MODERN ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
[Architecture 1918-1928: from the Novembergruppe
to the C.I.A.M. / (Functionalism and Expressionism) /
Proceedings / May 4 and 5, 1962]
Henry-Russell Hitchcock [Chairman], George R. Collins, Adolf K. Placzek [preface]: MODERN ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM / COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY [Architecture 1918-1928: from the Novembergruppe to the C.I.A.M. / (Functionalism and Expressionism) / Proceedings/ May 4 and 5, 1962]. [New York]: Distributed by the Dept. of Art History and Archaeology and the Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, 1963. Photo illustrated cover. 69 typescript leaves. A Ex-University Library copy 3-ring bound into plain marbled board wrappers. Withdrawn stamps early and late, but a very clean copy of this important Modernist document.
8.5 x 11 typescript with cover halftone of R. M. Schindler’s Lovell Beach House. 69 printed typescript pages of the proceedings of the first Modern Architecture Symposium at Columbia University in 1962. In a series of three symposia at Columbia University in the 1960s, leading scholars and critics gathered to re-examine the architecture of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s and assess its scope and significance anew. Chaired by Henry-Russell Hitchcock with the support of Philip Johnson, the Modern Architecture Symposia marked a pivotal moment in the reappraisal of early modern architecture and its historiography during the late modern period.
Fascinating unfiltered document that offers insight into the architects, ideologies, stylistic influences, and geographic variation that informed modern architectural production in the early 20th century. Additionally, the discussions it captures between symposia participants—many of whom were considered to be foremost among European and American architectural historians of the period—reveal emerging methodological debates that would reshape the dominant narrative during the late modern and postmodern period.
With contributions by Allen Brooks, Theodore M Brown, Walter Creese, Peter Collins, Philip Johnson, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., Henry Millon, Henry Russell Hitchcock, J. M. Richards, Everard Upjohn, Peter Serenyi, Bruno Zevi, Alfred H. Barr, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, John Jacobus, Mark Peisch, Robert Rosenblum, Eugene Santomasso, Peter Serenyi, R Sherwood, Suzanne Shuloff, Adolf Placzek, Vincent Scully and Robert Stern.
Terence Riley noted that the early tastemakers at MoMA understood their job was to separate “the wheat from the chaff.” Few people rose to that challenge with more vigor than Philip Johnson, the young head of the Department of Architecture and Design. Alfred Barr’s insistence on including Architecture and Design as a fully functioning department within MoMA was a radical curatorial departure, which seems only obvious today.
Philip Johnson, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and Henry-Russell Hitchcock codified their observations about modern architecture in the 1932 landmark Museum of Modern Art show "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922." The show was profoundly influential and is seen as the introduction of modern architecture and architects Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe to the American public. The exhibition was also notable for a controversy: architect Frank Lloyd Wright withdrew his entries in pique that he was not more prominently featured.
As critic Pater Blake has stated, the importance of this show in shaping American architecture in the century "cannot be overstated." Philip Johnson's 1928 visit to the Bauhaus Dessau sparked Johnson's imagination and solidified his role as a proselytizer for the European avant-garde architecture. "We were proud to be avant-gardists; we wore our enthusiasm as a badge of honor that distinguished us as culturally superior to those around us." Johnson said.
From this plateau of cultural superiority, Johnson and his MoMA collaborators Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and Henry-Russell Hitchcock eventually labeled this architecture “The International Style.” The rest is history.