NATIONAL REGISTER MULTIPLE PROPERTY DOCUMENTATION FORM Subdivisions and Architecture Planned and Designed by Charles M. Goodman Associates in Montgomery County, Maryland Elizabeth Jo Lampl, Architectural Historian and Consultant Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning, Historic Preservation Section January 2004 NPS Form 10-900-b OMB No. 1024-0018 (Sept 2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form _x___ New Submission ____ Amended Submission =============================================================================== A. Name of Multiple Property Listing =============================================================================== Subdivisions and Architecture Planned and Designed by Charles M. Goodman Associates in Montgomery County, Maryland =============================================================================== B. Associated Historic Contexts =============================================================================== (Name each associated historic context, identifying theme, geographical area, and chronological period for each.) 1. Charles M. Goodman: Biographical Sketch, Architecture, and Land Planning, 1906-1992. 2. Subdivision Design in Suburban Washington, 1945-1975. 3. Modern Single-Family Architecture in Suburban Washington, 1945-1975. ============================================================================== C. Form Prepared by ============================================================================== name/title Elizabeth Jo Lampl, Architectural Historian, Consultant to the Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning, Historic Preservation Section_________________________________ street & number _8787 Georgia Avenue, telephone 301-563-3400 city or town _ Silver Spring, MD, 20910_____________state MD zip code 20816 =============================================================================== D. Certification =============================================================================== As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this documentation form meets the National Register documentation standards and sets forth requirements for the listing of related properties consistent with the National Register criteria. This submission meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60 and the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation. (___ See continuation sheet for additional comments.) ______________________________________________ ____________________ Signature and title of certifying official Date ______________________________________________ State or Federal Agency or Tribal government NPS Form 10-900-b OMB No. 1024-0018 (Sept 2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I hereby certify that this multiple property documentation form has been approved by the National Register as a basis for evaluating related properties for listing in the National Register. _______________________________________________ ___________________ Signature of the Keeper Date of Action =============================================================================== Table of Contents for Written Narrative =============================================================================== Provide the following information on continuation sheets. Cite the letter and the title before each section of the narrative. Assign page numbers according to the instructions for continuation sheets in How to Complete the Multiple Property Documentation Form (National Register Bulletin 16B). Fill in page numbers for each section in the space below. Page Numbers E. Statement of Historic Contexts (If more E, 1-101 [1-101] than one historic context is documented, present them in sequential order.) F. Associated Property Types (Provide F, 1-66 [102-167] description, significance, and registration requirements.) G. Geographical Data G, 1 [168] H. Summary of Identification and Evaluation H, 1-3 [169-171] Methods (Discuss the methods used in developing the multiple property listing.) I. Major Bibliographical References (List major I, 1-10 [172-181] written works and primary location of additional documentation: State Historic Preservation Office, other State agency, Federal agency, local government, university, or other, specifying repository.) =============================================================================== Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.). Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 120 hours per response including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Chief, Administrative Services Division, National Park Service, P.0. Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127; and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reductions Project (1024-0018), Washington, DC 20503. NPS Form 10-900-b OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 (Sept 2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET Section number E Page 1 SUBDIVISIONS AND ARCHITECTURE PLANNED AND DESIGNED BY CHARLES M. GOODMAN ASSOCIATES IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND Name of Multiple Property Listing _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ E. STATEMENT OF HISTORIC CONTEXTS INTRODUCTION TO THE MULTIPLE PROPERTY NOMINATION Charles M. Goodman had the training, vision, and artistic genius to become Washington’s foremost modernist architect working in single-family housing in the 1950s. Goodman was the first of several Washington-area architects working in the Modern idiom in the post-World War II era to apply the style and its tenets in a significant way from architectural and land planning perspectives.1 While Goodman worked in both the custom and builder sectors of residential architecture, he became most well known for his builder housing. Charles M. Goodman and his small firm of associated architects and an engineer transformed the concept of suburban living in metropolitan Washington after the Second World War. That transformation was described by some housing theorists quite starkly as a revolution, for Goodman provided people with essentially glass houses that removed the barrier between interior and exterior. Katherine Morrow Ford and Thomas Creighton, in their book, The American House Today, described it this way: “. a quiet revolution has taken place in residential design in the last decade which deserves to be documented rather fully. Revolution, not evolution, because the wrench has been violent, if usually polite. it has swept away the need for thinking in static terms of tightly enclosed, inward-looking rooms; and it has substituted the privilege of using free, open, outward-looking space. This has implied both a technical and an emotional readjustment.”2 At least one of Goodman’s peers, Arthur Keyes, considered him the most “elegant” of Washington’s builder architects.3 This label was given because Goodman managed to incorporate the largest amount of glass into his wall. Despite the urbanity of his architectural expression, Goodman still produced builder houses that felt - and still feel – humble, vernacular, and suited to people of artistic inclination. Goodman’s houses were utterly distinctive from those around them and varied from one another. They were joined with the land in a way that was unprecedented for the market they were serving. Contrasting greatly with the image of suburbia as represented by Levittown, New York, Goodman succeeded in creating affordable housing that was not uniform, on land that was not flat, and for people who could not be stereotyped. Goodman’s Modern Houses Goodman’s housing must be seen as part of the Modern Movement in architecture that took place during the 20th century, especially as it was created in the United States in the postwar period. His work should be seen alongside that not only of his Washington peers (discussed in Context 3) but of other Modern pioneers like Anshen & Allen and A. Quincy Jones who designed thousands of homes for California builder Joseph Eichler; Carl Koch who developed a successful prefabricated dwelling known as the “Tech-built” home; William Wurster, the main fashioner of Modern homes in the San Francisco Bay area; Clifford May, who reinvented Spanish Colonial into a Modern house in southern California; and Victor Lundy and Paul Rudolph who created the progressive works of the “Sarasota School.” When discussing Goodman’s structures within this historical context, his works, like those of the architects mentioned above, are identified as part of the Modern Movement. But it was not always this way, at least in the NPS Form 10-900-b OMB Approval