McCALL’S BOOK OF MODERN HOUSES
Mary Davis Gillies
Mary Davis Gillies: McCALL’S BOOK OF MODERN HOUSES. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951. First edition. Small Folio. Gray fabricoid titled in blue. Photo illustrated dust jacket. Blue end sheets. 192 pp. Profiles of 29 modern houses, fully illustrated with 100 color and 30 black and white photographs, floor plans, elevations and model views. An exceptionally well-preserved example: a fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Rare thus.
10.25 x 13.125 hardcover book with 192 pages profiling 29 modern residences, featuring 100 color photographs as well as floor plans and other illustrations that bring these projects to life in a way not commonly found in the typical mid-century housing conspectus. “29 modern houses by prominent American architects including complete floor plans, elevations. Illustrated text covers all phases of planning, financing, building, landscaping.”
Features residential design work by Gregory Ain; Chiarelli & Kirk; Gardner N. Dailey; J. R. Davidson; William Friedman, Hilde Reiss, Malcolm E. Lein (Walker Art Center); Wiltshire & Fisher; John Funk; Gruys & McConville; William Hamby (c/o Raymond Loewy Associates); E. R. Humrich; E. H. & M. K. Hunter; Huson Jackson; Katz-Waisman-Blumenkranz-Stein-Weber; George Fred Keck; Carl Koch; Fred & Lois Langhorst; Schott & Deshon; Sherwood, Mills, Smith; Victor Steinbrueck; Hugh Stubbins, Jr.; Paul Thiry, Twitchell & Rudolph; and L. Morgan Yost.
Highlights include a ten-page color study of the first functional modern homes built by an American museum: the Idea House II, built by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1947. The house was conceived and built during an extreme housing shortage brought on by the Great Depression and exacerbated by the Second World War. Unlike commercial model homes of this period, this house was designed by architects retained by the Walker, with furnishings and home products selected by the curatorial staff. Rather than product placement, the purpose of the exhibitions was to promote awareness and appreciation of modern home design by presenting the houses as source material for visitors' own potential building projects: literal houses of ideas.
Includes photography by Robert Damora, Hedrich-Blessing Studio, F. S. Lincoln, Julius Shulman, Ezra Stoller, Roger Sturtevant and others.