AMERICA CAN'T HAVE HOUSING
Carol Aronovici [Editor]
[HOUSING] Carol Aronovici [Editor]: AMERICA CAN'T HAVE HOUSING. New York: Museum of Modern Art, Committee on the Housing Exhibition [1934]. First edition. Quarto. Side-stitched letterpressed wrappers. 78 pp. Essays. Wrappers lightly soiled, but a very good copy.
7.5 x 10 softcover book with a cover image of the Siemensstadt Housing Development, Berlin, by Walter Gropius. Seventeen essays by Walter Gropius, Catherine Bauer, Lewis Mumford, Harry Chapman, Walter Behrendt, Alberto Sartoris, Henry Wright and others. Accompanied an exhibition at the museum of Modern Art from June - September 1934.
“In 1934, the museum exhibited America Can't Have Housing aimed at 'show[ing] why America needs housing and yet is so backward at filling this need.' That was several architectural lifetimes ago and the specifics of the housing problem were different, but it seems much of the conversation was the same. In the museum's Bulletin, Carol Aronovici (chairman of the committee responsible for that exhibition) refers to the rationalized plans of Modernism when he writes, "Impatient with the confusion of our cities and unable to find a solution which would provide for the essential human needs, many of these innovators have presented radical schemes for city planning as fantastic as they are inconsistent with the structure of modern society.' He continues, 'This is perhaps not the fault of these innovators, but rather of the social order under which our cities have grown up . . . We cannot hope to rebuild our cities without changing our social and economic structure . . ."
“From Tuesday, October 16, through Wednesday, November 7, three floors of the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, will be devoted to the most comprehensive and elaborate housing exhibit ever held in this country. This will be the Housing Exhibition of the City of New York, sponsored by the New York City Housing Authority, Columbia University Orientation Study, Lavanburg Foundation, the Housing Section of the Welfare Council, and the Museum of Modern Art.
“For clarity and emphasis, part of the exhibition will be arranged in huge wall panels in numbered sequence, like the pages of a big book spread out along the walls of the Museum. The panels will outline by means of photomurals and a few graphic words the necessity for slum clearance, the obstacles in the way, and the possibilities of achieving modern, satisfactory low-cost housing not only in New York but all over the country.
“The Exhibition will also include models of housing projects and developments both here and abroad, and two full sized apartments. One of these will be a three-room flat lifted almost intact, furniture and all, from an old-law tenement house recently demolished. The entire length of the three-room flat is twenty-eight feet and its width thirteen feet. Only one room has windows on an outside court. A single window in each of the other rooms opens on a dark, airless shaft. In this actual apartment, known as a "dumb-bell" because of its shape, eight persons lived until recently. It will be rebuilt in the Museum— and furnished with the furniture of its last occupants—exactly as it was in the slum tenement where for over fifty years it has housed unfortunate tenants.
“There are still 530,000 similar flats in the old-law tenement houses of New York today. Four persons would be a low aver- age to each of these flats, which would indicate that about two million of the population of New York still liver in homes that more than thirty years ago were classified by law as unfit for human habitation.
“As a contract to the old-law tenement flat, a modern, low- cost apartment is being built on the third floor of the Museum. It also will consist of three rooms. It will illustrate the type of apartment that can be built in a modern housing development to rent for little if any more than the old "dumb-bell" flat. It will be furnished in modern style, with the simple but attractive furnishings that can be bought today in large department or furniture stores at very low cost.
“In commenting on an exhibition of slum clearance and low- cost housing in an art museum, Mr. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Director of the Museum, said: "Architecture has been one of this Museum's important fields of activity since its large International Exhibition of Modern Architecture which was held in 1933 and has since been shown in so many different cities through- out the country. An important part of that exhibition was the housing section which included projects and completed developments both here and in Europe. That the artistic or architectural side of housing is important is demonstrated by the very bad architecture which has been applied to most of the housing already constructed in this country. The Museum is, of course, most interested in the architectural aspect of the housing problem."
“The Committee for the Exhibition is composed of Langdon Post, Honorary Chairman, Dr. Carol Aronovici, Chairman, Abraham Goldfeld, Vice-Chairman, Mrs. Alice Flexner Rothblatt, Secretary, Edward Conti, Arthur C. Holden, Louis E. Jallade, Philip Johnson, Dr. Samuel Joseph, John J. Klaber, Miss Loula D. Lasker, G. Lyman Paine, Jr., Mrs. Joseph M. Proskauer, Evart Routzahn, Clarence S. Stein, Miss Harriet T. Townsend. The Exhibition is being held under the supervision of Philip Johnson, Chairman of the Architecture Department of the Museum, and directed by G. Lyman Paine, Jr., of the New York City Housing Authority.
“Individual sponsors of the Exhibition include Dr. Frederick L. Ackerman, Dr. P. Anderson, Alexander M. Bing, Paul Blanchard, Dr. Carol Boettiger, Mrs. Sidney Borg, Charles C. Burlingham, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Harold S. Buttenheim, Dr. Harold G. Campbell, Prof. E. E. Chaddock, Dr. Harry Chase, Chancellor, Richard S. Childs, Dr. Edward T. Devine, Mrs. Louis I. Dublin, Andrew Eken, John L. Elliott, Prof. Richard T. Ely, Dr. James Ford, Commissioner S. S. Goldwater, William Greene, Peter Grimm, Mrs. Helen Hanning, Prof. Ferner Hegemann, Prof. Patricia S. Hill, Commissioner William Hobson, Thomas Holden, Dean Joseph Hudnut, Raymond Ingersoll, Stanley M. Isaacs, Darwin R. James, Alvin Johnson, John A. Kingsbury, Robert Kohn, Governor and Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, Orrin C. Lester, Everett D. Martin, Miss Cornelia E. Marshall, Dr. Howard S. Relish, Chas. Meyer, Mrs. Rosalie Manning, Rev. Edward Roberts Prof, Harry Overstreet, Church Osborn, Hon. Frances Perkins, Joseph A. Palma, I.N. Phelps-Stokes, Commissioner Langdon W. Post, Hon. Joseph M. Proskauer, Lavson.Purdy, Aaron Rabinowitz, Dr. John L. Rice, Victor F. Ridder, Ira S. Robbins, Frederic B. Robinson, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Mrs. R.H. Shreve, Mrs. Mary K. Simkhovitch, Hon. Alfred E. Smith, Roger W. Straus, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Herbert Bayard Swope, Miss Mary Van Kleeck, B. Charney Vladeck, Miss Lillian Wald, Ralph T. Walker, Dr. E.E, Wood, Mrs. Julius C. Bernheim, Mrs. James P. Warbasse, Robert P. Lane, Mrs. Hansom S. Hooker.
“In connection with the Exhibition the Museum will publish a book America Can't Have Housing, with a foroword by Dr. Aronovici and articles by the following authorities: Charles Ascher, Catherine Bauer, Walter Curt Behrendt, Hans Bernoulli, Harry Chapman, Abraham Groldfeld, Walter Gropius, Werner Hegeman, Robert Kohn, Lewis Mumford, Robinson Newcomb, Alberto Sartoris, Sir Raymond Unwin, Edith Elmer Wood, Henry Wright. The articles will cover practically every phase of housing both in this country and in Europe. Copies may be ordered directly from The Museum of Modern Art. —Museum of Modern Art Press Release, October 11, 1934