Norman Bel Geddes' First City of the Future

Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958), shown above posing with a model city of the future, is perhaps most famous for his Futurama America in 1960 exhibit in the General Motors pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. But before that, he did a trial run for the Shell Oil Company in a 1937 series of advertisements.

Well, I think it was a trial run. But given the lead-time required to construct the GM exhibit, it's possible that the two somewhat similar projects might have been started at about the same time. Some Googling failed to turn up anything definite regarding this, but perhaps an existing or forthcoming Geddes biography will have the details.

The smaller-scale Shell project was nevertheless a typical bravura Geddes combination of showmanship, technology and imagination. Below are images of the model of the Shell City of Tomorrow along with a few advertisements featuring it. Click on them to enlarge.

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Antonio Sant'Elia, Visionary Draftsman

Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916) was a highly influential architect, almost none of whose designs were ever built. One reason why little was built was because he was killed during the Great War, age 28.

His fame rests on an early modernist/Futurist theoretical architecture project called La Città Nuova (The New City) carried out around 1914. This was essentially a series of speculative architectural sketches and renderings that astonished architects of a modernist bent over the years as well as the architecture-appreciating general public, myself included.

A fairly brief Wikipedia entry on him is here. This Italian language site has both a brief biography and a link to a timeline.

It's out of print, but so far as I know, this book by Esther da Costa Meyer is the most comprehensive work in English dealing with Sant'Elia. She mentions that the Città Nuova concepts were largely un-buildable as depicted.

Regardless, Sant'Elia's renderings make for very nice art in themselves, regardless of their architectural merits.

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Station for airplanes and trains, La Città Nuova - 1914

Temple of Fame - Monza cemetery - with Italo Paternoster - 1912
A design for an architectural competition. The rendering is by Sant'Elia. According to da Costa Meyer, the extent of Paternoster's participation is unknown.

La Città Nuova - study of structure with terraced floors

La Città Nuova study - 1914

Electric power station, La Città Nuova - 1914

La Città Nuova, particolare - 1914

De-Modernizing Modernist Architecture in Victoria

In my opinion, modernist architecture usually works best when it is in a non-modernist setting. That setting might be a large lot filled with trees, gardens and lawns if the building is a residence or, if it is in an urban location, surrounding buildings having traditional architecture. If the structure is well-designed, it can have a jewel-like character.

But a large cluster of modernist buildings tends to be visually sterile and anti-human. After all, we humans evolved in natural settings filled with complexity and details -- not classical geometrical shapes. Which is why most pre-modern buildings of importance in Europe, Asia, Egypt and Central America employed ornamentation to varying degrees.

An example of classically sterile modernism applied to apartment structures is the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive complex in Chicago. They were designed by the sainted modernist Mies van der Rohe, so using that example shouldn't be regarded as a cheap shot on my part.

A postmodern structure that comes close to traditional appreciation of complexity of detail is the Shoal Point Condominium in Victoria, British Columbia. It's the large, reddish structure behind the houseboats in this photo that I recently took (click my images to enlarge slightly).

The architect is Paul Merrick, whose firm's Web site is here.

A snotty, condescending modernist take on Shoal Point by Trevor Boddy in Toronto's Globe and Mail is here

Admittedly, Shoal Point lacks clarity in terms of basic form. But that doesn't bother me because nature itself often lacks visual clarity. And an apartment or condominium building does not require the clarity of a train station or airport terminal. Shoal Point uses a number of common elements such as window shapes, but stirs them into a tangle where they visually pop out here and there rather than march together like soldiers on parade. And it also employs a good deal of ornamentation. Let's take a closer look.

Sculpted elements are by Victoria artist Derek Rowe (no Wikipedia entry or personal web sit at the top of a Google search, but there is this).

This is the entrance by Dallas Road.  There's a definite Art Nouveau feel to it, though the ironwork pattern is geometric (Secession?) rather than organic.  I was taken by the sculpted faces.

Note the thematic seashore elements (starfish, seashell) in the lower hair swirls as well as fish in some of the images above.

Bits of Fancy Florida Hotels

It can be fun to visit fancy hotels even if you don't (or can't) pay the fancy fare to stay. We were in Florida the first half of February and did some hotel-crawling while there. Although we didn't rent rooms, we did dine at each of those shown below.

So far as I'm concerned, the grandest of the lot is The Breakers in Palm Beach. Its Web site is here and the Wikipedia entry here.

Not so grand, but about as old and still pretty nice is the Don Cesar on St. Pete Beach in the Tampa Bay area. The Wikipedia entry is here.

In Coral Gables, near Miami, is another 1920s grand hotel, the Biltmore, whose Wikipedia write-up can be found here.

Below are some photos I took. No thorough studies here, just snippets to provide a taste.

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The Breakers main lobby

The Breakers, at one end of the lobby hall

The Breakers HMF bar
Originally this room was the main dining area, but has been a bar for years. It was recently redecorated, perhaps with too large a dash of contemporary feeling.

The Breakers HMF bar
A close-up of the bar itself. The illustration is mid 1950s, but I don't know who did it. Nor do I know if it dates back to then or is a retro piece.

Don Cesar from the beach

Don Cesar, poolside

Don Cesar interior

Biltmore Coral Gables pool
The Biltmore has a huge pool. This was taken from the bar area.

Biltmore Coral Gables
Another view of the pool and main hotel structure from not far from where the previous photo was taken.

Bok's Singing Tower

It's a ways from the nearest freeway, but you can get there by mostly four-lane roads. So as far as I'm concerned, you have no excuse to miss it if you're anywhere near Orlando, Florida with its Disney World and other tourist attractions.

The "it" I refer to is the Bok Tower Gardens site just northeast of the town of Lake Wales. It interested me from the time I was in elementary school and saw it depicted in one of those cartoon maps featuring sights to see across the United States. But I never managed to visit it until recently.

The tower and its surrounding gardens were the creation of Edward W. Bok (October 9, 1863 – January 9, 1930) who died about a year after the site was dedicated. A short biographical item is here. Briefly, Bok was born in the Netherlands, but emigrated to the United States as a child. He married into the Curtis publishing family and was editor of the Ladies Home Journal magazine for decades. His grandson, Derek Bok, was president of Harvard University.

As this Wikipedia entry indicates, the tower and gardens project was begun in 1921 and dedicated February 1, 1929. Its site is atop one of the highest hills in nearly-flat peninsular Florida.

Landscaping was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the famous family perhaps best known for New York City's Central Park. The tower's architect was Milton B. Medary, who is little known today. Integral sculpting is by Lee Lawrie, a prolific sculptor active in the first half of the twentieth century whose best-known works include the Atlas in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Ironwork and the tower door were by Samuel Yellin.

I think the tower is an excellent example of a high point in American architectural form and detailing, where gothic-inspired skyscraper shaping was combined with a non-traditional ornamentation style that was called Moderne and now called Art Deco.

Below are some photos I took during my visit.

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Visitor Center courtyard
Note the exposed undersides of the roof tiles.

Display of construction photos

Looking up

General view

Top details by Lee Lawrie

Wrought iron gate by Samuel Yellin

Sundial
Note the inscription below. It mentions that President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the tower and gardens.

Lower level sculpting by Lee Lawrie

Arty views of the tower entrance
The white flowers and stone in front of the door mark Bok's grave.

Entry door by Samuel Yellin

Regional Legislative Building Evolution

This posting is a selective look at the architectural evolution of sub-national legislative or parliament buildings in the United States and the United Kingdom. Admittedly, designing an intrinsically symbolic structure has never been easy, given all the formal and informal groups with a stake in the result. In the past, the easiest thing for the architect was to fall back on tradition. Nowadays, in the era of architectural egomania ....

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New York State
This 19th century state capitol building is unusual (for the USA) in that it was inspired by French châteaux.

Washington State
This late-1920s structure is far more typical of state capitol buildings, following the theme set by the national capitol in Washington, D.C. which, in turn, borrowed from cathedrals such as St. Peters in Rome and St. Paul's in London.

Oregon
Oregon's capitol from the 1930s retains a dome of sorts, but it's a drum-shaped variety.

Nebraska
This 1920s capitol design rejected conventional domes for a mini-domed Art Deco skyscraper style.

Hawaii
Being the latest state to be admitted to the union, Hawaii opted for a modernist structure that supposedly contained a whiff of native architecture.

Northern Ireland
The United Kingdom offers a different scene. The parliament building for Northern Ireland, completed 1932, is classical with a dash of imperial majesty.

Scotland
As devolution set in, Scotland opted to build a new parliament building (details here). The architect was Enric Miralles, not even a Scot, and the cost far exceeded original estimates. No doubt Miralles and his defenders have their justification for the design. Me? I consider it an ugly, un-Scottish mess. Where is Charles Rennie Macintosh when he is truly needed?

A Somewhat Deceptive Exterior

What they say about judgments based on books and their covers can be applied to buildings -- in some cases, anyway. For instance, I get the feeling that many places in Italy where residential streets are lined with buildings with drab, fading stucco exterior surfaces actually camouflage totally modern interiors. I know that to be the case for a Mestre hotel I once stayed in.

The same applies in a more limited sense in Dublin at a place called The Burlington Hotel. It is a large structure beyond the Grand Canal that roughly marks the edge of the old southern part of the city. The exterior, as can be seen below, is nondescript t-square and triangle modernism common in the 1950s and 1960s. Our room was in need of renovation, but not drastically so. After all, the hotel caters to tour groups such as ours as well as to people in town on business or for conferences, so maybe we weren't assigned the snazziest digs. But it was okay; no complaints from a guy who spent three years of his life in army barracks and troop ships.

What interested me were the public areas that differed considerably from the drab exterior. I don't know if these were part of the original package or added in later years. They certainly have the appearance of having been re-done in recent times.

Let's look:

Here is how the hotel looks from the street. A large parking lot with room for large tour buses connects the street with the entrance. Note the exterior's hotel room floors. It was probably at its best in the architect's presentation rendering.

The lobby presents a contrast. The reception desk is at the rear to the right. The rest of the scene is occupied by a lounge area. Nice polished stone floors, carpets, wood trim and other touches of a warm variation on modernism. Not nearly as stark as the exterior.

Yet another contrast. This is the restaurant. Many of the larger hotels I've experienced in the British Isles feature traditional (Edwardian?) style restaurants, and so does the Burlington. This room makes me suspect that it wasn't part of the original modernist package.