NEW YORK|TRI-STA TE

2010 no. 2

Contents MODERN IN THE VILLAGE: A FIRST FOR NEW CANAAN 2 LESSONS FROM WEST 12TH STREET RAYMOND AND RADO’S ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL 3 Bastion of postwar is not the first image Greenwich Village brings to mind. Narrow, idio - VIGNELLI CENTER AT RIT 4 syncratic streets lined with an eclectic assortment of KAHN’S TRENTON BATH HOUSE Federal and Greek Revival row houses, Italianate brown - AND DAY CAMP RESTORED 5 stones, tenements and lofts, joined by a wave of elevator apartment buildings from the 1920s would be the popu - NEW JERSEY GETS A SURVEY 6 lar perception. Yet given the neighborhood’s celebrated THE VERTICAL URBAN FACTORY 8 association with the avant-garde it should come as no surprise that Greenwich Village would foster a flurry of WHIG HALL: UNUSUAL MODERN buildings illustrating, in microcosm, the evolution of LANDMARK RENOVATED 9 postwar Modernism in . THE MODERN LIBRARY 10 West 12th Street is an especially instructive example of this evolutionary microcosm. Joseph Urban’s Bauhaus-inspired design for The New School for Social Research (1929–1931) is an apt architectural expression of the progressive philosophies of the school and the neighborhood, while maintaining the scale of the 19th- century streetscape. Between 1958 and 1960, the firm of Mayer, Whittlesey & Glass, with project architect William J. Conklin, completed additions to Urban’s building that created an appropriately Village-scaled campus. The glass and aluminum grid façade of Conklin’s nine-story, Miesian inspired addition to the west is respectfully set back from W 12th and the Urban building. The addition’s For timely news sign airy glazed volume plays counterpoint to the dark brick up for our monthly mass of the older building and provides a connecting

“News+Events” email lobby for the Urban building. A new mid-block courtyard Z C I W

connects Conklin’s new 11th Street building to the south. E WWW.DOCOMOMO-NYTRI.ORG I K S

Spanning the courtyard, a two-story, glass-walled bridge I R supported in part by welded pipe trusses in an “X” pat - K N H

tern, makes the same connection above grade. The wider O Contribute online: 11th Street building, although employing the same grid- J New School for Social Research, 11th Street Building, patterned glazing as its 12th Street kin, is more contex - WWW.NYCHARITIES.ORG William Conklin/Mayer, Whittlesey & Glass, 1958 –1960 (search on “DOCOMOMO New York ”) tual, maintaining 25-foot structural bays that echo the width of row houses on the block. As Gordon Bunshaft William Conklin and James Rossant drew from both did at Lever House, Conklin playfully expresses the build - neighborhood building types and Modernist themes Contact Information ing’s structural columns as a colonnade at ground level. while expanding upon the bifurcated thru-block court - In the process, he provides a soothing glimpse of the yard building type to create the rare luxury building NEW YORK/TRI-STATE CHAPTER landscaped courtyard through the glass to passersby on appropriate for the Village. Completed in 1962 and sited [email protected] W 11th. The New School’s postwar expansion manages to between W 12th and W 13th Streets, Butterfield House www.docomomo-nytri.org be true to the progressive philosophies of Modernism responds to each street independently while providing P.O. Box 250532 while respecting the scale and vibe of the neighborhood. New York, NY 10025 a southern exposure for the courtyard and north block. These attributes will be employed by the same firm, On W 12th, the architects conceived a seven-story block, DOCOMOMO US Mayer, Whittlesey & Glass, in its better known project contextual to the picturesque row houses and older down the street: Butterfield House. [email protected] continued page 6 www.docomomo-us.org A FIRST FOR NEW CANAAN MODERNS

In September eighteen New Canaan Moderns were added to the National Register of Historic Places or to Connecticut’s State Register. The event marked the first Welcome use of the Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPDF) in a statewide, thematic listing of mid-century Modern houses. The form has been used for other build - Let’s start 2011 by publishing a ing types, but never before for Modern houses, according 2010 newsletter. In about the time to Ginny Adams of Public Archaeology Lab in Pawtucket, it takes you to read this column I RI, the firm that conducted research and prepared the could have changed the datelines to nominations. A

2011. Our determination to catalog Included in the listings are Marcel Breuer’s first New R T S two newsletters per year stopped me Canaan house, which he built for his own family; Alan M E I Gelbin’s Murphy House; Eliot Noyes’s Chivvis House; and H short. We trust you’ll find the con - B O tents useful despite the tardiness. Hugh Smallen’s Tatum and Parsons Houses. John Black B And not to steal any thunder this Lee, whose work was prominently featured in Preservation Parsons House, Hugh Smallen, 1964 magazine this year, also had two listings: Lee House I

newsletter might have, but as soon Y R O as you finish reading it you really (built for his own family on an outcropping of rocks) T A R

and the System House, a modular design by Lee with O

should visit our website. It launched B A Harrison DeSilver. L

in August and has been helping the Y G O organization expand its programs, Alicia Leuba of the National Trust’s Northeast office L E A broaden networking channels and and Gretchen Mueller Burke of the Philip Johnson Glass H C R raise awareness of activities around House directed and coordinated the year-long project. A C I L

Modern architecture ever since. Partnering with the Trust were Janet Lindstrom of the B U P , www.docomomo-nytri-org . New Canaan Historical Society, Richard Thomas of the S M A

New Canaan Preservation Alliance, Stacy Vairo of the D

We could definitely use more people A . V

Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism (CCCT), / power. An email from the site’s “con - D L E

and the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. I tact us” page is all it takes to volun - F O

Funding came from CCCT with additional support by C S teer with DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State. . William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. Ginny Adams J Here’s a little refresher of some of and Jenny Scofield of Public Archaeological Laboratory System House, John Black Lee & Harrison DeSilver, 1961 what awaits, you choose: (PAL) guided the nominated properties through the ADVOCACY (research, drafting • various stages of review. The last stop was the National letters and testimony, attending Connecticut.” PAL’s documents call Connecticut’s contri - Park Service, the official home of the National Register. hearings, press outreach); butions to Modern residential architecture “nearly •REGISTER (research, writing fiches unparalleled in scope and impact.” and helping with building surveys); Homeowners had to volunteer to join The 2010 group joins an illustrious group of New •COMMUNICATIONS (website, “Email the multiple registry effort…“Nowhere has the Canaan moderns by Philip Johnson, Frank Lloyd Wright, News” and this newsletter) and buy-in or enthusiasm been as strong as it Eliot Noyes, and Landis Gores already designated as •PROGRAMS (speakers, venues, tour has been here in Connecticut.” historic houses. And there may be other listings in the planning and event logisitics). future. Burke is in the process of writing a set of guide - If you know one of our board lines for the Glass House website to help modern house Burke described the MPDF as “a detailed overview of members below you can also let owners prepare individual nominations. the history of the development of Modern architecture them know you’re interested. and design in the State of Connecticut that provides an New Canaan’s 2010 National Register Listings: Time to get started on the first umbrella-like structure for the nomination of individual Breuer II [first New Canaan House], Marcel Breuer 1947 2011 newsletter. Send us your arti cle Modern houses to the State and National Register of Durisol House/Risom House, SMS 1949 ideas, comments and suggestions. Historic Places.” The houses listed on the State Register Lee House I, John Black Lee 1952 —Kathleen Randall, editor were all built after 1960, said Burke, and haven’t yet Ford House, Gates & Ford 1954 reached the 50-year mark. The 50-year guideline can Techbuilt/Swallen House, Carl Koch 1954 DOCOMOMO NEW YORK/TRI-STATE occasionally be trumped by other historical factors. Beaven Mills House, William Pedersen 1956 BOARD MEMBERS David Bahlman, director of the CCCT’s Historic Mills House II, Willis Mills of SMS 1956 John Arbuckle Preservation Department, commended the owners “for System House, John Black Lee and Harrison DeSilver 1961 Meredith Arms Bzdak their open and willing spirit of participation in the Hall House, William Pedersen 1962 John Morris Dixon process.” Not every eligible New Canaan Modern was listed. Tatum House, Hugh Smallen 1962 Kyle Johnson Homeowners had to volunteer to join the multiple reg - Murphy House, Alan Gelbin 1964 Jeff Miles istry effort. Bahlman, Burke, and Leuba hope that the Chivvis House, Eliot Noyes, 1979 Leslie Monsky multiple registry in New Canaan will be a model nation - 2010 New Canaan listings on the Connecticut Hänsel Hernández-Navarro wide, and as Bahlman said at a Glass House gathering Kathleen Randall State Register: to celebrate the event: “Nowhere has the buy-in or Lindstrom House, Gary Lindstrom 1964 Nina Rappaport enthusiasm been as strong as it has been here in D’juro Villaran-Rokovich Papp House, Laszlo Papp 1959 –1964 continued page 8

DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 2 www.docomomo-nytri.org DIAGRAM IN A DIAGRAM: RAYMOND & RADO’S ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL dear The first thing to say about Raymond & Rado’s Franklin functions and presenting a minimum area of glazing to Delano Roosevelt High School in Borough Park, Brooklyn vandals. Extracting these blocks of large-scale special - friends is that Antonin Raymond, the protean Modernist who ized program leaves the center of the site free for the has lately become something of a cult figure, had noth - core educational spaces, which are accommodated in a ing to do with the project. Although Raymond entered perfectly square, obsessively regularized courtyard It’s winter and we’re still spinning into a New York-based partnership with fellow Czech building. from fall. In August we launched émigré Ladislav Rado in 1945, he returned to Japan The rhetorical extremity of this resolution saves the our new website designed by within four years, and after 1955 his ties to the office Roosevelt School from dry rationalism. It also lays bare a Makepretend and spearheaded by were entirely nominal. This arrangement seems to have basic tension in approaching design as a logical unfold - Kathleen Randall. You can see the suited both architects: with Raymond off pursuing ing of project requirements: the imperative to respond to organization’s projects, browse a expressive structural forms, Rado continued in a prag - circumstance versus the temptation to perfect a generic selection of Modern building histories matic, goal-oriented mode shaped by his studies with type. This is literalized in the relationship of the differ - and keep up with Modern architec - Gropius at Harvard and his work in Norman Bel Geddes’ entiated gym, cafeteria, and auditorium blocks to the ture activities through our events industrial design studio. platonic classroom building: the school is essentially a calendar. Rado’s predilections are starkly expressed at the utilitarian, circumstantial diagram that contains, at its We have been active on the Roosevelt School, which reads as a throwback to the heart, an ideal diagram. Further, the circumstantial advocacy front as well with research, straight-ahead efficiency of prewar Modernism, trans - diagram supports and serves the ideal diagram, both discussion, letter writing, coalition planted to 1965 Brooklyn. cradling it and accepting building and testimony. Since Edmund Caddy, the project all the anomalous uses summer we’ve weighed in on: Japan architect (and partner in excluded from it. Society, Terminal 6 and Terminal the firm from 1968 on), Circumstantial versus 3 at JFK, Guggenheim Museum, put it bluntly: “There is too platonic is signaled over Look Building, 23 , much style in contempo - and over again in the University Village (aka Silver rary architecture…The Roosevelt School’s design. Towers) and Manufacturers Hanover objective in designing a While the secondary pro - Trust (interior). school is to concentrate gram elements sprawl Our tours continue to educate 1 on a solid solution.” across the site, often run - broad audiences about the signifi - Caddy’s “solid solution” ning together into a con - cance of Modern buildings in our had to account for some tinuous single-story mat, region and provide access to sites dispiriting circumstances. the classroom block is a often off limits. Following a July New York’s public schools precise, prismatic form, visit to Kahn’s Trenton Bath House, a had become the focus of “raised” off the ground by a R well-organized Fall series coordinat - E G an orgy of vandalism— I heavily glazed first floor. T ed by John Arbuckle and Kyle U R the seemingly willful fort- F The gym, cafeteria, and Johnson opened doors at Russel O like designs of the time R auditorium are framed in B Wright’s Manitoga and I.M. Pei’s M I were, in fact, exasperated K steel, allowing for various Kips Bay Plaza—as part of Open responses to the barrage of Fort-like school design was a sign of the times; Rado & Caddy long spans, changing roof House NY. In November we screened rocks aimed at every unpro - buffered their platonic classroom building with utilitarian heights, and opportunisti - a new film on Louis Sullivan at tected window. Further, the blocks for the gym, cafeteria and auditorium cally shifting bay sizes that Knoll’s New York showroom. Stay client for the Roosevelt read clearly on the exterior tuned for a new event series at School was the Board of Education’s Bureau of elevations. By contrast, the central palazzo is a relent - Knoll in 2011. Construction, which did little more than provide a stan - lessly regular concrete structure with a module that cor - Please sign up for our monthly dard program for a 3,500 student facility. Finally, the responds exactly to a single classroom, and stairs and email newsletter and visit the site was a peculiar one for a public building: a strip of services organized in rigorous symmetry. Most obviously, website often. Volunteer or make a land through the center of a block, with short street the secondary programs have frame-and-infill facades contribution so we can stay busy frontages at either end, residential backyards to the that could hardly be dumber, while the classroom block protecting our Modern architectural south and a cemetery to the north. has a revetment of finely proportioned precast concrete heritage. The Raymond & Rado office faced up to these panels to make high-end corporate architects weep with —Nina Rappaport circumstances and even managed to exploit them. In envy. In fact, these panels themselves are highly ideal - the absence of an end-user client to negotiate with, the ized: although they frame real windows, their deep NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO BECOME architects could treat the arrangement of the program modeling suppresses the actual sill and head locations in A MEMBER OF DOCOMOMO US FOR on the difficult site as a pure logic problem. They reject - favor of suggesting elegantly attenuated floor-to-ceiling 2011 ed the city’s schematic proposal to compress the whole openings. Head to the website for that as well: school into a multi-story building at one end of the lot, In practice, the Roosevelt School functioned much arguing that this complicated both structure and circula - as anticipated, with some exceptions. Rock-throwing www.docomomo-nytri.org tion. Instead, they laid out the school as a tightly packed vandals broke into the adjacent cemetery to get at the campus of low buildings and small courtyards. The gym - windows of the classroom building, and the central nasium, cafeteria, and auditorium are pushed to the courtyard was locked shut after teachers found it project - street edges, making them easily accessible for public ed even the softest noises into the surrounding rooms. continued page 8 www.docomomo-nytri.org DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 3 VIGNELLI CENTER FOR DESIGN STUDIES Contri- OPENS AT RIT The path is a gently rising curve that terminates in a work—the more solid brick cube portion of the new butors rose bush at the entrance to the gridded facade of the building contains the irreplaceable archive collections, new building at Rochester Institute of Technology—the while the transparent glass cube is to be used for “inter - Vignelli Center for Design Studies. Not a bad visual pretive purposes,” such as changing exhibits and classes. metaphor for Lella and Massimo Vignelli, whose collabo - The Vignellis came to the U.S. from Milan in the • John Arbuckle serves on both rative achievements in graphic design, corporate identity, late 1950s, Lella as an architectural fellow at MIT, later the DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State and product design, interior design and exhibition design are working at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Massimo as DOCOMOMO US boards. He has led archived within. Geometry is always their base, to which founder of Unimark International. In 1971 Lella joined marketing and business develop - they add refinement of forms, mellow curves and practi - with Massimo to found Vignelli Associates, a creative ment at two prominent Modernist cal direction. Milan/New York studio. The practice exemplifies their architecture firms. Currently, he is The Vignelli Center for Design Studies is a place for belief that the principles of design, once absorbed, can Business Development Manager for design education, research and critical examination. be applied to any project—“spoons or cities” as Massimo Hoffmann Architects in New York . The key concept in all areas of the Center’s work is the has said. • Meredith Arms Bzdak , PhD, is rigorous reflection of Modernism and the ongoing Massimo is credited with bringing the grid to an architectural historian. She is a discourse of Modernism. Speaking at the September 16 American graphic design. To the rigid Swiss grid system senior associate at Farewell Mills dedication, Massimo Vignelli set sights on the Center as appearing in Graphis and Neue Graphik in the late Gatsch Architects, LLC and adjunct “a global hub” for the 17,000 students of Rochester 1950s he added elements of surprise and scale; witty faculty in the art history department Institute of Technology (RIT) and the world beyond. elements enlivened the complex material he designed at Rutgers University. She repre - Scholars have long recognized the Cary Graphic Design for the U.S. government. The grid for the National Park sents New Jersey on the DOCOMO - Archive at RIT, which holds rare, printed material from Service became no less style setting than his grid for the MO NY/Tri-State board. • John as early as the Gutenberg era. Since 1984 professor lively New York Herald . Morris Dixon, FAIA, is the former Roger Remington has built a unique archive of contem - The Center for Design Studies (designed by HBT chief editor of Progressive Architecture porary printed work, acquiring the output of mid-century Architects, Pittsford, NY in collaboration with the Vignellis) and now writes for magazines such American graphic pioneers such as Lester Beall, Will is seen primarily as a resource for students who are as Architect , Architectural Record , Burtin, Bill Golden, Leo Lionni and dozens more. encouraged to follow the Vignelli emphasis on history, Competitions , and Oculus . He is theory, and criticism as the educational foundation for the Connecticut resident on the all design careers. The Center is an extension of RIT’s DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State Board. School of Design in the College of Imaging Arts and • Kimbro Frutiger is an architect in Sciences. The College’s programs reference pioneer New York City. • John Kriskiewicz industries of Rochester—Eastman Kodak and Xerox—as is an architectural historian, over- well as craft studies in glass, wood, metal and ceramics. employed adjunct professor and With the opening of the Vignelli Center for Design chronicler of the under-appreciated Studies, RIT anticipates adding new Masters programs in mid-century modern vernacular of Design Studies and in Architecture—and an invigorated NYC. • Gwen North Reiss is a poet Modernism across its design programs. and freelance writer. She has writen —Virginia Smith about architecture and preservation and works part time at the Glass House doing interviews, blogs and educational outreach projects. • Kathleen Randall is an architec - tural historian and DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State board member who works at the Guttmacher Institute and in the off hours, on DOCOMOMO stuff—since 1996. • Nina Rappaport H is an architectural historian, critic, T I M curator and educator. She is the S A I N publications director at Yale School I G R I of Architecture, and author of Support V and Resist, Structural Engineers and Design Innovation . • Virginia Smith This core archive is now enriched by the vast range S is a professor emerita of art at of the Vignellis’ professional work: signage (1972 NYC E T A I

Baruch College of CUNY and the subway map), corporate identity programs (Knoll, C O S author of two books on graphic S Stendig), packaging (Bloomingdales, Barney’s), book A I L design: The Funny Little Man and L

design (Rizzoli, Penguin), publications ( Oppositions, E N G Forms in Modernsim: A Visual Set . Architectural Record ), interior design, exhibition design I V (the Louvre, Corning Glass), products (Heller dinnerware, Vignelli Associates designed the corporate identity for major Arteluce lamps), furniture (Poltronova). As an application companies. In 1972 the firm designed the space for the of ‘appropriateness’—a guiding principle of the Vignellis’ Knoll exhibition at the Louvre. DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 4 www.docomomo-nytri.org LOUIS I. KAHN’S TRENTON BATH HOUSE AND DAY CAMP RESTORED On July 28, DOCOMOMO New York/ and National Registers in 1984, prior views of the sky and trees. pavilions have been repaired. Tri-State helped sponsor a press tour to having reached 50 years of age, The Day Camp pavilions, like the The project team also studied of Louis I. Kahn’s Trenton Bath House reflecting their high level of signifi - Bath House, were built using relatively Kahn’s plans closely in designing a and Day Camp (completed in 1955 cance within Kahn’s portfolio as standard, inexpensive materials. The new, free-standing Snack Bar, decora - and 1957 respectively) in Ewing, NJ. well as their importance within the four rectangular pavilions are cen - tive fencing, and accessibility ramp. Approximately 40 journalists and history of the development of tered on a small courtyard, each set The Snack Bar has been sited to the friends of Modern architecture gath - Modern architecture at mid-century. at a slight angle to the next. Vertical west of the Bath House, in one of the ered to witness the ongoing restora - The Bath House is noted for its members were created with terra many locations shown by Kahn in his tion work, touring the property with spare elegance. Built of simple mate - cotta flue tiles stacked one on top of design drawings, and is separated architects from Farewell Mills Gatsch rials (concrete block, wood trusses, the other and filled with reinforced from the Bath House by a new, larger Architects, LLC and landscape and asphalt shingles) it comprises concrete. The roofs, or horizontal picnic area that accommodates architects Heritage Landscapes. five square pavilions arranged in a members, were reinforced concrete increased usage. New trees have Representatives from Mercer County Greek cross plan, four of them roofed, beams; the floors concrete slab. been planted to the south of this Two pavilions were completely open, area to establish a segment of Kahn’s while the others were either partially framing bosque. The Snack Bar was or fully enclosed with brick to house constructed of materials compatible toilet facilities and an office for the with the Bath House structure but Camp Director. does not mimic it; the roof is a wing- The restoration of the Bath House like structure supported on wood has included removal of elements not trusses that hovers over the concrete designed by Kahn but added after block walls like the pyramidal roofs of the building’s completion, including a the Bath House. The design intent “temporary” snack bar that had been was to honor the Kahn work but to appended to the south elevation. A make clear what is historic and what storage shed, fencing, and foundation is not. C

Restored Bath House with newly planted framing bosque L L , S T C E T

and Ewing Township were also on I H C hand to discuss their role in the proj - R A H

ect and answer questions. C S T

A key work within Kahn’s oeuvre, A G S L

the Bath House in particular repre - L I M

sented a new way of defining space L L E and of fusing modernism and classi - W E R A cism. It was the first building to F : S O

reflect Kahn’s distinction between T O H primary spaces (“served” spaces) and P spaces of lesser importance that pro - Kahn’s Day Camp pavilions with columns constructed of terra cotta flue tiles vided support to the served (“servant” stacked and filled with reinforced concrete spaces). The project also helped to launch the most prolific decades of Restored entrance mural plantings; reconstruction/restoration Work was completed in October, his career, during which he designed of elements designed by Kahn but and the Bath House and Day Camp such seminal works as the Richards the fifth open to the air. The roofs, later removed, including the entrance continue to serve as a recreational Medical Research Building and pyramidal in shape, rest on concrete mural and the gravel circle in the and social center for the local and Biological Research Building at the “columns” (slabs that comprise the square atrium; and upgrading of the regional population, much as they University of Pennsylvania (1957– roofs of the servant spaces) and complex to current standards, includ - have since their initial completion. 1961); the Salk Institute for appear to float freely. The void ing barrier-free accessibility, fire pro - —Meredith Arms Bzdak Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA between the base of the roof and top tection, and sanitary requirements. (1959–1965); and the Kimbell Art of the unfinished concrete block The two largest pavilions of Kahn’s For a full history of the Bath House Museum in Fort Worth, TX (1966– walls is one of the design’s most dis - Day Camp have been completely and archival photos visit: 1972). Both the Bath House and Day tinctive features, providing not only reconstructed, following thorough www.kahntrentonbathhouse.org Camp were listed on the New Jersey air but also filtered light and framed documentation, and the two smaller www.docomomo-nytri.org DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 5 GREENWICH VILLAGE CONTINUED Washington Square North mitigated the bulk of the 20- story gray glazed brick apartment block and its impact apartment buildings while on W 13th a wider twelve- on the park. Steel casement windows (since replaced) New story block is more appropriate to that street’s loft build - gave scale and texture to the façade while a curvilinear ings. Living spaces face the streets and bedrooms face entrance canopy added a piquant note. the tranquil courtyard. Rational and gracious planning, In 1950 plans were announced for the redevelopment Jersey… subdued allusions to ornament for scale, and a clear of 21 acres east of Fifth Avenue held by the Sailors’ Snug relationship between the private and the public—the Harbor charitable trust. Between 1951 and 1966 over façade expresses the size of the apartments—place 2,400 units were completed. The most innovative com - The Modern Movement in the Butterfield House among the best of postwar apartment ponent was an entire city block—30, 40 and 60 East Garden State, has, until now, been buildings in New York. Ninth Street. The project, designed by H.I. Feldman, an under-studied subject. However, Unfortunately, Butterfield House was the exception, synthesized of the best aspects of two opposing plan - with the help of a series of graduate rather than the norm in the Village. Much of what was ning ideologies: respect for the street championed by and undergraduate interns from being constructed was banal and blind to scale and con - Jane Jacobs and the light, air and greenery credo of Rutgers University’s Art History text. One positive is that these lesser buildings galvanized Le Corbusier’s tower-in-the-park planning. department who are working with the community, leading incrementally to the establish - Feldman’s urbane configuration holds the street line DOCOMOMO New York/Tri-State, the ment of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969. on busy University Place and Broadway with six-story, topic is gradually coming into focus. The postwar development beyond W 12th Street was red brick buildings incorporating ground floor retail. The Creation of a database that brings generally mixed at best. Yet there is plenty to learn from 12-story, buff brick apartment tower is approached by together basic information on prop - these early attempts at Modern contextual design and crossing through a garden from residential East Ninth erty names, original owners, original planning, as well as from the positive role of neighbor - Street, while the important cross-town shopping street architects, dates of construction, hood activists. One such example is Two Fifth Avenue. of East Eighth is reinforced by a continuous run of shops. and historic and current photos is Responding to a 1944 proposal for a block-wide building Snug Harbor’s preference for individual leases led to underway and is beginning to shed towering over the north side of Washington Square Park, piecemeal development of their properties. Such would light on the variety of modern the community forced a change of developers and archi - not be the case with the bold plans announced in 1951 buildings and landscapes that tects that resulted in a project with more contextual by Robert Moses acting as chairman of the Mayor’s populate the state. DOCOMOMO massing. As rendered in 1952 by Emery Roth and Sons, Committee on Slum Clearance for the area south of New York/Tri-State board member Harvey Wiley Corbett and Arthur C. Holden, the result is Washington Square Park. Meredith Bzdak launched the successful from a planning point of view, but perhaps too Of the many urban renewal proposals executed, two survey project with the assistance of compromised to be a great work of Modernism. The complexes are distinctly Modern and above the norm: Nina Rappaport and is now organiz - modest scale of the five-story red brick wing along Washington Square Village and University Village, both ing volunteers and overseeing its undertaken by New York University. Paul Lester Weiner progress. working with S.J. Kessler completed Washington Square New Jersey is home to work by a Village between 1956 and 1958. Wiener’s work with range of nationally and internation - Le Corbusier and José Luis Sert on a number of South ally recognized architects, among American projects is recalled in his use of vibrant glazed them Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van brick detail—cobalt blue, chrome yellow and vermillion— der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, to enliven the grey glazed brick expanse of the twin Robert Geddes, and Minoru 600-foot long, 17-story slabs carried on trusses over Yamasaki. Princeton University, Greene and Wooster Streets. Corbusian exuberance which boasts one of the country’s extends to the 30-foot-tall sculptural elements hiding best known and most architecturally mechanical and elevator equipment on the roof and the distinguished campuses, attracted vestigial pilotis that recall the liberated ground plan and nurtured many talented archi - that Corbusier advocated. The complex’s 1.5-acre garden, tectural faculty during the modern designed by Sasaki/Walker and Associates and completed period. Their legacy lives on in in 1959, was one of the first parking structure roof Princeton Borough and Princeton gardens in the country. The garden humanizes the pro - Township, as well as in more distant ject’s vast scale, but its placement on a platform over locations across the state. One of the garage unfortunately cuts it off from public view and the most significant legacies is that access. A third slab was planned but was scuttled due of Thaddeus Longstreth (1909–

D to community opposition and market conditions. E

1997), whose archives reside at the T

O Just south, University Village (aka Silver Towers, University of Pennsylvania. N S

S 1961–1966) was the University’s next urban renewal E

Longstreth, who graduated from Yale L

N intervention. Designed by I.M. Pei & Associates (James and Princeton Universities, worked U Z Ingo Freed design partner, with A. Preston Moore and C for Los Angeles architect Richard I W Theodore Amberg) University Village utilizes a dynamic E I

Neutra early in his career, assisting K S

I asymmetry of three 32-story towers set on a pinwheel with such well known projects as the R K plan and concrete grids of deep-set windows juxtaposed N H

continued next page O with smooth concrete shear walls to achieve an animated J :

S composition. There is carefully calculated harmony in the O T

O relationship of open space to the towers. Glazed entrance H P lobbies are grouped around a central greensward graced Butterfield House, William Conklin and James Rossant/ by Picasso’s Sylvette. The transition between the existing Mayer, Whittlesey & Glass, 1962

DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 6 www.docomomo-nytri.org …gets a survey

Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, CA. After moving to Princeton, he designed many residences for facul - ty and the Institute for Advanced Study, as well as authoring the Princeton Public Library, buildings for Princeton’s Hun School, and libraries in Millburn and Roxbury. Although great progress has been made, the New Jersey Modern Survey needs your help in uncover - ing the state’s “lost” modern heritage. For more information, or to tell us Sailor’s Snug Harbor Development, 30, 40, Washington Square Village, Paul Lester National Maritime Union, Curran/O’Toole about your favorite modern work, and 60 E Ninth Street, H.I. Feldman, 1954 Weiner with S.J. Kessler, 1956 –1960 Building, Albert Ledner, 1964 please send a note to our chapter’s email box: street grid and the complex seems more welcoming, more brownstone of the original 1842 church. Horizontal bands [email protected] permeable, than at Washington Square Village. At the of cast stone quatrefoils riff upon the Gothic revival para - intersection of the South Village and SoHo, the Pei project pets of the church, while vertical green terracotta mold - is an oasis of calm between two areas that have evolved, ings recall the color and form of the church’s tracery. in the intervening decades, from blighted to vibrant. The Tafel’s design is a modest, yet sophisticated amalgam complex received landmark designation in 2008. that predates the contextual movement by 30 years. Returning to W 12th, one discovers two distinctive Two avenues West on W 12th, Albert C. Ledner’s 1964 buildings by former students of Frank Lloyd Wright that Joseph Curran Building (now O’Toole Building) is worlds embody the complexity and contradiction that Robert away from the reticent Church House on genteel Fifth N E

Venturi and Denise Scott Brown would champion almost Avenue. Holland Tunnel traffic speeding down Seventh E K N

a decade after their construction. Avenue passes a structure that creates its own context. N A Edgar Tafel’s First Presbyterian Church House Built for the National Maritime Union, Ledner’s design New Jersey State Museum, (1958–1960) reflects a growing sensitivity toward archi - communicates the union’s maritime focus and its pro - GRAD partnership, 1960s tectural context and precedent. Perhaps a result of Tafel’s gressive, modernization agenda. Two expansive circular

background as a Villager and his Taliesin training, this spaces—clear spans enclosed in glass block—make up the C L L self-effacing building channels a common vernacular tra - hiring hall on the ground floor, above which four progres - , S T C

dition firmly integrated with Modern movement ideology. sively cantilevered administrative floors are stacked, E T I H

Set back from Fifth Avenue by a sizable lawn, the Church topped with executive offices overlooking a landscaped C R A

House is entered “Prairie style” perpendicularly from W roof. This self-contained program projected an air of H C S T

12th. Its dark brown Roman brick harmonizes with the modernity through its relentless whiteness and sculptural A G S

expression. Often dismissed by critics, these two very L L I

different postwar buildings on W 12th can be seen as M L L harbingers of architectural debates that continue to the E W E R

present. A F West 12th Street can be walked in a few minutes. Stockton College Campus, Its lessons in architecture and urban planning are subtle, Robert Geddes, 1971. varied and invaluable. Here, in one of New York’s most

M iconic historic districts, a cluster of Modern structures O C . embodies a deft and unique response to the trends E N

A affecting Greenwich Village in what were arguably its D N

U most transformative decades. M Y

R —John Kriskiewicz U T N E C D I M . W W W First Presbyterian Church House, Edgar Tafel, 1958 –1960

www.docomomo-nytri.org DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 7 NEW CANAAN CONTINUED FDR HIGH SCHOOL CONTINUED

Parsons House, Hugh Smallen 1964 7

Latham House, Richard Bergmann 1968 6 9 1 H

Goldberg House, Alan Goldberg 1977 C R A

Brandon House, Victor Christ-Janer 1977 M , H

Exhibitio n C R

The New Canaan Mid-Century Modern House Survey A E V I

can be seen in full online at preservationnation.org, the S S E

website for the National Trust for Historic Preservation R VERTICAL URBAN FACTORY G O

(Search on “New Canaan Survey”). Photo links and more R P / H

information about the historic multiple registry can be C

DOCOMOMO board chair Nina Rappaport S R I is guest curator of a new exhibition at the found on the Glass House Blog, which is linked to the H D I

Skyscraper Museum we think our readers website philipjohnsonglasshouse.org. V A will be interested in seeing. —editors. —Gwen North Reiss D Rado and Caddy’s smartly detailed precast concrete facade Vertical, as in multi-story, urban suggests floor-to-ceiling openings and a transparency on par with the best corporate campuses of the period. factories have been a typology for design innovation and experimenta - A more ambiguous concern was raised by the tion for engineers and architects school’s principal, who regretted that “you cannot see since the 19th century. From mills the building from the street.” Of course, this isn’t literal - in towns dependent on water power ly true, but the campus layout certainly submerges its to cities tapping steam and electric most impressive architecture within a nondescript power, the factory building type was L perimeter. On the other hand, this reticence is sort of A a place to freely explore new materi - P charming, especially since a public path through the als and structural systems and the Ford House, Gates & Ford, 1954 block allows anyone to discover how the “perfect” class - larger clear-span spaces. As a room building is nested inside the extensive infrastruc - Modern program, the rational factory ture that supports it. represented a fresh focus and the The Roosevelt School is a work of great competence, potential for design experimenta - if that word has any positive sense left. Moreover,

tion. The program meshed perfectly )

L Raymond & Rado’s design suggests that competence A P with the progressive era of scientific ( can even develop its own kind of lyricism—precisely by Y R

development and the optimism O

T elaborating that signifier of bloodless reductivism: the A coming out of mass production tech - R O functional diagram. The school’s architecture is activat - B A nologies resulting from rampant L ed both formally and conceptually by the play of inclu - Y G

capitalism. O

L sive and exclusive diagrams, encapsulating an ideal E

The verticality of the Modern A H schema within a circumstantial one. As a building, the C R urban factory, both organizationally A Roosevelt School provides not only the solid solution C I and physically, became a new L B Caddy aimed for, but also heeds his open-ended qualifi - U corporate organizational system and P cation that “…perhaps it is possible to give the client resulted in a new “spatial product,” Mills House II, Willis Mills of SMS, 1956 something far in excess of his program.” as Henri Lefebvre would observe. — Kimbro Frutiger European Modern architects 1. All quotes from “Urban School Design/The F.D.R. School” praised the early 20th-century Progressive Architecture, March 1967. American factory buildings, after visiting the grain silos and expan - sive factories made possible by new reinforced concrete frame systems designed by engineers. As documented in essays between 1911 and 1923 by Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn T

and Le Corbusier, these factories A I F came to be icons for the func - O C I R tional structures, undecorated O T S

surfaces, primary forms and O R T N

expansive glazing that the E C

Modern architects desired. E O I V A selection of these iconic I H C R

Modern factories are featured in A F “Vertical Urban Factory,” on O Y S E view at the Skyscraper Museum T R U O

continued next page C Fiat Lingotto, Rooftop Testing Track, Giacomo Matte-Trucco, Turin, 1916–1926

DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 8 www.docomomo-nytri.org through June 26. Guest curated by WHIG HALL: Nina Rappaport, the exhibition looks UNUSUAL MODERN LANDMARK RENOVATED at key examples of multi-story facto - ries in cities: Henry Ford’s Highland One of the Modernist landmarks of Associates designed a cylindrical Whig Hall was designed at a Park in Detroit, MI (Albert Kahn, the early 1970s is not a freestanding external elevator tower, which is turning point in American architec - 1910), where the first automatic building, but a new construction linked to the building by glazed ture when renovation and adaptive assembly line was put into use; the within a Classical Revival shell. landings. Last year, a thorough reno - reuse of existing buildings began Fiat factory, Lingotto, in Turin, Italy After Whig Hall on the Princeton vation of the structure was complet - to be recognized as a premium (Giacomo Matte-Trucco, 1923), with University campus was gutted by ed by the Princeton architecture firm commission and a boost to a firm’s its iconic rooftop testing track; the fire in the late 1960s, the university Farewell Mills Gatsch. The main reputation. Gwathmey & Siegel’s Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam commissioned then-emerging archi - objectives were improved internal Corbusian composition here, literally (Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, tects Charles Gwathmey and Robert circulation, acoustics, and mechani - showcased within a historic fabric, 1927 –1930), with the experimental Siegel—not to replicate what was cal systems. The most prominent won a P/A Award as a design and glass curtain wall; Sainsbury’s lost, but to create a new structure alteration is an angular wood-clad was widely published when complet - factory in London (Owen Williams, within its marble-faced walls. The canopy over the debating hall, which ed. And it has now been respectfully 1936); Bata’s town in Zlin, resulting remarkable hybrid, com - serves to upgrade the room’s updated for many more decades of Czechoslovakia, a key factory city of pleted in 1973, has recently been acoustics, lighting, and air distribu - effective use. the Modern era (1928–1938); fully renovated. tion without violating the Modernist —John Morris Dixon Duval & Claude garment factory Built in 1837 for one of aesthetics. (Le Corbusier, 1951), exemplifying Princeton’s debating societies, Whig the architect’s brise-soleil, “modulor,” Hall had to meet additional demands exposed concrete and rooftop gar - in the 1970s. It still required a two- dens;and the Toni Dairy Factory story-high meeting hall, but the (Zurich, 1974) one of the largest building’s total floor area was to be urban factories of the time. Never increased from 7,000 to 10,000 before exhibited is Buckminster square feet for a variety of meeting Fuller’s scheme for a vertical cotton and support spaces—within the mill, designed with students from original envelope. While solving North Carolina State University in 1952. “Vertical Urban Factory” traces

Whig Hall was designed at a N O I the evolution of mass production T A

turning point in American C

U technologies and related social D architecture when renovation E R issues, focusing on the verticality of E H G

and adaptive reuse of existing I manufacturing in cities both histori - H F

buildings began to be O cally and as a model for renewed E L

C industrial development in the I

recognized as a premium N O

R future. Another key component of commission and a boost to a H C the exhibition is a series of films firm’s reputation. Whig Hall on Princeton University’s campus. 1837 meets Modern with interventions by documentary filmmaker Eric in the 1970s and 1990s. A thorough renovation was completed in 2009. Breitbart. Historical footage from this three-dimensional puzzle, the the Ford Motor Company, Van Nelle, architects took an audacious Fiat and Modern textile factories architectural step: opening up a side immerse the gallery visitor in the wall of the temple-form building to factory environment of conveyor sys - reveal their Modernist insertions. tems and manufacturing processes. While exposing its Modernist “Vertical Urban Factory” aims to intentions, the design was not based stimulate ideas for reintegrating solely on formal considerations, but industry in the urban fabric, asking responded as well to special struc - how—given advanced computer tural challenges. The original walls technologies, material innovations had long been exposed to the ele - and the demand for cleaner and ments and were no longer reliable greener industries—architects, supports for a rebuilt interior and engineers and urban designers can roof. A new frame had to be inserted, integrate industry with everyday life, N

O creating more self-sufficient and X and its footings had to be separated I D sustainable cities. H

from the footings of the old walls. C I N

The solution was a concrete frame M O P

I For more information on the exhibit: reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s N L

O www.skyscraper.org/vuf

“Dom-ino” prototype, with columns R A (in this case round, not square) set C well apart from the outer walls. The slender round columns supporting the inserted structure are promient In the 1990s, to meet accessibili - elements in Whig Hall’s main debating hall. ty standards, Gwathmey Siegel & www.docomomo-nytri.org DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 9 The Modern Library

Marimekko, which became a major War II Modern building, the Museum part of D/R’s business and identity. of Modern Art, is given ample atten - D/R arrived in the Tri-State area tion, including coverage of several in 1959 with its first store outside Howe & Lescaze schemes that pre - of Cambridge, a small satellite in ceded the executed Goodwin and at 866 Lexington Stone design. Other incontestably Avenue. In 1963, D/R occupied an Modern structures covered include entire townhouse at 53 East 57th a group of townhouses: the Lescaze Street where it remained until the House (1934), Kramer House (1935) late 1970s when the company and Norman House (1940 –1941) of closed. William Lescaze; Morris B. Sander’s I fondly recall accompanying my own house (1935); and the mother to the San Francisco store, Fairchild House (1941) by George which launched at Ghirardelli Nelson and William Hamby. The Square in 1965. She was the typical landmark Municipal Asphalt Plant customer: an educated, discerning from the end of the period (1944) Design Research: The Store and slightly unconventional woman, gets a mere mention here—and is and she loved D/R. She bought our fully covered in New York 1960 . That Brought Modern Living Eames Lounge, willow day bed, sev - New York 1930: A number of other structures to American Homes eral lamps and a vast array of Architecture and Urbanism documented in the book are debat - Marimekko items there. Between the Two World Wars ably Modern, if not doctrinaire Jane Thompson and Thompson’s sleek new Cambridge International Style. Among these Alexandra Lange flagship store opened on Brattle Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory are several designated landmarks: Chronicle Books, 2010 Street in 1969. Its use of recently Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins the New School for Social Research 192 pages, color and b/w illus. developed frameless floor-to-ceiling Rizzoli, originally published 1987, (1929–1931) by Joseph Urban, hardcover; $50 glazing allowed uninterrupted views reissued 2009 which a 25-year-old Philip Johnson of the merchandise within. The 848 pages, 600 b/w illustrations accused of producing only “the In 1953, Benjamin Thompson, one widely acclaimed building is one of hardcover; $95 illusion of a building in the of the partners who founded The only two retail projects to have been International Style”; the Rockefeller Architects Collaborative/TAC with recognized with the AIA 25 Year Be forewarned. There is little certifi - Apartments, fronting on W. 54th Walter Gropius in 1946, opened Award for enduring significance;the able Modern architecture in the and W. 55th Streets, by Harrison Design Research in Cambridge, MA. second is Thompson’s groundbreak - book New York 1930 . During the and Fouilhoux (1935–1937), thor - At that time Modern furniture and ing Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the period between the two World Wars, oughly Modern except for its uneven housewares were rare in the U.S. first “festival marketplace.” the years actually chronicled in this rooftop silhouette; the McCarren and those that existed, such as The breadth of Thompson’s book, there just wasn’t much really Pool building, by Aymar Embury and products of Knoll and Herman endeavors is remarkable. While Modern architecture in the city—or, others (1934–1936), characterized Miller, were generally available only running D/R, he practiced architec - for that matter, on the planet. But in the Guide to New York City through architects and designers. ture as a partner in TAC and from this was the period when the move - Landmarks as “in the Modern Harry Weese, Ralph Rapson and 1966 on led his own firm, Benjamin ment was gaining momentum, when Classical style, with Art Moderne others had opened design stores Thompson & Associates. From 1963 increasing numbers of design pro - flourishes,” now widely respected earlier but Design Research, or to 1967 he was also chair of the fessionals were freeing themselves and undergoing restoration. Several “D/R,” achieved far greater promi - Department of Architecture at the from the reigning eclecticism and other public swimming pool com - nence, longevity and influence. Harvard Graduate School of Design. searching for an appropriate 20th- plexes of the 1930s discussed in the Design Research offered not In addition, he opened and operated century expression. book display significant Modernist only the classic Modern furniture of several restaurants. First issued over 20 years ago, characteristics. Aalto, Mies and Breuer but items This handsome book, co- New York 1930 had become a Structures embracing beyond the restrained Modern authored by Jane Thompson, Ben’s collectors item, commanding hun - Modernism in spirit, if not detail, canon such as handcrafted and business partner and wife, is the dreds of dollars for used copies, by also include the Starrett-Lehigh brightly colored objects, folk art, and first to tell the D/R story. Its format the time Rizzoli re-issued it late in Building and Raymond Hood’s Daily boldly patterned fabrics, along with recalls a scrapbook with reproduc - 2009. Like the later Stern-team News and McGraw-Hill Buildings. custom design D/R products. Ben tions of pages from catalogs,reprints volumes New York 1960 and New One rigorously Modern structure, Thompson (1918 –2002) personally of articles, extensive period photos, York 2000 , indispensable references recently demolished, was the eight- selected every item in the store and and pages of excerpts from inter - for the city’s Modern architecture story retail/office building at 137 travelled extensively in Europe and views with dozens of the store’s post-1945, this book is gracefully East by Thompson & elsewhere to procure new merchan - alumni and friends. Those who care written, thoroughly researched, Churchill (1930), whose curtain dise. He was the first to introduce to about Modern design are likely to exhaustively footnoted, and full of walls were carried on slim tension the U.S. the appliances of Braun, welcome this homage. period illustrations. members suspended from its roof. the designs of Joe Colombo and, —John Shreve Arbuckle The city’s signature pre-World The book also gives ample most notably, the fabrics of continued

DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 10 www.docomomo-nytri.org attention to a special set of Modern of the period’s work. The Afterword , the fifth edition is Fran Leadon, an An itsy bitsy Lever House icon works that are no longer with us: in particular, paints a grim picture assistant professor of architecture at remains the marker for entries exhibits at the New York World’s Fair of the Modernism that would domi - the Spitzer School of Architecture, deemed “Modern/Postmodern.” The of 1939, where many Americans nate the postwar building: “The City College of New York, who authors acknowledge the shortcom - experienced influential design by stripped-down International Style taught with White. A team of 22 ings of their catchall style category: the likes of Alvar Aalto, Sven Modernism would mirror perfectly student research assistants was key “The breakdown of modern into Markelius, and Oscar Niemeyer. The the new brutally utilitarian concept of to pulling off the mammoth guide. component styles is a new phenom - House of Glass by the little-known urbanism.” Strange last-paragraph Someone from this collective visited enon, based on the concept that Landefeld & Hatch firm looks in the sentiment for a book that is for the and photographed each build - modern as we know it today has its book like an accurate prototype for most part evenhanded in tracing the ing/site in the guide. There are own internal history…” This is not Modern houses to come. developments of this transitional nearly 6,000 entries, over 3,000 really new or a phenomenon to the Occasionally, the book shows a period. new photos and 100 updated DOCOMOMO crowd. They go on to bias toward the picturesqueness and —John Morris Dixon maps—all in 1,055 pages. (The include a “Modern Revival style” in eclecticism that characterize most first edition was 2,600 entries, the mix. Originals and revivals 416 pages.) should never commingle. On the first flip through you’ll DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State board notice more big photos. A new two- member John Morris Dixon, FAIA, column layout repurposes the white was present at the birth of the In preparation for the 1967 AIA space of the old layout for useable Guide and shared some of the back - National Convention coming to New page real estate. The new edition ground used for this book note. York the AIA New York Chapter’s gained a “Necrology” section at the Dixon was on the AIA committee Publications Committee solicited end of each geographical section. that selected White and Willensky’s proposals for a guide to the city’s This text is in brown ink, as are proposal and helped establish the architecture. Norval White and historical images and drawings, to format. He was one of seven con - Elliot Willensky proposed a guide in differentiate both from what you tributing writers on the first edition, the Michelin mold—not only in should be looking for on the street. penning the sections on Midtown physical dimension, but in tone. Clever. The subject index and street Manhattan—14th to , (Just think of the intrigue that address index have been split into Lincoln Center and Prospect Park, could have ensued if they had two separate, superb finding aides. Brooklyn. He adds that White and adopted Michelin’s star system.) Brilliant. The glossary keeps its Willensky were more than guide - White and Willensky were given the place up front with over 200 terms. book gurus. Both were pioneers in job. In 1968 the first trade edition Upon further flipping you may leading architects to the newly was published and the institution notice that the type size used for minted, but growing preservation known as the “AIA Guide” was born. the index went miniscule, location movement, to which most architects The fifth edition remains a bountiful key numbers are close, but not had previously been indifferent, brick of a book. exactly correct on some maps and even hostile. The authors were also One of the pleasures of reading there are typos aplenty. A few build - movers and shakers in the preserva - or dipping into an AIA Guide is the ing deletions beg explanation. From tion movement—leading the picket authors’ opinionated commentary. the Modern camp, Kelly & Gruzen’s line at Penn Station in August 1962. Whether raving praise or White’s Hebrew Home for the Aged (1967) Leadon comments in his front trademark “damning with faint in Riverdale is missing after years notes that White’s research style praise,” building after building, it’s of inclusion; lesser buildings in was first person, pavement pound - delightful and quirky. As the reviewer the neighborhood held on. Victor ing, “fly-on-the-façade.” What he AIA Guide to New York City, for Curbed.com suggests, the Guide Lundy’s Church of the Resurrection was doing could not be done Fifth Edition is at its best when the authors are (1965) in East Harlem was in past through book research or online Norval White & Elliot Willensky wittily hinting at what they consider editions, but after its demolition sleuthing. And happily—for future with Fran Leadon “crapitecture.” in 2008 it did not make the editions—Leadon is of the same Oxford University Press, 2010 Much of the text from earlier Necrology. I.M. Pei’s National school. To experience architecture 1,053 pages, illustrated, editions remains, both White and Airlines Terminal at JFK is sadly you must start by standing on the paper, $39.95; hardcover $99; Willensky’s and entries from their advanced to Necrology while still street facing it. The Guide will help and Kindle select roster of contributing writers. standing. So as not to publish an you do this. Willensky coauthored the first three outright error the authors subhead - —Kathleen Randall editions. White coauthored all five. ed its entry “Death Watch.” And they He died in December 2009 at age don’t pussy foot around with labels. 83 two weeks after delivering the Elsewhere a building gets “Good as manuscript to the press. New on Dead.”

www.docomomo-nytri.org DOCOMOMO / 2010 no. 2 / 11 NEW YORK|TRI-STA TE Box 250532 New York, NY 10025 O T S E © R E L L O T S NEW YORK|TRI-STA TE A R Z E

NEWSLETTER 2010/ No. 2 The New York/Tri-State newsletter is made possible by generous financial support from Brent Harris and the volunteers below who Follow the developments at: contributed content and editing expertise for this issue. www.docomomo-nytri.org/news John Arbuckle Nina Rappaport Manufacturers Trust Company Building Meredith Arms Bzdak Rich Ray Designed by SOM and completed in 1954, the (former) Manufacturers John Morris Dixon Gwen North Reiss Trust branch bank at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street in Manhattan is Kimbro Frutiger Virginia Smith certainly one of Modern architecture’s most perfectly realized glass John Kriskiewicz boxes. On February 1, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission held a designation hearing on the building’s first and second floor Kathleen Randall, Editor/coordinator interior spaces. These spaces have been changed since their Stoller capture above, but key elements remain remarkably intact and are Comments, articles and news items are welcome for future issues. long overdue for landmark protection. email: [email protected]