estate development, on Chicago’s The reputation of Edward Durell lous research is shown in the range be out of the mainstream, frequently North Side and at Printer’s Row at Stone is certainly one of the most of information she has gleaned from highlighted as a pioneer maverick the south edge of Chicago’s Loop, fought over of American Modern sources high and low, illustrated in (along with Bertrand Goldberg and where former industrial loft buildings architects. He is first seen as the rake unusual items such as a “love” poem Walter Netsch) in contradistinction were converted to residential use. For who presented the good times deco- referencing Stone by Buckminster to the Mies–SOM–C.F. Murphy many years Weese funded, published ration of the Art Deco period in Radio Fuller and an ad for a 1948 “Chicago School” of structural and wrote for Inland Architect, City Music Hall and then as the good ”Futurama” Oldsmobile with a futuris- expression. extending the life of that historic solider of modernism, designing the tic Stone house in the background. Bruegmann’s introductory essay Chicago architectural journal. And first MoMA building and finally as Readers will enjoy the 190 photos includes considerable biographical somehow, besides all that, Weese the apostate who prefigured the and the 48 building plans that have content and discusses Weese’s remained a lifelong active sailor. decorative postmodern era with the been redrawn for graphic clarity and diverse interests and architectural The project descriptions, written Gallery of Modern Art at Columbus consistency. ideas. I was interested to learn that by Kathleen Murphy Skolnik, which Circle. If the life of Edward Durell Stone Weese maintained close relation- comprise the bulk of the book are not This year he is honored with two was made into a movie, it would be a ships with Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, comprehensive, but illustrate the biographies, one by his son, the mash-up of the 1934 Fountainhead Ralph Rapson and Edward Larrabee variety of Weese’s work and the architect Hicks Stone and one by the and the 1950 Sunset Boulevard. The Barnes, which led to referrals and breadth of his ideas. (My disappoint- historian Mary Anne Hunting. overheated heroism of the first coun- collaborations—e.g. numerous ment at the omission of a prominent The Hicks Stone biography is tered by the fall from fame of the commissions in Columbus, IN from Weese building in my home town, noted for the emotional content of second, all the while wrapped in the Saarinen’s client J. Irwin Miller, and the Milwaukee Performing Arts a family reminiscence and a son’s stage set glamour of the 1950s, red collaborations with Pei on the Hyde Center, was compensated by the attempt to reclaim the reputation of velvet curtains and gold anodized Park redevelopment project in inclusion of a lesser known but more his father from the gossipy scandal aluminum. Chicago and with Barnes at Crown innovative, modest yet urbane office of his time and the negative opinion —Christian Bjone Center in Kansas City. building for IBM on that city’s main of his work that followed the end of downtown street.) his career.

DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 13 TWO DISTINCTIVE MODERN INTERIORS MAY SOON DISAPPEAR FROM THE MIDTOWN MANHATTAN CITYSCAPE

Hoffman Auto Showroom Francisco and the 1950 David Wright Millennium Hotels has announced & Weaver’s Waldorf-Astoria and I. M. Mercedes-Benz has announced plans house in Phoenix, AZ. The December plans to update the hotel’s lobby Pei’s Four Seasons to the realm of to vacate its Frank Lloyd Wright- 20 announcement that the David spaces, restaurant and bar, deeming generic “branded” hotels. designed showroom at 430 Park Wright house has been saved and the mirrored surfaces of the original —Kyle Johnson Avenue, originally designed for awaits landmark designation leaves 1975 design, as well as the 1983 Maximilian Hoffman and constructed the Hoffman Showroom as the sole lobby expansion into the newly con- in 1954. unprotected built work from Wright’s structed 2 UN Plaza tower, outdated. The space features a spiral ramp experimentation with the spiral. Ironically, the still near-intact 1970s surrounding a turntable for auto dis- DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State has design has survived long enough to play, within a constricted space that expressed its support for the Request once again approach fashionability— is visually expanded by the applica- for Evaluation of the showroom sub- as well as qualify for landmark tion of mirrors to interior columns mitted to the Landmarks Preser- designation. and on the ceiling above the vation Commission by the Frank One is left to wonder whether the turntable (the latter part of a 1982 Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. hotel might be better served by renovation by Taliesin Associated updating the restaurant’s cuisine and Architects). Ambassador Grill and Lounge bar offerings and expanding its oper- The showroom is one of only four While there is still hope for Wright’s ating hours. Sacrificing its distinctive executed spiral designs by Wright, auto showroom, the fate of Kevin design—once celebrated by both Ada culminating in the multi-tiered Roche’s Ambassador Grill and Lounge Louise Huxtable and Paul Goldberger— Guggenheim Museum. Its siblings are at the UN Plaza Hotel appears to be removes it from the ranks of Schultze the 1948 V.C. Morris shop in San sealed. Ambassador Grill K. RANDALL LEFT AND ABOVE: COURTESY KRJDA LEFT AND COURTESY ABOVE:

Ambassador Lounge at UN Plaza Hotel, Kevin Roche John Hoffman Auto Showroom (now Merceds Benz) on Park Avenue, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1954. Dinkeloo Associates, 1975.

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DOCOMOMO / 2012 No. 2 / 14 VILLA TUGENDHAT CONTINUED PARK AVENUE CONTINUED a house museum and study center for “Villa Tugendhat—Mies in Brno.” 1961 zoning ordinances that, Park Avenue as a stand-in. Brno architecture from the 19th cen- Divided into eight sections, the circuitously, were influenced by the Finch rides the gondola down the tury forward, was inaugurated on exhibit summarizes the history of planning parti of Lever House and façade of 277 where he finds his way March 2, 2012. economic prosperity in Brno, the per- the Seagram Building. to the window of the reception area Photographer David Židlický sons behind creation of the villa, par- Emerging from the subway we fol- of World Wide Wickets, all the while closed the presentation with his take ticular construction stages, as well as low J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) singing the advice he is reading: on how the Tugendhat family photo the social-political history of the as he picks up a self-help book at a “How to commute, in a three button collection shows the symbiosis of the building recounting its glory days, its newsstand—How to Succeed in suit….” As he steps through the win- villa and the artistic inclinations of decline, and finally its recent renais- Business Without Really Trying. dow (impossible in the new hermeti- the family that occupied it. More sance and restoration. Panning down Park Avenue we follow cally sealed towers, but possible in a specifically, he expanded on the rela- To close the day’s activities, the Finch past the Banker’s Trust Building Hollywood musical, for which a per- tionship between Modern architec- film “The Fate of the Tugendhat (Emery Roth & Sons with Henry fect replica of 277 Park Avenue’s ture and the lives of intellectuals at Name” had its international pre- Dreyfuss, 1962) onto the plaza and facade has been created on a sound a particular time in Brno. We learned miere. The documentary by Czech inside the entrance of the Union stage) he slips off his yellow cover- that the Tugendhats made the first Television was filmed in Spring 2012 Carbide Building (Gordon Bunshaft alls to join the ranks of the manage- color photograph taken in and presents significant moments in and Natalie de Blois, Skidmore, rial class in his grey suit and bow tie, Czechoslovakia at the villa. With a the history of the villa and the life of Owings & Merrill, 1960), which plays book in hand. With Finch ensconced Bolex camera in tow, Fritz Tugendhat the Tugendhat family. the role of the World Wide Wickets in what we think is the glass tower of captured the spirit and atmosphere The Brno Days proceedings company headquarters. Dressed in a Union Carbide the narrator intones, of the house during the eight years revealed the unusually complex suit as he walks into the building, from the book: “…a company large the family lived there. Židlický and determined forces—both Finch next appears on the roof of the enough that no one knows exactly shared intimate portraits of family individual and collective—behind tower in his yellow window washer’s what the other fellow is doing.” The members, as well as wonderful vistas the 40-plus year return of the Villa coveralls about to step into the win- transparency of the International of Brno through the now iconic glass Tugendhat to its trailblazing 1930s dow washing gondola (a technology Style office building, in these scenes, wall of the main living space. He design and physical beauty. The City first pioneered in 1952 at Lever is a metaphor for upward mobility reminded us that the building was of Brno has an impressive collection House by Kenneth Young of SOM). afforded by the permeable yet prominently featured on the cover of of Modern architecture and is partic- Dangling more than 50 stories above anonymous large corporation. the companion book to the seminal ularly proud of its newest monument. the avenue, he still clutches the A half a century later, Park Avenue 1932 MoMA exhibit, “The International —Hänsel Hernández-Navarro book. Emery Roth & Sons’ 277 Park is potentially on the cusp of another Style.” The years following the aban- Avenue (1962), which in reality transformation in the form of the donment of the house were also cap- Editors Note: The Villa Tugendhat is open stands directly across Park Avenue, Grand Central/East Midtown District tured in photographs showing the for tours six days a week. Space is limited acts as the stand-in for World Wide rezoning. What will remain of this no and reservations one month ahead are rec- villa’s varied incarnations along ommended. For tour details, history, photo Wickets in this scene because its longer new, but iconic boulevard of with images of its almost complete galleries and more visit: rooftop pipe railing afforded the cin- International Style towers? We will neglect to the point of ruin. http://www.tugendhat.eu/en ematographer panoramic views of always have this cinematic record of The seminar was followed by the the 1960s skyscraper city. At Union not only the physical form, but the official opening of the photo exhibit, Carbide a solid Miesian parapet cultural messages of Park Avenue’s extending beyond the roof in hom- all-star skyscraper ensemble. age to the Seagram Building preclud- —John Kriskiewicz ed such views, hence the use of 277

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NEWSLETTER 2012/No. 2 The New York/Tri-State newsletter is made possible by generous financial support from Brent Harris and the volunteers below who contributed content and editing expertise for this issue.

John Shreve Arbuckle Kyle Johnson Christian Bjone John Kriskiewicz DOCOMOMO US, DOCOMOMO US/Florida Gail Cornell Marissa Marvelli Chapter and the University of Florida Historic Michael Crosbie Daniel Palmer John Morris Dixon Nina Rappaport Preservation Program present: Kimbro Frutiger Rich Ray MODERN MATTERS,a conference to Hänsel Hernández-Navarro explore the material, theoretical, historical and Kathleen Randall, editor/coordinator ideological issues of Moderism. Comments, articles and news items are welcome for future issues. email: [email protected] Visit the conference website for full details: http://modernmattersconference.com Special thanks to BKSK Architects and Hoffmann Architects for providing space for our board meetings.