The Collaborative Divide: Crafting Architectural Identity, Authority, and Authorship in the Twentieth Century by Steven I. Doctors A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor C. Greig Crysler, chair Professor Nezar AlSayyad Professor Mia Fuller Fall 2010 The Collaborative Divide: Crafting Architectural Identity, Authority, and Authorship in the Twentieth Century © 2010 by Steven I. Doctors ABSTRACT The Collaborative Divide: Crafting Architectural Identity, Authority, and Authorship in the Twentieth Century by Steven I. Doctors Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture University of California, Berkeley Professor C. Greig Crysler The object of study in this dissertation is a discourse promulgated by architects for much of the twentieth century that assigned transformative attributes to collaboration relative to the purpose and potentiality of the profession. Underpinning these aspirations was an assertion of the fundamentally collective character of architectural production, yet realization of the purported transformative promise of collaboration recurrently fell short of its idealization. My intention here is to examine this historical divide by considering: motivations fueling the idealization of collaboration; its engagement in the crafting of architectural identity, authority, and authorship; the mechanisms of professional and state authority employed in its promotion and dissemination; and the socio-economic forces acting upon practice that precluded realization of its transformative promise. To enter into this topic, I draw upon primary archival materials to construct an historical narrative contextualized by socio-economic and political forces, with an emphasis on protagonists whose contributions to the American discourse on collaboration are most representative of specific moments in the twentieth-century. In each instance, the idealization of collaboration operates at the boundaries of the profession, the edges where architects affirm the collective nature of architecture by engaging with non-architect ‘others’ in the conception and production of buildings. Tensions between the advocacy of collaboration as a transformative means and concurrent quests to articulate the identity, authority, and authorship of the architect tell us much about the efficacy of collaboration as a signifier of collective action, how architects wished to be viewed by non-architect ‘others,’ and more broadly, the implications when theories of practice differ from their realization. I begin at the close of the nineteenth century with a prevailing historicist paradigm that glorified architecture as art and a concomitant agenda of collaboration intended to resist the temptations of an emerging modernism. In the second case study, I examine modernist dominance of the Depression-era discourse, and competition between collaboration and cooperation as the ideal basis of collective action for social change. In the third and final case study, I consider the rise of a process-oriented collaboration stripped of stylistic affiliations in a post-Second World War milieu in which techno-military accomplishments and a burgeoning global American presence inspired seemingly infinite possibilities for architecture as a science-based profession. 1 The principal contribution of this dissertation is a foregrounding of the historical problematics of collaboration specifically as it pertains to architects in their engagement with non-architect ‘others.’ By examining tensions between the architectural promotion of collaboration and the crafting of architectural identity, authority, and authorship, I establish a framework for assessing the twenty-first century re-emergence and idealization of collaboration as a transformative practice, in this instance, one characterized by connectivity empowered by information and communication technologies. 2 dedicated to my wife and daughters i TABLE OF CONTENTS • Acknowledgements iv • List of Illustrations and Credits v • List of Abbreviations vii • Introduction 1 Collective Action and Transformation 1 Articulation of the Problem 4 Literature Review: Architecture as a Profession 6 Literature Review: Literary Arts, Authorship, and the Professions 8 Objectives, Methodological Strategy, and Chapter Synopses 13 • Chapter One Collaboration: Origins of the Architectural Discourse 20 • Chapter Two C. Grant La Farge: Architecture as Art and the Historicist Agenda of Collaboration 27 Background: C. Grant La Farge 28 Nurturing the Historicist Identity 36 Collaboration, Authority, and Authorship 41 Codification of Collaboration 45 Chapter Conclusion 52 • Chapter Three Robert D. Kohn and William Lescaze: Cooperation, Collaboration & Competition 55 Background: Robert D. Kohn 55 Ethics, Identity, and the Professions 59 Background: William Lescaze 66 PWA and the Williamsburg Houses 73 New York World’s Fair of 1939-40 80 Chapter Conclusion 91 • Chapter Four Serge Chermayeff: Architecture as Science and Collaboration as Process 94 Background: Serge Chermayeff 95 Collective Action 96 Epistemic Authority and the Sciences 100 Transition to Academia 105 Collaboration Defined and Contrasted 109 Architectural Identity and Research 114 ii Chapter Conclusion 122 • Conclusion Principal Insights and Contribution 125 Relevance 127 Codification of Collaboration Redux 130 Implications and Concluding Remarks 135 • Illustrations 138 • Bibliography 152 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I begin with heart-felt thanks to my dissertation committee members: Professors C. Greig Crysler, Nezar alSayyad, and Mia Fuller. To Greig, for the unceasing intellectual challenge and inspiration to contemplate the built environment in ways I had not previously imagined. To Nezar, for the encouragement to pursue a doctoral degree at Berkeley and continuing confidence that I would in fact successfully achieve it. To Mia, for her clarity of vision and willingness to remain on this intellectual journey even as the geographic focus of my research drifted away from the Italian peninsula. I am thankful as well to Berkeley faculty members W. Mike Martin, Paul Groth, Stephen Tobriner, and J. P. Protzen for their contributions to my graduate studies, and to Lois H. Koch, Graduate Office Manager for the Department of Architecture, and Elizabeth Byrne, head of the Environmental Design Library, for their sustained administrative support and guidance. For their assistance in accessing invaluable archival materials, I am grateful to research staff at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the Bancroft Library Archives at the University of California (Berkeley), the La Guardia and Wagner Archives at La Guardia Community College/City University of New York, the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University, the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and to Wayne Kempton of the Episcopal Diocese of New York at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Pursuing a doctoral degree would not have been possible, of course, without the extraordinary patience and good-humored tolerance of my wife, Patti, and our daughters Chelsea, Molly, and Emma. For this, and for much more than I can elaborate upon here, I am eternally grateful. iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND CREDITS Image 1. C. Grant La Farge Source: The Brickbuilder Image 2. Hecla Iron Works advertisement with subway kiosk designed by Heins & La Farge Source: Catalogue of the Architectural League of New York Twentieth Exhibition (1905) Image 3. Competition submission by Heins & La Farge for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City Source: The Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of New York at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Image 4. R. Guastavino Company advertisement Source: The Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of New York at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Image 5. Portrait of Royal Cortissoz by Louis L. Betts Source: ARTstor Collections, Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchives Image 6. Cunard Building, New York City Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, photograph attributed to Irving Underhill (c.1921) Image 7. I. A. Namm department store, New York City Source: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Image 8. Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) building, Philadelphia Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Image 9. Williamsburg Houses, New York City Source: La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/City University of New York Image 10. Williamsburg Houses, New York City Source: La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/City University of New York Image 11. Perisphere and Trylon at the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40 Source: The New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division v Image 12. Democracity exhibit at the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40 Source: University of Virginia Image 13. Serge Chermayeff Source: Betty Blum, Chicago Architects Oral History Project Image 14. De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, England Source: ARTstor Collections, photograph attributed to Brian Davis vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS List of Archives Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University (Avery Library) Bancroft Library Archives at the University of California - Berkeley (Bancroft Archives) La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/City