AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND ARCHITECTURE
February 1938
Kenneth Kingsley Stowell [Editor]
Kenneth Kingsley Stowell [Editor]: AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND ARCHITECTURE. New York: Hearst Magazines, February 1938 [Vol. CLII No. 2666]. Original edition. Quarto. Thick perfect-bound photographically printed wrappers. 114 pp. Adverts. Illustrated throughout with drawings and photographic reproductions. Cover photograph by Robert Imandt. Spine ends lightly worn, and wrappers lightly rubbed, but a very good or better copy.
8.75 x 12 perfect-bound magazine with 114 pages illustrated throughout with drawings and photographic reproductions and period trade advertisements showcasing the Architectural and Industrial Design of the American Streamline Moderne Machine Age aesthetic and the rise of the International Style in the United States.
Contents include:
- Frontispiece: Collage By Herbert Matter. A full page, 2-color information graphic utilizing photography, charts and typography reminescent of later work with Ray and Charles Eames and Arts and Architecture magazine.
- A Way Out Of The Housing Confusion: Walter Gropius. Two page essay with facsimile signature.
- Central Mall Building, Jacob Riis Park, New York City: Frank Wallis and Aymar Embury II.
- Dam and Power House, Norris Tennessee: Roland Wank for the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]: 10 pages of photographs and plans.
- Rainbow Lounge, Hotel Syracuse, Syracuse, New York: Paul Hebner.
- Ski Station and Aerial Railway, Innsbruck, Austria: Eduard Senn-Glidtstein, Franz Baumann.
- Badger Pass Ski Lodge, Yosemite National Park: Eldrige T. Spencer.
- House In Miami, Florida: L. Murray Dixon.
- Hillside House In Benton Harbor, Michigan: Pasquale Iannelli.
- Weekend House In Palm Springs: Harold G. Spielman.
- Portfolio: The Mansion, Mount Vernon, Virginia. Includes A Double Fold-Out.
- Design Details: Partitions. Work by Richard Neutra, Jean Royere, Joseph Aronson, Marcel Breuer, F. R. S. Yorke, C. C. Briggs, Geoffrey Platt, Beatty & Stang, Mies Van Der Rohe, Hobart Plunkett, and Gilmer Black.
- Automatic Heating and Air Conditioning: Graham Ford
- Departments include Trends, Books, Time-Saver Standards, Technical Digest, Techniques and more.
The Architectural and Building Press journal THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT was assimilated by Hearst Magazines in 1936 with the expanded title AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND ARCHITECTURE. In June 1936 the editiorial focus shifted away from the building trades and the dominance of the clubbish good old boy network of East Coast traditionalism and started to cover the rising influence of both homegrown and European modernism on the American scene. This shift predated the seismic arrival of Walter Gropius as the Head of the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the Spring of 1937. Visually the magazine incorporated many tenets of the New Typography -- featuring asymmetric composition, bold subheads and use of Charles Coiner's Eagle Bold font, as well as gorgeous full-page photography that took full advantage of the engraving and press capabilities of the Hearst Publishing Empire.
American industrial, cultural and educational ambassadors were eager to embrace the refugees fleeing the coming storm in Europe. Joseph Hudnut invited Walter Gropius to join the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Association of Arts and Industries financed the New Bauahuas in Chicago under Moholy-Nagy, Josef and Anni Albers helped developed the experimental teachings at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, Mies van der Rohe assumed leadership of the Architecture program at the Armour Institute, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Alfred Barr and the Museum of Modern Art hosted art, architecture and design exhibitions devoted to the Bauhaus ideas.
The underlying idea Bauhaus formulated by Gropius, was to create a new unity of crafts, art and technology. The intention was to offer the right environment for the realization of the Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art]. To achieve this goal, students needed a school with an interdisciplinary and international orientation. The Bauhaus curriculum offered a unique combination of research, teaching and practice that was unequalled by rival academies and schools of applied art. This educational paradigm was widely embraced by institutions in the United States trying to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design is widely regarded as the cradle of American modern architecture. Professor Joseph Hudnut created the GSD by uniting the three formerly separate programs of architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning in 1935. He got rid of antique statuary, replaced mullioned windows with plate glass, and hired Walter Gropius to head the architecture program.
During his tenure at Harvard—from 1937 to 1952—Gropius oversaw the end of the academic French Beaux-Arts method of educating architects. Gropius’s philosophy placed an emphasis on industrial materials and technology, functionality, collaboration among different professions, and a complete rejection of historical precedent.
Assisted by Bauhaus colleague Marcel Breuer, Gropius educated a generation of architects who radically altered the landscape of postwar America, including Edward Larrabee Barnes, Garrett Eckbo, Lawrence Halprin, Dan Kiley, Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes, I.M. Pei, Paul Rudolph, Edward Durell Stone, and many others.
Born and educated in Germany, Walter Gropius (Germany, 1883 – 1969) belongs to the select group of architects that massively influenced the international development of modern architecture. As the founding director of the Bauhaus, Gropius made inestimable contributions to his field, to the point that knowing his work is crucial to understanding Modernism. His early buildings, such Fagus Boot-Last Factory and the Bauhaus Building in Dessau, with their use of glass and industrial features, are still indispensable points of reference. After his emigration to the United States, he influenced the education of architects there and became, along with Mies van der Rohe, a leading proponent of the International Style.
Herbert Matter (Switzerland, 1907 – 1983) studied with Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant at the Académie Moderne in Paris in the late 1920s before returning to Switzerland to design a series of Swiss travel posters which illustrate his signature photomontage technique. When he arrived in the United States in 1936 his first clients were the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the publisher Condé Nast. Other clients included the Guggenheim Museum (1958–1968), Knoll Furniture (1946–1966), and the New Haven Railroad (1954). During this time Matter became a tenured professor at Yale and helped to shape the university’s photography and graphic design program (1952–1976). Matter’s advanced techniques in graphic design and photography became part of a new visual narrative that began in the 1930s, which have since evolved into familiar design idioms such as overprinting—where an image extends beyond the frame—and the bold use of color, size, and placement in typography. Such techniques often characterize both pre-war European Modernism and the post-war expression of that movement in the United States.
"Herbert's background is fascinating and enviable," said Paul Rand. "He was surrounded by good graphics and learned from the best." Therefore, it is no wonder that the famed posters designed for the Swiss Tourist Office soon after his return had the beauty and intensity of Cassandre and the geometric perfection of Corbu, wed to a very distinctive personal vision.
In 1936, Matter was offered roundtrip passage to the United States as payment for his work with a Swiss ballet troupe. He spoke no English, yet traveled across the United States. When the tour was over, he decided to remain in New York. At the urging of a friend who worked at the Museum of Modern Art, Matter went to see Alexey Brodovitch, who had been collecting the Swiss travel posters (two of which were hanging on Brodovitch's studio wall). Matter soon began taking photographs for Harper's Bazaar and Saks Fifth Avenue. Later, he affiliated himself with a photographic studio, "Studio Associates," located near the Condeé Nast offices, where he produced covers and inside spreads for Vogue.
During World War II, Matter made striking posters for Container Corporation of America. In 1944, he became the design consultant at Knoll, molding its graphic identity for over 12 years. As Alvin Eisenman, head of the Design Department at Yale and long-time friend, points out: "Herbert had a strong feeling for minute details, and this was exemplified by the distinguished typography he did for the Knoll catalogues."
In 1952, he was asked by Eisenman to join the Yale faculty as professor of photography and graphic design. "He was a marvelous teacher," says Eisenman. "His roster of students included some of the most important names in the field today." At Yale, he tried his hand at architecture, designing studio space in buildings designed by Louis Kahn and Paul Rudolf. "He was good at everything he tried to do," continues Eisenman. In 1954, he was commissioned to create the corporate identity for the New Haven Railroad. The ubiquitous "NH" logo, with its elongated serifs, was one of the most identifiable symbols in America.