Architectural Training: Penn in the 1950s with Louis Kahn

Richards Medical Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, 1965, Louis Kahn, architect.
A while ago I stumbled across this book by Herbert Bangs (1928-2010) who was the architect and principal planner for Baltimore County. Bangs had an undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins, received art training in New York and then attended Penn, earning a Master's degree in Architecture.

The book itself gets involved in matters spiritual as well as geometrical bases of aesthetics, fields largely outside my ken. What interested me was his take on architectural training in the 1950s, when modernism was at high tide and postmodernism was waiting in the wings. Two factors (among others) fueling my interest: I took first-year architectural design while an undergraduate at the University of Washington, and I later attended Penn, though in a different field.

The following quotations are from pages 37-38:

On the one hand, the rational, scientific analysis of structure and space is what is taught, while on the other the work is evaluated and graded on the basis of so-called aesthetic appeal. When I studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s, this factor of aesthetic appeal tended to dominate the proces of design, even though its existence could not be logically or scientifically justified. The studio courses were, in fact, directed largely to refining what was considered to be a subjective and individual aesthetic intuition. To the critics [assembled to evaluate student projects], a design either looked good or it looked bad, and students were supposed to learn to recognize the difference by a trial-and-error referral to their own aesthetic sensitivity.

There was, however, no theoretical discussion of "aesthetics" itself, and what it might be, or, oddly enough, of beauty either, although that was presumably what architecture was about. Neither was there any unifying vision on the part of the various critics or masters that could relate the material, utilitarian-functional aspect of our work to the mysterious aesthetic sensitivity, or even provide some simple understanding of what the aesthetic sense might be. This was not the result of negligence on the part of the instructors; I do not think they ever considered the matter, or thought it necessary to do so. They simply assumed that the direction
initially established by the Bauhaus and the "Modern masters" was the right way to go and were content to swim with the flow. We students were also remarkably incurious and did not raise the question either, although in retrospect it is apparent that the issue is vitally important, even essential, to an understanding of architecture.

The idea that the practice of architecture was primarily a scientific and technical discipline seemed, without exception, to be accepted by all of our regular faculty members. Louis Kahn, for instance, who was just beginning to acquire a name for himself at the time, took his responsibilities as a teacher seriously, and met with groups of students in the evening to talk about architecture and what it meant to him. It appeared, from what Kahn said, that even the powerful geometric forms that he intuitively sought, and that made much of his work of lasting significance, were not valid in themselves, but were accepted only if they could be logically justified in terms of some utilitarian requirement.

This analytical, rational aspect of Kahn's thinking sometimes led to dreadful results when carried to conclusion....

[Visiting critic Lucio] Costa told Kahn that what he had been asked to review was not architecture, but something deadly, and destructive of the human spirit. Two attitudes were thus seen to be opposed: the logical, scientific attitude responsible for new and daring technological forms and the older humanism that was primarily concerned with enhancing the lives of those who would inhabit the buildings. Costa's remarks were not well received by the dean and the other jurors and he did not return.

And in a sidebar on page 38:

Kahn, even then, had completed a number of famous buildings. Modest and unassuming, he was completely devoted to architecture as an art and was venerated by many of his students. When I worked on a studio project under his direction, I was disappointed to find that he encouraged a slavish imitation of his own buildings, not so much from simple egotism as from an absolute conviction that his way was the only right way.

Eliel Saarinen, Uncomfortable Modernist

Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), father of the more famous Eero (1910-61), was a modernist of sorts -- of the romantic, Art Nouveau departure from historical styles that was modernist in the almost trivial sense in that it was indeed a departure, modest though it was. Otherwise, its adherence to modernist dogma was circumstantial.

As Saarinen approached his fifties he drifted along with the evolution of Art Nouveau into Art Deco while retaining a fondness for traditional northern European and Scandinavian building forms. It was only by the late 1930s when he was around 65 that his designs became simplified and ornamentation almost disappeared. My feeling is that his heart really wasn't into modernism, but that he felt he had to comply with the New Order for professional reasons. I suppose some documentation might be found to refute my conjecture. Nevertheless, his later buildings tell me otherwise.

The Wikipedia link above contains photos of some of his important buildings. Below are views of some of those.

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Kansallismuseo (National Museum), Helsinki - 1904
Saarinen was comfortable with Finnish vernacular architecture and doubtless sympathetic to the sense of Finnish nationhood percolating during the final decades of the land's status as a Russian duchy. As befitting a national museum, it looks very Finnish. I walked past it in 2005, but didn't have time to explore it.

Main railway station, Helsinki - 1909
Another impressive structure (which I did enter) is the railway station. It's Art Nouveau, but more severe and stripped down than how the style was practiced across the Baltic in Riga, Latvia.

Pauluse Kirik (Paulus Church), Tartu - 1917
Compare this to Saarinen's 1940s churches below.

Chicago Tribune Tower competition entry - 1922
Although his design failed to win, it greatly impressed the architectural profession and led to his move to America in 1923.

Cranbrook view
In 1925 Saarinen moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit where he designed and also taught at Cranbrook. The style of the buildings shown in this photo similar to what he used in Finland, though other structures had modernist elements.

First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana - 1942

Christ Church Lutheran, Minneapolis, Minnesota - 1949
These church designs of the 1940s are modernist in their simplicity of form. But brick is used and repeated window shapes and other details create a smidgen of ornamentation that Saarinen apparently could not bear to completely abandon.

Where Do We Put the Skyline?

Here in the United States, central areas of cites tend to be zoned for high-rise office, apartment and condominium buildings. This reflects pre-zoning practices in places such as New York City where new, larger buildings replaced older structures as market conditions evolved. Zoning laws and, later, preservation rulings have tended to preserve certain older buildings, deservedly or not.

In any case, almost no really large North American city that I can think of has an extensive "old town" district comparable to what can be found in Europe. Yes, a few preserved areas exist including parts of Charleston and Savannah in the South, Boston's Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighborhoods, and Québec's district within the wall. There might be a few others, but they don't come to mind as I write this.

From what I glean from photos I randomly notice, American practice is followed in much of the developing world where skyscrapers sprout like mad. Shanghai's Bund is still recognizable, but it is encroached by a field of megastructures across the river in Pudong.

That leaves Europe which, as I noted, has some major cities with large preserved areas. But how many large European cities actually have extensive areas that are largely untouched by skyscrapers or other significant modernist structures?

[Scratches head, rubs chin] Umm. There's Copenhagen, where much of the skyline in the old part of town is as flat as the terrain. And Vienna, which has a few modernist buildings inside the Ring -- but no high-rise buildings in that area. Both of these cites do have skyscrapers. But high-rise, modernist-style buildings are not permitted in the old city centers; they are segregated in areas a few miles away.

Below are examples of cities where tall, modernist buildings are found and not found in old city centers.

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The Paris most tourists experience is the part of the City near the River Seine. The river is, of course, the low point and the ground rises to the north and south where can be found other areas that attract visitors -- Montmartre and Montparnasse. With one exception, there are no skyscrapers here. Otherwise, the only seriously large modernist building is the Centre Pompidou, the museum of modernist art. Skyscrapers are found in the La Défense district to the west, as can be seen in this photo.

That one exception is the building from which someone probably took the top photo. It's the Tour Montparnasse, completed in 1969, and clearly seen in the photo above. It so horrified Parisians that the idea of La Défense was born. Those tall building in the background are near the periphery of the city to the south, and there are neighborhoods in the city outside the main tourist zone with large (but not very tall) modernist apartment houses.

Vienna's main skyscraper district is off to the east by the Danube River and there are other suburban areas with skyscrapers and large modernist buildings.

The same holds for Prague. The above photo was probably taken through a telephoto lens, making the eastern high-rise district seem closer than it is. In the foreground are the Vltava (Moldau) River and the famous Charles Bridge.

Frankfurt (am-Main) also has a cluster of skyscrapers, but unlike Paris, Vienna and Prague it is situated close to the old city center (or what was left of it after World War 2 bombings).

You might have noticed that in the picture sequence, the skyscraper district gets closer and closer to the old city center. In London, skyscrapers are scattered through the heart, especially in The City, its financial district, shown here.

An Unfortunate House

Many American suburbs sprang up shortly after World War 2, with nearly all houses in place by around 1950 as growth spread farther out. Since many houses require major repairs and upgrades to wiring and other infrastructure by the time they're around 40 years old, not to mention expansions, kitchen and bathroom re-dos and so forth, one can see three or four major renovation projects going on every year in these neighborhoods.

Sometimes a house is razed and a new one put in its place. Then there are cases where the work done is legally a renovation yet the scale is such that it might as well have been a completely new house. Here is an example of the latter.

What happened was that all of the old building was ripped out aside from the rear outside wall -- that remaining fragment of the original building legally qualifies it as a renovation of an existing structure. The foundation was extended towards the street. Then new walls, floors and other parts were brought to the site and installed. I assume that many measurements were made and final plans for the prefabricating were done on a computer, with initial fabrication taking place on a smooth, concrete floor somewhere.

So far, that's okay with me. But let's take a look at the result in this particular case:

Note the odd, gray panels covering the exterior (to the right, there's an observation tower clad in green, but it's hard to see in the photo). Then there are windows that don't quite seem to relate to probable interior spaces; their placement seems designed from an exterior point of view. Even sillier are those light blue faux half-shutters.

The close-up shot of the entry area shows the metal posts and chain-link fence decor around the tiny porch.

The homeowner of course bears ultimate responsibility for the result because he had to okay the project. But did the architect (I'm assuming there was one if the owner didn't do the design work himself) convince the owner to accept a line of trendy archi-blather filled with terms such as "integrity to materials," "eco-friendly," "in synch with industrial-chic" and whatever other nonsense architectural theoreticians are throwing around these days?

Regardless of its architectural pedigree, I consider the house an unfortunate intrusion to its neighborhood.

Greek-Letter Mansions

At first glance, they might remind one of an English country home or perhaps an exurban estate in America. In actuality they are a kind of college dormitory with enhanced social areas that can assume any number of architectural guises from Georgian to Greek Revival to Tudor to Modernist, depending on location and when the structure was built.

The subject is American college fraternity and sorority houses. The Wikipedia entry on the so-called "Greek" system is here, but I'll present my own overview before turning you over to the photos.

College secret societies began appearing in America during the second quarter of the 19th century. Secret societies featuring initiation rites and rituals were nothing new even then, but became a fad to the point where one fraternity (Delta Upsilon) was founded using the Old Switcheroo marketing principle of being non-secretive.

Another feature of college fraternities was the use of Greek words as names. Since those names were part of the society's secrets, they were publicly known only by the Greek initials of those names.

The first fraternities were for male students. In the second half of the 1800s, female Greek-letter societies emerged; they are called sororities, though some of the earliest ones (such as my wife's Kappa Kappa Gamma) still officially refer to themselves as fraternities.

With the advent of sororities and the socially more relaxed 20th century, the secretive aspect of Greek-letter societies waned and the emphasis shifted to making student life more fun through partying and other activities. This is reflected in the architecture of the buildings that housed these societies. Originally, the societies existed only in ordinary student living quarters, but this soon shifted to wood-frame rooming-house style buildings or converted row-houses for colleges in large cities such as Boston, New York or Philadelphia.

As membership grew from fewer than 20 initiates around 1910 to 30 and more by 1920, more and more purpose-built houses appeared. The typical layout was study rooms and sleeping porches in floors above street level. A basement might include a recreation room, a furnace and utility room, and perhaps a room where the secret chapter meetings were held. The ground floor would contain the kitchen, dining room, a large living room useful for social events such as dances and receptions, and perhaps a small library or auxiliary living room.

Membership in Greek societies grew rapidly through the 1920s with chapter membership averaging 35-45 at major colleges. The Great Depression slowed growth and weeded out weak chapters on most campuses. World War 2 resulted in the temporary shutting down of many fraternity chapters, though sororities thrived. Fraternities experienced a postwar boom fueled by GI Bill money and the lack of alternative housing as the nation shifted from wartime scarcity to a peacetime economy. Once the postwar surge ebbed, average memberships dropped to 50s and 60s. The late 1950s and much of the 60s was another expansion period where many chapters built new houses or, more typically, expanded existing structures.

Greek systems at most campuses cratered in the late 60s and 1975s, weaker chapters again being forced to close. By the 1980s, membership roles increased, reaching upwards of 200 for some sororities on West Coast campuses -- though 100 members is more typical maximum. Fraternity membership tends to be more variable. At the University of Washington, for example, fraternity chapters range from 20 to 100 members, the average being around 55.

So that's the overview. Let's turn to the architecture.

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Zeta Psi fraternity, University of Michigan - before 1900?
This building from (perhaps) the 1890s seems to be an early example of a purpose-built house with fancy touches that take it a step beyond the rooming-house type of facility common on most campuses until the 1920s.

Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, University of California - 1928
Berkeley is on the northern fringe of California's Mediterranean climate zone, so the Fijis went for an Italianate style.

Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, University of Oklahoma
I don't know when this house was built, but the staging of the photo makes it look a lot like a motel.

Delta Delta Delta sorority, University of Georgia
This calm, colonial style house is appropriate for its Georgia location.

Delta Upsilon fraternity, University of Illinois - 1926
The University of Illinois has an interesting collection of Greek houses. Here is a Tudor style example with plenty of half-timbering.

Kappa Sigma fraternity, University of Michigan
An old photo; I don't know if the Kappa Sigs still use it. But it's a nice version of French Chateau architecture that would be more at home near the Loire than in Ann Arbor.

Phi Delta Theta fraternity, University of Illinois - 1922
Tudor style, but symmetrical, this Phi Delt house looks impressive in the photo.

Theta Xi fraternity, UCLA
Many fraternity and sorority houses at UCLA were constructed in the 1930s and featured a clean version of Spanish Colonial architecture appropriate to the Los Angeles area setting. Theta Xi is one of the first houses one encounters walking west from campus to Greek Row.

Sigma Kappa sorority, University of Washington
This Norman style building was where my daughter lived while at Washington.

Psi Upsilon fraternity, University of Washington
For some reason I always liked this Psi U house despite the half-timbering being on the verge of overdone.

Sigma Nu fraternity, University of Washington
This building dates back to around 1914, a surprisingly non-traditional style for its time.

Theta Chi fraternity, University of Washington
From the same architectural firm that did the Sigma Kappa house above.

Theta Xi fraternity, University of Washington
Built in 1926, this is where I lived as an undergraduate.

Raymond Hood: America's Most Competent Architect?

Many observers claim Frank Lloyd Wright to be America's greatest architect. Maybe. I think he was the most creative, but creativity doesn't have to be synonymous with greatness.

So if Wright is iffy greatest-wise in my book, then who might be another contender? I nominate Raymond Hood (1881-1934). And as the title of this post suggests, he has claim as America's most competent architect, even if the matter of greatness can be disputed.

I base my contention on Hood's ability to do outstanding work in several styles: traditional, Deco and modernist. Besides his skyscrapers, Hood also designed a resort and houses -- including his own traditionally-designed place in Stamford, Connecticut. Unfortunately, decently detailed biographical material is hard to find on the Internet; for instance, consider his puny Wikipedia entry here. Fortunately, some books dealing with Hood can be found, though no significant ones are recent.

Hood's career was short but brilliant, lasting about a dozen years up to his early death at age 53 when he was associated with the Rockefeller Center project. It's difficult to predict how he might have evolved had he lived another 20 or so years. Certainly the Depression would have curtailed his output, yet he would have been around in time for the start of the post- World War 2 building boom. My best guess, given the flexibility he exhibited in the 1920s and early 30s, is that he might well have out-Miesed Mies van der Rohe in the 50s.

Below are examples of Hood's work.

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Tribune Tower, Chicago - 1924
The Howells & Hood firm won the famous Tribune Tower competition, launching Hood's fame. Modernists sneered at it, preferring the entry by Finland's great Eliel Saarinen, father of noted architect Eero Saarinen.

American Radiator Building, New York City - 1924
The Tribune win quickly led to a commission for the American Radiator Building on the south side of Bryant Park. Georgia O'Keeffe made a notable painting of this building.

Rex Cole showroom, Brooklyn
Hood designed a few showrooms for appliance dealer Rex Code. The one shown was located in the southwest Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge. That's a model of a General Electric refrigerator atop the building.

New York Daily News Building - 1929
Hood's Daily News Building was the first tall Modernist building in New York, though purists thought the vertical emphasis was slightly "dishonest" (in terms of their rigid ideology). That's the Third Avenue Elevated station at 42nd Street in the foreground.

McGraw-Hill Building - 1931
So Hood flipped the emphasis to horizontal for the McGraw-Hill publishing firm headquarters. This was more "honest" for the purists, who then complained the the Deco top decoration was (ugh!) decoration and therefore "dishonest." One just can't win when trying to please the hardcore, it seems. Actually, I never warmed to the McGraw-Hill -- that horizontal windowing motif made it seem stubbier than it really was. Like the Daily News, the McGraw-Hill was on 42nd Street, but towards the west side of town; the station seen here is for the 9th Avenue Elevated.


Even though I clearly like Raymond Hood a lot, there are other architects I find as appealing in different ways. I'll feature them from time to time in future posts.

World Trade Center in Miniature: Still Standing

The 10th anniversary of the destruction of New York City's World Trade Center is coming in a few months. Since this is an art and design blog, I thought it might be worthwhile to mention the WTC's architect, Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986). His Wikipedia entry is here, and contains a long list of the buildings he designed. For a more detailed biography, however, click here -- though be warned it's a bit Seattle-centric.

Yamasaki, like his near-contemporary Edward Durell Stone, could not quite come to terms with International Style architecture and resorted to applying touches of decoration. That decoration usually had an industrial, cookie-cutter repetition to it -- perhaps an early Postmodern wink-and-nudge that the decoration wasn't (or maybe really was) serious; perhaps there's a justification for ambiguity.

The World Trade Center design didn't appear from a void. A structural prototype of sorts was built in Yamasaki's home town, Seattle, a few years earlier and some design themes were tested there too. Let's take a look.

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World Trade Center (1970-71) - general view

World Trade Center - street-level
The towers were so huge and surrounded by other buildings that a comprehensive take isn't possible from photography. At the top is an aerial image that corresponds to what many of us have in mind when the WTC is mentioned. But the structures weren't all just narrow windows flanked by vertical strips; at the base some of those strips merged into Gothic-like pointed arches, as can be seen in the photo immediately above.

Pacific Science Center (1962) general view
Century 21, Seattle's 1962 international exposition, included a work by Yamasaki -- a cluster of structures now named the Pacific Science Center. The best-known feature is the Gothic towers shown here.

Pacific Science Center - ground-level view
For our purposes, the base detailing is of most interest. Note the similarity to the Trade Center street-level two photos up. No, the detailing isn't identical, but the spirit is consistent.

IBM Building, Seattle (1963)
Apologies for the poor image, but it was the best I could grab off the Web showing the entire building. My understanding is that structural ideas used in the WTC were first developed for the IBM building. Some of this is apparent in the similar window treatment. The only superficial differences of note are the use of rounded, rather than pointed, arches at the bottom and the lack of elevator lobby breaks. Seattle's IBM Building still stands, though it's now overshadowed by larger structures nearby.

Joseph Urban: Undersung Designer-Architect

Joseph Urban (1872-1933) is ever-so-slightly edging towards the design / architecture / theater history spotlight.

For example, this book about him appeared last year in conjunction with an exhibit. And this link is to an on-line catalog for a 2000 exhibit.

Urban was Viennese and rubbed elbows with Gustav Klimt, Kolo Moser and the rest of the artsy community during those wonderfully rich decades around the turn of the 20th century when Vienna was at its artistic peak. Like Moser, he was a jack of more than one trade, doing book illustration, theatrical set design and other tasks besides architecture, in which he was trained. Urban emigrated to the United States in 1912 (great timing, that) where he at first worked in theater before edging back into other fields.

He died not long after his 61st birthday having prevailed through the Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Moderne and early International Style eras. I have little doubt that he would have done well as a modernist had he lived another 20 years and into the postwar architectural boom.

Given his immense talent and adaptability, what puzzles me is why isn't Urban treated with greater honor in the annals of architecture and design?

My off the top-of-the-head reaction is that the Modernist Establishment didn't -- and still does not -- consider him to be seriously modernist. Too showy. Too decorative. And some other issues, no doubt. If you have suggestions, please comment. (I moderate comments, so it might take a while before they appear.)

Below are examples of Urban's work.

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Joseph Urban

Esterhazy Castle, Hungary, project - 1899

Rathauskeller, Vienna - 1899

Wiener Werkstätte shop, New York City - 1922
The Viennese design group tried to establish a New York beachhead in the early 1920s, but failed. That's a Gustav Klimt painting in the center.

Metropolitan Opera House design proposal - 1926-27
A number of architects, including Urban, were called in at various times during the planning and design of New York City's Rockefeller Center. Early plans had a new opera house facing Fifth Avenue, but this concept fell by the wayside. The Metropolitan Opera had to await new digs until 1966 when its Lincoln Center facility opened.

Ziegfeld Theatre, New York City - 1927
Designed by Urban and Thomas W. Lamb, the Ziegfeld was demolished in 1966 to make room for Burlington House, one of those dull glass-and-steel Sixth Avenue office towers. The Ziegfeld was looking a bit worn back in the early 1960s when I found myself walking past it.

Roof garden murals, St. Regis Hotel, New York City - 1927-28
Theatrical, but more 1900 than 1927. Maybe that's what the St. Regis thought its clients would like.

Hearst Building, New York City - 1928

Hearst Tower, New York City - 2006
Because Urban's original structure has protected status, Norman Foster and his gang decided to drastically contrast their high-rise addition with the 1928 base. Neither building is good architecture, so far as I'm concerned. But I also think that the Urban design makes for a better pedestrian experience than a foundation-to-top Foster version might well have been.

Auditorium, New School for Social Research - New York City, 1930
Here Urban shows his "streamlined modern" stuff.