BUILT IN USA: POST-WAR ARCHITECTURE
Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Arthur Drexler, Philip Johnson [Foreword]
Alvin Lustig [Designer]
Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Arthur Drexler, Philip Johnson [Foreward]: BUILT IN USA: POST-WAR ARCHITECTURE. New York: MoMA/ Simon & Schuster, 1952. First edition. Quarto. White cloth stamped in black. Printed dust jacket. 128 pp. 190 photographs and diagrams. Color frontis. Sensitive book design and typography by Alvin Lustig. Front free endpaper faintly offset. Exceptionally well-preserved: a fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
7.5 x 10 hardcover book with 128 pages and 190 photos and diagrams showcasing 43 of the premier Postwar American architectural structures.
“The battle of modern architecture has long been won. Twenty years ago the Museum [of Modern Art] was in the thick of the fight, but now our exhibitions and catalogues take part in the unending campaign described by Alfred Barr as “simply the continuous, conscientious, resolute distinction of quality from mediocrity – the discovery and proclamation of excellence.”– Philip Johnson, from his preface
Each project occupies a two-page spread of large photograph, plans, smaller images, and a descriptive paragraph: ALVAR AALTO: MIT Dormitory; RICHARD AECK: Stadium; GREGORY AIN: Wilfong House; EDWARD BARNES: Weiner House; DONALD BARTHELME: Elementary School; PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Equitable Building; MARCEL BREUER: Vassar Dormitory & Caesar House; MARIO CORBETT: Thomsen House; GARDNER DAILEY: Red Cross Building; CHARLES EAMES: Case Study Eames House; FERGUSON: Bluebonnet Plant; WALTER GROPIUS: Harvard Gradate Center; HARWELL HAMILTON HARRIS: Johnson House; HARRISON: Pitsburgh Alcoa Building; WALLACE HARRISON: United Nations Secretariat; JOHN JOHANSEN: Johansen House; PHILIP JOHNSON: Johnson's Glass House & Hodgson House; KENNEDY: Eastgate Apartments; ERNEST KUMP: San Jose High School; MAYNARD LYNDON: Vista Elementary School; ERIC MENDELSOHN: Maimonides Health Center; LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE: Farnsworth House, Chicago Lake Shore Drive Apartments, and Boiler Plant; RICHARD NEUTRA: Tremaine House; IGOR POLEVITSKY: Heller House; EERO SAARINEN: General Motors Technical Center & Opera Shed for Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts; SCHWEIKHER: Upton House; SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL: Garden Apartments & Lever House; PAOLO SOLERI: Desert House (early Arcosanti!); RAPHAEL SORIANO: Case Study House; RALPH TWITCHELL & PAUL RUDOLPH: Siegrist House & Healy House; FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: Johnson Wax, San Francisco Morris Gift Shop, Jacobs House, and Friedman House; LLOYD WRIGHT: Wayfarers' Chapel; JOHN YEON: Visitors Information Center in Portland.
From a MoMA press release: “Forty-three buildings selected by the Museum of Modern Art as the most significant examples of modern architecture built in this country since 1945 will be shown in models, photo-murals and 3-dimensional color slides in the exhibition BUILT IN U.S.A.: POST-WAR ARCHITECTURE, which will be on view in the third floor galleries of the Museum, 11 West 53 Street, from January 21 through March l5.
“As a permanent record of the Museum’s first report on American architecture since its exhibition "Built In U.S.A." held in I944, a128-page book with 190 photographs of the buildings in the show will be published at the same time. The book was edited by Henry-Russell Hitchcock of Smith College and Arthur Drexler, Curator of the Museum’s Department of Architecture and Design. Philip C. Johnson, Director of the Department, has written a preface to the book.
“The buildings, chosen for their importance in the story of American architecture and for their quality as individual works of art were designed by 32 architects and are located in 14 different states. Nineteen private houses are included along with 6 office buildings, 5 apartment houses and dormitories, 4 industrial plants, 4 school buildings, a stadium, a hospital, a music center, a retail store and a chapel.
“The introductory text to the exhibition states that three factors are responsible for what the Museum characterizes as a great post-war flowering of architecture, and for the fact that the battle for modern architecture has long been won. First, a generation of architects trained in schools that no longer teach the traditional styles has now begun to practice. Second, architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, whose work was first exhibited by the Museum 20 years ago, have recently been finding commissions worthy of their talents. Third, government and industry - most notably Americans giant corporations - have become patrons of modern architecture.
“Many of the Museum's third floor galleries have been rearranged for the exhibition; all interior walls have been replaced with open partitions of studs painted white. The entrance hall is dominated by a photo-mural of Frank Lloyd Wright's Laboratory designed for the Johnson Wax Company in Racine, Wisconsin. Ten-foot-high photomurals in this section show Mies van der Rohe's new apartment buildings at 860 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago; the United Nations Secretariat designed by Wallace K. Harrison with a board of foreign consultants; Lever House in New York City, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and the General Motors Teohnical Center in Detroit, designed by Saarinen, Saarinen and Associates.
“On two sides of this high central hall the ceiling of the galleries has been lowered and the space divided by the open stud partitions. Here each building is shown in a large photograph, in 3-dimensional color slides and in 11 instances by scale models. An explanatory wall label illustrated with small photographs and plans accompanies each photographic enlargement exhibited.
“Mr. Johnson, Director of the Museum's Department of Architecture and Design, says in his preface: “... everyone cannot help but agree that the buildings included show a startling development compared with the material of the Museum's 1944 exhibition; and if we think back twenty years to the 1932 exhibition at the Museum the change is more striding.
“The International Style which Henry-Russell Hitchcock's book of 1932 heralded has ripened, spread and been absorbed by the wide stream of historical progress. Every building in this book would look different if it had not been for the International Style, yet few buildings today recall the rigorous patterns of those days--the cubic boxes with asymmetric window arrangements of the twenties.
“The method of selecting the buildings to be included in the exhibition and book is new in the Department's work, as Mr. Johnson also points out in his preface: “In order to make the final selections as representative as possible of current expert opinion the Museum appointed an Advisory Committee to sharpen the specific flavor of the selection, we felt that the final responsibility of choice should rest with one judge. For that judge we chose Professor Henry-Russell Hitchcock of Smith College, the leading historian of modern architecture in this country.”