riARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

THE ORAL HISTORY OF

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/v «ERN ARCHITECTURE

Interviews with the Greatest Archite the Twentieth Century

John Peter • Com)

 HE ORAL HISTORY Oi
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
This unprecedented book and accompanying compact disc

tell the story of modern architecture in the words of the

people who created it. Based on interviews conducted over

the course of 40 years with more than 60 of the world's

most prominent architects and engineers, the volume is

both an invaluable oral history and a broadly appealing

look at the development of the modern style, animated by

the architects' own observations, opinions, anecdotes, and

humor.

The architects' words and the author's brief comments

are accompanied by 200 black-and-white photographs of

the landmarks of modern architecture, including plans,

sketches, and models. Each has a brief explanatory caption

that augments information in the text. Large, original can-

did portraits ot the architects — taken at the time of the

interview — add to the personal and conversational nature

of the hook.

The Oral History of Modern Architecture opens with an

introduction to the modern movement. We then hear the

architects themselves as they discuss the impact of technol-

ogy, social concerns, and art on modern architecture, and

reveal the buildings and architects that most influenced

them. Next are in-depth selections from the interviews

with Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van

der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn,

Philip Johnson, Oscar Niemeyer, Jose Luis Sert, and I. M.

Pei. In the closing chapter, the architects speculate about

the future of modern architecture. Biographies, a time

chart, a bibliography, and a visitor's guide to more than 150

of the sites pictured and discussed complete the volume.

On the compact disc, history comes alive as 16 of the

most renowned modern masters express the ideas and

ideals behind their works, which belong to one of the most

significant movements in the history of architecture.

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200 black-arid- vhitc illustrations

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John Peter

THE ORAL HISTORY OF

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 Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century

MODERN ARCHITECTUR

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CONTENTS PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
7

12
GREAT WORKS
Frank Lloyd Wright
82

110

Le Corbusier 136
TECHNOLOGY 22
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 154
SOCIETY 44
Walter Gropius 176

ART 60 Eero Saarinen 192

Louis Kahn 212 ASSESSMENTS 272 VISITOR'S GUIDE 308
Philip Johnson 224 BIOGRAPHIES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
292 313
Oscar Niemeyer 236
BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 CREDITS 313
Jose Luis Sen 246
TIME CHART 306 INDEX 315
I. M. Pa 260

BAUHAUS. Walter Gropius. Dessau, Germany. J 926

to my wife, Anna, and my children,

Laurie, Wendy, Sarah, Molly

Editor: Diana Murphy

Designer: Robert McKee

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peter, John, 1917-

The oral history of modern architecture: interviews with the greatest

architects of the twentieth century / John Peter.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8109-3669-0
1. Architects — Interviews. 2. Architecture, Modern —20th century.
I. Title.

NA680.P375 1994
724' .6— dc20
Copyright © 1994 John Peter
Published in 1994 by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York

A Times Mirror Company

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be
reproduced without the written permission of the publisher
Additional copyright notices are on p. 314.

Printed and bound in the United States

Title page: left to right, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier,
Frank Lloyd Wright; inset, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen,
Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer, Richard Neutra
Preface
'This is the story of modern architecture in the
recorded words of those who created it."

Oral history is not new. In the earliest ages of mankind all history was oral history.

Yet oral history as we know it today developed only in recent times with the intro-

duction of sound-recording equipment. The early recordings in The Oral History of

Modern Architecture were made on a bulky Wollensak, a reel-to-reel tape machine

that was optimistically described as portable.

Only recently has oral history been recognized as a valid form of history. If, as his-

torian William Moss suggests, "the discipline of history is a means by which we may
keep from kidding ourselves about what has happened," it follows that audio record-

ings are a highly qualified source of history. Like the shards from an archaeological
dig, oral history is a kind of artifact from which we can help reconstruct a period of
the past.

When I embarked on the Oral History project, in the early 1950s, it was not only
because of my special interest in architecture, but also because architecture, which
involves politics, planning, finance, engineering, and construction, lags behind the
other fine arts. By that time the founders of modern painting and sculpture had died.
However, many of the early masters of modern architecture were still alive, and by a

circumstance of history a number were residing in the United States. I did not set out

to write a book. I wanted to capture the architects' voices before they were lost.

I began by visiting the office of historian Allan Nevins, who had very recently

established an oral history program at Columbia University in New York. I found that
the program's mission was to prepare written documents for historical research. Once
transcribed, the tapes were erased for reuse. To this day still, far and away the bulk of
oral history represents invaluable social research undertaken by historians to record
the less-privileged members of society who had no voice in past history. The empha-
sis has been on providing written documents for historians, and less attention has

been paid to the audio aspect. Since I viewed the audio record as the raison d'etre of
my undertaking, I set out on my own.
I made the first tape in 1953 and the last in 1989. In all, my colleagues and I

recorded, in their homes and offices, over seventy architects and architectural engi-

neers who practiced during the period oi' the International Style, which may be
defined roughly as the 1920s through the 1960s. The original tapes of The Oral
History of Modern Architecture represent an archival document. Only a portion of the

total recordings are utilized in this work.

 The architects were selected on the basis of several criteria. They were voted the

most significant modern architects living at that time in a poll we made of over one
hundred American architects. This list was cross-checked by citation frequency in

the leading international books and journals of modern architecture. From these

sources, we made a serious attempt at a consensus regarding the architects to be

recorded, and we traveled the world to achieve it. Fortunately for this history, a num-
ber of them were driven by World War II to the United States, such as Walter
Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, L.L. Rado, Jose Luis Sert, and

Antonin Raymond. We did tape more architects born in America than in any other
nation. A few of the individuals we had selected, like the Brazilian planner Lucio
Costa and the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund, were unavailable for an interview.
Some, like Alvar Aalto and Pier Luigi Nervi, by inclination and the pressure of work,
gave us less time than we might have wished. On account of a mechanical failure, the

material from the session with Le Corbusier is briefer and less satisfactory than I

would have liked. It is the sole case where I have taken the liberty of including in the
book some words transcribed from another audio source. However, the audio selec-

tion of Le Corbusier is taken from our visit with him. We recorded a number of archi-

tects in their native tongue. Some who could speak English preferred their own
language, to be more precise. For this book and compact disc their remarks have been

translated, but on the disc I have also included some in the original language.
The present book, in company with the recording on compact disc, is an effort to

create an appropriate oral history format. Like early modern architecture itself, it is

marked by enthusiasm for the new and suffers from lack of precedent. It endeavors to
tell the story of modern architecture in the living words of the individuals who creat-

ed it. While avoiding the lexicon and form of academic research, my colleagues and I

have made every effort to create a document that is thorough and precise.
With an oral history there looms always the large question of whether the people
who created the works under discussion are the best judges of what they accom-

plished. Are the players the best judges of the game? Most people would respond
along with historians that a more objective and accurate appraisal can be made by
outside authorities with both independence and perspective. There are, indeed, many
books on modern architecture written from the outside by highly qualified authori-
ties. Ours represents an effort to do something different — to tell the early story from
the inside. What the founders of modern architecture thought and said they were

doing is essential to a real understanding of what they did. It is true that many of

these pioneers wrote their own books and lectured about their ideas. Le Corbusier 's

publications may well have been more influential than his built work. Others, such as

Gropius, have frequently been described as propagandists. One of the activities of the

Bauhaus was book publishing. Frank Lloyd Wright told me, "My father was a preach-
er and I'm a preacher, too." This work seeks to provide the living words of not only

the founders, but also other contemporary architects, less renowned, who provide

important insights into those people and their times. Such is the very loam of history.

As in all history, one period overlaps another. Indeed, Gothic cathedrals are still

being built in the United States today. Modern architecture has its roots in the archi-
tecture of the past. There is a long and familiar list of early architects and builders

who sought the new forms of modern architecture. They receive less emphasis in this

work than they deserve quite simply because they were no longer alive when began
I

making the recordings. Fortunately, in the cases of H. P. Berlage, Peter Behrens, Tony
Gamier, Adolf Loos, Auguste Perret, Eliel Saarinen, Louis Sullivan, Henri van de
Velde, and Otto Wagner, we were able to tape some observations of people who knew
them. These are included in the book.

In the pages that follow, the observations of most of the architects interviewed are

included in the introduction or are grouped under the headings Technology, Society,

and Art, so-named for three important forces that shaped modern architecture. In

Great Works the architects respond to my request to name individual buildings that

were especially influential to them and to explain the reasons for their choices. Some
preferred instead to name architects for their entire body of work. It is no surprise

that three architects — Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Mies — were over-

whelmingly considered the most outstanding and influential. More-extended

thoughts and ideas often highly significant contributors to the field —Wright,
Le Corbusier, Mies, Gropius, Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, Oscar
Niemeyer, Sert, and I.M. Pei — are featured in individual sections. In Assessments
architects comment on modern architecture and its potential for the future. The
accompanying CD presents excerpts from the recorded conversations with sixteen

architects: the ten mentioned above, along with Alvar Aalto, Breuer, Pier Luigi
Nervi, Richard Neutra, J.J. P. Oud, and Kenio Tange.
Not surprisingly, a distinctive print format for oral history has not yet evolved.
Books of recorded interviews generally follow a question-and-answer format in tradi-

tional magazine style. In designing this book, we have sought to create an oral format

responding to the special nature of the material. For example, informal photographs
of the architects taken at the time of the interviews are a prominent part of the work
in emphasizing the fact that this is a personal oral history. This, despite Wright's

assurance to his wife, Olgivanna, when we were taking pictures, "You'd be surprised

how little photographs show." Accompanying the text are illustrations and captions
selected to supplement and enrich it.

Just as we have learned that early civilizations did not exist in worlds apart and
that ideas traveled across the ancient continents and daunting oceans, we know that
ideas move with far more amazing speed across our modern world. As the American
architect Eero Saarinen, son of the Finn Eliel Saarinen, observed, "My father admit-

ted that Sullivan's Transportation Building in the Chicago Fair influenced him greatly

when he designed the railroad station in Helsinki. Of course, everybody in the whole
world is aware of everybody else in architecture."

It is perhaps only natural that today we might assume these architects knew the

work of certain other architects, movements, or even distant periods or civilizations.

We may even suspect that they did know them but deliberately disavowed this knowl-
edge in self-justification or in the cause of a pure, clear doctrine. There is frequently a

wide discrepancy between their words and their works. Nevertheless, the tapes have
recorded what they said or chose to say. In fact, on hearing their actual voices one
cannot help but be struck by the sincerity of and dedication to their beliefs. For the

most part it would seem both cynical and cavalier to doubt whether they were telling

the truth as they perceived it.

Unquestionably, the best way to know architecture is to experience it. I have visit-

ed and revisited a good number of the recognized great works of modern architecture.

There is nothing like living for a time at Taliesin or attending a beautifully sung high

mass at Ronchamp to appreciate them. With this in mind, 1 have provided a Visitor's
Guide at the back of the book, which lists the addresses of many important works of

modern architecture open to the public.

It well may be argued that hearing about architecture is the least valuable way to

understand and appreciate it. However, there is something uniquely convincing and
moving in hearing the spoken words of these people, with the individual timbre, pro-
nunciation, and emphasis that no other medium can surpass. It is history alive. An
oral history book perhaps demands more of the reader then a regular history book.

Like all conversations, oral history is discursive. Within limits I sought to channel the

recording sessions, but it is the wandering observation and anecdote that give the

Oral History its documentary interest and sense of life. There is a significant and dis-

tinctive quality to the spontaneity of thoughts expressed in speech. The reader will

also be asked to put up with a certain amount of repetition. A good deal of overlap
appeared in the comments of the architects. I have deleted much of it in compiling

the book, but have left enough to demonstrate the universality of experiences and
ideas that coalesced into modern architecture.

The term modern architecture, as used in this project, refers to the predominant
trends of a forty-year period. As historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock wrote, "No better

name than 'modern' has yet been found for what has come to be the characteristic

architecture of the twentieth century throughout the western world. . .

." It is the

important task of scholars to explore the diversity within modern architecture, as

with architecture of the Gothic, Baroque, and other periods. The Oral History is a

witness to some of this plurality.

There remains the difficult task of determining when modern architecture began.

For the purposes of this work, we have somewhat arbitrarily considered it in relation

to the publication of two books. The first was written by Henry-Russell Hitchcock
and Philip Johnson to accompany a 1932 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art,

New York. Entitled The International Style, it baptized modern architecture. Johnson
said to me, "Nineteen twenty-three is what I call the magic year, the annus mirabile,
that is, the year from which the historians, I am absolutely certain, will date this style."

With equally arbitrary logic we have considered the publication of Complexity and

Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi thirty-four years later as heralding

what is described as Post-Modern architecture. Although in continuing to develop

the oral history document we have, to date, interviewed others and reinterviewed
some of the original architects, we have, with the exceptions of Niemeyer and Pei,

who referred to their early works in subsequent interviews, confined our book to

observations made before 1966. Throughout the book, the year of the interview has
been placed in the margin by the quotation.

10
 We can now say of modern architecture what Winston Churchill said of the Battle
of Britain, "It is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning." In

the real world and in the real world of architecture, things are not even as tidy as

this. In my conversation with Walter Gropius, he warned, "The irrepressible urge of

critics to classify contemporary movements which are still in flux, putting each neatly
in a coffin with a style label on it, has increased the widespread confusion in under-

standing the dynamic forces of the new movement in architecture and planning."
The Oral History includes Frank Lloyd Wright, who was working before this century

began, as well as architects designing in the International Style who may be practic-

ing when the century ends. The time chart on pages 306-07 shows the overlapping

life spans of the architects in the book.

There are so many people and organizations to whom am I indebted for this work

that I have named them on a separate page later in the book. However, I cannot fail

here to mention Pat Del Grosso, who has served as director of The Oral History of

Modern Architecture Project for the last seven years. It would be difficult for me to

imagine a more dedicated and stimulating colleague. With suggestions and admoni-

tions, she has contributed immensely to this effort.

Although the hook begins with some background to the modern movement and
closes with appraisals, the emphasis is on living history at the time it occurred rather

than as viewed today in hindsight. In the Oral History read, see, and hear the cre-

ators of modern architecture, judge them and their works for yourself.
Introduction
"Like true revolutionaries they were inspired

by a pure vision which they pr act iced with

dedicated enthusiasm."

Modem architecture was a revolution. It destroyed the existing Beaux-Arts

regime and replaced it with a new order. The face of the earth would never

be the same. The architects came from such places as Richland Center,

Wisconsin; La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland; Aachen, Germany; Pecs,

Hungary; Barcelona, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Kuortane, Finland; and

Imahara, Japan. Like true revolutionaries they were inspired by a pure vision,

which they preached and practiced with dedicated enthusiasm as well as

frequent intolerance.

All revolutions are rooted in the past. In perspective, modern architecture

can be viewed in the flow of history, but more specifically as the result of the

cataclysmic changes that took place in the nineteenth century. Architecture is

a product of its time or "not of the time but of the epoch, " as the master

architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe put it. Without attempting to assign

priorities to these changes as they affected architecture, it is nonetheless

clear that they occurred in three areas of contemporary life and culture:

technology society, and art.

12
 As the twentieth century dawned, architecture was clearly overdue for a

change. The nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts style was out of joint with the

times. Frequent observations in the Oral History tapes express the wide-

spread recognition that the vitality had drained from the Beaux-Arts. It had

calcified into traditional forms, essentially decorative, which were no longer

relevant to the new age.

Mies van der Rohe remembers:

When I was, maybe, sixteen years old I worked in the stucco business. In the morn-
ing we had to do a quarter of a full-size ceiling in Louis Quatorze, in the afternoon,

one in the Renaissance. We went through all these periods, chestnut ornaments and
so on. I got so much of it that I couldn't be impressed anymore with these things.

Another characteristic observation was that of the Mexican architect Juan O'Gorman:
The architectural school I went to was an academic school where they taught us on
the basis of the Beaux-Arts. The Greek orders were the order of the day. Everything

was that. If you made a secondary school it had two stories. Therefore there were two
orders and so on and so on. It was the usual Beaux-Arts academic stuff and that, of

course, was piled on in such a way that we became completely bored with it.

^i^i^M^ii^^i^^HHi
The Americdn architect Eliot Noyes recounts his youthful feelings:

Eclecticism was the thing that was going on around us. Harvard was building only
old-fashioned stuff. Yale was going up Harkness Gothic. "Thanks to Mr. Harkness for

his expensive Gothic darkness," is a line out of a Harvard song. Harvard, I thought,

was luckier because at least it had the big-window style of the Georgian.
I entered Harvard architectural school, where they were to give us the tools that

we would need. This, it turned out, was still under Jean-Jacques Hafner, a wonderful
old Frenchman who had hardly ever built anything in his life, but who was still in the

old Beaux-Arts tradition.

My first problem was a Doric gateway. I ran across this drawing the other day in

the basement here. It is the kind of gate around the Harvard Yard that says, "Enter

and Grow in Wisdom," or "Plato," "Aristotle," "Socrates" across the pediment. I find

that my own mood at the time was very nicely expressed by the inscription on mine,
which reads, "Ad Absurdum," cut into the stone.

Well, the next problem I was given was an Ionic temple to a great French actress.

This was beginning to seem a little silly.

All the drawings were done in Chinese ink. Do you remember Chinese ink? You
used to grind it in the pot and you'd drip it so that you could get all the sediment out.

Then you'd take one drop of it with some water and then you'd run a wash. You'd run

another wash and after about ten washes you'd gotten it down so that you could see

that it was a gray there. This is the way all these renderings were done. You built it up
and it made these beautiful transparent drawings. It gave you a marvelous exercise in

using brushes and all this stuff.

But by the time my second problem came around, I wanted to use watercolor. Well,

this was heresy. I, however, did do it in watercolor —a sort of gray-green terrible

wash — but it was on this Ionic temple. I wasn't doing very well with these things,

really.

The next one was supposed to be Corinthian. I remember, at about this time, I

observed some advanced class which was working on a problem which was a palace
for an exiled monarch. Isn't that marvelous? A palace for an exiled monarch! Here we
are, 1933 or something or other, facing the world, a whole new generation trying to

solve its problems.

By this time we'd identified all the books in the library where you'd got the proper

proportions for Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic, and you realized that this was the way

architects have been trained for a long, long time in this country. Every school, I

think, was like this. It was the beginning of a real period of restlessness for me.

Antonin Raymond recalls when he was a student in Czechoslovakia:

It was around 1906, 1907, 1908, you see. In our discussions in the society of the archi-

tecture students, the Czech architecture magazines, one of them was called Smer,

which meant "direction," was already modern and introduced us to Frank Lloyd

Wright. You see, because about that time Wasmuth in Berlin published the first book
on Frank Lloyd Wright, the small one, I don't know if you ever saw it. And then the

big portfolio came out in 1908, while I was still at school, you see, and it had a

14
tremendous influence on us. Then I also began to long to go to the country which
created Frank Lloyd Wright, because I felt that Europe was finished. Everything was
finished.

However, Minoru Yamasaki and a number of others later found things to admire in the

Beaux-Arts training:

During the period that I was in school, the Beaux-Arts system was a predominant
system in the United States and modern architecture was hardly thought of. To me,
at that time, modern architecture meant battered walls and simple lines, but I did not

have an understanding of modern architecture as such.

At that time we all disliked the Beaux-Arts system. I suppose because everyone

dislikes the thing at hand more than anything else. But, also, because we realized that

there was something completely false about the Beaux-Arts.

However, looking back on it now, I'm rather glad that 1 had this kind of back-

ground because one of the needs that we are just beginning to understand is the

development of feeling for proportion, for refinement and detail. I think that we
learned much more about that from the Beaux-Arts than we did from the Bauhaus.

Partly because of the reaction from this overretined architecture that they were
doing, we abandoned completely the idea of the fine details or proportion and only
people like Mies really held fort on that.

It was the new science, with its offspring, technology, placing a premium on function that

proved to be a principal lever in bringing down the Beaux-Arts tradition. One interpreta-

tion of the importance of function in architecture was the emphasis on structure. As early
as the mid-l800s, Eugene-Emanuel \'u<llet-le-Duc, the restorer of ancient French

chateaux, concluded that everything in a building had to have not only a reason, but a

structural reason.

It was, perhaps, an inevitable consequence of the priority given to structure that engi-

neers, in this new age of science, produced some of the seminal xcorks of modern architec-

ture. In London in 1851 Joseph Paxton creaicd an enormous iron and glass exhibition
,
hall

christened the Crystal Palace. It consisted of 123 standardized units. Erected in just six

months, it covered one-third of a mile in Hyde Park. In New York in 1869, John August

Roebling pioneered a use of steel, suspending the Brooklyn Bridge from great cables to span

the East River. In Paris in 1889, Gustave Eiffel erected the unprecedented 984-foot tower

of prefabricated iron parts that bears his name. These three pioneering structures are also

the ones most-often mentioned in the Oral History recordings.

The architect and structural engineer Eduardo Catalano observed:

The building that was done one hundred years ago but, I feel, is contemporary in

spirit and concept is Paxton's Crystal Palace. I am wry interested in that building. I

think the building really puts all the present philosophies of design into effect, like

standardization, demountability, modular coordination, lightness, and so on. . . . Also,

it has a wonderful design that is very well related to the atmosphere of Hyde Park. So
it is not only the building as a piece itself, but it's related to the environment.

15
 .

Frank Lloyd Wright told me that he admired all three men — Paxton, Roebling, and Eiffel —
but said that the Eiffel Tower could have been made of wood because the material was used
in compression, whereas Roebling employed steel in tension.

Regarding tension, Buckminster Fuller had this comment:

I point out to you that the augmentation in man's technical advantage over our a pri-

ori environment lies strictly in the history of the improvement of the tensile strengths

of the various alloys. ... At the present moment, the inventory of tensile abilities has
been so augmented that we're now ready to do a bridge twice the size of Golden
Gate. This isn't because men are more daring, it is simply that there is higher ability.

Neither Paxton, Roebling, nor Eiffel were architects, they were engineers. As Louis
Sullivan remarked in his book Kindergarten Chats, "The engineers were the only men
who could face a problem squarely. " Their works were outstanding, but not unique in the

early nineteenth century. Smaller iron and glass structures like Paxton' s had been built for

botanical gardens. Bridges, most notably the early British railway bridges of Thomas
Telford, George Stephenson, Robert Stephenson, and Isambard Kingdom Brunei, were the

very symbols of the new age. In the 1889 Paris Exhibition, Eiffel's tower was comple-
mented by the Palais des Machines. Designed by the architect Ferdinand Dutert and the

engineer Victor Contamin, it had great arched ribs of steel that rested on huge hinged joints
In their 1932 book The International Style, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philjp

Johnson singled out structure as the first principle of the new style. They cited the fact

that the modern building is constructed with a supporting skeleton and screening walls, as

distinct from traditional construction, in which masonry walls were both the supports and
the protection from the weather. The authors cited as other characteristics of the

International Style regularity and the use of standardized parts, as well as the absence of

applied ornament and the emphasis on surfacing materials.

As Mies van der Rohe observed:

I saw that the structural elements are important to show with simplicity. It was a

more objective architecture.

However, function was interpreted in terms not only of structure, but also of perfor-

mance. The invention of the steam engine, pioneered by the Scotsman James Watt, marks

for many the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The functional efficiency of the

machine was widely admired by early modern architects. Machines function and buildings

should function. This was a restricted interpretation of function, but it was a clear one.

Sullivan's dictum, "Form follows function," became one of the rallying cries of the revolu-

tion. Interpreted even more narrowly than he intended, it led to a reexamination of both

the needs and the purposes of architecture.

Eero Saarinen remarked:

In a way function became one of the gimmicks, one of the sales gimmicks, of modern

16
 ,

architecture, but it was a sort of Frankenstein that was created. Architects began to

believe that through the function, this Frankenstein would come up with the archi-
tecture. So they sat around and waited for him to produce, but he didn't.

Le Corbusier's dramatic definition, "A house is a machine for living in," was a character-
istic overstatement of the period. Its impact and durability, however, rest not only on the

fact that it was an insightful way of looking at a house. It was a dramatic declaration of
architecture's practical aspects. Le Corbusier's view was and is entirely of our modern age

and no other. It has the excitement of radical, revolutionary times.

Along with functional efficiency, the technology of the machine implied economic effi-

ciency. The machine would make architecture less expensive. This premise was to prove

deceptive in some celebrated instances where innovative architects exceeded budgets. Yet

what is frequently lost sight of is that modern architecture is dramatically more cost effi-

cient. While this fact may dismay some enthusiasts and disappoint some critics, a funda-

mental reason for the success of modern architecture is that in the modern world it is, by

and large, cheaper.

The products of the new technology — steel beams and cables, reinforced concrete, and

plastic —changed the way buildings were designed and built. Units mass-produced in facto-

ries and assembled with modern machinery on the site save both time and money. Perhaps
most important of all, they save labor. All of this is still true today, despite the fact that our

buildings contain sophisticated equipment for heating, cooling, lighting, communications

and security unimagined in earlier times.

Focusing, as most architectural books do and as the Oral History does, on the out-

standing examples of the art of architecture one might lose sight of the , billions of modern

buildings throughout the world. The truth is that except in undeveloped societies, it is today

prohibitively difficult and expensive to build in any style other than modern.
In addition to inspiring an emphasis on structure and efficiency in architecture , the

machine had direct effects on the aesthetics of buildings. For example, Le Corbusier not
only propagated in his writings functional comparison between architecture and such
modern machines as the ocean liner and the airplane, he also applied the appearance of

these machines in his own architectural designs.

The machine aesthetic was an important influence m the development of modern

design, but it was not the only one. Modern art — both painting and sculpture — also

inspired architectural design. For instance, Le Corbusier divided his time fairly equally

between art and architecture. His drawings and paintings are generally admired, but it was
the style of his architectural drawings that was widely adopted as the rendering style of

modern architecture.

The Dutch art movement De Stijl also had an important aesthetic impact on early mod-
ern architecture. Founded in 1917, the De Stijl group of artists and architects was loosely

organized around the magazine of the same name. Central to the movement's development

were the radical theories of color and space evolved by the painter Piet Mondrian. De Stijl

embraced not only painting and architecture but also furniture, graphics, and typography.
Painter-turned-architect Theo van Doesburg, architect].]. P. Oud, and designer Gerrit

17
Rietveld applied the theories to buildings. De Stijl's simple abstract shapes and brilliant

primary colors expressed the desire to wipe art and architecture clean of the past by using

formal elements that could be understood universally.

Oud noted:

Mondrian was, in my opinion, looking for a clear, bright world. He tried to make, in

simple forms, proportions and color the strongest values in art. And that's the same
thing that I try to do in architecture.

A less direct, but perhaps more important influence on modern architecture was that of

traditional Japanese architecture . Elements of this style were translated and transmitted by

the residential open plans of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, although he res-

olutely denies he was influenced by Japanese architecture. Wright told me, "I didn't even

see the Japanese building at the Chicago World's Fair." The 1910 Wasmuth publication of

Wright's work in Germany had an explosive effect. The free-flowing spatial continuity

destroyed the classical box room.

The ideas of modern architecture run back to European philosophic and scientific tradi-

tions. Mies was fond of quoting the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas. Richard
Neutra refers to the German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt. More proximate roots can be

found in the socioeconomic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Socialism defined

the ideological climate of the early 1900s. Its interpretation of social justice provided the

sense of moral imperative that characterized the entire modern architectural and design

revolution.

Another frequently cited early source of modern architecture is the English Arts and
Crafts movement, initiated by William Morris in 1861 . He argued that machines were

devaluing aesthetic quality and destroying traditional craftsmanship. He sought a new

social order by restoring craftsmanship into industrial society.

In the climate of Germany such ideas took a different turn. The machine came to be

viewed as an elaborate and versatile new tool in the hands of the craftspeople. In 1907

artisans, industrialists, and architects joined together in Munich to form the Deutsche

Werkbund, maintaining that it was more ethical for craftspeople to design mass-produced

products for the public than unique objects of art for the wealthy.

Ideas have consequence, but the true measure of architecture must be buildings — build-

ings built. As early as the last decade of the nineteenth century many of these ideas were

simmering into building. In Brussels in 1897 the Belgian architect Victor Horta dramatized

the new materials in the Maison du Peuple with its curved iron and glass facade. During

the same years another Belgian, Henri van de Velde, urged the creation of a new architec-

ture that incorporated the new industrial materials into the Art Nouveau style. He real-

ized it in his design of the Werkbund Theater in Cologne.

The Swiss architect Alfred Roth remembers:

Henri van de Velde was living in Switzerland during the last ten years of his life. 1

met him very frequently. It was a wonderful time for me to stay with a man of his

18
importance and greatness of spirit, having been at the beginning of the modern

movement. So, naturally, 1 had discussions with him and he said some wonderful
things. Something which I will never forget is: "Art comes only out there where
things are done with love."

In 1887, with equal dedication, the Scotsman Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed the

School of Art in Glasgow with a vigor that was later recognized as a mark of modern

architecture. The same year the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage combined brick
and iron with straightforward respect for the materials in his Amsterdam Stock Exchange
Building.

Oud spoke of Berlage:

1 was friends and connected with the Berlage family. So I had the privilege of meet-

ing and talking now and then with Berlage. I admired his works, his buildings, and
his building principles. In the beginning I tried to follow the latter, and, later, I strove

after enlargement of his principles and came to ideas of my own. This did not really

lead to conclusions other than the ones to which he came. I think that part of his

principle was to build honestly. Not to build with adornments and so on, but to build

exactly out of construction. That was what interested me in Berlage very much. It

may be that I admire more what he did after his convictions than what he showed. I

don't think what he did is all beautiful. He also made ugly things, but the things were

true. It was the first time you saw a true architecture. That was what interested me so

much, you see.

As early as 1895 Louis Sullivan designed the Guaranty Building of Buffalo with the strong
vertical style that became characteristic of the American skyscraper. Frank Lloyd Wright

observed, "Lieber Meister was a poet. He was the type we dont have now." The
Frenchman Auguste Perret pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in buildings like the

Church of Notre -Dame in Le Raincy, near Paris.

The Swiss architect Marc Saugey makes the point that:

Perret was extremely helpful in paving the way tor contemporary architecture, and
around 1910, without a doubt, his influence was enormous. I worked as a draftsman
at Perret's and saw the utility of his work. Perret always said, "Reinforced concrete

exists. I build in reinforced concrete."

But I think Perret failed to free himself in time from the classical education he

received at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was always held back by wanting to

give too conventional a plasticity to reinforced concrete. He still worked with the
pedestal, the capital, the architrave. One feels, in all his buildings, he did not escape
enough from his bonds.

Today, with Nervi, for example, we see how one can exploit reinforced concrete in

a plastic way without resorting to these old solutions which date back to the use of

stone.

19
 Perret struggled against later contemporary architects, in particular against Le

Corbusier. I think he was afflicted with the same malady as that suffered by certain

revolutionaries toward the end of their lives.

Saugey had this to say about another reinforced-concrete pioneer, Tony Gamier:
When I had the pleasure of having conversations with Tony Gamier, one of the
major modern French architects, he told me, as he would to a friend, "Remember that
when one has a clear idea, whatever the size of a project, the project can be drawn on
a metro ticket. If you are not capable of expressing your idea on a tiny scrap of paper,
well then, your idea is not yet defined. Therefore do not begin to draw yet, continue
searching."

In Vienna in the early twentieth century, the Austrian architect Otto Wagner was widely
recognized for work that included the Post Office Savings Bank. In the Post Office and
other buildings, he employed modern materials in a manner that reflected his classical

training. Richard Neutra said, "As to his architecture it is probably the European equiva-

lent to what Frank Lloyd Wright did here or Sullivan before him." Meanwhile the uncom-
promising Adolf Loos , who maintained that ornament was a sin, went largely unheralded.

The Austrian born American architect Victor Gruen recalls:

A person who impressed me very much was Adolf Loos. Adolf Loos not only built,
but he also wrote. He was probably one of the clearest thinkers and strongest attack-

ers on everything which seemed to him old-fashioned. I believe many young people
were very excited by what he had to say. I always remember that he used to show us a

beautiful, British-made suitcase and say, "This is design."

Shortly before that there was a great excitement about the first big building which
Loos erected in Vienna. It was built opposite the Hofburg, which is a castle of the

Austrian kaiser. Inasmuch as that was before the revolution, the kaiser got terribly

upset because he said he couldn't look at such a building without eyebrows. So Loos

had to put eyebrows on it. He did it in the form of little flowerpots which hung below
each window. Loos had a tough fight. I was so excited about him that I was very
deeply moved when he died.

In fact, I wrote his obituary for one of the leading Viennese newspapers. I always

felt because of his philosophical approach to architecture, because of his clear think-
ing and his attacking spirit, he was one of the most important contributors to mod-
ern architecture. It is probably true that the man has not built as much as others, but

he had made his contribution to the direction of modern architecture by his writings,

by his speaking, and by his fighting.

Actually, this man not only fought the classicism and the imitation of the
Renaissance, but at the time when everybody else was engaged in inventing a new
style, Art Nouveau, he fought Art Nouveau with the same kind of energy and disgust
as he fought the Renaissance. He made his friends very unhappy, but he said it didn't

make any more sense to put these silly flowers on the buildings than it did to put

architraves in a classical order.

20
At the beginning of the new century, in 1909, the German architect Peter Behrens

designed the influential Berlin Turbine Factory for the electrical firm Allgemeine

Elektrizitats-Gesellshaft. With its reinforced concrete and huge glazed side-walls, it sig-

naled the emergence of a new architecture. Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and he
Corbusier worked in his office.

Van de Velde, Berlage, Sullivan, Perret, Gamier, Wagner, Loos, Behrens, and others we
have just mentioned are the precursors who bring us up to the first generation of architects

in the Oral History. Every age has its turning point —a new way of perceiving the world.

Though the founders of modern architecture do not hesitate, in the Oral History, to

acknowledge their debts to the people and ideas of the past, they proclaimed themselves

revolutionaries. They utilized the popular nomenclature of the proletarian revolution in

propagandizing their doctrines. Manifestos, pamphlets, books, and speeches announced

the advent of a new style. However, the bulk of this early vocabulary is absent from our

recorded document, which was made when the movement and the participants had

matured. Yet the basic concepts and convictions had not changed, nor had the enthusiasm

for the cause diminished. This gives the first-person account its sense of living history.

21
The Industrial Revolution changed the way people thought about building.

The new technology, defined as industrial or applied science, produced a

gist of technology Buckminster Fuller enthusiastically put it to me this way: "I

want to make mankind a success through design."

Function has always been a part of architecture. Buildings were always

expected to work. In his ten-book treatise On Architecture, the Roman archi-

tect Vitruvius enumerates the qualities that define architecture: beauty conve-

nience, and durability. The latter two of these are functional. Early modern

architecture redefined function in the image of that prototype creation of the

 "IN THECASE OF ARCHITECTURE, TO LIKE OR DISLIKE IS NOT
SIMPLY A MATTER OF TASTE. WE HAVE TO CHOOSE MATERIAL

ACCORDING TO REALITIES."

new age, the machine. This concept was reinforced by the new functional

building types — factories, plants, offices, and airports —demanded by the

machine age. It is a challenge even to conceive of nuclear power plants or

rocket-launching platforms in any style of the past.

Today it is sometimes difficult to grasp the dimension of physical changes

wrought by modern architecture. One has only to compare photos of, say,

Paris at the time the Oral History begins with a city like Hong Kong in the

1960s to appreciate the scale of the technological revolution. Modern

architects recognized the arrival of the new technological era, but they were OLYMPIC STADIUM, CITY
UNIVERSITY OF <

divided on adapting to it. Carlos Villanueva. Caracas, \vnczucla. 1950

iKv

H ,

m *-»

^d
 1

TOWN HALL. Willem Diidok. Willem Dudok: i 9 6

Hilversum, the Netherlands 1930.
.
It is, needless to say, that efficient construction is the first requisite of good architec-
Combining the abstract De Stijl concepts
ture. But don't let us be so foolish as to identify this and to expect that correct con-
with traditional Dutch building materials,
struction will automatically lead to good architecture. Construction is a means, so
Dudok designed an early milestone

of the modern style. important a means, that without it no architecture is possible, just as poetry is not
imaginable without language.

Why should only visible construction be considered as honest work? An idea

which, when I was young, was ventilated by many architects, has never become clear

to me. It is neither necessary nor important that construction should always be visi-

ble. Such is not even the case in nature. No one would deny the efficiency or the

beauty of the human body because the skeleton is not outwardly visible. One senses

its presence, although it is hidden from view.

Nor do I see why one should not be allowed to cover a good reinforced-concrete

construction with material of finer color and texture. I like to cover a reinforced-

concrete skeleton in a building by fine enamels, for instance, that can be seen from

the outside. Why not? You have to. They have to serve different purposes. Reinforced-

concrete structure for the strength of the building, but the outer wall has to resist cli-

matic influences as well, and it has quite a different function. You may cover the

construction by other materials of a nicer texture or a fine color. Why not? I like to

make use of enameled materials, plates and tiles.

I detest the color of concrete. It quickly becomes very dirty. I am a man who
doesn't like that my buildings are weathering. I don't like that. If I begin a building I

have in mind the color scheme of the building and I want it to stay that way. For

instance, the same way that our great Grecian architects were proud when they were
dying that they could say, "My building looks as if I built it yesterday. It stands as

fresh as I built it at the time." You see what I mean? Now, if you see the reinforced-
concrete building, oh, it is to weep.

Look here, you must not make unnatural constructions. You must make quite logi-

cal constructions. But it is not necessary that you can see that. You must feel that it is

24
 m

in the building. You will feel the construction if you see the building from the outside.

You must feel the composition. 1 certainly want us to build in an efficient and uncom-
plicated way so that full justice is done to the character of the material used and to

the method of the construction. But, after all, it is not the construction which is the

essential, but space. Man is served by space.

Eliot Noyes: 195 7

This business about the function was a very crystal clear thing in my mind. It was
very clear to me as a guide when I latched on to it. The function is the clue. We
scrutinized hard for the function and this became the clue"to form. Then came the

arguments, you know the drafting room arguments at school. "Okay, I'm going to put

a vase out in front of my driveway on a pedestal and it's 'function' too. Its function

is to give me pleasure as I come into the house." Now this immediate distortion of
what was to me a very crystal clear thing was very bad. We used to have real battles

about it.

It seems to me that the nice thing about the idea of function was that you could
knock off this vase argument, and say that is exactly what it does not mean, and that
function, as we're talking about it, is the function of the machine, the efficiency, the

right relationship of parts. As that was our clue; it really took us quite a ways.

The appeal of it was that so many of the buildings that we were inhabiting — hous-
es, classrooms, dormitories — function so badly in this so clear sense. You know, okay,

let's solve that one thing and we're off to the glorious future. We didn't realize that

this was still too limiting for really good architecture, great architecture, ever to come
out of it, but it sure was a good clue. It really was.

Frank Lloyd Wright: i 9 s 5

Workmanship and design are one thing. Good workmanship has to have a good
design because the design is in the nature of the workmanship. You can't separate

workmanship from design. This organic architecture I'm representing and preaching
and trying to build is based upon what.' The machine as a tool. Craftsmanship, the
thing the machine can do exceedingly well, made beautiful — that is what it is all

about.

Now I have bones in my system. This hand is full of bones, isn't it? And what are

the bones for? To activate the form, aren't they? Now if I take the bones out, and say

the bones are this hand, is that true? It's only an element designed to activate the

very form which has its uses, its purposes, and its expression. Now the International

Style is just that foolish. It has left out what is beauty and what is human.
Form follows function, certainly. But who the hell cares? It's the form and the

function, not reducing that to some scientific analysis, that will separate it and take it

all apart. We want it together. We want the poetry of the thing.

R .
Buck inster Fuller: 1 9 64
You have to know about the difference between my kind of undertaking and the
world of something that is called architecture. You can see how the architects like me.

25
 I seem to be producing things that are akin to them. I always had a purpose, I had to

produce higher and higher performance per pound. I'll find a Mies, incidentally with

perfect integrity, I'm not charging that at all, but he said, "Less is more," but he's
talking about that really aesthetically, not the way I'm talking about actual by weight.

When the university asked me what wanted I to call my work here they made me
research professor. I gave them my title as generalized design science exploration.

Ford Motor Company was the first to come to me in an emergency on their need
for their rotunda dome. They were getting ready for the fiftieth anniversary of the

Ford Motor Company. Young Henry Ford was intent on doing something his grandfa-
ther would like. He said his grandfather had said for years he would like to have the
rotunda court domed over. They were not getting anywhere near the use of the
rotunda they should have been. He thought it would be fine to build that dome. But
he didn't think about that until it was relatively late, about three-quarters of a year to
go to the opening. Then he asked his engineers to arrange it.

They found that the rotunda building which Ford had had out at the Chicago
World's Fair was made of very light steel framing, not meant to be a permanent build-

ing at all. But old Henry had liked it so much he had it moved from Chicago to

Dearborn and had it re-erected. So the structure wasn't anywhere nearly heavy

enough to carry a conventional dome. They said they'd have to beef the building up
to carry the weight of a conventional dome. Young Henry was intent about this. He
had a cousin, another Ford, and he knew about my work. He was a typical one of
these students who'd run into me and he told his cousin, Henry, that he thought that

possibly I could do it.

So Ford Motor Company came to me and was I given the job, but the Ford engi-

FORD ROTUNDA. R. Buckminster neers were so skeptical about it that they really battled me all the way through that
Fuller. Dearborn, Michigan, i 953 . Erected in
job. I had to work very, very hard on it, and I did get it done a month ahead of time
thirty days on an existing building, Fidler's first
and for a relatively small amount of money. I had erected it on a vast hydraulic lift.
geodesic dome of aluminum and plastic was a

celebrated structural breakthrough.

We had finally let the dome down on the roof and removed the scaffolding and there

was a great celebration.

It was great and the chief engineer of the Ford Motor Company came to me and
said, "I'm going to not only congratulate you, but I'm going to shock you. I hate to

tell you, but we were so certain that your dome wouldn't work and that you wouldn't

get it up that we let a contract to a wrecker to remove the unfinished work to get it

out of the way." They had twenty-five million dollars all invested in the TV shows
and all the things that were going to go on this fiftieth anniversary. If the building

was going to fall down they wanted to get this junk out of the way. So, he said, "We
were retaining him on an emergency basis" and, he said, "We've actually paid him
more than we're paying you to build it."

The rise of modern architecture was due in large part to the development of new materi-

als: processed materials such as steel and glass; composites, including concrete reinforced

with steel; synthetic plastics; and veneers of every sort. All of these were not new. Steel

was made from iron about one thousand years ago in India and unsurpassed Japanese steel

swords were forged in A.D. 800. But steel only replaced iron in architecture at the begin-

26
 1

ningof this century. The origins uf glass are lost in antiquity. There are glass beads dating

back to 2500 B.C. Although glass had been used for windows since Roman times,

processed sheet-glass came only with the industrial age. The Romans used concrete, but

the modern reinforcement with steel initiated its true structural use.

Modern architecture was characterized not only by the materials, but also by archi-

tects' forthright attitudes toward them. As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, "A girder is

"
nothing to be ashamed of.

J.J. P. OUD: 1961

My favorite building material is concrete protected by the covering with bricks. For

the bricks I prefer great bricks in bright colors. For the greater part, white, with now
and then a door, a gutter, or something like that in strong, pure color. This gives a

gay and cheerful effect. I like a joyful architecture just as I like a joyful mankind.
Architecture can help to bring forth the latter. It is a wonderful thing to be a good
architect.

Ernesto Rogers: 1 9 6

I think that material is only means. I don't think, therefore, that there are only good [Link]
or bad means. There are ^hk\ ends and bad ends. If you are able to use brick you can

do a masterpiece as the Robie House by Wright. If you are Mies van der Rohe you will

use steel fundamentally. If you are Corbusier you will use concrete. I think the three

examples there offer all the conventional possibility for everyone. Of course, there are

some congenialities for some artists.

MARCSAUGEY: 1961
I think new solutions are arising in technology. We were speaking hist night of

Nervi's idea. In contrast to nature, he feels we are still using far too much material in

building and that the structural approach to building will certainly give way to an
enveloping support system, as is found in nature with leaves, with conch shells, or

other shells.

Among these technological developments, furthermore, one must keep in mind

the new materials in this area with all of the plastics and other artificial materials. We
are also merely at the beginning. I think that within a tew years we will be seeing infi-

nitely more significant industrialization and prefab solutions which will enable us to
build far more quickly. There is, incidentally, a whole form of architecture that is

being ignored and that is the architecture of light. A building today must not be seen

only in daylight. People today live at night all the time and a building must be con-

ceived also in terms of artificial light.

Paul Rudolph: i960

Mies van der Rohe has made most eloquent the steel frame in this country, and it's

really difficult to see how that can be carried further. However, the precast, preten-
sion, reinforced-concrete member potentials has hardly been touched. Europe has

done much more in this field than we have. If one were to make a prognostication,

27
 6

one would say that the aesthetics of precast, reinforced concrete will lead us to an
architecture which depends on the play of light and shadow, as opposed to the archi-
tecture which depends basically, for its aesthetic values, on reflections which come
from a curtain wall.
Now this does not mean to say that the curtain wall is no longer meaningful as a

dress for the steel cage. It does have meaning. But it's just that it's not the only way to
do it. One of the things that we all long for is much more plasticity or depth in the

treatment of the exterior of our buildings. This, I feel, will come to a large degree

through manipulation of reinforced precast concrete.

Bruce Goff : i 9 5

The material that I think of immediately is the new type of plastic that is being devel-

oped for structure, which is supposed to reduce the weight of the building by ninety
percent and that would also tend toward this lighter, more athletic feeling that we're

striving to arrive at. However, I wouldn't say that's the only one. There are many,
FORD HOUSE. Bruce Goff. Aurora, many other possibilities. Plastics have many promising potentials, but much of it is

Illinois. 1949. Goff designed this characteristi-

still experimental and not able to be used yet.
cally unorthodox residence around a sunken
The metals, of course, are right in there with them on that. I think aluminum,
central kitchen and dining area. A studio is

located above, on a cantilevered balcony, and

structurally, hasn't been explored yet to do things that would seem to offer more
the house is sheltered by a circular shingled dome. than, say, steel or other heavier metals.

EDUARDO CATALANO: 1956

The aircraft industry always claims — they don't claim, but we claim — that they use

aluminum in the correct way. I don't think they do. There are two ways of using met-
als. One is by using linear elements where you can individualize, which is compres-

sion, which is tension, and so on. A very simple way to calculate the structure. Then
there is another way, that is dealing with thin shells or skins. Very seldom do you find,

in the aircraft industry, airplanes that have been approached from that three-dimen-

sional point of view in terms of the skin behavior or thin-shell behavior. So, I feel, the

only reason we always say that the aircraft industry is so much advanced is to create

some interest in the architecture, not to tout the aircraft industry more than any-
thing else.

28
 If you see things that were well done in Germany thirty years ago in terms of thin
shells with reinforced concrete, from the structural point of view, they are far, far

superior to many of the airplanes designed. The problem, to me, more than a material

itself, is how the material is used.

You have the case, of course, of reinforced concrete. Reinforced concrete is an idea
that has been used for many, many years. Every time people find new applications of

the material, the material is the same, but the application is different. If a clear state-

ment is lacking I think then that the whole result is very weak. In the structure of

Mies's building you see the elements of support. You see slabs, columns, and so on.
Those elements are holding floors, supporting loads, and -so on. Now this is a very

simplified way of building structure and is not very rich in itself.

The matter of honesty is an intellectual approach. I mean, sometimes it is better

not to be honest. I think that everybody tries to show naked things for honesty.

Sometimes we have to put on a dress. This is my idea. One of my greatest difficulties

with the students is that they are playing too much with ideas that are intellectual,

but not emotional in any way. It's the idea of putting one thing that is separate from

the next one just because they are independent in function. Sometimes it is better to

unify them. When the element has richness in itself and really is the dominant ele-

ment, then it is all right to expose it. But sometimes it is not. There is something else

besides that structure, so it is better to send that structure into the background.

Victor Gru EN: 1957

feel quite strongly that the all-glass facade in the long run really no solution.
I is It
I
lifts borrowed glory. It does not give the effect of light and shadow which we are used

to connecting with an architectural appearance. It reflects and the reflections are

interesting. To a large degree the most beautiful part of the architecture of these all-

glass cubes are the old buildings which are around it and which you see mirrored in

the glass. If you would put a glass building on a plane without these old-tashioned

buildings, the building would be rather hard to take. Yet I believe that glass buildings

definitely have their merit, especially in an office building, which basically has no
individuality to offer because hundreds of people will be there only during their work
time and go home at night.

We have certain problems to overcome with these glass buildings because the load
which is imposed on the air-conditioning and heating system is a greater one.

Obviously, we have some glare problems witnessed by the fact that you usually see all
Victor Gruen
the Venetian blinds and the curtains drawn.

I believe a wonderful use of an all-glass facade is the Manufacturers Trust Bank,

the New York bank by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, because there double function
is fulfilled. A strong promotional function is at the same time ideally taken care of as

the lighting of the interior. The whole bank has become a shop window and every-

body knows what's going on inside the spaciousness created, which is an impressive
one. So we always have to ask ourselves in those cases: Is what we are doing worth-
while? Does it fit the particular use which this building is supposed to serve, or are we

29
 1

MANUFACTURERS HANOVER just translating something which we have once dreamt about as a technical achieve-

TRUST BUILDING. Gordon Bunshaft ment to use where it does not have its place?
for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. New York

City. 1953. This four-story glass box, with the

vault in the show window on busy Fifth

Mario Salvadori: 1957

Avenue, challenged traditional classical bank In America we have a very large vocabulary of expression. We have a variety of mate-
architecture with a "money shop" concept. rials, a variety of traditions. We are eclectic. Now, I find that the artists who have pro-

duced the greatest creations, first of all, use a single language, and, secondly, gave

themselves artificial limitations in which to work. Think of Dante working out the
Divine Comedy with iambic rhythms, which seem impossible. Just by putting yourself
into a straitjacket you seem to be able to produce the great creations, if you've got

"THE ENGINEER SHOULD THEN FREE it in you, of course. Now, in America, we are so free that this has become a great

HIMSELF FROM THE FORMS DICTATED danger.

BY THE TRADITIONS OF OLDER BUILD- The only material that I know of is concrete. I think it is a wonderful material. But

ING MATERIALS, SO THAT IN COM- that is the only one I would know how to work with. However, with concrete you can
PLETE FREEDOM AND BY CONCEIVING actually do anything you like. Because I like a certain freedom of form. Now I can say
THE PROBLEM AS A WHOLE, IT freedom and that is a very dangerous word, particularly in forms. If you are free, you

WOULD USE THE MATERIAL TO ITS can sketch the form. A sketched form is not a structural form. So there are certain

ULTIMATE. PERHAPS THEN WE WOULD limitations which go back to earth pull and other things.

ARRIVE AT A NEW STYLE, AS IN I think that concrete has not really been used yet. I think we are just at the begin-

AUTOMOTIVE AND AIRCRAFT CON- ning of it because, so far, concrete has been used by contractors. It has been used by

STRUCTION, AS BEAUTIFUL AND, IN engineers who were trained in designing steel structures. It's only the last, maybe,
THE SAME WAY, DETERMINED BY THE twenty years, that concrete has been used even slightly in a creative fashion. I, for

NATURE OF THE MATERIAL." one, don't think Le Corbusier has yet conquered this. I think there are two men who
Robert Maillart know, Maillart and Nervi. Nervi, of course, has gone further than Maillart. We really

just know the ABCs of concrete.

Pier Luigi Nervi: 1 96

A good architect is someone capable of seeing the main problems of a design, capable

30
of examining with serenity the various possible solutions, and who finally has a thor-

ough grasp of the technical means necessary to accomplish his project.

I like reinforced concrete because in it we find all the static, plastic, and structural
characteristics of all other materials and, at the same time, it offers almost unlimited

and not yet explored possibilities.

LOUIS KAHN: 1961

The materials are beautiful today. Concrete is a marvelous material. It's stone that

can span with guts. It's just stone and steel. Stone that can understand. I like certain

things. I like brick. I like stone. I like all these materials. . , . I got to like concrete. I

sort of moderately like steel, you see.

Philip Johnson: 1955

It's American prosperity that influences our attitude toward materials. I'm sure that

our buildings have twice too much steel in them because it's safer. The engineer gets

paid just the same, even more, and the building certainly would stand up then. No
one has used steel even to its full advantage of letting it sway. A tall building sways a

foot. Let it sway three feet and lighten your steel thereby and get a more interesting

building. That's what I mean by people not stressing anything.

You take one example where we have done it. That is the George Washington
Bridge, where we've carried the tension principle in steel as tar as it can be done. The
result is the most beautiful structure in this part of the world.

Now the engineers did carry it too tar in the Tacoma Bridge and it tell down. More
power to the engineers. The nave of Beauvais tell down, too, but that doesn't mean
that the Gothic architects were wrong to stress stone to the pinnacle oi its ability.

That daring, I feel, is lacking in American engineers, but even more in American
architects.

196 3

Stone is real somehow. Concrete never can be real. The way to handle concrete, I

suppose, since I've never handled it much, is the way Corbusier does it with threat,

deep shadows, extraordinarily rough, enormous overhangs, and deep cuts in black

and white in a brutal fashion. Of course, I'm under the influence ot Le Corbusier, as

we all are these days.

As much as I admire Corbusier, my last visit to the Marseilles building was quite a

shock because of the ugliness of the rough materials. The extraordinarily bad lighting

also affected me to such a degree, probably more than other people. I bad to struggle

to enjoy the forms.

But for concrete that gets delicate . . . Nervi is a plaster ceiling man to me. Of
course, he's the greatest ceiling decorator of our time.

Jose Miguel Galia: 1955

I believe that concrete is a material that has tremendous possibilities ahead oi it. But
at present it has its weaknesses, which are the limitations of the methods of calcula-

3J
 tion regarding structure. The day when these are solved, we'll be able to make use of

the fluidity which concrete possesses at the time it is being shaped.

KUNIO MAYEKAWA: 1962

If we work in Japan, whether we like it or not, we cannot help making ferroconcrete

buildings. As you know, in Japan, architecture should be planned under the special
conditions to protect against earthquakes. Whether I like it or not, I have used con-
crete for a long time. I think I have gradually developed an affection or some affinity

for it. Technical development has, in effect, changed architecture and, in some cases,

the changes have resulted in dehumanizing our lives and environment. I think mod-

ern architecture is now facing such great difficulties that it is having a bad effect on
human life.

KENZO TANGE: 1962

In the case of architecture, to like or dislike is not simply a matter of taste. We have

to choose material according to realities. As far as Japan is concerned, concrete is

currently the most favorable and basic material. It is cheaper than iron and is capable
HARUMI HOUSING.
of making freer forms.
Kunio Mayekawa Tokyo. 1957. This massive
.

teri'Story public housing scheme, with its

For the past few years, the realities in Japan have rapidly changed and the labor

splayed footings, is a bold example of cost has been expensive in comparison with material cost. We have to use prefab

Mayekawa's distinctive modern style. It is

material and its method. I think we have to use concrete in the direction of industri-
located on an island in Tokyo Bay.
alization.

In the past, I wanted to use steel for my works, but under the circumstances in

Japan it was too early to do that. I felt I could not fully express or make forms that I

wanted. Therefore, I have heavily depended on concrete for my design. However,

recently the circumstances have changed. The technology of manufacturing or han-

dling steel has advanced and also labor costs have become comparatively higher. This

SPORTS CENTER. Kenzo Tange.

Takamatsu, Japan. 1962. This impressive

reinforced-concrete structure reflects Tange 's

determination to consider the Japanese archi-

tectural tradition solely as an inspiration in

creating a new architectural order.

32
 1

is favorable in terms of the improvement of our lives. It has become difficult for us to

design freely with concrete. But I think it is possible that concrete will still be used

more than steel.

AFFONSO EDUARDO REIDY: 19 5 5

We can't deny that steel-reinforced concrete, because of its ability to be molded,

seems to be the material of preference. Steel establishes a certain rigidity in the actual

design whereas steel-reinforced concrete gives the architect much more freedom of

creativity. 1 think basically what one should strive to do is to take advantage of each
material for its function, color, texture, and form. Whenever possible, take advantage
of the material as it is, trying to preserve, as much as possible, its original state.

I don't know why, but here, in Brazil, it is easier to construct than to conserve.

Maybe it's a question of mental attitude. The problem is more severe in public service

on government works than in private initiatives. In public service, all the jobs are

done through funds which are allocated on a budget from the city or the state. When
a job is approved and credit is extended for its construction, payments arc usually

parceled out every year. The credit is not very difficult to get. But when the adminis-
tration is solicited for money for maintenance or conservation, these funds are cut
and reduced in such a way that the funds available are not enough to do anything.
What happens is premature aging of the buildings, which look like very old structures

within a few years. They begin to deteriorate because of the p. tint that's missing to
Affomso huhuirdo Reidy
protect the iron. The iron corrodes and the wood rots. In other words, there is a

series of damages that occur due to the lack of maintenance.

MARCELO ROBERTO: 195 5

Maintenance is a problem here, in Brazil, due to a number of adverse fac t* >rs and par-

ticularly because there is a lack of care. We create something, then we drop it and do
it over rather than preserve the older efforts. South Americans, in general, ami

Brazilians, in particular, do not like antiques. They don't care lor tradition. They'd

rather let something fall apart and build .mother one. Maybe that's the right

approach.

Of course, here we use concrete because it's easier. But that doesn't mean that we
don't use other materials. 1 have worked with wood, stone, steel. There isn't any
material that can't be used. When we work with wood or we work with stone, what
we turn out is not very different from what we do with concrete or steel. The spirit ot

the work remains the same. I don't think the choice of material plays an important

part.

Alfred Roth: i 96

I do not belong to this group of modern architects who prefer rough concrete. I do
not like that. This house, in which I'm living, it's of concrete outside. Its outer wall is

made of reinforced concrete plus insulation inside. I did not like it. It seemed cheap. I

plastered the whole thing. See my neighbor here, his house is made of rough con-

crete. To make it well and to solve all the details with windows, it will cost you more

J3
 than plastering, which solves the problem. Therefore, I do not like Le Corbusier's
ideal too much or his theory of rough concrete. Here in Europe, especially here, in

Switzerland, among the younger generation they are a little bit blind with these

things. Rough concrete has become extremely popular.

Naturally, I can use rough concrete if it suits my purpose. For instance, the retain-

ing walls here of my house are of rough concrete. Or in the school we just started a

couple of weeks ago, it's a large school for the city of Zurich. I will have rough con-
crete of a nice, smooth finish, for all the outside of this school, the retaining walls,

stairs, and so forth, but not on the main buildings. I think we cannot go back to lower

cultural states. We are in the twentieth century, but maybe for some it's more roman-
tic, more exciting to give the impression we are living in earlier ages.

Carlos Villanueva: 1955

I like simple materials that for their crude sincerity allow me to defy the stupid vanity

of exhibitionism. Among them, I am particularly fond of concrete, symbol of the con-

struction progress of a whole century, submissive and strong as an elephant, monu-
mental like stone, humble like brick.

L.L. R ADO: 1956

If we go back to past periods of architecture, we can see that certain materials were

used. They had certain inherent qualities. For instance, when they used stone or

brick, especially stone, it was a natural material and there was a certain affinity

between that natural material and the surroundings that was directly related to

nature. Now I think our big problem today is how to use our new materials that apply

to metals and synthetic materials that are not natural materials. Stone and, naturally,

wood are close to nature and their use is somehow governed by conserving the natur-

al character of the material. When we come to metals and synthetic materials, there I

think we still have a long way to go. I think one aspect where modern architecture

somehow did not grow up yet is the aspect of aging gracefully.

OLYMPIC STADIUM, CITY

UNIVERSITY OF CARACAS.
Carlos Villanueva. Caracas, Venezuela. 1950.

The stadium is the culmination of Villanueva s

plan for University City. Its most dramatic ele-

ment is the boldly cantilevered concrete shell,

which elegantly covers the great grandstand.

34
 The old masterpieces, even buildings that don't go back to the Gothic or Baroque,

but say are one hundred or two hundred years old, there we see that materials that

were used aged. They weathered and it didn't harm the appearance. On the contrary,

it enhanced their appearance. That goes for stone, that goes for wood. It goes even for

some metals, for instance, copper. You have very beautiful copper roofs and they age.
They oxidize and get green. You have, for instance, some beautiful examples of

Baroque copper roofs where that aging has mellowed down the material and really

enhanced the architecture.

Now, with our new materials, I think we haven't found a way of detailing and fin-

ishing where that happens. There are some outstanding examples of modern archi-
tecture where the design is very good. When they were new they photographed
beautifully and after ten years they look shabby. It will take a long time to develop

certain rules or certain principles. As I said, with natural materials we have a certain

guide. That means the rules of nature. With metals and synthetic materials, it's much
more difficult. Some materials also have an apparent inherent quality. For instance,

take bronze. In sculpture that's the material mostly used for casting. It has a certain

inherent quality. We have to find how to bring out that certain inherent quality of

the new materials. Those are things that almost touch certain mysteries in nature.

We need to discover those mysteries, that makes certain materials thick, beautiful,
stronger. It's not only the strength, it's not only the durability, but it's the appearance

and maintenance that is part of it.

Today's materials it seems always have to be polished and somehow maintained like

a kitchen sink to be beautiful. That in a way is not a natural thing. The old materials

like stone and wood had a certain affinity with nature and nature wasn't fighting
them. It appears to me that nature seems to fight our new materials. There isn't thai

affinity. It will take time to discover how to find that proper relationship.

Juan O' Gorman: 1955

In relation to materials, I'll tell you one thing which I one time asked the Mexican
painter Diego Rivera. I said, "Why is it that we, in general, prefer stone and wood to

these modern plastics, which are very wonderful materials to use.' As a matter of fact,

some of them are extremely good materials." He answered something which perhaps
comes through from his Indian consciousness: "The human species has lived with Juan O'Ciurman
stone and wood and earth many more years than with plasties, and therefore perhaps

that is the reason why those materials appeal to us more as aesthetically beautiful

than the plastics."

Paul Weid linger: 1956

Broadly speaking, there are no drawbacks to any material, as long as you recognize

them. Drawbacks are only with architects and engineers, never with the materials.

The people have the drawbacks and not the materials.

In many ways, machines have been a critical factor in the development of modern archi-
tecture. In ancient times, the availability of materials was limited by transport. Modern

35
 -"'

NATIONAL LIBRARY,
UNIVERSITY OF MEXICO.
juanO'Gorman. Mexico City. 1952.

Rising from a low block, this slab with twelve

floors of book stacks displays architect!

painter O'Gorman's remarkable mosaic,

executed in rough native minerals.

architects accept distribution of building materials as a given. Scores of powerful machines

make modern construction both possible and economical. In addition, machines are a part

The skyscraper was made possible by the development of the eleva-

of buildings themselves.

tor by the American civil engineer E.G. Otis. He installed the first safety elevator in

1857. Of the mechanical systems—electrical, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning-

it was of the latter that the architects I interviewed most frequently spoke.

PHILIP WILL JR.: 1956

In designing buildings, basically what we are doing is creating environment. The

greatest step made recently in controlling environment is the invention and develop-

ment of air-conditioning. Its impact on planning is really only beginning to be felt.

We can feel it in our own work. We are now going into new plans and building types

in schools. These would be impossible without air-conditioning. While such planning

creates problems, it solves many that have been troubling educators. But that added

of controlling environment threads way through almost all building types,

means its

and its effects are only beginning to be felt.

HEATHCOTE ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL. Philip Will Jr. with Lawrence

Perkins. Scarsdale, New York. 1953. With

classrooms clustered around a core housing

common rooms such as the library and

auditorium, this school pioneered a plan and
a noninstitutional look that were adapted
in countless schools elsewhere.

36
RUDOLPH: 1960
I would say thirty-five or forty percent of one's budget that you spend on mechanical

equipment, in the next two decades, we will find ways of making more meaningful.

This, for me, becomes much more the element which becomes really sculptural. It

gives the possibility of a really great play of light and shadow. Why should all our

multistory buildings just mysteriously be air-conditioned? I think you might really

express this fact. This obviously could lead to a kind of mechanical exhibitionism,

just as we have gone through a stage and are still in a stage of a kind of structural

exhibitionism.

You know, this thirty-five or forty percent that one spends on those things, one

used to spend that on painting, sculpture, and adornment. You couldn't sell anyone
on that now. We have to be more comfortable. But it's just possible that we get the

real manipulation of light and shadow by this very means. The fact is, the advent of

air-conditioning has not been faced in terms of architectural design. We mysteriously

air-condition and heat our buildings as a matter of fact. Beautiful structure are

evolved, but then they are rendered like Swiss cheese by all the duct work and so

forth. Now then, the integration of those two is really interesting.

I don't know whether you know our Blue ( aoss-Blue Shield Building in Boston, a

multistory building which is now on its way up. We've made an effort to make the

mechanical system into something more meaningful than just keeping you hot or
keeping you cool or keeping you dehumidified, or whatever it is. For instance, in this

building the support, of course, comes from the bottom. But the mechanical system is

like a great octopus coming from the top and encircles the whole building. The hot

in and the cold air and the returns are outside the columns, and then the horizontal
branches are clearly shown. So that this becomes like a great vine encircling the

whole building.
The machine and the control of the climate, ot course, are here to stay. The
Industrial Revolution has affected architecture in industrialization structure. It is

meaningful. The whole prefabricated movement, one cannot deny. But I present the
BUI: CROSS-BLUE SHIELD
ii [ LDI NG Paul Rudolph with Anderson,
thesis that the machine should serve us, not dictate to us; that the air-conditioned
Beckwith, and Haible. Huston. I960. Air-
building in Boston does not have to be the same as the air-conditioned building in and structural columns arc
conditioning ducts

San Francisco; that the scales of these two cities are quite different and the way the incorporated in the verticals of the gridded

people live are really very different. You could even use the same prefabricated parts, precast'Concrete facade.

but that the building can take on overtones ot the individual area. That's easier said

than done. I don't mean to say that regionalism is the only determinant ot architec-

tural form, and I certainly don't mean to deny the whole Industrial Revolution.

The optimistic hopes for prefabrication inspired by the machine have been partly fulfilled

and partly frustrated. Many of the elements of buildings today are manufactured off-site;

prefabricated components have transformed a surprising amount of site work into a job of
assembly. These components range from structural parts and wall and window units to

mechanicals for plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning. However, due to costs and the

dictates of codes and unions, a great deal of construction remains on-site. Private homes

37
 in the United States are typical of this large number of possibilities . They run from prefab-

ricated houses and residential trailers made in factories to development and custom homes
built on-location.

MAX BILL: 1961

I think in a certain way good design-prefabrication will change many things. But I

think that is very difficult. The prefabrication must he done in the way that it has
many possibilities. These many possibilities, that's the question for prefabrication. We
always thought it would go very quickly. But it didn't go so quickly as we thought. I

agree completely with prefabrication, but prefabrication becomes in a certain way a

religion, a mystique. Prefabrication in one way is a real technical problem and in

another way is a human problem. It is a problem of flexibility.

SCHOOL OF DESIGN. Max Bill.

Ulm, Germany. 1955. Designed in the

Bauhaus tradition, this technical school

for architecture, industrial design, and

visual communication sited on a hill

is a simple and efficient complex.

We've always erected prefabricated buildings. All my buildings are done with pre-

fabricated elements. But even in the structure, which could be prefabricated, you may
have to do a building in a certain way. For example, this Design Institute building I

did in Ulm. There I had, first, a completely prefabricated building, but we did not

have money to do a prefabricated building. We had to do a concrete building as

cheaply as possible. It could have been the cheapest possibility to prefabricate this

building, but it was not possible because prefabrication needs a certain technical level

and volume.

SAUGEY: 1961
Despite what we are very often told today, especially by builders and suppliers, that

prefabrication and industrialization prevents you from being free and imposes very
strict limits on the art of building, I think we will follow a completely different path.

Once the initial crisis in prefabrication is past, we will see infinitely greater flexibility

in the production. The architect will be given much more freedom in order to draw
nearer to one of the architect's goals, which is liberation through housing and the art

of construction, and not imposing limitations upon those using the buildings.

Walter G ropius: 1955

Beginning with the sixties of the last century, the great invention in steel — the real

steel for buildings, which didn't exist before — and the reinforced concrete, which was

38
invented by Gardner, brought completely new viewpoints. We can make large spans

today, whereas the old building was made of a brick or stone wall with cut-outs for

the windows. We can now build a skeleton and have a skin around it. That is a com-
pletely different approach. That makes us much freer because we can make the open-

ings where we want because the structural part is the skeleton and not the wall as it

had been before. So we are much freer in the development of our plans and all the

details of the building on account of these great inventions.

Of course, in line with that comes the big movement toward prefabrication.

Prefabrication will be the future. I am rather proud that in 1910 I had written some-
thing on this. In my opinion, prefabrication was not a sudden revolution so that

everybody would live in exactly the same house. It is a slow evolutionary process, tak-

ing one thing after the other out of the hands of the craftsmen and letting it go
through the machine, so that one day we come to the result that we can buy, on the

market, competitive parts of the same dimensions, to be used, at will, by the architect

to make the whole design out of these component parts. Whether we take bricks or

stone for the design units, we can also take these ready-made parts by industry.
I found recently that this type of prefabrication has penetrated further into the

skyscraper buildings than into residential buildings. You take a building like Lever

Brothers, where eighty-five to ninety percent of the whole building was component
parts ready-made in a factory, brought to the site, and assembled there. So from the
development of a building, we come to an assembly process where most of the work is

done in the stationary workshop and then the part brought to the site to be assem-
bled there.

People are afraid that we will get into too great a conformity of everything, which
is not true because the natural competition of the market will bring such a variety of

these parts. Even when they follow the same dimensions, which is a necessary thing,

we have enough variety to choose from. Also, the architect will not be thrown out of
the market because assembling a house from existing component parts is just as diffi-

cult as assembling it from bricks. In spite of the machine and the multiplication quali-

ty of the machine, we have more at our disposal in types today than we have had in

the craft's time.

I am not at all afraid ot too great unification by industry in the country. We will

have a great variety of parts and, I think, if certain common denominators of parts go
through the whole, it is only an advantage. We will avoid the terrible hodgepodge we
have today when we go to ;i street scene where everything is different, instead of

keeping it in a more restrained attitude.

It is not only the technical problems, for instance, it is the financing. It is really a

vicious circle. I went through that myself. I had patents with Konrad Wichsmann oi

the General Panel Corporation. We didn't get congenial merchants. So the factory
didn't succeed. But the main drawback was the financial methods, because when you
get your FHA money it comes back in six or eight months. Whereas when you have a
factory and warehouse, the prefabricated units go through in a few hours. The factory

is choked in a jiffy if you cannot dispose of them fast enough. So you have to have the
market in order to get it through, but you cannot get the market before you have the

39
 6

house. Thi5 is the most difficult thing. If the government doesn't have specific financ-

ing methods for prefabrication, it will still go slower and slower.

You see, it takes a long time until this development comes about. I never expected
prefabrication to be a sudden breakthrough, throwing others out of the market. It is a

slow, continuous process and when you open a Sweet's Catalog you will find that a

great part is already available coming from the industry. My only point is that the

architect didn't take part in that enough. He left it too much to the engineer to

develop these parts. He should go into the industry and develop them.

It will definitely go. After many prefabrication systems and factories failed, there

are still a few going on. I think it will be more a general fabrication of parts of a house

than one factory making the whole house. The house is composed of so many differ-

ent parts that we have to assemble it from many factories, not only from one.

Pietro Bellusch-I: i 9 5

Having things built in a factory at the very lowest cost and assembled on the site is

perhaps the largest, the greatest contribution to architecture and to forms of modern
architecture. I think that plastic and aluminum and other materials of that kind

which lend themselves to be worked, just like the automobile can be formed to a
press, offer the greatest opportunity and the greatest change in the future. We really
cannot afford to use bricks laid one by one by extremely highly paid workers. We can-
Pietro Belluschi not afford to have absolute systems now that wages are going up. Therefore, we will

be forced, simply by economics, to use the materials which lend themselves to, let's

call it, prefabrication, that much-abused word, from which people expected so much
some time ago and a lot of people have been disappointed. But actually we are on our
way and we see it all around us and we can't really change the course of events
because it is a direct result of our industrial skill.

Ralph Rapson: 1959

There have been tremendous technological strides. It seems to me that we're obvious-

ly going to have one of the trends of the future be the greater and greater use of
industrialization as applied to the building picture, and this naturally means prefabri-

cation. Now, whether it's prefabrication of the individual parts you assemble and put
together or prefabrication as a total thing, I wouldn't know, but I think that both of

these things will happen.

It's certainly going to happen in the residential field. I'm sure that we'll go on for
EQUITABLE SAVINGS many years with the idea of the individual structure. This seems to be something of
AND LOAN ASSOCIATION
BUILDING. Pietro Belluschi. Portland,
an American illusion — a desire so that we're going to have the individual house with

Oregon. 1948. This structure was recognized us. I would hope that we will stop squandering our natural resources in land and have
as a pioneering work, both for its sleek a little greater respect for our total environment. Perhaps we will begin to think in
reinforced-concrete frame, tinted glass, and might
housing and in other buildings in terms of the total space more and that this
aluminum cladding, and as the first sealed,
mean row houses or group houses. Not that I think we should rule out the individual
air-conditioned building in the United States.
home for sure. The individual house can certainly be with us even though it may be
part of a large complex whether in rows or strung out horizontally.

40
Charles Goodman: 1956
Of course, the technical development that interests me most, and I suppose every

industrialist in the country, is automation. I think that's going to have the greatest

significance in technical development because it is self-correcting. Anybody who has

anything to do with an industrial process knows what that means. Housing mass-pro-

duction has had a weakness in the past. Its tolerances have worn off. In other words,

if you have the same set of dies and jigs and so on, those jigs don't always remain per-

fect, which means constant personal checking unless you have an automatic check-
ing system. The development of automation to its fullest will do that. To me that is

the greatest contribution of automation, the self-correcting process which cheapens

the process automatically and, as an end result, gives the buyer a lower-cost product.

The reason, of course, that I mentioned automation is because that to me is what

eventually is going to make prefabrication a force so great that I don't see how any-

body will even consider doing a conventional domestic building anymore. Of course,
you are talking to somebody who feels this is the only way to build domestic architec-

ture even though, as you know, we still do many, many individual homes and subdivi-
sions in the conventional manner. However, these subdivisions we have industrialized

to an extremely high degree even though it is a single project.

When you are talking about prefabrication, you are talking about something that
has characteristics so similar to the automobile industry that it isn't funny. The thing

that originally retarded the purchase of automobiles and, note, I am not just talking

about the assembly line, which everybody uses as the parallel, because prefabrication
in domestic architecture has a system of prefabrication, or will have, which will have

no relation to the automobile assembly line at all. It's a different kind of assembly

line.

When automobiles were first produced, their cost was prohibitive and the thing

that made them common was, one, the assembly line and, two, the financing system.

The assembly line would have been worthless without the financing system. Right
now in domestic architecture we have what you might call a kind of assembly system

which contributes to lower costs, but we <\o not have .1 financing system worth the

name. It's still the Dark Ages. As tar as industrial architecture and commercial, we
have had prefabrication for some time. After all, when you do an office building, what
is it? It's a series of parts. Certainly prefabrication is nothing new there. It's here.

Carl Koch : 19 5 6

The off-site building of components, larger and larger parts of the structures, is the

most interesting, significant change that is taking place. I think what gets me j;oing
i

in the whole housing field now is the way things can be put together and the tremen-

dous facilities we have Kir improving construction, production, and materials, rather
than the individual results of any one of these at the present time.

We are moving in the direction of having our buildings and building groups in
effective relationship between up-to-date technical methods and construction sys-

tems. I think we are beginning to get away from what, in a great deal of modern
architecture, is almost a worshipping of the machine itself, but not using it as an

41
 6

EASTGATE APARTMENTS. Carl

Koch with William Hoskins Brown, Robert
Woods Kennedy, Vernon De Mars, and Ralph
Rapson. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1950.

Koch designed this twelve-story building along

the Charles River to include a community

room, penthouse laundry, and retail space.

Each of the two hundred sixty-one apartments

has a balcony or terrace.

effective tool at all. Doing a great deal of very painful and expensive hand-labor to

try to make it look as though it came out of a machine at the end. I think it's just as

ridiculous, don't you, to make a plaster wall that looks as though it was a sheet of

steel.

Gordon Bunshaft: i 9 5

It seems to me that the greatest change that is occurring in this country is that build-

ings are no longer being built to last five hundred years. They're no longer monu-
ments that are built and that the interior purposes change with each generation such
as some of the structures in Paris and London. Today the economics of our civiliza-

tion and the increasing requirements of comfort demanded by the people are making
buildings obsolete in twenty to twenty-five years. This change, I think, is going to

have a basic effect eventually on the structure and on the design theories of architec-

ture.

In other words, the Detroit automobile industry, with new models, is being felt, at

least in New York City. Especially where a building is torn down twenty years after it

is built, primarily because of economic analysis of the site and the need for the latest

mechanical gadgets such as air-conditioning, better elevators, lighting, etc.

There, of course, is also another reason for it, an economic and social one. The
Gordon Bunshaft
large apartments in these buildings were built primarily for people who had servants.

Today servants are a disappearing race. The architecture must be designed to suit our

needs today. I don't know whether this is a good direction and whether it is a nation-

al one or international one, but it is an indication of something happening.

As far as the technical aspects of development, there is no question that we must
develop a method of building these buildings precisely, lightly, and quickly, and this,

42
of course, leads to prefahrication. Today buildings are primarily being built as they

were forty years ago. The skins are different, but the basic construction is the same.

Tons of cement, tons of water, tons of sand, tons of brick, moved up and down struc-
tures, the same old way they did when they built the Woolworth Building. The build-

ing industry, as a whole, not just the architectural aspect of it, is a slow-moving

device and it is full of trades, unions, guilds, and what not. These move very slowly.

There is another small detail called building codes. These things also move slowly.

But eventually we will have prefabricated, light constructed, rapidly constructed,

clean buildings.

LEVER HOUSE. Gordon Bunshaft for

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. New York

City. 1952. One of the most influential early

modern office buildings, this eighteen-story

blue-green glass tower sits atop a wider single

floor; the whole is raised on stainless-steel-

faced pillars, leaving most of the Park Avenue

site open to pedestrians.

45
Architecture has always been a social art. It is the most public of the fine

arts. The realization of a building demands the coordinated activities of

many people in the fields of politics, planning, design, finance, and

construction, and the result affects the entire community

The heightened social awareness of the post-World War I era gave

modern architecture its special sense of broad social mission. Socialism, in

its multiple forms, was not just a background to modern architecture; it was
"THERE EXISTS PRACTICALLY NO CULTURE IN THE WORLD

WHERE IT'S ONLY UTILITY THAT COMMANDS, BUT IT SHOULD

BE RELATED TO SOME KIND OF HUMAN SERVICE."

a critical motivating force. The desire among architects to make life better

for people was genuine and compelling

—so compelling that it inspired a

missionary zeal, with the accompanying sense of rectitude. Architecture

developed a new morality. The architectural historian Sigfried Giedion

maintained, "Contemporary architecture takes its start in a moral problem."

The new architecture, contrasting itself with the Beaux-Arts, claimed to be

true, healthy, and honest.

OTAN1EM1 INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY. Aluir Aalto. Otaniemi,
Finland. 1961
 61

EDUAROO CATALANO: 1956

We are too concerned with technical developments. Social developments and social
structures are more important than concrete structure. I would put social structure in

the first position to affect building design.

Oscar N iemeyer :
1956
Socialism will simplify architecture. It will deal with big human problems, which will

lead to the solution to problems of collectivity.

Ernesto Rogers: 1 96
Once I said that the form is the conclusion. I would say in more general terms that

architecture also is a conclusion. It's not a separate activity of man. It's an activity

which rises from historical context and, if I may say so, a social context. The form,

therefore, is a result of different premises. All architecture is the result of different

premises. It is, when it is finalized, something that we can consider autonomous, but
that doesn't mean that it is really detached. It means that it is included.

OTANIEMI INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY. Alvar Aalto.
Otaniemi, Finland. 1961 . Sited in a wooded

park on a high hill, the auditorium and

laboratories, as well as other units of this

brick, granite, and marble complex, are

designed so they can be expanded

without disturbing the whole.

Alvar Aalto: i 96 i

I don't think that architectural form always should be practical or so. There exists

practically no culture in the world where it's only utility that commands, but it should

be related to some kind of human service. I have a feeling that form just for itself is

not quite a religion for a human being. It has to have some relation. I view my forms

from other points of view, too.

Oswaldo Bratke: i 9 5

I tend to believe that technical developments are less responsible for the transforma-

tion of life and constructions than social changes. After thousands of years, the dom-
inant materials in most parts of the world are wood, brick, and clay tiles. I believe

Oswaldo Bratke that new forms appeared which are made possible because of new materials and more

46
 ,

sophisticated techniques. However, the important aspect is the function and this is
MORUMBI CHILDREN'S
HOSPITAL. Oswaldo Bratke. Sao Paulo,
motivated by social structure. Certainly, reinforced concrete was very responsible for
Brazil. 1951. Reflecting Bratke's lifelong social
changes in architecture in the last decades. But it was the social structure that char-
concerns, this hospital of simple design and
acterized medieval, nineteenth-century, as well as contemporary architecture. /<ni -maintenance materials has homelike
interiors and rooms for parents to stay with

their children.
GlO PONTI: 1961
In the past, the architect built grand buildings for princes, kings, and emperors. Today
the architect contributes to a prediction for the future and is no longer a man of the

court. Today our philosophy is to be independent, to study the future of humanity

through city planning and its issues and to be the first to instill it. Le Corbusier, for

example, is a precursor as Neutra was a precursor for schools. Gropius was a great
precursor and teacher. All of today's architecture works together with and also gives

rise to social developments.

KENZOTANOE: 1962
It is always impossible to think about technological things or technological advance

separately from social advance. Accordingly, we cannot take out technological things
only. We have to think simultaneously as to how the social change affects architec-
ture. Therefore, I think it is easier to understand if we think o( it on the basis of the

two axes.
First, as the technology of manufacturing and building things, including air-condi-

tioning, is further advanced, a lot of changes will naturally occur. On the other hand,

communication technology will change rapidly. This will, I think, totally change the V I R E LL I TOWER. Gio Ponti. Milan
social structure. If I say "social structure," it may seem to be too abstract. But com- Italy. 1958. Tapering side walls accentuate the

slenderness of this elegant thirty-three-story

munication is the technology of creating the relation between man and man, man
(oner, m which Ponti and engineer Pier Luigi
and thing, or thing and thing. So, I feel that the social structure will be changed a
Nervi departed from the standard rectangular
great deal. I think perhaps it will greatly affect architecture. The connection of one modern office block.

architecture to another, one architecture to a bigger architectural group, or to an

urban community structure, will be greatly changed. It will depend on the nature of
communication.

47
 It is a future problem for us architects to give a careful look at the relation between
one architectural element and another, or architecture and the city. In other words,

because each architectural element performs its function in the entire city, it is the

era in which we can hardly design simply individual architecture. In this sense, there

emerges the problem of spatial mobility. We have to think about architecture within

the limits of this spatial mobility.

An appropriate example related to communication is automobiles. I think that

automobiles affect more things than their own function. Speaking extremely, space

exists for communication and the automobile plays a role of connecting one thing to
another. Accordingly, if we use the role of communication for the inside or outside

space of architecture, a new way of thinking about architecture and the city will be

developed. Therefore, I think communication technology or the change in social

structure through it will considerably change future architecture.

Social change is very closely related to the technological change, although I can-

not say it comes chiefly from technological change. At present, the technology of
manufacturing or building things has developed a great deal. The absolute number in

terms of national production has become very large. More than twenty percent out of

the total national production in Japan went to the construction field. The rate of five

percent in the past has grown to twenty percent. Thus this overwhelming amount of
construction has led to the rapid growth of the physical environment of society. On
the other hand, close to the remaining eighty percent out of the absolute number of
large production went to consumption. So the absolute number of consumption
became large. The growth in consumption means that things disappear faster. The
more rapidly physical environment structure develops and grows, the faster old minor
elements disappear and change to new ones. It means time-wise mobility has been
intensified. This is one of the characteristics. If we do not invent some kind of archi-

tecture to cope with this phenomenon, architecture itself will be left behind.

When we think about architecture, we have to think about it in a condition that is

moving in time and space. I do not deny functionalism, but I think we should over-

come the static way of thinking that exists in functionalism. As both architecture and
the city are the places where people live and work, their basic premise is, of course, for

people. This remains the same as before. The modern cosmopolitan society admits

individual's free will, but society is an organism. This should be influenced and
reflected in the physical forms of architecture and the city.

Richard Neutra: 1955

I have, of course, no doubt that the most precious of all materials is the human mate-
rial which has been studied as an object, recommended as an object of study by many
philosophers for the last ten thousand years. Probably before this thing was put into

writing, this recommendation already held true when people have been interested in

human beings. On the other hand, while it looks so gray of age, this recommendation,

it is extremely green and new if you consider the thousands of papers published in
various systematic scientific journals relating the observations and laboratory work
and experimentation which distinguishes our time much more than that of Aristotle.

48
 I don't want to smear Aristotle here by any means, but I think that we had made Richard Neutra

some progress in recognizing what makes organisms tick. We know very much more
about organic life and we know very much more about human organisms in particu-

lar. So that this is perhaps the most novel development to be considered if we speak
of housing life, and after all, architecture always does so. Even if you have a power
station in which you are producing millions of kilowatts, but only five people are

working, the five people are the deciding factor on how to design that station.

Now I think, therefore, it is the study of human responses and all the sensorial

endowment of a human organism and then what goes on in the central area, how is

this being stereoscopically composed and works together is the great novelty of our

time. It is very often in conflict with technical developments, which have their own
law and their own sequence.

The common denominator, the factor which will help us to find principles of regu-

lating all this into a real order, is evidently: What can human beings take? What is

the biologically bearable? What is the biologically wholesome? We never will over-

come that. This is absolutely what we don't want to overcome, we want to further.

The architect who really designs for a human being has to know a great deal more
than just the five canons o( Vitruvius.

Max Bill: 1961

What influenced all my thinking in doing architecture is always the human need.

The social background, the personal, the individual background with the individual
need of things, the relation between need and form, need and design. 1 think every-

thing needs to be in the right place so that human need can function. I think archi-

tecture should never be self-expression, never ambition, something like exhibitionism,

so-called original or individualistic ideas.

While building has always been a group effort, it was the social climate of modern archi-

tecture that emphasized the egalitarianism of the design team. Walter Gropius was its most
articulate advocate.

49
 6

WALTE'R GROPIUS: 1956

We have to learn teamwork from the bottom up. The field we have to see today is so

large that it is impossible in one head to have everything. There is a mechanics to

teamwork which we have to study. I think it is a definite necessity as building and

architecture comes more and more to the field of planning.

Enrico Peressutti: 1956

Sometimes teamwork is when you have worked together like Rogers and myself for so

many years. There certainly are some jobs which will have more influence on one of
us. Statistically, I would say, we are even. Our works reflect the whole of our work and
our teamwork. Working on the same shape and the same problem, our own ideas

change and are modified by the thought of the other, by what the other can see better
than I can and vice versa. It is difficult to say if it is an advantage or not. It is an
advantage if the collaborator goes on the same stream. We have our own criticism
but, as I say, the best result of the collaboration is when the ideas of one or the other

become one and the same thing. Naturally, then we know that this thing is the right

one.

Personally, I'm very proud of our teamwork because I think it shows two things.

One, a moral possibility to work in teams which is not very usual. Secondly, I think it

corresponds as Gropius said to certain necessities of our present cultural conditions.

Of course, there are some dangers. I think it is very difficult in life to be a bachelor or

to be married. It's always a problem.

Pier Luigi N ervi : i 9 i

Beautiful, unlimited, full of unlimited possibilities, provided that architects come

closer to the technical and static aspects of architecture. Or provided that architects

form the habit of studying their projects in teams composed of architects, engineers,
and developers. It is an extremely important collaboration because the architect
could have a creative role in the overall design, whereas the engineer must help him

immediately, from the first draft, to establish and define the static and structural pos-
sibilities of the architect's conception. In this way certain dangers would be eliminat-

ed. For example, those of developing projects which turn out to be impossible to

build, or may only be built with great difficulties and technical complications, which
Pier Luigi Nervi
are not economical and also bring something unnatural to the final architectonic

result.

Rudolf Steiger: i 9 i

Teamwork seems to me, on the basis of my rather long experience, an important con-
dition for the development of architecture, because the possibility exists to master the

wide field of architecture better by means of teamwork. However, it must be said that

teamwork should not be a specialization. It should not mean, he does the architec-

ture, he does the technical things, he does that, etc. That is not teamwork in my
understanding of it, that is a combination based on specialists in the same office.

Teamwork should be work by equally educated and equally capable people. It

50
should be such that one can replace the other completely. Only then will teamwork

have reciprocal value. Otherwise the most important thing will be missing, that

is, mutual criticism. Among specialists there is no mutual criticism, but among
architects with the — though one may, of
same training follow one direction course,

more in his development according nature — but among such

to his there architects

is a discussion.

We have teamwork examples, I, with Haefeli, [Werner] Moser, my son, etc. One
goes in the morning, orders a color sample. In the afternoon the other turns up and

takes the sample off. We work so closely together that it is as though one were doing
it. With my son, the way it works, he corrects a plan and I continue with the correc-

tions. The next day he continues to correct, and all this without our speaking to each

other. It is done in the same spirit. Teamwork is of value only if mental coordination
is possible. A team composed from the outside, as it is often unfortunately done here,

when someone does not know which architect should be entrusted with what, that is

absolute nonsense. Artificially formed working groups mean enormous expenditure

of energy, while teams originating in a natural way, that

A friendly exchange that was fairly important — I was

is

a
an enormous advantage.
member of the CI AM
URBANISME
Council with Gropius and Le Corbusier, van Eesteren, Giedion, van den Broek, and LOGIS ET LOISIRS. V Architecture
d'Aujintrd'hui, Boulogne-sur-Seine, France.
others. These were always very interesting meetings. We always met in the rue de
1938. The report of the fifth C/AM congress
Sevres, 25, at Le Corbusier's. There were discussions about all kinds of things, but
held in Paris in 1937 on urbanism was typical

basically less about architecture. For example, formal matters, more general things of in tunc nj the publications that carried on

urban construction, publicity, how the group should be developed. the revolutionary dialogue of the modern
movement.
Of course, immediately two groups formed. That was in CIAM from the very
beginning, there were two very separate groups and I think it is this way at the pre-

sent as well. One group was more the Dutch, Nordics, Swedes, and Swiss, who want-
ed to reach a more systematic, documented basis, and on the other side there was

Corbusier and later Sert, who stressed the publicity more. And as long as there was a
good equilibrium, CIAM was productive and had its emanations.

From these discussions something always emerged, sometimes they became quite

vehement. I recall altercations between Mart Stam and Corbusier and between Hans
Schmidt and Corbusier with Moser. These were very vehement discussions which
were very productive, so to speak, because they corrected each other dialectically.

Later, unfortunately, the propaganda aspect was emphasized too much and that was
the reason many forces or, rather, many colleagues, lost interest in CIAM because
they did not value the propaganda aspect that highly. It is very interesting that as

soon as something has lost its equilibrium it more or less lapses into inactivity. I

deeply regret that these meetings are no longer held, that we no longer get together

and many have withdrawn.

At the time of the Industrial Revolution there were an estimated 720 million people in the

world. Efy 1920 the number had risen to roughly 1.8 billion. This totally unprecedented

population explosion made a new architectural solution imperative. It was only natural
that given the social climate of the period, the focus of the new architecture worldwide was
on housing.

51
 The early and influential showcase of modern architecture, the 1927 Weissenhof exhibi-

tion in Stuttgart, consisted entirely of housing, h featured thirty-three residential units,

which ranged from single-family units to apartment blocks, designed by LudwigMies van
der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gropius, ].]. P. Oud, Peter Behrens, Bruno Taut, and others.

PEDREGULHO ESTATE. Affonso

EduardoReidy. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1952.

This twelve-acre residential neighborhood,

which includes a school, playground, health

center, laundry, and shopping center, is a

singular social achievement. A mammoth,

curving seven-story apartment building

follows the contour of the hilltop site.

Affonso Eduardo Reidy: 1955

It's not only because it's an inclination; circumstances brought me to this housing

sector. It's a sector that I always loved. I truly consider it to be the most important
area of architecture. It attracted me as an architect to seek a solution to the housing
problem in the best possible way. I have worked in this sector for almost ten years

now. I'm more convinced of the need for architects to become more involved in this

area to improve the living condition primarily of those of lesser financial means.

Jose Miguel Galia: 1955

I believe that the population explosion in the world and our country, Venezuela,
which creates the need to properly house and serve a vastly greater number of people
than was the case in the past, will provoke or cause a change in construction meth-

ods in order to simplify them.

Eliot Noyes: 1957

I think every time there is any social change, if you can identify it immediately, it has

an effect on architecture. Talking rather small scale ones compared to the history of

the world, let's say, I'm thinking of the fact that in the thirties, after and during the
Depression, the lack of money had an effect on architecture in the need for maxi-
Miguel Galia
Jose
mum economy. You know, conspicuous economy was a sort of principle by which we
had to design.

I was going to contrast it with the fact that while there we were looking for aes-

thetic virtues in our poverty; we had the necessity for economy and we were making a

virtue out of it. This was a good thing and I think it's still quite valid. Now, suddenly,
prosperity is upon us everywhere and this is having, I think, quite an effect on design
and the richness, the lushness of design sort of still within a disciplined framework

than we ever would have had without ever having gone through the other period.
This is kind of balancing, an alternating rhythm of some sort that comes and goes.
I don't think there's any doubt that every time you get a change of economic status

52
for a country or a period, it has an immediate effect on the way buildings look and

what happens in their design. Of course, it's the same thing with new forms of trans-

portation and suburbia. It's a constantly changing thing. I just don't think that any-

body can predict it. I would simply say that you can't have a social change without it

having an immediate effect on architecture.

The social impulse in modern architecture is nowhere more evident than in city planning.

Declaring that the town plans of the past were no longer relevant to the spirit of the new
age, the architects of the modern movement proclaimed a design dogma of collective well-

being. They proposed nothing less than to change people's lives through architecture. A
manifestation of this goal is the remarkable number of ideal city plans produced between

the 1920s and the 1940s. They range from Frank Lloyd Wright's semiagrarian Broadacre

City to Le Corbusier's visionary designs — Ville Contemporaine , Ville Radieuse, and Plan
Voisin — and his ill-fated plans for the cities of Pessac, Algiers, Antwerp, and Saint-Die.

In accepting the American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor, Le Corbusier said, "I

have a little paper in my pocket which contains all the defeats in my life. It was the great-

est part of my activity."

BROADACRE CITY, MODEL. Frank

Lloyd Wright. /935. In this unrealized design

for a self-contained community living in a rural

democracy, Wright brought many of his ideas

and ideals together.

Marcel Breuer: 1956

I think the greatest change will be social changes that will probably influence archi-

tecture the strongest. While we design today's buildings, we feel we should design at

least streets, but probably districts. Of course, to design districts or streets is another
type of financing, another type of client, than we deal with today.

The greatest future possibilities in architecture lay in city planning. I do not mean
city planning is architecture, but architecture's solutions of city planning. In other

words, solutions which are large-scale solutions. That, of course, requires also social

changes or anyway some new methods of financing, of owning properties.

Some beginning was done, let us say, in projects like Stuyvesant Town. I don't
think that the project is a very good project, but it has an outstanding feature in that
it takes the whole district together. I wish that planning would have been better and Marcel Breuer

55
 r gy * ^ I
1
iff- ' i ' ' _' 1_

UNESCO HEADQUARTERS. the architecture would have been better. But I see that this type of planning on still a
Marcel Breuer with Pier Luigi Neri'i and larger scale gives a completely new element to architecture. For instance, Saarinen's
1

Bernard Zehrfuss. Paris. 1958. Designedby

project at General Motors is a very good example of large-scale planning because,
an international team of architects and
engineers, this eight-story, Y-shaped building
actually, each building is not anymore a building, but a part of a much bigger compo-
with a curving facade on tapered columns sition.

is an impressive headquarters for the United We won't speak about buildings, but about spaces between buildings. We will speak
Nations' cultural and educational activities.
about squares and streets as the form of architecture. The negative form, the space,

will be the form of architecture and not the blocks and the masses. Masses as archi-

tectural form of expression will stop, more or less.

PETER COOPER VILLAGE-

STUYVESANT TOWN. Irwin Chanin

and Gilmore Clarke. New York City. 1946.

The huge Metropolitan Life Company

complex, comprising one hundred ten

buildings with 11,251 apartments as well as

playgrounds and landscaping, lacks

architectural distinction but is a remarkably

successful example of urban housing.

54
WILLEM DUDOK: 1961
I think that we must take a wider view of the subject and that we must not apply it to

the building, but rather to the towns and villages as a whole. For society requires

quite a different development of city planning not only owing to the enormous
increase of population, but especially owing to the totally changed character of the

traffic.

In the middle of the previous century, the railway and the industrial development
created the millions in cities. At that time, concentration was perfectly normal. But
literally all inventions after the railway do not point to concentration, but to decen-

tralization. The motorcar, telegraph, telephone, radio, television create a mutual

human contact in unlimited distances. The fast traffic created by the automobile has

made the big towns, which were not intended for it, practically useless. They hardly

serve their purpose. Although people live close together they can hardly reach one

another. The towns no longer answer their original purpose. This they prove, for they

show more and more, by a flight out of the center.

The only solution is a reasonable spreading in medium and smaller towns with

excellent mutual communications and a healthy contact of the inhabitants with the

surrounding country. Added to this, the architectural future is not so much for the

separate building as for the town, the village, as a whole.

We see that already in the housing on the large scale after the last world war.

Never has the housing of the people been studied so seriously as in our day, both in

regards to housing types and the grouping of the housing. This is certainly a gain.

But more is necessary to come to city planning, which is an art. This requires an
ideal cooperation between the gifted architect-city planner and the architects for the

different buildings — a voluntary subordination and a great confidence in the authori-

ties. It is very much the question of whether the future society will be able to reach

such a cultural height. Although in entirely new towns such as some satellite towns
near London, we are now witnessing a development in the above-mentioned

direction.

To a certain extent, there existed in the Baroque more favorable conditions for this

art of the building of entire city parts. We still take a great delight in some very fine

examples of that period. Meanwhile, it would take me too much time to develop these
ROEHAMPTON ESTATE. London
County Council. London. 1953. This London
ideas for the future. After all, we are not prophets. I prefer to look about in the fasci-
public authority created an outstanding post-
nating life of our own time. war, low-cost housing development with an

adept mix of high and low concrete slab

Ralph Rapson: i960 buildings on a hilly park site.

For me, architecture is a total of things, a total environment. We're interested in the

total man, first, of course, then we're interested in the complete environment. In a

way, I think this doesn't mean that every architect becomes a planner as such, but I

think he must have this interest, this desire for completeness and total building and

total environment.
One of the places where architecture is wrong today — maybe it will be more prop-
er to say what's wrong with culture today — in our headlong rush to conquer the
unknown and the acquiring of scientific knowledge is that the culture has lagged far

55
 6

behind. This is certainly one of the places where we as people have troubles. As
Einstein once said, "Perfection of means and confusion of aims," seems to be a char-

acteristic of our society. I think this is in a sense true of architecture.

The technical know-how, the scientific advantage, the technological developments

are here. They give us the means, the ability to create a truly superior environment,

but, by and large, we do not have this. I suppose we can close the gap between tech-
nology and our ability to absorb it. This is where we as architects and the art of

architecture come in. We must never forget that it is an art. This is a kind of broad

expression, but I suppose it means that we are dealing with humanity. We must
always keep in mind the needs of man. We must understand him in relation to every-

thing we do in relation to the structure and the material.

Marc Saugey: i 96 i

The architect must have a much broader approach to his vocation than his profession
requires. The architect, especially in modern society, has a very large role to play

because often the direction of an architect's concepts has a bearing in important

ways on questions which have real-life significance. Depending on the designs, the

results can have enormous practical implications on social issues or even political

issues, sanitation issues, traffic issues.

I believe the architect must also be an urbanist. While one could imagine in days

gone by great architects who conceived of buildings in isolation, today we've gone
way beyond that. The architect must go beyond the idea of a beautiful bulk or mass
which does the job, which works, and which may even be very beautiful; the archi-

tect must go further: he orders space. Therefore, he must concern himself almost
more with the voids and spaces, both interior and exterior. Consequently, when he
attacks these spaces, he attacks at the same time almost districts of a town or of the
countryside. And in so doing he becomes an urbanist.
This is the definition of an architect. It is, first, a man of ideas, whose personality is

given to the improvement of human relations, and then to beauty, comfort, the ease

and improvement of life, for populations and for all mankind.

Alfred Roth : i 9 i

Naturally, the evolution of technology is going on very fast. New things will come,

but we should not believe that these new things will solve our problems. The big prob-

lem is not on the level of technology. It is on the level of humanity, of sociology, of

the human being. That's the real basis to build up. All the rest, all that produces

technology and science, that has to serve. We architects have to make a sum of these

things. More important, first of all for city planning, regional planning, country plan-

ning, but also for designing flats, groups of flats, civic centers, all these things.
Alfred Roth
Multiple dwellings have a social purpose. For example, I found it not decent to

build an individual house for myself on this wonderful ground. Straight from the

beginning I have this idea, I do not want that this house is just only for myself. I want
to give it a sort of social purpose. Let's build in some students' rooms. You know we

56
have such a need for students' rooms here in Zurich. It's a very big, big problem.

Just at the moment, we are working together with my colleagues of the school, on
a new big students' home at the Institute of Technology for twelve hundred people. It

will become a student center to live in because we have nothing of that type in this

town. The students' dwelling problem has reached a very critical point, you know.

I'm going on firmly in this direction of designing such model things.

Then, as you know, I have always been very interested in school buildings and edu-

cational problems. For instance, I built my first school in your country, you know, near

St. Louis. I had the wonderful chance to build a school in association with Helmut
[Hentrich] and Yamasaki.

I claim the historic privilege to have contributed to the start of modern school
design in this country. When came I back from America, it was 1953, I produced
here in Zurich a large exhibition on school design. The exhibition was visited by peo-

ple from the whole country. From the small villages they came to learn from this

exhibition. That was really the beginning of a new trend, a real good trend in school

design which was certainly true.

In recognition for what I did for schools in this country, the city of Zurich gave me
this commission to build our school here. They gave me full freedom for designing

that school. It's a large center. It's a first. We are now building the first part, which is
FELLOWSH IP HOUSE,
a primary school. Then will come a second part, which is a secondary school. There INSTITUTE OF ZURICH.
will be a third part that will be a youth activity center. They are rooms for young peo- Alfred Roth. Zurich, Switzerland. 1961.

This student dormitory, part of Roth's

ple, adult young people to use in their spare time connected with school. That's some-
progressive plan and advanced designs for
thing which Zurich is very much sponsoring today.
the Institute, reflects his strong belief in
So, for me, the happy development of architecture depends much more upon estab- education as a means of human and

lishing the programs given by human needs. We always have to reconsider these prob- cultural emancipation.

57
 lems, the rieeds of man. We have not reached the end of doing this research. We will
never reach the end of the research of the real needs of man. That's first of all ques-

tions — knowing man's need better and then only the question of form or construc-
tion and materials and details. Unfortunately, today quite a number of architects are

in somewhat an abstract way looking for new trends and formalistic principles.

WOLFSBURG CHURCH. Alvar

Aalto. Wolfsburg, Germany. 1959. This

church with its dramatic belfry dominates the

center of the parish, which includes adminis-

tration buildings, vicarages, club rooms,

and facilities for young people.

AALTO: 1961
We can take a secondary function as main background for architecture. Let's say we
could do that this way. An electrical system works well, that's not enough. . . . The
main function is that the human being is growing up in some good way.
I had, for a few weeks ago, in Wolfsburg, I build there the cultural center — which
means all things, libraries, concert halls, and that sort of thing, the center of the

town — the director of the city told me that we have to build up a counter-power to
the monotony of the industrial work. This can't be done without architecture. That's
the great problem of modern architecture, we have to build up the life which saves
the human being who does from morning to night only monotonical work.
Technical things will change the way buildings are built slowly, but I think the sys-

tem of society, the way people are educated and the way they work, change it more. I

don't mean politically social developments, but what slowly happens in the human
being. Let's say today we civilize everybody. It's an enormous change in the society in

contrast to the few aristocrats before. If I should say my final words, I should say that

one of the great problems for an architect today is to save the human being — to make
individualism of collectivism.

MARCELO ROBERTO: 1955

Technical factors are not as important as the spirit of the times. I believe what is pre-

cisely the most important is the spirit prevailing over the particular point in time. I'm

one of those who believe in and like to refer to the medieval period. In the Middle

Ages, the architecture of pointed arches and flying buttresses predated the era when

58
the advantages of cupolas and all that sort of thing became apparent. The Gothic
arch and the flying buttress were needed to express the spirit of the times, so they

were created.
Nowadays the same is true. If we need a certain type of material or technology to

express ourselves, we create them. It doesn't work the other way around. No techni-

cal innovation or invention is going to change the spirit of the architecture or the

urban development of the times. On the contrary, I believe that the spirit of the times

requiring a particular type of architecture or of city planning to express itself, calls for

the discovery or development of certain techniques or inventions.

Without a doubt I believe that it is precisely the number of people, this desperate

increase in the birth rate, that will compel the use of much more intelligent proce-

dures than those used at present. Right now the whole world could use a series of

inventions and processes that are very well known and could result in highly interest-

ing creations. Unfortunately, certain factors, backwardness, the cult of sameness, and
the like keep those solutions from being used. I think that the very thing that is hap-

pening now will become increasingly widespread, that is, the spiraling population and

rising number of businesses will compel the use of these procedures.

Hence, what may appear to be bad at first blush might be beneficial tor architects

because it will give us a series of opportunities that we cannot attain at present, for

we are always faced with that conservative attitude that rejects innovations and
insists on following the same old ways. The exuberant process now taking place is

going to force a change in those methods. That can be simply fabulous for us archi-

tects if we manage to be in the vanguard of the movement.

Ludwig Mies van per RohE: 1955

I think the social developments, the spread of the cities and the increase in popula-

tion — I think that changed really nearly everything, not always for the best. Rut

change it did. There is no question about that. Spread out. There are no cities, in

fact, anymore. It just goes on like a forest. That is the reason why we cannot have the

old cities anymore. It is gone forever, you know, the planned city and so on. I think

we should think about means that we have to live in the jungle and maybe we do bet-

ter by that.

59
 "My aesthetic conviction was directed

BY THE REVOLUTION RISING IN THE FREE

arts like Cubism, Futurism, and so on

Architecture is one of the fine arts. The Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer

characterized it as "something beautiful which can overcome prejudice."

We must admit that in the end, the architects in the Oral History, along with

many others, did not gain renown because of their mastery of technology

or their social values, but because of their admired aesthetics. Modern .

•'Mm-
w *"*
HI
architecture had an early and important relationship with modern art.

It has been observed that never in history has architecture been

so influenced by painting. The aesthetic aspects of the

new architecture were the subject of frequent

comment by the architects we interviewed.

NOTRE-DAME-
DU-HAUT.
Le Corbusier.
WM Rimchamji. France.

1955

\
***•
 HOOK OF HOLLAND HOUSING. J.J. P. OUD: 1961

).]. P. Oud. Hook of Holland, the Netherlands. In this first time of growth my aesthetic conviction was directed by the revolution ris-
1927. This building secured Holland's place in
ing in the free arts like Cubism, Futurism, and so on. In a peculiar way there was a
the early modern movement. Oud unified the
congruence with the art of practical insight which [was carried out] by . . . the ideas
sixteen attached apartments with a long,

horizontal first-floor balcony and shops of Berlage and Muthesius.

at the rounded terminals. So I got, of course, from these predecessors also aesthetic impulses, a total vision of

the future of architecture as art in building. It was enlarged especially by the experi-
ments of the free arts. It was spurred and brightened by the ideas of Mondrian and
his work. What Mondrian did in painting I tried to do in a similar way in architec-

ture. He tried to make, in simple forms, proportions and color, the strongest values in

art. I tried to find what was the real necessity of a work or building. What people

want, not what they like to have, not what they wanted for ornament or for show, but

what they wanted in the practical life. And that is partly the same as what Mondrian
did. Mondrian tried to find out nature, the essential things, what for him were the

essential forms. I try in architecture to find what for me is the essential form in archi-

tecture. And that has, like I say, some congruence.

This is what happened in technology. We admire very much technology and the
value of mechanical things like tools and electrical apparatus. ... I should like to

transform them into architecture, but with emotional value added to it. And this

emotional value I found especially in modern painting.

What interested me in Cubistic architecture too was that it did not give the illus-

tration of nature, but especially what was behind nature. And what is behind nature
is to me the same as what I look for behind architecture. The inner value of the
thing. . . . For me the inner value of architecture is one of the first things that interest

me.
In the beginning, in the time of Mondrian, they didn't like bright colors at all. No,
because in Holland we always have clouds and moist in the air, we want more soft

colors. I, too, sought this always, but it is proven that it is very possible to make things

more clear and give them more color, and as soon as we had the courage to do it,

most people went to do it.

62
Max Bill: 1961

Frank Lloyd Wright, at that time, was a romantic who couldn't give us anything. We
had a very strong feeling against all this Art Nouveau and he had been classed with
it. My mind changed very much afterwards. At that time I had been much closer to
the Russian movement, the Constructivists, Loos, and after that Oud and the Dutch.

In the beginning, I always had a very great respect for Constructivism and for all

these things, but I didn't like them. I felt a need to go their way, but I had been too
close to the Bauhaus people, Klee, Kandinsky, Schlemmer, Moholy, even Albers, that
I accepted really the work of the others in this first time. But afterwards, I became a

very good friend of all these people as well as a very good friend of Mondrian and of
Vantongerloo. I am still a very good friend of Vantongerloo. We meet often. So as a

youngster, I became a collaborator of this movement.

However, the theory that art influences architecture, I don't like that theory at all.

I think aesthetically artwork is something independent. It has its own function and

every clear work can influence another work. I don't like this confusion between

architecture and sculpture and painting which is on the way for a few years.

Architecture is something more than the art of good building and good construc-
tion. Architecture is also more than the logical organization of the spaces which are
required by a building program. However much one may aim at the straightforward

solution of the demands of the program, there are always various possibilities for the

architect. This means that function, however important an aspect of architecture it

may be, is likewise not the determining factor.

What causes architecture to rise to an art above construction and above spatial

organization? In my opinion, it is this: Just as the human mind derives beauty from

reason, and sound in poetry and music, it also recognizes beauty in proportions ol

spaces in architecture. Building only becomes art when it is made sublime by beauti-

ful and harmonious space proportions which ingeniously express the character and
cultural significance of the building. Architectural art has really one means, propor-
tion, the proportion of spaces and building masses in both form and color.
Max Bill

LE CORRUSIER: 1961

I've always been attracted to the creative, whatever form it takes, and particularly

when applied to man in his environment. One has sympathy for man in his environ-

ment. I found in painting the means to develop this feeling. It's a fascinating means,
but perilous.

I have a great weakness for being seduced by visual things. I have eyes for every-
thing that is visual — drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture. It is all one thing. It

is symphonic. Architecture requires certain intellectual ideas. Painting and sculpture,

too, but they have more immediate physical possibilities. Sometimes it's my hand that

works before my mind because of its habits, its possibilities. It's extraordinary. The
human hand is wonderful.
I like beautiful things. I have a sense for volumes and colors. I claim the right to do
painting and sculpture as well as architecture. If it bothers people they can stay
home. They needn't bother to look. But, if by chance, at my age of seventy-five, peo-

63
 pie ask me, "Show us a little of what you've done." People can come and see. They
shouldn't be jealous. They should leave me alone.

I have been very busy, terribly busy. The last paintings of these recent years are all

dated Christmas, New Year's, Pentecost, July 14th, all long weekends. Each one was

three days. For example, I have three of them ready which I prepared for August, then

there are months and months when I do not have the time. I have boxes of colors
which are here and 1 am going to make some time for them right away.

Alfred Roth : 1961

I met Mondrian and that was the second very important step in my life. The first was
Le Corbusier and then Mondrian.
I met Mondrian in a very curious way. I was in Holland from Paris, invited to give a

talk on Le Corbusier. My first talk I gave to an architecture association for the mod-

ern group of Holland. Then they showed me around Amsterdam and showed me
some modern buildings. They showed me this modern building designed by Oud, one

of his very early houses. The owner had a painting by Mondrian. This painting was
somewhat damaged. Somebody had put their dirty fingers on it. This man asked me
to take the painting back to Paris and to ask Mondrian to repair it. He wrapped the

painting in a piece of paper, I took it to Paris and strangely enough I had it a few days,

maybe weeks, in my studio. I did not even look at it. I was not so interested in

Mondrian at that time.

Well then, I had to go to visit him and I was told to write him at least a postcard to

announce my visit. He did not like visitors to just drop in. So I wrote him a postcard

that I shall come a given day. At that time I went to his office, to his studio. I knocked
on the door and there was Mondrian, who was a very shy man. He very kindly greet-

ed me and asked me to come in. Then I entered his studio and that was something.

NOTRE-DAME-DU-HAUT. Le
Corbusier. Ronchamp, France. 1955. The
sculptured forms and spaces of this chapel — the

curving white walls, randomly placed and

oddly shaped windows, and bold projecting

roof — created a most inspiring statement in

modern religious architecture.

64
That was heaven! His studio was decorated, that's the right word, with his color ele-

ments. The whole studio — red, hlue, yellow — in a wonderful rhythmic way. It was a
space that had no limits, no dimensions. It was simply music. Pow! I was completely,
what do you say, enthusiastic about it. Through the space I met Mondrian, not his

painting. But then, naturally, I became very much interested in his painting and was
enthusiastic about his painting.

When I was there Le Corbusier never visited the place, I'm absolutely sure and
Mondrian never met him. He did not like Le Corbusier's work too much. Mondrian
was with the Dutch movement of the style of right angles. Le Corbusier was too
romantic for him. He didn't like it. There was no connection at all. But then I fre-

quently visited Mondrian. We became really good friends. I understood his art, that

was a second step in my artistic development.

One of Mondrian's ideas was to produce a type of art which could be understood

by all people of the world regardless of their cultural background. Be it a Japanese or

an American or a South American or a Negro, they still have an understanding of

these strong colors — blue, red, yellow — the straight line, and the right angle. The
right angle is the invention of man, the symbol of man. So he produced a type of art

which is somewhat detached from local conditions, from a regional climate. He com-
pared this type of art with a film produced by Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin, who
is understood universally. That's what he wanted to do.
I became enthusiastic about his work and I visited him very frequently. Le
Corbusier was always choking a little bit when I went to Mondrian. "You're always
visiting this strange painter. This painter who knows just red and blue, yellow and
white. He just uses straight lines and right angles. That's no art. That's a very primi-

tive way of putting things together." At that period, that was Le Corbusier's feeling,

but later on he changed that completely.

I would basically say there are two aspects of art. One aspect concerns the art pro-

duced as individual works, the easel painting, or the piece of sculpture. Most of these
are somewhere in a museum, private houses, or in a square. The other aspect is the

problem of the integration of works of art into architecture. First of all, there should
be a deep need for that integration. A deep need which is beyond the desire of the

artist. Many architects and many artists today agree, let's try this synthesis, but that's

one part of the problem. There should be a deeper need within, I would say.

Is our period in a deeper sense willing to accept such a synthesis? Is it necessary in

a deeper sense? I would say, yes, there is a deeper need. First of all, generally speak-

ing, our period today, the general trend is toward a better integration of everything in
life, whether it is science, whether it is technology, whether it is sociology, whether it

is art.

Will em DudoK: 1961

I always saw a big difference between painting and architecture. I know Mondrian
personally. What you are presented with a painting of Mondrian, is this. Like this
here and here. I just drew it. Here is a little "p" for Piet Mondrian. That was the
whole painting. There are certain proportions of this line. But these are values which

65
 we use in our architecture as a means, but as a picture it has for me no value. It is not
interesting enough.

The Baroque period is a great period in art. It is always looked upon as if it was a
denigration. But, in my opinion, it was a beautiful game of space. There is an enor-
mous difference between the Baroque buildings and the modern buildings because in

a modern way we use the finishing of the space, the enclosure of a space, only in a

secondary way, mostly to enclose. The simpler you do it, the more expressive the
space is. Whereas in the Baroque, the walls and all sort of halls attract your atten-

tion.

Forty years ago there was a man, a great man, Loos —Adolf Loos —who believed

that ornament is a crime. am not at all of that opinion because think ornament is
I I

so elementary in the human desire. once said that ornament is the condensed joy of
I

life.

In the earliest times in architecture, there was no architecture which was not at

the same time ornamented. Even the very primitive make the ornament in their sim-

ple houses. That proves that you can't say that ornament is a crime, not at all. I also

want ornament. But I want it in a limited way. I want it in an economical way. I can
imagine, for instance, a fine room where the architecture leads the attention to one

special wall. That wall is decorated, whereas the other walls are very simply done.

That, in the economy, you can have great expression. You know, Goethe said, "In the

limitation, the master shows himself." That you can also apply, in my opinion, to the

applied arts.

It is difficult to find a good cooperating mind in sculpture or in painting. You must

Willem Dudok not apply those arts if they were not meant to be in the architecture from the very
beginning. If you have not considered the applied arts, then you make an architecture
which is finished in itself. When a thing of art is finished, it can't have another thing.

For instance, the theater in Utrecht has a big wall. I meant, from the very begin-
ning, to have a sculpture in a certain place on that wall, a golden figure before a big

wall. I can't imagine that building without that ornament. It must be one whole.

Louis Kahn : 1961

An individual style must be subservient to something which is true to a way of life.

The style itself can be your way of expressing something. But if it is completely out of

context, with a way of life, then I believe that it doesn't have enough. No one else can
take it and expand from it.

In other words, if I produce an instrument which I only can use, it will not be of

very great importance. But if I produce an ax, you see, then immediately the forests
need it. Now the style, my own individual style, is the way I shape the handle. My
tendency is to look at the laws of nature in such a way that I make a good rule which
makes my ax somehow better than the other fellow's. My style may be adopted as
being good style, but the general way of life which it is part of must be part of the

making of it.

66
Ernesto Rogers: 1961

I would say that beauty is a goal. It's not a premise. It's an achievement. I'm speaking
of our contemporary way of doing architecture. Maybe it wasn't so in earlier times,

but anyhow, for us, beauty is a conclusion. It's never a priori. Therefore, when I say

an architect needs culture and imagination, I don't know where culture and imagina-
tion will end up. I mean in which shape. The shape is the synthetic connection of the

many components of his personality.

ANTON1N RAYMOND: 1962

An architect is principally an artist. A Japanese will love nature, real nature, not only

this world and animals, trees, landscape, and so on, but the whole world, the cosmos,

you see. He's interested in the order of the universe. He believes that an artist is a

man who can reveal to the people a glimpse into the order of the universe. I agree

with him. That's the only function of an artist, to give the human being a glimpse

into the order of the universe, to make him feel one with the order, with the supreme
order of things. He's a profound philosopher, otherwise he's got nothing to say, noth-

ing to offer. His facility to draw or to do things is against him, not for him. You can

hire a good draftsman for twenty dollars a week. All that means nothing. What real-

ly means something is his profound understanding of the problems of the society with
respect to the understanding of the order of the universe, why things are beautiful or

unbeautiful.

For instance, from my experience, I claim that beauty is absolute. Now when I say

that to an American, he will not agree, he will argue. He will say, how do you know
it's beautiful, how'd you find out, how do you know what I like, the only thing that's

beautiful is what I like. Well, that is not so. Beauty is absolute. That is, it would exist Antonin Raymond

if the human being is here or not, and it's awfully difficult for a Westerner to under-

stand. If you live long enough in the Orient you will begin to understand, but for a

Westerner it's almost impossible.

READER'S n ICIEST BUILDING.

Antonin Raymond with L.L. Rado. Tokyo.
195/ . C 'onsidered the masterpiece of Raymond's

Japanese career, this two-story office building

combined modern American materials and

technical innovations with traditional Japanese

wood construction.

67
 Alvar Aalto

ALVAR AALTO: 1961

From my maternal side I have come from an artistic family, not professional artists,

but it was mostly forestry science — about nine forester scientists on this line. But I

think the Finnish forests give us some of our artistic and human approach to life.

Edward Durell Stone: 1963

I have this belief that great architecture will give everyone, the man in the street, the

uneducated man, the uninformed man, an exhilaration. He'll be thrilled by it. The
idea that architecture is something that can only be appreciated by a minuscule
minority of precious initiates is all wrong. I think anybody would agree that Chartres

is a beautiful thing. I think everybody really is thrilled with the interior of Grand

Central Station. I think great architecture, people should sense and feel.

UNITED STATES EMBASSY.

Edward Durell Stone. New Delhi, India. 1954.

In this strikingly modern rectangular building,

with the overhanging roof supported on thin

gold-leafed steel columns, Stone combined the

simplicity of a classical Greek temple with the

rich grilles of a Muslim shrine.

• I • * i > • I •

68
AFFONSO EDUARDO RE1DY: 1956

Today it is common to hear that architecture is a big sculpture. I don't hold that opin-

ion. I think that architecture has an aesthetic aspect, but it's not essential to architec-

ture. I believe more that architecture is closely linked to a spatial concept than to the

aesthetic element of a sculpture.

Architecture today has no place for the kind of reasoning used twenty years ago,

which followed a rigid principle of rationality and functionality. You can in no way
forget that architecture has its utilitarian side. It exists to serve a purpose. Now it's

not enough that it serve this purpose. It is necessary that the function and the tech-

nology — the external and internal spaces — are the basic objects the architect search-

es for. Evidently this space, from my point of view, should be assimilated within an

architectural effort. This is an effort which does not necessarily have to take the form
of elementary geometry. It can be any form that disciplines space. I don't think archi-

tecture has to be limited to the freedom of spatial conception. As I see it, the free

plan is the basic element of modern architecture and the problem of space, which is

fundamental, needs some architectural discipline of space. The volume will call into

play the qualities of sculpture to architecture. The sculptural aspect emerges with the

volume and contains the space, which defines architecture.

Mario Salvadori: 1957

The fact is that nowadays it's very fashionable to talk about architecture as being

sculpture. You have to sculpt this and sculpt that. It is an idea in which I do nor
believe. I believe that in all of our activities, quantity is not just an addition of num-

bers, like two and two is four, and four and four is eight, but if you add eight and eight
and get sixteen and you go on and on, you get to numbers so large that their quality is

different from the two you started from. This is very unorthodox in mathematics, so

don't quote me to my friend the mathematician.

It seems to me that the moment you take a piece of sculpture, which has certain

dimensions which are more or less on the human scale, usually they are smaller, but

may be as large as a human being. Then you blow them up and you have an actual
building, a big structure. You have an entirely different factor and this is not just a

highbrow idea, this has got to do with gravity. In a sculpture, gravity has nothing to
do with the form, the appearance, the meaning; but in a structural creation, you have
to be able to withstand the wind and other factors, but essentially it is gravitation

that counts. So, in going from small to large, you should abandon the idea that you
are sculpting. You are doing something which is very funny. You are fighting against

gravitation and that is what lies behind all the difficulties.

Of course, like in a bullfight it is not enough to kill the bull, you have to kill him in

a very elegant fashion. In killing gravity it is not enough to kill it, that is very simple.

You just make it very, very strong and it will stand. But if you do it elegantly then you

get a good result, a beautiful result, an architectural result. Not only that, it becomes
beautiful architecture. I don't believe that it makes any sense at all to look for beauty.

In this I wholeheartedly agree with my friend Luigi Nervi.

69
 May Ltell you a little story about him? You know that he and I went around for

months delivering lectures. He lectured and I translated. After a month, I didn't

know whether was Mario I Salvadori or Luigi Nervi. I was completely gone. One
night at a regular lecture, he threw on the screen his beautiful Turin Exhibition Hall.

He looked at it and I said, "Well, what do you want to say?" He said nothing but,

"Let's go on." I couldn't help it. I turned around and I told the public, "Mr. Nervi says

that he has nothing to say about this. I feel compelled to say that this is one of the
most beautiful structures ever designed and built. That in particular this idea of what
I call the fan, the four-pronged fan that brings the various arches into the buttresses,

is one of the most superb realizations of truth in structures and beauty in structures."

And the public applauded.

So Nervi got very mad and demanded in Italian, "What in the hell did you say?" I

told him and then he mumbled in Italian, "This is ridiculous. That's the only thing

you can do anyway." So I translated that, they laughed. He said, "What did you say?"

EXHIBITION HALL. because he doesn't understand a word, you see. I told him what I just translated was
Pier Luigi Nervi. Turin, Italy. 1948. became mad and "Look, Mario, what would you
what you told me. So he really said,
Bold prefabricated reinforced-concrete
have done but that?" He felt that it was unavoidable. It was obvious.
sections, some glazed for light, form
I believe that the time you hit upon the right solution which is obvious, which just
the famous shell covering the vast

exhibition area. comes to you because there is nothing else you can do, then you get the beautiful
solution, the structurally correct solution, the economical solution, from the point of
sound mechanics and everything else.

70
 MCGREGOR MEMORIAL
COMMUNITY CONFERENCE
CENTER, WAYNE STATE
UNIVERSITY. Minoru Yamasaki.
Detroit, Michigan. 1955. With its reflecting

pools, travertine walls, and jewellike glass cen-

tral hall, this university conference hall is a fine

example ofYamasaki's belief that in addition to

exhibiting good planning and detailing, a

building should create an
emotional experience.

Minoru Yamasaki: i960

I think architecture is not merely an exterior, physical problem, a shape. It has to be

derived and grow from the needs of man. It can't be a superimposed form to the
whim of the sculptor. One can't fit the people who use the building into it in any
fashion the architect desires just to suit the exterior appearance. I'm afraid that

Corbu is more of a sculptor and not an architect in that sense. Consequently, though

he is certainly one of stature and has great influence on modern architecture because
of the understanding of the plasticity of the material with which he works, and the

fact that architecture can be a very dynamic thing with the technological back-
ground, I still feel that his approach is purely sculptural.

The art of architecture had long been related to the other fine arts, painting and sculpture.

Rejecting the decorative elements of the past, modern architects altered this relationship in

favor of a revolutionary purity. They expressed this change in their observations on color,

ornament, and art. They favored the honest colors of natural materials but also frequently

adopted the vivid primary colors of modern painting.

Victor Gruen: 1957

I think that nearly all color combinations have their great decorative value and can
be used in interiors in various combinations. Color is everything, including white,

black, and gray. I knew somebody who said he liked all colors as long as they were

gray. We should not be limited to white, black, and gray as a neutralizing background

to nature, to trees, to flowers, to the blue sky as the most satisfactory colors which we
can give to architecture. I do feel that if handled with great skill and with a certain

amount of judgment, a color in architecture can play a very great role and can be
very desirable. It also depends on the region and the type of environment. We could
use more colors besides black, white, and gray, beige and dark brown, as we are using

now.

71

. m
 NOYES HOUSE. Eliot Noyes . New I believe in everything which is temporary; like an exhibition, we should be much
Canaan, Connecticut. 1954. In his own house,
more daring. We can afford to be much more daring because we are not exposed for a
Noyes employed the natural materials of the
long period to the objects which we observe, but a quick impression is to be gained.
region and placed two units facing a central

patio under one roof.

There color can play a tremendously important part. It is strange that people who
even start out with the use of color in their design seem to lose courage when it

comes to execution.

Eliot Noyes: 1957

I like the idea of putting color into architecture, but every time I've tried to do it I've

suddenly backed away again. I did a laboratory for IBM where I was all set to put

in colored porcelain enamel panels in the spandrels. Then I thought, five years from
now I'm going to come and look at that color and think, oh brother, I'm sick of that

color. So I backed off and did two shades of alternating grays.

Now in this house and in other architecture that I've done, mostly, I have tended
to let the materials take their own color, or do something like staining cypress, which
I don't consider a sin to the material, to bring out or dramatize the grain or refine the

natural quality and then to introduce color through Matisse rugs, red Calder mobiles,

you know, accessories and furnishings. I feel more assured doing this than I do intro-

ducing color into the building. Marcel Breuer does this work marvelously. It's funny, I

haven't found in my own buildings the place where I could do it. I think it's maybe
partly the artistry of it.

I think the color in Eero Saarinen's General Motors Technical Center buildings is

probably stunning. I haven't seen them. It seems to me that it not only takes incredi-

ble courage on the part of a guy like Eero to do this, but incredible salesmanship. My
experience with big companies is that you may start out to sell such an idea, but
about the time the first five color-glazed bricks show up, there are forty executives or

their wives who begin to cast doubt. You know, "Does it have to be that bright?
Couldn't it be sort of a pastel tone? I've always liked dusty red." You know, this kind

72
of thing. I'm sure it would've been coming at Eero from all sides. It takes considerable

guts to stand there and say, "No, it's this and this and this. I know I'm right, and you

have to go along with me." Somehow he does this and this is terrific.

G OR PON BUNSHAFT: 1956

Color in buildings is a very difficult and sometimes a dangerous thing to do. I'm a firm
believer of the theory that was written in a book a long time ago called Form and
Color. The theory of this book is that if surfaces of a structure are extremely smooth
and do not have their own shades and shadows, which in a sense is color, then it is

justifiable to have color as an excitement.

That is explained, for example, in the interior of Santa Sophia in Constantinople,

where the forms are all very smooth and plastic and the color is the accent. In con-

trast, for example, to a Renaissance structure full of pilasters, cornices, and things

that are full of shades and shadows, which give a sense of color, and to put brilliant

color in that destroys the structural expression of these elements.

In other words, in Saarinen's General Motors Technical Center his color is only on

areas that are extremely simple and are closing end-walls or elements like that of a

building. In the pattern surfaces of the building, where the glass and the spandrels
and the mullions create a rich pattern of shades and shadows, you will notice that he

has kept that practically colorless or very neutral.

Enrico Peressutti: 1955

I think that color in architecture is a wry important element. I just came back from
Mexico two days ago. I must say that the first important impression I had down in

Mexico, against the fact that here in the northern part of America there is less color,

was about the color they use there, which makes architecture deep and really con-
nected with nature and giving much more pleasure.

EDGARDO CONTINI: 1956

Historically, architecture has always been made of the proper use of mass, composi-

tion, and color. So the moment you take color away from architecture, you take one
of its essential components. But that doesn't mean that color can be artificially

applied. It's the difference between tinting a black and white picture or having a color

picture. Color has to come out of the very nature of the material and the very choice
of the materials.

Walter G ropius: 1964 Enrico Peressutti

We have eyes given to us by nature, but we have to learn to see. What is color and

what is the meaning of color? For instance, I can say, as an architect, I have to build a
hall. This must be right in materials, in space, in all these things. But the appearance
of that space has to be done with different things. When you sit in this room and
have the ceiling in matte black, it comes down on us. When make in glossy black I it

it goes away. When the wall there is lemon yellow, it attacks me and comes to me.

When it is dark blue, it goes away from me. So it appears to be something different

7i
 from what in measurement it is. With the tricks of the artist I can change the appear-
ance of this space. I must know these things because they are based on certain facts

about seeing, of our psychology, of biological facts, and so on.

Jose Luis Sert : i960

I have a certain approach to color that perhaps came to me through my friends the

painters, people like Leger and Miro. We very often have long conversations on color

and the use of color. I generally like — that's a personal approach, of course — to use

bright, pure colors in certain spots accentuating certain parts of the building. But the
predominating color is a more neutral color, like white or gray or whatever color
comes to me, because of the type of building. 1 mean, it comes from the materials, the

nature of the materials and the surroundings. But I do like to use very strong color

accents.

Mario Ciampi: 1956

I feel that something very significant happened to me in South America about five

years ago. I remember that when I arrived there I stopped and called on Oscar
Niemeyer, the architect, because I always had a very high regard for his work. There

was a certain quality about his work which set it apart from the work we are normally

accustomed to seeing and appreciating in our country.

I remember when I called on him this day in Rio de Janeiro, after a short chat he
said to me, "Well, come along now. I want you to meet a man who is going to work

on this project with me." Together we called on a very well known South American
artist called Portinari. Now many people in this country may not have heard of

Portinari. The thing that impressed me at the time was that Mr. Niemeyer wasn't just

designing a building in terms of his ability to express architecture, but to bring into

architecture other values which he felt were very significant. He impressed on me

very definitely how important it is to include the arts in architecture. That architec-

ture wasn't merely the expression of a solution to meet the material needs of people,
but that architecture was something that you admire, live with and that it influences

your way of life. The incorporation of the arts such as painting, sculpture, and the

work of other crafts in the embellishment of a building is equally as important and,

perhaps, more vital to people than just a good solution or the use of good building

construction.

Felix Candela: 1961

CHURCH OF THE MIRACULOUS It's very difficult to use sculpture or painting in a building just to apply the sculpture
VIRGIN. Felix Candela with Enrique de
or the painting to a building, you see. It must be a general conception. I mean you
la Mora. Mexico City. 1953. The thin shell
must be at the same time an architect, maybe a sculptor, because painting is difficult
vaults of the church dramatically display

Candela's superb skill with reinforced concrete.

to integrate into a building. I think a sculpture goes more easily with architecture.

Then, there have been several periods in history, perhaps not too many, in which
sculpture has been integrated with the architecture. The Gothic is one of the most
important times, and also, in the work of Gaudi.

74
 1

XOCHIMILCO RESTAURANT.
Felix Candela and Joaquin Ordonez-
Xochimilco, Mexico. J958. Candela's

restaurant, with its soaring reinforced-concrete

hyperbolic paraboloids, sits like a huge

waterlily in the floating gardens

of Xochimilco.

Helmut Hentrich: i 9 6

I think it's all art, actually. Even the smallest detail should he art. You see, a whole
building consists of small things. It's an assembly of small things. So if the small

things are not good, the whole thing is not good.

Paul Rudolph: i9 60
A building should be meaningful from no matter what distance you look at it, if you

are quickly flying over it or riding by it in a vehicle. It should have a certain diagram-

matic quality which can be read. You can see it at a glance. If you approach it by foot,

it has to have additional layers of meaning. You have to see things which you haven't

seen before. As you come closer in traditional architecture, the meaningfulness of the

building is maintained by the introduction of moldings and capitals on the columns

and so forth.

We, of course, have knocked all oi that out and in a sense haw nor found anything

to replace it. It's one reason why grilles tend to be satisfying, up to a certain point
PHOENIX-RHEINROH
anyway, because it does give this play of light and shadow and maintains one's inter-
BUILDING. Helmut Hentrich and Hubert
est as one comes really close to the building. It has to do with how architecture is
Pctschnigg. Diisseldorf Germany. 1957. An
read and from what distance. We know well how to make diagrammatic buildings, example of postwar rebuilding, this slim

which are meaningful from a great distance. But quite often they fall apart when one modern curtain-walled administration building
was designed to take advantage of the light
approaches them more closely.
and view of the adjacent city park.
I might add that the screens that we used [on the Jewett Arts Center] at Wellesley

College were introduced not only to keep the light and control the glare, but to help

relate it to the earlier buildings, which had very, very delicate moldings, as small as a

quarter of an inch sometimes. The sense of the reduction of the scale was eloquently

maintained in the earlier buildings. We wanted in some way to do the same thing in

that building.

Another example of this is that clusters of columns were used rather than a single

column. From a distance the cluster looks as a single column. But as you approach it,

it is seen that it is really a cluster of columns. Of course, this is a page directly out of

Gothic architecture. When the great revolution in architecture came, which had

75
Paul Rudolph

validity, we threw out much. We are slowly now sifting and putting back in some
things which then didn't seem to have so much validity.

I think that architects are interested in juxtaposing works of art to their buildings.

But I do not believe that any architect has found the satisfactory way of really inte-

grating works of art with a building. I really believe that the painters and the sculp-
tors are on quite different wavelengths from the architects. I am not saying that we
are right or wrong. I am just saying that their concerns are vastly different from ours.

Part of the difficulty is one of scale. The painters and the sculptors make everything
too small and these things are lost. That's perhaps not necessarily their fault, because
sculptors, especially, do not have the opportunity to make things of sufficient scale. I

believe that it's going to be fundamentally up to the architect to find a way of reintro-
ducing painting and sculpture. There is the desire, but there is not the knowledge
how to go about this.

The art of landscape architecture is almost completely lost. It is only the large
commercial firms that can afford a fountain, or think they can afford a fountain. I'm
not saying this is right or wrong, but it is part of the spirit of the times. It may be that

the municipality or the governmental agencies will become more potent in the sense

of the city as a whole and its beautification. Architects will give lip service to this, but

architects are not the people who really bring this into being. They, only in a sense,
are the tool by which the people's desire becomes manifest. It is noteworthy, of
course, that in Italy the first thing they did after the war was turn on the fountains.

It would have been the last thing we would have done if we had any fountains to

turn on.

76
Philip J ohnson: 1963
A mistake hurts the whole future of commissioning big art for buildings. We didn't do
right in Seagram's. But at least what you do see inside is the big Picasso tapestry, big

as all hell. You see it and it's good. When you enter the Four Seasons restaurant

down below, you see one or two big enough things.

I am into water and light. Anything that moves, anything that makes a focal point,
anything that is existing in time. I always wanted fountains at Seagram's and not

sculpture. Mies and I never agreed on that. I originally designed a system, but when it

came to one million dollars to put it in and $600,000 a year to maintain it, it got,

shall we say, pushed out because Mies was against it. I was the one who always
pushed for fountains. Mies wanted to do the sculpture himself until he found he
couldn't. I never wanted sculpture. I think the noise, the accidental spray, the lights,

the fact that it's living is what interests me. 1 feel about it the way I do about proces-
sionals. It's an emotional feeling that's in space — the way to decorate that space to

enhance it, that is unique.

That's one reason I like Saint Peter's. Yes, one reason. But, of course, there isn't

the volume that will fill a square as this fireplace fills this room. You see, CO me, if nei-

ther the fountain nor the fireplace is going, I have a sense of loss. At Saint Peter's the

fountains are like pieces of sculpture, sweet little things, like a lamp. I'm talking about

something that fills the room with its energy and flicker. It exists in time. Perhaps, to

me, it takes the place of decoration, the same as the light does.

See, the lighting in this house takes the place of an awful lot of architecture. It's

why I use candles so much in this house — a moving light, flicker — why I've used
flares in the pavilion, and fire in this house. The fire is not only a warmth, it touches
so many senses, the fire and the flicker. The heat the fireplace gives you. Water gives

you the noise, flicker, and light. This is the depth and deepening oi architecture

which formerly could be given by the handcrafts of decoration which we are no

longer able and maybe we don't want. It's a matter of time. I do feel that you have to
introduce the fourth dimension into architecture. Times change. That is one thing
that my "wallpaper" does in this Glass House, it changes as the light of the day
changes. It changes as the wind and as the seasons. So, we're adding, instead of a
beautiful decor — let's say, like a Rococo, which I of course love —we have the seasons
changing through glass walls.

Now water is the same. It always changes. It's a sequential thing, much as the pro-

cessional changes in architecture as you walk through it. I think that with our severe
restrictions that were caused by the lack of craft, that we have to substitute enrich-
ments of other kinds, which can be dime in time, light, heat, and cold.

You see, it's very cooling in a hot day to come up to Seagram's now. When they're

up full height, the crashing of the water is just sensually cool. People sit there attract-
ed to the cooling. As you are in the winter when I keep my house cool. It's so that

you walk over to the fireplace, get warm, come back, get cool and go over and get
warm again. It adds movement of all kinds to architecture.

77
 GROPIUS: 1964
I am somewhat disappointed that what I call the science of design hasn't been devel-

oped more. Men like Albers put something new into it. Kepes here in MIT put some-
thing into it, but not enough, you know. To really find out more about the designs of

objects, of our seeing, and so on, we can learn something new every day. The more
the individual who is an artist knows about these things, the better he can build his

own ideas. I'm of the opinion that this is not only a preparation which should be
given to the art students, but I believe that it is essential and imperative to build it

into the whole school system from the nursery on.

A designer or an artist who creates something needs the response of the people.
The response of the people is not there if the man is not educated for it. In this coun-

try, it is still very much apart. Among very many people art is still considered a stan-

dard of luxury which is used and bought when there is some extra money. It is not a
thing which is constitutionally in the life of the people, such as a necessity. In all

times of great culture, it was absolutely basic to the whole population. This can be
done only by education.
We are outstandingly backward. Several countries in Europe have made arrange-

ments that in public buildings the government gives a definite percentage for artwork

automatically. We haven't got that yet. It's a good thing because then art is not
dependent on this or that man who may be too vulnerable when he makes this deci-

sion, but it is an institution so that everyone has the right to use so much money for

art in public buildings. I think this would be very good to have that. But I wouldn't

like to call it adornment, because it should be a part of the whole.

I will give you an example. I was asked to design the Federal Office Building,

which now will be called the Kennedy Building, here in Boston. It's under construc-
tion. I wanted to arrange it so I could work with artists in the beginning, so that the

architect and the artist conceive it together. I asked the government whether they

could give me some fee for these artists to work with me. They said, no, we cannot do
it. Only when we have gone out for bids and there is some extra money left, then we
will give you money to buy some artwork. Then it becomes an adornment and added
on instead of part of the whole conception.

YAMASAKI: 1960
The other thing that I have been interested in is that I believe that buildings should

have ornament. But I think that the ornament cannot be man-made, rather carved

by hand. It can't be handicraft because obviously this is solving nothing. We can't

have handicraft ornament on our buildings today. If we do, we are just being some-

what sentimental and proving nothing. But if we can produce really lovely ornaments
through the machine, machine-made ornament, we are proving something because
then again another element in architecture becomes a part of our technological
building. It's really an important part of a technological building.

Also, I believe that ornament, as such, just plastered to the face of the building,
Minoru Yamasaki
isn't good. It has to arise from the need. So, consequently, if the screen to shut out

the sun from the building can add richness to the building, then it answers a need.

78
Consequently, it's an integral part of the building. It still is part of our heritage and NORTHLAND SHOPPING
CENTER. Victor Gruen. Detroit,
part of our education from the masters, from Mies, Wright, and Corbu, that the ele-
Michigan. 1954. Incorporating many of the
ments we put into the building must be integral with the building or must be a neces-
ideas of modern town planning, including
sary and important part of the building. In other words, we can't do the Baroque yet. plazas and parking, with those of the

And hope we
I don't. traditional village marketplace, Gruen
created this pioneering tin J influential

shopping mall.
GRUEN: 1957
When it comes to ornament, it's like asking whether there should be more love in the

world. I'm all for romance when it comes naturally. Any faked and artificially brought

on romance we call necking or flirting and I believe they're much less enjoyable

things than the proper, real romantic love. The seeking for ornament just because

one feels, by God, we have to get it back, is one which will end up in very artificial

expressions. I believe very often what happens in those cases is that the architect says

to himself, well, I have to stiffen the material and, also, I feel that it is about time that
we get some ornament. Let's combine the useful with the beautiful. It it fits with the

purpose of the building, if it creates a spiritual enrichment of the building, then it is

in order. It is again in character of our times that the place for such is very rarely to

be found.

EERO SAARINEN: 1956

In many ways I seem to believe that in architecture every problem is a specific prob-

lem, specific for answering the client's functional needs, specific tor answering its

environmental needs, and specific also for capturing the spirit of that particular func-

tion. Therefore, I find it harder and harder to generalize. I feel . . . perhaps too much
generalization is being made by architects and architectural firms. Therefore, while I

have used color, maybe . . . made a stronger statement in color in relation to architec-

ture than anybody else I can think of at the moment, still there are architectural

problems where maybe color shouldn't be used. There's some places I am definitely

not using colors just because it's not in the nature of the problem.

79
 As a civilization of architects, or as a profession of architects, we are partly new
and partly old. Some of the ideas are partly old. What we have to be very careful
about is when we think of art that we define our rules.

I like, for instance, the way Calder went at it designing another piece of sculpture

for the General Motors Technical Center. There was enough hardware there as it is,

but instead he designed a water ballet, moving jets of water which will create an

interest. It will be like a symphony in water. I think this can be a marvelous thing.

I think also another good example is the screen that Harry Bertoia designed three

years ago for the restaurant, where the problem was a semiarchitectural problem of
making a transparent screen. It is very difficult because sculptors are not really used
to facing the practical world. Also it's not always easy to convince the clients that
money should be spent for these things. Fortunately, my wife, Aline, knows so much
more than I can ever hope to know about the whole artist world. Much with her
advice, I've gotten to the right artists for several projects where I was working with
artists.

We're working on several right now. The Stuart Davis mural for the dining room
for Drake University, which the Cowles Foundation gave, which is, I think, a really

marvelous thing. I think one of Stuart Davis's best things. It's a mural about thirty-

two feet long.

Then in the MIT chapel, there's the screen which Bertoia did and, more impor-
tant than that, the spire or the ironwork, which has not yet been placed there. It will

be thirty-two feet high on top of the chapel that Roszak has worked on. This was a
project which I, frankly, began by asking the question, is this architecture or is this

sculpture? I worked quite hard on that, made several models, and many in the office

made models, and gradually we came to a form. We didn't want to go out to the
sculptor before we had matured our thoughts about it. But then there came a point
where one realized that in certain things the sculptor is more sensitive and can give

more to a project than the architect, who is trained for a different thing. So then we
gave the whole thing to Roszak. He went through the same searching process and

came out with what I think will be a marvelous bell tower.

You know there was a time when we didn't even talk about texture, much less

ornament. Then we began to talk about texture. With texture, I mean the texture of

a wall. For instance, the texture of a glass wall that mullions and the glass give it, or

the texture of a wall with the windows and the wall in between the depth facade.

The moment you start talking about texture, you're already on your way toward orna-
ment. In other words, you're willing to have ornament, but you don't know how to

get it. You can't just dig up some old acanthus leaves and put them there. I'm sorry, I

80
 CHAPEL, MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
Eero Saarinen. Cambridge. 1953. This red

brick cylinder punctuated with arches and

encircled by a water-filled moat creates an
unusually moving, nondenominational

religious atmosphere.

think ornament, in our time, will come as it always has come, from the accentuation

of structure. I mean starting with the structure and then the playing up of it beyond
the necessity of the structure. With a willingness to have this texture which it creates,

we will have ornament.

In the London Embassy we tried enormous amounts of ornaments and grilles and
tried to justify them. Finally we ended up with fairly simple grilles, quite a simple

fence and a fairly simple cornice line, but this was after discarding hundreds of differ-
ent variations. But I'm not saying that we won't go farther than that. We're on the
road to ornament, yes.

1958
Some friend of ours took a psychoanalyst to General Motors and then while there he
made the remark, "You know, the architect is really the only one of the arts which is

not at war with society in our time." In other times the painters, the Rubenses and
the other Renaissance painters, they were not at war with society. But today the

painters are. What's good about their statements is that they are at war with society
and that's fine. But I think the statement is true that the architect is essentially not at

war with society.

81
"I THINK WE HAVE THESE THREE GREAT FORCES THAT ARE WITH US EVERY TIME WE THINK
ABOUT ARCHITECTURE. THERE IS WRIGHT AND HIS LIFE WORK; THERE IS CORBU AND HIS

LIFE WORK; AND THERE IS MlES AND HIS."

FALL1NGWATER.
Frank Lloyd Wright. Bear
Run, Pennsylvania. 1935
buildings and the individuals who created them. When we asked the architects to name three great works of

modern architecture, with some notable exceptions the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies

van der Rohe led the list. Sometimes it was for different buildings, often for different reasons. Interestingly, the three

never attended architecture school. It is a more curious coincidence that none were born with their professional

names. Wright was originally Frank Lincoln Wright. Le Corbusier was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. Ludwig Mies

added his mother's name, van der Rohe.

We also asked Wright, Le Corbusier, and Mies to name the architects who had most influenced

them. When I pressed Wright for at least one contemporary he admired, he somewhat

reluctantly chose an engineer, the Spaniard Eduardo Torroja. Alvar Aalto told me that

once when his wife was having lunch with Wright at the Oak Room in the Plaza

Hotel in New York, Wright said to her, "Alvar and I, we live so far from one

another, four thousand miles, we can be friends. " And they were.

With Le Corbusier, I did not get the opportunity to ask him about other

modern architects or their buildings.

Mies generously acknowledged his debt to Frank Lloyd Wright. It was in a spirit that

was not returned. He also expressed high regard for Le Corbusier and his work,

but he went his own way.

I
 UNITE D'HABITATION. Le Philip Johnson: 1955
Corbusier. Marseilles, France. 1947. This Three great works and why? Well, I prefer to name three that I know rather than
complex for a self-contained community of six-
ones I don't know. I'd rather take buildings that I'm very familiar with that have given
teen hundred provides sun-shaded apartments,

a central shopping street, and a rooftop nursery

me a special inspiration as to further design, let's say. And I would pick the three as

school, pool, solarium, and running track. the Marseilles apartments of Le Corbusier, Taliesin West of Wright, and the 860 Lake
The huge concrete slab is raised off Shore Drive towers of Mies van der Rohe.
the ground on massive pillars.
Now, the first, the Marseilles apartments. Why? Because he carries as far as possi-

ble aesthetic experimentation in the modern style. The modern style of architecture

is one in which we emphasize the weightlessness, the lightness, the inherent charac-

teristic of skeleton construction. Corbusier has carried that much further than any-

one else by holding the building up on great expressive hands, almost expressionistic,
but they are regularly spaced. They keep the basic rhythm, the boom-boom-boom of

the base rhythm that's required in any building, that they make this massive building

float and keep light, which is the essence of modern.

Then above it he has a reticulation. He's carried his glass back, not to make this

eternal flat-skin effect that all modern buildings in New York seem to get by trying to
keep the outer walls thin for economic reasons. He has pushed them way back, twen-
ty feet sometimes, to keep the hollow honeycomblike effect of the entire building.

And then, thirdly and most important, he has carried the sculptural effects on the
roof materials to such a degree that if you were just to consider it large sculpture it

would still count. It does seem to me that there is no contradiction between architec-

ture and sculpture. An architect has a perfect right to make sculptural forms out of

his needs, as Corbusier does out of his chimneys, to make an expressive unity to bind
the whole composition together against the sky. Too many modern people have
neglected the sky. It makes for shadows, for delight, for contrast that you can't get any
other way.

Taliesin West, of course, is quite a different matter. Frank Lloyd Wright belongs to

the ages. There, I think, the essence of his house is the human element, the proces-

sion through the building. I once counted the turns that you make when you
approach the building until you get into what he calls the cove, the holy of holies,
where you finally sit down with the high priest. And the number of turns, I think,

84
 .

was forty-five. Now he is playing with you as you walk through that space. He stops

your car, as any good architect should, two or three hundred feet from the entrance.
It doesn't rain enough to make any difference. Then you start down the steps, up the

steps, to the left, to the right, down the long, very long pergola and you turn to the

right to get out under that famous prow. And you take those few steps down onto the
magnificent view that's been concealed from you for two or three hundred feet of

walking. Then you see Arizona stretched out as he meant it to you.

And then you turn and go into the little tent room where — the man, of course,

understands light better than anybody in the world — and he has this tent light that

trickles, filters down through into this private room. Before he opens any flaps you are

just bathed in this canvas light. Then when he opens the flap onto the little secret

garden, you say, I can't, there are no more surprises, there can't be any more unfold-

ing of spaces, but there are. And you get into this private courtyard with the green

grass and the falling water, which I notice he's just changed. He now has a series of

round circular paths surrounding the seats.

Then you finally get into the cove and just when you're used to Frank Lloyd

Wright's six-foot ceiling, it has a fourteen-foot ceiling and the fireplace runs the full

length of the building. There are no windows, all of a sudden, and no canvas. You're

entirely enclosed in the middle of this experience. And by the time you get there you

realize that you've been handled, and petted, and twisted much as a symphony will

caress you, or an opera, until you get to the crisis. That, perhaps, is not even architec-

ture in the same sense that the Corbusier building is, but they both haw something to

tell later architects.

Then the third building, 860 Lake Shore Drive, is quite different. There is a master
builder at work, as the other two don't know anything about building, you might say,

to exaggerate slightly. Mies knows all about building. He knows before he puts a line

to paper how it's going to look. But he also knows what's possible . . . and what you
have to admit is going to have to be put in the building before you do it. And then he TALIESIN WEST. Frank Lloyd Wright

Scottsdale, Arizona. 1938. Wright designed the

realizes more than that. He realizes what civilization we're in. You can't repeat
winter headquarters for the Taliesin Fclloivship
Marseilles. Who is going to be able to build something of the processional incredible-
with a solid concrete and desert stone base
ness of Taliesin West? But everyone can, and mostly does, build apartment houses. topped by wood framing and tentlike canvas in

And the patterns which he has developed tor sheathing the skeleton building is the a superb handling of space and light.

85
 —

860-880 LAKE SHORE DRIVE first, yes, it certainly is the first step in this economic problem-cum-architectural
APARTMENTS. Ludwig Mies van der problem since Sullivan, who first used verticality to organize multistory buildings.
Rohe. Chicago. 1951 Mies s first masterpiece
.

It's amazing to realize that the multistory building is quite a new problem in archi-
m the United States, these two apartment
tecture. Sullivan was the first to grapple with it. Richardson only built buildings five
towers of glass in black steel frames are set

at right angles to each other to optimize or six stories high that were still blown-up one-story houses. That warehouse, the
the spectaadar views of the city and Marshall Field warehouse, is a one-story building, but the Wainwright is a skyscraper.
Lake Michigan. And the Wainwright thesis of the base, the vertical columns — the pilasters almost

and the heavy cornice, have been copied ever since because it is the logical way to

sheathe a multistory building; if it goes up it's with vertical emphasis.

Mies, of course, doesn't know this. He's never seen any Sullivan work. It's a pure

accident, but it isn't an accident because the problem is the same that Mies solved in

the technique of our day what Sullivan solved in the technique of his. And that is a

basic pattern from which it is extremely difficult to diverge. Many of us have tried. I

say, now look, I just mustn't have those exposed mullions that create that wonderful
impression of 860, but the more you try to make a building cheap, which you have to

do in today's economy and socio-setup, the more you try to make it expressive, the

closer to 860 you're going to end up.

Just as in Mies's newest building in New York, the Seagram tower, the projected

mullions, although made of a different material, serve exactly the same purpose. They
create a separate plane out from the plane of the glass, which adds so much to the

interest of the building in that it doesn't become a blank glassy box. What you really
see is the surface of the projected mullions, unless you are looking directly onto the

building. The effect is that of a bronze building, not a glass building. These mullions,
of course, are merely an extension of a functional and necessary part of the building.

You have to have wind bracing, so you are perfectly legitimate. You have to have span-
drels to exaggerate or pull out or push in or play with those two elements, the span-

86
drel and the mullion. As a matter of fact, the building is a plaid. The Carson, Pirie &
Scott building is a plaid that emphasizes the horizontal. The Wainwright Building is a

plaid that emphasizes the vertical. Mies's building emphasizes the vertical.

The trouble with glass boxes is that they have to have a superimposed pattern. And
it is the duty of the great architect to impose one so simply and so logically, or

pseudologically, from the nature of the building itself that it will have a beauty, well,

almost inherent. It's the slight pulling away from the absolute necessities that is the

art of that building. It may be . . . and that building may be much more important in

history, you see, than the other two for the simple reason that it's in line.

You might use the analogy of the Palladian style which Nowicki used on Mies, that
Palladio may not have been Michelangelo, although they were contemporaries, slight-

ly. Palladio was younger, but Palladio so vernacularoed the problems of his late

Baroque time that his name became synonymous with architecture for three hundred
years.

Now, it's a question if Taliesin West will ever be a beacon tor younger generations,

but there is absolutely no question at all, because it's already being done, that Mies's

basic solution for tall buildings will be used. How it will be diverged from will be

interesting, but that it will form the basis, and I know it is lor a great number of us,

that we can't anymore try to think of bow you do a multistory, and I mean repeated

stories, not a pyramidal composition, but a repeated-story building, which is of the

essence of the problem of architecture today, as the church was in the Middle Ages.

You cannot start designing that without pulling off from 860 Lake Shore Drive, and

that seems to me to make it rather basic among today's buildings.

Carlos Villanueva: 1955

I consider that the three greatest works of modern architecture are: first, the Villa

Savoye by Le Corbusier, tor its significance in the return to volume; second, the

Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Robe, tor its renovation of monumental, universal

space; third, Taliesin West of Frank Lloyd Wright, for its reemphasis of individual, i 'arlos Villanueva

intimate space.

\ ILIA SAV OY E Le Corbusier with

Pierre leanneret. Poissy'Sur-Seine, France.

1929. A residential masterpiece, this white

concrete box floating on twelve slendei pillars

employed many of Le ( lorbusier's early

architectural principles and elements, such

as open planning and flat roofs that served

lis terraces.

87
 :

GERMAN PAVILION,
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Barcelona, Spain.
1929. Designed for ceremonial purposes, this

pavilion was not a conventional building but a

composition of horizontal and vertical planes

, that eloquently expressed Mies's concepts of

open, flowing spaces.

I . M . PE 1 1955

Wright's contribution has been tremendous in our field. The most representative

building — well, let's say, Taliesin West. Let's use that as the building. I consider that a

very important building because it shows, to me anyway, more effectively than any
building he has done, the interrelationship between light and space. It also shows
more conclusively than any building he has done really the richness that you can get
from natural materials. I consider that a very important piece of work.

Then, of course, you cannot omit Marseilles, the apartment which perhaps more
than any building by Corbusier expresses so very fully the perfect integration or syn-

thesis of architecture, sculpture, and painting. I would consider that a very important
piece of work. Certainly it is most representative of that man.
Then, the third one, well, Lake Shore Drive, perhaps. That is important because it

is probably the most appropriate expression, architecturally speaking, of the

American way of building. Our mechanized society, the way we produce, the way we
construct seems to have the most perfect expression in that one building, regardless

of its other technical defects. As an expression, I think, that building has tremendous

significance and I don't expect that there will be many changes from that for a long

time to come. This may very well form the classical tradition, the return to the classi-

cal tradition.

I think the importance of Mies's work lies in that it's trying to get to the essence

of things. As such, of course, it is very difficult to improve over the essence, you see.

Undoubtedly, there will be a great deal of variation in the use of materials, in the
proportions, in the scale, and so on. But, I think, as an expression of skin, let's use

that as an expression, for that type of building, I think that is probably a very, very

excellent piece of work.

Enrico Peressutti: 1956

To talk about a work is very difficult because you cannot detach it from the man who
did it. So more than one work, I admire the man that did it because I can also under-
stand the faults this man had. It is not right to take one building out of the whole
work of a man because even the faults show the changes in his work. They show the

humanity of the man that did it.

I think that one of the most important expressions in modern architecture, which I

visited many times, is an experiment that was done by Le Corbusier in Marseilles.

This building he calls Unite d'Habitation. It seems to me that the building also has

some difficulties, for many reasons which I won't mention here. It seems to me that

this building is one of the most important experiments done in modern architecture,

trying to resolve the housing problem of our society, as it is today. With his particular

vernacular, Le Corbusier tried to resolve these problems in the best architectural way.

By architectural I mean from all the points of view, from the -technical possibilities to

the spiritual expressions.

FALLING WATER. Frank Lloyd Wright.

Bear Run, Pennsylvania. J935. At the age

of sixty-nine Wright reclaimed the world's

,

attention with Fallingwater, the most widely

known house in modern architecture. The

great reinforced-concrete slabs cantilever out

of the solid rock over a tumbling stream.

The second building, one of the most important expressions in modern architec-

ture, I think, is the Fallingwater house by Frank Lloyd Wright near Pittsburgh. I

arrived there, through the woods of thin trees. I was going along trying to find the

house among these vertical trees. Once, and very slightly, I saw in the to^ the hori-

zontal lines of the house. Then coming closer to the house on one side, I saw better
these horizontal lines. On the other side, once again, I saw the vertical expression of

the falling water. This, I think, is one of the most important and the best expressions
of Frank Lloyd Wright's artistic sense. He understands and expresses the surround-

ings so well, the site and the nature around the house. I think that Frank Lloyd
Wright has the most important sense of nature of almost all modern architects. I

admired him very much for this, but I must be sincere. I must say that I cannot agree
with the forms he creates in the house, the decoration.

The third building — it's a recent one — is a house that Mies van der Rohe built for

Mrs. Farnsworth near Chicago. I think this is the most advanced expression of Mies
van der Rohe, who, of course, is a poet, I would say the abstract poet of our times in

architecture. Because of that I admire him very much.

89
 FARNSWORTH HOUSE.
LudwigMies van der Rohe. Piano, Illinois.

1950. Divided tmly by an elegantly sheathed

service core and cabinets, this one-room glass

house with a raised travertine floor and

flat roof is suspended beautifully on eight

white enameled steel columns.

But, again, I must say, that life with all its variety, unfortunately, or, fortunately,

needs much more than that. One needs to leave a newspaper on the floor without
thinking that this newspaper spoils everything in the house. It is life and we need
architecture for life, not for poetry.
When you try to resolve problems of life from just a few points of view and not
from all of them, you are limited. There are limitations found in the different archi-

tectures of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies van der Rohe. They are, of

TUGENDHAT HOUSE.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Brno, Czech
Republic. 1950. This house is built on a steep
slope. The sober one-story street side offers

little clue to the rear —a glass-enclosed double

story overlooking a garden and superb city

view. The free-flowing interior made the house

one of the most influential examples of

modern architecture.

90
course, limited because of the limitations that the architect started with in the begin-

ning. They can be different types of limitations that may affect the architecture. For

instance, the main limitation in the Le Corbusier building in Marseilles was an eco-
nomical one. It is my belief, and I think also Le Corbusier's belief, that the best house

for a family would be a house next to the ground, where people can really live. They
can have their own garden, their own trees, their own vegetables to grow; they can

touch the ground. This would be a human way of living.

PHILIP WILL JR.: 1956

I have a feeling that architecture has been divided into two mainstreams. I'm talking

now in terms of design character. One we might call the classic and one the roman-
tic. The classic implies a kind of structural order, a repetitive quality, a certain digni-

ty which is derived from that kind of order. The other kind is a more naturalistic, in

some respects a more relaxed, a more emotional architecture and is usually more
closely related to its place of being than the classic, which in many respects is almost

interchangeable as far as geography is concerned.

ROB It HOUSE. Frank Lloyd Wright.

Chicago. 1906. This horizontal residence of

Roman brick, lined with long, decklike

balconies, is one of the most influential of

Wright's earh houses.

I have thought of two examples of that which haw certainly had a major influence

on architectural design. One would be Mies van dor Rohe's Tugendhat House, or it

you wanted another example of his work, you might equally pick the Barcelona

Pavilion. The influence of that on younger architects has been tremendous. I think it

has served to introduce a new kind of order in composition and architectural design.
Probably the major exponent of the romantic school, although he would deny it,

of course, is Frank Lloyd Wright. If one would rake a single example of his work we
might settle on the Robie House, which again has influenced generations ol

architects.

91
™

NATIONAL PENSIONS
INSTITUTE. Alvar Aalto. Helsinki,

Finland. 1950. Aalto's beautiful building of

warm brick in a natural setting manifests the

appealing human qualities he brought to

the pure International Style.

G\o Pont i: 1961

Frank Lloyd Wright is a genius. It's destiny to be a genius, particularly if one lives past

ninety, like Titian. In my opinion, Niemeyer belongs to that race of genius, but he

hasn't yet had the chance to show himself at his utmost in spite of his already great

works. There is always something fragile about Niemeyer's work.

Alfred Roth : 1961

I like Alvar Aalto's works very much. His social insurance company in Helsinki, one
of his recent works, is a wonderful piece of architecture and so full of ideas, true

ideas, not the sort of false originality. He's such a genuine man. Aalto's a very won-

derful combination of the great artist, a great talent, a highly cultivated man, and a

very human man. We are very good friends. It's so easy to be with him, such a won-
derful comrade, so absolutely free from all this business of publicity and so forth.

I have a great admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright. I am not directly influenced by

Frank Lloyd Wright. I like his houses very much. The famous Hollyhock House
comes to my mind in Palo Alto [sic]. It's a wonderful house. I also like his Johnson
Wax factory in Racine. Fallingwater is a little bit too dramatic for me. I prefer more
restrained houses.

BARNSDALL "HOLLYHOCK"
HOUSE. Frank Lloyd Wright. Los Angeles.

1917. The hollyhock motif and shape of this

important early concrete residence suggest a

Mayan temple, but the interior is a distinctly

new Wrightian vernacular.

92
 I must frankly say that I also have some admiration for Richard Neutra's work.

Neutra today has been extremely faithful to his principles. He has not changed. He
has developed himself, hut he has not changed his basic attitude toward architecture

and his concepts. I especially like his Tremaine House, which I saw. That's a wonder-
ful piece of architecture. Some of his houses may be a little bit too fashionable, you
know, but I like people who stay faithful to their principles. That's what we have to do
today.

Richard Neutra: 1955

At the earliest age it was Otto Wagner, who was a contemporary of Louis Sullivan.
Sullivan at that time I didn't know. But Wagner was the man who, and I've been
rereading some of his writings, which by the way I say rereading, I never read them. I "Each new style emerged from
read him now because his granddaughter and son-in-law have been starting to write the one preceding it, so that new
to me from Vienna recently. All of a sudden they heard about me and they think that construction, new materials,
I am one of the men who continues his work and they have been sending me interest- new human tasks and views
ing family papers and also some reprints of some things he wrote in 1890 and I am just called forth a change or recon-
stunned by the modernism of his thinking. I have no doubt that as far as literature is stitution of existing forms. . . .

concerned that what he wrote at that time and what he proposed to the city council Great social changes have
of Vienna is probably more up to date than anything which was written at that time. always given birth to new
He built all the railway stations of the city railway of Vienna and the subway sta- STYLES."

tions. There was a belt line where it was possible to pay five cents and travel the Otto Wagner

whole day, never leave, just go around. I did that. And this was a great instruction in

architecture because I was just looking at these stations from below and then I was
looking at them also from above. It was a fairly low tuition, as you can see, and very
instructive. This man had a great influence on me and I decided at that time that I

would become an architect. He was a very revolutionary man. He started as a renais-

sance architect or in the style of eclecticism of that age, but he became gradually, and

in a most interesting development, a person who completely divorced himself from all

stylistic canons.

TREMAINE HOUSE. Richard Neutra.

Los Angeles, California. 1929. This early

modern house was a breakthrough residential

use of prefabricated light steel frames, rein-

forced-concrete walls, and wide glass windows.

93
 I had a chance to watch this and some fight about this developed in the newspa-

pets. He was very much attacked by all the people who had to make jokes about him
and he happened to be a very independent man financially and so he went on with
his development. Most of it, fortunately, happened after he had already got a very
"We already possess the style of
leading position, holding the chair for the most important school at the Academy in
OUR TIME. It may re found wher-
Vienna, so that he couldn't be easily dislocated. He had a tremendous influence on a
ever THE ARTIST, THAT MEANS ANY
generation of students and on the world. He became very well known also in this
member of that association,
country, but that has been forgotten now. Well, so much about Wagner.
hasn't yet stuck his nose in. . . .

The next man who played a great role in my life as an architect was Adolf Loos,
can it be denied that our
who was a great admirer of Wagner, but his influence on me was of a very different
leather goods are in the style of
nature. He never was a great architect in the sense of plan preparation. As a matter
our time? and our cutlery and
of fact, he prided himself not to draw plans. He was thinking to use work on paper
glassware?! and our bathtubs
and to use a 4-H pencil, as Wagner would do, was just denaturing the task of an
and American wash-basins?! And
architect.
our tools and machines?! and
— As a matter of fact, he slowly brought me around to the idea — although he never
everything ref-eat every-
i

used these expressions — that architecture was not a paper affair, but that it had
thing — which the artists something to do with human life and that it was danger to use scales. It was danger to
haven't got their hands on yet!"
use pencils. It was danger to use paper. That these were, of course, conveniences to
Adolf Loos
the execution and realization of the executing crew and, perhaps, as such, necessary.

Also, he even doubted that. But it was danger to become a paper architect.

Loos had a great influence on me to bring me to this country. He had been in

America during the Chicago World's Fair and spent two years here utterly fruitless

and utterly without any trace of success. His American story was not a success story,

but the contrary. It was a story of a most passionate but unhappy love. He loved this

country and he fitted it evidently very badly. He never proceeded far to get a job than

to be the night-shift dishwasher in a second-rate hotel, although he couldn't find,

even to save his life, a job as a draftsman. He tried everything. He advertised in news-

papers that he was an expert in heraldry because there were some people in

Manhattan who wanted to have some letterheads made. He told me much about

America and what America was to him. He probably has been the greatest influence

on me to bring me to this country, much later, but it stuck with me. He liked me very

much and considered me his favorite pupil. He gave me presents and I am sorry that I

don't have the books which he gave me with beautiful inscriptions. I think about a

week before he died he wrote one postal card to me, but he was already quite mental-
ly disturbed. He died, I think, in an institution.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND

HEALTH. Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, TO MAS SANABRIA: 1955

Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Carlos Leao, ]orge I would say that one of the works that made a great impression upon me, for its scope
Moreira, and Ermani Vasconcelos; he
and influence in the terminology of contemporary architecture, is the building of the
Corbusier, consultant. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Ministry of Education by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer with Le Corbusier as con-
1943. The uninterrupted, sun-shaded window
walls made this sixteen-story office slab with
sultant in Rio de Janeiro. What impressed me most was to see how that group of pro-

auditorium and exhibition halls one of the most fessionals solved the problem in such an excellent, direct, and honest way.
renowned examples of modern architecture in
Another building I saw recently that I would like to mention is the City Hall in
South America.
Tokyo by Tange, which impressed me for the fine conception of spaces, how well

94
they are bound to the exterior environment and to the lively atmosphere of the

Japanese city.

Juan O'Gorman: 1955

In modern architecture I would consider Gaudi, the Catalan architect of Barcelona,

the greatest architect of our times in spite of the fact that his architecture has more
the talent of the sculptor and the painter than of the architect. But, of course, I con-

sider him a great, great architect. The fundamental greatness of Gaudi, I would say,

in the Sagrada Familia of Barcelona, consists in the incredible fact of his having been

able to bring into existence the combination of the Spanish Gothic with the Baroque

and to have created with those two a very personal and a very individual form of

expression which only Gaudi has. Then, after him, the other great architect is

Wright in the United States.

OLYMPIC STADIUM. Augusto Perez

Palacios with Raul Salinas Mora and Jorge
Bravo Jimenez- Mexico City. 1951. Dug into

the ground with curved concrete retaining

walls and finished with lava facings, this mod-
ern sports Stadium recalls the splendor of Aztec

construction.

The three greatest works of architecture are, one, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

of Gaudi, which, of course, is unfinished, but what is there is sufficient to know what
it would be to haw it finished. The other one, 1 would say, would be the house of the

Kaufmanns at Bear Run or Fallingwater of Wright's, and the third, not to repeat
another thing of Gaudi or Wright, 1 would say the stadium of University City in
Mexico. I consider those three perhaps the most important things. 1 include the stadi-

um of the University City because I want to include something in Mexico.

I also think the works of Le Corbusier are some of the greatest works of modern
architecture as much for the buildings constructed as those which he didn't get built.

He is like Picasso, a man full of imagination who isn't stuck in any doctrine. He does
exactly as he pleases, the Marseilles building, the Ronchamp church. That church

has a freer approach, which is the approach 1 prefer, making things with the greatest

freedom of form, without concern whether the form is based on professional reason-
ing. He did it only because he thought it was beautiful.

Ernesto Rogers: 1955

To me the four makers of modern architecture are Le Corbusier, Wright, Gropius,

and Mies van der Rohe. Immediately after in importance is Alvar Aalto, win), I

think, is a kind o{ medium between the generation of the masters and our generation.

95
 But ybur question is which buildings. What impresses me more now is the

Monastery of La Tourette by Le Corbusier, which I think is a fantastic example of the

present. The subject of the monastery is unimportant because today a monastery is

absolutely unimportant to most of humanity. It is very important for the few persons

who live there, but if you go into this building, which is a masterpiece, you have the

feeling of going into a very old monument. You feel at ease. You feel the building is

part of yourself and you are part of it, not as a monk, but as a man. When you
observe the many parts and whole of this building you will see that nothing of the
building was done before. Nothing is an imitation. Nothing is a copy. Nothing is

directly related to the shape of the forms of early architecture. Therefore, only the

essence of this building is connected with the essence of good architecture, historical

architecture. I think to be able to make up a synthesis like that, a kind of continuity

which carries on into the future, that is really the game of architecture. That, I think,

is the future. Perhaps it's not the future, but it is the hope for a good architecture in

the future.

PERESSUTTI: 1961

Le Corbusier I admire the most, almost everything of his, but I can also see the limits

that he had. Again for Mies van der Rohe, there are some works which I admire very
much, but I can see more limits than in Le Corbusier. Frank Lloyd Wright I admire

very much again, but I see also the other part of the Fallingwater. It's a wonderful

house, but I can see many details that I don't like at all.

Rudolf Steiger: 1961

I know only a few single buildings well. There is Ronchamp, which made an impres-
sion on me, less as architecture than as sculpture. It is, let us say, sculpture, and I

would most like to buy the little plaster model of Ronchamp, as a sculpture.

Then there are the buildings by Wright, which I appreciate very much. My son
was there and brought a lot of material back because I value Wright as one of the

greatest architects of his epoch, as a true design engineer and an architect.

There are the English buildings, which I also know only from publications, the new
postwar city housing projects, which are interesting.

Bruce Goff : 1955

The three greatest works in modern architecture, in my way of thinking, and by

modern I suppose you mean recent because all architecture has been modern when it

was done. If we say architecture since 1900 up to now, in the last fifty years, I would
have to name three buildings. Two of them have never been built and the third isn't

even finished.

The first one I would have to name is the Holy Family Cathedral in Barcelona by

Gaudf. It's a very great conception and probably the most tremendous architectural
conception of our time even though the building is not finished. Gaudf estimated it

would take at least three hundred years to finish it. He said that it was the last great

Gothic cathedral. Still, there is something very prophetic in a way that we haven't

96
 PALACE OF THE SOVIETS,
MODEL. Le Corbusier. 1931 This modern .

Constructivist design, with its auditorium roof

suspended from a freestanding parabolic arch,

was rejected as the Soviets shifted to proletari-

an architecture based on classical models.

even caught on to yet. I think it's great because like all great architecture, it's expres-

sive of its purpose, its material, and reasons for being and still it transcends all of

these into a spiritual quality that is woefully lacking in almost all contemporary work,
where the emphasis is on material things rather than other values.

The second building that I would have wished had been built, is one, if it had been,
would have been one of the great achievements of our time, was Corbusier's Palace of
the Soviets. It was a magnificent scheme. It's too bad that it was not understood by
the people that it was done for because it would have symbolized something new in

government work in architecture for great numbers of people. Certainly, structurally

it was daring and interesting. I don't know of any design that has the feeling of light-

ness and sinewy strength, almost insectlike strength, that this design has. At the
same time it transcends all that and becomes a very poetic expression of a govern-

ment building.

HUNTINGTON HARTFORD
COUNTRY CLUB PROJECT. Frank

Lloyd Wright. Hollywood Hills, California.

1947. Wright cantilevered several saucer-shaped

platforms containing restaurants, gardens,

and pools at different heights on a soaring

trapezoidal base in this unrealized California

country club.

97
 The third example, naturally, we would have to have one by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Of all of his, the one I admire the most is probably the design for the Hollywood

Club. That one seems to me to reach way out. It is remarkable that an architect with
the tremendous wealth of experience could be so young, so daring, and imaginative at

this stage of his life, to do a building so exciting and so forward looking as that build-

ing. I think it is forward looking because it seems to take off from the ground. It's

prophetic of what we might expect in the not too distant future, when architecture

will free itself from the ground more.

Arne J acobsen : 1957

I would almost count Philip Johnson's house as being one of the most important
works and the one that has meant the most for architecture. But Le Corbusier's
chapel at Ronchamp is, in any case, the building that has made the greatest impres-
sion on me. In a certain sense it is such an intimate composition of the three disci-

plines — the art of painting, the art of sculpture, and architecture — that it attains

such a high level that almost no other building has ever reached.

Arne Jacobsen
WlLLEM DUDOK: 1961
I was a guest of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1953. He had an influence on me — more by
his free way of his floor plans than on his details. We were very much impressed by

his free way of doing things, his poetic solution. For instance, the Midway Gardens
made a great impression on me. I thought it very nice. I prefer that over his later

work.

MIDWAY GARDENS. FrankLloyd

Wright. Chicago. 1913. Enclosing an entire city

block, this extraordinary pleasure palace of

* ww !
brick and ornate concrete was destroyed after

the enactment of prohibition.

a
-tVtitc 1> rmrrg

,'_ • i-.- MS

Victor Gruen : 195 7

I believe that Rockefeller Center is an important experience in architecture, not

because of its architectural detailing, but because it was the first time a large complex

of buildings was created which established relations between the buildings, spaces

between the buildings, and created unity. This is probably the only little island of a

real cityscape within the large area of New York.

Many people wouldn't say that this is architecture, but I believe it is. The
Tennessee Valley Authority, the TVA, dams show that architecture is not just build-

ings. That it is a creation of any man-made venture in that it can be created with
drama, with an integrity, and with beauty.

98
 The third one is just because I spent a weekend there and therefore experienced it,

the Fallingwater house of Frank Lloyd Wright. I had seen it before in pictures, which

I didn't quite trust because it looked a little bit like a tour de force. But living in it for

three or four days, I felt strongly attached to it. I felt immediately at home. I was
impressed by its livability and by the genius which went into creating new vistas,

interior and exterior impressions, and by being a place of delight, of structural daring
and obviously, also, of usefulness.

EDUARDO CATALANO: 1956

I don't know if you want to deal with buildings or to use the word architecture
-
in a

broad sense. You find here in America one example, the TVA. The TVA has a great
social implication and a tremendous scale. I think that this has to be considered. As a

planning problem I think it is wonderful. It is one of the best things that America did
in the last fifty years.

PONTI: 1961
Among examples from the past, I was very influenced by Palladio's architecture. Of
present-day architecture, something that comes to mind immediately is Ronchamp
because it is an extraordinary representation of an extraordinary man, Le Corbusier.
I say the man because my expression is independent. He is the greatest man whose
thinking has influenced me and everyone. Oftentimes I enjoy observing the presence

of a man more than I do architectural laws.

The work of Niemeyer helped me understand many things. 1 am not interested in

Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture although I consider Frank Lloyd Wright a great

genius. I'm interested in him as a person as manifested in the architecture.

Concerning Mies van der Rohe, I like most the Barcelona Pavilion, built when Mies
van der Rohe was more of an aesthete. Le Corbusier is a precursor, Gropius a teacher,
Alvar Aalto an artist.

CARLKOCH: 19 5 7

I think we're between the beginnings of modern architecture and its fruition. What's
happening now is a necessary stage but not a particularly satisfying one in terms of
actual buildings.

The Barcelona Pavilion of Mies van der Rohe says so much more than anything he
has done since then that that would be the one of the buildings I would pick. Of
Frank Lloyd Wright's work, who is certainly one of the biggest influences on architec-
ture today, I would pick a building, perhaps Tiliesin in Wisconsin or one of his earlier
ones much more definitely than one of the more recent ones. Using Frank Lloyd
Wright as the romance, and Mies as the simplicity out of chaos.
Now for the humanity in architecture, which I think perhaps is the most important
of the three, I am completely stumped trying to get a specific building. I keep think-
ing about the City Hall in Stockholm. That's really a hodgepodge of all kinds of
things, and perhaps that's one reason I keep going back to it.

99
 TA LIE SIN III. Frank Lloyd Wright.
Spring Green, Wisconsin. 1925-59. Wrights

remarkable home, built of native limestone

and wood with plaster surfacing, is named

Taliesin, Welsh for shining brow. Fittingly,

the house clings to the side of a hill, on ances-

tral land high above the left bank of the
Wisconsin River.

Certainly the Scandinavian tradition and growth is, to me, a very important influ-

ence. I think they are the only people who are really practicing the precepts of

democracy as it applies to architecture. I was there fifteen years ago the first time and

have been back three or four times since. Somehow or other their buildings, as a

group, seem to weather much better than ours. It's the only place that the passage of

that many years has done so little harm to the buildings, and they are so much more a
part of the life of the people. I haven't been able to put my finger on any one building

or even on a person or anything too specific, but the city of Stockholm is the one

thing I would point to. It's a city which is alive today, which isn't depending on build-
ings of many, many years ago. We always talk about the Piazza San Marco, but that's

dead as far as today is concerned. It was completed many years ago and people are

still using it, which is fine, but it isn't saying anything for what we are doing today.

Stockholm is saying very effectively that democracy works, that the people are intelli-

gent, are civilized, and do know what they want. There are darned few places in the

world where you can say that, or get that feeling at all.

Gordon Bunshaft: 1956

SWISS PAVILION, UNIVERSITY I consider, of the buildings that I've seen and studied, that Mies van der Rohe's glass
CITY. Le Corbusier. Paris. 1932. Elevated
towers — the apartment buildings in Chicago on the lake, 860 Lake Shore Drive — are
on sculptured concrete piers, this cantilevered
the best structures in the United States.
residence hall for some fifty students was Le
Corbusier's first major public building.
The building that expresses concrete to me and is very important in its influence

and expression of concrete. It has a dramatic setting and is a dramatic building. I

would put second Le Corbusier's Marseilles apartments.

WO
 The third structure, one of the few buildings that is still beautiful and was built

thirty years or so ago, is Le Corbusier's Student Dormitory Pavilion at the

International University in Paris for the Swiss government. 1 think that is a magnifi-

cent expression of basic concrete structure with a superimposed structure of light

steel. It has probably had one of the greatest influences on modern architecture in the

world. That plus the work of Mies van der Rohe.

KENZO TANGE: 1961

I appreciate most highly Corbusier's works. I also highly appreciate Mies's works, but

as he has set limits to his work, I think no one can develop it further. Therefore, I

appreciate Mies because he has approached the ultimate goal on one line. I do not
know in what way it will be developed after this point. It might be impossible. In this

connection, Corbusier still continues to walk freely, leaving various possibilities. As a

teacher oi architecture, I highly appreciate Gropius. All of them are our great teach-

ers and I respect them very much. But, as a friend, I most appreciate Saarinen.

Eliot Noyes: 1957

Honestly, in modern architecture, there are only two that hit me at once, that really

shook me in a way. One was the Savoye House, by Le Corbusier, which I went to see

three or four years ago in its present state. Apart from that I know it in its original

state only through drawings and pictures. The other was the Taliesin West of Wright, Kenzo Tange

which I also only saw when it was fairly new, not yet finished by any means. But he

took us around it in about 1941. It just shattered me. Now those two things, I think,

are my two nominations in modern architecture. I've got a large range of buildings

that I think are terrific, but somehow those two have had something special for me.

They're quite different. I think that the building that shook me most apart from that

was the Parthenon. Those three buildings, which really you can hardly mention in
the same sentence and make sense, but in each case I had a real reaction to these

three.

The Savoye House, I was prepared to have a reaction because I had been so
impressed by it all the way through school, just as a published thing. When I got

there, walking through this crazy, ruined building, walking around it, seeing the hay

sticking out of the second-floor porch, walking into the living room, the kitchen and
so on, to see how, in 1930, here was where it started. Here he'd done this, which
we've all been using ever since. The chimney with the stack that goes up. Detail after
detail after detail, more than I had realized, are still there in a kind ot ruined state.

The incredible inventiveness of this guy, at that one moment, in this one building is

just beyond belief. It really is fantastic still. This is an extraordinary building. It

stands there in that meadow, a ruin, with the greatest authority, almost like the

Parthenon, another ruin. It has a similar kind ot authority.

I met Madame Savoye there by chance. I talked to her in my best French and lis-

tened to her describe how this place had been. Where the poppies had been and how
the orchards had been. You could see her sort of begin to relive the thing. She sud-
denly told me how her husband and sons had no interest in it. How it had been so

101
 1

badly treated by the Germans during the war, and yet there it stands. A terrific expe-
rience to see.

Taliesin was the same thing, truly. First of all, I was absolutely enchanted by the
sequence of spaces, by the unfamiliar materials, by the canvas, by the cockeyed
shapes, by the flats, by the wood, by the stone, by the way the light came through, the
whole marvelous flow of space, from open to shut, from big to tiny, and from huge
fireplaces to little nooks and peeks through slots and great boulders and the color in

the desert concrete, an absolute masterpiece. I think that's the one of his buildings

that has moved me the most.

The first one of his that showed me that there was something in Wright that could
mean things to us is the Kaufmann house, Fallingwater. In school, this was the tip-off

to a lot of us that it wasn't all this California Mayan decorated stuff. Here was this

guy who was doing a brand new thing which suddenly did mean something to us.

Even though we had sort of given our allegiance to Corbu for a while. Suddenly
Wright began to come back into focus with that. I suppose it was these great white
panels, the boulders and the cantilevers. It was clear, it was easy to understand. It

was more modern. But Taliesin was the building that I thought was the best.

I haven't got this feeling of architectural triumph about any of Mies's buildings, I

honestly haven't. I have seen the apartments in Lake Shore Drive and the concrete
ones, the Promontory. I haven't seen much Mies. I saw the IIT college. The
Seagram's might be outstanding, but I have to wait for judgment on that.

Helmut Hentrich: 1 9 6

I like the work of Eero Saarinen very much. In Detroit, the Technical Center for

General Motors is a marvelous, outstanding job. I think the Seagram Building by

Mies van der Rohe in New York is outstanding, but I also like very much the Lever

building and that's the United States. I like very much the church of Le Corbusier in

Ronchamp, which is very, very important. Then, naturally, also the work of Arne
Jacobsen, his furnishings, his details, and also his architecture. I like Wright, all the

things he made before the First World War, the big houses near Chicago. What I

ROW HOUSES. Arne Jacobsen. S0holm,

Denmark. 1950. The textured natural materi-

als and the imaginative play of the roofs of

these row houses represent a picturesque depar-

ture from Jacobsen's sleek International Style.

102
don't like as much is the museum in New York, the Guggenheim. It doesn't fit in at

all between these high buildings. If it had been built in the park it would be excellent.

Ralph Rapson: 1959

We, at the University of Minnesota Department of Architecture, have often been
accused of being a Mies school. I suppose partly because it's relatively simple. The
students are quite often looking for formal methods they can apply to their own solu-

tion. This is much easier than the highly virtuoso kind of thing of Wright. I'm not

talking about his principles but his vernacular. Maybe this is also true of Corbu
although not quite so much so.

In my own work, I suppose in the earlier days, I went through the Wright influ-

ence. I suppose it was just about the first, Wright and Sullivan. Then I discovered

Corbu and his writings, particularly his thoughts on the larger planning influenced

me a great deal. Then a little later Mies came in as a principle of stronger order.

Another one, I think, of course, is Gropius. I suppose education-wise he has been

the strongest influence on me. I think more than any other individual he has elevat-

ed, shaped, and brought stature to architectural education. Incidentally, while I

admire Mies tremendously as an architect, I do not admire him as an educator.

Another person I've admired is Marcel Breuer as a person and as a designer. This

shows up, I'm sure, a good deal in my work.

I find it rather difficult to name any three buildings. Certainly, I would have to

include Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the residential field. The interesting, exciting

space that he has achieved in his works, oh, you could name them by the hundreds.

Without question the two Taliesin groups are great demonstrations oi his mastery of

space, his ability to surprise, compose, change, and model space.

Then the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies. I remember it as a great articulation ot space

and perfection of use of material and details. My own personal development has been

extremely influenced in some ways by Mies's latter work of the Chicago apartments.

The highly almost abstract quality of these buildings to me is extremely emotional

and exciting. I somehow or other cannot quite accept the fact that they're not neces-

sarily the complete answer to the need.

The third one would have to be a work of Le Corbusier. Perhaps here I would pick
not Corbu 's own building, but the Ministry of Education building in Rio, where he
was a consultant, as a building demonstrating his principles, his plastic sculptural

quality, the mastery of forms, interior and exterior space.

AFFONSO EDUARDO RE1DY: 19 5 5

I believe that three architects have substantially influenced my work. These archi-
tects are Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius, each contributing an
element.

For example, I consider Gropius to have influenced my work greatly by awakening

in me an interest in social problems, which at the time were neglected. Mainly it

brought tip the problem of housing which, until the time I started working, was very
disorganized here in Brazil. I had a background for this kind of work because the

J 03
problem had been reduced to looking to build inexpensive housing without consider-
ing that housing is only one element in a group of other services which would give

people all the comforts and facilities they need for life in a community. Gropius gave
me a great deal of information on this topic.

I greatly admire the work of Mies. It may seem contradictory to admire both Mies

and Le Corbusier, who represent two completely different approaches. I don't think

there is any incompatibility between the two, although they have completely different
personalities. The work of Mies through purity, precision, and the spatial concept it

possesses provokes admiration in me.

I think that Le Corbusier has an extraordinary creative power. I consider him to be

a true genius, a creative spirit. I remember well a quote of his I heard which is the

absolute truth: "I am an invention machine." I thought this definition to be very true
in the case of Le Corbusier, who, in fact, is constantly creating and inventing things.

He has a tremendous creative spirit and an artistic sense which is truly notable.

One thing that I consider of great importance to modern architecture, not for its

volume, but for what it presents of external beauty, its solution that is almost doc-

trine: the works of Le Corbusier. They have a purity of form, magnificent structure,

and purity of realization. Another work that influenced me greatly was the Seagram
Building for its purity of execution, fine details, selection of materials, and extraordi-
nary perfection. There are so many works that I could cite.

PAUL SCHWEIKHER: I960

I think the Seagram Building is a great building. Look at Le Corbusier's buildings at

Chandigarh or d'Habitation in Marseilles — these are great buildings.

I agree with anyone who says that a building must belong to its time. I'm sure that

it's hard for an artist or architect or anyone to express in his work the people with

whom he lives and the time in which he lives. What I think is meant by a building
belonging to its time is that it will use the methods and materials that belong to

its time.

MlNORU YAMASAKI: I960

I don't think that modern architecture has developed to the point where we can pick
out a masterpiece like Chartres, or the Doges Palace, or the Katsura Palace in Japan,

or any isolated example. I think that this is still to come. I think possibly my own
classification of the most important works would be this. Wright's houses, for

instance, are to me a masterpiece of modern architecture. I would like three buildings

of Mies: 860 Lake Shore Drive, Crown Hall, and Seagram's. Seagram's being in the

sense that culmination is a masterpiece. Together they are a body of really wonderful

work.

Although I admire Corbu, I haven't seen all his buildings. I've only seen the one at

Chandigarh. I can't say that I was overwhelmed by Chandigarh. I feel that Corbu,
though a magnificent artist, really sort of a tremendously creative guy as a sculptor
rather than an architect. In a sense, he's not an architect in the same way that

Wright is an architect or Mies is an architect.

104
 SECRETARIAT AND ASSEMBLY
BUILDING. Le Corbusier with Pierre
Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, and Jane Drew.
Chandigarh, India. 1952-57. The huge

Secretariat building, with it sculptured forms

and sun-controlled louvers, dominates Le

Corbusier's plan for the new capital of Punjab.

Paul Rudolph: i960

I feel that Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye demonstrated the sense of continuity of the
unfolding space in an admirable way. It also stated eloquently Le Corbusier's feeling
about man's relationship to nature, which has proved to be prophetic.

I think that Mies van der Rohe's 860 Lake Shore Drive apartment houses in

Chicago elevated the steel frame for the first time to the heights of great art, and
because the steel cage is very American, such a building could be built only in the

United States. It has true significance. It must be noted, incidentally, that the steel

frame is not what is actually shown, but only symbols of the structure are shown.

Symbols of structure have been used ever since the beginning of time, and I don't

know why all of a sudden there's anything wrong with it.

I think that Taliesin West by Wright is a truly significant building because of the
sequence of space which he has managed to achieve as well as the relationship to the

site, the whole use of materials, the juxtaposition of the compression of the stonework

and the flying quality of the trusses and beams, the light coming through the canvas,
the manipulation of the natural light. The manipulation of natural light tends to

have escaped the whole International Style. Wright was born with how to do this.

But the International Style said, "Let's have light and air." Parallel with that came a
lot of glare. As a matter of fact, it took Le Corbusier twenty years to build buildings
which didn't have glare in them. He knows how to do that beautifully now. As a mat-
ter of fact, I think that's part of the whole impulse of postwar buildings.

Martin Vegas and Jose Miguel G alia 1955

We agree that for us the three most significant works would be the Barcelona Pavilion

by Mies van der Rohe, the Swiss Pavilion by Le Corbusier in the Cite Universitaire in

Paris, and the Robie House in Chicago by Frank Lloyd Wright.

J 05
 G ALIA: 1955
The Robie House was made in 1906. I think it contains all the special elements, all

the special concepts and the correct use of materials which are still valid now. You
can visit the Robie House today and it continues to be a piece of first-quality archi-

tecture, while in all other countries all architects were doing Victorian architecture.
I can also mention, although they are not architectural works, they are still works
by architects and it may be of value to mention them, the Barcelona chair and the

Eames chair. They are works by architects and I believe them extremely important.

Mario Ciampi: 1956

I have always tended to look at great work not in terms of the actual work that has
"A GREAT EPOCH HAS BEGUN. THERE
been completed, but more on the forces which have created the great works, that is,
EXISTS A NEW INDUSTRY,
OVERWHELMING US
SPIRIT.

LIKE A FLOOD
the architects — those great men who are responsible for the great works we have
today. The thing that makes for human progress today in the field of architecture is
WHICH ROLLS ON TOWARDS ITS DES-
not a building, but the force, the imagination, and the philosophy which directed this
TINED ENDS, HAS FURNISHED US
work to its completion. As a result of that, I think of men like Mies van der Rohe,
WITH NEW TOOLS ADAPTED TO THIS
Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier perhaps as three of the greatest men who are
NEW EPOCH, ANIMATED BY THE NEW
living today who have done more for modern architecture than anyone else.
SPIRIT."
Take Mies van der Rohe, for example. It's hard to say that his Tugendhat House in
Le Corbusier
Czechoslovakia is more handsome than the Pavilion building he built in the

Barcelona Exposition. In my opinion, there are concepts in both cases which are con-

stantly the same and parallel in thinking. This expression of attenuated construction,
a certain lightness in character, the use of large expanses of glass, the use of solid

form and transparent form together, the use of color and good materials to make an
overall living environment which is attractive, refreshing, handsome, and new.
To go on to Frank Lloyd Wright, take his Fallingwater house at Bear Run with its

great cantilevers which overhang this waterfall, or take his Johnson's Wax Laboratory
multistory building, or take his Imperial Hotel in Tokyo — it would be very difficult for

me to say which is the better because in each case they serve a specific function. But,

nevertheless, in each of these you find the thinking, the imagination, and the creative
forces of the individual which are continuous, constant, and express themselves in

very much the same way.

Take the work of Le Corbusier, look at his Villa Savoye at Poissy in France, take his

Swiss Pavilion in Paris at the Cite Universitaire, or his apartment house in Marseilles.

There, again, you find that there is a quality and a character in the work and the
expression of the individual which is unique and at the same time extremely progres-
sive. When you read his books and analyze what he's thinking, you recognize there is

a great force behind architecture that is a great stimulant. To take what he has to

offer and try to implement it, as well as give it your own personal expression, is the

opportunity and the responsibility of every architect.

Marc Saugey
Marc Saugey: i960
Among the works that impress me there is Le Corbusier's housing project in

Marseilles, which is a key moment in architecture. Still, I think there are other things

(06
 .+.**#»*>»«
£**, ,.._><^

BAKER HOUSE, MASSACHUSETTS

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
Alvar Aalto with Perry, Shaw, Hapburn, and

Dean. Cambridge. 1949. The sweeping curve of

the rough brick dormitory creates a variety of

floor plans for student rooms and increases the

number with a view of the Charles River.

that have made more of an impression on me. I have found Aalto's work extremely

interesting and extremely worthwhile. I like Aalto a great deal precisely because of

his conception of architecture. The way he carries his projects through to comple-

tion. The materials he uses are all perfectly adapted to the atmosphere in which he is

building. The university campus building he made at MIT in the U.S. is also worth-

while because the conditions were similar to those in his own country. Though, per-

sonally, I feel this building does not do enough for the student. I think a building

plays a major role in the educational process. In that area, I'm not sure he had as
much success as at home.

I think Mies van der Rohe was one of the mos( powerful men in contemporary
architecture. His theories being very similar to Le Corbusier's. He wa\ with Le
Corbusier, one of the great captains of contemporary architecture. Setting aside the

merits that are well known, that is, a perfect clarity in his structures, in his way of

expressing volume, he provided a very firm underpinning for teaching, and tor many
architects, to avoid rushing too quickly into a certain modern pretentiousness. At the
present time, we are passing out of the danger zone of such a modern pretentiousness.

These past few years I was very afraid that thanks to the extraordinary freedom we
were given by new materials and projects, we were rapidly approaching architectural
forms that would have quickly led to a Jugendstil, a neo-style, an ornamental, patis-

serie style in modern architecture. Thanks to his kind ot rigor, Mies van der Rohe
was one of the underpinnings that prevented architecture from spilling over in the

wrong direction.

Frank Lloyd Wright, to me, was also an extremely helpful and interesting point in

architecture because of his concept of the organization of space. He always said that

architecture should be organic. In this he was never outdone by Le Corbusier, who

also favored organic architecture, albeit founded perhaps on different philosophical
grounds. Wright was extremely helpful to me at a certain point. He was a kind of role

model in building. His organization of interior spaces, his linkage of the interior and
exterior space, is extremely interesting. His way ot using materials. That sense of free-
dom he creates, all the while remaining completely rigorous in the conception of his

107
plan and the application of his program. This feeling of freedom that he gave in his
creations showed all contemporary architects how they could liberate themselves

from the insistent paradigm of the old "room." He smashed the box and showed us

how to be inside and outside at the same time. In this, the work of Wright is extreme-

ly helpful. Furthermore, one must not lose sight of the power of his work.

EERO S AARINEN: 1956

I'd rather speak about influences than buildings. I think we have these sort of three

great forces that are with us every time we think about architecture. There is Wright
and his life work; there is Corbu and his life work; and there is Mies and his. I think

the specific jobs or the specific buildings, one has to take one of these as a symbol.

I've asked that several times in talking with students. I've asked how they define the

influences of these, and I remember one of the best answers I got was that Wright

started it all, Corbu gave it form, and Mies gave it control.

Now it can be that it's deeper and richer than that, but I feel, for instance, that

Wright's, and let me just talk about these three. Wright started it all. Wright has
given us the greatest inspiration about use of space, has also shown us the plastic

form of architecture, architecture in relation to nature, architecture in relation to the

material, and to a certain degree to structure, and he has shown us also the dramati-

zation of architecture, which I think is a very important thing. Now I think we're at a

period of architecture when those that . . . you know, some try to in their work be
influenced by him directly. I could never do that and I think that's wrong. His influ-

ence on you I think is, and on one is and should be much more, not through the form
itself but through the philosophy, the principles, and maybe the enthusiasm behind
his forms, and I think it may well be that fifty years from now we will feel him
stronger amongst us than right now. We live too close to him now. That is the way I

look at Wright and I think of Wright as the greatest living architect.

Well, I might add one little thing to that, that so much of Wright's forms are really

of quite a different era. The young architect and the student who isn't aware of that

sort of thing slides right into that and wrongly so. But, boy, don't ever underestimate

Wright.

Now Corbu gave it form. You know, he is the bible of the form of modern architec-

ture because his books are like the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci, and Gropius right-

ly refers to him as the Leonardo da Vinci of our time. This terrific inventiveness that

he can almost take any theme, any little need that manifests itself, and make it by

dramatization and emphasis of that make a whole architecture out of it and in that

way he sort of finds form more or less in the functional. But don't think of him as one

that finds the form alone in the functional because basically it's in his heart, and
buildings like Marseilles are to me very, very strong influences. Here for twenty or
thirty years we've made thinner and thinner sticks, and so forth, more or less, on the
basis of Corbu. Then he comes along and makes sort of an elephantine, strong, mas-

sive building like that and a complete reversal of a trend and he's the most unpre-
dictable. Well, he's the Leonardo in architecture or the Picasso in architecture, just a

terrifically inventive person.

108
 To me personally the interesting lessons I get from him are that every problem has "It is desirable to show at the
its own solution, and architecture is not just a mold or a formula to be found, but it's outset that it is impossible to

a whole way of thinking, and also the plastic form that he brings in in relation to the separate the form of the archi-

geometric form or to the crystalline form are all, you know, fields that we haven't tecture of the thirteenth cen-
begun to explore yet. I might just say that I feel some of the people that have taken tury from its structure; every
him too directly and just gone on with that have done it a little bit insincerely. In member of this architecture is

other words, plastic form is not . . . you know, sculpture is fine but don't ever forget the result of a necessity of that
structure. And that is where Mies, the third great influence, comes in. structure, as in the vegetable
I'll dwell on Corbu a moment longer. So much of Corbu's architecture was really and the animal kingdom there is

arrived at from the painting, from the Cubist painting world, that in his work the not a form or a process that is

structural quality of the building is not emphasized and when imitated, often forgot- not produced by a necessity of

ten. But with Mies, who came here late in life, absorbed America during the war the organism: amid the multi-
years, and then bloomed into really a great number of buildings, I mean his work tude of genera, species, and
bloomed into a great number of buildings, and all with this very, very strong, varieties, the botanist and the
Spartan, almost religious belief in structure. I see it, almost a continuation of the anatomist are not mistaken as
Gothic — Viollet-le-Duc, Berlage, Sullivan, Mies. And just the principle that . . . and regards the function."
the belief that structure is the important thing that influences structures. That the Eugene -Emanuel Viollet-le-Duc

use of a building can change but the structure always stays.

Now again, with Mies, there are many ways of being influenced by him. Many have
said that General Motors is the project where I have been most influenced by him. I

would say that I have been most influenced by Mies in the MIT Auditorium, not by
his form but by his principles. Whether you use concrete or steel or whether you use a

box or a dome, those are details, but the principle of making structure the dominant

element in architecture and letting the functional ones fit in and be controlled by the
structural ones, to a degree, is a Mies principle.

I really wouldn't dare to think this way because everybody is supposed to think
that everything is pretty much the same way. I wouldn't dare to except for Corbu.

Corbu who just shows by his life work these many directions, many things that one

could experiment with, and then also Wright, who hasn't really been integrated into

architecture yet. I think that's the wisest statement I've said today. I think Wright's

contribution has not yet been integrated into modern architecture.

109
Frank Lloyd Wright
"The space values of the building preserved,
enlarged, expanded, presented makes an entirely
new architecture."

Frank Lloyd Wright was such an astounding public figure that neither his

appearance nor his manner needs introduction. His photogenic look was

the work of both personal vanity and a sense of the dramatic. When I

asked him about clothes, he replied, "Observe the terminals, John, the

head, the hands, and the feet. They are the most important parts." He
designed himself with the same distinctive imagination as his buildings.

No other architect, certainly no other modern architect, lived in the

style of Frank Lloyd Wright. He designed and built, with his students, two

remarkable residences on extensive estates. They were, of course,

architectural schools —or as the state of Wisconsin declared over his

vociferous objections, an architectural business —but he lived in them like a

monarch. He shared many of the rejections of the bohemian artist, but he

never lived like one.

Despite the behavior and unabashed reference to his genius, Wright

possessed a surprisingly clear-eyed view of himself. A humorist has been

defined as a person with such a firm grasp of reality that he or she makes

fun of the deviations. Wright had a ready laugh and a healthy sense of

American humor. For example, he told me, "I went down to New Canaan
the other day. I'm building a house there for a man named Wayward. It's a

no
good name for one of my clients." It didn't matter that the man's name was SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM
MUSEUM. Frank Lloyd Wright. New York
actually Rayward. City. 1956. Designed as a continuous spiraling

ramp, the striking rounded concrete form of

Wright was one of those people of whom everybody he met had a story.
this celebrated museum was intended to con-

trast dramatically with the square architecture

Much of what he said he had said or written before. Frequently among
of the city.

the different versions it was difficult to sort out the truth. I once asked him

about the often-told story about Wingspread, the Herbert F. Johnson house.

Apparently it started to rain during a housewarming party and the roof

began to leak. An infuriated Johnson phoned Wright demanding what he

should do as water was falling on him while he sat with his guests at the

dining table. Wright replied, "Move your chair." Wright later said to me,

"It isn't true, but it makes a good story. Let it stand."

I visited Wright in a number of places but made the bulk of these

recordings over the course of a week spent at Taliesin. Both from a distance

and close up, the man lived up to the legend. He told me, "They think

I'm arrogant, pretentious, jealous, envious, and all the rest, but I have only

one great desire: to see America with an architecture of its own."

Wright's own words are followed by some firsthand observations by the

architect Antonin Raymond, who worked with him on the Imperial Hotel

in Japan.

Ill
 1957
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: Well, how it began is right there in that little

round picture.

JOHN PETER: That's your mother?

F. L .W. : Yes, she was a kindergarten teacher for me. Set me down at the kinder-

garten table when I was six, and she wanted an architect for a son. Why I do not
know. But she was a teacher, and around my room in which I was born were nine,
simply framed with maple, the six — no, nine — of the English cathedrals engraved by
Timothy Coles. That's what I saw in the cradle. Then she was determined that I was
to be an architect and all down the line everything was so focused on that, that I

never had any idea that there was anything else. I didn't know there was anything but

architecture.

And so kindergarten training by Froebel and, of course, the scientific, German,

thoroughgoing mind of Friedrich Froebel should be the foundation of almost every
education of today.

1955
Friedrich Froebel was not a scientist. He was a humanist of the highest degree. He
ought to be brought back and put into schools here throughout the nation. It would
be a good start toward art and religion. Friedrich Froebel believed that no child

should be allowed to draw from nature, that is, to look at the surface of things and
boondoggle. He should be taught the elemental forms behind all that really went to

make it what it is to look at. So here was the square, and here was the triangle, and
here was the circle. Then you gave those a third dimension and you got the cube, and

you got the tetrahedron, and you got the sphere. Now, there were subordinate forms
to be developed from all those. They had little hooks put into them. You'd hang them
up, revolve them, and get subordinate forms. Then he gave you this plaited map in

color you wove in patterns. You got color. You got weaving. You got form on an ele-

ROMEO AND JULIET WINDMILL. mental basis. And once you got that into your system it could never be taken away

Frank Lloyd Wright. Spring Green, Wisconsin. from you. You never can take the feeling of those maple forms out of my fingers. You
1896. The embracing diamond and octagon never can take out of my mind the effects of those colors. Here is a whole little box of
construction of the windmill prompted Wright
sixty-thirty blocks, red, scarlet on one side and white on the other. You dumped them
to name it after Shakespeare's lovers.
out on the table and you made patterns with them.

My mother was a teacher. She was teaching in Platteville Academy when she met

my father, who was a circuit rider teaching music and preaching. My father's family
was a preacher family going way back. My grandfather was a preacher here and a

hatter and a preacher in Wales. Oh, yes, the Welsh strain is very strong. My mother's

family were teachers and preachers, too. I'm the only one that has broken the line of

not being a preacher way back to the days of the English Reformation, all preachers.

So it is.

112
 1957
My mother was a disciple of Theodore Parker. She was very advanced in her views.

And in her home the curtains were net and hung straight at the sides instead of being

tied back with bows. She had polished maple floors. And on those maple floors, a

friend of hers, Mrs. Davis, helped her get colored rugs from India, woven with poly-

chrome on the rugs. The pictures, instead of having the usual frames of that day, were

all narrow, polished wooden maple bands.

And when she wanted flowers she cut them with the stems long, and always pre-

ferred glass that would show the stems and set them in the water separately by them-

selves — and I grew up in that.

And my father, of course, was a musician and a preacher, and music and all that

environment was my babyhood. I used to go to sleep listening to my father playing

Beethoven's sonatas on the pianoforte. So I had all that in my system as a natural.

J
. P. : J was reading about your Lloyd-Jones windmill, Romeo and Juliet, how the doubters

looked out every morning to see if it had fallen.

F. L.W. : It's still there. Forty-five years old. The doubters've gone long ago. The last

one disappeared fifteen years ago.

J . P. : How much of this land here did you know in your own youth?

F. L .W. : Well, all of it belonged to my uncles. Everything you see. My mother sent
me here when I was eleven to work with my uncle James. She saw me as we came
back from Boston where my father had a pastorate, I was becoming a sort of Little

Lord Fauntleroy, long hair in ringlets she used to curl on her fingers. She saw her
man-child getting to be rather refined. So she sent me up here to my uncle, and I

never had shoes on nor a hat from the time I was eleven until I was seventeen. It was
very far west. It was rich virgin soil. It was just being broken. My grandfather came

here when the Indians were here. He'd have tobacco out on his porch step for them
and they'd bring venison, lay it on the step, and take the tobacco. Daniel Webster
was a great speculator in western lands and he owned this place down here that I

now own part of it. Of course, this was to him the wild and wooly. The Sioux Indians

were here then.

Down at the bridgehead, where we're building the restaurant, you can pick up

Indian arrows there. You can go around and dig them up. That was an Indian ford,

where they used to cross the river.

I walk around all over the place and drive around every afternoon. It's the most

beautiful region you ever saw in your life. I've seen most of the beautiful regions of

the world and none more beautiful than here.

But what would bring me back, anyway, was that I used to squeeze so much of this

whole valley between my toes, barefooted. My whole youth is woven in with this

place. Of course, the hired men now have a couple of the farms that belonged to my
uncles I haven't been able to get back.

113
J . P. : How much land do you have now?
F. L .W. : Four thousand two hundred acres. Five miles of the riverfront.

J . When
P. : it came time for you to go to school, you went to engineering school.

F. L .W. We : were poor and we couldn't afford an architectural school. There was
none. So impatiently I went through nearly four years of engineering school. I had
three months left to go and decided after all that engineering was only rudimentary,
undeveloped architecture. And I struck out for Chicago on my own, unbeknown to

anybody, including my mother, and tramped the streets there for a couple of days till I

found a place with Silsbee and stayed with him a year studying residence architecture.
He was the leading residence architect at that time in Chicago.

So after that year with Silsbee it became apparent that Sullivan was looking for

somebody to do the drawings for the interior of the Auditorium building. He needed
an assistant and one of the boys there told him about me. So he told Bill Corfs to ask

me to come to see him, and I went. Then he asked me for some drawings. So I was
busy making them — I made a lot of them. I made some of his ornament turned into

Gothic and took them along, and he glanced at them all until he came to those and
he said, "What are these, Wright?" I said, "Well, I thought we could turn it into

Gothic to see how easy it is," and he was offended. But he saw the virtue, I was a
good draftsman and had a good touch. He said, "Wright, you'll do. You've got a good

touch. How much do you want?" Well, the answer was I'd been getting eighteen dol-
lars a week. So, I said twenty-five. And he smiled and he said, "Well, we'll fix that as

we go along." I could have asked for fifty and got it.

J. P. : Did you talk to Dankmar Adler at that time, too?

F. L .W. : No, I was hired by Louis Sullivan.

J. P. : What was the relationship there?

F. L .W. : Adler was the big chief. He was the big engineering architect with

advanced ideas of architecture and was really a strong pillar of the AIA at the time,

one of the advanced thinkers and performers. He did the Central Music Hall, he did
the Exposition Building on the lakefront; he did any number of loft buildings for his

clientele of that time. He took Sullivan in as a young, inexperienced member from

the Beaux-Arts who had worked around in offices a little and took him in as a part-

ner, believing in his genius.

Adler believed in Sullivan's genius as most people believe in God. And anything

that Sullivan wanted he got. And Sullivan, of course, knew very little of the practical

side of architecture. That he learned from one of the best masters he could have had,

Dankmar Adler. And of course, the two men played in together like thumb and little

finger, or thumb and forefinger — Adler the thumb, Sullivan the forefinger. That was
a relationship between the two men.
 1955
J
. P. : Did Sullivan give you any advice?

F. L .W. : Well, Lieher Meister was in himself advice. He didn't have to give me any
advice. He was advice. Just working with him, and being with him.

J . P. : What about his own writings, the Kindergarten Chats?

F. L.W. : Well, I was never much interested in those. He read me one of his things

one time. He called it "Inspiration." It was one of the early things he wrote. I thought mi:i»m:i*i:im:i
it was kind of a baying at the moon. I never thought he could write very well. But, of

course, he could, and did. But his writing never impressed me. That isn't where I got

him.

It is poetry. We don't have poets anymore. Show me a poet in the realm of archi-

tecture. Where is one? Show me a poet anywhere — in the realm of literature —where
is one ?

1957
I came in and Sullivan adopted me. He was so nice to me when he was insulting to

all

for
the rest o( the office, and always had been, that they turned

my place there.

Sullivan said to me that after I'd been there the first week I
on me. I had to

got awfully lonesome.

fight
*1»JH
# iimkVlM

George Elmslie was one of the boys, a minister's son like me. There were five minis-
KINDERGARTEN CHATS. Louis

ters' sons including Silsbee in that office. So when Sullivan said to me, "Wright, get Sullivan. Scarab Fraternity Press, Lawrence,

somebody in here under you, because if something should happen to you after I've got Kansas. 1934. Sullivan, the pioneer of the sky-

scraper and Frank Lloyd Wright's "Lieber

you going, I won't have anybody." So I got George to come over. George stayed with
Meister," wrote these elementary essays in
me during the time I was there in my office as understudy. George was my understudy
1918 "to liberate the mind from the serfdom of
and I was Sullivan's. After I left, of course, he had George. Then in his decadent tradition." Published later in book form, they

period, when he was no longer fit, George carried on for him. made an influential contribution to modern
architecture.
I had thirty under me. I had charge of the planning and designing end of the office.

Paul Mueller had charge of the engineering end and the field. He was Adler's man
and I was Sullivan's.

You see, in that office, at that day, I was at one end of the drafting room, Paul
Mueller was at the other. Adler was right next to the outer office. Sullivan's room was
right next to mine and the door opened from mine into his room. Where I sat draw-

ing, I always saw him.

J . P. : On your own though, you've never had that sort of engineering-architect

relationship.

F.L.W. : No, but I had got a lot of engineering sense. I still felt that engineering was
only the undeveloped, rudimentary side of architecture. To my mind they were practi-

cally one, except that I used an engineer in the way an engineer uses a slide rule. I

used him for calculating. But I never used an engineer for designing. The schemes
were always mine. I got, more or less, assistance from engineering as we went along.

J . P. : Hon; did you start to do more of the residential work that was in Sullivan's office?

115
 :

F. L .W. ' That was because I'd spent a year with Silsbee, the best house-designer in

the region. Sullivan had never built a house and didn't want to. Adler couldn't take
them for his clients because they clogged up the machinery, and it took as much of

his trouble and work to do a $25,000 house as it would a $250,000 office building.

J . P. : Which is probably still true today.

F. L .W. : Oh, yes, sure it is. Every residence we do, we do at a financial sacrifice

unless it runs to over $250,000 or $100,000.

I did them on time. All the houses that came to Adler and Sullivan by way of their
clientele, they couldn't avoid taking, they'd turned them over to me to do at home
nights. I would do the plans for extra labor and bring them down into the office for

execution.

J . P. : But they were built under the name of . . .

F. L.W. : Adler and Sullivan. Adler had done a few before that, and Sullivan had
done the fronts for them. They were all fanciful, early Beaux-Arts Sullivan.

J . P. : Were the plans that you were doing then very much like the plans of the period?

F. L .W. : They were, but the plans that I did began to change. I had a sense of a
house that I got from Silsbee, which was fluid and better than the average one at the

time. Of course, I used that.

J . P. : You say fluid but you didn't say open plan?

F. L .W. : None of that was born at this time. It was born about 1893 after the

Winslow House was built and the Williams House. I began about 1895 or 1896 on the
open plan, several years after I'd been building the improved plan of the period.
The Winslow House had the idea of shelter that I have continued ever since. One
of the greatest things of greatest importance in the building was a sense of shelter.

The Winslow House had that. And the Winslow House still clung a little to the

Sullivanian type of ornamentation on the frieze. But still it was going away at that

WINSLOW HOUSE. FrankLloyd time. But it was about until . . . the Coonley House was an instance, as many designs
Wright. River Forest, Illinois. 1893. His

independent commission after leaving Adler

first
of the period were, of the individualized —what we called the "zoned" house, where
the dining room is a unit, where the living room is a unit, where the bedrooms are
and Sullivan, the Winslow House has a
number of abiding Wrightian characteristics,
units, and where they're all connected gracefully together around and according to
such as the broad overhanging eaves. environment.

116
 The Robie House, that was about 1909. From 1903 and '04 to 1909 was the devel- COONLEY HOUSE. Frank Lloyd

Wright. Riverside, Illinois. 1908. This home

oping of the open plan and the "zoned plan."
introduced Wright's influential zoned plan.

recognised as a masterpiece of his Prairie

J . P. : And the "zoned plan" — two different things?

Jt is

houses.

F. L .W. : They were off the same stem. They were related. Before that houses were all

pseudo-Colonial. Architecture was then pseudo-Colonial or pseudo-English, which is

Colonial.

].?.: Was it the Japanese influence that created the open plan!

F. L .W. : There never was any Japanese influence. But what I did see was a Japanese

print. The Japanese print by Hokusai and Hiroshige. I saw the first ones the year of
the World's Fair. I bought some of the prints from a man named Sirocco from the

Central Music Hall art store he ran there. I took them home, and was so delighted

and fascinated by them, not because of the architecture but because of the phase of
art they represented, which confirmed everything I was doing. Confirmed my thought
and feeling so thoroughly that I made up my mind when I got a chance, had a little

money, got a little rest, and in 1906 I went to Japan. After the building of the Larkin

Building and the Martin House — Mrs. Martin had so worn me out that I had to com-
mit suicide or go somewhere. So I went to Japan, where I wanted to study the print. 1

went to collect prints. LARKIN COMPANY BUILDING.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Buffalo, New York. 1903.
Japan produced tremendously great artists during that period. We call it now the
I Knnilished in (950, this mail order company
Momoyama Period, the early part of it. The Ukiyo-e was the later part of the
office building with its central open workspace
Momoyama. That's when these great fellows gave to the world what they gave. The pioneered early "air-conditioning" and the use

simplifications that they made in painting influenced the printers who came later. of plate glass and metal furnishings.

That was the beginning of the pure Japanese school. It grew out of Chinese art. The
Chinese principles were, of course, inherent in it. All that is Japanese in culture grew
out of Chinese art the way a plant or a flower will grow out of leaf mold. So it is basi-

cally Chinese. For that reason the Chinese always look down on the Japanese,

because they imitated.

I later became the chief procurer of Japanese prints while I was building the
Imperial Hotel in Japan. I secured prints for Howard Mansfield, treasurer of the

Metropolitan, for Chicago Art Institute, for the Spauldings especially. The
Spauldings sent me over $200,000 when I was in Japan to buy prints for them. I made

117
 ^H

'*#tfli Wfititto*u&tt».

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

at Taliesin, Spring Green,

Wisconsin, 1955

tki<)£>'*'-
rW&
J
A
 the collection that is now in the Fine Arts Museum [Boston]. It was largely made by
myself. There were only a few acquisitions otherwise.

J . P. : Was this a new thing at that time?

F. L .W. : No, it was practically finished. The French and Germans had practically

eaten it up. It wasn't so new here, either, because there had been collectors before.

There was Cookin of Chicago, Moss of Evanston, Chandler of Evanston. Oh, there
were a great number of them.

J . P. : Even then you were not interested in their architecture?

F. L.W. : No. I didn't care anything about their architecture. Their architecture never

got to me and hasn't got to me yet because I had everything that they have. All they
had then and all they have now confirmed what was I doing. But what I did find in

"Mold clay into a vessel; the print was the gospel of elimination. Here they are on the wall there. I keep them
From its not-being (in the with me.
vessel's hollow) I am a disciple of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and the Ukiyo-e School, and so far as the

Arises the utility Japanese architecture is concerned, I never got a thing from it. And that's true. Now
of the vessel. whether they believe it or not I don't care. But the Japanese influence architecturally

Cut out doors and windows to me was mere confirmation.

in the house (wall), When they sent a committee around the world to find an architect to be the
From their not-being (empty Emperor's Kenchikaho [High Builder], they came to Germany. At that time they
space) arises the utility heard of me in Germany. Now, if they had come to America they never would have
of the house. heard of me. So when they got to America they came straight out to me at Oak Park
Therefore by the existence and saw those buildings around there already built. There were about twenty-five or
of things we profit. thirty of them at that time. They said, "Well, this is not Japanese, but it would look
And by the non-existence of very well in Japan." So they hired me to build a Japanese hotel.

things we are served."

Lao-tse J. P. : Probably that was because in a sense there was a relationship.

F. L .W. : There is a relationship that goes back to nature and I was going back to the

nature that the Japanese had gone back to throughout their civilization, centuries

before I was born. Just as the Mayan went back to nature. That was another great
influence in my life, Mayan architecture, Peruvian, Inca, Toltec. When I was a young-
ster all I wanted was to go down there and help dig up that great civilization.

I got this little book by Okakura Kakuzo from our Japanese ambassador and I read

it. It was a translation of Lao-tse. I read there, in so many words: the reality of the
building does not consist in the walls and the roof, but in the space that has to be
lived in. There was a statement exactly five hundred years before Jesus. Here I'd been
trying to build it and thought I was a prophet.

J . P. : That is the statement people quote about modern architecture now.

F. L.W. : Well, that's where it came from. It never existed until I did it. I've been the
one that advocated it. When they talk that language it isn't theirs.

The space values of the building preserved, enlarged, expanded, presented, makes

an entirely new architecture and Unity Temple is the first expression of it. That is my

120
 UNITY TEMPLE. Frank Lloyd Wright.

Oak Park, Illinois. 1906. In America's first

important poured- concrete structure, Wright

broke with ecclesiastical architectural tradi-

tions. The building is divided into connected

religious and social sections.

contribution to modern architecture. And that, to me, is modern architecture. Here's

the plan, you see. Now there are the features. These are really what might have been
walls and they aren't walls. Now come the stairways in the corner, which are features,

separate features. There's the plan. Now this is all open above. These are really fea-

tures set against space, as though to leave it all open and expanded above. There was
where the interior space became the reality of the building. And that preceded what I

had learned from Lao-tse.

What I learned always has been confirmation. Like the Japanese print, that was

confirmation. I was unconscious of Lao-tse. But when I read him I came down like a

sail. I thought, my God, I'm no prophet. That's five hundred years before Jesus. Then
I began to think, well, trying to build up again, after all, he didn't build it. 1 was
building it. I said the truth is eternal. It doesn't belong to Lao-tse. He perceived it as

something. I not only perceived it, but I built it, which he didn't do. So I don't owe it

to Lao-tse, I went to the eternal verities. It's all nature study.

J . P. : When was the concept of the Taliesin Foundation developed!

F. L.W. : It was developed with Mrs. Wright, when we had no money. I had no work,
of course, and didn't expect to get any because I was getting a worm's-eye view of
society. So we thought if we could make buildings we could make architects. That
was the way it began. We sent out a little circular in 1932, and twenty-six boys walked
up the front steps from all over the country.

Alden Dow was one of the first ones to come up, and there were dozens of others
now practicing architecture and doing very well. So that's how what we call "the

Fellowship" started. It's now twenty-five years old. We ought to have a quarter cen-
tennial — quarto centenniale.
J . P. : How many of these buildings were here at that time!

F. L.W. : None. Nineteen eleven I built the first house. The one you're sitting in is

the third. Two were destroyed by fire, one, a terrific tragedy. The second, no loss of
life, but a loss of about $90,000 worth — oh, more than that —$190,000 worth of works
of art I brought from Japan.

121
 .

HILLSIDE HOME SCHOOL.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Spring Green,

Wisconsin. 1902. Wright departed from

traditional educational-building styles in

designing this pioneering coeducational

boarding school for his aunts, Jane

'. -.k-s
and Nell Lloyd Jones

Hillside was my aunts'. We went to work to make that ready. That was the first

work of the Fellowship, to ready those buildings. They were virtually being destroyed.

Water was coming in. Vandals had marked on the walls and they were wrecks. We
had to bring the whole thing back including this burned-down portion. We had to

create the Foundation out of practically nothing except the studio back there and the

stable. That's all that was left. We had the farm then. It was a heavy burden.

1955
J . P. : You established the Foundation —an institution.

F. L .W. : No, I'm not an institution. I'm just a business. The judges in their decision

referred to my "design business." That's how good the judges were. I was conducting
a design business under the guise of a school. It's the law. The law today, of course,
has been finagled and juggled and pulled apart and put together again by lawyers

until it sheds no light whatever. It knows neither justice nor mercy. That's the law.

1957
J . P. : Your talents were being neglected. Why?
F. L .W. : Well, I was living here on this hill with a woman who I had not married and
could not marry because my wife wouldn't give me a divorce, and that was wicked. I

was persistent. I wouldn't give in to them. I said I had a right to live. You read it in

the Autobiography, it's all told there.

I was distinctly on the offside of every tenet, morally, which they held. Ethically it

was something else. But they are incompetent where ethical judgment is concerned. I

don't think in our nation today any issue could be decided on its ethical import. It

would have to be tainted by morals which are after all only customs. Morals are cus-
toms. Ethics are principles — fundamentals.
J . P. : How much of this house was in the original plan?
F. L .W. : This tower was in the original plan. That addition was put on it afterward.

All this has disappeared twice except that. That's all that's left.

122
J
. P. : What about the ]ohnson Wax tower, which wasn't in the original plan? Was there

always a conception of a tower there?

F. L .W. : No, there wasn't. There was no tower conceived at first, but they now say it

looks so natural in relation to the whole that I always had it in my mind. Probably

after the thing had matured the addition would be better made than if I'd made it in

the first place.

Same man, same thoughts, same circumstance, but enriched by experience. The
taproot foundation wasn't there with a spine in the center and the cantilevers run-
ning out. That's the same principle as the Mile High. So is the Price Tower. Those
two things are twentieth-century architecture. You can't call twentieth-century archi-

tecture this old steel post-and-beam framing when we've got the rod and the tendon

and the flesh of concrete to build from the inside out. That was when the twentieth

century was born.

J . P. : What about an engineer like Nervi?

F. L.W. : Well, Nervi is twentieth century. Maillart, the Swiss bridge engineer, was

twentieth century. There have been, I imagine, other architects, but we don't know
their work.

J . P. : What about Gaudi?

F. L.W. : No. You mean that mud pie he created there with cement? Sweeney wrote .*

disquisition on Gaudi that Mimeday he ought to be sorry tor. James Johnson Sweeney,
the one I'm up against in the Guggenheim Museum. He's the curator. He was against

everything that Mr. Guggenheim stood for and left behind him. The situation is

extremely immoral, 1 say.

H.C. PRICE TOWER. Frank Lloyd

Wright. Bardesvide, Oklahoma. 1952. The

spectacular nineteen-story office and residen-

J. P. : In the Johnson Wax, though, you also pioneered the column, like the . . .
tial tower with a "tap-root" foundation is

F. L.W. : That was the whole struggle with the building commission of Wisconsin Wrights only built skyscraper.

and we won out. After that they haven't wanted to come again.

JOHNSON WAX COMPANY

BUILDINGS. Frank Lloyd Wright.

Racine, Wisconsin. J936, 1946. With their

streamlined walls of brick and glass, the

renowned administration building and research

tower, built a decade apart, were designed with

ideas that remain innovative today.

123
 JOHNSON WAX COMPANY It was very new. Reinforced-concrete column that raised the compression of the
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, concrete to 12,000 pounds from 3,500 pounds. And also, it took a load that they
INTERIOR. Frank Lloyd Wright. Racine,
allowed us only seven feet for the height of the column. We built it twenty-three and
Wisconsin. 1936. Wright exhibited his engineer-
then couldn't break it down.
ing skill in the design for the slender "lily pad"

piers. With them he created one of the great The codes in New York are just as silly. The codes in New York have made the
light-filled office spaces. Guggenheim building there that we're building cost at least a million dollars more
than they needed to have cost if they'd let us do it our way. The New York people
have never experimented outside of the old steel column and plate girder. The code
of New York City was made ten years before yesterday and knows neither justice nor
mercy. It worked out that we've had to redesign the whole fabrication of the building.
We built the Johnson building with cold-drawn steel mesh, diamond mesh, because
you get out of it reinforcement in not only two ways, but in depth as well. They'd

never heard of it here so they wouldn't allow us to use it.

J . P. : The building in Wisconsin had only been standing twenty years.

F. L .W. : Fifteen years. Then we're using it in Price Tower. So we use it in all our
work, but they'd never used it down there. So that was the thing we ran up against
first of all. We had to throw away all our calculations and use flat bars so we had to

redraw every structural drawing we had. Why? They had never had any experience
with the latest thing in construction, reinforcement with a third dimension. They
were still in two dimensions. Well, we've done all this just to please them, you see.

The Guggenheim is going up to second-floor level above the street, and is proving

to be of great challenge to all New York, because it's the first time that in New York a
modern, twentieth-century building has been built. All the buildings in New York are

nineteenth-century buildings in the sense of the old, engineer's bridge-construction.

They are all boxed frames, built from the outside in and the Museum is built from the
inside out, and the concrete is the building. All those other buildings are faced with
something. This thing is integral. You feel it when you go to see the building. It looks

solid, and the other stuff all looks pasteboard and cracker box.

J . P. : When you say organic, what is meant? I read a definition in Mr. Sullivan's

Kindergarten book. Did he use the word organic?

124
 —

F. L .W. : Oh yes, he did and I always did. But not in the same sense. When he said

organic, he meant more or less according to a plant growing when he made the orna-

ment and designed it, you see. But it never entered into his thought of construction,

because he wasn't a constructor.

In my case it was integral, vital. It was the nature of the thing, whatever it was. It

was the way you built. The materials you used. The way you used them, all that. The
materials are all alike to the Lieber Meister.

J. P.: When he said, "Form follows function," . . .

F. L.W. : Well, he never lived up to it, because he didn't live long enough. He might
have. He admired immensely what I was doing, and he said to me, "Frank" — this was
no more than several weeks before he died — several months before he died
"Frank," he said, "I never could have done what you've done. But you never could

have done what you've done if it hadn't been for me."

Organic means, with me, that form and function are one. That lifts it into the

realm of the spirit. Whereas the other might hang in a butcher shop. When I say "1 COULD NOW START ON THE
function I actually mean essence — essential to integration of the character of the COURSE OF PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTA-
thing. It means something coming out from the inside according to principle. TIONS I LONG HAD IN MIND, WHICH
As a matter of fact, when I use the word nature, I notice that I don't use it as most WAS TO MAKE AN ARCHITECTURE
other people use it that I talk to. Because to me nature is the very form of what we BASED ON WELL-DEFINED UTILITARI-
call God. The only form we'll ever see of God, you might say, and be true poetically. AN NEEDS — THAT ALL PRACTICAL
That nature is the only body of God you'll ever see. DEMANDS OF UTILITY SHOULD BE

I told Carl Sandburg that in an interview and I said, "Carl, what about that? What PARAMOUNT AS A BASIS OF PLAN-

do you call that?" "Well, Frank," he said, "I call that poetry." That is what I mean by NING AND DESIGN; THAT NO ARCHI-
nature. TECTURAL DICTUM, OR TRADITION,
I have always fought, and I am still fighting, a divorce of man from the elements of OR SUPERSTITION, OR HABIT SHOULD
nature that he belongs to. That he has been fashioned according to. I never wanted STAND IN THE WAY. . . . THIS MEANT
him to be separated from the elements that constitute the body of his universe. THAT 1 WOULD PUT TO THE TEST A
FORMULA 1 HAD EVOLVED THROUGH
J . P. : In your houses you've always featured natural materials fireplaces ,
and so forth. LONG CONTEMPLATION OF LIVING
F. L .W. : I love the fire. I love to see that element. I love to feel that I am using it, THINGS, NAMELY THAT FORM FOL-
that I have access to it, or control of it. I can use it as a feature of an architectural LOWS FUNCTION, WHICH WOULD
ensemble —water the same, the fountain. You open the windows and here's the shade MEAN IN PRACTICE THAT ARCHITEC-
of the building, which is a great, luxurious element. Shelter is essential. Shade is a TURE MIGHT AGAIN BECOME A LIV-

luxury. ING ART IF THIS FORMULA WERE

ADHERED TO."
J . P. : How do you feel about the new materials? Louis SwUiwin

F. L.W. : I'm not opposed to any material, modern or ancient. Architecture is in the

nature of materials. There is no reason why materials shouldn't go into plastics. Steel

is a plastic. Glass is a plastic. All modern materials are in the nature of a plastic. I

don't see any reason why aluminum shouldn't be just as good as steel in the course of

time and just as useful perhaps because it's light. It has properties that steel lacks, but

it also lacks properties that steel has. All these materials have their own future, but it

takes an architect with a depth of insight to know what to do with them.

125

tn
 IMPERIAL HOTEL. Frank Lloyd

Wright. Tokyo. 1915. Wright's most famous

building abroad combined advanced engineer-

ing with richly ornamented architectural forms.

That's equally true with the materials like steel and concrete. You can get a plastic

structure now — that's what saved the earthquake —was the application to that prob-

lem of steel in tension. The rod that you could pull on. First time you got a building

that you can pull on. An earthquake can't do anything with a building you can pull
on. It can just roll it around. It's the same principle that Roebling used on the bridge,

except in a very different way.

It's the principle of nature. It's working in the tree. The tree stands on its root and
puts out its branches. There you have the cantilever. I used to go through here and

see these paths of the cyclones. They used to be quite frequent here. Certain trees

would be standing up, bent over but standing. The others would be flat with the root
system up like your hand from the ground. I wondered what it was and I found out
that it was the taproot. So that started me thinking. I got out of it the taproot system

of foundation.

Now almost all these things like the stability of the Imperial Hotel astonishing the

world for the simple idea of a building on which you could pull. And the cantilever

system is apparent in everything you see around here that I ever did.

MILE HIGH PROJECT.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Chicago. 1956. This

drawing shows Wright's tap-root foundation

and compares the scale of Mile High with the

largest Egyptian pyramid, the Eiffel Tower,
and the Empire State Building.

Opposite: MILE HIGH PROJECT.

Frank Lloyd Wright. Chicago. 1956. Wright's

plans for tall buildings, the 1929 St. Marks

in the Bowery tower and his 1952 Price Tower

in Bardesville, Oklahoma, reached visionary

heights in this spectacular 528-story skyscraper.

126
 They're twentieth-century architecture. As distinguished from nineteenth-century, .

which is the old bridge engineers, post-and-beam construction riveted together from

the outside in. There you have the nineteenth-century structure of Adler and
Sullivan and my early work, too, sometimes. The Eiffel Tower and all the rest of it.

But now comes the twentieth-century construction that made the Mile High possi-

ble. With this construction the Mile High is possible.

1955
The Usonian Automatic is lightness combined with strength. It's a three- inch steel

block reinforced with steel in the joints. It's a perfect wedding of steel and various
types of insulated concrete, or concrete insulation. Insulation is another factor that
we have to deal with in building.

J . P. : Does air-conditioning influence your thinking?

F. L.W. : I think that air-conditioning, like glass, like all these new things, is abused,

misunderstood. I think air-conditioning has killed more people probably than almost

anything else and will continue to do so. It has now reached the point where man is

to be separated from his climate. How long he'll last on that basis is yet to be seen.

J . P. : On the other hand, you introduced radiant or Korean heating.

F. L.W. : That is natural heating, gravity heat, natural heat. Heat from the ground

up. Heat rises, water descends. Heat is the elimination of weight. Witer is the accu-

mulation of weight. The two are opposed and when you're sitting on a floor-heated

surface, you're warm, your feet are warm. You can open the windows no matter how
cold it is and feel comfortable. That's a natural thing. That is organic heat. The
Romans had it. It's a modification of the Roman hypocaust.

I built a house not long ago and one of the experts came in. They always show up
and talk to the client. He told him that he would lose si) much of that heat going

down underneath, and got him to put an insulated surface under the broken stone to
keep the heat from going down. He was an expert. Now an expert is a man who has

stopped thinking. He knows and you can't tell him anything. So he is lost. But that
was the expert's view of floor heating. I had the pleasure of firing seven of them when
I built the Imperial Hotel. Some of the most distinguished in the country.

That was the first use by an American or a Westerner. The Easterners had used it.

The baron had it in his house when he entertained me, the old Korean hypocaust. I

was so comfortable after I had suffered so much in that climate that I made up my
mind. I went back and dropped the ceilings of the bathrooms in the Imperial Hotel

and the Cutler-Hammer unit had just appeared, where you could put an electric unit

exposed. We put it in there in the space between the two. The bathrooms were warm
and the tubs were built in the floor and they were warm. People went in, there were

no radiators and nothing artificial, but they were all comfortable, and warm tile floor,

bare feet, comfortable, tub warm. You'd get into a warm tub, sit down on a warm
water-closet, and use a washbowl warm. That was the beginning.

127
 ,

We've been sold down the river by science. Everything scientific. Got a tool box,

magnificently filled with tools and never learned how to use one of them. That's the
trouble. Have a man come into your home and you want something done. He has all

the tools that ever were for doing it. Then he makes a botch of the job because he
doesn't know how.
If we'd learn to use the materials we've got, then we'd be entitled to new ones. But

you can't keep on using the new ones as fast as they come in and neglect the old
ones.

1957
J . P. : So there's no opposition between your concept of architecture and science!

F. L .W. : On the contrary, it's a means to the utilization for human benefit of the sci-

ences. The sciences cannot benefit human beings, really, until creative art takes them
up and shows how to use them according to human quality and interests.

The scientist has walked in and so bewildered and confused the poor genus Homo
that he doesn't know which end he's standing on now. He hasn't produced the inspi-

rational means by which this could be a blessing. It is likely to prove in the end a

curse.

J . P. : I'm interested in the prefabricated house you designed.

F. L .W. : That's on the same stem, from which all these other things have flowered.

And with practically the same purpose, which is to create a better environment with-
in the reach of the upper-middle third of our American people — it's not for the lower
class yet. I'm going to do one that is for them eventually, but this is for the upper-

middle third.

J . P. : Is it real Frank Lloyd Wright architecture!

F. L .W. : In the main, yes. But so are almost all the other houses now being built in
MARSHALL ERDMAN COMPANY the country. I doubt if you could ever differentiate much from the principles that they
HOUSE. Frank Lloyd Wright. Madison
are using in these now common to what I, myself, am doing.
Wisconsin. 1956. The van Tamelen residence is

one model of Wright's many efforts in lower'

cost prefabricated housing. J . P. : You mean the open plan, radiant heating, the inside-outside plan!

128
F. L.W. : Yes, and the style they use, the details they use, and the appearances they
promote. So this is in the same strain. Only this has had benefit of clergy and the

others are illegitimate. That's all.

J . P. : But, with the benefit of the clergy, does a person get the same as a Frank Lloyd

Wright . . .?

F. L .W. : No, he doesn't get the quality — he gets many of the substantial virtues and

advantages. But if he wants quality and wants a distinguished home of his own as a

work of art, which is what we're able to give him, that's something else. That cannot
be done this way.

A work of art means, of course, individual character, carried to the nth power inso-

far as it can be in order to perfect it. This is just a roughing out and more or less still

the skeleton of what it might be if it were a special creation by ourselves. The funda-

mental virtues of the residential architecture which I have promoted and given to the

country are there in the skeleton.

J . P. : For instance, you don't have the usual hall but a gallery.

F.L.W. : That's in every house I built almost. It's a storage wall and a charming little

promenade. It's open to the living room and to the bedrooms. I put sculpture and

books and things in it so that it's an attractive thing.

The idea of all these houses I build is not to create a containment, to allow nearly

everything to come together in a fluid sense as a complete whole. That's all in the

handling of space. Space is regarded in one of these houses of mine as the reality of

the building. That's the thing, to expand, extend, and preserve. So that you get that

sense of spaciousness wherever you are in the house. You are never cut off. It enters

into the proportion of the building and the way you handle the details and everything
about it. One thing unfolds into another, and they all develop each other.

J . P. : The new-type bridge you once mentioned. Do you think in Baghdad, you'll get a

chance to . . .

F.L.W. : Well, they're building it in Baghdad, I think. I proposed it to them, and they
seemed to like it. It's almost too good to be true, but I believe it's true. As far as I can
see.

J.P. : This will be an entity within itself, I understand. It's out cm an island?

F.L.W. : Yes, well, no, it's tied in. It's integrated with the city and related to the

whole. I have tried to put some poetry into the thing because we are going back to
the source of civilization. So we are memorializing the Garden of Eden, Adam and
Eve, Harun al-Rashid, and all the tales of the Arabian Nights. They're all woven into

this thing.

I have an idea we can work the ziggurat in and have an enormous circular develop-

ment, not too high, absorbing the traffic. Then build on that the various buildings of

the university. The bridge and the cultural buildings, the art institute, the Garden of
Eden, the cars are all absorbed into the scheme by way of the ziggurat. Everywhere

J 29
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PLAN FOR BAGHDAD. you don't see any cars. They're swallowed up and you get out and walk in. The ziggu-
Frank Lloyd Wright. Iraq. 1957 This aerial rat is only three times around and not very high. You can drive up and deposit your
perspective rendering of the unrealized plan for
load at the entrance, and then park going down.
greater Baghdad shows the proposed opera

house and gardens at the upper right, with the

The traffic problem is a factor that we must reckon with. I don't think we ought to

university left of center. build anything as important as a new Baghdad that doesn't start with what's neces-

sary in that direction. I think it would be silly to spend millions now to perpetuate a

great error, or not an error so much as it is a deficit. You see, every building scheme

today starts with some sensible disposition of the motorcar. I begin with the motorcar
in all these schemes.

J . P. : Actually, what you sometimes hear is Frank Lloyd Wright doesn't take into

consideration the new ways people live.

F. L AV. : I've never heard that. That's entirely foreign to the whole process. It's exact-

ly the center line of everything done.

I proposed a new city which has got to be built. It's inevitable. The motorcar and
the various other implements, improvements, like television, telephone, light, make
the present city uninhabitable. You can't retain it no matter how hard you try. Of
course, it's an exploitation at the present moment by way of the realtor. He's trying to

squeeze the last drop out of it before it is thrown away.

That's the situation now and that's what I saw when I wrote the little book called

When Democracy Builds. That's Broadacre City, you can see the model over there. It

was first exhibited at Rockefeller Center in New York in 1932, I think it was, or 1933.

We sent it around to different places in the country. It went to Washington, to

Pittsburgh, I don't know where else. But they regarded it as communistic. They so

misinterpreted it that we took it home and put it there and waited. If the agronomy

of the nation were to be harmoniously fused with the industrialism of the nation,

then we'd have what I call Broadacre City.

Henry Ford had an idea of the ribbon development, where there is one single

stream of traffic and you located yourself to the right or the left of it. The agriculture

J 30
was in behind the ribbon on each side. It wasn't a city plan.

J . P. : Are Greenbelt and some of those developments related?

F. L .W. : No, I don't think so. They're only suburban. Now you can't make suburbia

anything very desirable. It's only an expedient, only an escape. It isn't an arrival.

They haven't yet thought it out. The only thought on the subject that I've ever seen

was my own.

J . P. : More people probably ask your advice on architecture than any other person on

earth.

F. L.W. : You know where the advice is wanted now? It is very encouraging. It's the

only encouraging note in this whole architectural scene, otherwise it's discouraging, I

would say. It's from the teenagers in high school. Not a week passes that one letter

doesn't come, usually two, last week three, from students — children, you know — in

high school. "Dear Mr. Wright: We've chosen you for our thesis. Can you kindly send
us some helpful material?" That shows that fifteen years from now when they are

married and when they have homes, when they build, American architecture is going

to come into being. I'm only pessimistic concerning the present fellows on the band-
wagon, that's all.

J . P. : In other words, you're not pessimistic about the future.

F. L.W. : No, oh no. If I were I would commit suicide. I would not have anything to
live for. When you get pessimistic concerning the future, the thing that you love, why
then you're done. It's not the future I'm worried about. It's the present.

J . P. : People associate optimism with youth.

F. L .W. : Young is nothing but a circumstance. You can't do anything about that. I

have lots of young people all around me. But youth is a quality. Sometimes young
people have it. They lose it very soon often. But if you have that quality of youth, it

never leaves you. It's your immortality. Now, try and get it, try and keep it. I guess

that once you have it you never lose it.

Look behind you there. You've seen those things? That's a collection of tributes

from the world at large. That's one, John, I value very highly. This is the medal that

Dante coveted and never got because of political shenanigans — the de'Medici medal.
You see the fleur-de-lis on it of France? They took it from Italy. So that's a very great

honor. There's only one in the country. That's one from Britain in 1941. That's the

one incorruptible honor in the world. That makes me an honorary member of the

royal household for life. It's pure gold. Lift it. It's not alloy.

J . P. : But this is the Royal Institute of British Architects.

F. L .W. : But conferred by the majesty with the honor carried with it of being an

honorary member of the royal household for life, when I'm in London. I've never flat-

tered them. That's tine of the things that makes the medal worth having. When you
go out in the studio you can see all the citations. There are thirty-two of those.

131
 Look out and see what you see. Do you see anything discordant? This is the hill-

top. We call it Taliesin because it's a brow on the hill, you see. We didn't build it on
the hill. The brow is still there. That's what Taliesin
—
means "shining brow" — in

Welsh.

J . P. : Have you visited Wales?

F. L.W. : Yes, Mrs. Wright and I went last September and, see that red hood hanging
on the door? That's the Welsh honorarium from the Welsh university. My old grand-

father must be greatly pleased.

J . P. : Do you feel the Welsh strain in you!

F. L .W. : Oh, very much. The West has been materialist, and the East is of the spirit.

The relationship between West and East is just that relationship. What the West rep-

resents in their art is poison, utterly detrimental to the East.

That's the tragedy now in Iraq. They have all this German, English, French archi-

tects in there, along with this one from America, the only one that really has any
feeling for the East.

J . P. : How do you have a feeling for the East? You are an American.
F. L .W. : I'm Welsh and the Welsh would have a great feeling for the spirit of the

East. The Welsh were a spiritual people. They came from King Arthur. The Round
Table was one of their official institutions. They were the original Britons. When you
speak of the British you speak of the Welsh. Some of them got stranded over there on
the French coast, and they called them the Britons. Those are Welsh. They are a

poetic people, and musical. Poets say the name "Taliesin" here was taken from one of
the British poets of King Arthur's Round Table. He sang the glories of fine art, and
the only one they ever had that did.

J . P. : Is it like your feeling for the Japanese, when you found confirmation in the writings

of the Chinese philosophers?

F. L .W. : The Chinese philosophers and the Mabinogion, the writings of the ancient

Welsh, the same sentiments. Here's a Welsh definition of a genius that comes down
from King Arthur's Round Table. I read it in the Mabinogion, a series of triads in

which the wisdom of the Welsh comes down in threes — one, two, three.

A genius is a man who has an eye to see nature.

A genius is a man who has a heart to feel nature.

A genius is a man who has the courage to follow nature.

Beat that if you can.

J . P. : What about the three symbols that they had, and "Truth against the world"?

F. L .W. : Well, that was the same thing. That is the same sentiment that the "Truth

against the world" is, this sense of nature as opposed to all of the other forces that

exist. The symbol is the inverted rays of the rising sun — always in threes.

132
 1955
J . P. :
1/ you were to pick some of your own works that you think have been or will be most

influential, what would they be?

F. L .W. : I'm not interested in that phase of it at all. I have no favorite child, I have
no favorite building, and I have no masterpiece. You have to take my work as a whole,

and it's either a masterpiece or it isn't. There is no one thing in it. There's no taking

it apart. There it is.

ANTONIN RAYMOND ON FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

1962
While I was in Frank's office, in 1916, one day there arrived a Japanese gentleman
with his wife, both beautifully dressed in beautiful Japanese clothes. He was the man-
ager of the Imperial Hotel, the old one. Aisaku Hayashi, a highly cultured person

who really knew Oriental arts and Western arts, invited Frank to come to Japan.
That was 1916 or 1915. Frank took his son David, who is here now with him, to Japan

at that time to try to get the job.

I had started my own office and there was nothing to do. There was complete
depression right after the war, not even a storefront to design, not a thing. When one
day Frank Lloyd drops into the office and he says, "Antonin, 1 have $40,000 in my
pocket, let's go to Tokyo and build that hotel." You can imagine what joy! We left
IMPERIAL HOTEL. Frank Lloyd
everything right there and then. 1 went to Wisconsin with him and then we got
Wright. Tokyo. 1915. Carved lava stonework
across the continent. At that time it took almost a week to Seattle. We got on a enriched the hold modern forms of this

Japanese boat and arrived here in Yokohama on the 31st of December 1919. renowned Japanese hotel.

133
 a

It was really the most amazing occurrence. You see, there is kind of a fate involved

in all my life. First, the interest in the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War. My
interest in Frank Lloyd Wright, which was the reason why I came to the United
States. Then coming to Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin, finding all those Japanese

things there, wonderful prints and all kind of sculpture and art objects. They weren't
very high art, more decorative than really beautiful, except his prints, they were very
good.

Anyhow, we arrived here. Japan was a country out of a different world. You have no
idea. You might still find parts of Japan like that, tucked away in the mountains or in

the seashore or in some really remote places. Between Yokohoma and Tokyo were
only fishing villages, beautiful fishing villages all along the shore. Of course, there

was no paved road or straight road, just meandering road. Everybody was in Japanese

clothes. There was no such thing as foreign clothes. We arrived here in Tokyo, which
was a very beautiful Oriental city, full of wonderful houses, gardens, and temples —
really beautiful Oriental city. Tokyo at that time already, I think, had about two or
three million inhabitants, but it was really just a conglomeration of villages. The old

Imperial Hotel was a little bit of a hotel. Well, there we were. We started working

right away on this thing. Started the foundations. A German builder, Mueller, came
from Chicago. It was a very rainy season, a tremendous amount of water. The first

word that this German, Mueller, learned in Japanese was water, misu, you see, that

goddamn misu. He had to do the foundations.

Frank always wanted something new, you know. He bought augers, which you use
for sinking telephone poles. They were just invented about that time. Somebody sold

him about a dozen. He took them over to Japan, thinking, I will drill holes, fill it with

concrete, and I will have piles, you see. He brought those and poor Mueller had to use
them. He dug with those things to make a hole. The moment he did, it filled with

water. He put in concrete and, of course, the concrete didn't form. That's why I say

it's a floating foundation all right. That floating foundation business is just a purely

journalistic expression. It doesn't exist. It's perfect nonsense. It's just not so. Wright
was a very imaginative person and really did marvelous things.
Then Frank became ill and had to go back and came back again. The Americans
here particularly became very, very critical of his work. They could only see some-

thing like the Waldorf-Astoria and they created kind of a mistrust in Baron Okakura
and in the Imperial Hotel company. You know, of course, Frank would put up a thing

and take it down, as he did very often. He had the courage and complete disregard

for any commercial interest whatsoever. The Okakura people became more and more

distrustful. They didn't know just where they were. The thing cost two or three times
as much as it originally was supposed to cost. It took longer.
It's very interesting. Frank had no artistic influence on Japan whatsoever, none
whatsoever. Technologically, yes. You see, the Imperial Hotel is the really first com-
plete building with insular form-work. Very ingeniously Frank used hollow tile inside

for insulation and special brick keyed in on the outside. He was really a great genius

in that matter.

134
 Today, the hotel is practically destroyed. Whatever was left then after the earth-
quake, it suffered. Also the big building in the rear, the roof was bombed and burned
out. The U.S. Army, the brass lived there during the occupation and they finished

that hotel. They destroyed a lot of things. The army shoots everything that moves

and paints everything that doesn't. So they painted even that stone, you know. They
wanted it to look like Leavenworth. They meant well. They wanted to make it sani-

tary. That oilstone looked unsanitary. They had to paint it white. Then, the heating,
they put in steam heat. They put in those phony lights and I don't know what.

It once had all kind of a cozy atmosphere of a home. Frank always did that, very

romantic, extremely romantic. Well that's all gone. If you knew it the way we knew it.

We designed so many things. That big room up there really was very interesting.
No contractor, no trade knew anything about Western building. They didn't know
much but they were marvelous craftsmen. How they ever carved that stone with
Frank standing right over them and I, with full-sized drawings. It was fantastic.

Although they worked for about forty cents a day, eight hours, it still became very
expensive. You can imagine.

There were no plumbers in Japan at all. You couldn't buy a toilet or anything. They
didn't want to import anything that was so expensive. We had everything made here.
They had the water closets made out of copper by coppersmiths, beautifully done,

wall hung.

The last letter just before he died, he asked me, "What can you do about removing
those dreadful inscriptions like 'Premier' and 'Imperial Hotel,' which I've seen in

photographs?" Well, of course, I didn't dare to tell him that that was the least objec-

tionable part of what they did to the hotel.

He was a real American in his emotional originality. He was the opposite of Mies

van der Rohe or Gropius or any of these cerebral Germans, just the very opposite.

J 35
Le Corbusier
"People said i lacked courtesy. But
i was only pointing out things that

are fundamental."

Le Corbusier's usual somber —a double-breasted dark blue

attire suit, shirt,

and thick, black, round, horn-rimmed glasses — nicknamebefitted the

"Corbu, " a corruption of the French word for crow. He was born Charles-

Edouard Jeanneret, but adapted and adopted his maternal grandmother's

name, Lecorbesier. His animated face seemed surprisingly intense even in

repose. Just as poor handwriting is sometimes explained by a quick mind

that runs ahead of the hand, so with Le Corbusier I had the feeling that his

mind was running ahead of his words, leaping from thought to thought.

He had an abiding frustration born of his complex nature and uncompro-

mising vision. A remarkable number of his plans, generally drawn up on his

own initiative, went unexecuted, and he viewed the unappreciative world as

an implacable enemy. He was a highly gifted thinker and artist. It has been

observed that he designed an entire city before he executed his first signifi-

cant building. His books and other writings nearly outnumber his buildings;

in addition, he devoted a significant portion of his time to painting. Though

136
he insisted on speaking French on all occasions, I have repeatedly heard LE COUVENT SA/NTE-MAR/E-
DE-LA- TO URETTE. Le Corbusier.
him correct the English of the translator. Eveux-sur-V Arbresle , France. 1959. Located

on a sequestered, gently wooded slope, the raw

Corbusier had many admirers, but few close friends. I met but did not concrete building is a modern monastery with
medieval [wwer.
really know the man. However, I take some comfort in the observation of

his friend the Swiss historian Sigfried Giedion: "He is as mistrustful as a

mountain peasant. Nobody knows who he really is." Though frequently

sarcastic and even arrogant, he could also be charming and witty with

students. He said, "I am St. Thomas without the saintliness. I have been led

by my doubts." But he expressed little uncertainty about where these doubts

had led him.

Due to a tape-recording malfunction during our meeting, I have supple-

mented this section on Le Corbusier with some excerpts from recorded

interviews on Radio Francaise. Following Le Corbusier's own observations

are two views of the master by the architect Alfred Roth and the engineer

and architect Paul Weidlinger, both of whom worked with him.

U7
 1961
QUESTION: You have taken France as your adopted country.

L E CORBUSIER: Not my adopted country. I am of French origin, here for cen-

turies. I am from the south of France, from Languedoc. I'm from the terrible persecu-

tions of the thirteenth century, and they dare not say so because I've already built

some pretty fair churches. The interesting thing about this is that those who were not
massacred were able to escape. They climbed, and they established themselves there
at all the high points. There they built Languedoc houses — farmhouses from the year
thirteen hundred to the year fifteen hundred. This is why, as far as I am concerned, I

have always had a great affinity for the southern regions, for the Mediterranean, and

I have looked for an art which is Mediterranean amid the world corruption.
*

1958
My direct family, father and mother, influenced me by creating a harmonious envi-
ronment, a simple milieu, dignified, not at all bourgeois. My mother played music. My
father worked in the watch industry. He made white enamel dial plates, one of the
most difficult artisan professions. I never had any desire to follow this career. My
father never proposed for me to do so. My brother was destined for music. He gave his

first concert at the age of eleven. The entire activity of the family concentrated on
him. In the meantime I was left on my own. I was with my friends in the street. I fol-

lowed my little path on my own.

I stopped school at age thirteen. Then, as I had a thing for drawing, I was stuck in

a school called an art school. But the first day I came home and said to my parents,

"Do you believe they want to make me a watch engraver!" My father said that it was
a profession like any other. I was not at all pleased to engrave the bottoms of watches

that were to be exported to South America. I came to the attention of a teacher,

L'Eplattenier, who said, "Don't worry, we'll see what we can do with you." Then one
day he said to me, "You will be an architect." I thought, "No way, I hate that." I based

my opinion on what was being done around me, which I didn't like at all.

In my school a member of the commission wanted to build a house. I said to him,

"I will design your house." He answered, "But you aren't an architect." I figured a

house has to be done like anything else. I made some plans, which he liked. I was
eighteen years old. I had my first skirmish with public opinion. It continued from
then on. This experience allowed me to hold bricks in my hands, to weigh how heavy
they are. I figured, "If I put one thousand one over the other, that's very heavy." It

made me aware of the question of materials, the specific value of materials. It made
me think of ways to overcome their resistance. I became an architect in the sense that

is lawful with the Lord, though maybe not with the schools.

The money made I with this house, fifteen hundred francs, allowed me to go to
Italy. Why Italy? To see things that are different. Why that rather than a school, as

my father recommended? Because I didn't know what a school was going to teach
me. I first wanted to have a look around. I bought a little Kodak camera. But then I

saw that by confiding my emotions to the lens, I forgot to look myself. So then I said

LE CORBUSi E p in his Paris studio, 1961 no. I dropped the idea of a camera. I took a notebook and a pencil since I have always

138
V 1

I^H fes^^M^ l M lip"

 s

TRAVEL SKETCHES. Le Corbusier. drawn, everywhere, in the metro, everywhere. If it goes from my head to my hand
1911 Sketching was part ofLe Corbusier'
.

then it's memorized, but if I only press a button then I don't participate. Then I went
self-education in seeing, not just looking.
with my backpack on through Bohemia and the Balkans, as well as Greece, with the
His sketch pad became the source book of

many pretext of seeing the Greek works. I had the luck of never having been in school and
of his later ideas.
to have at ages twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two been to the Balkans, to Greece,

to Turkey, to Asia Minor with my backpack. I traveled for seven months in all sorts of

vehicles and saw architecture wherever I went. There were temples, and then for

entire days there were farms, houses, buildings at all times around me. The most mod-

L ESPRIT est constructions of stones

turies to evolve are carriers of architecture.

which made me say that folk buildings which took cen-

NOUVEAU REVUE INTERNATIONALE D ESTHETIQUE

In 1908

money, I
I

didn't
arrived in Paris,

know where
where
to go. One
I knew absolutely

day by accident
no one.
I
I had no contacts, no
found the artists' directory.

I found the name of Eugene Grasset, who had reformed decorative art and who had
impressed us in my school. I went to see him. He said that he didn't have the time to
see me, but I insisted. I blocked the door with my foot
— "I want to see you." I showed
him my portfolio with my drawings from Italy. He looked at them and asked me to sit

down. He looked at them with great interest. He started explaining a lot of things.

He said, "I'm going to give you a compliment. You know how to listen and that's very

important." He told me about the Perret brothers, who put concrete in boxes with

steel and it holds. I went to see Perret with my drawings of Italy. He hired me imme-
diately. He would say in a loud voice: "I make reinforced concrete." It was a procla-
mation that brought on him the hatred of people in the profession who accused him

of not being an architect, of not having the right to claim that title.
L'ESPRfT NOUVEAU. No. 1,1920. In
this review Le Corbusier introduced
I traveled some more. I saw Peter Behrens in Germany.
his avant-

garde architectural ideas with Amedee In 1918 I was one of the founders and directors of the review L'Esprit Nouveau,
Ozenfant and Paul Dermee. with Ozenfant and Dermee. At the last minute, when the proofs were done,

Ozenfant said, "We should really do something on architecture." So I wrote some-

thing. I remember it was a Saturday evening. I wrote "Three Reminders to

Architects." I decided to put the article under another name. I decided to sign it Le

140
Corbusier. My real name is Jeanneret. That doggone Le Corbusier was born that day.

That article and the next made a lot of noise. The name Le Corbusier became
known worldwide on the first day. The three reminders were: plane, volume, and sur- LE C0RBUSIER-S1UGNIER

face. The article caused me a few problems with the profession. People said I lacked

courtesy. But I was only pointing out things that are fundamental. This article VERS UNE ARCHITECTURE
exploded. We had letters from all over the world. People came to see Le Corbusier

and I had difficulty believing I was the person in question.

In 1923 a businessman from the Bordeaux region wanted to build houses for eigh-

teen thousand francs. I told him we would need a machine for seventy-five thousand
francs. He was a little shocked. Then later he said to me, "I -bought the machine. I

bought the land. We can start with fifty houses." The guy tried hard, but he sowed
hatred under his feet, jealousy, ferocity, and the most implacable opposition. I got

splashed with it, too. We created the Cite de Pessac. It was a little paradise. But the

water company refused to connect the water. The director of the company considered LES EimilS I GIEI ET C
II Wt lUTtfEUUE. II
Util
the houses to be inhuman and took it upon himself to refuse to supply the water.

Thus the village remained unoccupied for eight years. In the meantime, the munici-

pal council of Paris was studying what my German colleague, Gropius, a great archi-

tect, was doing in Dessau, where he was building houses inspired by Pessac. In its VERS UNE ARCHITECTURE . Le

Corbusier. Edition G. Cres, Pan's. 1923. In

wisdom the municipal council decided to send a commission to study what was being
one of the most influential books of modern
done in Germany, while in France Pessac was slowly dying.
architecture , Le Corbusier advocated a revolu-
tionary architectural aesthetic based on the

1954 efficient modern machine. The English edition,

Towards a New Architecture, was published

Q. : In 1925 you did the Pavilion de I'Esprit Nouveaufor the Exposition des Arts
in 1927.
Decoratifs.

L.C.: They kicked me out. They refused to give me any land. In the end there was
one piece that was left. A young guy from the administration called me and said,

"Come, take it immediately." I told my draftsmen to occupy the land with their draw-

ings for several days, which they did. So no one was able to steal it from me. I built

the Pavilion de I'Esprit Nouveau, which is a fantastic avant-garde work for the peri-

od. The entire modular order of housing was created in it, with surprising pomp yet

without any sumptuosity.

PESSAC HOUSING ESTATES.

Le Corbusier. Pessac, France. 1926. Despite
political delays, Le Corbusier' s first executed

community plan, with one hundred thirty

nyfl rcinforced-concrete houses, had immediate

international influence.
V %
1

•*

141
 s

Voisin was the name of an automobile constructor and not the term "neighbor," as

many people thought. They thought it was an illusion of optimism to call it that. The
plan was done in 1925, no, 1922, and it is still waiting. However, events have passed

and people's eyes are opening. The pavilion was ready in 1922, but the outside was
shocking and naturally everybody screamed at the outside without bothering to see
what was inside.

Currently the world is covered with pustules that are called big cities. They have
become monsters, like New York and London and even Paris now. That is, of five,
LE PAVILLON DE L'ESPRIT
NOUVEAU. Le Corbusier with Pierre

Jeanneret. Paris. 1925. Sited in a far corner of

the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, this two-

story apartment showcased Le Corbusier 's

daring ideas for modern living.

VOISIN PLAN. Le Corbusier. Paris.

1925. There was little chance Le Corbusier'

many unsolicited Paris plans, such as this one

ii'ith its cruciform skyscrapers, would be

adopted, but they did promote his influential

concepts of city planning.

seven, eight million inhabitants — pure folly. These people finding only noise and bad
smells in the city react with an attitude of everyone for himself. People fleeing the

cities figure since they can't move around in their own city they might as well get out.

They can cover forty kilometers out of the city faster than five kilometers in it. Cities

are one hundred kilometers in diameter. The sun turns unrelentingly and people

spend their time running after the sun and the sun after them. The meeting never

takes place and the day lacks balance.

The point is, therefore, to try to get rid of the waste in the way the public travels, a

terrible burden for people which costs a country fantastic sums and which finally

deprives a society which has submitted to it despite itself.

Q . : What do you propose?

L . C . : To reinstall, in our machine society, the conditions of nature which have been
disrupted. That is, sun, space, and greenery, which are the cosmic factors of life and
without which we would die.

HOUSE, WEISSENHOF The new techniques bring about freedoms. You can now go where you couldn't in
EXHIBITION. Le Corbusier. Stuttgart, the past — the conquest of the horizons. Instead of having views onto other houses,
Germany. 1927. This most ambitious and
building houses that are tall allows a liberation of grounds that can be counted in
influential housing exhibition featured buildings
acres. Multiply the experience and you get a city that is green through your windows.
by sixteen international architects. The house

on pillars is one of three designed by They aren't even windows any longer. They're bays, loggias. You obtain wonderful
Le Corbusier. views.

142
 I won the first prize for the international competition for the construction of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS PROJECT.
Le Corbusier with Pierre ]eanneret. Geneva.
building for the League of Nations. But one of the delegates, I won't mention names,
1927. Le Corbusier's imaginative entry to this
had me pushed aside. They said my project was unacceptable because it was drawn
worldwide competition presented a wedge-
with printing ink instead of India ink. That was enough for people to bow to the shaped assembly hall raised on pillars over a

pressure. There was a worldwide protest. landscaped garden. The project was rejected on
the technicality that the drawing was not done
in India ink.
1961
Q. : You worked with the people who are building Brasilia, with Costa who, some say,

was your student.

L.C. : No, Costa wasn't my student. He was my first adversary. When I arrived

there in 1929, for three or four days' time, 1 made two reports on architecture. From
that moment on, there was a faithful friendship.

In 1936, when he had the commission lor the Headquarters of the Ministry of

National Education and Public Health, that of the University City, he said, "I will

not put up my building unless Corbusier has reviewed the plans. Then I will not

make the plans for the University City unless Corbusier has done the initial one."

1962
In 1930 I tried to establish a doctrine of urbanism. My associate asked me: "What
does V.R. stand for?" I answered, "Ville Radieuse." He asked me, "Why don't you call

it something more solid, like 'Locomotive,' something that works." The critics who
accuse us of building army barracks, Prussian towns, should be obliged to read my
work before destroying it. Once they have read it, they will realize that the city is

radiant and I don't give a damn about locomotives.

1 have thought a house alone in a city does not create the city, it destroys it. It is

the immense illusion of people who want to have their house on the ground among LA VILLE RADIEUSE, PLAN.
the noise, the dust, and the dog droppings. Whereas by studying the problem in all of Le Corbusier with Pierre Jeanneret.
1930. Le Corbusier' s visionary plan shows
its aspects, I realized that I had to consider not the individual home that satisfies one
an entire parallel city of megastructures
family, but urban planning. That is, the other part, the collective, which is either a
lifted on pillars above one great
great constraint or a great liberation. That is the problem. There is the role of the continuous park.

artist to be a prophet, creator, inventor, and organizer of all the resources present in

time to lighten man's load.

When a society wishes to build new homes, a new state of consciousness is born,

the conscience of the machinist civilization. The fundamental premise of this archi-

Hi
tectural as well as social revolution is encompassed by the three fundamental ele-

ments that have since the beginning of time conditioned the life of man and which
are sun, space, and trees. These three factors become the very condition of the
immense reform that will take place in the uses of architecture. It is here that the fail-

ure is total. Cities have become inhuman, hostile to man, dangerous for his physical

and moral health.

1961
Dautry was the first to show courage. One day after the Liberation, he called me in

and said to me, "Corbusier, what town are you rebuilding these days?" I said, "None.
What a question!" So then he said, "Nothing at all?" I said, "Nothing at all." He said,

"Well, do you want to . . . Marseilles is planning a big thing." I said, "Certainly, Mr.
Minister, but on one condition, that I be free from any and all regulations." He said

to me, "Fine, fine, agreed, agreed!" For he's the only guy in the world to be able to

build without regulations. It took five years and it was an incredible experience.
At the beginning, after the work had been under way for some time already, there

was a newspaper headline that read, "All the architects of the Morbihan except one
request that the government stop construction work immediately." So then, for four

pages, disgusting, nasty rubbish. So I said to my secretary, "Listen, starting today I

don't want to read one line on Marseilles till we finish." And I kept my word. I didn't

read one line of a newspaper for five years. And some got on my case. They said, "Do
you know what they're doing to you?" But I told them, "At least I have the satisfac-

tion of being able to say that I haven't read them." So Marseilles is a big thing. It's

considerable for the future.

I had said, "We will make the man of 1983." Well, the engineer who was in charge

of the works was quite stirred up and said to me, "We cannot, we don't have the time.

We are pouring in three days." I said, "You are not going to get me! Put that seat by
the blackboard over there, and I'll design the frame myself." And while he was

yelling, I was drawing. In half an hour I had drawn the two figures, chalked them in.

It was life-sized, you know. I told the designer to put Decaze on it. I phoned Lagar,
who had a workshop, and said to him, "Come tomorrow morning to get this. You
bring it back tomorrow evening, we'll carve it the day after," because I had it carved

in wood, five centimeters thick, and the trick was done! With all that, that moron
then took four months to put it in a mold.

Marseilles is something for the future, instead of serving as a guideline of conduct

to be adopted. I said, "People of Marseilles, do you want to raise your family in quiet?

Do you want to raise them in conditions of nature? Do you want a totally private life,

to meet no one, in complete intimacy? Good, well then, let two thousand of you get
together, enter by a single door, take a bank of elevators consisting of four elevators.

You go fifty meters up and that way you will have elevators available at all times,

right? You will never meet anyone in the corridors that I call indoor streets. When
you are in your apartment, through a fifteen-square-meter window, you will be over-

looking the sea or the mountains." Two extraordinary sights which do not exist for

any of the eighty thousand residents of Marseilles. They all live behind closed shut-

144
ters. Marseilles is the city of closed shutters, not only the red-light district, but every-

where.

Whereas the Marseilles building which I made has three sides one hundred percent

glass, but provided with sun protection. Sun protection with a veranda, which is the

most traditional and most antique thing in the world. Old Socrates used to say, when
you build your house put a portico in front of it. In the summer it will keep you in the
shade, but in the winter, when the sun is low on the horizon, it will enter in all the

way. Well, I was told that after I finished Marseilles, because I don't read Socrates

every day. Actually, not at all, though he may be superb, I don't have the time.

In any case we now see that everywhere, under the influence of largely American
lack of constraint and thoughtlessness, the curtain wall has been invented. They did
this in the United Nations building, which they stole from me. They did not want to
put a sun shield on it, because that would have looked like Corbu, right? So they
invented the curtain wall, which simplifies things so much that they say, "This is fan-

tastic. This is very modern." There is no protection from the sun and in temperate

countries the sun is as hostile as in tropical countries in certain seasons, isn't that so?

Air-conditioning costs a ridiculously high price. It doesn't keep the sun from com-

ing in. There is the example of UNESCO — the same thing, and the Family
Allowance Building. There is a revolt on the part of the personnel. People don't want
to work there anymore, right?

A few months ago, six months, last winter, the faculties of the university asked me
to speak at the Sorbonne. There were forty-five hundred people there and fifteen

hundred in the street who had to go home. 1 spoke fairly well, like a colleague.

You see, in this genteel country of Descartes — where Descartes emerges only after

his death, because then posthumous studies can be published, — inventors right? here,

are relentlessly pursued. This makes up the quality of France because this country is

somewhat hard, difficult. It gives its value to Paris, for Paris is a city, the first city in

the world all in depth, all in profound amazement, right? Except in the thirsty soil

you cannot plant roots. You choke on it. It's a place of lusts, of fierceness, a terrible

place.

1959
Q . : How did you receive the commission for Ronchamp?

L.C. : It's guys from the Monuments Historiques who gave me the contract. Jardot,

the inspector at the Monuments Historiques. Young guys, who are reviving the

administration of the Monuments Historiques. It's a rather peculiar site. It's a hill

above the valley of the Saone and has always been a location for places of worship,

occupied long ago by pagan temples, and then with the advent of Christianity by

churches. They were always destroyed, throughout the centuries, without stop, in

1871, in 1914, 1939, and at the Liberation.

The bishop's council met to discuss the chapel project, which was not going any
further. They were giving up when someone said, "Go ahead, say the name!" and he

said, "Well, what about Le Corbusier?" They said, "Well, maybe." Then the archbish-

op said to the priest, "Go see him and see what he's like." So the guy came to my

145
 NOTRE-DAME-DU-HAUT, house. I said, "I don't care about your church, I didn't ask you to do it. And, if I do it,

INTERIOR. Le Corbusier. Ron champ, I'll do it my way. It interests me because it's a plastic work. It's difficult. Twenty years
France. .1955. Light entering through the
ago I was asked to do one, but I refused. Now I think I would like to do it." He was so
wedge-shaped stained glass windows in the

side walls gives the chapel a remarkably

enthusiastic he gave a very good report to his bishop.

spiritual atmosphere. So I went there and looked at the land. I won the local people over, the priest, the

sister of the priest. I said so many silly things to make them laugh. They must have
thought that I'm not a very serious guy. Then went on I the site and seriously worked
like a slave for several hours the way I know how to. I made it a work of art.

Q.: Do people like it?

L . C . : Ah, that I don't know. There are twelve thousand pilgrims twice a year; a

mass is given inside for the initiated and a mass outside for the crowds.

Q . : What is the capacity inside?

L . C . : Only two hundred. There is a place above the sacristy for music. They will be

able to make incredible music, an unbelievable sound when they have twelve thou-
sand people outside, with amplifiers. I said to the priest, "You should get rid of the

kind of music played by an old maid on an old harmonium — that's out of tune — and
instead have music composed for the church, something new, not sad music, a loud
noise, an unholy din."

I had the burned stones left from the church before the war. They couldn't carry
anything, but I still didn't want to get rid of them. I made curved walls so that they

would hold. This curve is useful for acoustics. It is an acoustic of space that receives

the four horizons, all different from each other. In it there is a gesture, not a sign, not

an artificial tool created by centuries of decadence. For instance, I put the cross in a
very significant place. At first it was in the wrong place. It was in the axis, it looked
solemn. No, it looked silly. Then I put it to the side like a witness, and when you
think that they crucified someone on it, that is dramatic.

146
Q. : Later, in 1921 , there was the Monastery of La Tourette.
L . C . : I had been very interested because Father Couturier had explained to me the

Dominican ritual which is eight hundred years old and very human. Naturally they
had no money. People always come to me and say, "I have no money, but do some-
thing nice." The church that is part of the whole that is a box. There is a sense of

proportion in it, a radiant spirit, a feeling of harmony. It is built with the most fantas-
tically simple materials that can be. Never did anyone build in a more direct fashion. I

was a little curious to see how it would turn out.

When I went to the inauguration ceremony with the solemn mass and the wonder-
ful Gregorian chants that were sung in it, I was delighted. The goal was met. I think

it made a great impression on everybody there. Even the archbishop of Lyons, who
made a little speech, said that he was converted to Le Corbusier, because until this

day he had always thought of Le Corbusier as a devil. He realized that I can create an
art which is perhaps not religious, but an art of places of prayer and meditation,

which is the phenomenon and the manifestation of the sacred in the human heart.

Q . : Are you still in agreement with what you wrote on the Modular, for instance?

L . C . : It's part of the definition I gave of taking care of man. There's a famous man,

Luca Pacioli, who around 1400 wrote De Divina Proportione, On Divine Proportion,
that came from the past, from the Egyptians, the Pythagoreans, etc. Well I brought

something new to this golden number because of the metric system that came from

the French Revolution. Before that they had the foot-thumb measures. It was based
on the human scale, whereas now with the metric system we've lost all that. So the
metric system of measurement is depersonalized. We have dehumanized our system of
LE MODULOR FIGURE, SECOND
VERSION. Le Corbusier. J 955. This
measurement. The meter, the tenth of a meter are not proportions that are linked to
version ojLe Corbusier' s proportional system
the human scale. Well, I linked the Modulor to the human scale. I took the propor- based on the human body is convertible

tions from the solar plexus of man to his head and raised arm, I found the Golden from meters to feet and inches.

r Z3SO

147
 Section in that and created a dimensional system that answers all of the needs of

man, seated, standing up, lying down, etc.

I happened to find that system by chance. I am without pretensions naturally, but it

is very important and opens to industry unlimited possibilities, a tool of modern

times. An inexhaustible source of amazement to see that a piano made to human
measures is an incredible innovation.

/ 1 % \ Q . : What is the meaning of the upraised hand like that of the Modulor figure to be

erected in Chandigarh?
•A - ^7 1

C
'

^jdt?- L . . : It is the expression of a philosophy, in all modesty, the fruit of a life of study-

ing, of fighting, of defeats, and possibly of victories as well. The open hand was pres-

ent between Nehru and myself from our very first meeting in Delhi on. Over the years
the open hand became the crowning element in the Trench of Consideration, which
*bhi
is a tool for the discussion of public matters separate from what the established

authorities designated. This basin was dug at the top of the city and was dominated
THE OPEN HAND, SKETCH.
Le Corbuster. C/iandigar/i, India. J956. Le twenty-eight meters above by the hand, which explodes in the sun with the

Corbusier' s monument /or Cnandigar/i's Himalayas as a backdrop.

Trench of Consideration is a symbol This Trench of Consideration — consideration because things are considered,
of democratic dialogue.
thought about — contains two seating tiers, for the two sides of a discussion, the dual-

ity of opinions. There are seats for those who are to speak on a given evening. The
podium for the speaker has a sound shell to project and spread the speaker's voice.

Over all of this, the hand mounted on ball bearings, so that it turns with the wind,

not as a weathervane, but to express what is life itself, the constant changes that are

part of daily life, that are valid and which must be taken into account. I have made
only one political gesture in my life: that is the open hand. People said it was anti-

communist. I say, no, it is the hand that gives, that receives, that distributes, a sign of

optimism in the face of a world that is in a state of catastrophe.

Q . : Could you have conceived of your architecture without the existence of concrete?

L . C . : Concrete developed, from 1920 to 1960, in forty years in a prodigious way,

allowing us to make curves, etc., which we couldn't do before. The concrete of

Auguste Per ret at rue Franklin, a wooden framework, was the starting point.

Whereas now we make forms with concrete. So I take advantage of these resources.

Why not?
I wrote in When the Cathedrals Were White that with stone and no cement people
in the Middle Ages built formidable arches and vaults. We, with our extraordinary
materials — steels, cements, etc. —were frightened of architecture. Engineers some-

times showed us some courageous constructions. Our vocation lacked the intimate

contact with the modern techniques brought to us by the nineteenth century, and on
which the twentieth century now focuses, which can solve architectural problems

ranging from happiness in the home to great constructions intended for crowds.

Pierre Jeanneret and I did some extremely revolutionary things. They amazed peo-
ple. Friends instinctively rallied whereas others shouted, "What?"

148
Q . : How do you feel about ornament in architecture? CARPENTER CENTER FOR
L.C. : I have been at war with decoration for a long time. My youth was spent doing THE VISUAL ARTS. HARVARD
decoration and since then I have become hostile to the whole idea. It is excessively
UNIVERSITY. Le Corbusier with Jose

Luis Sert, Huson Jackson, and Ronald

superficial, pasted on. It takes on obsessive and immutable space. In public buildings
Gourley. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1961.
its purpose is to consecrate public figures and that is understood. We don't need to Le Corbusier's only building in the United

look at them all day long. But in a dwelling an element of decoration is there at all States is a statement of his late architectural

times. It becomes obsessive. I often noticed that people who live in a house with ideas. With winding ramps and articulated

spaces he made the most of the restricted site.

decoration don't even see it anymore. That is sad, and I dream of people who are

stimulated.

Q . : Then should painting and sculpture be banned?

L.C. : Ah, this is a journalist for you. You always distort what we say. Not at all.

Look at art history in general, decoration in temples, in palaces — that is a frightful

distortion. It is a serious fault. We have around us natural emotions which are very
beautiful. That is why I require intense art and won't tolerate mediocrity. There is art

and not Art Deco. Art is the way of doing things well. Decorative art is doing things
quickly, making noise, approximations.

I prefer a pebble on the beach made by the Lord or a butterfly or an old bone if it's

cleaned by the ocean, than an object representing doves embracing or an ashtray rep-

resenting saints of the church. I am an architect. I work in planes, profiles, and sec-

tions. Well, a bone gives you all of that. A bone is an admirable object which is made
to resist all shocks and to support dynamic efforts. A bone is a very subtle object.

The section of a bone can teach a lot. I still have a lot to learn. I have had a weak-
ness for seashells ever since I was a boy. There is nothing as beautiful as a seashell. It

is based on the law of harmony, and the idea behind it is very simple. It develops in a

spiral or it rays out, both in the interior and exterior. You can find these objects
everywhere. The point is to see them, to observe them. They contain the laws of

nature and that is the best instruction.

149
 1961
UNITE D'HABITATION. Q . : In summary . . .

LeCorbusier. Marseilles, France. 1947. L.C . : In this morning's paper, L'Humanite, on the first page, a headline saying that
The brise-soleil facade of Le Corbusier' s famous
Le Corbusier is passe, that young people are turning away from Le Corbusier, that he
ferro-concrete apartment house protects the

occupants from the strong southern sun.

is history. You are not going to write my eulogy, are you?

I would have to reply this way, that for thirty years I have not built a single housing
unit in Paris. Yet I am the man who has addressed the housing problem everywhere in

the world successfully, because, in short, while these ideas are appreciated everywhere,

here I am treated strangely.

If I have the right to a little public recognition it is not because I have built palaces,

even though I did build a few, but because as soon as I approached the problem of
architecture, I had the feeling that the home was the temple of the family and that

there was something noble in working in that direction. There is in that a great part

of human happiness. I don't know why I feel obliged to concern myself with human
happiness, but I would just as soon approach the solution of such a problem to bring
to it this vital factor of life which is joie de vivre.

ALFRED ROTH ON LE CORBUSIER

1961
It happened on Christmas. Mr. Moser came to my drafting board and said, "My dear

friend Roth, I have no more work for you. Why do you not go to work with Le
Corbusier in Paris?" Corbusier was just then working on his famous project for the

international competition for the League of Nations building in Geneva and he asked
Professor Moser for students or young architects to help him to finish his drawings.

150
 — —

Well, I went to Paris and entered Le Corbusier's office. There I found a completely
new world of architecture. An architect who works in a close relationship with paint-

ing since he is himself a painter. It was a new world and that was the decisive
moment for me to say, yes, now I'm going on the way of an architect. I discovered

myself there as an architect. I was completely, what would you say, taken, passionate-

ly taken, by the idea of architecture of that type by Le Corbusier. Paris was an inten-

sive center, not only Corbusier, there were other architects and Picasso. I met all

these people. Then met I Piet Mondrian as a very young man, you know. But there,

in Paris, I made the decision to stop painting and to go on with architecture. I was
convinced from that moment that it was the right way.

At that time, '26, Corbusier was nearly an unknown. His two first books were pub-
lished Vers une Architecture and L'Urbanisme. They were just published, '25, '24

no translations, so they were rather unknown. We knew about Le Corbusier. [Karl]

Moser told us a little about Le Corbusier, but he was not the famous man at that peri-

od that he had become later on.

During that period for us, the younger generation, the Bauhaus was rather a
stronger attraction. Germany, Holland, were stronger attractions than Paris and, in

fact, I had already written a letter to the Bauhaus and wanted to go there. They
accepted me to go not on the basis of my architectural work, since I had done noth-
ing at that period, but I sent them some photographs of my paintings. They accepted
me, but I did not go. I went on to Paris and I was indeed very fortunate with Le
Corbusier. After the work of about only two months he sent me to Stuttgart.

In '27 the very famous first international exhibition of modern architecture and art

in Europe and in the world was held in Stuttgart. He had to design two houses there.

Since I spoke German, I was of very great service to him to prepare his plans for

Germany. He sent me to Stuttgart to supervise the building of these two houses. I

was obviously very young. I had very little practice, just a new, fresh diploma in archi-

tecture from Zurich. 1 stayed through the whole summer to build his two houses and
that was again, for me, a wonderful experience because in Stuttgart the international

elite of modern architecture and art met at this exhibition. So I came in during the

very early years, at the very center of the modern movement in Europe. Mies van der

Rohe was the chief architect. Gropius designed two houses. Stam from Holland, Oud
from Holland, Le Corbusier from France, Frank from Vienna, and some two other
Germans. It was a wonderful period.
I was twenty-four. World War I was over. It was a wonderful period of optimism.
Everybody was convinced there would be no more war and ideas and everything was
spreading out. It was a creative atmosphere in Europe which produced the work of
the twenties, which is really one of the great periods of the modern movement in

Europe and in the world.

Also in Stuttgart I published my first booklet, a small publication on the two houses
of Le Corbusier, which I wrote in Stuttgart. It was printed just for that exhibition.

It was then sold in the exhibition. It was the beginning of my publishing work.
But the fact was that Corbusier never came to Stuttgart. He left me completely

alone in Stuttgart to handle these two jobs in a very short time. He never came to the

151
exhibition. The drawings were somewhat detailed in Paris and then designed by

myself when was I still in his office. The rest I did in Stuttgart in an improvised little

office. I sent them back to him, he made some corrections and sent them back to me.
Then he wrote me a letter with such things as you do not have to bother about the
furniture, I shall send you our most recent designs of chairs and tables and beds.
Nothing arrived. I had to design them myself. He sent me a letter, I shall send you
paintings by myself, by Fernand Leger, maybe by Picasso to decorate my rooms there

in Stuttgart. Nothing came.

For the color schemes I sent him perspectives of the rooms and the outside. He
sent the drawings back with very small samples of colors. He cut them out of wallpa-
per collections and stuck them on the plans. They were one centimeter by one cen-

timeter. Out of that I had to do the whole room. He never came to the exhibition. He
went to Stuttgart weeks after the exhibition was already closed.
That's typical Le Corbusier. He was quite pleased with the work I did. He found
that maybe somewhere a color was a little bit too strong, but that was natural. He was
quite pleased, but that was typical of Le Corbusier. He has wonderful ideas, but he
does not care too much about carrying out these things. When he sent me to

Stuttgart, for him, everything was over. It was done.

PAUL WEIDLINGER ON LE CORBUSIER

1989
Moholy-Nagy said something very important. It influenced me a great deal. He said,

"Why don't you go and work for Le Corbusier?" At that time that was an impossible
thing. People used to pay a fee to work there. He said, "I'll write to him and I'll

arrange that you don't have to pay. You can work for free." I said to him, "Well, you
know, Le Corbusier, it's like working for God, I will never see him and what do I get

out of being there?" He said, "You are absolutely wrong, go there even if you never
talk to him, just breathe in the air, look at the drawings on the wall, listen to what

other people say, it will be very important." He was right in a way. It sounded con-
vincing. I think in my youth it's probably the only advice I ever followed from a

grown-up.
Maybe when I think about it, it's the reason why I say I don't know about individ-

ual buildings, I know only about the work. Because I learned it there. It was a large

office. I was amazed by what was going on there. I saw things which I never heard

about. People were designing cities! They were designing countries! It was incredible.

It was wonderful to be there.

I mean this is all very personal. Le Corbusier is very typical, you know. He, all of a

sudden, changed his whole direction, perhaps a lot of uproar and upset about him. I

152
understood that. I mean, here's a guy who's trying to do something and all of sudden,

he said, maybe I was doing it wrong and I'm trying to do it this way. That's what

excited me about that work, not a particular building. I couldn't pick out and say this

is a great building. I don't know how to do that, I'm not good enough. But I can look
at his work and I can look at his process and that I understand. I didn't work that

closely to him.

1956
The best advice I think I learned from Le Corbusier. I received that advice from him
many years later in connection with the Pan American competition, which I had won
at the time as an architect. I was supposed to execute the buildings, build them as an
architect and an engineer. When I was just about ready to go, the committee who
sponsored this huge university city came to me and suggested that I modify my design
completely and put all the buildings on top of each other, make it a skyscraper and
what have you. I refused very indignantly to change my ideas and the committee pro-
posed that I write to Corbusier as an arbiter and ask him what he would think about
such a proposal. I wrote to him and he wrote a wonderful letter. He said, "All my life

I've been dying to get a project like you have and my advice to you is just to do any-
thing they tell you as long as they let you build." This was the day when I stopped

being an architect and became an engineer. I am still very grateful to him for it.

1989
When he was in New York he pretended he didn't know English. I used to hang

around with him and act as an interpreter. We had conversations and some odd ones,
because ninety percent of the time I totally disagreed with everything he said. But

almost one hundred percent I agreed with what he did. When this whole United
Nations thing started and he just published his Modulor book. When we met he said,

"Ah, you are a mathematician. What do you think about this great work?" Like an
idiot I told him, "Master, this was published, I think, in the eleventh century by

Leonardo Pisano called Tillio Bonanci. Everybody knows that. It's a great thing, but

this is old hat. I don't know what it does." He got incredibly angry at me. He said,

"You don't always know enough. I have to meet a new scientist." He, in fact, said,

"I'm going to make an appointment with Einstein. I'm going to show him that." This
was ages ago. I was very upset because Einstein was working on the general theory
that he had only a few years to live. I said, "Please don't go and bother him." But, of
course, he didn't listen. He disappeared for a few days and I didn't see him.

All of a sudden he appeared in my office. He called me in, unrolled a big roll, and
pasted it on the wall. At that time it was not so easy to make an enlargement. He
went to see Einstein to show him the Modulor, explained it to him, and Einstein, you

know, he was a very nice person, said, "This is wonderful." Le Corbusier said, "Write

it down." So, he wrote something to the effect that, "The Modulor is wonderful. It

makes the beautiful easy, the ugly difficult." Corbusier had it photostated and he

pasted it on my wall and he said, "Look at it, this is what Einstein says."

153
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
"I CANNOT TELL YOU AT THE MOMENT WHERE I READ IT, . . .

THAT ARCHITECTURE BELONGS TO THE EPOCH AND NOT EVEN

TO THE TIME, TO A REAL EPOCH."

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an imposing man with a hewn-granite face.

His attire — usually a Saville Row suit

—as well as his surroundings had the

same sense of quality and elegant style as his architecture. We recorded

Mies at his suite in the Waldorf Towers in New York in 1955 and at his

Chicago apartment in 1964. This undistinguished building was located not

far from his celebrated Lake Shore Drive apartments. When I asked him

why he did not live in one of the Lake Shore apartments, he replied with a

hearty laugh that he did not think it was a good idea for an architect

to be traveling in the same elevators as the occupants of one of his apart-

ment buildings. His spacious five-room apartment was sparsely furnished

with large, comfortable leather chairs, and a wonderful collection of

art by Paul Klee, Georges Braque, and Kurt Schwitters hung on the bare

white walls.

Mies was not given to conversation. With his somewhat monastic

life-style, it was almost as if he had taken the vow of silence. There is more

blank tape on his reels than on those of any other architect in the Oral

History. My questions were sometimes followed with a noncommittal "Ya,"

or with such a long pause that I felt compelled to ask another question.

154
However, in several sessions, amid clouds of Havana cigar smoke and ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY. Ludwig Mies van der
innumerable double Gibsons, I gathered enough comments and reflections Rohe. Chicago. J 939-56. The site plan for this

one-hundred-ten-acre urban campus and eigh-

to surprise some of his closest associates, to whom his statement, "Less is
teen of its beautifully proportioned buildings,

employing a common module and materials,

more," applied also to their infrequent discussions.
were designed h\ Mies when he was director of

In our conversations Mies left no doubt about his beliefs. He articulated the Architecture Department at UT.

them with unmistakable conviction. With patience and persistence, he fol-

lowed his own architectural vision. Though the many adjectives- —solid,
unswerving, honest, unyielding, rational —used describe Mies are
to true, I

was repeatedly struck by something else — emotion and enthusiasm

the with

which he expressed his ideas. It is only in person or in listening to the

recordings that one can appreciate this side of him.

For the most part Mies let his buildings speak for themselves. However, on

occasion he quoted philosophers discovered in his lifelong search for mean-

ing in architecture. In one session he repeated St. Augustine, "Beauty is the

radiance of truth," and added, "I think that is a wonderful motto for architec-

ture. It has to be truthful, otherwise I don't believe it is really beautiful."

Following Mies's own words is a view of the man by Philip Johnson, one

of his closest architectural associates.

155
 1964
JOHN PETER: What first interested you in architecture?
LUDW1G MIES VAN DER ROHE: learned from my father. You know, he I

was a stonemason. He liked to do good work. I remember in my hometown in

Aachen was the cathedral. This octagon was built by Charlemagne. In different cen-

turies they did something different with it. Sometime in the Baroque they plastered
the whole thing and made ornaments in it. When I was young they took the plaster

out. Then they hadn't the money to go further so you saw the real stones. When I

looked at the old building that had nothing on it, just fine brickwork or stonework, a
building that was really clear and with really good craftsmanship, I would have given
all the other things for one of these buildings. Later they covered it with marble
again, but I must say it was much more impressive without the marble.

J. P. : Tell me, were you influenced in your thinking by things other than architecture —
music, or painting?

L . M . V. D. R . : Yes, it may have been later. But not when I was young, you know. I

didn't have any relation to other arts particularly.

J . P. : Did reading have anything to do with your thinking?

L.M.V.D.R.: Yes, quite a lot. You know, I left school when I was fourteen years old.

So I had no education. I worked for an architect. When I came to his office, he said,

"Here is your table." I cleaned it up and looked in the drawer. . . . What I found there
were two things, a magazine called The Future. It was a weekly magazine. It was a
very interesting magazine. It was partly a political magazine, but in the way as

Lippmann would talk about politics, not a party affair. It was a cultural magazine, let

us say that. It talked about music. It talked about poetry. It talked about architecture,

but very seldom. That was one thing.

Then found I another pamphlet about the Laplace theory. That was these two
things, you know. From there on I started to read this magazine, The Future. I bought
that every Sunday morning and read it. Then I started to read.

A few years later, when I came to Berlin, I had to build a house for a philosopher. It

was at the university in Berlin. There I met quite a number of people and I started to

read more and more. When this philosopher came to my office the first time — I had
an office in my apartment, my books were lying on a huge drafting board, about a

foot high. He looked around and he saw all these books — he said, "For Heaven's sake,

who advised you on your library?" I said, "Nobody. I started to buy books and read
them." He was very surprised, you know. He saw no discipline in it or anything like

that.

At that time, we were working for Behrens. There were other architects in Berlin.

Messel, he was a very fine architect, but a Palladio man or something like that.

I was interested in what is architecture. I asked somebody, "What is architecture?"

But he didn't answer me. He said, "Just forget it. Just work. You will find that out by

ludwig mies van der rohe yourself later." I said, "That's a fine answer to my question." But I wanted to know
in New York City, 1955 more. I wanted to find out. That was the reason I read, you know. For nothing else, I

156
wanted to' find out things, I wanted to be clear. What is going on. What is our time
and what is it all about. Otherwise, I didn't think we would be able to do something
reasonable. In this way, I read a lot. I bought all these books and paid for them. I read

them in all the fields.

J . P. : Do you still read?

L . M . V. D. R . : Yes, I do. And I read very often the old books. The New York Chapter
of Architecture once had some affair going on. I said, "When I left Germany I had
about three thousand books. I made a list and they shipped me three hundred." I said,

"I could send back two hundred seventy. Thirty is all I wanted to have."

I was interested in the philosophy of values and problems of the spirit. I was also

very much interested in astronomy and natural sciences. ... 1 asked myself the ques-
tion, "What is the truth? What is the truth?" until I stopped at Thomas Aquinas, you
know. I found the answer for that.

So, for other things, what is order? Everybody talks about it, you know, but nobody
could tell you what it is. Until I read Augustine about sociology. There was a mess as

great as in architecture then. You could read a lot of sociological books and you were
not wiser than before.

J . P. : Do you feel that the thinking of people who sought truth in other periods is

applicable today?

L.M.V.D.R. : Oh, certainly, I am sure. There are certain truths. They don't wear

out. I am quite sure of that. I cannot talk for other people. I just followed what I

needed. I want this clarity. I could have read other books, you know, a lot of poetry or

others. But I didn't. I read these books where I could find the truth about certain

things.

J . P. : Did your father or mother influence you in thinking this way?

L. M . V.D.R. : Not at all. No. My father said, "Don't read these dumb books. Work."

He was a craftsman, you know.

1955
J . P. : Were there great works or great masters who influenced your own thinking about

architecture?

L . M . V. D.R . : Yes, there is no question. I think if somebody takes his work seriously

and even if he is relatively young, he will be influenced by other people. You just can-
not help that, you know. It is a fact.

First of all, I was influenced by old buildings. I looked at them, people built them. I

don't know the names, and I don't know what it was . . . mostly very simple buildings,

you know. When I was really young, you know, not even twenty years old, I was
impressed by the strength of these old buildings because they didn't even belong to

any epoch. But they were there for one thousand years and still there, you know, and
still impressive, and nothing could change it. And all the styles, the great styles,

passed, but they were still there. They didn't lose anything. They were ignored

J 58
 .

through certain architectural epochs, but they were still there and still good as they "A GREAT STYLE MAY BE EXPECTED IN

were in the first day they were built. COMING TIMES. A STYLE WHICH
Then worked I with Peter Behrens. He had a great sense of the great form. That SHALL NOT SIMPLY BE BEAUTIFUL BUT
was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him. WILL ONCE MORE BE ABLE TO ATTAIN

SUBLIMITY."

J
. P. : By great form what do you mean? Hendrik Petrus Berlage

L . M . V. D. R . : Oh, let us say like the Palazzo Pitti. It is something, the monumental

form. Let me put it this way, I was lucky enough, you know, when I came to the

Netherlands and I was confronted with Berlage's work. There, was the construction.
What made the strongest impression on me was the use of brick and so on, the hon-
esty of materials and so on. I never forget this lesson I got there just by looking at his

buildings. 1 had only a few talks with Berlage, but not about that. We never talked

about architecture together.

J
. P. : Do you think he knew that you sensed what he was doing?

L. M . V. D. R . : No, I don't think so. I cannot see any reason why he should have
because we didn't talk about it. I was really a young boy then. But I really learned

this idea from him. I must have been open for this particular view because of the old

buildings I had seen.

And I learned a lot from Frank Lloyd Wright. I would say that. I think more as a

liberation, you know. I felt much freer by seeing what he did. You know, the way he

puts a building in the landscape and the free way he uses space and so on.

J
. P. : Then those were the influences in your approach to architecture?

L. M.v.D. R. : But my architectural philosophy came out ot reading philosophical

books. I cannot tell you at the moment where I read it, but I know 1 read it some-
where, that architecture belongs to the epoch and not even to the time, to a real

epoch. BRICK COUNTRY HOUSE

Since I understood that, I would not be for fashion in architecture. 1 would look for
PROJECT. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
1923. The floor plan of the house shows a
more profound principles. And since I know by reading and studying books that we
De Stijl influence and extends Frank Lloyd
are under the influence of science and technology, I would ask myself, "What can Wright's ideas for free -flowing interiors with

that be? What result comes from this fact? Can we change it, or can we not change walls running into the landscape.

159
it?" And the answer to this question, you know, gave me the direction which I fol-

lowed, not what I liked. I throw often things out I like very much. They are dear to

my heart, but when have I a better conviction, a better idea, a clearer idea, then I fol-

low the clearer idea. And after a while, you know, 1 find the Washington Bridge most
beautiful, the best building in New York. Maybe at the beginning I wouldn't. That
grew. But first I had to conquer the idea and later I appreciated it as beauty.

J . P. : So you sought what was characteristic of the epoch.

L . M . V. D R . . : What is the essence of the epoch. And that is the only thing we really

can express, and what is worth to express.

There is another thing that just comes to my mind. Thomas Aquinas, he says,

"Reason is the first principle of all human work." Now when you have grasped that

once, you know, then you act accordingly. So I would throw everything out what is

not reasonable.
I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

You know, you often find in books, they have nothing to do with architecture, the
very important things. Erwin Schrodinger, you know, the physicist, he talks here

about general principles, and he said the creative vigor of a general principle depends
precisely on its generality. That is exactly what I think about when I talk about

structure in architecture. It is not a special solution. It is the general idea.

Sometimes people say, "How do you feel if somebody copies you?" I say that is not a
problem to me. I think that is the reason we are working, that we find something
everybody can use. We hope only that he uses it right.

J . P. : In other words, copies are an affirmation that you have found a general solution.
L . M . V. D.R . : Yes, that is what I call the common language, too. That is what I'm
working on. I am not working on architecture, I am working on architecture as a lan-
guage, and I think you have to have a grammar in order to have a language. It has to

be a living language, but still you come in the end to the grammar. It is a discipline.

And then you can use it, you know, for normal purposes and you speak in prose. And
if you are good at that, you speak a wonderful prose, and if you are really good, you
can be a poet. But it is the same language, that is the characteristic. A poet doesn't
produce a different language for each poem. That's not necessary; he uses the same
language, he uses even the same words. In music it is always the same and the same

instruments, most of the time. I think that is the same in architecture.

You know, if you have to construct something you can make a garage out of it or

you can make a cathedral out of it. The same means, the same structural methods we
use for all these things. It has nothing to do with the level you are working on. What
I am driving at is to develop a common language, not particularly individual ideas. I

think that is the biggest point in our whole time. We have no real common language.

To build that, if possible, if we can do that, then we can build what we like and every-
thing is all right. I see no reason why that should not be the case. I am quite con-

vinced that will be the task for the future.

160
 I think there will be certain influences, climatic influences, hut that will only color

what is done. I think a much greater influence is the influence of science and tech-

nology that is worldwide that will take all these old cultures away and everybody will

do the same. Just this light coloration.

J
. P. : In other words ,
you feel we are in a period where there can be an architectural

vocabulary?

L.M.V.D.R. : Oh, certainly, there's no question about that. I think that this is a

human desire to do something reasonable. I see no difference if there is something

reasonable in California, in the Mediterranean, or in Norway. They should do it

with reason. If they would work with reason and would not have fancy ideas, particu-

larly architectural ideas, everything would be much better.

J . P. : You would say that the people recognize a reasonable and honest approach.
L.M.V.D.R. : Certainly. Let us take an example, the mechanic in a garage today.

He is very much interested in all the technological means we have. He takes that all

for granted. You have no personal ideas about these things. You know, when he sticks

to that, then he is on the common plane.

J . P. : Do you mind working with engineers?

L.M.V.D.R.: No, just the opposite, I love it if I get a good one. There are things
that cannot be done without engineers. You cannot know everything. 1 think archi-

tects should understand more about engineering and the engineers should know a
little more about architecture.

J . P. : Will new materials greatly change the style of our times?

L.M.V.D.R. : No, 1 don't think so because what I tried CO do in architecture is to

develop a clear structure. We just are confronted with the material. How to use it in

the right way is what you have to find out. It has nothing to do with the shape. What
I do, what you call my kind of architecture, we should just call it a structural

approach. We don't think about the form when we start. We think about the right

way to use the materials. Then we accept the result.

Grand ideas, you know, we keep high in the air when we are working. We don't
want them to come down. Often we are ourselves surprised what comes out of it. I

NEW NATIONAL GALLERY.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Berlin. 1966.

This masterpiece , located in the city of his

youth, was one of Mies''s final works. The

great steel roof is supported on eight massive

steel columns erected on a lower gallery

pedestal. Glass walls enclose the resulting

undivided, universal space.

161
 .

collect the facts. All the facts as much as I can get. I study these facts and then I act

accordingly.

J . P. : Maybe one of the problems of Wright's style is that it is not a vocabulary in that

sense

L. M . V. D.R . : It is not that. It is much too individualistic in order to be that. We

know he's a genius. There is no question about that. But I think he cannot have real

followers. In order to do things as he does it, you need a lot of fantasy and, if you have
fantasy, you will do it differently. I am quite sure it is an individualistic approach and
I don't go this way. I go a different way. I am trying to go an objective way.

J . P. : Have there been architects of the past who have developed a style that lasted as a

vocabulary!

L . M . V. D. R . : Palladio, certainly. You know, it lasted. It is still among us in certain

cases. Even though his forms have changed, his spirit is still there in many cases.

J . P. : Do you think there is a desire on the part of people for natural materials that are in a

sense rich? For instance, I've always felt disappointed that the Resor House was never
built.

L.M.V.D.R. : Yes, I was sorry, too. I think it is a very good building.

J. P. : Do you think these rich materials tend to give a humanity to it?

L.M.V.D.R. : It is not necessary, but it can be rich. But it is not necessary. It could

very well be simple. It would not change that.

J . P. : You mean the Resor House wouldn't have had to be built with teak?

L.M.V.D.R. : No, it was not necessary at all. That could have been in any other
kind of wood and still be a good building. It would be not as fine as teak.

In fact, I think that the Barcelona Pavilion, if I would have built it in brick, it

would be as good a building. I am quite sure it would have been not as successful as

marble, but that has nothing to do with the idea.

J . P. : What do you think of the use of color in architecture?

L.M.V.D.R. : In our IIT campus I painted the steel black. At the Farnsworth House

I painted it white because it was in the green. It was in the open. I could use any

color, you know.

J. P. : And you've even been known to chrome it as you did in the Barcelona Pavilion.

L.M.V.D.R.: Oh, certainly, yes. I would do that. I love natural materials or metallic

things, you know. I very seldom have used colored walls, for instance. I would really

like to give it to Picasso or to Klee. In fact, I ordered from Klee a large picture, two
pictures, one side white and the other black. I said, "I don't care what you paint
on it."

162
J
. P. : So if it were a problem of color you would give it to a master.

L . M . V. D. R . : Oh, certainly, yes. I would do that.

1964
If I were subjective I would be a painter, you know, not an architect. There I can
express anything I like, but in buildings I have to do what has to be done. Not that 1

like it particularly. Just what's best to be done. I often throw out ideas I was in love

with, but when I thought it through I just had to throw them out. That is the differ-

ence. It is not so much the function. You cannot be really subjective. It looks funny in

buildings. You have to be good, a stonemason or a timber man. There is nothing

funny about that. In painting you can express the slightest emotion, but with a beam
of wood or a piece of stone you cannot do much about it. If you try to do much about
it, then you lose the character of your material. I think architecture is an objective
art.

J . P. : What was the Bauhaus? Why did you associate your own name and talents with it?

L.M.V.D.R. : I think Gropius could answer this question best because he was the

founder and to me that is the Bauhaus. He left the Bauhaus and gave it into the

hands of Hannes Meyer. At this time it became more a political instrument or was
used not so much by Hannes Meyer but by younger people. Hannes Meyer, in my
opinion, was not a strong man. He was taken in by these young people. I can under-
stand that, too. But there was a certain difference. You could say that was the second

phase of the Bauhaus, quite different from Gropius's phase. The Bauhaus from '19 to

'32 was no way one affair. It was quite different.

I came to the Bauhaus when the Bauhaus had trouble for political reasons. The
city, which was Democratic or Social Democratic, had to pay for it. They said we will

not do that anymore. Gropius and the mayor of Dessau came to me. They explained
that to me and asked me to take it ewer. They thought if I would not do it, it would be
closed. I went there and made it clear to the students, as clear as I could, "You have

to work here and I can assure you who doesn't work I will throw out. I have nothing

against any political idea that is here." I spent my time to teach them something and

they had to work on it. But I was not so involved as Gropius was. That was his idea.
We were working in the same direction.

At Gropius's seventieth birthday I talked about the Bauhaus. I said that I didn't

believe that it was the propaganda which made it known all over the world, but that

it was a new idea. Propaganda would never be so strong as to do this work. But I

think Gropius can tell you more about it than I can.

J . P. : Would there have been a Bauhaus if there had been no Gropius?

L.M.V.D.R.: No, I think there would not have been a Bauhaus. There would have

been another school. The school was there when it was in Weimar. If I'm not mistak-

en, I think that Gropius was proposed by van de Velde, who was the head of the

school in Weimar. When he left Weimar he proposed Gropius as his successor.

163
 Getting the different people was Gropius's doing. There is no doubt about that. He
brought these people. He must have seen that these people were driving in a different

direction, too. But that they were good people, that was Gropius's doing.

J . P. : How important to the Bauhaus was the climate of the Werkbund?

L.M.V.D.R. : That may have had an influence. Gropius was one of the leading peo-
ple in the Werkbund, particularly so, say, after 1910. There was this Werkbund exhibi-

tion in Cologne where he built one of the important buildings. I think his building

and van de Velde's theater were the real buildings there. He certainly was very active

in the Werkbund. There were other people, not often architects, but craftsmen. They
tried to use good materials. They had a sense of quality. ... I had nothing to do to

the Werkbund then. I came much later. It was in 76 when I came to the Werkbund
when they gave me this job to do, the Weissenhof exhibition.

J . P. : Has working in America changed what you think or what you do?
L.M.V.D.R.: I think you are always influenced by your environment. There's no

doubt. I think that teaching helped me a lot. I was forced to be clear to the students.

You know, students are funny people. They perforate you with questions. You look
like a sieve. You have to make it really clear and you cannot fool them. They want to

know and you have to be clear. That forces me to think these things clear through so

that I could answer them. I think teaching had this influence. It was in the direction I

was going anyway.

J . P. : So that was not a waste of time as far as you were concerned?

L.M.V.D.R. : Oh, no, no, on the opposite, I think it was really good. I don't think

you have to build a thousand houses or a thousand buildings. That's all nonsense. I

can make a statement about architecture with a few buildings. If I would do nothing
else that would make absolutely clear what I mean.
I remember the greatest impression I had the first time in New York, that an eleva-

tor could take you up in no time, fifty stories high and really hit it on the head. I was
very much impressed by that.

J . P. : You once mentioned the Pennsylvania barn.

L . M . V. D.R . : Yes, the good Pennsylvania barn, I really like better than most build-
ings. It's a real building and the best building, for that reason, I know in America.
The Washington Bridge, I think, is a fine sample of modern building. It's direct to

the point, you know. Maybe they had ideas about these towers, but I'm talking about

a principle and not about that. But to go in this simple straight line from one bank of

the Hudson to the other, this direct solution, that is what I am driving at.

There's something else. We use in German the word Baukunst, that are two words,

the "building" and the "art." The art is the refinement of the building. That is what
we express with Baukunst. When I was young, we hated the word architecture. We
talked about Baukunst, because architecture is that you form something from the
outside.

J 64
J . P. : Would you say that a characteristic of Baukunst has always been a certain S.R. CROWN HALL, ILLINOIS
reasonableness? INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Chicago. 1955.
L.M.V.D.R.: Yes, at least that is what I like in Baukunst. Even though we had to
This exquisitely detailed steel structure is one
make a lot of Baroque things when I was young, I was never much interested in
vast undivided room raised a half a level above
Baroque architecture. I was interested in structural architecture, I was interested in grade and enclosed by transparent and translu-

Romanesque, I was interested in Gothic architecture. They are often misunderstood. cent glass . In Crown Hall Mies realized his

concept of a universal space.

You know, the profiles of a pillar in a cathedral, that is still a very clear structure. The
refinements were to make it clearer, not to decorate it, but to make it clearer. People

think when they see one of these buildings, they say it is too cold. But they forget

what they are asking for hecause, they think, that is too strong an order. They have it

on Michigan Avenue, on the lakefront, everywhere. That is what they really ask for.

They are not clear ahout it. They ask for chaos. But there can he a richness. It has
not to be a chaos. I think you can use clear elements and make it rich. Any medieval
city used the same plan all ewer. What was the difference was the doorknob or bay

window and that depended on the money they had. But the plan was about all the

same. They had the stable culture.

1964
J . P. : What about technical developments?

L.M.V.D.R. : People are surprised that I used construction in different materials,

but that to me is absolutely normal. In the one case the roof plate is a real plate and
has to be supported. It doesn't matter if you build it in steel or in concrete. Nearly all

the cathedrals have the same structural principle. What is wrong in that? You can
change. You need not copy it really, but you can use it as a structural principle.

That was, in fact, our idea We wanted to develop new

when we started to work.

structural solutions which could be used by anybody. We were not after individual

solutions. We were after good structural solutions. We are not hurt if somebody uses

that. We are hurt if the somebody doesn't use them well. There are certainly many

165
 GLASS SKYSCRAPER, MODEL. more unknown students of mine than direct students. But certainly I am not hurt at
Litdwig Mies van der Rohe. 1921 . In this and all. On the opposite, that is what we tried to achieve, and we did it. There is no
other experimental designs, Mies sought with
doubt about that.
all glass walls to reveal the structure of the

building and to explore the play of reflections

on curving glass. J . P. : And your sketches for the glass skyscraper?

L.M.V.D.R. : That was another problem. There I was interested in glass and what
can be done with glass buildings. I tried to avoid certain glare or dead front. So first I

bent these large pieces so that they had the character of a crystal. Under no circum-
stances was it a dead solution. Then later I thought that maybe it could be much
richer if I would make it fully curved, but they were just studies in glass. I was think-
ing about a building all right, but that was a particular study in glass.

J . P. : As far as the buildings you now build, are they more characteristic of steel or of
glass?

L.M.V.D.R.: Some people say the Seagram's Building is a bronze building. They
don't talk about a glass building because there is so much metal there. I think that

there are glass buildings, but that is when one works the problem through.

J. P. : When you use concrete you waive the plasticity of concrete?

L.M.V.D.R.: The plasticity of concrete, that is very funny. The plasticity of con-

crete is not necessarily the best way to use concrete. I think I use concrete, if I use it,

in a structural manner. What I call a structure. I know you can use it in another way,
but I don't like the other way. I still like it for building a clear structure. I don't care

about the plastic solutions. I just don't.

J . P. : Even in your chairs?

L.M.V.D.R.: See, that is the same. The chair is an arc chair with this half circle in

front of it. That is a skeleton structure, you know. Even the Barcelona chair is still a

166
skeleton structure. I made some designs in plastic chairs. I didn't follow them up.

There I used the mass, you know. If you want to use a plastic material, then you have

to use the mass. But because you can form the concrete, it is not necessary to form it

in a plastic manner. It's just because that is a possibility you can do it.

You see, when we used aluminum, there you can use extruded materials. When we
used it for the first time we tried for our mullions. Then we hung it on the roof of 860
to see how it reads. I tell you that the simple I-beam worked much better. That is why
we used, even in aluminum, the I-beam structure. It reads better. It is much clearer.

J . P. : You say clear. Do you think there's a relationship between clarity and goodness?
L . M . V. D. R . : Yes, to me, certainly. Yes, I'm quite sure about that.

J. P. :
If you had lived in another period might you have used . . .

L.M.V.D.R.: Oh, certainly, if we didn't have other materials, but we have steel. I

think that this is a fine material. By fine, I mean it is very strong. It is very elegant.

You can do a lot with it. The whole character of the building is very light. That is

why I like it when I have to build a building in a steel construction. What I like best SEAGRAM BUILDING. Ludwig Mies

is when I can use stone on the ground and then come up a little. van der Rohe with Philip Johnson . New York

City. J 958. Mies' s first major office building

was a thirty-eight-story tower richly sheathed in

J . P. : Do you like steel because of the factor of economy?
bronze and boldly set back from Park Avenue
L. M.V.D.R. : It is an economy factor, but it is not an architectural factor. It is a fac- on a broad granite plaza. It is a master state-

tor here in our country. When you have to build something, you take a sheet of paper ment of a modern building type, the skyscraper.

167
and write down what the site costs, the architect's fee, the engineering fee, and God
knows what we get back. If that is not twelve percent or fifteen percent, it will never

be built. That is the economical question you were talking about. Not the greatest

idea will be built if it is not economical in this sense. ... I am not talking about this

economy. I am talking about a spiritual economy, the economy of means. The clear-

est sentence is, to me, economy. That is the economy that has an influence on archi-

tecture.

You can build in concrete. There are the Maillart bridges in Switzerland that are

wonderful bridges, very clear. I have nothing against that. But if you build in steel it

gives you a lot of freedom inside. People say, "Ah, that is cold." That's nonsense, you
know. Inside you can really do what you like. You are free to do something. But you
are not free outside.

You have to remember in an enclosed building you have a few floor-plan possibili-

ties. When you really work in one of our buildings you will come to the conclusion

there are only a few good solutions. They are limited even though you could do any-
thing you like.

J . P. : However, if the use of the building changed, say the museum building became for

some reason a century from now . . .

L . M . V. D.R . : Yes, it could be something else. I would not hesitate to make a cathe-

dral in the inside of my convention hall. I see no reason why not. You can do that. So
a type, like the convention hall or like the museum, can be used for other purposes

just as well. . . . This is not anymore that the form follows function or should follow
function. I am, anyway, a little dubious about these statements, you know. There was

a reason when somebody said it. But you cannot make a law out of them. . . . You
very well could make an apartment building from an office building. They are similar

in the fact that you have twenty or thirty floors one on the top of the other. That is

the character of the building, not to talk about what is inside. In an apartment build-
ing you may use, for economical reasons, smaller spans or something, reduce the size,

but you could very well live in an office building with the large span and have a fine

apartment in that.

The sociologists tell us we have to think about the human beings who are living in

that building. That is a sociological problem, not an architectural one. That always
comes up, you know. But that is a sociological question. I think the sociologists

should fight that out. That is not an architectural question.

J . P. : And can't be solved architecturally!

L . M . V. D. R . : No. It could be solved if they would give us a program. But first they

have to prove that their idea is a sound one in the sociological field. They would like

to make us responsible for that, you know! No, not with me!

J. P. : When I look at these projects 1 have been struck by the fact that there is a sense of

continuity in your work. Is there a relationship?

L . M . V. D. R . : It is always the same problem. It is only that in one case you have just,

168
say, walls to work with and, in this group of buildings, you have to have buildings to
work with. But it is the same problem. You find a good relation among them, you
know. It's always the same. It is a very simple problem. We had in our school a space
problem which every student had to go through and work on, and that is the same for

a small apartment as it is for a hotel or a bank lobby. There is no difference in these.

It is the same problem.

J
. P. : Is it the same for a city plan, almost?

L.M.V.D.R. : I would say yes. You know, in city planning you have the traffic prob-

lems, but in itself it is the same problem. It is a very simple problem of the good rela-

tion of one to another. In some we had first a free plan and then we were bound by
streets, so it became a geometric plan, not a free plan. But you can make a free com-
position or a geometrical composition just as well. In principle there is no difference

in it.

J
. P. : But the fact that streets are a gridiron, does this tend to suggest a . . .

L.M.V.D.R. : Certainly, to me it suggested a geometrical solution. Not that I am for

it out of principle, but that is what I have to work with. That is a material to me, you

know. I can make a building or a group of buildings. I can make it symmetrical or I

can make it asymmetrical, that is just what the problem is about. Some people think

it has to be asymmetrical: that is not the case, you know. Maybe they are tired of a lot

of things, and they just try something else.

I remember when I made the symmetrical solution, somewhere, and I was told,

now we have to learn again that there can be symmetry. But the symmetry was the
reasonable solution, not that 1 particularly liked it or not liked it. That was the rea-

sonable solution for this purpose. I would not hesitate to do that, you know. I think
MELLON HALL SCIENCE
that is more an aesthetic speculation. I don't care much about these things. CENTER, DUQUESNE
UNIVERSITY. Ludwig Mies van der

J . P. : In regard to your buildings — the Krupp office building for instance?

Rohe. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1962. In this

science building, in pure Miesian style, he

L.M.V.D.R. : The Krupp is an enormous skeleton building. If you use a skeleton you
introduced space beneath the floors to accovrt'
would come to a similar solution. You can do something that is not similar but of form modate the mechanicals supporting the

is the same. The skeleton is just a skeleton. laboratory equipment.

169
 s

FEDERAL CENTER. Ludwig Mies van The Duquesne is a laboratory. Since we did not know what would be inside, we
der Rohe. Chicago. 964. The three black
J
thought we would give a possibility to let the pipes go wherever they like to go. We
steel-framed buildings of varying heights and
made the first lab building in Chicago, the Metals Building, that was kind of a labora-
bulk, masterfully grouped around a large

central plaza with a flaring red stabile by

tory, but it was not a chemical laboratory. There we used glass on the outside.

Alexander Calder, are one of Mies'

finest works. P. Do the plans for Montreal, Toronto, and the Chicago Federal buildings have
J . :

something in common?
L.M.V.D.R. : We put the buildings so that each one gets the best situation and that

the space between them is about the best we can achieve. They all have that in com-
mon. Even if I would build a group of single houses, I would use the same principle
there. Only that the space between them maybe would be smaller.

1955
J. P. : You once told me how the Barcelona Pavilion evolved around a slab of marble that

you found.

L. M.V.D.R. : Since I had the idea about the building and I had to look around. We
had very little time. It was deep in the winter. You cannot move marble from the
quarry in the winter because it is still wet inside and it would freeze to pieces. You
had to find a piece of material which is dry. We had to go and look around in huge
depots. There I found an onyx block. This marble block had a certain size so I had
only the possibility of taking twice the height of the block. Then making the pavilion

twice the height of the onyx block. That was the module.

J . P. : Would you be interested in doing another exhibition type of building?

L.M.V.D.R. : You know, I went through a lot of different possible types of building.

170
There are only a few left. I would like to do this convention hall. This is an enor-
mous building, seven hundred twenty feet by seven hundred twenty feet. I would like

to see it myself. I know the drawings. I know the idea behind it. But, in fact, there is a

certain size that is a reality. Take the pyramids in Egypt and make them only fifteen

feet high. It is nothing. There is just this enormous size that makes all the difference.

J . P. : Do you feel in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue that the size of the sheer wall

going up will have a lot to do with its impact?

L . M . V. D. R . : Yes, I am quite sure. Because of its simplicity, again, it will be much

stronger. Some other buildings are much higher and richer in the grouping and so on.

I think, at least that is what I hope, that the Seagram's Building will be a good build-

ing.

I must say that when I came first to this country, I lived at the University Club. I

saw the main tower of the Rockefeller Center every morning from my breakfast table

and it made a great impression on me. That slab, yes. It has nothing to do with style.

There you see that it is a mass. That is not an individual thing, thousands of win-

dows, you know. Good or bad, that doesn't mean anything. That is like an army of
soldiers or like a meadow. You don't see the details anymore when you see the mass. I

think that is the quality of this tower.

1964
J
. P. : You set the Seagram Building back at a time when nobody else set buildings back.

L . M . V. D. R set
. : I it back so that you could see it. That was the reason. You know,
if you go to New York you really have to look at these canopies to find where you are.

You cannot even see the building. You see only the building in the distance. So I set it

back for this reason.

J . P. : Why was the material bronze?

L . M . V. D. R We . : used bronze because of the client. Just in the talk we had, he said,

"I like bronze and marble." I said, "That's good enough for me!"

J . P. : In designing your building the way you do, somehow the Seagram respects other

buildings like the McKim, Mead, and White building across the street.

L.M.V.D.R.: Oh, certainly, yes. The Lever House was there when we started.

When we moved the building back we didn't know what would happen on each side

of it. After the Seagram's Building was finished, there you had the Lever House and

the Seagram's Building, so it was quite easy to set back the next building that is right

between them. But they didn't! That was so funny. That was a great help for any

architect, but that is just what happens, you know.

J . P. : Unlike the Seagram Building, the two Bacardi buildings were different problems.

L.M.V.D.R.: Yes, it was certainly a different site. The first building in Cuba, the

client wanted to have a large room. That is what he liked. He said, "I like to have a

desk in a large room. I like to work with my people. I don't need a closed office

171
 .

BACARDI ADMINISTRATION because I work more than anybody else, so it doesn't hurt me that they see me." We
BUILDING. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe tried to solve that.
Mexico City. 1957. With walls of gray glass,
But in Mexico there were two factors which changed the character of the building.
exposed steel columns painted black, and

a setback entrance hall, the office block of this

The one was that the highway is higher than the site. So if we would have built a

refined building is raised above the nearby one-story building there, you would see only the roof. That was the reason that we
highway. made a two-story building there. It was a more normal office building because the
leading people insisted on separate offices.

J . P. : How important do you regard historical influences?

L.M.V.D.R. : I am not interested in the history of civilization. I am interested in our

civilization. We are living it. Because I really believe after a long time of working and
thinking and studying that architecture has, in fact, only to do with this civilization

we are in. You know, that is really what architecture is about. It can only express this

civilization we are in and nothing else. There are certain forces that are in contrast to

each other. But if you really look at it, you'll find leading forces, sustaining forces, and
you'll find superficial forces. That is why it is so difficult to give a definition of civiliza-

tion and to give a definition of our time. In older civilizations the superficial forces are

gone. Only the deciding forces become historical forces, the exceptional forces.

Often you cannot make a definition of something. But then you see something that

strikes you in the bones. You know that is it. You cannot express it, but that is it. It's

like if you meet somebody who is healthy. What could you say, but you know when
somebody is healthy or not. That is what I find so important, particularly in the time

we are in now when this Baroque movement is going on. You call it Baroque or what-
ever. But I think it is a form of Baroque movement against the reasonable, the direct.

In particular, in the time where there is confusion, what could be leading if not rea-
son? That is why we were trying so hard since the '20s, the early '20s, to find what is a

reasonable way to do things. There were people who had a lot of fantasy and sculp-

172
tural interest in the Jugendstil and the Art Nouveau period. They all were, more or
less, fantastic. But very few were reasonable then. I decided when I was quite young
to accept this reasonableness.

1955
J . P. : Do you think that new ways of living will change things?

L . M . V. D. R . : No, I think in principle it will be the same. It can be richer as it devel-

ops. You know, that is very difficult just to make something clear. Then express it in a

beautiful way. They are two different things. But first it has to be clear. I cannot help
it if somebody wants to have forty-story apartments and the apartments have to be
all the same. I can only try to express it in a way that it really comes out and that in

the end it is beautiful.

J
. P. : Are you optimistic about the future of architecture?

L.M.V.D.R.: Certainly, 1 am. I am absolutely optimistic. I think you should not

plan too much and not construct too much these things.

J. P. : So do you envision a time later when a person working from your architectural style
COLONNADE PARK
may evolve a richer . .

APARTMENTS.
.

Ludvuig Mies van der

L . M . V. D. R . : I would not even use this word style for that. I would say if he would Rohe. Newark, New Jersey. J 960. In the first

use the same principle, the same approach. Then he, certainly, if he is talented he building built under Newark's redevelopment
program, Mies placed hundred sixty units
can make it richer. That depends, but it would be in principle not different. five

along a single central corridor, providing half

There is obviously visible now a reaction to my approach in architecture. There is
of the tenants with a view of the Manhattan
no question, but I think it is just a reaction. I don't believe it is a new approach. It is a
skyline and the other half with a view of the

reaction against something that is there. The reaction is a kind of fashion. adjacent public park.

175
Philip Johnson on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1955
I'm working with Mies van der Rohe. I've known him for some thirty-five years and I

was his biographer.

The elegance of simplicity always attracted me to Mies. His Barcelona Pavilion, the

simplicity of which I found only one other place in the history of architecture, and
that is in the Temple of the Sphinx and the entrance to the pyramids in Egypt. It's

done entirely differently, but it's what you can do with the least possible means for

the maximum effect. His slogan "Less is more" means that you'll get the greatest

effects by the simplest means, and that is the highest form of art to him. . . . That
appealed to my Puritan spirit. Somehow I thought we could gain richness through
simplicity. I don't think you can take Mies's words for really what he means. Maybe
he has more emotional content with glass than he admits, but there's no doubt that

time, light, cold and heat, and those things don't appeal to him. His emotion is taken
care of with the shape of the space involved.

There's no reason why the ground floor of Seagram's is twenty-four feet high

instead of twelve feet high. In fact, it's unreasonable from a financial point of view.
But he never even told anybody how high it was. It was just that high. Nobody ever

asked. Of course, if it was put up by a developer like the Uris brothers they would

have asked. But it's just that was that.

1963
He once told me, as sort of being off the record, that he had the H in mind first for
the mullions, because it was a rolled section, you see, in the steel buildings. . . . When
he came to the bronze building or aluminum, there was no point to keeping the H-
section at all for the mullions. Then he tried other shapes. He used to make them out
of wood and hang them on his window and look at them. He said, "Philip, we came
back to the H-section." Although it's an extruded thing, you can extrude any shape
you want. ... I can analyze it after the fact that, without his consciousness, what he
was doing was creating another plane, another skin now eight inches out from the
other side. But he didn't know that, I don't think. I don't think he's that articulate

and conscious of his own motives. You see, to me, he is a very emotional man who
does these processional things with his passion, and then afterwards says, "All I did

was build as simple as possible the thing you could have asked with durable materials.
You must admit, Philip, that bronze is more durable than iron that you have to paint."

He comes back to those simple reasons. Whereas his real impulse is just as passionate

as any other architect's, of course.

He's very much like Mondrian because they're exactly the same age and were good
friends. I mean it's perfectly natural that this would be exactly what he wanted. Yes,

he wanted to restrict his palette. "Less is more," all very Mondrian, very much his

time.

Mies has much more of an idea for processional space than he admits because ver-

174
bally he always talks about good building, "gutes bauen" . . . However, in the SEAGRAM BUILDING. LudwigMies
van der Rohe with Philip Johnson New York
Seagram Building, for instance, you walk at an angle always across the plaza. He .

City. 1958. The meticulous and masterful

made that plaza very wide, wider than I would have proposed it. So that you walk up
detailing of this celebrated Manhattan sky-
or down the avenue. You can't walk across it, because it's a street with a barrier in the scraper reveals why the word Miesian was
middle, you see. So, you cross at an angle in Seagram's. . . . But once in, you go like a introduced into the vocabulary.

bee to your own elevator. There's no doubting. There's no twisting. There's no turn-
ing. There's no looking up at signs. It's the only building in New York where the ele-

vators are turned the way they are. I remember when he said that, he said to me,
"Philip, we will not turn the elevator bank, no matter what that does to the practical-

ity of the rooms above. You must walk from the street to your elevator." It's that kind

of sense of clarity which I inherited from him.

1986
There's no question about the historical roots of this modern movement, but the fact

that it was carried furthest by a couple o\ very great geniuses is interesting. Corbusier
and Mies. There were very good people on the side. There was J.J. P. Oud, who was
my best friend because he talked language you could understand. He was an intellec-

tual. Mies wasn't and Corbusier wasn't. But they were geniuses. But, you see, people
didn't believe that. People believed that Mies, and Mies himself believed, that Mies
was something you could learn. It was too bad that you can't learn Mies. I never

could, so why should anybody be able to? I'm as good a pupil as you can get.

175
Walter Gropius
"The Bauhaus was much more than a school of art
or architecture. we really had an approach to a
new way of life."

Walter Gropius looked and spoke like a professor. His conservative tweed

jacket and bow tie bespoke the campus, and his considered, measured

words had an educator's tone. Characteristically, to assure the accuracy

and precision of some of these recorded remarks, he read a portion that he

had prepared ahead of time.

Gropius fits the professorial image so perfectly, and so much has been

made of his educational contribution to modern architecture in establishing

the Bauhaus and heading the Department of Architecture at hlarvard, that

his talent as a creative architect is frequently underestimated. Gropius's

pioneering works, the Fagus Factory in Alfeld-an-der-ieine and the Bauhaus

at Dessau, were remarkable buildings that had significant impact on the

shape of architecture. The Chamberlain House in Weyland, Massachusetts,

which he designed with Marcel Breuer, became the prototype of small

modern cottages in New England.

I first met Gropius through his daughter Ati, who once worked with me.

He smiled when I told him that as a youngster in Seattle I discovered one of

176
the Bauhaus books ond hid it behind the other books in the museum library
GROPIUS HOUSE. Waiter Gropius

and Marcel Breuer. Lincoln, Massachusetts.

so others would not find these incredible ideas. I later learned that the J937. In his first building in the United States,

Gropius imaginatively combined Bauhaus

Bauhaus, the atom bomb of modern design, was a poorly kept secret. design with the vocabulary of traditional New
England residential architecture — brick
We recorded Gropius in his Lincoln, Massachusetts, home and in the
chimney, screened porch, fieldstonc founda-

tion, and wood clapboard, painted white

Brattle Street, Cambridge, offices of TAC, The Architects' Collaborative.
but applied vertically.

Both the modest house and the name of the firm reflected his quiet but solid

convictions about modern architecture.

1 964
JOHN P ET E R : You studied where!

WALTER G ROPIUS : I studied for a while at the so-called Technische

Hochschule. But I didn't go to the end because I got fed up with it. The students

queued up with their work, then either the professor or the assistants sat down, draft-

ed a little hit in that design, connecting his own stuff onto the student's design.
Then, we took it under our arm and went away, until the next time, we came again.
So it was not our work, and it was just absolutely childishly done. One day I turned

around to say, "I don't do that anymore," and went into practice. That was the archi-

tectural school in Berlin. The classic order was the first course, which didn't mean
anything. There was a big revolution due.

177
 195 5

My teacher from whom I learned most was Peter Behrens. He was the architect of the

AEG, the big electrical concern in Germany. He built some of the factory buildings
and some office buildings which really showed the new trend in daring construction

and different use of materials. At least, it was the beginning of this line.

1 964
Behrens was a personality. He was very clever in many fields, you know. He also went
into industrial production. He did many things for the AEG. He did all the products
for them. I took part in it myself and it turned out very well. 'So this was a very good
school for me. It was definitely fundamental for what I did later.

J . P. : Would you say that Behrens , to an extent, is one of the sources of the Bauhaus idea?
W. G . : Well, perhaps that goes a little bit too far. I mean, the direction, the working
together with industry was very much in Behrens. He came from painting. He was
not an educated architect. He was a painter and made layouts and so on. Then, all of
a sudden, he started to build a house for himself in the colony in Darmstadt. Then he
became interested in architecture, and as a layman he marched into it. He was a tal-

ented man, he made something out of it.

I was in his office for quite a while as his right-hand man and we did all these

things together. He was my master.

195 5

I learned from the practical man in the field. As the foreman of these men I learned
something of building. 1 cannot separate building from designing. 1 think the archi-

tect should be well trained in all the technicalities and know them. Of course, the

field is so large today that one man cannot know all these things, but the main things
he can absorb, then use specific materials and specific constructions where they fit

best.

J . P. : Did anybody give you any architectural advice?

W. G . : There are so many things, you know. I mentioned Peter Behrens, who was my
master, though I, perhaps, have gone bevond what basic things I learned from him

which were most valuable to me. Then, of course, reading and seeing other things, as

well as a personality like Le Corbusier, who really has a great hand in the develop-

ment of modern architecture and a consistency in the development, has also made an
impression on me.

Also, in my early times, I saw a lot of things of Frank Lloyd Wright, who interested

me very much. Of course, in the philosophy of architecture I am on another limb

than he is. He is very strongly an individualist whereas I am very much in favor of

teamwork. I think that the field we have to see today is so large that it is impossible to

have everything in one head. I dare say that even a genius, if he understands how to
develop teams around himself and lead these teams, that the spark that he can give WAITER GROPI US at his office in

can come more to the fore. It can be used better when he has many team helpers Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955

179
 .

than when he is all alone in an ivory tower by himself.

J . P. : Do you recommend this notion of teamwork to your students!

W. G When started these things with my students, they were very much in agree-
. : I

ment. When checked the next day, everyone was in another corner and their con-
I

nection was not forthcoming. We have to train ourselves to do these things, but I

think it is a definite necessity and it is now building.

I believe that not only in our field but everywhere the alignment of many groups
will come more and more. For instance, I just came across a very interesting case

recently. New Jersey did a very good thing as to traffic and roads. But it has put some

neighboring states in the greatest traffic difficulties. You have to relate to the neigh-

bors and to the whole country. With our exchange of traffic, we are bound to line up
with our neighbors and, in the end, with the whole world.

Architecture is coming more and more into the field of planning. Seeing the whole
community build up organically is more and more necessary because the community
is really the projection of the whole life of a certain region. We have to line up with
everyone in that region to know what to do. That doesn't mean that the architect,

who is by nature a coordinator, because he works with so many people in building

and in planning, has to bring the architect into the most important spot on the team.
Twenty-five years ago the best European architects on the modern line joined

hands and built up the so-called CIAM, the Congres Internationaux d' Architecture

Moderne. There we developed from the bottom up the whole approach to rebuilding

our communities. First, by making very broad and very deep analysis in thirty-five dif-

ferent countries. Then, in the end, building up what arts were necessary for it. . . .

Now, after twenty-five years, we want to put the CIAM into the hands of the younger
FAGUS FACTORY. Walter Gropius generation. Next Sunday I have a meeting here with Canadians and with people of
and Adolph Meyer. Alfeld, Germany. N J /
this country preparing for the next congress, which will take place in September in
With an early steel frame and free-standing
Algiers.
glass curtain walls, this shoe-last factory

was a pioneering development in the

So it is already on the way, that responsible architects think very much in terms of

International Style. the whole community. I have always told my students, "I am not interested when you

;80
 ^

build a beautiful design in a gap of a street if you have treated it only as a unit in PACKAGED HOME SYSTEM,
itself, not considering the neighborhood which is already there. You have to blend in PLAN. Walter Gropius with Konrad

Wachsmann. 1942. This innovative house of

with the larger circumstance. This larger circumstance is the main thing and all lim-
bearing wood panels and metal wedge connec-
ited objectives have to be subordinated to the whole."
tors, designed for the General Panel

Corporation, suffered the disheartening fate of

Have you seen in your time a development that makes you optimistic about all prefabricated home ventures launched at
J. P. : this?
that time.
W. G . : I definitely have. But I should say that when I was a young man and started

out with these things, I thought we would do it for three years, everybody would
accept it. But I see now that such a process goes much, much slower because I think

the inertia of the human heart is too great. Man sticks, particularly in our time where

everything has changed, to some visual things he has inherited from his grandpa and

he doesn't let it go.

"The bauhaus was not an insti-

1964 tution WITH A CLEAR PROGRAM. IT

. P. : What was the Bauhaus and how did it begin? WAS AN IDEA AND GROPIUS FORMU-
J

W.G . : Early in my life I discovered that there was so much discrepancy in art and LATED THIS IDEA WITH GREAT PRECI-

architecture that 1 felt that if a man really wanted to make a dent he couldn't do it
SION. The pact that it was an
alone, but that it would be necessary to build up a whole school which would take as IDEA, I THINK, IS THE CAUSE OF THIS

their task to investigate into all the conditions of the present time and find a new ENORMOUS INFLUENCE THE BAUHAUS
approach to all the problems. Out of that came the Bauhaus, which 1 didn't do alone HAD ON EVERY PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL
but with a group of a lot of well-known people today, like the painters Klee, AROUND THE GLOBE. YOU CANNOT
Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, Lyonel Feininger, and others, and out of that we built a DO THAT WITH AN ORGANIZATION.

method of approach how we should prepare our students for life. It was much more YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH PROPA-
than a school of art or architecture. We really had an approach to a new way of life.
GANDA. Only an idea spreads so

The students took part just as much as the faculty of the institute. I must emphasize FAR."

dogma Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

that even seen from today this was not an attempt to create a style or or so.

On the contrary, we fought heavily against doing that. We wanted to find a proper

research process, an open process which remains open and is still open today.

Because it was not for this or that personality, but we tried to find an objective means
of informing the younger man how he should approach all these problems.

181
 B AU H AU S . Walter Gropius Dessau
.
, I may illustrate that with an example. You know Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a
Germany. 1926. This landmark building with
great personality. About a year ago I went to see his school. His widow very brilliant-
its pinwheel plan and early glass curtain
ly has taken over this school. There are still about sixty students. I went around from
walls introduced into architecture many of the

new concepts generated by the celebrated place to place and found that everyone is making second-rate Frank Lloyd Wright
design school. designs. This definitely cannot be the aim of a school. I repeat — for every young man
it must be a great experience to come across a personality like Frank Lloyd Wright,
but from the educational point of view, this is the education of assistants, but not of

independent men.
At the Bauhaus, we tried to find an objective approach, to find all the things that

are derived from the psychology and biology of human life which are objective, which
are proper for everyone who ever takes it. We wanted to inform the student with all

these definite details from these fields and in that way bring him into the position to

find his own way. We definitely tried to destroy any imitation.

It is quite natural that every student will, to a certain degree, imitate his teacher.

That doesn't do harm as long as the teacher tells him, "That is not you. You have
imitated me." Then he will slowly come to his own. I might mention in this regard

Josef Albers, who was a prominent teacher in the Bauhaus and who, in my opinion, is

the ablest teacher in these fields. He, so to speak, throws every student in the pond
when he cannot yet swim. When the student starts drowning, he is then open for
advice. This is the objective way to come to it. Albers has brought that beyond what
we did in the Bauhaus. He found an approach to treat every student in a different

way, individually, but always giving him only the objective information. He never

puts his own approach on him. This we did all together in the Bauhaus, and such

independent men like the names I mentioned joined hands with me to really carry

this way through.

J . P. : Tell me, how did the name Bauhaus come about!

W. G . : I have coined this word. You know, bauen has a much wider meaning in the

182
German language than it does in the English one. The Bauer is the peasant. Bauen

is very broad, you know, and so we want ... I wanted to have an expression of an
institute which treats bauen with a very wide variety in any direction, even building

up the human being, you know. So this is a much wider margin than, say, "architec-

ture" or "building" in the English language. That was the reason for this word. The
house for bauen, the house for building.

J
. P. : Was there something in the Deutsche Werkbund that established the climate in which

the Bauhaus was created?

W. G . : You must remember that the German people had lost this big war, the First

World War. In everyone's mind was now we have to start fresh again. We have to
investigate everything which we have done and try to get into a fresh approach. This
was really very definite in everyone's mind when I made this first pamphlet to call

people to the Bauhaus, and students came who had just returned from the war, were

in a rather shaky position, without any money and so on. But I managed somehow
with the wording of this pamphlet to stimulate them. They came and were open to

find, to start a new approach to all these problems. And you know, so far the acade-

mies were rather sterile. They were separate trom the life and we wanted to bring

these things together again. We wanted to investigate what were the instruments of
our life and how can we work for them and not have this separating wall between art

on one side and the flowing life on the other side. So we had to investigate step by

step the means of production today.

We started out with a craft because, in my opinion, the machine is only a refined

hand-tool, and without knowing the basic things of hand tools, the basic crafts, we
don't understand the industry. So we asked everyone to go for a few years in one of
our workshops and learn the craft properly. And you know, the craft in Germany was
still a very strong thing. The craftsmen were still organized — that's something one
doesn't know here, for instance, that the craftsmen had to fulfill certain requirements.

We wanted somebody to take his exam as a craftsman before three craftsmen in the

community.
In addition to that, in the Bauhaus, were also all these technical staffing problems

involved. For instance, when I tried to find teachers for the Bauhaus, I knew that

there was no man in the world anymore who simultaneously was able to design a new
chair and to make that chair. There were excellent craftsmen who could do any-
thing — a Rococo chair, or a modern chair, or whatever — when the design was given
him. On the other side, there were good designers, but they were not integrated. In

the beginning I put as the heads o{ the workshop one artist and one craftsman, and
in the second Hof, in Dessau, it was not necessary anymore to have this separation

because now there was a new crew where in one man we had the knowledge of the

craft as well as the artistic approach.

J . P. : Did other people feel that the artist and the architect should be joined with

industry?

W. G . : Some people have felt the same thing, but as it always is with new ideas,

J 83
 there were a lot of fights against it. We had to fight our way through every day. Every
day it was very hard to come through. I look backwards today, after what I know now,
I wonder if I would dare to start something like that again. I would say, "How could
I ?" But at that time, you know, when you are a young man and full of beans, then you

have the impression that you will never die, and you go on, on, on. But it was a very,

very heavy uphill fight and only very slowly was it recognized.

Particularly the problem to bring art and production of the day close to each other
were looked very askance from many people, particularly the artists. They didn't like

that at all. They wanted to be entirely separate in their ivory tower and we wanted to
have that ivory tower destroyed. We wanted to pull the artist into the life of the peo-

ple again, you know. We all agreed it was the right way of doing it. This, of course,

took a long while before it was recognized in a broader way because we were not only
fought by the population, but also in the end by the government, where we were
pushed out of Weimar. That's how the mayor of Dessau gave us the opportunity to
build everything up again. Then came the Nazi regime and destroyed the Bauhaus
altogether. I had been in the Bauhaus only nine years and my successors had been
there altogether for five years. That was the whole Bauhaus. But in spite of that, in

spite this uphill fight, I can state today that the idea of the Bauhaus has really spread,

has penetrated through, not only in this country, but very much so in England, in

Italy, in Japan, and even other countries. From Russia all of a sudden quite a lot of

examples that they recognize also the possibilities of the Bauhaus. Because it was not
a style approach, but it was an idea approach, and an idea is not personal but imper-
sonal. Every day it can be in a new way. It's a method of approach.

J. P. : The Bauhaus lasted only fourteen years, from 1919 to J 933. What were the stan-

dards by which you were able to choose the people who taught, or how did they happen to

POINT AND LINE TO PLANE. come?

Vasily Kandinsky. Solomon R. Guggenheim
W. G . : You know, I obviously had a lucky hand to get my people because all these
Foundation, New York. 1947. Originally

published in German as Punkt und Linie zu

names like Kandinsky, Klee, and Feininger were utterly unknown at the time. I knew
Flache, Bauhausbucher, Munich. 1926. they were strong in themselves, but it was a jump into the dark to get them in.

This is one of the fourteen books published This is an answer for those who think this was a very rigid, rationalized approach.
b^ the Bauhaus to present the school
It was not. How else would I have taken these artists into the institute? I wanted to
and its teachings to the public.
have infiltration from both sides, the technical and the organizational part on the
one side and the richness of the artist on the other. Out of that came what I called,

when we made the first exhibition, Art and Technique in New Unity. That was the
title of the exhibition. We were pressed to make an exhibition by the government of
Weimar. So we went out and did it in 1923. This exhibition made quite a bit of clash.

Many people also came from other countries. We see, already, the beginning of this

method or approach, as I call it.

Klee was teaching. Klee was perhaps the personality that was never put in question

by any one of the faculty or the students. He was always somewhat aloof, but he was
strongly in the whole thing. His teaching was very basic, completely fresh and new.
We still have quite a lot of his type of teaching. He was very strong. Kandinsky also

had a strong line of himself, which he developed. My point was that if I nominated

184
somebody for the staff in the Bauhaus, he was on his own. One can only say to a per-
sonality completely "yes" or completely "no." Then you have to let go. But there were
some basic things we agreed upon in our meetings, particularly in the first years. We
had an enormous amount of meetings between the faculty and the students to come
to terms, to a certain understanding, particularly to find these objective things.

When came I to this country, I heard at Harvard this expression, "the arts and sci-

ences." So I tried to investigate this. In science, I found everything was very clear.

Art? Art was always art appreciation, or reading poetry or looking at paintings to

appreciate them and so on, but not making paintings, making poetry, making archi-

tecture. This is still so, you know. It is a little bit better now in Harvard. Now they

have a visual art institute which tries to go in there, but it isn't believed in yet proper-

ly. Art is still on the margin. It is not really absorbed or integrated into the whole.

This goes away only by a deep educational system starting from the nursery on
through the whole system.

J
. P. : There is no such t/img as science appreciation, is there!

W. G . : No. I think a true democracy must be balanced on all sides. Today we have
an overemphasis on the science side because we think too much of all the practical

outcome of the sciences. From the cultural point of view I think art must balance that

out. There, we are in abeyance because the artist is still the forgotten man. He is not

really recognized as an essential member of society, which he is.

J . P. : Is this partly the artist's fault!

W.G . : Sure. It's always from various sides. But with less and less understanding for

art because it is pressed aside by this enormous science development. I by no means

talk against science. It's something wonderful that has to be developed. Only the

GRADUATE CENTER, HARVARD

UNIVERSITY. Walter Gropius with The
Architects' Collaborative. Cambridge,
Massachusetts . 1950. Designed in the new
International Style, these seven residential

blocks with interlocking courtyards linked by

covered walkways around a commons building

represented a bold departure from the tradi-

tional Neo'Ceorgian red brick style of

Harvard.

185
effort was too much on one side and the other side was forgotten. The artist felt he
was forgotten by the people, he went into his ivory tower and worked there for him-
self. For me, the explanation for abstract art is that the artist couldn't give the con-

tent any more of what was happening in the time. He was apart. He was on the

margin. Now we try to pull him in again, and for that the Bauhaus was instrumental.
Imagine in the Middle Ages, the craftsman was the artist. He made the thing and

he was the businessman. He did everything together. Then came the subdivision of

all these things and the craftsman was left only with some handwork, doing some-
thing which others told him to do. They were no longer the rounded, independent

personalities that the craftsmen o{ the Middle Ages were. In this country where are
the craftsmen? The best craftsmen have gone into industry, making models and dies

because that's the best paid. It needs a very neat hand, you know. But the craftsman
of old hardly exists.

J . P. : You still feel the importance of working in collaboration with other people in your

own profession.

W. G . : Very strongly so. The time has become so complicated. There are so many
phases that one individual is unable to cover it all. In my field, in architecture, it's so

obvious. How can you bridge that? In my opinion you can bridge it only by creating a

well-oiled team. What is that? It's not so easy. It's easily said, but the team cannot be
made by a boss who says you and you and you work together. This doesn't work.
Teamwork must be done on a voluntary basis. If I like a person and we want to do
something together with this third one and the fourth one, that's a group. They want
to do it. But then they have to learn among themselves, first to take criticism from
one another and not feel offended. We have to learn that. It's a long process.

Now it's true, of course, that the spark comes always from the individual. When
you have a team and they are really vibrating, they are interested in carrying through

certain ideas. In discussion you make a remark which stimulates something in me and
in the end I don't know anymore who was the initiator of that idea. It's a chain

process from one to the other. Out of that develops something further and something

better. Particularly my ideas are controlled by others and I control the ideas of others.

We enrich each other if it is done in the right way. But the spark comes always from
the individual.

We've worked here in this office seventeen years together. It so happens that a job

has one of us as the leader. We come together several times a week to discuss all our

design work and the leader has to present what he has done so far and then we criti-

cize, very much so. He still may take or leave our criticism. The decision is left to

him. Of course, he has learned to listen to get the good suggestions and work them
in. There's still a lot of things which can be improved, but teamwork is not such an
obvious thing. It has really to be developed. I think in the future we will come more
and more to it. For me it is the basis of democracy, because I have to work together
with another person. The basis of democracy is the collaboration from man to man,
and then we can build up something which works also in larger units.

I forgot to say something which just came to mind. How can something like an

186
idea like the Bauhaus spread? When we say that we have to improve education, that

education should incorporate these things, then I say we can do it only by creating
small concentrated nuclei from which the idea spreads. This nuclei should be built up

in a very strong way, taking in only the very best and dropping everything else. It is

not a problem of magnitude. Bauhaus was very small. We had eighty to one hundred
and twenty students, you know, and we had such a short time. But still it spread

because it was intense in itself. This intensity is necessary. When there's a new idea

and something new has to be tried out in, say, a children's school, you should select a
few of the best teachers one can find as well as the students. It will make itself felt, if

they put themselves in it and do a good searching. I always say that we need search

more than research.

J . P. : How many teachers were there?

W. G . : Well, all in all, perhaps twenty. Over the first years there were not more than
eighty students, and later it came to, as I remember, one hundred and fifty students.

That was the maximum, never more.

The orientation course was the basic thing of the Bauhaus. It was started first by

Johannes Itten and then was taken over by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers.
Everyone contributed to it including myself. We developed a course to bring the

young man, quite unprejudiced, into doing things with his hands with different mate-
rials and learning by going into these things. I did not project my own approach into

the student's mind but tried to help the student on his own line. This is what's neces-

sary.

Even within the Bauhaus, you know, there were very strong viewpoints. We were
able to handle it on an objective basis. A certain unification of ideas came out of all
of us together. The young students took part in this strongly. There was a very strong

personality in Oskar Schlemmer, who is not yet known enough in the world. I'm

absolutely sure that he's the coming master because he had such a strong personal

approach, particularly from the painter's point of view — a very individual approach

to space. I have seen an exhibition of his life work now in the academy in Berlin half

a year ago. It was wonderful, really wonderful.

We had a Bauhaus orchestra and they did quite a lot. They even made some com-
positions. They were in all our festivities. When there was some cramp in the school,

or some fight in the school, I right away made a fete and gave them two days to

arrange that fete. The most wonderful things came out of what the Bauhaus made for

these festivities. Then the air was right again. It was a safety valve all the time. They
were really creative in these things. There was Schlemmer, who was excellent as a

stage man. He very often did the themes. For instance, the white fete or striped fete.

Then everyone developed his costume on that theme. It was wonderful.

J. P. : Some people have associated the use of an all lower-case alphabet with the Bauhaus.

Others have said that this was partly because there was a strong feeling against the exces-

sive capitalization of the German language.

W. G . : Yes, this was part of it. Of course, it goes faster on the typewriter if you have

187
only small 'letters. We did it for a long time. We tried all these things. There was
always some practical meaning as well as some aesthetic intentions. But definitely this

was done for several years. I also wrote my letters that way. I gave it up later on, par-

ticularly in the English language where it doesn't mean that much.

J . P. : You had worked in architecture before. Was architecture the base or the catalyst in

which all could participate?

W. G . : The basic idea was to develop architecture. But as it was the last thing, after

everyone had gone through the workshops, 1 never had sufficient money to build it up
in the ways I wanted to build it up. It was always a small cell. That small cell, of

course, had a strong influence on the institute, but I wanted to have a real institute
built up out of it and I couldn't do it because I didn't have the money. Then my suc-

cessor, Hannes Meyer, did a little bit more of that. He somewhat widened out archi-

tecture. Mies van der Rohe, the last director, did a little bit more for the architecture

department. But none of us could really build it up in the way that we wanted to

have it because the time ran out.

The most lively time, of course, was when we came to Dessau. I designed the new
Bauhaus building and had all the workshops collaborate on the whole thing. All the

lamps, furniture, textiles, lettering, and everything was done in our workshops. This

was a very lively time, of course, because this was for real. We have a lot of examples

of what became of certain Bauhaus models. We find them everywhere, the lighting

fixtures, chairs and things, which everybody knows the source of today. We made con-
tracts with firms to give them fully executed models, not just on paper. We sent peo-
ple out into the factories to study their methods of designing and producing. They
came back and we developed the full model for them. Then we got royalties from the

business of these various manufacturers.

J. P. : Do you feel that designers should do a wide range of activities?

W. G . : I'm very much against artificial boundaries because the principles are all the

same for everything in our surroundings. It's left to the individual to decide what he's

most interested in. I have gone in many directions myself and tried this and that
because I was interested in it. I have built quite a few vehicles, not only automobiles,

but some sleeping cars for the German railway.

J . P. : Was this possible because of the times?

W. G . : You hear now the expression, "the Golden Twenties," you know. In Germany
that was really from the cultural point of view, because everyone was terribly poor.

There was this terrific inflation. When I, as the director of the Bauhaus, got my
salary, I rushed into a grocery and bought because after an hour it was worth half
that much. Money was just absurd at that time. It was incredible.

When we opened the exhibition in 1923, which is still talked about today, the

money we got from the government ran out completely. We didn't have anything left

because inflation had just swept it We didn't even have the money to have peo-
away.

ple who could wash the floors. Our wives did We did everything to the very last
it.
 .

ourselves. We used to Laugh about how little money there had been for the Bauhaus. BAUHAUS MASTER HOUSES.
Walter Gropius. Dessau, Germany. 1925. The
There were so many factors that came together. There was that push after the war,
duster of three semidetached duplexes and a
when some people really got fed up with what happened, you know, the kaiser and all
separate house for the director related in style
that. Of course, there were terrible political dangers because the young people went to the nearby main building, also designed b;y

too far left. I had to be very tough and say, "In the Bauhaus there are no politics. Gropius.

What you do outside, I don't care, but as soon as we become host to the left, we are

immediately destroyed." I was very strong to hold the line. Otherwise we would haw
been lost.

The beginning of the Nazis was in Weimar. They became stronger and stronger.
They pushed us out and didn't give us any more of our money, which we needed for

the institute. We declared the Bauhaus closed in order to end it quicker than they.

We got offers from four different cities in Germany. Dessau was the best offer and we
went there.

J . P. : / didn't realize that the first closing was also affected by the Nazis

W. G . : Yes. They made it a bargaining apple for the party, you know, which is always

wrong to do with cultural things. Cultural things must be left out, otherwise it's very

dangerous because the artist has no way of defending himself on a political level. He
can't do that. So they squeezed us out because the Nazis smelled what we were doing
was certainly not on their line. So they were automatically enemies from the
beginning.

J . P. : Were you able to carry on the Bauhaus approach at Harvard?

W. G . : No. At the very end of my time in Harvard I had fought for it. President

Conant gave a little sum to build up such a preliminary course for the student. But
we didn't have any workshops, you know. Because I believed that designing and build-

ing were too much apart, 1 asked the school to take care of the student on the build-
ing site. Then made I a contract with the contractors' organization of Massachusetts

189
 —

IMPINGTON COLLEGE, CLASS- to place my students in the field during the summer. I do not mean laying bricks
ROOM WING. Walter Gropius and this is also very good — hut I mean that an older student should learn the process of
Maxwell Fry. Cambridgeshire, England. 1936.
building, because you cannot learn how to flash a roof well from the drafting board.
The classrooms of this early modern, single-

story school enjoyed natural light from both

You have to see it in the flesh. You don't even know the sequence of all the processes.

sides and opened onto the surrounding lawn. How a building is put together. You have to see that in the field. But our people don't
learn that way.

J . P. : Architecture does not have an internship, like medicine.

W. G . : Internship is an office, but this is something else. I think he has to be in the

field.

You will not find that many of my students at Harvard are Gropius imitators. I

destroyed that. I wanted to have a man who is as strong as possible in himself, per-

haps completely different from myself. Then he could build up something on his own.

Some brilliant architects today who have been my students are completely different

J 90
from myself — like Paul Rudolph and I. M. Pei and quite a lot of others. This is what I UNITED STATES EMBASSY.
Walter Gropius with The Architects'
wanted to happen.
Collaborative. Athens, Greece. 1961. The
In Germany I was the successor of van de Velde, who was a very great artist and a
two-story marble-clad building features a
wonderful personality, but who also educated only small van de Veldes. I ended up formal square plan with an open central court.

with that. I thought that was not the right thing. This was the real change in the It is a handsome realization ofGropius's

desire to respect Greece's classical spirit in

Bauhaus, a completely different approach.
thoroughly modern terms.

J . P. : How do you feel specifically about the future of the Bauhaus idea!

W. G . : I think as long as I look hack it increases all the time. It still increases, you

know. It's so enormous. Everything is alive and has to he changed. The conditions are

different every day. We have to he flexible. We should take this on with our individual

gifts. This is only a direction. Everyone with their individual gifts will do something
with it. I'm very much against these fixed ideas, you know. The moment they are

fixed, they have to move. As long as it's an open process, it's alive. When it's closed,

it's dead. The Bauhaus is a ferment which is still there and growing.

191
Eero Saarinen
"a building is a form placed between the ground and
the sky. Then you ask yourself, 'What is the best
damned form to place between these two?'"

We recorded Eero Saarinen in his office and in his comfortably modern,

remodeled nine-room Victorian house in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, not far

from Cranbrook Academy, where his father, Eliel, had been director. Like his

father, Eero believed, "Architecture has always to be considered an art."

"Until his death," Eero explained, "I worked in the form of my father." In the

next dozen years of Eero's abbreviated career, he created both forms and a

fame of his own.

With his staff or a stranger, it was his nature to turn a talk into a discussion,

asking questions as well as offering answers. He combined casualness with

intensity to a greater degree than anyone I ever met. His shirt collar open

and sleeves rolled up, between slow puffs on a briar pipe, he explored

ideas with a probing mind, often clarifying them with diagrams and quick

sketches. Whether he was talking, as we walked through the General

Motors Technical Center, or at work on the model of the St. Louis arch in his

studio, I was struck by Eero's characteristically methodical exploration of

options. His solutions were varied but never cautious. Eero's Scandinavian

192
heritage come through not only in his accent but olso in his concerns. He TWA TERMINAL, KENNEDY
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
said, "I look for the day when our spiritual qualities catch up with our Eero Saarinen. New York City. 1962. With its

great interlocking concrete vaults and sculp-

physical advances. Then our architecture will take an important place in
tured forms throughout, this passenger air

terminal anticipates the excitement of flight.

history with the Gothic and the Renaissance."

1 956
JOHN PETER: When you were young, did anybody give you some particularly good

advice regarding architecture!

EERO SAARINEN: The great majority of advice I have received comes from my
father. You see, I practically grew up under his drafting tahle and then when I was old
enough to get on top, 1 was drawing on the other end of it. Of course, there is much
advice, like when he would erase things he would say, "It's never too late to change,"

and so on.

J . P. : Do you feel that way yourself?

E.S.: I feel that way up to a certain point. He also corrected me when I took that

one too seriously, hut I think that the greatest advice I've had is, mayhe, an advice in

attitude. I am talking ahout the profession of architecture now. We've only been
architects of single buildings, with very little regard for what goes on left or right or

in front of that building. Partly because we've been in such a tremendous growth that
whatever was to the left or right of our building would be changed in a few years

J 93
 GENERAL MOTORS later. This has meant that we've concentrated on the single, lone building only, but
TECHNICAL CENTER. we have accomplished very little in total look of our cities.
Eero Saarinen. Warren, Michigan.
I think that it is now time that we take that Cinerama view of our work instead of
J956. This structure is typical of the

gleaming complex: twenty-five buildings

the narrow-angle view of our work. I've been fortunate in projects that I've been

with brightly colored side-walls surround a working on, which are mostly university problems, and the same thing holds true in

formal man-made lake with programmed this respect for the General Motors Technical Center. They've all been projects
fountains and a stainless steel water tower.
where the total environment is the important thing. In the university plans where

you have several existing buildings like the rocks around a Frank Lloyd Wright house,

they influence, they tone down, or they do certain things to whatever you build. For

instance, the domed auditorium at MIT and the chapel next to it, a great deal of

effort and time was spent trying to relate those to the surrounding buildings. In archi-

tecture, just as in color, you either contrast or you complement. That is the situation,

but it is not as easy as that.

In other problems, such as university campuses, I am very concerned with just how
we build within the modern idiom to go with older buildings that are its permanent
neighbors. Frankly, I see very few of my colleagues really taking on that responsibility.

Sometimes they are forced into it by the client and the result usually is the same kind

of material or the same kind of color or something.

In Europe they have older permanent cities. I think the tradition of the

Scandinavians is different from the Germans, where the whole city planning is influ-

enced. Thanks to my father, probably, I am very interested in this. I think the Latins

have done very little in that. They would like to fight the old and impose a complete-
ly new. That's quite a strong contrast between those parts.

Specifically at MIT, I was not so much concerned with the dome having a relation-

ship with the other domes. I was more concerned with what is the best possible build-

ing to place in among several, approximately five- or six-story, buildings. An

auditorium done as a squarish box, which can be done, would have been lower than

those buildings and it just did not seem to fit there. It would have blocked the space,
would have just looked like a lesser cousin of the other buildings. Maybe without win-
dows, because an auditorium has less need for windows or windows of a different

scale. Therefore, its shape that started from the ground, went up and then returned
to the ground seemed to be in better contrast with the surrounding buildings.

Just one more moment on relating buildings to buildings of another period. The

J 94
example which I always use, and which I guess everybody uses and which is the best

one, is Piazza San Marco. Piazza San Marco is the most beautiful place in the world. It

has four different kinds of architecture, built during a period of one thousand years,

four or five different materials. But in its space, in the mass of the surrounding build-
ings, in the ultimate use to which each style is put to emphasize the total, it's probably

the best. I think it is the best that man has achieved or probably ever will achieve.

1958
J. P. : You have often talked about the relationship of architecture to its surroundings.

E.S. : I am really very enthusiastic about that phase of architecture, how that phase of

architecture was really sort of a completely forgotten one, how we in America had
made sort of terrible blunders in that — that thought really took me back to the care

that was put into the unity of the public square or the unity of the city, really, in my
father's time in Finland and also in present-day Scandinavian environment.

Now because I'm enthusiastic about that, I think that when you have an environ-

ment like a university or a campus where most of the surrounding buildings are of a

permanent setting, boy, you have no right to ruin that setting by your individual fancy
or by just producing something straight out of the Architectural Forum or the other
magazines. I think you have this obligation to look at the problem very, very carefully.

But these kind of problems become really terribly complex. If you get all enthusiastic

about just conforming with the surrounding buildings, what do you really do? Are you
then apt to weaken the architecture by adding some little frills and little things?

Well, as an example, three or four days ago, I looked at a campus where a very good

modern architect did a building which went well with the eclectic surrounding build-

ings. In fact, he did an extremely good job of tying the old and the new together in his

building, and his building is a very interesting building. There were several interesting

things produced in that building because of that need of tying the two together, but
then one also asks oneself, "Is his building a significant building?" And that's where it

might fall down. Not only do you have to be in scale, in material, in mass, and in plan,

not only do you have to do that, but do it in relation to the surrounding. Boy, you also
have to be a proud builder of your own time. Don't show weakness. These are all spe-

cialized problems. These are really mostly campus problems.

J . P. : In your Women's Dormitory at the University of Pennsylvania was this a part of the

problem?

E.S. : Well, there were many other problems such as a right-of-way running diagonally

through the site, which made it almost impossible to make any kind of site plan except

the one that we did make.

In the case of Pennsylvania, I felt that brick, which is so dominantly their material,

just had to be also the material for this building in spite of the fact that I was more
interested in building in some other materials, which I'll come to later. But in this case

brick seemed to be the answer.

Now then, the other problem that we faced and, I think, solved. The surrounding

buildings are fairly old buildings and, therefore, their floor height was fifteen, sixteen

J 95
 ,

feet. Dormitories that you build today, for economic and other reasons, have floor
heights of eight foot six inches. In other words almost half this scale. So you have the

problem of relating a building with floor heights almost half the scale to these tremen-
dously scaled buildings around, more or less, in the Renaissance and Gothic style,

whichever they were, but always of brick.

What we did was actually knit the wall together into a pattern of vertical and hor-

izontal windows. Now this sounds terrible, but we really have three kinds of windows,

vertical, horizontal, and square. Then placing them in a pattern over the elevation,

we really created, with the vertical windows, sort of an impression of double scale,

double of the single room, double of the room in width, and double of the floor in

height. In that way we sort of pulled it back into the same scale as the surrounding
buildings. Otherwise it's a very simple building.

Now, I want to get on to the second point. I believe very much that you test the

thing by the extremes. How could you not honor that? Think of some of the things

that are going on where architects are putting onto campuses, in the abstract, per-

fectly good modern buildings that in their own surroundings, or in no surroundings at

all, would be a perfectly good piece of architecture, but in the total relationship with

other buildings are just horrible.

J. P. : Eero, you mentioned this thought in relation to buildings like the MIT buildings.
E.S. : Good question. That's why I hesitate. I was there about three or four days ago
just at MIT itself. I was looking at the buildings in relation to the surrounding build-

ings and possible future buildings and so on. I must say, the brick of the chapel blends

in extremely well with the total picture. The chapel was really too small a building to

separate itself out completely. Now it separates itself out in mass. I can ask you, would
you rather have seen a square chapel I Do you think it would have gone better with
the other buildings? Or should we have put fake windows to make it go with the other
buildings? You see, here was a building of an entirely different kind, different use. All

the buildings that it has to go with are brick walls punctured with little windows. The
chapel was a building that did not need that kind of window, so you can't relate them

by knitting the surfaces together. Besides, the buildings immediately around that are
no damned good and may come down. I hope so. But by doing it round, by getting

the round surface in relation to the square surfaces, sort of separated out, by the

KRESGE AUDITORIUM,
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY. Eero Saarinen.
Cambridge. 1955. This thin-shell concrete

dome resting on three points on a grassy plaza

provides the auditorium with a great,

unobstructed interior.

EERO SAARINEN
at home in Bloomfield Hills

Michigan, 1956

196
 material being the same, but only more forceful in the chapel, by being round and by

being the stronger texture of brick, I think it goes very well there.

Now, the auditorium, again, I say the same thing. The problem was we were sur-

rounded by a ring of roughly six-story buildings on all sides and the auditorium was to

be in the middle. Now, what better can you do then place a form there which grows
from the ground up and then returns to the ground again, sculpturally, I think, it has
the right relationship.

J . P. : It's a relationship in the sense of contrast.

E S . . : Yes. Now London — I think the U.S. Embassy in London is a different kind of

a problem. You see, there we are not building a chapel or an auditorium, we are really

building a building that has to have windows roughly spaced equally as all the other

windows around.
On Grosvenor Square, you know, the buildings around are pseudo-Georgian build-

ings. Georgian is basically a three-story architecture with a beginning, a middle, and

an end. The end being a roof with the dormers in it. On Grosvenor Square the build-

ings have a definite plan for continuing that so that it becomes a solid mass of this

type of neo-Georgian. It's like if you take a face and you have the chin and the mouth
which is the base but instead of a nose you put in about four noses in height, and

then, instead of a forehead, you add a couple of foreheads on. It's sort of overgrown
Georgian with these eight-story buildings all the way around. Now, they are not great

buildings, we recognize that, but they are permanent. They are the permanent sur-

roundings of that square. Whatever we place on that square really has to live with

them.
We worked quite hard to determine what was the right thing in mass. Really the
problems are mass, material, scale, and how do you answer those? Do you carry any

lines around? Do you put a Georgian roof on Do you make it out of brick? Do you
it?

have the same kind of a base, this low chin again? What do you?

I felt very strongly that this was a case where the total of the restful square, which

this has an opportunity of being, should not be violated. Just suppose again an

extreme, just suppose we decided to do a Georgian building exactly like the others

UNITED STATES EMBASSY.

Eero Saarinen. London, i960. This

chancellery was designed to dominate

Grosvenor Square, although its Portland

stone is harmonious with the Georgian-

style buildings along the other three

sides of the square.

J 98

_
there. Well, this is an embassy. The others are apartment houses. It would not only
be wrong against our time, but it would also be wrong against the meaning of the
building. This embassy really has to, in a sense, capture the square. The other three

sides are really the setting for this most important building on the square.
In the buildings on the other three sides, brick is the dominant material, but stone,

the Portland stone, is the trim material. By using the Portland stone, by making the

entire building out of that material, making the three other sides of the square just

the beginning for the fine side, the embassy, the proudest side of the square. And by,

in mass, creating a base so that the building stands a little bit higher than the other
buildings, it doesn't come straight down to the ground. It has this sloping base and

then the fence around it. Then the building cantilevers up above the piano nobile. I

think we've created enough of a special thing out of this building and still in total not

violated the square at all.

Boy, I really had a terribly interesting time in London. I was talking at the AA,
Architectural Association, and gave this speech. Afterwards the English students

and the young architects were there with the most gracious thanks which they put in

the most beautiful English language. They speak marvelously. They don't do terribly

good architecture, but, boy, they can speak about architecture. They told me how
well I presented the case and so forth.

Then with a knife they got in after it. In general, they were saying isn't this rather

a reactionary thing to put on Grosvenor Square, to bow to the material, to bow to the

surroundings to that extent. Well, for the particular place, for the particular problem,

and for the total problem of government architecture, I sincerely don't think of bow-
ing to the place as much as they think it is.

You see, everybody is fighting their own battle and are looking for support for that

battle. That's the way we read history. That's the way we look at other people's archi-

tecture. These English are terribly enthusiastic about curtain-wall construction.

They would just have loved it if I had built a building with glass and aluminum. If I

had put General Motors there. That's what they were looking for because that would

support their own fight.

Now, I think we were the first ones ever to do curtain-wall construction and I

think we really know more about it than anybody else and so on. But this just did not

seem to be the place for it and that I'm sure of. Now, we talked long enough about
how to relate buildings to older buildings, which sometimes is quite a burden.

J
. P. : What about the relation of an architect to a civic problem, such as your own
Jefferson Memorial?
E.S. : I'm terribly interested in Jefferson. That one I would like to build more than
anything else. As you know, we have now come to an agreement with the railroad, so

that if Congress says yes to the whole thing we may go ahead. I would very much like

to build this stainless-steel arch and the whole park. The design now is really a much
simpler thing than the original design that we did in '48. Now, the lines of the park,

the approaches and everything, are really the same kind of linear forms as the arch

itself.

199
 JEFFERSON NATIONAL J . P. : Do you feel that you've lost something?
EXPANSION MEMORIAL. Eero E.S. : No, gained in everything. You know, architecture is really impact. The value
Saarinen. St. Louis, Missouri. J 962. This
of architecture is the impact it has on human beings. Now, if you dissipate your
audacious stainless-steel arch, sited in Jefferson

National Memorial Park along the Missouri

impact by saying different things, either contradictory or confusing things, then it

River, dramatically commemorates the city's loses its strength. Also, I think, you have to overstate. In going back to some of the
role as the gateway to the beckoning West. work that we've done and completed, looking at it with the cold eyes of daylight,
some of the work was just terribly good ideas but they were not stated strongly
enough or they were dissipated with lots of other ideas. Now, how do you correct

that?

First of all, I'm beginning to feel more and more that your idea has to be strong

enough. It has to be good enough. Then you have to put all your eggs in one bas-
ket — that idea. Everything in the building has to really support that idea because,

going back to impact, people really don't look. Most people are blind. If you get too
subtle about architecture, if you go from one proportioned room to another propor-
tioned room to a third proportioned room and you plan well and beautiful how these
proportions relate just one to another, well, people come in and walk through it and
never notice the difference. We're cultivated people, more or less, in other things, but

MILWAUKEE WAR MEMORIAL.

Eero Saarinen. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1957.

Designed both as a monument on a high bluff

and a gateway to the park extending down to

Lake Michigan, this dramatic concrete building

houses an art museum, meeting halls, and a

memorial court with a pool.

200
as far as appreciating architecture, we are a nation of barbarians. I think you need the

strong impact to be appreciated. But that isn't all, you also need the strong impact to
really get the idea across.

J. P. : In the case of Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis, you would say that the changes have

ended up b;y making it better.

E S . . : Yes. Let's say we made two kinds of changes in the plans. One, to solve the

practical problem of the approach, putting the railroad tunnels underneath without
too much grades and without too much cost. In doing so, we have actually relocated

the monument. The arch in the earlier plans was right on the levee. From the city

you went down to it. It was almost at the bottom of the bowl. Now, because of practi-
cal things, we had to raise it up. It's not only the practical things that made me want
to raise it up. I also started thinking what vertical monuments are there that you

approach going downhill and the only one I could think of was the sunken ship at

the bottom of the Spanish Steps in Rome. You cannot place a vertical monument at

the bottom of some steps.

Now the arch is in a sense a vertical monument on one axis and a wide monument
in another. I think now we have the approaches worked out just right so that in a

thousand years this will still be the right relationship between the monument, the

river, the park, and the city. You become much more conscious of the relationship of
the monument to the city because there are some fairly high buildings there. It's also

good to bring the base of the arch up. Actually, we may want to make that arch a

little bit higher.

The second thing was in the reworking of the lines of the park, the roads, the

approaches to the thing to introduce the same kind of lines inherent in the arch

itself, the parabolic line.

You see, all these things relate. You know, you work on a chair, you work on getting

the same kind of lines on the top of the chair, on the bottom of the chair, and so on.
That then relates and through that you get a certain dexterity with curved lines. That
dexterity is then built up more in a problem like TWA, which was all curved lines

and curved planes. In fact, with all the fellows in the project, not only myself and

Kevin Roche, but also Cesar Pelli and the others, who worked for months and
months on these curved lines, really for about half a year, didn't work on a single

straight line. They become terribly good and terribly sensitive to the curved line, the

curved plane, and so on.

Now, in the middle of the changes I saw for the first time that really in relation to

the arch, the park, the roads, the approaches to the park should all be done within
that same curved-form world, which it wasn't before. You see, before it was put
together with many different, well related things, but of many different form worlds.
Now it's going to he all one.

J
. P. : You, in a sense, are replanning a section of St. Louis, which is perhaps the most

exciting part of that city.

E. S. : Yes. In the problems of urban renewal, I really can't say very much because

201
I've not had enough experience in that. We've not done an urban renewal project.
The St. Louis one is, of course, peculiar. We are doing the design. We have a client
which consists of many city officials, the National Parks Service, the interested citi-

zens, and the mayor of St. Louis, Mayor Tucker, who is a marvelous man. These are

all people we enjoy working with greatly.

There were, of course, the days when your client was just one big man with a big

mustache or something and those days are gone. You just work with the corporate
client or the sort of the urban client.

J . P. : You haven t found this much different than when you were working with a corporate

body?

E S . . : Well, in the sense the corporate body is lots of people and so is the city.

Sometimes the corporation has a way of making up its mind a little bit faster than a
city, but I have no criticism in relation to the arch.

1956
We were talking about concepts and how a building is conceived. I think maybe one
of the things which has been lacking in our day is how is a building perceived. The
seldom-perceived thing in architecture is perception. You come to a building in a cer-

tain way. You enter a door. You grasp a door handle. You see the frame of the door.
You come into a space. You don't know what is going to happen beyond it. You come
into a dark space and then it opens up into a light space. The series of perceptions

that happen to you when you come in, we're not master of that in our modern archi-

tecture.

For instance, 1 always remember one traditional, awful French house north of

Chicago where this was marvelously done. The series of things that happened to you,

the surprises, the development from one space to another space. Modern architecture

is something that you come in, you can practically see the inside from the outside,
and there's no surprise. Then you have to evaluate: How important is it really toward

the total? How much has it been forgotten? How much should you do it and in what
kind of a problem can you use it? Can you add that to architecture? Is that something

we've lost? Is that one of the babies we threw out with the functional bath?
Take another thing for instance. Basically one might say after one is through talk-

ing about all architecture, functional and so forth, one might say that a building is a

form placed between the ground and the sky. Then you ask yourself, "What is the

best damned form to place between these two?" Then you look at the French chateau
and maybe that is a better thing than some of the supermarkets that we're building

today. Maybe that line, the top line of the building should not be a straight line,

maybe a better relation with the sky is reached with a roof — daring thoughts. There
are so many of these things that we should sort of reexamine and then, as I told you
earlier, the whole problem of relating buildings to old buildings.

Some of these elements are interrelated, then in certain problems they become
dominant and in others they don't. We have to think much more about architecture

than we've done. The things that we take for granted we should reexamine.

202
J
. P. : This is the art of the building and not techniques. We've made great advances in

techniques.

E.S. : We've made marvelous things. We could make anything look like anything

else. There used to be just stone, plaster, and tiles. Now we have fifty different plastics

and a hundred other different materials but basically it comes down to our ability to

use them, and sometimes it is harder to use the greater number.

Just take the example of a little town in Indiana or some other state built during

the period with a bearing brick wall. The high vertical window with the arch over it

was the only way you could build that gave you unity, because the only way you could
build gave a discipline throughout the town. What has happened to that town? Bond
Clothes and a few others that are rich and successful put these glass fronts on these

things and those are published in a magazine as great improvements, and prizes are

given by the local chamber of commerce for "beautifying" the town. But they're terri-

ble. They hurt the basic rhythm of that town, the total environment of that town was
better when everything had the same rhythm, which came from a basic material.

The total environment is always more important than the individual building and

that's why, when we built this medium-sized bank in the little town of Columbus,
Indiana, our big concern was how to put up a building so as not to hurt but to help

the town, to respect the integrity of the town and also to build an uncompromisingly
modern building. I think we solved that problem, actually, and I'll show you the
drawings.

J . P. : Hou> do your projects evolve?

E.S. : We go through the most terrible labor pains sometimes. There's so many ways
and there's so many solutions to any problem. If you don't believe it just look at the

results of any competition. There's so many reasonable ways of getting into entirely
different solutions. Now, in this whole problem of architecture one has to know what
one is doing. In other words one not only has to know what one wants to do, but one
also should know what other possibilities there are in order to come to that solution.

One has a feeling that in so many cases architects don't know what they're doing.

They're just riding with the punches of the latest magazines. Theoretically, one

should sort of survey the entire field of what can be done in this instance, and then

choose one's direction. I think it was Sullivan that said, "Each problem has within it

its own solution." Where we might be criticized is for almost trying to find a different

solution for every single problem, trying to just bend over backwards to do that.

Let's take the problem of a chair. There are many ways of doing a chair. In the

problem of a chair, in this last line and also the earlier lines that I did for the Organic

Design Competition of The Museum of Modern Art, what interested me was to find

a prototype of the chair for mass production, for use in the normal situations within

homes or within offices. On chairs I've deliberately not gone off in seven different

directions to see how clever we are. Because I feel that's not the problem. I just want-

ed to design what, in my mind, was the final and right solution for the chair.

20i
 1958
IN GALLS HOCKEY RINK, YALE Within architecture, I believe there are many, many different problems that cannot be
UNIVERSITY. Eero Saarinen. New
answered by one prototype. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, would
I say, tried to
Haven, Connecticut. 1956. The soaring curve
answer it with one Miesian prototype. I don't agree with that. They got as far as the
of the reinforced-concrete spine, hung with steel

cables and supporting a wood-decked roof,

chapel at the Air Academy and then they had to switch because there they realized

encloses a regulation-size hockey rink. that it wasn't proper.

J.P. : In the case of Mies it was interesting that he didn't depart even for the UT chapel.
E S . . : I was just going to bring up Mies. I'm an enthusiastic admirer of Mies, but I

can only go with him as far as the chapel at Illinois Tech. There I separate from him.

I think these are not all problems under the same prototype. In fact, for myself, I

would put architecture under more prototypes. What am

I interested in doing is try-

ing to create the prototypes. Not in certain cases where the problem is so special that

it cannot become a prototype. All right, then it has the right for a separate solution. I

mean it's obvious that a hockey rink is different from an office building. It's obvious

that in that kind of case the structure is such a strong, dominant thing that you rec-
ognize it in the form. You don't just build a box. Also certain locations and certain
relations to other buildings are so dominant and so strong that you have to give it the

special solution. But, perhaps, also I've been terribly worried that architecture was
just going to get itself into a box and there was a very strong need for spreading out,

for finding the new solutions. That's why the value of the work of Paul Rudolph, the

work of Matthew Nowicki, and the work of Minoru Yamasaki is very valuable. And
the work of Wright, yes. We're a civilization that in architecture really has these mar-

velous two poles right in our backyard, Mies and Wright. Boy, that's why there is so

much interest in architecture in America today, because there's always the challenge

of these two poles. Of course, there's Corbu as the third pole, but we have these two

in our backyard and should be very proud of it.

Along these lines, I would very much like to produce a real steel building. I would
very much like to produce a real concrete building and think that Milwaukee came
out very well, really better than I expected. I shouldn't really say that. It's a concrete

204
building that has guts. I have great hope for the John Deere building, which is a real JOHN DEERE AND COMPANY
steel building, a real iron building. It is in the right kind of a setting and for the right
ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER.
Eero Saarinen. Moline, Illinois. 1963. In this
kind of a client for an iron building. It, too, has a lot of strength.
eight-story headquarters building, Saarinen

used Cor-Ten weathering, self-protecting

J. P. : As opposed to the elegant use, the refined use of steel or chromed steel. steel to celebrate the toughness of the

E.S.: Yes, and I think TWA will, as a concrete building, also have the sort of the company's farm machinery.

total unity of the flowing, cast material of concrete. I have great hopes for that. Now I

see the problem much more clearly. Let's design the best building in concrete that we

can for its purpose, but a building that in every part smells concrete. Let's also design

a building in steel that in every part and every joint smells steel. Very strongly 1 feel

now that a building has to be all one thing — a sense of unity, a sense of unity in phi-

losophy, a sense of unity in form, a sense of unity with its purpose. A building should
just be one thing. A building can't have many ideas in it. It can only have one idea.

You look at Wright's Guggenheim, which really looks as if it's going to be a great

building. That's an all-concrete building. Sure, it has windows, but you don't see

them. Now, maybe we shouldn't carry it that far. But there is an example where actu-
ally it's a concrete building and there's nothing else than concrete.
Now, we are also doing a building of all glass, the Bell Telephone Laboratories. It's

a concrete building inside, but it's all covered with glass. That idea of the glass and
how it's covered is all related to the plan. It's all related to the function of the build-

ing and to the total thing.

J . P. : Do we take function for granted now?

E.S. : Well, I've gotten terribly interested in it just lately. Somehow, you are quite

right, one has a feeling that everybody has forgotten about it. That it's not the fash-

ion anymore. But that's what we're working on. As I showed you, in the new interna-

tional airport for Washington, in Chantilly, Virginia. We're working together, as a

team, with Ammann &. Whitney and Burns & McDonnell. It's a team of really sev-

eral firms, but we're working on the terminal and the function of the terminal. Just
how should an airport terminal function? What is the best method? What really hap-

205
 DULLES INTERNATIONAL pens in a terminal? What do people really do? How do they move around in a termi-
AIRPORT. Eero Saarinen. Washington, nal and what takes time in a terminal? All these problems are fascinating and we're
D.C. 1958. Steel cables, suspended from
right in the middle of a real analysis of the problem.
beams supported by concrete piers, hold the

concrete roof, hammock style, in this compact

We've taken an existing building such as St. Louis Airport, Washington National,
terminal. Saarinen addressed the problems of and the airfield in Dallas and made studies. We've made counts finding out exactly
extended and crowded airports with specially how these function and what is wrong with them, what is wrong with the circulation.
designed mobile lounges.
Really sort of documented every part that can have any relation to our project of a

much larger terminal where the distances become larger, where the times become
longer. How can one fight that problem ?

J . P. : All these problems are going to be exaggerated and extended as time goes on.

E.S. : That's right and, boy, we're all experts on airport terminals. That's where we
spend most of our time nowadays. We don't expect that our research will create the

architecture of the building, but we are terribly interested in making a really well

working terminal. The ideal that we have is really Grand Central Railroad Terminal.
I mean this is a marvelous building that was built, whenever it was, I think just before

World War I, and is still functioning. It is still working substantially the way it was
planned at that time and is maintaining well. People go through it without any major

gripes and that's terribly important.

J . P. : Is there a Grand Central in the field of air terminals today?

E S . . : No, there is not and I would say definitely no.

J . P. : Eero, have you ever designed a house? In your own house here you certainly

designed parts. Does the problem of a house seem to challenge you?

E. S. : The house isn't really architecture. I think it's been much too overblown and
much too important. Let's sort of relate this to other things. Now we know that the

family is not as strong as it used to be. It's not as strong as an educational element.
The education that children got through the family was much greater in earlier days

than it is today. Yet the house as a piece of architecture has become terribly impor-

206
tant. It really wasn't until the Victorian times, you know. They built the palaces and
so on. This has become a terribly important part of architecture. But lots of civiliza-

tions have lived with the house being an unimportant part, an anonymous part of
architecture.

Look at a place like Orvieto in Italy. When you drive up you see all the houses

around. They are really almost like prefabs, made out of masonry, but they all have
windows which are essentially the same. They all have tile roofs the same way and so
on. Then the whole grandeur of the civilization that built that town was placed in the

cathedral. I think there has been an overemphasis on the house.

Now made I this statement that the house is not architecture. What I really mean
is that the house has been too emphasized as architecture. All this to-do about your

personality in your house and how each house has to be done right for that personali-

ty. All that is going on when, at a time, everybody is getting more and more alike. I'm

not sure that we should live in houses. I mean houses really create suburbia and here
we sit and talk about houses and take it for granted that we should live in houses. But

should we? I mean do we really want the city the way it is today?

1956
We can compare the European city, whether it's Paris or any other one, as a thick rug.
If we think of the little threads in the rug as the paths that each individual took from

their place of living to their place of work and to their place of eating, all by foot. In a

flosser rug the threads don't go very far. They stay near. But many make this one city.

Now, today we have this pattern of the city where people streak out from one side to

the other, from living to place o( work may be the same, but the distances are about

one hundred times greater.

The automobile, you know, also takes an enormous amount of space. We figure

about three hundred square feet for parking a car but that is at the house, add at the

factory, at the shop, at the beauty parlor, at the movie. So that you get into many
thousands of square feet of space in addition to all the enormous road systems. All

this has changed the city.

J . P. : Do you think that an architect can affect the city only to a certain point?

E.S. : I think that is the right thing. I don't think any one individual has all the sen-

sitivities to assemble the total of the orchestra which should be architecture, or which
is architecture. But there always has to be an orchestra leader. I think the architect is

the one that it should be, obviously. Just imagine an orchestra leader not wanting to

delegate some of the responsibility and running from one instrument to the other.

You can't operate that way.

You once asked me about group practice. That implies many things. Let's think

about this. It is a subject that interests me. First of all, one category is the individual

designer that does a building, has complete control over every detail and carries it

through from beginning to end. That's one category. Second category is the group of

people that work together enthusiastically all on one thing, several of them doing
design. Third is the group practice, which is the very large office which has several

207
designers in it. We have all of these three at this time.

These different phenomena really produce different kinds of architecture. There

are certain pitfalls in this whole thing that we should be aware of. But to examine
what's good and bad, let's look at the product. Let's think about architecture and not

get too enthusiastic about the system because the end result is what counts. The play
is the thing, somebody said.

Now when the one individual, as in the first case, deals with all the problems,

where he designs the thing through and through from the beginning to end, I think

of this as an example like my father's art center in Des Moines. There the total is one
piece of architecture because it is the work of one man doing the whole thing. That is

a terribly satisfying thing. You don't change philosophy in midstream during the

process of designing a building. It just hurts and weakens the building.

When you get to the second case, a group of people, more or less of equal status,

working on the same thing, when nobody is the dominant force in that group, you get

a result which you can see is several people trying to contribute something. I can, for

instance, think of one concert hall which shall remain unnamed, which looks as if

twenty designers were put in one room full of architectural magazines for twenty

years. Then they were let out to design this building. They all enthusiastically added

everything they knew and had seen to the building, but these things destroy each
other. A building has to be all one thing. A building has to have an overall concept
which is, in a sense, a design philosophy, a design religion, we might call it, which fil-

ters down to every little detail.

It is the same thing as when you look at an Egyptian or a Greek piece of sculpture.

The same philosophy is applied to the nose as to the small toe. But each is entirely

different. Therefore, I think a building cannot be done with many different philoso-

phies. Basically somebody has to be the captain, but others can work within that con-
cept. Only so can great architecture be done.

Now let's go to the third kind of thing, the group practice, where a very large office

has a great practice. Perhaps the danger with that kind of practice is that every prob-

lem has to be designed really in the same way or else such an office doesn't work. You

might say it is a gradually developing formula for doing good architecture. It has its

merits, but it also has its dangers that everything is seen too much in a similar way. I

believe that.

Thinking of Corbu gives me strength in this, that every significant piece of archi-

tecture is a different thing and has to be considered as such. From the problem, from
its location, from the client's problem, and so forth, comes more or less an approach.
It becomes the principle. Then every part of that piece has to be part of that princi-

ple. I think, for instance, that when the General Motors people first came to my
father for the General Motors Technical Center, they probably thought and imagined
in their mind that they would get something like Cranbrook. But the problem was a
different one. The whole spirit of what they stand for is a different one. The time was

a different one. The General Motors Technical Center is very, very different from
Cranbrook.

208
J . P. : On the other hand, Eero, I can't escape this thing that I did see out there at CM
today. The fact was that there is a certain continuity from Cranbrook.

E.S. : I hope it's true. I think that all past experience, all past influences should be

playing on every one of these problems. I don't mean that one starts as newborn
everytime. There is also the use of water, of which my father was a master. There is

also the problem of the overall relation of buildings, to which I owe my father much
and which I have inherited from him. Maybe not so much the great axis but the

many minor axes, which was more a characteristic of his than others, the use of color,

and maybe also the sense — and this may be presumptuous to say, I think, from hav-

ing been brought up by my father — I have gotten from his work and his generation

the sense that architecture is a broader thing than some think of it today.

You met John Dinkeloo, who has been the project manager for this and who has
really thought through it, but then there are the designers like Kevin Roche, for one,

and Warren Plattner. I owe much to that group. In a way we all decided that this is

GENERAL MOTORS TECHNICAL

CENTER, PLAN. Eero Soar men.

Warren, Michigan. 1956. Three-story buildings

set around a fwenty-two-acre lake in masterful

interrelationship earned the Technical Center

the sobriquet "The Industrial Versailles."

one concept, that we better stick to it. Then we all tried hard so as not to wander

away from that. One danger is to be too much the same. The other is to wander away
from it too much. I think we have done that fairly well. But we also have this code

between us. When we tackle another problem, such as the MIT auditorium or any

other problem, then we realize that this is another concept, we think freshly on every-

thing, including the door butts, for this particular thing.

It is less convenient than doing everything the same, I can assure you. But this is

much more fun. And I think it is a very needed thing in architecture because I sort of

see architecture today as something closing in and being taken for granted as a pack-

age. Some work is done well. We all like it, but then the mediocre and the bad stuff is

all the same kind of stuff.

Two years ago, when the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church came to me and
wanted a senior college for Fort Wayne, Indiana, they probably imagined they would
get something like the General Motors Technical Center. But they didn't. I think

they might have accepted such a thing, but in talking with them, trying to find the

core of their problem and the feeling for the land, out of it grew an entirely different

thing.

209
 1958
We're doing this factory for IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, which incidentally has
one of the thinnest curtain walls in the world. It's only three-eighths of an inch thick.

It's a porcelain-enameled wall. There was a chance to experiment with ornament and
to use two tones on the panels. We did hundreds of experiments and finally ended up
with the simplest possible thing. It was just a slight reinforcement of the vertical lines,

which in a sense is ornament.

I think we have to be terribly careful about ornament, that we don't put ornament
on for ornament's sake. Ornament has to be a natural development out of the struc-
ture and the fabrication of the building. Now that doesn't mean that in the year of

functionalism that we should sit around and wait for ornament to come. It won't
come. It's a thing that one should experiment with, it's a thing that one should flirt

with. I mean you have to constantly sort of exercise your ability to see further in
IBM PLANT. Eero Saarinen. Rochester,
architecture.
Minnesota. 1956. Saarinen, arecognized
You know, I was saying that a building should be all one thing. If you take that to
pioneer in curtain-wall construction, enclosed

the nine two-story building blocks of this IBM its ultimate conclusion, it's really the architect who should do the mural or do the

facility with remarkably advanced thin walls. sculpture and the landscaping and everything else. I don't mean an office, I don't

mean many people. I mean just one individual, Michelangelo or a Frank Lloyd
Wright. Have you ever sat on his chairs?

That could be one ultimate conclusion, but I don't mean that. I mean because
architecture should not be the sort of the egocentric glorification of an ego.

Architecture today is something where many, many people are involved and particu-
larly in larger products. I mean a house can be done all by one person from the very
beginning to the very end. But in larger projects there are many involved. For
instance, in our office the technical developments that John Dinkeloo is working on
relate very strongly to the design things that myself and Kevin Roche are working on,
and so on. We also get the help of Dan Kiley on landscaping. Really what I'm sort of

thinking of is that the building is the thing. Many personalities have to be subjugated

in the process, but the personality of the building has to be saved or has to be made.
That's the important thing.

Now, in that total picture, the artist, the Roszak, the Stuart Davis, or the Calder,

brings to the building the special sensitivity that he has. It is a terribly, terribly

important thing provided, it's an enhancement of the theme of the building. If it is

something that diverts from that, then it shouldn't be there. But if it's something that
enhances it, it should be there, by all means. It shouldn't be there as an afterthought,

because how can it really be part of the whole thing if it's a total afterthought? At
the same time, let's be practical also about it. It depends on how integrally it relates

to the architecture.

Let's take the problem of the London embassy. The eagle that Ted Roszak is doing

for that. We talked very much about just the character of the whole building. How it

should relate to that. He did many sketches. From the very beginning we had the
intention of the spot which really marks the central axis of the building, also marks

the entrance down below.

210
 Now we did not bring Roszak in the day we had the intention of that spot. He
came much, much later. It's not practical to bring artists in at the very moment you
have an idea that there should be art. If they gripe about that, that's all right. You've

heard gripes by artists before, haven't you? It's a natural gripe. It's really how does it

end up? Does it end up as an integral part of the building with a piece of art enhanc-
ing and enthusiastically really carrying the building further, or is it something which
is in a fight with the building?

1956
I think we have to design within our time, uncompromisingly, but we have to broaden
the alphabet of modern architecture to face problems that it hasn't faced before. . . .

God knows am very, very enthusiastic about Mies van

I der Rohe and the almost

common vernacular style he has created and that we all accept as a very fine thing.

However, I cannot help but think that it's only the ABC of the alphabet, that archi-

tecture, if we're to bloom into a full, really great style of architecture, which 1 think

we will, we have to learn many more letters.

211
 "

Louis Kahn
"The seminal idea of my work is the constant
distinction between the areas that are served and
the areas that serve."

Louis Kahn was a small man with some of the biggest ideas in modern

architecture. He expressed them in the language of a poet and sketched

them with the hand of an artist. His earnestness was compelling and his

enthusiasm contagious. To tou, architecture was a living "persona" that

"wants to be.

The true value of a challenging client with a clear functional program to a

talented architect was brought home to me in the intense conversations I

observed between Kahn and Dr. Jonas Salk at the stunning oceanside site of

the Salk Institute. Lou later said he was the ideal client, "who knows not

what he wants but what he aspires to."

On one occasion we recorded him in his office, surrounded by associates

as eager to be with him as we were. One does not have to listen to him for

very long on these recordings to appreciate why he was one of the most

inspiring teachers. His commitment to education, which he pursued as a pro-

fessor of architecture at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, was such

that his important architectural works were packed into the last eighteen

212
years of his life. With his tousled white hair and bow tie in disarray, he gave SALK INSTITUTE. Louis Kahn.

Lajolla, California. 1965. This research

the impression of a man on charrette hurrying to accomplish a life's worth of institute, built among rolling hills with a

breathtaking view of the Pacific, is composed

work in the little time left.
of eight concrete study towers backed by

two laboratory blocks. The structures flank

However, there was nothing hurried about his buildings. They represented,
a broad, paved plaza.

as he said, "the thoughtful making of spaces, " executed with a root respect

for the great architectural periods of the past, a love of building materials,

and a firm grasp of modern technology. He viewed architecture as a fine

art, and it is no accident that three of his most renowned designs are art

museums.

961
JOHN PETER: How did you become interested in architecture?
LOU KAHN: have been very reluctant about anything personal because
I I felt

what I really wanted to have a person do is to write something like Viollet-le-Duc,

you see. Not a personal history, which is really different from the work story.

One question was, "Who inspired you . . . to do the work you do?" And I said the

inspiration is somewhat classical. It is really Greek, Roman, Gothic, Romanesque,

Renaissance architecture. It stands there constantly as a marvelous challenge, you

see, for what I do now. And then from that kind of general thing sits another man

213
 f

k
who is most significant to me. That's Le Corbusier, you see. Most significant to me.

Now the significance, of course, lies in the images that he created. But I always

sensed that the image belongs to him, that I'd never copy him, you see. But what acti-

vated a sense of architecture in me was really he, you see, and not the old stuff. The
old stuff was ready there to be plucked, you might say. They were so very general in

their way that no personality really entered the thing at all. And he, in his case, there

was a personality who said certain things differently from anyone else. But he was
answerable to what would later become the common stuff called architecture. So I

always wanted to work for him. But I always felt, well ... if I were a youngster I'd

work readily for him. Because I must find my own way, so it made me reluctant to

work for him, you see.

Now when I did the bath house, the Trenton Bath House, I discovered a very sim-

ple thing. I discovered that certain spaces are very unimportant and some spaces are

the real raison d'etre for doing what you're doing. But the small spaces were con-

tributing to the strength of the larger spaces. They were serving them. And when I JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER
realized there were servant areas and there were areas served, that difference, I real-
RATH HOUSE. Louis Kahn Trenton .
,

New jersey. J 957. In this brick bath-house with

ized I didn't have to work for Corbusier anymore. At that moment I realized I don't
pyramidal roofs, Kahn first gave form to his

have to work for him at all. concept of served and servant spaces.

J . P. : That wasn't very long ago.

L. K . : That was just a few years ago, you might say. All the other times, I had my

own way of expressing things aesthetically. And I modified, you might say, almost,

the images which were created by other men. I had always a feeling that I was not in

the depths of architecture really. I was in the depths of design, I was in the depths of

knowing about things and could see that the variation on the theme of the works of
other architects was very akin to me. But I did not find something of a truth which

belonged to me, which belonged to architecture, from which I drew because I had dis-

covered it, you see. It drew in greater richness than others because I knew the aura of LOUIS KAHN in his

its essence. I knew very well. Philadelphia office, 1961

215
 .

RICHARDS MEDICAL RESEARCH At that moment, I realized that what I had discovered in the way of the hierarchy
BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF of spaces, of the servant areas and the areas served, that I had discovered something
PENNSYLVANIA. LouisKahn.
that belongs to everybody else, but from which I would base my own designs very
Philadelphia. 196) . Kahn found the form of
this research building in its need for uncontami-
clearly and strongly as a way of life. I began to see architecture as a way of life at that

nated air. He linked four separate laboratory point, where previously they were the artful manipulation of spaces appropriate to
areas and surrounded them with tall ventilating use. But as a way of life, something which everyone could use quite freely, like the
stacks that rise two stories above the roof.
invention of an ax. At that moment it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the woods-

man. It belongs to making houses. It belongs to a lot of things. So this thing is of the

same nature.
You might say we are a scientifically resourceful society. There's so many laws we
now have by the tail and we're not making good rules to work with them. The law is

a completely unchangeable thing, but rules must always be considered as being

changeable. The rules should never be given to anybody cold without telling the law

that is back of it.

J . P. : In the field of technology, voe have invented a whole new set of rules.

L K . . : No, we've found new laws. We have found new harmony of laws, but we have

not found good rules to live by.

J . P. : Your "served and servant areas" concept is almost the opposite of Mies' s universal

space, in which the structure permits flexible and different uses over time.

L.K. : I am at complete variance with it, but understand now what Mies is. I would
say he is really sensitive and is as sensitive as any man I know. His personal way of
expressing things is different from my way — I most humbly present as my way, which

may be a way of life. Whatever can be taken from Mies is fine, but I don't want to say

one is better or less.

J. P. : Tell us, Lou, how your thoughts about the servant order apply to some specific

buildings

L K . . : I can show you that very easily. You see, in the laboratories of the University

of Pennsylvania, I realized that the air you breathe should not come in contact with

216
the air you throw away in a laboratory, because the air you throw away in a laboratory

is germ infected. It is noxious. It is not good to breathe. If you used it, the law would

say you're not in good shape. It's not only waste air, but it's dangerous air. It has
germs in it. If you were to get anywhere near the breathing apparatus for this air, you
would be a dead duck.
I make a good rule and say that the air you breathe should never come in contact
with the air you throw away. It's a rule I made. So, therefore, I put all the exhaust

towers high, and I put all the air intakes low, on the other side. It never comes in con-

tact with it. Now this shaped the building, don't you see?

J . P. : Take another laboratory like your Salk Institute.

L . K . : Here I made the distinction between the wonder and knowledge careers. In

the wonder — here's the Salk site — there's the Pacific Ocean and the canyons, the

garden entrances in the arcades below. The studies open to the laboratory areas.

In a biological laboratory, as distinguished from other laboratories, the air must be

as free of spores as possible because it's not only injurious to the man, but it's injuri-

ous to the experiment, which many consider more important than the man. So the

architecture must be a completely cleanable architecture. It must be the architecture

of stainless steel. It must be the architecture of clean air.

But the study, the place where I hang my hat and just brood over things, and even
go to sleep, is a room where you get away from the laboratory. It is really the architec-

ture of the oak table and the rug. It is completely different. Therefore, I divided the

studies from the laboratory itself. I put the studies over arcades which enter from gar-

dens. The laboratories overlook the gardens. A library of immediate use to the labo-
ratories overlooks the canyon.

A quarter of a mile away is the meetinghouse, which is where all minds come
together. Dr. Salk is particularly concerned not to isolate research into a clannish,

self-centered, limited mental experience, but to be constantly in the presence of won-

der in the work, so that men come to visit in this chateau like Bertrand Russell, like

C. P. Snow, who are in constant touch with men concerned with biology. Yes, they are

always reminded, you see, that man is not just this.

Here, again, is the assembly hall where, of course, assembly is a deliberate thing.

This is a complex of a kind of great house where men get together, without thinking

of biology so much as a problem as it is of all nature and all things.

Therefore, an architect, when he gets a program from a client, should begin . . .

right from the start to say, "What is the nature of this institution?" His first duty is

this. He must take all the areas which are given to him by the client and translate

them into spaces. The client knows only about areas. Then he must take all the cor-

ridors that the client has in his mind and change them into galleries because corri-

dors only lead you to places for lockers and return air ducts. That's all it gives you.

But a gallery, which probably has natural light, may even reach higher and above all

other functioning areas because natural light is the only way you can distinguish
space from an area. An artificial lamp will never do this because it's only one inci-

dence in light, where natural lighting has all the seasons and all the nuances of the

217
time of da*y in it. So how can you compare one with the other? The architecture of

space must be that which is bathed in natural light.

I was asked to do a monastery in the high desert near Los Angeles. I lived with the
monks for a day. I sensed out of the very position, that is to say, the location, that one
of the most important things I must remember about this place is that water is scarce.

Who will deny the importance of water? But if you imagine as a city planner that
water is always in pipes, then you're not thinking fundamentally enough about city

planning. You must think of water as being water and not necessarily in pipes. If it is

conveniently in pipes, that's okay, too, but you must think fundamentally.

Now they didn't have any pipes. Their water came from wells. They, of course, are
using pipe water now in the lower part of the development, but where I'm going to
build this monastery, there is no water. There are also very strict laws about using

water, pumping water, which will take away some of the pressure which now exists.

They said to me, "We know where water is." I said, "If you do and have trust in this,

we'll start the plan with the source of the water. Then, at the source of water, you
must build something, a monument to the source of the water. . . . This has nothing
to do with your religion, which I know nothing about." I was very frank, but I said, "I

know enough about the sense of man existing on earth to know that you must give
respect for the fact that you have found water."

Then I said, "From this water source, you must then build the contour so that you

make as much use of law as possible, gravity being very important for water. Water

wants to go downhill. Or you can find another law that says you can have water go
uphill. We couldn't build a tall building unless we did have it go up, right? And so you

combine the gravity, which costs you nothing, with the pump that costs you some-
thing. You make a good rule in establishing this and you develop an order out of
water.

"An order of water, just that, which, in a way, is a kind of aqueduct architecture.

This aqueduct architecture gives you the systems to house water which can be made
beautifully in architecture expressing these systems. Aqueducts carry the water off to

places where you can do your irrigation, where you can even build your buildings.

This will establish the position for your church, for the chapel, for the monastery

cells, and for the little workshops, because that water is of prime importance in the

establishment of life in this area." Water at work. Good rules at work.

Now I say, "All right, you're living in a high desert, it gets cold here. Also, it gets

very warm here. I propose that you consider walls, which are of a certain nature. The
nature of a wall is that on the outside you expect certain things to happen to the

wall, and on the inside you expect certain things to happen to the wall. If it's cold

outside, for instance, you want it warm inside. This wall must be made so that
warmth can be retained on the inside if it's cold outside and vice versa. You don't

want dampness to come in. So this wall must have good rules in its making to be able

to respect the laws which are playing on this thing, and have to do with your desire as

man to control these laws. . . . Instead of having, let us say, a single wall, why don't

you have two walls? One an outside wall and one an inside wall, which do not come
together at all. And you have a passage between them in which you can walk causing

218
 t^S"*?" > '

a venturi of air, which will cool the interior airs in the summertime, which will form ST. ANDREW'S PRIORY PROJECT.
wintertime by placing doors in this avenue that Louis Kahn. Valyermo, California. 1966. Kahn
an insulation for the interior in the
keyed this building, sited high on a barren hill,
you can walk into, in other words, this little street. You will close the doors on either
to the need for water. He placed the reservoir
side. And you will have a beginning, let's say, of a kind of cloister, but not in the old atop the entrance tower and arrayed the

terms. It's a new law which makes a cloister." monastery cells, with their irrigated terraces

Then I said, "Now you have a possibility of using your adobe. After all, you're not and gardens , at the edge of the slope overlook-

ing the desert.

rich. You make everything you live by. Therefore, I say we should bring the most mar-

velous experts in the building of concrete frames, which will span your roofs and span
your floors, but the walls will be enclosed on this framework or lattice of concrete,

which is the proper way of using concrete, by the way." Now I did not make any
drawings on paper. Realizing nature's way, I made rules which would apply to begin-

ning a way o( life of a monastery in this locality.

So from the beginning, you see, greatness can emerge in architecture. Beginnings

are very necessary today, new beginnings of expressing spatially our institutions. Our
institutions are miserably expressed under paneled curtain walls, sort of homogenized,
anonymous looking buildings.

We are simply clothing, you might say, old things. We are not contributing to the

making of our institutions greater and greater and greater. So that the spaces them-

selves can evoke a creative attitude toward the institution because men who work in

it will be greatly elevated into the seriousness, or you might say into the glory, of con-

tributing to this institution. Architecture, at least, can do its part in the making the
spaces in it great.

The seminal idea of my work is the constant distinction between the areas that are

served and the areas that serve. And that distinguishes, in my opinion, modern archi-

tecture from old architecture. Because the spaces, the servant spaces are different in

every age. You still have round rooms. You still have great halls. You still have light

from above or below. You see, you can't get away from the fact that space enclosed is

of a nature quite like other spaces of old. The Pantheon is a beautiful example of a

terrific space which you can't surpass no matter what age. It really spells enclosure. It

spells a world of its own, you see. And that's what a building is. A building is a world

of its own.
There must be a kind of new belief if you want a new city. It just cannot be

because the other city's overcrowded that you begin a new city. No, a new city begins

219
 YALE ART GALLERY, YALE with belief of some kind. All cities have belief. New York has a belief, though it may
UNIVERSITY. Louis Kahn with Douglas not be clear. It must be made more clear. Almost the first purpose should be to clarify
Or. New Haven, Connecticut. 1953. The
the belief of the city.
severe brick and glass exterior of Kahn s exten-

sion to the Yale Art Gallery offers no hint of

Around this realization of areas that serve and are served, which I call a realiza-

the interior with its remarkable honeycombed tion, immediately many things went into orbit. City planning became absolutely
ceiling, which freed the inside of columns for clear to me at that point because I realized that a plan of a city had to distinguish
completely flexible planning.
between that which serves the spaces of the city or, I say, the institutions within

which the spaces live. . . . Let's put it the other way. The institutions live in the

spaces. Everything we build we build for an institution. It's the institution of home.

It's the institution of learning, institution of government, institution of recreation,

institution of health. They're all institutions. Every single thing that we established as

part of a way of life is an instituted thing. It's a supported thing.

J . P. : Is our architecture different from the earlier civilizations because our institutions are

different?

L K . . : There are now more institutions. There are institutions going into being. The
architect must make the institution great by the way he puts the spaces within which

they will do their creative work. It depends on how great he makes those spaces.

J . P. : So this hierarchy of spaces applies not only to architecture as a building or a com-

plex, but to the total environment in which we live.

L K . . : Exactly. From this I derived the idea that there is a difference between the
viaduct architecture and the architecture of the institutions of man. The institutions

of man sit as in the complexity of movement, which is part of the viaduct architec-

ture, in contrast with the toughness of the viaduct architecture and the gossamer del-
icacy of the buildings of the institutions of man.

220
 To me, it is a beautiful distinction because buildings know how they should be built

and roads know how they should be. And as the roads enter the city they change
their character because they're entering precious areas. Viaduct architecture is the

architecture of movement, which involves coming from distant spaces and are of

major concern to the city. When they are entering the city, they must be more

respectable. Their construction must be finer, and because they occupy very strategic

spaces, as expressways do, they must contain more than just the road itself. They are

the places for the storage areas of the city.

Mostly we talk about the center part of the city because it is the image that one

associates with city more than any other part. And almost every other part is more or
less answerable to it, is inspired by it, and relates itself to it. The center of the city

must become great again. That's what I want to say, really.

Time usually brings about a realization of how backward the city is. I think it's

happened through the ages, that suddenly you realized that you were not the city you

were before, or in relation to other places, you're not as great as you were before. New
things have happened in which you must take care. So now the city has been dis-

membered or deformed, you might say — deformed is a good word — because the way

CENTER CITY PROJECT. Louis

Kahn. Philadelphia. J 956. In this sketch Kahn

applied his servant and served concept to urban

planning with a multilevel viaduct accommo'

dating various forms of transport traffic.

of life is different. The car has made life very different. The viaduct architecture is

the architecture of movement involving a car and it has a tendency now to actually

deform the city.

What I'm trying to get at is this. If you think of the viaduct, the viaduct architec-

ture is the architecture really of the street, which has become more than just a road.

It requires a flowing architecture. And a flowing architecture is really the architecture

of movement. No other architecture requires flow, because a man can dodge very eas-

ily around corners and around circular areas, or go straight, or jump over something.
He can do anything. But a car, really, is a flowing thing when it is moving. Its objec-

tive is to stop. No matter what its movements are, its objective is finally to stop, and
in the center of the city especially. So the center of the city is really the stopping

place for the car. It's a resting place for the car. The city is something to come to and

not go through.

Already the city planners and road builders realize this by making circumferential

roads and getting from the circumferential roads into the center of the city. But they

do not consider the road as architecture. They consider the road still as the Appian
Way, you know, with things either under it or not. But no, that road pattern is also

the pattern of service to the city. Therefore, that road must be considered as a build-

221
 ing on which you're riding the roof of, below which are pipes and maybe storage
spaces, for both the car and wares and goods, let's say, for the service of the city.

J . P. : In other words, the way it developed, the roads were considered engineering

problems at best? They were never considered architecture.

L K . . : Well, let me say this. There are major roads coming from outlying places to
the city. When they enter the city, they must become different roads than they were

outside because they're entering strategic, valuable, and viable land. Their position is

in a service relationship to the city. They are not just any roads, but they are a partic-

ular road which I like to call the viaduct. A "via-duct," a way of going. This could
just as well be related to other services which a city needs, storage houses, related to

central air-conditioning centers, the centers of all piping.

J . P. : Huge mechanical cores . . .

L K . . : Yes, so that these viaducts should be so carefully planned as part of the archi-

tecture of the city that the center becomes intensely served by their presence. This
would make it possible to economically place them closer to the center because they

are doing more work than just being a road. They must be buildings because you

never want to tear them up in order to get at the pipes, in order to get at the ducts, in

order to get more electrical service, which is constantly happening in the city. The
road must be made so that it is never torn up for any purpose.

Therefore, you must walk into the road with its elevators, you might say, and with
its stairways, into the places where piping exists, in their own rooms and their own
fixing areas, in the storage houses for the cars or storage houses for goods, but they

are really a very important architecture of their own which filters through the city in

a highly organized way, constructed not as a road one day, as a garage another day, or

by one man or another, or storage houses built by another group and air-conditioning
centers by another interest, but that this joint interest of service be attached to the

service of entrance to the city. This is called the beginning of viaduct architecture, as

PROPOSAL FOR CENTER CITY.

Louis Kahn. Philadelphia. 1950. As a member
of Associated City Planners, Kahn translated

the committee' s report into sketches and a

gigantic model of the imaginative but ill-fated

Philadelphia redevelopment plan.

222
 'ir -

contrasted with the architecture of the institutions of man, which are free from all PARKING TOWER PROJECT.
these problems. Louis Kahn. Philadelphia. 1956. Envisioned for

Philadelphia's Civic Center, the parking tower,

shown here in a cutaway perspective drawing,

J . P. : In earlier periods when the street was a pedestrian street, or a piazza, it was really
was conceived as a cylindrical building with the

part of architecture, wasn't it? parking area surrounded by tall towers.

L. K . : Oh, yes, it was a room. The street was an outside room. The piazza was an
outside room. In fact, many times a piazza was as long as a cathedral was high.

Because one measured the details of the cathedral by the clearance in front of the

cathedral. Many times things were Laid out on this piazza before it was erected.
So they were very alive, these places, and they were all part of the way of life. Now
I'm making a distinction between a way of life and the way of living. A way of living
is a personal thing. You live your own way, but a way of life has to do with the rules of

living. We've found new laws. We have found new harmony of laws. Remember, these
rules are only great if they follow the laws of nature. If you're going to the moon you

should feel the kind of sameness of purpose, it should be something that we all really

want to satisfy our sense of wonder.

223
 nson
"One thing that I really think runs as a thread is my
PASSIONATE INTEREST IN PROCESSIONAL SPACE, SPACE AS
APPREHENDED BY WALKING THROUGH IT."

Philip Johnson is known as on articulate observer and practitioner of modern

architecture. Through his work as a historian and author with Henry-Russell

Hitchcock of The International Style and as the first curator of the pioneering

architecture department of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, he made

a major contribution to the early recognition of the modern movement.

Johnson's political excursions, acerbic wit, and controversial works have

kept him in the center of the architectural storm. His trim, urbane appear-

ance and sophisticated life-style reinforce the image of an aesthete. Yet I am

reminded of his determined return to Harvard University, at the age of thirty-

three, to obtain an architectural degree every time I pass his tiny Ash Street

house in Cambridge. In his generation, not many people went back to

school to start a new career at that age. Not many students build their class

project and live in it while earning their degree.

I recorded Johnson in his Connecticut Glass House and twice in his archi-

tectural offices in New York. His architecture is an accurate mirror of the

man and the times. An early apostle of modern architectural orthodoxy, he

224
now feels, "There are no rules anymore!" Though he is quite justly known for GLASS HOUSE. Philip Johnson . New
Canaan, Connecticut. 1949. With sweeping
his buildings, it is in the tranquil setting of his New Canaan house, the views and privacy provided by surrounding

landscaped areas, Johnson s famous transpar-

sculpture garden of The Museum of Modern Art, or the cascading fountain
ent pavilion of steel and glass is a single room,

punctuated by a circular brick fireplace and

at Fort Wayne that he exhibits a talent for landscaping uncommon among
bathroom and divided by teak storage units.

modern architects.

195 5

JOHN PETER: How did you first become interested in architecture?

PHILIP JOHNSON: When was eighteen years old read an article in the old
I I

Arts Magazine on architecture. I was a major in college in Greek. I picked up this

magazine article by Russell Hitchcock on the work of J.J. P. Oud, one of the Dutch
pioneers. That afternoon as I finished the article — it was practically illegible, but the

pictures were there — I decided that 1 was going to change my career and I'd be an

architect. It happened in exactly three hours. I had never thought of being an

architect before that time.

1963
J . P . : Phil, what do you think you will be remembered for?

P .
J . : Mendelsohn once wrote that architects are remembered by their one-room
buildings. How true. The only buildings that I got prizes for were this house, the reac-

225
 .

tor in Israel, and the church in New Harmony, not by my dormitories or office build-

ings. No, you're remembered by your one-room buildings or your one-court buildings,
like Eero's dormitories. It's a single conception. I mean it's the one-shot deal that

you're remembered by. Of course, Mendelsohn put it in architectural terms, but

maybe it's also your great chance, you see.

TIIK l\TKI*.\AT10\\l. STYLE:

ARCniTECTTRE Sl\« E 1923

J . P . : A one-room building, for instance, like a theater.

H t:\Mt -HI SSH.I.
111 l l l l- J«I1>*0>
IIITI IK 04 K. Jn.. * t '
P .
J . : A theater is a place where a community meets to be elevated. If there's one
time that architecture's going to be frozen music, it better be a theater. To me, work-
shop theaters, like the Loeb Theater in Cambridge, don't interest one. The ceiling's

too low, there's no lift, everything's mechanics. The money went into moving the
chairs around. It's a typical American aberration. If you move it enough then you get

\ v « \ it it M
out of being an architect. It's a crutch. It wasn't one of my "Seven Crutches of

Modern Architecture," but it should've been. If you leave it all to the consultants you

don't have to do the work yourself. Well, the electricians want that and the lighting

THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE: people want this. What's a poor architect to do? An abdication of the will and the
ARCHITECTURE SINCE 19 22. right of an architect to his seats.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip ]ohnson
You've got to whip your consultants and somehow overcome them to make a monu-
W.W. Norton, New York. 1932. This
mental space out of a theater. Because if you feel good, you feel well dressed and
influential book was published in conjunction

with the first architectural exhibition at you're going to enjoy the play more. So the theater, if there's anything to it from an
The Museum of Modern Art, New York architectural point of view, it's the glamour. Not whether the seats turn around with
City. It announced and documented the
the press of a button, you see. I feel that the basic experience of going to the theater
emergence of the new modern style.
is the proscenium. I don't want somebody coming out on a platform that I see, and
talk to me. I want that sense of the curtains going up. To me, it's of the essence. Now
I admit that this is a personal reaction, but it's one that I just don't mind continuing
if I have a chance to continue it.

J . P . : What about Lincoln Center?

P .
J . : My first sketch was not unlike what turned out to be the present

Philharmonic. I said, "Look boys, since nobody's going to do any good architecture

NEW YORK STATE THEATER,

LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE
PERFORMING ARTS. Philip Johnson
and Richard Foster. New York City. 1964. The
handsome State Theater was designed to relate

to the other buildings surrounding the plaza

and fountain. It seats twenty-eight hundred

people and is used primarily for ballet and

opera performances.

226
here, let's get a module. Let's come to what we can all stick to. Let's take a twenty-

foot bay and just repeat it around." Well, Abramovitz ran with it. My committee who
was over me said no. They're opera people. They're not interested in art or architec-

ture. I showed them my semicircular one that, in my book, was the proper thing to do.

They just didn't do it. So we lost the exterior, but I've got some wonderful rooms in

there.

Of course, there's that other question of the theater as a processional thing, which
I spent more time on than any other architect might. As usual, it's my interest. In my
theater you get to your seat in a most wonderful way. You get to the great room in an
easy and logical way. Even Paris, as grand as it was, is a little bit complicated. If

you're handling three thousand people, you want to give them a good time. You have
a lot of things they have to do, like buying a ticket, giving it up, getting a drink, going

to their seats, getting out of their seats, finding a taxi. All these things they have to

do. It does seem to me incumbent on the architect to make these things as easy as

possible, as gracious as possible.

For instance, one thing the owners tried to force me to use was an escalator
because, you see, you're handling these great crowds and we have all these wonderful

new methods of changing levels. I tried to say it was too expensive because it cost

$100,000 and they said, "Well, we'll raise that $100,000." All of a sudden they had

money. There wasn't any money for other things, but they wanted the gadget.
The other thin^ I refused, even though they requested it, was the revolving doors.
It's not gracious living to go through a revolving door. If you have to go into an office

building you do, but you don't enjoy it. You're in a different atmosphere. You're on
business. You're pushed through revolving doors. That's an awful thing that revolving
door. The whole sense of the thing is "Where am I?" department.

J . P . : Does the fountain prepare you for the Lincoln Center buildings?

P .
J . : Actually, that square is going to be very pleasant. People make fun of it.

They're all surprised at how small it is. Which, of course, pleases me very much.

Because it's exactly the same size as the Capitoline Hill plaza of Michelangelo. Not
that that's good or bad, but it's that small, you see. But who wants a larger one?

J . P . : / think they were comparing it to the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Given the size

of the Lincoln Center plaza, one of the many suggestions you made was to enclose the

front.

P .
J . : Oh boy, that would have been a thing. Because then you would've entered
through a screen as you used to enter into St. Peter's Square before they ruined it by

opening the front. We used to filter through the columns. The disclosure of a square

through those columns is a semi-enclosed feeling that's delicious.

Right now we're going to have a bad opening onto the city on one of the four sides

of the square. It'll be all right as you approach, but when you're walking out, you'll be

in the city. It's just a bay out of the city instead of a square of its own. Even in San
Marco, you come through colonnades, except for that one place the Piazzetti. If you

saw New York, as you would've, through my colonnade, it would have been wonder-

227
 ful. But that's what I mean by committee architecture. Architecture aside, who's

going to hell the cat? For instance, who's going to be allowed to design that colon-

nade? Since it was my suggestion, everybody thought that I would design it and,

therefore, of course, they threw it out. Jealousy being human, you can't blame them.
But the fountain, of course, will be stupendous.

J . P . : You've done a lot of both museums and exhibitions.

P .
J . : Yes. My main group of work is in museums. I think it's the most important job

of the day for the simple reason that there is no more possibility of having churches
as the monumental building of a community. The thing that people vicariously enjoy.

I noticed that in Utica there's great nineteenth-century buildings, but there's no

twentieth-century building. When we built the museum, the pride of the town is in

that museum. You arrive in the town and they say, "Have you seen our museum?" The
period of saying that about a church is, for reasons we can't go into, gone. I'd say,

well, what about a city hall? That's gone, too. Or even the idea of saying that about a

university, there are towns that don't have universities. In other words, there's no vi-

carious pleasure in a palace, let's say, that you might find in a provincial, central

European town. A factory has never been something that you can say, "Oh, come and
see our factory."

The one building that's viable in America as a symbol of the importance of their

town has become the museum. The civic symbol, instead of being either a civic build-

ing or a library or a school or a palace or a town hall or a church is now a museum.

This is for many reasons true. I think one of the strange ones that makes it true is

that Americans are education mad. We have no limits to the amount we spend on
automobiles and education. A museum just barely gets under the category of educa-
tion. So it's not waste. You see, Americans cannot waste anything. It's not antibusi-
ness, because education is still allowable as a value, you see. For one reason or

another, the museum has become the essence of the town pride.

My main interest in life is to build buildings that people are going to have a pride

in. It becomes a building with overtones of art, magnificence, monumentality, emo-

tion. Therefore the museum is, to me, the most interesting job for an architect today.

The theater might be, but the theater, since the 1920s, has not been built in this

country. Maybe Lincoln Center will change that and all the theaters that are now
going up. Lincoln Center is, of course, a pleasure to work on for exactly the same rea-

son. That it is the thing that New Yorkers are going to be proud of. Whatever they
think of it now. It gets into that museum world, the type of building that one likes to

build.

Since I was a museum man before, it was perfectly natural that I would try to get

museum jobs. It was first started, of course, in Utica. That was a job I got first many
years ago. The pleasure of a museum is that it is a manifold problem of a functional

and emotional nature. Of course, my interest, as Frank Lloyd Wright's was in the

Guggenheim, is the monumental nature of it. As a former museum man, I couldn't do

philip J oHN SON at his office

a Frank Lloyd Wright type building — a Guggenheim. I had to do a building that
in New York City, 1955 would work. The Guggenheim is fine, but you can't hang pictures in it. The Museum

228
MUNSON-WILLIAMS-PROCTOR of Modern Art, you can hang pictures in, but it's not fine. My job, I felt, was to make
INSTITUTE. Philip Johnson. Utica, New a building that was fine but you could still have pictures in.
York. 1957. With the lower floor enclosed in
Now my first one, the Utica building, has a great central hall, which has been criti-
glass, the bulk of this museum appears as a

granite-faced cube suspended from a monu-

cized by the Museum of Modern Art staff. Rene d'Harnoncourt, for instance, at the

mental bronze-covered concrete frame. opening, leaned over my shoulder and said, "It's magnificent, Johnson, but is it a

museum?" The Museum of Modern Art staff puts it in the same category as Wright,

which shocked me, rather, because I thought I had hung pictures. But if you look at

the total cubage given to grandezza versus the total cubage given to hanging pictures,

maybe he has a point.

I agree perfectly with them about The Museum of Modern Art in New York. You

could hang pictures literally in a garage. Then it would be perfectly acceptable

because we've arrived, as it were. We no longer need that museum as a community
pride symbol. New York doesn't need it. They need Lincoln Center. They need the

Metropolitan. They need Central Park. They need the tallest building in the world.

But they don't need another museum to express it. But the other towns do. I feel, and
it's proven, that way.

For instance, the big court at Utica is used for speeches, concerts, meetings, festi-

vals, changing shows, anything that plays. They use the stairs there to act

Shakespeare on, you see. It becomes a community center which is certainly, to me,

part of the duty of public-spirited citizens that are giving museums. There's no way
that Utica could have a great collection of The Museum of Modern Art's caliber and
I feel that you need to sell, in that horrible American sense of the word sell, art by

means of architecture. Therefore, to me, museums are community centers and com-
munity centers are museums.
We went on from Utica to Fort Worth, that was my second. Fort Worth, of course,

had a slightly different point in that it was a memorial building to a great public-spir-

ited citizen. It was built in a public park. The city gave the land and the family gave

the museum. I was told when I got the job that this job was to be a memorial to

Amon Carter. This is an interesting reversal, you see, of the usual thing. They said,

"We want a monument to Amon Carter." So I built a monument in a park. Then,

230
because of the brilliance of the family and the ownership, they found out what a com-

munity service the museum really was. In other words, this is the cart before the

horse. We built the shell, then they found people liked the shell so much, they had to

build a museum. We are now engaged in more than doubling the cubage of that build-

ing. We're making a museum out of it, as well as a monument to Amon Carter. The
wing that is going on behind it is more than the size of the part that I built. But, you

see, so important is the civic symbol there that the museum part almost got lost.

Then, when you take another example, Lincoln, Nebraska, was the third museum
that I built and that was the university museum. Now there we had the central part of

our country, the heartland of America. Nebraska is absolutely the center of popula-

tion, the center of geography of the United States, but they feel quite neglected.

There's no oil. There's no industry. There's no new discovery. It's farmland. It's the

old American stock. The twentieth century has passed Nebraska by. By creating a

monument there, we reestablished Nebraska as one of the pioneer states which they
used to be with the great capitol they built by Goodhue. Once again, Nebraska can
pat itself on the back with pride that they are in the forefront of design. They cannot
ever have a great collection. Again, it was the importance of showing to the under-

graduate body, some fifteen thousand American heartland children, that there were

other values besides the sciences and the books that they're working in. To get them
into the museum, we created a monument.
It was also, as it happened, the wish of the donor to spend all the money on the
building. The will specifically states that they cannot take one cent from the will

money to use for anything but the building. So convinced were they, the donors, that

it was important to create a symbol building. Of course, it worked out exactly that
way. There were editorials in every paper that this great building, which cost four or
five times as much per square foot as any other building, should be regarded as a gift

for the future of Nebraska and not compared with what the recreation buildings
across the street cost. Of course, the fact that that could be a controversy is a very

interesting point, isn't it? Actually, one legislator went as far as to say that the univer-

sity had no right to accept money to be spent on a wasteful building.

AMON CARTER MUSEUM. Philip

]ohnson. Fort Worth, Texas. 1961 . Set behind a

formal facade of five carved arches, this memo-

rial museum has teak-walled galleries arrayed

around a double-height central hall. It is faced

with Texas shellstone and occupies a stepped

and landscaped site.

231
 .

SHELDON MEMORIAL ART This is a great battle in this country, between the cost-per-square-foot people and
GALLERY, UNIVERSITY OF the people that want to do something grand. In this case the donors made it perfectly
NEBRASKA. Philip Johnson Lincoln
.

clear the university would have to assume the maintenance of this building. So the
1963. The museum has a classicism befitting

its location at the heart of a university

legislature, who has to accept it, finally, for the university, because it's a state univer-

campus. Ten travertine-encased piers and sity, has the right to refuse the money on the grounds that the cost of maintenance
solid windowless walls enclose the would be too high. But, finally, the university, through its enlightened chancellor,
galleries and auditorium.
agreed to it.

A miserable building would have had exactly the same maintenance. I sound like a

very wasteful architect. But I consider myself a very strong functionalist. When the
museum director wanted the skylighting, 1 made the daylight lighting on the pictures.

I made a study of the air-conditioning costs and found out that for another $40,000 a
year in air-conditioning cost they could have a skylight. Well, that ruled it out, of

course, because that wasn't in the will to maintain any such costs. My point was to
make a maintenance-light building, although, very, very expensive. I didn't spare any

costs on the glory of the carving of the marble, for instance, or anything like that.

The marble was carved in Italy and sent over in numbered pieces and fitted together

here. A man from our office went over. When he found a piece that didn't fit, he took

a sledgehammer and broke it, to the tears, of course, of the men who had done all the

carving. At least, then they didn't do it wrong the next time.

It's absolutely amazing, Peter, to see it in this age. It seems like from another era
because nowadays we don't carve marble buildings. I mean this doesn't look like you

just built it. You have to blink. I think in a few years you'll never know the age of it

when it gets a patina on the travertine, because it's so unlikely to find a building with

carving.

I first started the carved arch idea in the pavilion, down there by this house, by try-

ing to invent a new column. I've always been annoyed by what I call the Brunelleschi

problem. That is something Brunelleschi could never do in an interior court. He

didn't know what to do when he got to the corner. You can't take a column that's at a

corner. It disappears. So all you see in Brunelleschi's court is a little bit, about an

inch size, of Ionic column left over from each piece of the final column. It wasn't

232
until the Baroque times when Laurano first, in Urbino, created the column that

would be in the corner. He pulled it out and made two columns of it. In other words,

what you can't do with the columns is to go around all the corners. My main aim was
to make the universal column with an arch that would go around outside corners,

inside corners, and flat, and could also be made into a pilaster without changing the

form of the column. That occupied me for a couple of years. One application of it, of

course, is my pavilion in New Canaan, and one is the new house in Dallas that's just

being finished now with four hundred of these columns.

The third, and by far the best, is the museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. Where we
didn't use concrete, but where we carved every single piece and fit it together. There
I found out something. Like all amusing inventions something has to be added by
accident, like the waving of the bead curtains at the Four Seasons restaurant, which I

didn't know was going to happen. What happened, with these columns, is it appears

that when you carve marble concave, it makes very interesting shadows that you don't
get by carving it convex. A concave carving proves in the first place that it's hand
carved because you can't get in there with a machine. In the second place, the shad-

ows change as the sun and the lights mine around it. It gives it a third-dimensional

feeling that you never can get from flat surfaces built up or from concave surfaces.

Even if you're outside the building, it's a sense of semi-enclosure bubbling up around
you, and it has to be done in good stone. The concrete doesn't do the same thing.

Then I did another thing in the central space, which I always use in my museums,
to give you a sense of awe as you enter a building. It does seem, to me, the most

important thing in a museum, if you're trying to sell anything, the building itself or

pictures or whatever you want to sell, is to give the feeling of awe. I mean it is the

main principle in any architectural design, whether it's a boudoir or not, to get the

sense of awe as soon as you can. In that court, which is a room, with the use of these

arches, with the sense of being enclosed, the floor is travertine, the walls are traver-

tine, the ceiling is travertine, with gold leaf medallions on it, the curved corners curv-

ing toward you, the curving in of the ceiling corner, the curving in of the floor

corner and the fact that it's all the same travertine. I hate to use words like womb,
but you do feel invoked in it. Much as you do, I think, in a different sense, you do feel

involved in the TWA of Eero's. You feel the roof coming down to the floor. The floor
engaged with the walls and the walls engaged to the ceiling. Of course, do I it archi-

tecturally and not physically. In other words, I don't actually bend the ceiling down.

However, it does get you a sense of being wrapped in travertine.

It's a form I'm used to. It's a form I used in my own pavilion, which I'm used to, in

precast concrete. It wasn't only the scale that impressed me as I came to the finished

building, it was the fact of those fantastic materials.

J . P . : Mies likes fine materials, whether it's marble or raw silk.

P .
J . : Of course, I get that from him.

J . P . : Isn't doing an exhibit building, such as the one at the New York World's Fair, a

completely different thing than a museum?

23}
 NEW YORK STATE PAVILION, P .
J . : Of course, because that's not a permanent building, it's a tent. In this case it's

WORLD'S FAIR. Philip Johnson and a purely external thing. I'm interested there, again, in space. I got the design space by
Richard Foster. New York City. 1964. The
doing a roof without walls there. A great many people never built a space that big. I
tallest building in the fair, Johnson's pavilion

featured three cylindrical observation towers

mean it's big, so a football field sits comfortably in the center of it. It's the size of a

rising over a translucent circular suspension football stadium with a roof on it. It's the roof that gives it the sense, I hope, of
roof supported on sixteen concrete columns. absolute staggering space. I don't know this, of course, since I've only seen it here in

my mind. The model, of course, shows nothing. Nobody's even bothered to publish
the pictures of the model. They won't even look at it, but it's going to be twenty times

that impressive once it's got a roof on it without any other supports. In this case, I

didn't worry about processionals because I'm filtering in from all directions.

I'm counting on one hundred thousand people sort of wandering from the Vatican

show to the General Motors show because everyone will want to see those two.

Nobody could care less about New York State, but we have a very good restaurant. A
place to eat, in my tent, which should be rather a fantastic place, just physically, to be

in.

Now the crazy way the program is written, Nelson Rockefeller walked in one day
and said, "Philip, I want the highest building at the fair." I said, "Well, Nelson, there

is my project." He said, "Well can't you take one of those sixteen towers and carry it

up?" I looked at him and said, "Nelson. . .

." He said, "Yes, I see. It would be aestheti-

cally bad." I mean there's one of our few people who knows what you're talking about
when you use words like aesthetics. He said, "I suppose you can't. Figure it out. I want
the highest building at the fair." I said, "Well, there's a law at the fair." He said, "Law?
At the fair? But," he said, "well, we're the whole state, I guess we can do what we
want." And we did.

We do have the highest building at the fair. Now my three towers, of course, are not

spatial. The towers are sculptured, not space. The architect has sometime to be a

sculptor like the Washington Monument or anything that you only look at. The
tower has no interior space in it. After all, the definition of architecture, as Nowicki

234
said, is the decoration of interior space. Even if you're in front of Notre-Dame, you're

enclosed by that persona. So all architecture is interior space, although you're looking

at it from the outside.

But this tower all by itself, like a needle, is truly a sculpture. Now it may not be a

very good sculpture, we'll find out. But these things are rather fantastic in the model.

Again, rather childish, even though it's awfully low. It's two hundred and fifty feet.

But two hundred and fifty feet is more than twice as high as anything else at the fair.

Somebody should say, "That's a very amusing cluster of towers." Then another per-
son should say, coming in from the other should say, "Jeez, that's quite a space there

with that big two-hundred-and-fifty-foot roof."

J . P . : Philip, what about the free-flowing space in the Glass House?

P .
J . : About six years ago it was a conscious shift of wanting to do something on
my own. I mean as different as this house is from the Farnsworth, it couldn't have

happened without it and nobody's saying it could. It's different enough. More differ-

ent than I thought. Well, of course, at the time I thought it was identical. Now I see

how very different the space of these things are. At the time, I was completely devot-
ed to making it identical, showing you're never conscious of your own motives.
One thing that I really think runs as a thread is my passionate interest in proces-

sional space, space as apprehended by walking through it. It isn't just a space. It is the

procession of the appreciation of space. This I get a little bit from Mies. Then I got

interested in more complex processionals.

You see, in this house, the processional into where we're sitting now, in the living

room, is much more complicated than the Farnsworth. The Farnsworth is a single-

unit space. Here, there's a very important vestibule outlined by the chimney and the
kitchen before you debouch into the living room. I think I'm more elaborate perhaps.

You get out of your car, which is the entrance to the building, and you make many
turns. Of course, it comes from a definition of the Parthenon that you always
approach a building at an angle. That kind of development very consciously influ-

ences me. There's always that sense of processional space that may make a line in my
work, I hope.

Now I'm working in quite a different direction. I have no idea what it is. You can
tell me or somebody can tell me. But now I see one thing, that I'm as inconsistent as

all us modern contemporary architects.

235
Oscar Niemeyer
"Architecture should be directed toward beauty,
toward a different solution, a novel and creative
approach."

Oscar Niemeyer, tanned, slim, and serious, is a born Carioca. One of Rio s

broad boulevards is named Avenida Niemeyer, after a distinguished uncle.

We made the first recording of Niemeyer in a canvas-covered field office

on the dusty construction site of Brasilia. He graciously drove my wife and

me in his Mercedes around the new city, describing Lucio Costa's master

plan and his own buildings. We were grateful that the broad avenues in this

capital designed for the automobile age were completely empty, as he

regularly turned around while driving to talk to us in the backseat. The

second interview was made thirty-four years later, in his top-floor office on

the Copacabana with a sweeping view of the world-renowned Rio harbor.

When interviewed he sometimes gave one the feeling that he had other,

more important things to do. Indeed, he did. The first time he was designing

an entire city and the second, in his eighties, he had buildings under way in

both South America and Europe. He has strong opinions concerning critics

and he may have included me as one of them.

236
 "

Niemeyer also has strong social views, but he practices architecture as an PLAZA OF THE THREE POWERS.
Oscar Niemeyer. Brasilia, Brazil. I960. The
art. When I asked him for his definition of an architect, he said, "An archi- focal point of the new capital city, Brasilia, is a

Senate dome and an Assembly bowl resting on

tect should have an understanding of and interest in things of the world, in
a broad horizontal base, which Niemeyer con-
trasts with a monumental tower containing the
social issues, and also possess the qualities that should lead him to the
legislators' offices.

profession. I think an architect should be born an architect just as a painter

is born a painter.

195 5

JOHN PETER: Tell me a little of your background.

OSCAR NIEMEYER: I was born in Rio de Janeiro, which today is in the state

of Guanabara. I am the son of Oscar Niemeyer Soares and Delfina Almeida de

Niemeyer Soares. Since I was a child I've enjoyed drawing and I think it was this

affinity for drawing that brought me to the school of architecture. During my days as

a student in architecture school, I worked in the office of Lucio Costa and with him I

learned about the profession.

J . P. : What were the most important influences on your work?

O.N . : The professional influence of Lucio Costa and the work of Le Corbusier, for

which I feel the most enthusiasm.

237
 s
,

PRIVATE HOUSE, DRAWING. J . P. : What is your philosophy of architecture?

Oscar Niemeyer. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. J 949.
O.N . : I can't understand criticism of art, though fair and honest often enough, but
This compact three-bedroom residence shows
it is my opinion that the architect should pursue his work in accordance with his art
the purer International Style of Niemeyer'
and its possibilities. Countless are the examples that justify this point of view and the
earlier work.
works that were not originally understood, which later gained absolute respect and

admiration. They were the subject of speculation upon problems in form and archi-
tecture. They are the testament of an architect whose ideas are often theoretical. But
they were based mainly on his work and his professional experience.

I am in favor of an almost unremitted plastic freedom. A freedom that is not slav-

ishly subordinated to the principle of functionalism, but one which makes an appeal

to the imagination, to things that are new and beautiful and capable of arousing sur-

prise and emotion by their very human creativeness. A freedom that provides scope.
PRESIDENT'S PALACE OF THE Of course, this freedom cannot be used freely. In European localities, for instance, I

DAW N . Oscar Niemeyer. Brasilia, Brazil.

am all for restricting the architecture. I am for preserving the unity and harmony of
1958. Approached by a ramp, Niemeyer'
the overall plan by avoiding solutions that do not really fit into it.
huge two-story building has a broad roof

resting on a stunning series of sculptured

In Brasilia, in this view to which I am alluding, restrictions are there to cover vol-

reinforced-concrete supports. umes, facing materials, etc., in order to prevent the city from proliferating, like other

238
 .

modern cities, in a regime of disharmony and confusion. In isolated buildings sur- BRAZILIAN PAVILION,
rounded by free space, total freedom is possible. Naturally, we respect the rules of
WORLD'S FAIR. Oscar Niemeyer,
Lucio Costa, and Paul Lester Wiener. New
proportion that have always been required of architecture. However, this plastic free-
York City. J 939. The free-flowing plan of this

dom is bitterly opposed in certain sectors of modern and contemporary architecture. exhibition building and its tropical gardens

It is a position that comes from the timid, from those who feel that they are better off designed by Roberto Burle Marx brought

worldwide attention to modern Brazilian

and more comfortable conforming to rules and restrictions. It is a system that permits
architecture
no fantasy, no compromise, no contradiction of the functionalist principles they

adopt which lead them unprotestingly to solutions so often repeated as to at times

become vulgar. These are tenets that are unsound when it is a question of special jobs

where the problems of function are secondary. Thus public building, schools, the-
aters, museums, residences, and so on all come to have an identical appearance

despite their widely varying programs. Programs that should lead to solutions of the

utmost interest in which full use is made of the possibilities of modern architecture.

It is my opinion that the architect should not get stuck on the impositions of criti-

cism. Criticism is made many years later. Each should follow his inclinations. He will

only be successful if he does what he likes without being worried about what they're

going to think of his work. His work should be interesting to himself above all. In

making these comments I do not mean to be adversarial to what is current, but sim-

ply to show the weakness of these arguments and the critics who support them.

I endeavor to shape my projects never based only on compositional functionalism,

but always on a sense of new and varied solutions, logical if possible, within the struc-

tural system. I feel no contradiction of form with technique and function in the certi-

tude that they alone command the solutions that are beautiful, aesthetic, and

harmonious. To that extent, I accept any advice, any compromise, convinced that

architecture is not just a matter of engineering, but a totalization of mind, imagina-

tion, and poetry.
In the Congressional Palace, for instance, the composition was worked out accord-
ing to this principle, taking into account the demands of architecture —volumes, free

space, visual depths of perspective, and especially the intention of endowing it with

the character of great monumentality by means of the simplification of its elements

and the adoption of a few simple forms.

239
 The whole project was based on topography, on creating a monumental esplanade
on a level with the avenues flanking it. Had the Palace been designed in the academic

spirit instead of on the esplanade, we would have had a tall structure blocking the

view that now stretches out beyond the building over the esplanade between the
Palace of the Three Powers, as well as the other architectural elements that compose

it and give the overall perspective more inviting variety. Now in the Palace of the

Three Powers —which encompasses the legislative, judicial, and executive branch-
es — I did not want to adopt the identical standard sections, which would have been
simple and cheaper, but sought other forms that might run counter to perceived func-

tionalist precepts and would give the building character. Designing the Presidential

Palace, I was also concerned with the atmosphere they would give to the Plaza of the

Palace of the Three Powers.

It was important for me to forge a link with the architecture of old colonial Brazil

and the elements common to those days by expressing the same plastic intentions,

the same love of curves, rich and refined form, that are so characteristic of the colo-

nial style.

J . P. : In what you just told us, you talked about the relationship between the colonial style

and the buildings that you created here in Brasilia. Could you explain this relationship a bit

further!

O.N . : What exists is the following. There is the relationship between the attitude

of the architect of the colonial period and the attitude of today's architect. I mean, in

Brazil we like to retain the concern for the shape, the curve, in other words, for a

more aesthetic architecture. We know that there cannot be only one relationship
because what suggests the style is precisely the progress of technology. Since today

we work with different materials, our work has to be done in a different way also. But

we keep the same attitude.

1989
J. P. : In what way does Brazilian architecture , most particularly your architecture , reflect

the social and economic climate of Brazil!

O.N . : Any architecture, wherever it is made, always reflects the technical and social

progress of the country in which it is made. For that very reason, Brazilian architec-
ture presents certain deficiencies. It is an architecture that discriminates. It is only at

the service of the rich and of governments — that is known. But that does not prevent

it from having creativity, does not prevent it from being, I believe, good architecture.
The Brazilian problem is very clear. Our heritage, our cultural heritage, is poor. We
have little left of the Indians. If you compare what the Indians of Brazil did with what

was done by the Indians of Peru or of Mexico, it's practically nothing. On the other
hand, the older Brazilian architecture is the descendant of Portuguese architecture.

In truth, it is not even Brazilian. It is Portuguese architecture which was brought to

Brazil with modifications. In view of all this, we are bothered by not having a rich

past like other countries, even countries of Latin America. On the other hand, the

lack of the burden of the past gives Brazilians greater freedom. We are free to try out

240
all we wish. We are free to do what we judge appropriate. We have concrete in our
hands. We have the carefully developed techniques of our engineers, and with that,

within our possibilities, we try to create our own architecture.

However, I didn't want to do architecture based only on techniques, on the need

for steel-reinforced concrete, or on the conveniences of calculations. I wanted to pro-

duce architecture that I feel is different because I think architecture is beyond these
things. Architecture should be directed toward beauty, toward a different solution, a

novel and creative approach.

J . P. : What material do you like to use most?

O.N . : In Brazil we work with steel-reinforced concrete, which we like. It is a materi-

al that can be molded. It is gentle and does everything we want. With steel-rein-

forced concrete, for example, if a span is too long, the logical solution is the curve. In

other words, we don't fall into the rigid architecture that metal structures justify.

The structure of the buildings is what suggests the architecture. When the struc-
ture changes, the buildings change also. In this way the styles appear as a function of

new materials and new technology.

I think the works of Le Corbusier are the greatest works of modern architecture as

much for the buildings constructed as for those which didn't get built. He is like

Picasso, a man full of imagination who isn't stuck in any doctrine. He does exactly as

he pleases.

J
. P. : Do you have specific examples?

O.N . : The Marseilles building, the Ronchamp church. That church has a freer

inclination, which is the inclination I prefer, making things with the greatest freedom
of form, without concern for whether the form is based on professional reasoning. He
did it only because he thought it was beautiful.

CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS OF

. P. : What do you think is the future of architecture? ASS I S I . Oscar Niemeyer. Pampulha,
J
Brazil- 943. The undulating form of this
O.N
J

. : The future of architecture is to serve everyone, not to remain, as it has until

uniquely modern church, with its color
now, as a privilege of the more powerful classes. It should be directed to all the peo-
tile mural by Candida Portinari on the rear
ple. The architects should work for the people, not just for those who, at the wall, is a striking blend of modern art

moment, possess the money and can pav for the architect's work. and architecture.

241
 PAMPULHA YACHT CLUB.
Oscar Niemeyer. Pampulha, Brazil. 1942.

Niemeyer designed this small building with

economy and precision to provide Pampulha

with a boathouse, swimming pool , tennis,

basketball, and volleyball courts, as well as a

restaurant and lounges. The inverted gable roof

offers maximum height where needed and

enhances the roofline of the low, long building.

J . P. : Has your work changed?

O.N . : I divide my life as an architect into distinct phases. First, was Pampulha.
Pampulha was against the right angle. I found then that it was madness to speak of

right angles when concrete is continuously suggesting the curve. For that very reason

I made the church full of curves, with a variety of curves. I also made the Marquessa

do Bali of curves. Le Corbusier liked our work. One day he said that I had the hills of

Rio inside my architecture.

In the second phase, from Pampulha to Brasilia, I was concerned with the intent of
architecture. I found that architecture had to be something different. If you go to
Brasilia, you may like or not like the sections already built, but you cannot say that

you have ever seen anything similar. That for us is what is essential. At that time, I

sought new solutions, solutions that should create surprise. I once read in a book by
Baudelaire that someone asked, "What is surprise?" Variety, inventiveness are charac-

teristic of beauty. That is what we base ourselves on.

Consequently, I was horrified when more reactionary individuals, those of archi-

tectural rationalism, complained loudly against the freer forms I made. They found

HOTEL D1AMANT1NA.
Oscar Niemeyer. Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

1951. With characteristic imagination,

Niemeyer endowed this small hotel with

sloping supports, which carry not only the

second floor, but also the dramatic,

overhanging roof that shields the

front rooms from the sun.

OSCAR NIEMEYER
on the construction site of Brasilia, 1 955

242

n5k
^IBST^

o
 them to be gratuitous. I thought that one day they would grow tired of copying each
other so much, that they would advance to a different architecture. That is happen-
ing now: extremely functionalist, a neat architecture drawn with triangle and ruler, as

if it were just the building of a metallic structure. Today, they are part of the modern
corps, which represents an adventure without too much interest. They are dying out.

In Brasilia my reaction was different. My reaction was in favor of form that goes

beyond its own beauty. I found that to seek form after the technical, structural solu-

tion has been found was not enough. It could allow for some imagination if it was
beautiful. So I attempted a freer architecture in Brasilia. I had the option, for exam-
ple, in the Plaza of the Palace of the Three Powers to build the structures with thin-

ner columns, as if they were resting on the ground. It was one of many options. In
Brasilia, at least those who go there are surprised by a different architecture.

1955
I wanted the Plaza of the Three Powers in Brasilia to not have the cold feeling that is

sometimes characteristic of modern architecture. I wanted it to have more of a surre-

alistic aspect, more dreamlike, as is seen in the paintings of Grasuto, which I think

are marvelous. For example, sometimes architects show up at the Congressional

Palace who want to know why the curves were made with that shape. There was a
functional reason. The shape of the curves allows for a view. But I don't care for that

answer. I think what's essential is beauty. When we are in front of a very important

work from the past, such as the Cathedral of Chartres, those which have remained
as monuments of art, we become emotional without knowing if the works were based

on functional needs because they are very old. It is only a sensation we feel toward

beauty.

BRASILIA CATHEDRAL.
Oscar Niemeyer. Brasilia, Brazil- 1959. 1989
Arrayed in a circular plan, twenty-one
Then I left Brasilia. Brasilia was finished for me. The military came and I did not get
converging curved buttresses open at

the top in a halolike ring to admit a

along well with them. I was on the left. They were on the right. So I went abroad.

strikingly spiritual cone of light. There I tried an architecture closer to the earth with larger beams. I also wanted to

highlight the importance of our engineering.

J. P. : What is the relationship between the exterior and the interior of your buildings?

O.N . : I find that those two things are linked. The interior, the workings, and the

external side of architecture are done at the same time. I find that architecture must,

above all, express technique. The Brazilian architecture we are engaged in expresses

the present technique in all of its fullness. We do not build small staircases in con-

crete. We aim to conquer great spaces.

I do not believe in an architecture constrained by dogmas and preconceived

notions and rules. I find that architecture is a thing of fantasy. It is the quest for beau-

ty. I find that when a form is pleasing, it possesses the beauty of its own significance.

So that the freedom we require of our own world must also be present in the way we

act, in our attitudes, in our works. Based on the technical, to see beauty: that is our

objective.

244
J . P. : You're one who accomplished the modern architect's great dream of building a com- NIEMEYER HOUSE. Oscar Niemeyer.
Rio de Janeiro Brazil. 1955. Niemeyer shel-
plete modern city. How do you feel about Brasilia today?
,

tered this pavilion under a serpentine roof. The

O.N . : In Brasilia I was just an architect. I only worked on the architecture of
open living areas and kitchen offer sweeping
Brasilia, hut I admire Brasilia as an interesting option. I find it to he the modern city views of the ocean and surrounding hills.

that expresses a modern option hetter than any other city of Brazil. Brasilia is the

accomplishment of Lucio Costa. He huilt it with great talent. He chose to give the

city a different character. He wanted to create a city connected to the automobile. He

created the great avenues. He divided a standard plan into sectors and he gave it its

monumental side, the monumental character that it should have. He made the living

sections inviting, lined with trees, with parks, with schools, with clubs. I find Brasilia

to be a good example of a modern city ... a city which works well. It is a city without

pollution. Access to it is easy. Distances are short by automobile. It is a city of the

greatest importance. If you go to Brasilia and talk to the people who live there, you'll

find no one wants to leave. I am not referring to my work, I am referring to the work
of Lucio Costa.

1955
I had no intention of making Brasilia cold and technical with the purity of straight
lines. On the contrary, I wanted it to abound in forms. I think of dreams and poetry.

245
Jose Luis Sen
"I'VE ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN ARCHITECTURE AS AN
EXTENSION OF HUMAN PROBLEMS, NOT ONLY TECHNICAL,
BUT HUMAN PROBLEMS."

Jose Luis Serf was an international architect with work on three continents,

but he never strayed far in spirit from his Spanish roots. Animated in conver-

sation, short in stature, swarthy in complexion, with his dark suit and narrow

black bow tie, he would look admirably at home sipping coffee in a

Catalan sidewalk cafe.

I recorded him in his gem of a small house in Cambridge, not far from

Harvard's Graduate School of Architecture, where he was dean. Designed

in the Mediterranean spirit, the house turned inward, with blank walls to the

street and rooms open to a grassy patio. Serf explained, "A new pattern of

living has to be devised so that people can live closer together, can enjoy

the sun, the trees, and the sky without looking on the disorder of a neigh-

bor's backyard or the pace of traffic on a busy street." The interior rooms

displayed art that ranged from an impressive fifteenth-century Spanish

altarpiece to works by his friends Picasso, Miro, Colder, Leger, and Nivola.

Indeed, art and artists were his abiding interest, hie designed the Spanish

Pavilion for the 1937 World's fair in Paris, for which Picasso painted

246
Guernica; the Fondation Maeght museum in St.-Paul-de-Vence, France; as M I R 6 STUDIO. Jose Luis Sert. Palma de
Mallorca, Spain. 1955. With this glass and
well as Miro's studio in Mallorca and his museum in Barcelona. white -walled concrete building topped by a

curving roof, Sert created a wonderful light-

Though art was his love, the city was his concern. Sert was an ardent
filled studio for his friend, the artist Joan Miro.

and articulate advocate of city planning. He told me, "It became a joke

among our friends that every time I went to South America there was some

revolution with some city burned so that we could come in and replan it. I

had to assure them several times that I had nothing to do with this series of

coincidences." However, Sert never permitted the disappointment of his

numerous stillborn urban schemes to destroy his optimistic, ebullient

disposition.

1 959
JOHN PETER: Could you tell me a little of your background?

JOSE LUIS SERT: I was born in Barcelona, in Catalonia, the part of Spain that
is close to the French border, across the Pyrenees with a very direct link to France.

My mother came from the north of Spain and my father from Catalonia. The name is

a Catalan name. My father's family was in the textile business, which my family still

has. My mother's family has a Spanish steamship company, the Transatlantic

Company.

247
 — s

I was very interested in art from my very early years. I was much more interested
in painting and sculpture in the beginning than I was in architecture. In my family I

had a painter, the muralist Jose Maria Sert. I had seen, of course, his work. From a

very early age I started getting art books and seeing pictures.

Barcelona was quite a center of the arts at that time. There was a great influence of

the French Impressionists, although in my early years Picasso was already painting.
He had practically finished his Blue Period and was doing his best Cubist pictures,

which had been seen in Barcelona. He was known much more for what he had done
before he left Barcelona.

Through my uncle and members of the family, I got to know quite a few painters. I

became acquainted with people who were interested in the arts and were patrons of
the arts in my native city. At the same time important museums like the Museum of

Primitive Romanesque and Gothic Art were formed in Barcelona. I had the opportu-
nity of seeing that. When I was very young I remember seeing the Diaghilev ballets

and the show of modern French painting with the best Impressionist painters and
some of the Post-Impressionists that came to Barcelona during the First World War.
Barcelona became a very important center of culture and the arts because of the war

situation in Paris at that time.

The first time I went to Paris I was about twelve years old. That was just at the

start of the First World War. After the war I went to Paris several times until I went
to live there for a longer period starting in 1928.

It was around my late teens that 1 started my interest in architecture. It came

through friends I knew. In the beginning I never thought I was going to become an
architect. I was still much more interested in painting than I was in architecture. I

took up the study of architecture in my early twenties. One of the things that influ-

enced me most was the discovery of Le Corbusier's books in Pans when 1 went there
in 1924 or 1925, when those books had just been published L'Urbanisme and
Towards a New Architecture, his very first books.

After I got these books in Paris and before I had finished my studies in Barcelona,

we got a group of young people together and formed the first group of modern archi-
tects in Spain. That was around 1927. We had a first show at the galleries where Miro
and Dalf showed in those and later years.

There was a community, on the Catalan coast, that we planned in the modern
idiom, or what we knew o( it at that time. To insist in designing buildings in the mod-
ern way caused me several failures in architectural school. My first modern design at

the school in Barcelona was a building with a vaulted roof because in Catalonia these

very thin vaults were not new, they were very old. These very thin brick vaults had

been very well developed in Barcelona by the local craftsmen.

J . P. : Was this perhaps the Moorish influence?

J . L S .
.
: It may have been. It certainly is an Oriental influence. How much came
directly from the East and how much came across the Pyrenees from the Gothic mas-

ter builders is difficult to tell. But it did certainly originally come from the East. This Q g lU[S $ERT inks Cambridge
j

particular way of working the brick, I presume, is mainly imported from the Eastern Massachusetts, office, 1959

249
countries, where they do these things with practically no scaffolding. It's really a feat

in architecture even today.

After that, this group prospered and had great success among the younger people.

When we finished our studies, we set up a sort of center for the modern arts in

Barcelona. At first we only exhibited architecture and then painting and sculpture.

We had them both working together. The group was really a little club of its own,
starting just about the days that the Spanish Republic was proclaimed. That was
April 1931, I remember that very clearly.

We then started a little magazine that we sent all around the world. It was little

more than a student magazine. We got people from industry interested in advertising

in the magazine. We started publishing articles not only about architecture, but mod-
ern painting and the relationship of architecture to city planning.
Some members of the group saw a Madrid paper announcing that Corbusier was

coming to deliver a lecture. We were very thrilled to hear that. We made a very ambi-

tious plan to try to get him to come to Barcelona. That was 1927 or 1928. As stu-

dents, of course, we didn't have much money to pay a man who was already

celebrated and was very well paid for his lectures, although he hadn't built many
buildings at that time. But we got him there. He was interested because we were a

group of young students. He came, he lectured, and we had long talks with him.

He then asked me, "When you finish your studies, why don't you come to work in

my studio in Paris?" I immediately accepted. Even before I quite finished my studies in

Barcelona I went to work, for a few months, with him, and then came again in 1928

and 1929 and again in 1931.

J . P. : What sort of work was he Corbusier doing at that time?

J . L S
. . : When I arrived at his studio, he was doing the second project for the League
of Nations. The first one had been rejected and he was doing a variant of that pro-

ject, Projet d'un Immeuble, in Switzerland and also a very large project, the Villa
Savoye and the Palace of the Trade Unions. The Palace of the Soviets was designed,

but never built. That was, of course, a very interesting moment in my career because

Corbusier's place was composed of amateur draftsmen. I think there was only one

paid man on the staff. We were a lot of people from different parts of the world.

There were people from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Holland, and the Scandinavian
countries. There was one Russian, one Greek, and a Turk. I represented the Iberian

Peninsula. I don't think there were any Frenchmen. There was an American, I

believe, but no Frenchman. It took a long time before the French even half accepted

Corbusier. They were the last ones to accept him.

We had a wonderful time, I remember. I met people that I've known for years after

that, like Oscar Stonorov, Albert Frey, and Pierre Jeanneret, who was his associate

then. There were also a few Japanese. They were very good, the Japanese. They've

done a lot of buildings since they left Corbusier's office. So we are now dispersed all

around the world, but we were a group working enthusiastically and very closely
together at that time.

250
 Then I got to know Fernand Leger and had gotten to know Picasso through my
uncle and Edouard Vuillard. That got me very much in this Paris group. I came back
to Barcelona, and back and forth, and then started working in Barcelona. Our group
prospered from 1931, when it really started this magazine, until the civil war came to

interrupt it.

J . P. : What was the magazine's name?

J
. L S . . : The magazine was called AC, which means Arquitectura Contemporanea or
Contemporary Architecture. It was an illustrated magazine and was also critical. We
got into trouble more than once by criticizing buildings, brand new buildings that had

just been built in our city. It prospered during the period and was very interesting for

us because at that time there was a great change in Spain because of the coming of
the Spanish Republican government, and the government — the independent govern-
ment of Catalonia — and the Basque provinces. There were a whole lot of things hap-

pening at that time in the country. It became very much alive and architecture and
city planning came into the picture. We then got interested in the problems of the

city of Barcelona and worked together with the local government.

We did some public housing. Then got involved in a general plan for Barcelona. I

We worked together with Corbusier, who said he'd like to work with ih in this plan.
We had a show in Barcelona and brought the international congresses, the C1AM,
Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, into Barcelona. That was in the

year 1932.

J . P. : At what point did you join the CIAM.'

J.L.S.: I joined the CIAM after its founding because it was founded and started in

1928 in Switzerland. I joined them at their second congress in 1929 in Stuttgart.

After that I went to the Brussels congress and I became the second Spanish delegate.

Finally, I became the first Spanish delegate in the congress. 1 then continued to work
with them through the congress in Athens in 193 3 and in 1937. There was a congress

meeting at that time in Paris and I was appointed vice president of the congress. I

also worked with Le Corbusier in that big tent they had in 1937, where we had a

CIAM section of the city in different phases.

At the same time, I was working for the Spanish Loyalist government in Paris. We
were organizing displays and shows in the little room we had in the Boulevard
Madeleine. The treasures of the Catalonian Museum had been brought in to Paris for

safeguarding. So I also worked on the show of Catalan arts. I was on a committee

then with Pablo Casals and Picasso and so on. We worked on the display of the show-
in the Jeu de Paume Museum in the Tuileries.

After that I was asked to design the Spanish Pavilion for the Paris World's Fair in

1937 for the Loyalist government. That was very interesting work. It wasn't a large
pavilion. It was relatively small, but it became very alive with all the events in Spain

and, especially, we got very interesting collaboration of the painters and sculptors.

We got two people interested because of the conditions in Spain and the issues that

251
 in
1 [ J
ir

saiu
w%

$m

SPANISH REPUBLICAN were being fought there. Picasso was very interested in this matter and Miro, also,

PAVILION, WORLD'S FAIR. became very interested. They both offered to paint something for the pavilion.
Jose Luis Sert. Paris. 1937. The two-story

exhibition building was constructed of

J . P. : They both offered spontaneously?
prefabricated elements. It was included in

the fair to represent the wartime struggle J . L S

. . : Yes, spontaneously, to make this gesture for the Spanish government to try
of the Spanish Republic. to help the people of Spain by attracting people to the pavilion, where they would
become more aware of what was happening in Spain. It was, perhaps, the first politi-

cal pavilion, especially of a small country, because, of course, there were both the
pavilion of the Soviet Union and the German pavilion a little farther down from our

place, which were tremendously big things, very imposing in their own way but com-

pletely different in spirit.

We had a small pavilion with very beautiful trees and a courtyard. We were very
lucky because beside getting Spanish artists like Picasso and Miro and Gonzalez, the

sculptor, who did a very extraordinary piece, we also got people who were not
Spaniards.

J. P. : Tell me, did Picasso know where his painting was to be placed?

J . L S
. . : He came to the pavilion, we discussed this thing together. He asked me
about the colors and the materials. I showed him how this was going to be done, the

size of the wall and the position of the thing, which he studied rather carefully. This

was very specially designed for that space, taking the space, light, and other condi-
tions very carefully into consideration. Of course, one of Picasso's qualities is he's

unpredictable. So you never know, he may do it one day and not do it the next. He
did do it that time because we were very much together. I used to see Picasso and a

group of friends in the cafe every evening. He came several times to the pavilion.

Each time we talked about these things. It worked extraordinarily well. Guernica was
a great success and one of the great paintings of all time possibly, and perhaps the
greatest mural he has ever painted. It was something that had great repercussions. It

was kept in the pavilion until the last days.

Somebody suggested that it should be replaced by a more realistic painting. I don't

want to mention names, but he was quite a well-known writer at the time. He may

252
 —

have changed his mind by now. We did not want to change it because we were aware
it was one of the greatest factors that we had in this pavilion.

There was a group of people who recognized the greatness of this thing immediate-
ly and responded to it. There was tremendous world publicity around it. Many peo-

ple, perhaps, were not convinced in the beginning, but after they saw the publicity,

they were convinced by that, surprised and convinced.

At the planning stage I was asked to install a mercury fountain in the middle of
this open space in front of Guernica. When I saw the fountain I was horrified. It was
a most uninventive little design with an odd sort of fake stone. It was very ugly and
you couldn't even see the mercury. I knew Alexander Calder very well and I thought
he would be the best man to do that kind of work. It took a little bit to convince the

people that it should be Sandy and that there was no Spaniard who could do it. He
did a brilliant piece of work. It had a great success and was going to be repeated later

in the other Spanish Pavilion in New York that never got built. That was in 1939. So
that was a very thrilling moment and it was an experiment for me and for a group of
people working there in how the arts could get together.

J . P. : Tell me, then what happened to you after the pavilion?

J.L.S.: Well, after that I continued working in Paris doing several things, but the SPANISH REPUBLICAN
premonition of World War II was already there. I made a couple nf trip^ to Spain at PAVILION, WORLD'S LAIR,
INTERIOR. Jose Luis Sen. Pans. 1937.
that time. Spain, of course, was in very serious condition, cities were being bombed
The memorable works of an — Picasso's
constantly. When the Spanish war was over in the beginning of March 1939, I decid- i luernica mural, Mini's painting HI Segador
ed to come to America. I had always wanted to come to America. I thought that was ( latalan, and Alexander Calder's mobile
the right time to do it because I had been uprooted from Barcelona. I didn't want to Mercury Fountain made Sen's Spanish
Republican Pavilion famous
go back to Spain and there was nothing much one could do in France with this men-
ace of war constantly over our heads.

J . P. : You felt this in Paris?

J .
L S .
.
: Oh yes, at that time in Paris we felt it very definitely. I remember being with

253
 CAN OUR CITIES SURVIVE?
]ose Luis Sert. Harvard University Press,

Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1942. In

this influential work, Sert articulated the

concern of modern architects with urban plan-

ning. He examines the modern city's four

elementary functions — dwelling, recreation,

work, and transportation —from

a realistic and human point of view.

Picasso when he was drafting his will. That was the eve of the Munich pact. We all

felt something, some great world events were in the making and that we could not
continue working in the same kind of way as we had been doing. In the very early

spring of 1939 I left Paris.

I came to this country. Then was I invited by Harvard University to lecture. I had
an old friendship with Walter Gropius, whom I had met in 1929 in Frankfurt,

Germany, at the CIAM conference. At that time I spoke no German. I still don't. He
spoke no English, which he does now. I saw him after that in Barcelona. He came to

our CIAM conference in 1932. We had a very nice time together.

I came to this country with a visitor's permit for six months, but before the six

months was over — that was September 1939 — the war had started. I had been work-
ing in the library of the Harvard Graduate School of Design preparing a book, Can
Our Cities Survive? It tied all the urban design factors together. I think in that

respect it was one of the first, together with some of Corbusier's books, which did

that. It was not only the city planning factors that are understood generally, but also
tied to the architectural and urban design factors which I have always been interested

in from the very beginning. That was my first job in this country. The book appeared
shortly afterwards, I think, in the end of 1941. Harvard University Press printed it.

After that, I started working in an office in New York, doing work on prefabrication
of structures for the War Production Board during the war years, 1941, 1942, 1943.

At that time, due to my friendship with Gropius and Breuer and I knew Moholy-
Nagy well also, I met Albers over here and Serge Chermayeff and some of the people
of the Bauhaus group. What was interesting was that the Paris group also started
arriving in New York. Everybody was arriving there. A few weeks or months after I

had whom knew from Paris slightly, came to New York. got to
arrived, Chagall, I I

know him much better in New York. Jacques Lipschitz, who was a friend from Paris,
came to New York. Georges Duthuit, Yves Tanguy, and Fernand Leger, who was a
very old friend, came to New York. L'Ozenfant was also here in this country by that

time. We had a wonderful time together here.

Mondrian, who was a close friend, actually lived on the top floor of our house on
Fifty-ninth Street and I used to see him from time to time. We used to walk together

254
on Madison Avenue. So that really the remnants of the Paris group were together

again in New York.

We had a wonderful time in a little cottage we rented on Long Island. We had

these weekends with just gallons of California wine which were very fine. Some very

interesting discussions came to pass there. It was a continuation, strange as it may

seem, of things that had happened before. But at the same time, of course, we were
becoming more acquainted with the American picture and with friends over here.
We did have American friends, like Sandy Calder from Paris, that we knew over
there. We saw him very frequently here and we spent some time with him in his

house in Connecticut. I came to spend some time with Gropius in his own house. So
for us it was a very interesting period of our lives and a very exciting one. That lasted

through the war period.

As I told you before, I was working for the War Production Board then devising

structures that could be easily built and knocked down. Some had to be exported and
taken overseas. I became associated with Paul Lester Wiener, who had an office in

New York, and we formed this group called Town Planning Associates. We then came
into the field of urban design and city planning and shortly after that, there was the
war years where we worked on prefabrication and after that we went to South
America.

J . P. : You did a good deal of architecture and planning in South America.

J . L S
. . : Before the end of the war, we started on this work for South America. First

for Brazil and then for Peru in '46. Just after the war, March '46, we went down to

Brazil and worked there for a while and got familiar with that country. And after

that, in the end of '47, we came back and went down through Yucatan and Central
America to Peru, and worked there for about six months.

C\DADE DOS MOTORES, PLAN.

Josi Luis Seri with Paul Lester Wiener.

1947. This plan for a Brazilian city of 25,000,

showing a civic center, factory tract, and

residential housing, is typical of a number

ofSert's unrealized plans for Centra/

and South America.

255
 I had been in Brazil in '46. That was my first trip, but then went to Peru later on in

the end of '47 and the beginning of '48. After that we worked in Colombia for many
years. I worked on the plans for Medellfn first of all and for Cali.

Corbusier was supposed to work in Bogota and we worked together on the plan of
Bogota. So that was, again, an opportunity to work together with Corbusier, which I

hadn't done for many, many years. It was a very agreeable experience. We worked
together in Bogota and traveled up and down to South America from New York. He
stayed with us in Long Island for some time. We met in the south of France in his
house and worked partly there, partly in New York, and partly in Bogota. That lasted

for quite a few years, and then after Bogota the Venezuelan government and the
United States Steel Company asked us to design some of their new communities
down there with a Venezuelan group. After Venezuela we started working for Cuba
and that was just finished last July.

I've always been interested in architecture as an extension of human problems, not

only technical, but human problems. I'm very interested in this side, of how this is an
expression of a way of living and of certain approaches to life. Perhaps I was interest-

ed in a less-abstract expression of architecture than were some of my colleagues. It

had to be, of course, to be satisfactory in a way, a work of art. I always defended that

point of view and its connection with painting and with the other fine arts, the world

of vision, but I saw it on this broader picture, and also was very interested in how
architecture was going to change, not only because new materials were coming into

the market, but because new needs asked for the new materials. That meant that

there was a new approach to life and a new way of living, and that cities were being

HOLYOKE CENTER, HARVARD transformed. I was working with a group of young people in CIAM. We were all

UNIVERSITY. )ose Luis Sen, Huson aware of the problems of architecture, let's say, from the individual buildings to the
Jackson, and Ronald Gourley. Cambridge, problems of mass production and the industrialization of buildings. But then, we saw
Massachusetts. I960. Serving as a link
that that is also linked to the cities and the development of communities. One thing
between two busy streets, this Hshaped,
led into the other. There are no real borderlines, no limits, so we got increasingly
multifunctional building is thoughtfully set

back from both thoroughfares .

interested in problems that were human problems, social problems, economic prob-

256
lems, technical problems, and problems of aesthetics. They all came together to make PEA BO Ii Y TERRACE
architecture more interesting for us.
MARRIED STUDENTS
HOUSING, HARVARD
Of course, having lived through the changes in Spain and having seen the war in
UNIX' ERS1TY. Josi Luis Sert,
Europe, what came before the war and in all these postwar years, what happened with Huson Jackson, and Ronald Gourley.
the development in the South American countries. ... I got more and more involved Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1962. With
three twenty-two'Story towers set
in this kind of world that is between the architecture of individual buildings and the
architecture of the city — the structure of the bigger problems. And that's what has
among many low, terraced units,

landscaped cluster hy the Charles

this

been my work for the last years. Although I have continued designing individual
River one most successful modern
is oj the

buildings and building them whenever 1 could, 1 have given a lot of time to the prob- housing developments <<| us kind.

lems of what we call today urban design. What is interesting for me and wry thrilling

is that at the time I began to talk about these matters in this country, a majority of

people were absolutely unconcerned. The architects thought it was none of their

business. The planners were just not interested in that kind of physical world. Now
today the architects have extended their viewpoint to encompass not only buildings

but neighborhoods and parts of cities, at least, especially with the urban renewal

problems. The planners feel that they do need some planners to be trained in design.

I must say that the situation has changed totally from the first lecture I gave in
Harvard, where I sort of tried to summarize the contents of my book, Can Our Cities
Survive! , in a couple of lectures, with the pictures which I used in the book, to the
situation today. I think there is an awareness today that was nonexistent then.
Nobody was aware of that. They were much more concerned with detail problems
and with other matters that were not exactly the broader picture. Today, I think, they

feel that you have to take care of both things. You can't neglect details. They're as
important as anything else. Buildings have to become a reality, but I think there's an

awareness of the allover picture that did not exist at that time.
I think on the part of the public, the press, and the popular magazines, awareness

has increased tremendously. I was aware of that, at that time, in this country as it had
much more of an echo than in Europe. I remember one of the illustrations in Can

257
 UNITED STATES EMBASSY.
Jose Luis Sert. Baghdad, Iraq. 1955.

Sert designed this three-story reinforced-

concrete office building and residence around

palm tree gardens, pools, and canals.

Our Cities Survive? is a pasteup that I made of American papers with headlines deal-

ing with problems of the cities. I also remember going to London one day and trying

to get information on this subject in one of their big libraries. They didn't know
where to place my questions because they were tied to architecture and to buildings,

but at the same time not very much concerned with the structure of cities themselves.

J . P. : Hovj did you get into education?

J . L S
. . : At the beginning, I didn't want to go into the field of education at all

because I had my own independent profession and I had been working freely all my
life like that, but finally Gropius convinced me that it was important. I told President

Conant of Harvard when he came to see me that I would like to orient the school

and give it a certain approach to the problems of architecture and planning, but at

the same time I would like to keep myself rather free to do my own work. I took the

job on a part-time basis.

PRESIDENTIAL PALACE,
MODEL. ]ose Luis Sert. Havana, Cuba.
1955. This unrealized palace is a group of relat-

ed buildings under a concrete parasol shell.

With its colored glass, glazed tiles, sun baffles,

and surrounding patios , terraces, and pools,

the complex employs many elements of

traditional Cuban architecture.

258

r.^r—r.-**«^
 I came here to Cambridge in 1953. At the same time I designed a studio for Miro

in Mallorca. I built a big scheme for the Baghdad Embassy. I've done the design on
the Havana plan, which we are publishing now. It will be out in a few weeks, as well

as the studies for the Presidential Palace in Havana. And now the museum, the
Fondation Maeght in the south of France.

I was interested in taking the fourth year that Gropius had been working with, the

masters class, as it is commonly called, because you get people not only from every

school in this country, but also practically every school in the world. It is a small

group of people who come here in search of certain solutions and a certain philosoph- FONDATION MAEGHT. ]ose Luis

ical approach to architectural planning. That is what we try to do and it's very stimu- Sert. St.'Paul'de-Vence, France. 1964. Making
the most of the dramatic Cote d'Azur site,
lating to work with this group of young people. It's something that keeps one
Sert designed a brilliant white concrete, clear
up-to-date on the problems of the world. Otherwise, in one's own office, one is sort of
glass, and stone building with an upswept,
inclined to become old-fashioned and forget some things that are happening around light-reflecting roof. It is a remarkable modern

us. You have to keep up-to-date if you have a group of students to work with. museum design.

259
 "

/. ML Pei
"1 THINK TO DESIGN WITH STYLE IS ONE THING, BUT
TO DESIGN WITH STYLE IN MIND IS SOMETHING ELSE
ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT."

leoh Ming Pei was working for that improbable real estate impresario Bill

Zeckendorf when I first knew him. We shared adjacent top-floor workrooms

in the old Margery Residence Hotel on Park Avenue, later, at the time of

these interviews, with his tailored, double-breasted dark suits, round-rimmed

glasses, and engaging enthusiasm, he had not so much changed as he had

grown. It would be only an unperceiving few who would mistake his easy

smile or frequent laughter for lack of serious intensity or tenacity of purpose.

A French critic once said to Pei, "You're an American so you don't respect

tradition." Pei replied, "But I'm also Chinese and we respect tradition." In a

way this also represents his position in modern architecture. He has created

his own distinctive body of modern work without rejecting the basic tenets of

the architectural revolution. An example of this approach is his respect for

early modern architecture's emphasis on social concerns. It led to his early

involvement in public housing —Kips Bay in New York City and Society Hill

in Philadelphia —and his city planning work at Boston Government Center

and in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, where, at the

time, he told me, "The community is our client.

260
 Over the years I. A/I. has consciously explored, in turn, each of the major UNIVERSITY TLAZA, NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY. f.M. Pei. New York City.
building types. He said, "There's a tremendous variety of work that this firm This admired complex for urban living

groups two New York University apartment

has undertaken, partly by choice and partly by chance. " Pei recognizes the
and government
buildings a matching tower for

middle-income housing. They are adroitly

realities of chance and timing in the affairs of people and architecture. I. A/I.
juxtaposed on a landscaped site that is

knows that architecture, like politics, is the art of the possible, but he pushes enhanced bji a sandblasted concrete sculpture

h\ Pablo Picasso.
the possible past what many would consider limits. Like that of several

important second-generation modern architects, his work is not marked by

an instantly identifiable style but is recognized for its consistent quality and

imagination.

19 5 6
JOHN PETER: Let's start after you graduated from Harvard School of Architecture
and you began teaching.

I . M . P E I : I stumbled into teaching, John, by the way. 1 definitely stumbled into

it. That was not planned. It was at the end of the Second World War. 1 was all set to

go back to China and 1 wanted to spend a few more months here. I didn't want to go
into a very definite job, you see, which would commit me to a certain period of time,

and teaching happened to offer that flexibility. I took it. 1 had no experience in teach-

ing. I never thought I would make a good teacher. 1 must say that I have gained more
from those three years teaching than all the years of education preceding it. I know I

learned more by teaching than I did when I was a student.

261
 1987
It was the right time for me to take stock, so to speak. What I learned. Where do I

go. I think the most important single reason for saying that teaching was important

is because I was able to then avoid the tremendous urge to go home at that time. I

wanted to go home. I wanted to do something there. Yet I knew it would not be right

to go back at that time. Teaching was the only thing I could do because I couldn't go

in and say to someone, "I'm going to work for you, but I may leave six months from
now." In teaching you can.
I intended to go back, you see. I hadn't given up, even when I came to work for

Zeckendorf. I still wanted to go back because it's only natural. My family's there and
my mother, and at that time my future had to be there. It wasn't until the early 1950s,

I think I will say 1954, 1955, that I decided that there's no chance.

J . P. : You couldn't do the kind of work that you wanted to do there?

I . M . P. : That's right. Even if I worked when I went home. So it was a struggle with
myself when to return and then it eventually became should I return. Teaching
bought that time for me. It enabled me to stay here, think about it and wait until

political situations settled down.

1956
J . P. : Was there anything you read that you could say had a considerable influence on your
design thinking?

I . M . P. : Yes. I read Lao-tse a very great deal, especially since I graduated from
school. When I was in college, I really did not have the wisdom to read Lao-tse,
although I did read it when I was a child. I forgot it as quickly as I read it. But I have
read Lao-tse a great deal since then and I think that his writing has probably more

effect on my architectural thinking than anything else. I think perhaps that many
modern architects would tell you the same. I would certainly recommend it. It's a

very difficult book to read. I can only take about one page at a time. You are sort of
exhausted when you get through that page. It's not the kind of book that you would

really want to read in your light moments. Yes, I would strongly recommend his writ-

ing.

J . P. : What technical or social development promises to make the greatest change in

architecture?

I . M . P. : Well, I would like to modify this question a little bit, if I may. If you isolate

architecture from planning, architecture meaning single buildings or a group of build-

ings, then you have one answer. But when you take planning into consideration, then
that is something else again. I, for one, don't believe that the threat of the atomic

bomb will ever have any effect on the design of our cities. But I do think that the
continued expansion or the centralization of the city itself, if that should be allowed

to continue, will have a great deal of effect on planning.

Traffic, for instance, is a very serious problem. We face that everywhere when we
M. P E I in his office in New York City, 1955 build on Manhattan Island. I would say that transportation is a very serious problem

262
 I

/
 and, as such, will have a tremendous influence on planning, which, in turn, affects

groups of buildings. As such, I think that its influence may be even more widespread.

J . P. : Does architecture have a future?

I . M . P. : The answer can only be yes. I should like to express it this way: I think

those of us who expect to see a tremendous revolution to come will be disappointed. I

don't think so. Architecture has already gone through this revolutionary period, and I

think the future, the buildings — let's not call it the future of architecture — may not
be unlike the buildings that are being built today. There will certainly be improve-
ments in techniques. The power plant may be in one drawer, instead of occupying a
very large basement space. Things like that may take place, but the building itself, the

exterior expression and the form of the building, may very well be similar to the type

of buildings we are building today. I don't expect that there will be too great a change

in quite a few decades to come. I think that we have a lot to digest and a lot to refine.

Now I expect there will be greater richness. By that I don't mean lots of colors and
lots of forms and so on, but there will be richness. I expect that will come, especially

with the public acceptance of modern architecture. As soon as they accept it and
understand it, they'll be prepared to invest more money in it, demand more of it, and
better quality. And I think you will find a greater change in that aspect of architec-

ture rather than more novel types of building or new construction methods that will

completely change the shape and form of buildings. I don't look forward to that, at

least in the near future.

J. P. : What about air-conditioning or other developments? Has that changed architecture?

I . M . P. : Air-conditioning, of course, is a tremendous influence on building expres-

sion and building design. All we have to do is to look at Lever House on the one
hand and look at the Marseilles apartments on the other hand. One undoubtedly
does not have the benefit of air-conditioning, so they have to take care of the natural
elements such as the sun. They have to resist against it. Whereas in the other build-

ing you can afford to ignore the sun and, as such, you get into a totally different
building construction and building design.

1987
Talking about air-conditioning reminds me of something. Le Corbusier was here dur-
HELIX APARTMENT, MODEL.
ing the United Nations building. It was around the early fifties, I think. I was design-
/. M. Pei. 1949. The unrealized helix tower

lined with wedge-shaped apartments was Pei's

ing the helix, you remember that, with Zeckendorf. Zeckendorf, of course, was very

solution to changing family requirements. proud of the helix. He planned to show it to Le Corbusier and asked him to come to
meet me. He showed the design to him. Corbusier looked and looked and looked.
Well, the fact that he looked impressed me. He didn't just come out and dismiss it.

He looked very hard and, finally, he said, "You know, where is the sun?"

"Where is the sun?," because the helix is completely nondirectional. Why? Because

of air-conditioning. It's not like Brazil. It is no longer an important consideration

to those of us who design in America. If you have an apartment, the important thing
is view, actually, more so than sun. If you have sun, so much the better. Why defend

264
against it? Bring it in. So there's a difference there. But the fact that he asked that
question jolted me. I never thought of it. I sort of accepted it. But that jolted me and
that is very important. Sometimes, even though you may not in the end agree with a

position, the fact that it made you think is what makes one grow because then you
change. Then you react. That was just one case.

J . P. : In the future, will there be less concern with the individual building and more with
multiple units!

I . M . P. : Definitely. Let me give you an example. Just my very limited experience

alone has convinced me of this. A few years ago, five or six years ago, we were plan-
ning small buildings and a building at a time. Today, and it is only five years hence,

eighty percent of the projects on our drafting boards are projects that involve a city

block, or many, many city blocks. You see that this type oi planning, of course, will

not bear fruit for another five or ten years. I'm sure that on many drafting boards

throughout the country you have a similar experience such as mine. Ten years from
now, if we are allowed to, or arc fortunate enough to see our plans realized, you can

imagine what that would do to the city. The city will, for the first time, 1 think, have

a certain planned look, which is completely lacking today.

Rockefeller Center is probably a very good illustration in a very limited sort of a

way. Already any one of us walking through this group of buildings may have quibbles

with its architectural style and so on, but still there is a certain feeling of satisfaction

when you walk into this complex of buildings because there is a relatedness. The
buildings are related to other buildings and each building is related to the open
spaces. I think that is going to be the important thing, as 1 see it.

The pioneers did not really haw that opportunity. 1 think that opportunity is the

right word. They did not have it. 1 think we are about to inherit 11 and, as such, we

should do the best we can. KIPS BAY PLAZA. [Link]. New York
( lity. 1956. The innovative pmired-in-plaee
At this point in time, I think the emphasis on architecture as a social art is less.
honeycombed concrete walls of these two
Not for me, it's not less. I continue to consider some of the work I've done in the
apartment 'Lbs were an architectural break'
urban renewal area in the 1950s and 1960s very important work, because it dealt through within the confining requirements 0}

with urban housing. But as an art form, they are limited. They are really limited. Federal Housing Authority rules.

265
 Architecturally there's nothing much to talk about. I mean it's very simple, straight-

forward. Kips Bay will have to be looked at within the context of time. It was con-
ceived in the early 1950s. It was finished in the early 1960s. It was one of the first

projects I worked on with Zeckendorf. People do not pay much for apartments with
rent control and everything else tends to force the cost of construction way down. If

you remember, the forerunners of Kips Bay were Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant
Town, built by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They were brick buildings in a
checkerboard pattern with punch windows. That's the approach and that's what the
FHA wanted. We came on the scene at that time. We needed FHA financing. Yet we
tried to do something different from the accepted formula. I think in that sense we
broke new ground and it's important for that reason. The fact that we built it with
very little money was not in itself a triumph. It's just that we built it in a different way
and still achieved it with very little means. In other words, we found an alternative to
building brick buildings with punch windows with steel sections. We found an alter-

native and that alternative was not to be denied at that time.

Social housing was very satisfying for me. We built it in Philadelphia. We built it at

University Plaza in downtown New York on the same principle. We haven't done

much in the way of apartment design since then because we moved on to other areas.

Kips Bay is the best I could do based on means and the components I had to work
with, including the FHA. But it does not give me the same kind of satisfaction. It

gives me the satisfaction I was able to provide decent housing, but your objective,

your accomplishment also has to be limited. Architecture as an art form, I don't

think you'll find it in social housing because it's very limiting, extremely limiting. But

that doesn't make it unimportant. That makes it all the more important simply

because providing low-cost housing for people is very important. Also, to create an
SOCIETY HILL APARTMENTS
AND TOWN HOUSES. [Link]. environment, a physical environment for urban life is very important, very impor-
Philadelphia. 1962. The sensitive relationship tant.
between Pei's thirty-one-story concrete apart-
The exploration of form, the exploration of space is something you have to find in
ment towers and the existing three-story
other types of architecture, like museums. I went into public buildings for that reason.
Flemish brick town houses in downtown
Philadelphia helped make this a successful and They're social of another dimension, you see, another dimension. They are less

widely hailed urban renewal effort. limiting. They enable the architect to go more deeply into the artistic aspect of

266
 i

expression. It's different, hut it doesn't make one more important than the other.

J . P. : You have also been involved in town planning, like Boston.

I . M . P. : We did the plan for the Government Center for Ed Logue. That's executed.
We didn't do any buildings, hut we did the master plan. I would like to say that we
got a lot of satisfaction out of that if for no other reason than to save the scale of

Faneuil Hall. In the competition program for city hall, we ruled out a tall building

and specified that it must be a horizontal building. We recommended that to Ed

Logue and Ed Logue accepted that. It was written into the program for the first time

in a competition in America. It said this building cannot be a tower because of enclo-

sure. We needed enclosure to give Faneuil Hall an environment, a scape, that's in

sn ICQBMfflfflia

S^P
[j
scale suitable to it.

egg
I was severely criticized by many of my architect friends who entered the competi- i &VTrrnr—

tion, saying, "How could you do that? How could you write that kind of restraint into GOVERNMENT CENTER
the program?" Well, I'm glad we did. Because as the consequence of that we created MASTER PLAN. l.M. Pei. Boston.

I960. Pei and his associates established the

two different spaces out of an enormous area, the city hall plaza in the front, and
redevelopment program for the City Hall
Faneuil Hall. Each suited for the other in two different scales. That is the greatest
Competition and the Government Center on
contribution we made in planning, not in architecture. the sixty-six-acre site m historic but neglected

We were asked to design a building in Paris at La Defense and it ended up as just a downtown Boston.

plan. We replanned La Defense in order to find a place for the building. The place

was then at the head of La Defense. At that time they wanted that place empty,
because they wanted it to go on, like a boulevard all the way to Saint-Germain-en-
Laye. I said no. I said, if you don't terminate it, you will never have a space, you don't

have a focus for life. They bought that, but they couldn't buy the fact, at that time, tor

an American to come in and do the most important building in La Defense, which is

the axial building. Frankly, that's what Pompidou said: "It's a great axial of France, it

must be done by a French architect." I think it's on record.

I think planning is very important and architects should do more of it, hut it is a

lot of effort and in some ways you don't get the satisfaction that you deserve. Let's put

it this way, unfortunately, because it should he important. It should be important.

J . P. : We know that in earlier periods , art had been much more integrated into architec-

ture, the element of ornament, the element of decoration, that kind of enrichment. Of
course, in the revolution they stripped it clean. The public has felt it's not as human or as

rich. Is there any validity to that point?

I . M . P. : Oh, sure, because people always yearn for richness. Color always attracted
people. I think that modern architecture did sweep much of that away. I think for LA DEFENSE, MODEL. l.M. Pei.

Paris. /966. Pet's unrealised plan for this

good reason. Because we don't have stonemasons anymore to carve stone like they
satellite development was conceived around
did in cathedrals. This started way back in the Greek times and before, actually. We the turn office towers that preserved the view
don't have that anymore. If we tried to do it, we'd be doing it less well, wouldn't we? down the Louvre-Concorde-Etoile axis.

So, therefore, you obviously don't want to do something less well than a thousand
years ago, or even fifty years ago. You have to move on. We have to move on with the
times. As you strip ornament away you don't have to do all of it. I think the modern
movement did try to strip all oi~ it away. However, it has one good thing, it really does

267
something to call attention to architects and training my generation, to look at other

things than ornament — space. Space needs no ornament. Space is really a surface.

It's how you position walls. That, I think, can be a very abstract thing. In fact, even if

you have no color. It can be all one color, all white, all blue. You have space to deal

with. You have form, with or without ornament, there are beautiful forms. Look at

modern art, for instance. It's all form. Architecture should deal with the essence, and

not with something which we like, but is no longer appropriate to our times because

we cannot do it as well. That doesn't mean we should not do it. I think the revival is

now taking place. There are possibilities of ornament without stripping it to the

bone. But I think the fact that we had to strip away ornament in the beginning of the

modern movement, called attention to the possibility of form and space without
ornament.

1956
J . P. : There are people who feel that modern architecture is colorless or too pristine or

restricted in its palette.

I . M . P. : Well, of course, form is far more important than color. Any use of color, if

it's going to be used in such a way that would clarify or express the form of the archi-

tecture, well then it should be used. Only when it starts to compromise form will I

take a different stand. When you think in terms of the monochrome of the build-

ing — about which the public, in particular, worries very much, especially when you
see a modern building like Lake Shore Drive — don't forget that there is color in the

sky. The blue sky gives blue to the glass on a building, that is also color. So one must
not forget the background. Oftentimes, a rather simple and even a severe building,
with a proper setting, can be most attractive.

1987
J . P. : Every time I drive past the site in Cambridge where the Kennedy library was going
to be, I always feel bad that it isn't there.

I . M . P. : Here I think it's circumstances. I think it's time. I started the project in

1965. 1 was selected as the architect in 1964 and there were a number of sites offered

to us by Harvard on both sides of the river. Finally, we, meaning the then Mrs.
Kennedy and her advisors and myself, all felt very strongly that the car barn site was
the right site. It's in the center of life. It's near transportation, which is important. It

just was right. But, unfortunately, by the time we got around to planning, designing
the building — 1968— just the beginning, the Vietnam War really had taken its toll

and the people's power, in terms of community, in terms of students, became very,

very obvious at that time. They all wanted a say, and, of course, they were very anti-

establishment. The Kennedy aura by then faded, to a certain extent, because of his

supposed involvement in Vietnam. We had to fight all these political and social forces

at that time and that was not to be won.

On top of that, you had to add to it certain other sentiments in the university, in

Boston, in Cambridge itself. You have a lot of forces all working against us, all work-

ing, and, of course, the traffic problem. People thinking that this would draw millions

268
of millions of people. Therefore, it would absolutely ruin Harvard Square. Of course,
it was not going to be. That was a great disappointment to me.

J
. P. : Was it the design of the building!

I . M . P. : We hadn't reached that point. We just never reached that point in consid-

ering a design. We had lots of designs but I don't think the community in the

Cambridge area or the public in general was that much interested in the design.

They're more interested in the idea of the presidential library coming there and the

number of cars that would have come to the area. That's why I say you have to get

lucky at the right time.

J
. P. : There was an element of luck with office buildings. How do you feel today about

Hancock!
I.M.P.: I still think it's a good building. I tell you why, because hist of all I think

Henry Cobb bad more to do with it than anybody else in this firm. So I can praise
him. It's a minimal approach, hut then, it shows that richness can come without carv-

ing, without pediments, without different kinds of granite. It doesn't have to have all

that. And it's still a rich building, minimal, but still rich. Because he played with
form. He played with light, he played with illusion or the reflectivity of glass. Those
are elements you can play with in modern buildings.

Now you couldn't do that building in Raymond Hood's day. You couldn't. Today
we're doing shadows of buildings, like Ray Hood. Ray Hood could do better buildings

than we could. Why? Because the craftsmanship was there. It's no longer here today.

We think those buildings are great and we're trying to imitate that. But how can we
succeed? There's no way to succeed.

Rockefeller Center, on the other hand, is a triumph. It has nothing to do with a JOHN HANCOCK TOWER.
style of architecture, it is an urban complex of great quality. 1 would say that is the
IM R»i and Henry Cobb. Boston. (966.
The bulk of this [Link]\-s(o)-\ tower is
single most important work. If you ask me to include urban design into my evaluation
minimized by its elegant, slim shape and
of modern architecture, 1 would put Rockefeller Center up there. It's very important the reflective glass walls, which mirror the

and also the time. It was built at a time, built during the Depression, as a matter of surrounding c. ivy scape.

269
fact, wheft construction costs were relatively low. So the Rockefellers could afford to

do many things that most developers could not afford to do today.

J . P. : Is modern architecture a style?

I . M . P. : I think it's very dangerous for architects to consciously keep style in mind

in design. I mean it's a very dangerous thing because that is not the beginning. I

think to design with style is one thing, but to design with style in mind is something
else altogether different and I would not approve of the latter. I think an architect,

like a poet, like a writer, has a style and that style comes from his own way of doing

things. But should he consciously want to design a building with style, I think he

would fail. On the other hand, if he is a good architect, his work has to have style.

Even in a certain movement styles are very different one from the other, one indi-

vidual from the other, like painting. They are very different. But still, you take
Braque and Picasso. They're both involved in the early Cubist work but I can tell

them apart. Is it Cubism that's the common element of time? Or is it the style that

makes them different, Picasso from Braque? I think it's the personal style.

J . P. : What would you say have been the accomplishments of modern architecture?
I . M . P. : I think it's a major shift in the ways of designing — of ways of looking at

architecture. The Beaux-Arts tradition is one that dated quite far back in France, if

not the eighteenth century, certainly early nineteenth century. Quite old and it's sort

of no longer relevant to our times. Therefore, this revolution in architecture had to

take place. Had to take place because it had been going too long. You built buildings

and you somehow feel that the buildings have no relationship to our life.

So that happened after the First World War, although it started before that because

history's continuous. It's very hard to say this is the moment, but I would say after the

First World War in Germany, that is the beginning of the change into modern archi-

tecture. The Bauhaus happened to be there at that time. But that was certainly not
the only place where they were thinking about it. But that one was a very important
change. So much so that I call it a revolution.

Now when you want to change a way of thinking, you have to oversimplify, like

adopting slogans. Communism did that, fascism did that, and modern architecture.

I'm not equating the two, political and architectural, but "Form follows function" is

an oversimplified term, but, nevertheless, very effective as a slogan. "Machine for liv-

ing." Did Le Corbusier finally regret that he ever said that? I don't think so. At that

particular moment it shook up people and they had to begin to think about a house as
not a comfortable rocking chair. It became something else. They had to simplify.

They had to make it powerful as a statement. Many of them probably didn't really

believe in all of it. But, nevertheless, it served their purpose.

J . P. : You might do that yourself in making a presentation.

I . M . P. : Sure. I think that there lie the shortcomings, but I wouldn't say it's the

shortcomings of the movement. It's the shortcomings of that particular need to get

people's attention.

270
 •* v.'.v:*.*

1 I

J . P. : /s the revolution over.' SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON,

I . M . P. : I see continuity. We're only at the beginning. I think that the premise, or D.C.. PROJECT, PLAN. [Link].
VCfoshington,DC. 1953. Pei's remarkable
rather modern architecture as we now come to define it, is fundamentally sound. It
urban renewal plan for a neglected section of
has a great deal of limitations in the context of time. I think tremendous limitations,
downtown Washington, D.C., centered on a

but the limitations do not make it invalid. It came out at a time when the whole . . .
three'hundred'foot'Wide mall. The project

the architectural scene was dominated by the Beaux-Arts tradition and, all of a sud- was rejected, but major portions were

subsequently built.
den, it's a new way of looking at architecture. That's why it's called a revolution.

Even though we continue to pick at it and say, oh, gosh, it's monotonous, you know.
It's so dogmatic and how can you continue to justify "Form follows function" as a slo-

gan? You can't do that anymore, but never mind. The premise is sound. The times

had changed and architecture had not changed with the times, and something had to
be done. So now it's a question of continually developing and refining and enriching.
This process is going on, but I don't think the basis tor that change is in question, is

invalid. It continues, it's still there. Rut it will continue to evolve and develop.

As for those men at the forefront of change — Wright, Le Corbusier, Gropius,

Mies — these are all men who made this change come about. They will continue to be

up there. Their names are going to be shining brighter and brighter with the times.

Absolutely, it will be brighter and brighter.

Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, but then the difference between them. Why

Michelangelo is important, I think, that was a change from Renaissance to Baroque.
But it's still that same Renaissance tradition of design. Michelangelo changed it.

With him and Bernini and a few others it went into Baroque. Therefore, you have

another group of masters coming out, Borromini, Bernini, and so on, and then the

Mannerists to follow. So you have this kind of change, but they're still of one tradi-

tion. But the ones who started the change will always be remembered much more
sharply than those who eventually evolve, enrich, you know, the tradition. They were
there, they were there first. They're the ones that made the break. I think the fact

that they were there first, at that moment in time, their names will always shine

bright.

There are lots of very uninteresting buildings that have cropped up under the
name of Modern Architecture. But that's not their fault. I think this movement will

continue to go on, as Renaissance adds things to the fourteenth century. It came to a

high point in the fifteenth century, went into Baroque in the sixteenth and seven-

teenth century, but it's the same continuity. It just goes on and moves on.

271
I
Venturi, in his book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,

published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1972 he

followed this book up with Learning from Las Vegas, a Yale School

of Architecture study written with Denise Scott Brown and Steven

Izenour. The two publications articulated an influential reaction to

modern architecture, advocating greater freedom, increased vari-

ety, recognition of the vernacular, and employment of historical

NEW NATIONAL GALLERY.
imagery. Ludurig Mies van der Rota. Berlin. /966

fl
In Complexity and Contradiction Venturi stated:

Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral lan-

guage of orthodox Modern architecture. I like elements which are hybrid rather than
"pure," compromising rather than "clean," distorted rather than "straightforward,"

ambiguous rather than "articulated," perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well

as "interesting," conventional rather than "designed," accommodating rather than

excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent

and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious
unity.

It is generally admitted that the description Post-Modern is imprecise, and while others

disagree with Venturis thesis, clearly the obvious deficiencies of early modern architecture

have generated both questioning and change. However, those who posed these challenges

were not the first to recognize the shortcomings of modern architecture. The Oral History
is replete with criticism by some of its most ardent advocates and practitioners. As with
any revolution, there were early supporters who questioned some of the tenets of modern
architecture, and there were those who later became troubled by its consequences. Others

recognized its failures, assigned the causes, and saw a still bright future ahead. One of the
latter, Philip Johnson, shared his views with us.

Philip Johnson: 195 5

Architecture is a terribly foolish profession to go into. I think most students know

that. At least I always tell them. But I think we should talk about the future of the

art of architecture.

Of course, I am very optimistic. I feel that we are in one of the great golden ages of
architecture. And I can't say that from my meager knowledge, anyhow, of painting, or
of the theater, or even of writing — since I know less about it, I don't want to say that.

But I do know that in architecture we have reached, or are beginning to reach, and
that's why you can talk in terms of the future, beginning to reach a wonderful style

background on which to build. Imagine if I had had to practice seventy-five years ago,
I'd have had to invent a new style for every building I built, like Richardson or poor
Sullivan, for them every building was a challenge. They had to start from nothing.
Now I can use all of Mies's work, all of Corbusier's work. I can't use Wright, there's

the significant part. Wright is of today, lives today, but is not of it. His work, I think,

gives us a thrill much as the Parthenon might, but has just about the same amount of
message content. It's just about as relevant to our work as the Parthenon is. But all of

Mies's work, all of the International Style, to use the phrase, is grist to our mill. We
start with that, as with the lenses of our eyes. More and more as you read the maga-
zines and go to the schools, that is the architecture that is practiced, taught, and pub-
licized. The half-modern works, the compromises with the Beaux-Arts, nobody takes
seriously anymore.
The future of architecture is completely and absolutely sure because no matter how
it is battered at by the Goffs at one end, the classicists at the other, the mainstream
seems now to have caught on after these thirty years. We've come to a period which
is, I believe, the first time since the Baroque synthesis of the eighteenth century, when

274
we have a stylistic background that is part of our bloodstream on which we can start

designing.

Now I'm not telling you that you have to go and do International Style work. Let
them break away if they can. Let them even try to bend the style, by so much as the
crook of a finger, as Saarinen is trying to do, which I am trying to do. Any architect
worth his salt is trying to break loose. It's that tension between the disciplines that

you know you've got and you've inherited from Mies. In the case of Saarinen, or Pei,

or myself, we're trying to develop from there, trying to stand on the shoulders of
those people. It's amazing that our best work is the most restrained. It's the most typi-

cally in the straight line of style, I think it will be a few years to find out whether
Saarinen's Lutheran College will be better than General Motors or not.

History, of course, will be the final arbiter. But how wonderful, I feel, as a semi-his-

torian to live in a period where you have that calmness of acceptance of a style of

architecture. The first time since the eighteenth century, when everybody knew when
a window was well spaced or not. In Wren's time they knew the difference between a

thick muntin and a thin muntin. Now we know the difference between well-spaced

columns and oversized, lumpy columns, or whether you are introducing brick in a

place where there should be tension.

What style would be in this sense would be a corpus — I use that strange word just

because it helps me — a corpus of commonly understood concepts and principles of

design. It's just a group of clues like, for instance, the fact that every one of us, in

building a tall building such as Seagram's and 860 Lake Shore Drive and Lever House
and Marseilles, put our building up from the ground. That is a basic feeling of our

style.

Now whether it's expressed as Russell Hitchcock did twenty-five years ago in his
book, that it is a feeling of volume, not of mass, or whatever the cause, it is instinctual

in every one of us. We don't feel that we're copying anybody simply because we show
the underside soffit of our second stories. That is an absolute characteristic of our
style. The same thing is true of the method of the treatment of symmetry and of
ordering the facade. We use what Hitchcock called the principle of regularity. That is

a sort of ground base, a boom-boom-boom, of spiced columns. For instance, many of

us notice in looking at the boom-boom-boom underlying Lever House that one of the
columns is misplaced, which is disturbing to those who are in tune with regularity as
a basic theme in development of architecture.
Then there's another characteristic that we don't talk about, but we all practice:

none of us use ornamentation. It's no accident that Wright and Goff use more orna-
ment than Welton Becket and myself because in that case Welton Becket and I are

identical. Both believe in the same style. Naturally, he has a slightly different inter-

pretation, which is fine. I think the more the better.

In fact, I think the striving that Saarinen is going through, which is a real struggle

in his soul, his Finnish, Nordic temperament is really hard at work trying to break

this effect that he thinks is one influenced by Mies van der Rohe. I feel more happy
about it myself if I think that if I go off the deep end, as I did in my house or the syn-
agogue, history will bring me back, or I'll find my way back, if back is to be back. But
if anybody can change this style, or change this style phase, to use a minor subdivi-
sion of a style, let them try.

275
 Certainly, the Gothic changed during its period. In England especially, in three

different manners, although it remained Gothic, although the period didn't look like

Early English. Modern architecture today doesn't look like a stucco box with win-

dows thrown around it as it did in the 1920s.

Take Catalano's new house, a hyperbolic paraboloid out of laminated wood with a
clear plastic roof, so that as you approach the house, you see the laminations held up

at the ends, enormous spans, by this structure. The glass walls are put at the neutral

axis of the hyperbolic paraboloid, which is perfectly level, horizontal. You see none of
the solecisms that you usually see in concrete with glass following it up. All right,

that fascinates me. I don't want to do it. It might not be my dish of tea, but my eyes

are in that direction. Catalano is in the mainstream of pushing the boundaries, the
edges of our style. I welcome the hyperbolic paraboloids and the thin-shelled dome
boys. They don't invalidate any of the basic theses. They don't start using ornament.
They don't say let's not use regular column-spacings and cover our columns up. No,
the regular columns are still there — all the basic characteristics. What is changing is

it's becoming richer, as all styles have.

Look at the difference as Romanesque developed. The Greek, of course, is an

exception. They didn't develop. They became more like Mies. Mies is the Greek of
the modern style. He refines, refines, refines, until his final building will be his most
perfect building, which is very Greek in a restrained sense. Where Saarinen is more
outgoing and Corbusier, especially, the most Baroque spirit, is ending up at

Ronchamp in the chapel. It should have been built in Gunite and glass, a light,

weightless cage of miraculous shape-abilities. But the technicians are rather a dull lot

these days. They can't keep up with Corbusier's genius-type ideas. Ronchamp is built,

but since Gunite can't do it, it is built in rubble, masonry, and any old things they
could put together, then stuccoed over. In other words, the idea has gone a little bit

ahead of the techniques, which is only right. Those are the extremes, the Seagram
Building and the Ronchamp Chapel. They still both admire each other, which is no
accident.

It's amusing to look back at the birthday of the style, 1923, which is now thirty-two

years ago. I don't think there is anybody, even among architects younger than I am,
that wouldn't look back to, let's say, Mies's brick house that wandered off in all direc-

tions, or to Le Corbusier's Ozenfant House, to pick two different examples, without a

feeling of perfect familiarity and admiration.
A better example of this, though, that no one can deny, is the wonderful one of the

chair. The greatest chair of our time designed in 1928, the Barcelona Pavilion chair by

Mies van der Rohe. That chair I now specify, as do all my fellow young architects,

whenever we need a large monumental chair. All right, that's a twenty-seven-year-old

chair. You stand at the year 1928, when that was designed, and look back twenty-
seven years at the chairs. The Art Nouveau, the curvilinear whiplash chairs may be
objects of beauty as some of van de Velde's work, or you could look at the Arts and
Crafts Mission style with square stick backs, or Frank Lloyd Wright's, which was
Mission of the period, with their pegs, their squares, and their flat arms, you just feel a

sense that, "Well, there's history, boys. What are we going to do?" But who feels that

of the Barcelona chair? Who feels, "That piece of old-fashioned nonsense?" Nobody
can say that. We have a style. Now I don't mean to say that that was the last good
chair or the first. It wasn't. Eames has refined on the ideas that have come up, techni-

276
cally and aesthetically, by using the thin wires, as Bertoia and others have. It's per-

fectly legitimate, but those don't deny the validity of the Barcelona chairs. The
Barcelona, the Stuttgart, and the Breuer chair completely deny the validity of the

approach of the Mission and the Art Nouveau chair.

You stand in 1923 and start looking back. You can't look two years back, much less

ten years back. There is no building in 1913 that would be even recognizable, either
to us or to the men of 1923.
There are, of course, exceptions to all rules. And what exceptions! There are two
in history that come to mind quickly: one of them is Michelangelo and the other is

Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright founds styles as anyone else founds man-
ners. He just starts a new one every time he turns around. He did another one when
he went to California in 1923. He did another one after this war with his circles and
cylinders, and, no doubt, he will do another one yet if given time. But his period
when he was relevant to this period was 1900 to 1908. You date from the Riverside
Club when, practically single-handed, he founded the style of 1923, to give it a quick

name, and then went off to invent many other architectures after that. But that is the
one that caught. That is the one that for some reason became the touchstone, the
touch-off of what we know now as modern architecture.

Of course, there are many differences. There are many handcraft approaches.
There is a great sheltering roof, it's very massive and meant to be, you see. The jump
had to be made by the boys over there, Gropius, Mies, Oud, and Corbusier. That
jump was not made here.

But if you were to analyze what caused it to come together in the year 1923, you
have to start with Frank Lloyd Wright. You can't name any other architect. Almost,
just Frank Lloyd Wright, and then you have to go into modern painting, into modern
technology, into the Crystal Palace and other extraneous matters to explain what
happened in 1923. The defeat in the World War of central Europe. Modern painting
being by far the most important.
But much the same, you see, in Mannerist Italy in Michelangelo's time. Michel-

angelo was very impatient with Bramante's classical Renaissance and he was darned
if he was going to follow the rules. He really exploded the whole thing. If it hadn't
been for Michelangelo, both Mannerism and Baroque would have been different,
although he was not a Baroque architect. Yet almost single-handed, in the rear of St.

Peter's, he started the colossal order in the use of strange contrasts, of small windows
and enormous columns that later became the Baroque style. So Frank Lloyd Wright
did found modern architecture and yet he has nothing to do with it today. On the
contrary, he has as much to do with it as the Parthenon has, or the Crystal Palace.

Not that you can't misunderstand Mies just as you can misunderstand Wright. But
you can't misunderstand him to such an extent. It's moot because the answer's in the

style.

The patronage we have today for great buildings, which is just beginning with
General Motors and the Seagram's company, would not be possible without a style.

They see it coming. Some people in the companies see this common denominator of
the basic style that is not expensive and not nonsensical. It's a way to monumentality
without arrogance, without stupidity. It is making patronage possible and probable.
It's now got to that point, which is a very good point to get to, because the patronage

today will be by business, just as it was with the Medici in Florence.

277
 .

Each ohe of us says, I know I'm changing quite a lot. It gives us pause. But we do it,

I notice. We're restless. We're striving for — I don't know what. Maybe this whole gen-
eration will be written off. I think we'll just have to wait for the history books.

From the beginning modern architecture had certain inherent inconsistencies. For exam-
ple, in line with egalitarian social goals, group practice was urged as the appropriate
architectural organization. Though Rockefeller Center, the United Nations Headquarters,

and countless other projects were produced by architectural group effort, in most architec-

tural offices egalitarian group practice as advocated by Gropius did not prevail. The mak-
ers of modern architecture were decidedly individualistic

MAX BILL: 1961

This Gropius group practice is a special case. This philosophy of teamwork seems to

me a bit artificial. But maybe such combinations are very useful. We have here in
Zurich a combination between Haefeli, Moser, and Steiger. They work together. They
have worked with others together and the architectural expression is perhaps not so
expressionistic. But it's, in a certain way, clear, reasonable, and, for this, perhaps real-

ly right. I personally like to cooperate with others when a team is strong enough.
When the team is not good enough, it's better that one is doing it himself.

WlLLEM DUDOK: 1961

I should say a good city planner is in principle the architect. Once Berlioz or Wagner
said, when they asked him, "What is the finest instrument?" he answered, "The finest

instrument is the orchestra." In the same way, I say the finest building is the city.

Understand what I mean? Then the city is an architectural problem. Of course, there
must be a teamwork with engineers and different businessmen and financiers and all

the things. But the conductor, that is the architect, because it is an architectural
problem.

Carl Koch : 1956

We pay a lot of lip service to the group, but training is still much that of the
very
individual and the artist. We are not yet good as team members. The first thing is to

find out what sort of team it is. Then if the architect can get to be captain, why, fine.

But if he sets himself up as captain, without understanding the game, he is going to

find it hard to get any players.
I think architects, when they talk of teams, are too prone to think of teams of
architects. Instead of thinking of the team as one on which the architect plays a part,

and the manufacturer, the businessman, the politician, the statesman, and so on are

the other members of the team. Very often we think in architectural terms of a team
being a group of guys who get together and, therefore, are stronger to fight the other

members of the team, which we are still prone to call the opposition. As far as archi-

tects are concerned, they will play a part in it if they broaden their horizons consider-

[Link] still look at an individual building as the end product of an architect.

We talk about city planning and regional planning and so on. But even there we
only look at the technical aspects of We have got to learn the rest of what makes
it. it

necessary to build buildings well enough, and how to speak the language of the other

278
 6

members of the team. How to understand their problems well enough so that we can
help. That's the first step that most of us don't take. A politician is a politician, and
our idea is you can't talk his language. A result is that he doesn't care about or feel it

important to understand ours. A few people have got to be able to talk to each other
to bring in planning that has to do with any municipality. Though buildings are built

by a team of people with many capabilities — owners, investors, engineers, contrac-

tors, constructors — the new doctrine automatically designates the architect the head
of the team.

A principal charge frequently leveled against modern architecture was that the practice did

not match the theory. This is not an unusual charge, but in the case of modern architec-

ture it is significant because of the moral fervor with which the new era was proclaimed.
Form did not inevitably follow function . The idea was a cleansing one, but the function of

a given building can be fulfilled with many different forms. The final form selected may
have a great deal to do with art, style, economics, legalities, technology, and many other
factors, including simple preference.

LECORBUSIER: 1950
"Functional architecture" is a journalists' phrase. It is redundant because architecture
is functional by definition. Otherwise, what is it? Garbage. 1 have defined architec-
ture. It is the scientific, correct, and magnificent play of forms in the light. This is the

first sentence I wrote about architecture. That means you have to be plastician, poet,
and, at the same time, informed technician. It opened the whole front and allowed
creation.

KUNIO M AYEKAWA: 1962

When I studied at Corbusier's office in 1928-30, I recall that European modern
architecture had laid hopes on what is called mechanization. People were quite opti-

mistic in the hope that mechanization would save human beings as well as human
life. However, that hope seemed to be betrayed twenty to thirty years after that. The
environment where people lived had become dehumanized. Unfortunately, this

mechanization is not only impacting on the technological side of human life, but it is

also involving wider areas of human society itself in its big, dehumanized network of
mechanism. Such bureaucratization has been spreading in our society. Therefore, all

human beings are experiencing great difficulties, not only in architecture, but also in
our society, in the entire environment where we now live. How to overcome this is

our most important problem. Modern architecture should address this difficult prob-

lem.

I am most interested in economic problems. No matter how much technology

develops, if society in general is barren, or it does not have enough wealth to utilize it,

that new technology will not bear fruit. In this connection, as far as both technology

and design are concerned, I am very much interested in whether society can afford it

or not.

Rudolf Steiger: i 9 i

I think that architecture, in all periods, was a very complicated subject, and I remem-

279
 1

ber a letter of Alberti in the time of the Renaissance. Alberti wrote to a friend, "It is

amazing that we have no artists and architects in our time." That was in the

Renaissance. Today we have the impression that it was the most important time for

the architect. That is always the impression people have when they are in the pre-
sent.

It is important that the range, the vision of the architect be as broad as possible. I

said this afternoon that it makes a big difference whether my camera has a telephoto
lens. This corresponds to the specialist who, in the great distance, sees a small field,

or a medium lens, which corresponds to the average architect, but we must aim for a

wide-angle lens to master as wide a field as possible. Here it is the development that is

unsatisfactory, that is the excessive specialization of the architect.

J.J. P. OUD: 1961

If I have to find an architectural philosophy in a few words, then I would like the

description I gave in the initial stage of my career. Seek in clear forms for clearly

expressed needs. Silently included in this formula is the necessity of giving the work a

lucid aesthetic shape.

Later on, startled by this dead end of one-sided abstraction, I extended this formu-
la to the following four sentences: The drive to abstraction demands completion by
striving for melody. Pure abstraction is like religion without humanity. Humanity is

life in the flowing continuation of daily existence. The course and rhythm of daily
existence demands architectural melody.

At present, we have not yet realized this in architecture in a satisfactory way. The
architecture today lacks, first of all, the distinguishing mark of high quality, whereas
this is essential for modern architecture. There is, of course, a kind of modern style

nowadays. But it is still too much a matter of mode. It lacks deepness and devotion.
Nearly everyone can design, at present, a good building. But we want more, we want
buildings which can move us.

Another frequent fundamental criticism of modern architecture has been that it lacks

humanity. Perhaps some negative response was inevitable, given the increased size of

buildings, but architects of past ages have managed to endow even huge buildings with

human warmth and appeal.

Felix Candela: 1 9 6

The matter of monumental architecture is very interesting because that is one of the
most difficult things to do at this moment. I mean, specifically, because we don't have
this ornamental idiom with which to express ourselves, you see. I mean all these dec-

orative elements which acquire a symbolic significance, we have not given time for

them to become symbols.

According to many critics of modern architecture, the best it has been able to do regarding

enrichment is to employ the wide variety of textures and patterns in natural materials —
marble and other types of stone, wood, and so on.

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 —

MINORU YAMASAKI: 1960

One of the things that has caused the reaction of modern architecture, early-twenti-

eth-century architecture, was narrowing our horizons in every field. Simplicity, lack

of color, everything reducing the materials which were popular. For instance, you
couldn't use stone or marble, for a while anyway. All of this, I think, is tending to
erase itself and now we're starting to broaden our horizons and include our whole
palette. Heaven knows our palette isn't large enough really to use tastefully because I

think that man needs variety.

Modern architecture disowned the ornament of the past and never developed its own. The
other fine arts, sculpture and painting, which had enriched architecture throughout histo-

ry, had also become abstract. With few exceptions, abstract painting and sculpture added
little warmth or humanity to the abstract forms of modern buildings.

WlLLEM DUDOK: 1961

In my opinion, what is wrong with architecture equally applies to all other arts

music, painting, sculpture, poetry. This need not surprise us, for in every art society is

reflected. This society develops at a formidable and alarming pace, but ours is not a
culture in which the focus is human interest. Man does not spend much time on his
cultural development. It appears that he accepts literally everything that is served as

art. He knows that great artists have always been in advance of their time and he is

afraid of staying behind, not to be modern if he does not keep pace with his time. It's

a kind of social snobbism, which in Andersen's famous fairy tale, "The Beautiful

Clothes of the Emperor" "The Emperor's New Clothes"], was ridiculed in an immor-

tal way.

I must go into this more deeply. Art is a communication. This, at any rate, is an
important aspect of art. It is a wonderful communication, full of sense, from man to

man, that is, from the artist to the layman. Every art has a language of its own. No
philosophy explains how it is that a melody can be so moving, that a building can be
so touching. But this fact speaks for the existence of eternal values, to which all peo-
ple appear to be susceptible. Values to which the artist is able to give expression. It is

certainly true that artists in all times have shifted the boundaries to express them-
selves in their own way. All this on the basis of values which have made art compre-
hensible for all times, values which have their natural limitations. The unlimited is

chaos, degeneration.

Of course, pictorial or sculptural art need not be descriptive, let alone photograph-
ic. Abstract art which can move is certainly conceivable. But pictures like scribbling

paper on which one has wiped off one's paintbrushes, sculpture like rubbish, music as
if a cat has come down on the piano — all that is for me degeneration. I speak out
freely because I prefer to be considered as a kind of obsolete modernist by contempo-
raries to being considered a fool by posterity.

Ironically, this lack of human appeal is most grievous in the area where early modern
architecture showed its most ardent dedication and made its initial efforts — housing.

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EDWAR'D DURELL STONE: 1963
Well, first of all, actually very, very few private dwellings that are built in the United

States are ever done by architects. They're done by speculative builders. It's a matter
of simple arithmetic that neither the owner nor the architect can afford to have hous-

es that are designed by architects. So as a result, this country, especially in the last
twenty to thirty years, has seen all private dwellings done by speculative builders,

with the result that all of the suburbs of our cities are being used up by these little

boxes, which are probably the most impractical way in the world to build. It means,
first of all, that our land is being consumed. They are the largest contributors to what
is popularly known as "urban sprawl." We're beginning to witness the spectacle of
cities that run on for a hundred miles, like Los Angeles. It is threatened that we will

have such a city reaching from Boston to the Potomac. We almost have it.

Now if this country had originally been settled by the French or by the Spanish,
we would have fallen heir to a completely different tradition, or the Italians — com-
pletely different tradition in building. If you'll notice, the French countryside is made
up of compact villages. The houses are built wall to wall with courtyards for privacy,
walled off. You can practically shake hands with your next-door neighbor here out
your window. You've lost all privacy. There they have privacy. They have conve-
nience. They have the economy of building compactly. But more than that, they have
open country between the little villages.

It's a Latin tradition. Italy, France, and Spain all build this way. Well, it's a
Mediterranean tradition. You could see this if you visited Pompeii. Now the
Pompeians built their houses wall to wall. They were completely anonymous. You had
a door that led you into your place. You were confronted with solid walls. When you
got in and you first came into a beautiful atrium, a top-lighted room, and then you
went into a second room — open courtyard—where the rooms were all grouped
around this courtyard. You had complete privacy. Even the most affluent people lived

this way.

So it wasn't a, you know, you visit a suburb — an expensive suburb like you'd find

out of Houston and so on, and you get into a lot of status symbols. Somebody has a

great Colonial house, with four columns. Somebody else has an English Tudor
house — all very artificial, anachronistic.

Well, in light o{ this I thought, and have for a long while, that we should build,

instead of kidding ourselves, recognize that land is precious, that we would be better

to build in, to cloister our houses for that precious commodity, privacy. You'd in effect

wall in. You can use a smaller plot, wall that in and live within this where you're cut
off from the world and you can have some peace and tranquility. This means that a
community would look quite different. You'd come into a house like this, it's located

in the suburbs. It would be located on little dead-end streets. We probably wouldn't

line these up on streets with traffic.

STEIGER: 1961
All sorts of minor considerations of all kinds gnawed away at architecture. At the

moment this creates a somewhat pessimistic period in our architecture because we see

that more and more the purely material aspects are decisive, such as the price of the

land, utilization of real estate, the highest possible investment return, all of these fac-

282
tors, which are a burden to architecture. This situation is, especially for young archi-

tects, very difficult and many wonder nowadays whether it is still possible to make
headway with architectural forms, means, and ideas.

Juan O'Gorman: 195 5

The box in modern architecture is probably an expression of a greater importance of

commodities than of human beings. In our time, the human being is measured like a

commodity and, therefore, he's housed like a commodity. When you have to stack up
a lot of apples or pencils or some commodity like that, you put it into a box. Today, a

great deal of the thinking is around the idea that everything that is important in our
lives is a commodity, including the human being, which, of course, is very, very

wrong.

However, housing was only one of the concerns the architects voiced on the future of
modern architecture.

Marc Saugey: 196 1

We are at an intermediary stage right now. Over the past decades we have witnessed
strong disagreement between the supporters of a certain classicism or conventionality

in architecture and the advocates of a radical change to go hand in hand with the
change in our life-style. Between these two extremes, we have seen, little by little, like

a growing tree, other possible paths emerge. There are even paths of compromise. I

think we've reached a stage where there is a synthesis of all contemporary generative
ideas and that, from this stage, we will take off on different paths. I think architecture
ought to be less schematic, less hard, less, how should I say, less a weapon. In a new
stage, it should be much more a function of man, a function of ease of living, much
more adapted to the problem of lite.

L.L. RADO: 1956

Mr. Wright said that modern architecture is in the gutter. Well, I wouldn't say we arc-

in the gutter exactly. There is something happening to today's society that we seem
to overemphasize material values. Our advances are mainly in the field of science and
technology. I think we are somewhat off balance and architecture reflects that. But 1

think that there are some indications that the pendulum is swinging back. Now
whether that will take five years, ten or one thousand years to really swing back, 1

don't know. But we do have to strive for that balance.

MARCELO ROBERTO: 19 55
What is somewhat wrong in today's architecture is excessive inventiveness. Invention,

in the Greek sense of the word, meant the constant improvement of a process or a

technique, but in the architecture of our times, invention is just that, invention. The
architect feels constantly pressured to create something new, something different, and
that uninterrupted series of changes detracts from the quality and the importance of
the work. I think the fault lies not with the architects, but with the agitation of the
modern world that is always asking for something different, demanding change. The

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architect simply satisfies that exaggerated insistence. It isn't up to the architect to

change things. As long as the world is in such a state of unrest and needs constant
invention, the architect has to oblige.

Martin Vegas: 1955

In architecture there is maybe a certain confusion because of a continuous and excit-

ed search for what is new, without thinking of the consequences. I believe there is a

certain chaos taking place in the urban environment. The cities have lost unity. Here,
every architect is attempting, in every work, for what you would call, a masterpiece,
without taking into account the surroundings of his work. As a consequence, I have a
feeling that the urban environment is losing a lot of quality.

Jose Miguel Galia: 1955

I agree with my partner, Martin Vegas. I believe that I could say the same. I think
there is in architecture a process of decantation, not of invention. You can't invent
every day. I believe it's better to let things settle, that is, to work along a line. If, after

some time, one year, five years, you change mentally, you have other thoughts, seek
something, but not for the sake of seeking, not because three months ago I did some-

thing this way, now have I to do it differently.

EDGARDO CONTINI: 1956

The pace of architecture through the ages was always disciplined by economic factors
as well as by the slow pace of development. Our whole contemporary picture is, in

more than one field, affected unfavorably by the speed with which new developments
are presented to us and the inability of man to cope with such rapidity. His ability to

absorb and become aware of changing conditions is more or less constant to the time.
Architecture has always existed in time. Modern architecture has been the expres-

sion of such time. But we have reason to be concerned, I think, about what modern
architecture has been in the last quarter of a century and what it's going to be in the
next quarter of a century, in the broad terms of the expression of a society. The
expression of a society, of which it is a part, because of the tremendous rapidity with

which designers, architects, and engineers are faced with new materials, new tech-

niques, new methods. Our inability to absorb these new techniques to such a degree
that they become a tool in our hands for the production of real architecture, rather
than something to play with, to experiment with. Too much of our architecture has

had, in one form or another, in one direction or another, this eclectic quality of
experimentation, indeed, of a period that is probably very significant to mankind
otherwise.

I am, therefore, deeply concerned about the future of architecture. This, probably,
because we all are deeply concerned about our own future in broader terms and the
indecisions and nervousness of architectural expression reflects such broader indeci-
sions in our rather human problems.

DUDOK: 1961
The fact that the technique of construction allows us unlimited freedom has, more
than once, given rise to forms which seem rather to be applied, because they have
never occurred before, than to give a suggestive expression to the building.

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Architecture is the beautiful and serious game of space. There are many modern
buildings to which this statement cannot be applied. We see churches looking like

exhibition buildings, schools like factories, government buildings like offices, without

the least suggestion of dignity. Even famous colleagues sometimes disappoint me

when I see in their work new stunts to strike us dumb. To build only to amaze the
world is not the way to a beautiful development. In every one of us there lives the
hope of originality. This will always remain so. He is original who comes, in the most
natural way, to amazingly simple solutions, which lead to unlooked-for new forms. In

this way, building can become a reflection of the inexorably practical.

C ANDELA: 196 1

One of the worst things with architecture today may be that we are too concerned

about originality. I mean everybody wants to be original and in some cases this is

almost pathetic to see. In order to have architecture, I believe that we must have a

language in common, something which people can understand. If you change this

language, this idiom of vocabulary, people cannot understand what is happening.

Then you cannot have a style, a permanent vocabulary, which think is necessary I to

have in architecture. Then what's happening, really, not only in architecture but
probably in most of the arts, is we are doing painting for painters, architecture for

architects, and music for musicians.

JUNZO YOSHIMURA: 1962

I think the current architecture is too conceptual. In order to soke this problem, we
must find the real meaning and purpose for architecture. Then it will become what
human beings really need. It will no longer be an odd and unrealistic thing. In other

words, if we design individual architecture on the basis of necessity, architecture will

not be alienated from human life any longer. think current architecture the world
1

over is designed for its own existence. We have to design architecture for the use of

human beings. I think only such architecture will remain.

Paul Rudolph: i960

What we really need is a sense of hierarchy oi building types. Traditionally, the place

of worship, the palace, the governmental building, the gateway to the city were given
real emphasis. They were made very plastic. They had the must adornment. There-
was the greatest play of light and shadow. They were sited so that you could see them
from the greatest distance. The buildings for finance and for housing and so forth

were background buildings, so to speak. They were relatively quiet. This set up the
whole hierarchy of building types, which was made into a meaningful whole, which
was called the city.

Today this has been turned upside down. Industry quite often has the most money
to spend, so these become the dominant buildings. The church quite often is lost in

the shuffle. At the University of Mexico there is a building which tends to dominate
that whole campus, which merely holds a machine. Our whole sense of symbolism is

upside down. We need today, perhaps more than any other single thing, a hierarchy

of building types, and this has to do with where the most advanced structures should
be used. The most advanced structures, which tend to call the most attention to

themselves, should he relegated to truly important buildings. Not every hot dog stand

285
should be a hyperbolic paraboloid, or whatever. Every age that has produced architec-
ture worth talking about has had a hierarchy of building types all its own. But we,
today, do not have this. I would say that this has to do with the whole environmental
aspect of architecture.

YAMASAKI: 1960
It would be deadly if we narrowed our sights to the point where we only had one kind
of architecture, one solution, one kind of material, for our total environment. This
would be really a kind of sickening environment, monotonous and boring.
In a sense, to focus our thinking, and it is very necessary, simplicity is the early
part of any period in architecture. In Romanesque, in Gothic, it was the same thing
and then it flowered into a richer kind of architecture as it matured. In the same way,
I think that our architecture had to sort of focus our sights by returning to the simple,
basic thing.

But then, because we are such a complex civilization, because we do have this

incredible amount of material on hand, because of our technology and methods, we

have really an immense horizon. I think it's wrong to say to society that you should
limit yourself with one kind of thinking, with one kind of architecture. The richness

of our society is going to be evidenced by what we can produce with the materials on
hand and the gauge is how tastefully and how thoughtfully we can do this.

Ralph Rapson: 1959

Acknowledged scientific and technical progress has placed in our hands the means to

create a truly superior environment. We have the ability to control architectural form
almost at will. The dilemma is that we live in a cultural vacuum. We just don't seem
to be able to absorb the ever expanding and increasing scientific and technological
innovations and to assimilate all of this into our daily lives. As we add more and more
gadgets to our way of life, we often do this under the delusion that this is culture. We
flatter ourselves that this is real progress when so often it is simply escape. Rather, it

is, as Frank Lloyd Wright says, a cheap substitute for culture, hired and paid for by the
hour. Technical means have always been the means to achieve and enrich the envi-
ronment, but our great advantage will be of little value unless inspired by truly

cultural values.

I think if our era is to produce significant architecture, significant environment, in

keeping with the highly developed technology of our times as well as our own striving

for a better world, then we have to have a new scale of values that are based on
sound, orderly research. Knowledge that is applied creatively to the technology of

today. Values based on creative thinking, beauty, order. Let me remind you that order
is inseparable from fitness of use, honest application of technology, and genuine aes-

thetic values. All of these values should be based on a genuine desire for harmonious
and beautiful environment, stemming from great understanding and appreciation for

the dignity of man.

Gordon Bunshaft: 19 56
I hope that we tend toward doing good buildings where each one is not an individu-
alistic, unusual attempt at being different, but attempts more and more to fit in with
the buildings around it in unity, scale, and a few other things like that. I hope that as

286
we get more mature in our modern movement we will feel that we do not have to

have each product be entirely a new concept. In other words, I'm a believer of evolu-
tion rather than revolution. I'd rather see a street of neat, simple structures than a

street full of nine eccentric geniuses, mixing up the pattern of that area.

William Wurster: 1955

I feel that architecture has broadened its face. In the years past, when I was in

school, the emphasis was on the solo performance. I think the emphasis has become

on the total environment, and as such it is much more important than it used to be.
The only reason to split off architecture and planning is purely of the weight of the

work to be done. It's like psychology split off from philosophy. It's like statistics split

off from mathematics. The weight of the knowledge becomes so great that you can no
longer treat it in one compartment, that's the only reason. It's a total picture that

you're after.

AFFONSO EDUARDO REIDY: 1955

The future of architecture is not in an isolated building. The future of architecture is

entwined in urbanism because the big problem of architecture is urbanism. Urbanism

has been forgotten and greatly transformed into only a scientific object. It is neces-

sary to humanize urbanism.

Urbanism must have more of the architect's help. It should not only maintain the
theoretical aspect of planning, which is necessary and indispensable, but should feel

the creative influence of the architect as the humanizer of the city. In solving housing

problems, the architect has to create functional spaces, volumes, good conditions, but

also make it beautiful and pleasant so that people feel comfortable.

One prominent characteristic that the modern architectural revolution had in common
with all revolutions was a strong sense of optimism concerning the future. This vital and
durable conviction, along with accompanying concerns, was evident in the comments of

the early founders and the current practitioners alike.

OUD: 1 96 1

If I was not optimistic, I would not be an architect.

Frank Lloyd Wright: 1957

It's not the future I'm worried about. It's the present. When you get pessimistic con-
cerning the future, the thing that you love, why, then you are done.

Ludwig Mies van her Rohe : 1964

I'm absolutely optimistic because I think the forces, the economic forces are so
strong. I think you are always influenced by your environment, you know.

LECORBUSIER: 1950
I will say something that will surprise you. I have never claimed to be smarter than
the others. Only I have made personal judgments that I maintained against all odds,
judgments that I tried to make explicit to myself in my practical life. I have a head

287
that is rather well organized. Though I am self-taught, 1 have an insatiable curiosity
and am a student more enthusiastically today than ever.

Walter Gropius: 1955

I'm definitely optimistic about the future. Let me read this. It's something I've

prepared:

We can see that through the enormous speed of development we have come through,
I daresay that happened in my lifetime in the practical problems of life, as well as the

philosophy behind it, there have been greater changes than in the whole time going

back to Jesus Christ. So I think if we look back to see what has been achieved during
the last thirty or forty years, we find that the artistic gentleman architect, who turned
out charming Tudor mansions and Renaissance skyscrapers with all modern conve-
niences, has almost vanished. This type of applied archaeology, as I call it, is disap-

pearing fast. It is melting in the fire of the conviction that the architect can conceive
buildings not as monuments, but as receptacles for the flow of life which they have to

serve, and that his conception must be flexible enough to create a background fit to

absorb the dynamic features of our modern life.

Modern architecture is not a few branches of an old tree. It is new growth right

from the roots. This does not mean, however, that we are witness to the sudden
advent of a new style. What we see and experience is a movement in flux, which has
created a fundamentally different outlook on our architecture. Its underlying philoso-
phy knits well with the trends in today's science and art, steadying it against those

forces which try to block its advance and to retard the growing power of its ideas.

The irrepressible urge of critics to classify contemporary movements which are still

in flux and to put each neatly in a coffin with a style label on it has increased the
widespread confusion in understanding the dynamic forces of the new movement in
architecture and planning. What we looked for was a new approach, not a new style.

The attempt to classify and thereby to freeze living architecture and art while it is

still in its formative stage into a style or ism is more likely to stifle than to stimulate
creative activity.

Steel or concrete skeletons, ribbon windows, slabs cantilevered, or wings hovering

on stilts are but impersonal contemporary means, the raw stuff, so to speak, with

which regionally different architectural manifestations can be created. The construc-

tive achievements of the Gothic period, its walls, arches, buttresses, and pinnacles,
similarly became a common international experience. Yet what a great regional vari-

ety of architectural expression has resulted from it in the different countries.

But what is far more important than structural economy and its functional empha-

sis is the intellectual achievement which has made possible a new spatial vision.

Whereas the practical side of building is a matter of construction and materials, the

very nature of architecture makes it dependent on the mastery of space. Architecture

is becoming again an integral part of our life, a thing dynamic, not static. It lives, it

changes, it expresses the intangible through the tangible. It brings inert materials to

life by relating them to the human being.

GlO PONTI: 19 6 1

There is nothing today that is wrong with architecture because there are marvelous

288
things. What is wrong in architecture is bad architects, and this was also the case in

the past. There's not a crisis or something that demands change because we have a
richness of architecture that has never before existed in the world.

Wherever town planning is possible, there are enormous possibilities that didn't

exist in the past. With the presence of men the likes of Le Corbusier, Mies van der

Rohe, Gropius, Aalto, Neutra, Kenzo Tange, and then people who have died such as
that Dutchman, what was his name, van de Velde, and Frank Lloyd Wright. There
has never before been such a wealth of such extraordinary men, and I've overlooked
many. Then the works of Nervi, works as large as we can build them and that we do
build, marvelous reinforced concrete and steel and plastics. Large and special prob-
lems which create a type of architecture in itself. For example, all the nuclear stations

had created an architecture before the architect thought of it. It is a marvelous

period.

My advice is to treasure the future and never look back. The glory of the past was
made by others. We have the future, the great unknown, that mystery in front of us.

Our architecture must look to the past only to be worthy of the burdens of the past.

Bruce Goff: i 956

Our civilization is a different one than we've ever had and naturally our architecture
has to be different to go along with it. We hear talk if we try to do something that
we're going too far, but if we look back a little ways, no one ever went too far. No
architect, composer, anyone, ever went too far. It seems to me that anything we can
do now, and that we need to do now, and can actually realize now is not too far. It's

part of what we are capable of in our own civilization. No matter how different it may
seem to the so-called cultural lag.

EDUARDO CATALANO: 1956

Modern architecture is based upon a dynamic concept and develops without precon-
ceptions. Although we have development of ideas and social structures, it will never
reach a climax because climax means decadence and death afterwards. I think that
modern architecture will be always modern and will change. Change is the only per-
manent thing that we have in the universe.

It's based upon a dynamic concept. We will have modern architecture for a long,

long time. I don't mean the present modern architecture, but the modern architec-

ture of its time, expressing its ideas, its social structure, its technology, and so on.
Regarding the expression of architecture, I hope that we will never have an interna-
tional pattern. It will have many patterns and always different.

EERO SAARINEN: 1958

Let's review a little bit what has happened. Let's go back to almost around 1900. In
1900 there were several pioneers breaking out of the rut of the old by their own
strength. There was Peter Behrens. There was my father. There was Mackintosh.
There was Berlage and many others. Those were all great and strong individuals that
through their own strength were breaking away.
Now then in the twenties — the socially conscious twenties — and thirties, and for-

ties, socially conscious architecture came with functionalism, with all the hoopla
about the International Style. Everything really channeled down to one sort of style.

289
It wasn't proper to step outside of that style at all. In fact, it was most improper. The
exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art, you know, where you were judged whether
you deviated from that style one bit or not. If you didn't, you got in.

Then one man, Mies, really came along and codified all these attempts into one
beautiful line and it became the gospel. It became one straight line and it was a beau-
tifully clear thing. It was open for everybody to copy if they wished and, by God,
that's what they've done, too, and sometimes it was done very well. But that was
about the state of things in 1950.
Since then, a curious thing has happened. A new set of pioneers have come up who
have strained to get out of that one single rut, because as much as I admire — I'm a

great, great admirer of Mies — but if a thing just becomes used in an undigested way
by others, it becomes a rut.

We now have a whole spread line of attack on the problem of architecture. There is

all the folded-roof experiments on the one side. The experiments in relating things to
surrounding buildings. There are all the grille experiments. There are all the struc-
tural experiments. There's a whole new growth of enthusiasm for concrete in many
different ways and for decoration.

Everybody is really working hard to spread out from the sterile little line, but then
we have to ask, "Is that really what we want architecture to be?" I think if we regard
what everybody's doing as an experiment spreading out, then it's all right. But if we
think of it as, "Ah, this is what architecture is now," then it's not all right. What
should grow out of this? That's, of course, the question. That's the thing that I'm ter-

ribly interested in now.

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As in earlier periods, sweeping changes in the late nineteenth century generated a new
architecture. This architecture responded to new attitudes in people's minds. It recognized

an industrialized economic system; it responded to and shaped the different circumstances

in which twentieth-century people worked and lived. In a society that was becoming ever
more global, it became an international style.

The revolutionary founders of modern architecture proclaimed a total break with the
past. They embraced technology by using new materials —
steel, glass, plastic, reinforced

concrete — and electrical and mechanical innovations. Influenced by modern art, they

created an architectural aesthetic based on abstract form, space, and light, and frequently
employing bold primary colors. With determination these pioneers sought improved social

goals, dedicating the machine age to democratic values. In the perspective of history, their
accomplishments will loom even larger than they do today.
Modern architects displayed their zeal and audacity not only in buildings, but also in

the modern cities they designed to replace the accumulated architecture of past genera-

[Link] dream of creating new cities was partly realized in places like Chandigarh,
where Le Corbusier designed a modern acropolis in a traditional city. But it was fully real-

ized in only one place — Brasilia, planned by Lucio Costa with buildings by Oscar
Niemeyer. Brasilia has prompted many of the criticisms discussed in this chapter — exces-

sive inventiveness, lack of enrichment and human scale — but there is no doubt that it is

distinctly different from all preceding styles.

At the turn of the century, when the Oral History begins, there was no modern archi-

tecture. Sixty-six years later, when it closes, nothing was built throughout the civilized
world but modern architecture. Within these years a style of architecture was created that
ranks in unsurpassed quality and remarkable beauty with the great styles of the past.

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years teaching in Ulm, he was based in Zurich. His work as a

Biographies sculptor, painter, designer, and important educator demonstrate
his wide-ranging abilities in and influence on all the modern arts.

Other outstanding works include Bill Studio House, Zurich; Swiss

Pavilion, 1936 Triennale, Milan; Radio Zurich Studio and

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). Born in Kuortane, Finland, Aalto' Administration Building, Zurich.

attended Helsinki Technical School. In his Turku office he execut-

ed his first independent work, a complex of exhibition buildings Oswaldo Arthur Bratke (b. 1907). Bom in Sdo Paulo,

at the Industrial Exhibition at Tampere, the year following gradua- Brazil, Bratke studied civil engineering there at Mackenzie

tion. He was an early and active member of GAM (Congres University. After erecting over four hundred houses as a builder,

Internationaux d 'Architecture Moderne). His Town Hall in he became a professional architect. He devoted his career to

Sdyndtsalo and his Paimio Sanatorium gained the admiration of developing the human element in architecture, stressing simple

the architectural world. He also earned renown as a furniture design and easily maintained materials. From his own admired
designer, introducing the use of molded plywood. Through his residence in Sdo Paulo to entire new towns in the Amazon, such
sensitive and sympathetic use of natural materials, Aalto brought as Vilas Industriais Amazonas, Amapa State, Brazil, Bratke is

humanizing elements to the pure International Style and gained internationally honored for his sympathetic architectural environ-

worldwide recognition as an important innovator and leader in ments. Outstanding works include Grande Hotel, Campos do
the modern movement. Other outstanding works include Library, Jorddo, Brazil; Morumbi Children's Hospital, Sdo Paulo;

Viipuri, Finland; Villa Mairea, Noormarkku, Finland; Finnish Legislative Assembly, Sdo Paulo.

Pavilion, 1939 World's Fair, New York; Baker House,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MARCEL BREUER (1902-1981). Born in Pecs, Hungary, Breuer

Massachusetts; Civic Center, Sdyndtsalo, Finland; Sunila Pulp studied at the Weimar Bauhaus and became a master at the

Mill and Workers Housing, Kotka, Finland; Culture Center, Dessau Bauhaus. There he created his highly influential tubular

Wolfsburg, Germany; National Pensions Institute, Helsinki. steel furniture. After opening an office in Berlin, he spent four
years traveling. Breuer worked in England and then moved to the

PlETRO BELLUSCHI ( 1899-1994). Born in Ancona, Italy, United States, where he joined Walter Gropius on the faculty of

Belluschi graduated from the University of Rome and received a the Harvard University School of Architecture. First with Gropius

degree in civil engineering at Cornell University. After working as in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later in his own New York

a chief designer in the office of A.E. Doyle in Portland, Oregon, City practice, he designed a series of notable houses, combining

he became an associate, and the office later reorganized under modern and traditional American influences. In major internation-
his name. His Equitable Savings and Loan Association Building al commissions, with unusual clarity of expression and attention to

was a pioneering structure, but the churches and houses in his detail, he employed concrete in massive and sculptural forms.

Northwest style, influenced by the Japanese residential wooden With his teaching and architecture, Breuer became the most cele-

vernacular, made him internationally renowned. As dean of the brated of first-generation Bauhaus students. Outstanding works

Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of include Chamberlain House, with Walter Gropius, Weyland,
Technology and an active consultant, Belluschi has been an Massachusetts; Breuer House, New Canaan, Connecticut;
important influence in education and the architectural profession. Robinson House, Williamstown, Massachusetts; IBM Research
Other outstanding works include Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Center, with R.F. Gatje, Grasse, France; UNESCO Headquar-
First Presbyterian Church, Cottage Grove, Oregon; Central ters, with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss, Paris; Whitney
Lutheran Church, Portland; Portsmouth Priory, Rhode Island; and Museum of American Art, with H. Smith, New York City.

as consultant, Bennington College Library, Vermont; Goucher

College Center, Towson, Maryland; Northern States Power Gordon Bunshaft (1909-1990). Bom in Buffalo, New
Company Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota. York, Bunshaft graduated with a degree in architecture from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and continued

MAX BILL (b. 1908). Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, Bill stud- his education in Europe and Africa on a Rotch Traveling
ied at the Bauhaus under Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer. Fellowship. After serving with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

His buildings such as the School of Design in Ulm, Germany, he joined the New York City firm later known as Skidmore,
attest to his special architectural talent. With the exception of his Owings, and Merrill. As partner in charge of design at SOM, he

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received worldwide recognition for consistently innovative and as urban consultant for the general redevelopment of the city of

quality work, ranging from a single building such as Lever House, San Francisco. Ciampi's notable career emphasized and
New York City, to large projects like the U.S. Air Force Academy advanced the role of the modern architect as an urban planner.
in Colorado Springs. A master of his craft, Bunshaft was one of Other outstanding works include Saint Peter's Roman Catholic
the most significant second-generation modern architects. Other Church, Pacifica, California.
outstanding works include H.J. Heinz Company, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania; Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building, New York EDGARDO Contini (1914-1990). Born in Ferrara, Italy,

City; Reynolds Headquarters Building, Richmond, Virginia; Contini was educated in Rome and served as an engineer in the

Connecticut General Life Insurance Office Building, Bloomfield, Italian air force. He moved to the United States and joined the

Connecticut; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale office of Albert Kahn in Detroit, Michigan. With responsibilities

University, New Haven, Connecticut. for the design of concrete and steel structures for naval bases and
power, defense, and industrial plants, Contini created the first thin

Felix Candela (b. 1910). Born in Madrid, Candela graduat- barrel-vaulted project in the United States. He was awarded the

ed from that city's University of Architecture, where he concentrat- Legion of Merit for his wartime service with the U.S. Army Corps
ed on mathematics and structural theory. He enlisted in the of Engineers. He became partner in charge of engineering with
Spanish Republican forces, was taken prisoner, and later went to Gruen Associates, supervising design for the public and private

Mexico City. He adopted Mexican nationality and, with his sectors throughout the world. As a lecturer in urban design at the
brothers, established an architectural and construction company. University of California at Los Angeles, he combined his architec-

He designed over nine hundred shell-dome structures, exploiting tural talent with sensitive dedication to the environment.

the tensile strength of reinforced concrete. From low-cost family Outstanding works include Midtown Plaza, Rochester, New York;

housing to a major cathedral, the Church of the Miraculous Mid-Wilshire Medical Building, Los Angeles.

Virgin, Mexico City, Candela transformed the science of engi-

neering into the art of architecture. Other outstanding works WiLLEM DUDOK ( 1884-1974). Born in Amsterdam, Dudok
include Cosmic Ray Pavilion, University City, Mexico City; graduated as an engineer from the Royal Military Academy of
Market Hall, Mexico City; Chapel at Lomas de Cuernavaca, Breda. After ten years of military work, he was appointed city

Temixco, Morelos, Mexico. architect for Hilversum, the Netherlands, where for decades he
shaped the city and designed many of its principal buildings. He
Eduardo Cataiano (b. 1917). Born in Buenos Aires, served as town planner for The Hague, Velsen, Wassevaar, and
Argentina, Cataiano graduated with architectural degrees from Zwalle, and designed many buildings in his private practice.

the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and from Harvard Dudok's unadorned massive brick buildings in simple geometric

University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. After running an indepen- forms established his early reputation as an International Style
dent architectural practice in Buenos Aires, he moved to the architect. Outstanding works include Town Hall, Hilversum; De
United States. Cataiano taught at the University of North Bijenkorf Store, Rotterdam; Vondel School, Hilversum;

Carolina, Raleigh, and later at the Massachusetts Institute of Netherlands Students House, Cite Universitaire, Paris; Crematory,
Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His buildings display his Westenwelt, the Netherlands; Erasmus Huis, Rotterdam.
unique technical talents and concern for the broad social respon-
sibilities of the architect. Outstanding works include Raleigh R. Buckminster Fuller (
1895-1983). Born in Milton,

House, Raleigh, North Carolina; Julius Adams Stratton Student Massachusetts, Fuller studied briefly at Harvard University,

Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge. As a member of the U.S. Navy during the First

World War, Fuller, with assignments in applied engineering and

Mario Ciampi (b. 1907). Born in San Francisco, Ciampi global strategies, initiated his "comprehensive anticipatory design
studied at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and science." Fuller was an American original. He was not an archi-

the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. In addition to his architectural tect, but he is considered one of the architectural innovators of
work, such as the Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in San this era. He lectured in major universities and architecture schools

Francisco and numerous important school buildings, including throughout the world. He developed a new type of fibrous build-
Westmoor High School, Daly City, California, and Oceana ing block for lightweight structures and invented the circular

High School, San Francisco, he designed master plans for univer- Dymaxion House and the Dymaxion Car. His most significant

sities, school districts, and private developments. He also served contribution was the geodesic dome, based on the concept of

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the space frame and made in a variety of materials, including he designed the famous Fagus Factory, Alfeld, Germany, in

plywood, aluminum, and prestressed concrete. Some of the best which he utilized curtain-wall construction well in advance of its

known large-scale examples are the United States Pavilion, time. An active propagandist for new social, artistic, and archi-

Sokolniki Park, Moscow; Ford Rotunda, Dearborn, Michigan; tectural goals, Gropius was appointed head of two art schools in

DEW Line Radar Stations, the Arctic and Antarctica; Union Tank Weimar, which he combined as the Bauhaus. He remained
Car Dome, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. director when it moved to Dessau; there he designed its famed
glass and steel building. As Hitler came to power, Gropius left

JOSE Miguel Galia (b. 1924). Born in Gualegua ychu, Germany and, after an interval in England, moved to America,
Argentina, Galia studied at the University of Montevideo with Julio where he was appointed chairman of the Department of
Vilamajo. As a partner with Martin Vegas in Caracas, Venezuela, Architecture at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
he designed a series of important modern buildings that encour- He also returned to private practice, with Marcel Breuer, and
aged the adoption of the International Style in Venezuela. subsequently formed TAC, The Architects' Collaborative, in keep-
Outstanding works include Polar Building, Caracas; Commerce ing with his convictions concerning group design. Throughout his

and Agriculture Bank, Caracas; Eastern Professional Center of long and active career, Gropius was one of the most influential

Sabara Grande, Caracas; Twin Morochos Apartments, Caracas. international educators and architects of the twentieth century.

Other outstanding works include City Employment Building,

BRUCE Goff (1904-1982). Born in Alton, Kansas, Goff Dessau; Impington Village, Cambridgeshire, England; Graduate
received no academic architectural education but was appren- Center, Harvard University; United States Embassy, Athens; Pan

ticed at the age of twelve to the firm of Rush, Endacott, and Rush American (Met Life) Building, New York City.

in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he later became a partner. During the

Second World War, in the Construction Battalion of the U.S. Victor Gruen (1903-1980). Born in Vienna, Gruen attend-

Navy, he was recognized for his ability to design using impro- ed the Architectural School and Academy of Arts there and went
vised materials. Later he was appointed chairman of the into private practice. In 1938 he moved to New York City and
Department of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma in later to Los Angeles. He pioneered a new architectural complex,
Norman, which attracted widespread attention for its unique, cre- the shopping mall; a series of prototypical examples featured col-

ative design curriculum. In numerous unconventional, single-family orful, multistoried interiors with gardens, sculpture, and cafes, and
houses, Goff explored an unprecedented variety of building addressed the urban problems of traffic and parking. He applied
materials and inventive construction techniques. He designed a his ideas to city plans such as Fort Worth, Texas, which were

number of major buildings in his idiosyncratic style. Outstanding unrealized yet widely influential. In his work, Gruen strove to cre-

works include Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa, ate an environment of comfort and convenience rather than stylish

Oklahoma; Rudd House, San Francisco; Ledbetter House, buildings. Outstanding works include Lederer Shop, New York

Norman; Ford House, Aurora, Illinois; Bavinger House, Norman. City; Northland Shopping Center, Detroit, Michigan; Southdale
Shopping Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Museum of Arts and
Charles Goodman (1906-1992). Born in New York City, Sciences, Evansville, Indiana; Midtown Plaza, Rochester, New
Goodman studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. York.

He founded Charles Goodman Associates in Washington, D.C.,

and built a nationwide reputation in the residential field. Helmut Hentrich (b. 1905). Born in Krefeld, Germany,
Goodman's numerous housing developments and his pioneering Hentrich was educated at the University of Freiburg and the

work in prefabricated homes was marked by award-winning plan- Technical University of Vienna. He received an architectural

ning and design. Outstanding works include Hollin Hills, degree from the Technical University of Berlin. After working in

Alexandria, Virginia; River Park, Washington, D.C.; National the offices of Erno Goldfinger in Paris and Norman Bel Geddes
Homes, Lafayette, Indiana. in New York City, he opened an office in Dusseldorf and worked
with a series of partners. HPP, Hentrich-Petschnigg and Partner

Walter Gropius (1883-1969). Bom in Berlin, Gropius KG, has been honored for its careful restoration of historic build-

studied architecture at the Technical College in Berlin- ings, but Hentrich is most widely recognized for the numerous
Charlottenburg. Like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le outstanding office and administration buildings that introduced

Corbusier, he worked as an assistant in the Berlin office of Peter American corporate-style architecture to a rebuilding postwar
Behrens before beginning his own practice. With Adolph Meyer, Germany. Outstanding works include BASF Tower, Ludwigshafen,

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Germany; Thyssen Building, Dusseldorf; Horten Department professor of architecture at Yale University, New Haven,
Store, Neuss, Germany; Europa Center, Berlin. Connecticut, and subsequently accepted a similar appointment
at his alma mater. In a stunning series of buildings ranging from

Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971). Born in Copenhagen, museums to laboratories, he pursued an intuitive search for the

Jacobsen attended the Copenhagen Technical College and grad- fundamental principles of design employing brick and poured-in-

uated from the Royal Academy. His early residences and apart- place concrete. His unfulfilled city plans reveal not only his abid-

ments followed the International Style. He was influenced by Erik ing social concerns but also his inspired creativity. With his

Gunnar Asplund during his wartime work in Sweden. Back in teaching and his buildings of extraordinary strength and beauty,
Copenhagen after the war, he created designs indebted to Kahn influenced the development of modern architecture and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He developed his own distinctive earned recognition as a twentieth-century master. Outstanding
style characterized by a sensitive aesthetic and meticulous detail- works include Yale Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven; Mill

ing. Jacobsen's widely admired Town Hall in Rodovre, Denmark, Creek Redevelopment, Philadelphia; Richards Medical Research
initiated a series of notable international projects. Celebrated for Building, University of Pennsylvania; First Unitarian Church and
his light and delicate interiors, Jacobsen worked with the idea of School, Rochester, New York; Salk Institute, Lajolla, California;

total design, creating furniture and furnishings that helped make National Assembly, Dacca, Bangladesh; Kimbell Art Museum,

Danish design world famous. Other outstanding buildings include Fort Worth, Texas; Library and Dining Hall, Phillips Exeter

Aarhus Town Hall, Denmark; Row houses, Soholm, Denmark; Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire.
Royal SAS Hotel and Air Terminal, Copenhagen; Munkegaard
School, Copenhagen; Saint Catherine's College, Oxford, Carl Koch (b. 1912). Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Koch
England. graduated from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and began his practice in Boston as a designer of luxury homes.
Philip Johnson (b. 1906). Born in Cleveland, Ohio, He soon addressed the larger social problem of low-cost hous-

Johnson graduated from Harvard University, Cambridge, ing, convinced that an answer lay in industrialized housing. He
Massachusetts, with a degree in classical studies. He was pioneered in the field of prefabricated homes with the innovative

appointed the first director of the innovative Architecture foldout Acorn Prefabricated House, Weston, Massachusetts,
Department at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. There, which was opposed by unions and local building codes. Later he
with architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock, he curated designed a series of modern Techbuilt houses, with factory-

the landmark modern architecture exhibition The International manufactured modular parts. Continuing his lifelong concerns,

Style. The show and accompanying catalogue, cowritten by Koch worked to bring human values to high-density housing.

Hitchcock and Johnson, introduced the vanguard European archi- Other outstanding buildings include Eastgate Apartments,
tecture of the twenties to America. Johnson returned to Harvard to Cambridge, Massachusetts; Public Library, Fitchburg,

obtain an architecture degree and then resumed his position at Massachusetts; Lewis Wharf, Boston.
MOMA. In private practice, with a series of partners, he
designed a number of residences, including his own famous Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret
Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, as well as major cul- in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, he is known by his adopted
tural and office buildings, in the evolving modern style. A histori- name, Le Corbusier. He studied at the local art academy and
an, advocate, critic, and talented practitioner, Johnson is one of was stimulated by a series of European study trips. He worked
the most widely recognized figures in modern architecture. Other first with Auguste Perret, the French pioneer in ferroconcrete con-

outstanding works include Hodgson House, New Canaan; struction, and then with Peter Behrens in Berlin. In Paris, with

Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York; New York painter Amedee Ozenfant and poet Paul Dermee, he founded
State Theater, Lincoln Center, New York City. the revolutionary design review ['Esprit Nouveau. His book Vers

une Architecture as well as many others had worldwide impact

Louis Kahn (1901-1974). Born in Saarama, Estonia, Kahn on architectural thinking. Le Corbusier formed an architectural
emigrated with his parents to the United States. He attended the partnership in Paris with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and devel-

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, under the Beaux-Arts cur- oped numerous city schemes incorporating his concepts of urban
riculum of dean Paul Philippe Cret. Remarkably talented in draw- planning; these plans, along with exhibition buildings such as the

ing, he worked first as a draftsman, then as a principal designer Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau and Pavilion des Temps Nouveaux,
for a series of Philadelphia firms. He became design critic and contributed to his international fame. He designed a series of

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houses, including the most influential one, Villa Savoye,' in Poissy- rapidly established his presence and prominence in the United

sur-Seine, France, which dramatized the rational and aesthetic States. Mies expanded this series of inspired buildings, express-

forms of the new architecture. Le Corbusier's important theories ing his genius in the art of architecture in an age of science and
and great works have, in different ways, made him one of the technology. Other outstanding buildings include Seagram
most influential architectural geniuses of our time. Other outstand- Building, New York City; Federal Center, Chicago; Houston

ing works include Houses, Weissenhof Exhibition, Stuttgart; Swiss Museum of Fine Arts, Texas; Dominion Center, Toronto, Canada;
Pavilion, University City, Paris; Unite d'Habitation, Marseilles; New National Gallery, Berlin.

Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France; Punjab Capitol

Buildings, Chandigarh, India; Monastery of Sainte-Marie-de-la- Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979). Born in Sondrio, Italy, Nervi

Tourette, Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle, France; Carpenter Center for the graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University

Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. of Bologna. He gained experience with a concrete contracting
firm and during the First World War served as an officer in the

Kunio Mayekawa (1905-1986). Born in Niigata, Japan, Italian army corps of engineers. In Rome he established his engi-

Mayekawa graduated from Tokyo University and apprenticed to neering and contracting firm. As designer and builder of the

Le Corbusier in France and Antonin Raymond in Tokyo. He then Municipal Stadium in Florence, with its cantilevered roof, Nervi

established a private practice, with Kenzo Tange'as one of his attracted international attention. His prefabricated hangars for the

assistants. His first major building was the boldly modern World War II Italian air force in Orvieto and Orbetello led direct-

Kanagawa Prefectural Concert Hall and Library in Yokohama; this ly to his great Exhibition Hall in Turin and the Sports Palace in

was followed by workers apartments at Harumi. Mayekawa's Rome. He was the engineer with a number of architects on such
Japanese Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Exhibition introduced mod- buildings as the UNESCO Conference Hall in Paris, the Pirelli

ern Japanese architecture to the world. In a number of significant Tower in Milan, and Place Victoria Tower in Montreal. For his

concrete buildings, Mayekawa continued to explore a distinctive influential writings, his teachings as professor of technology and

Japanese expression of the International Style. Other outstanding construction techniques at the University of Rome, and his extraor-

works include Nihon Sogo Bank Main Office, Tokyo; dinary works, Nervi is recognized as a master builder who
International House of Japan, withjunzo Sakakura andjunzo added ferroconcrete shell structures to the vocabulary of modern
Yoshimura; Kyoto Cultural Hall; Tokyo Cultural Hall; Gakushu-in architecture. Other outstanding buildings include his only bridge,

College, Tokyo. in Verona, Italy; a cinema in Naples, Italy; St. Mary's Cathedral,
San Francisco, California.

Ludwig MlES VAN DER Rohe (1886-1969). Born in

Aachen, Germany, Mies attended the Cathedral Latin School Richard Neutra (1892-1970). Born in Vienna, Neutra

and learned to respect craftsmanship from his stonemason father. studied architecture at the Technical College there and worked
In Berlin he apprenticed with leading cabinetmaker Bruno Paul briefly in Switzerland and in Eric Mendelsohn's Berlin office

and later in the office of Peter Behrens. His many professional before moving to America. In Los Angeles he designed the
—
activities including his involvement with the Deutsche Jardinette Apartments; employing reinforced concrete and metal-

Werkbund — his sketches and model for a stunning glass office framed windows, they were one of the first major examples of the
tower on Berlin's Friedrichstrasse, and the De Stijl— influenced International Style in the United States. The light steel-frame Lovell

plans for country houses established him as a leader of the mod- House in Los Angeles, with its concrete, glass, and metal panels
ern architectural movement in post-World War I Germany. He assembled from an architect's supply-house catalogue, estab-

was director of the Werkbund-sponsored Weissenhof Exhibition in lished his international reputation. In a series of residences, apart-
Stuttgart and designed an important apartment building for it. His ments, and acclaimed housing projects, as well as a pioneering
superb German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in school, Neutra was able to demonstrate his artistry with inter-

Barcelona and the Tugendhat House in Brno, Czechoslovakia, changeable, prefabricated parts, as well as his zealous dedica-
brought him worldwide recognition. He served as the last direc- tion to the rationale of modern architecture. These works include
tor of the Bauhaus in the aggressively antimodern Nazi climate Nesbit House, Los Angeles; Kaufmann Desert House, Palm
and in 1933 he left Germany for the United States, where he Springs, California; Tremaine House, Montecito, California;

accepted the directorship of what is now the Illinois Institute of Corona Avenue Elementary School, Los Angeles; Channel
Technology. His master plan and structurally explicit buildings for Heights Housing, San Pedro, California.
its Chicago campus as well as his Lake Shore Drive apartments

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OSCAR NlEMEYER(b. 1907). Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, House and Studio, San Angel Inn, Mexico City; Electricians

Niemeyer received his architectural degree there at the National Union Building, Mexico City
School of Fine Arts. He joined the office of his teacher Lucio

Costa and worked as chief architect with him and Le Corbusier J. J. P. OUD (1890-1963). Born in Purmerend, the

on the celebrated Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Netherlands, Oud studied at the Quellinus Arts and Crafts

Janeiro. His first independent design was a group of recreational School in Amsterdam and the Technical University in Delft. After a
buildings and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Pampulha, brief period in Germany, he moved to Leiden, designing there,

Brazil. When Costa won the competition for the plan of Brasilia, with Willem Dudok, the Leiderdorp workers' housing complex.
the new capital of Brazil, Niemeyer was made responsible for He joined the De Stijl group, which included the painters Theo

the major buildings. These structures — all the main government van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo, and Bart
buildings, the cathedral, university, theater, and housing van der Leek. Soon afterward, he was appointed architect in

complex —are renowned for their plasticity and dramatic use of charge of housing for the city of Rotterdam. His two-story row

space. In 1955 he moved in self-imposed exile to France, where housing at Hook of Holland and his row of five terrace houses at

he executed his first international projects. In the late sixties he the Weissenhof Exhibition, Stuttgart, placed him in the vanguard
returned to his practice in Rio. Niemeyer's audacious forms, of the practitioners of the new International Style. In his Shell

which combine new technology with the freedom of the Brazilian Office Building in The Hague, and in other commercial projects,

baroque, have made him South America's best-known architect. he sought to restore monumentally and ornament in architecture.

Other outstanding works include Brazilian Pavilion, 1939 World's As one of the most influential and articulate pioneers of the mod-
Fair, New York City; Pampulha Casino and Yacht Club, Belo ern movement, Oud created some of its finest early buildings.

Horizonte, Brazil; Niemeyer House, Rio de Janeiro. Other outstanding works include Housing at Spangen and Oud-
Mathenese, the Netherlands; Kiefhoek Development, Rotterdam.

Eliot No yes (1910-1977). Born in Boston, Noyes graduated

with an architectural degree from Harvard University, Cambridge, I . M . P E I (b. 1917). Born in Canton, China, leoh Ming Pei

Massachusetts. After working in the office of Walter Gropius and was raised in Shanghai, graduated from the Massachusetts
Marcel Breuer, he was appointed director of the Department of Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and studied architecture

Industrial Design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In pri- with Walter Gropius at Harvard, where he was later appointed
vate practice in New Canaan, Connecticut, he designed numer- to the faculty. Working with the New York City real estate devel-

ous houses, schools, exhibitions, office buildings, and products oper William Zeckendorf, he designed an unusual number of
for corporations such as IBM, Westinghouse, and Mobil. Noyes large-scale projects. In private practice in New York City, he

was both an articulate advocate and a talented practitioner of developed urban plans for New York City, Boston, Washington,

integrating architectural, product, and graphic design in business D.C., and Paris. In these and in his remarkable range of build-
and industry. Outstanding works include Bubble House, Hobe ings, he has demonstrated the admirable ability to design each
Sound, Florida; Noyes House, New Canaan, Connecticut. project with suitability to its context. Consistently Pei has brought

great talent, imagination, and quality to each of his works.

Juan O'Gorman (1905-1982). Born in Mexico City, Outstanding buildings include Mile High Center, Denver,
OGorman studied at the Architecture School of the National Colorado; Kips Bay Plaza, New York City; Green Center for

University of Mexico, Mexico City, and worked in the office of Earth Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Society

Jose Villagran Garcia. He was initially influenced by Le Hill Apartments and Town Houses, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
Corbusier, but later became deeply affected by Frank Lloyd National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado;
Wright. His houses and schools were the first examples of the University Plaza, New York University, New York City; John

International Style in Mexico. With Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Hancock Tower, Boston.

Martinez de Velasco, he designed the celebrated National

Library at the University of Mexico, Mexico City. An important Enrico Peressutti (1908-1973). Born in Pinzano al

Mexican architect, O'Gorman sought to integrate pre-Columbian Tagliamento, Italy, Peressutti studied architecture at the Milan
elements into modern design to express his country's social, cultur- Polytechnic School of Architecture. As a member of the architec-

al, and environmental heritage. Other outstanding works include tural and design group BBPR — Banfi, Belgiojoso, Peressutti, and
O'Gorman House, San Angel Inn, Mexico City; Diego Rivera Rogers — in Milan he contributed two post-World War II projects

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which drew worldwide attention: the Monument to Italian Victims Outstanding works include schools designed with Eero Saarinen,

of the Concentration Camps, Milan, which employed the space Willow Run, Michigan; United States Embassy Office Building,
frame; and the interior redesign of the Sforza Castle Museum in Stockholm; Tyrone Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Milan. The group's Torre Velasca, an office unit topped with a

wider apartment block, caused widespread architectural contro- Antonin Raymond (1888-1976). Bom in Kladno,
versy, as did their unconventional Italian Pavilion at the 1958 Czechoslovakia, Raymond graduated from the Technical College
Brussels Exhibition. Peressutti had the ability to work in a team of Prague. He joined Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship and
without losing his individual talent for imaginative and forceful went to Tokyo with him to assist in the building of the Imperial

design. Hotel. Raymond opened his own office in Tokyo; with sensitive
skill he combined the techniques of modern European architec-
GlO PONT l (1891-1979). Born in Milan, Ponti studied at the ture with the Japanese spirit and tradition. He then opened an
Polytechnic Institute in Milan. Working independently and with office in India and after the Second World War established a

others he designed a number of buildings, including the Pirelli partnership with L.L. Rado in New York City. He subsequently
skyscraper in Milan. He was active in the Department of returned to Tokyo to carry on his international practice. Through

Architecture at Polytechnic Institute of Milan, served as a member his offices —with such
across the globe assistants asjunzo
of the Higher Council of Fine Arts and for many years on the Yoshimura and Kunio Mayekawa — his writings, exhibitions, and
Board of Managers of the Triennial Exhibition, and worked as an his lean, functional buildings, Raymond contributed significantly

editor of Domus. In his writings and works Ponti promoted the to the worldwide spread of the International Style. Outstanding

postwar renewal of Italian design, and celebrated Italy's contribu- works include Raymond House, Tokyo; Saint Paul's Church,
tion to international architecture. Other outstanding works include Karuizawa, Japan; Golcond Dormitory, Pondicherry India; Saint

Banca Unione, Milan; School of Mathematics, University of Luke's Medical Center, Tokyo; United States Embassy, Tokyo;
Rome; Montecatini Office Building, Milan; RAI Offices, Milan. Reader's Digest Building, with L. L. Rado, Tokyo; Nanzan
Campus, Nanzan University, Nagoya.
L. L. Rado (1909-1993). Born in Czechoslovakia, Ladislav L.

Rado studied architecture at the Technical University in Prague AFFONSO EDUARDO REIDY (1909-1964). Born in Paris,

and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He Reidy studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de
formed an architectural firm with Antonin Raymond in New York Janeiro, Brazil, where he became a major contributor to modern
City; Rado was in charge of the office while Raymond returned architecture in South America. He was a member of Brazilian

to his practice in Tokyo. Together they produced a number of planner Lucio Costa's team of young architects who, with Le
noteworthy buildings molded by a strong sense of design and a Corbusier as consultant, created Rio's celebrated Ministry of

bold use of materials. Rado also served as professor of architec- Education and Health Building. Appointed to the Department of
ture at Florida International University, Miami. Outstanding works Public Housing, he designed the huge low-income housing pro-

include Electrolux Industrial Buildings and Recreational Center, ject Pedregulho Estate in Rio. The complex, which included apart-
Old Greenwich, Connecticut; Reader's Digest Building, with ments, a school, gymnasium, clinic, laundry, and shops, followed
Antonin Raymond, Tokyo; United States Embassy Apartment the winding contour of the hill site. Reidy's civic work ranged
Buildings, Tokyo; One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York City; from the Gavea Communal Theater to the Museum of Modern
Gunma Music Center, Takasaki, Japan. Art, both in Rio. Reidy sought to achieve high social goals in his

influential urban planning schemes and widely admired innova-

Ralph Rapson (b. 1914). Born in Alma, Michigan, Rapson tive structures. Other outstanding works include Home of Good
graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He stud- Will, Rio de Janeiro; Museum of Visual Arts, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

ied with Eliel Saarinen at Cranbrook and worked in the Saarinen

office. He headed the Department of Architecture at the Institute MARCELO ROBERTO (1908-1964). Born in Brazil, Roberto
ssign, Chicago, and subsequently was appointed associate graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de
professor in the School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Janeiro. He formed an unusually close-knit office in Rio with his

Technology, Cambridge. Both his commitment to teaching and brothers Milton and Mauricio. They won their first architectural

his buildings display a strong interest in social goals, new con- competition, the Brazilian Press Association Building, with their

struction technology, and innovative functional design. design for the first large reinforced-concrete office in Brazil.

298
Influenced by the work of Le Corbusier, they experimented in a many American cities as well as in Asia and the Middle East. His

series of structures with various designs to control Brazil's intense concern for urban problems led him to design a number of impor-

sunlight. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, they sought to address tant large-scale projects, many of which are unrealized. Through
each project as a separate and unique problem, and thereby activities as a teacher, lecturer, and critic, his uncompromising
introduced distinctive variety to the International Style. Other out- work, and distinctive architectural drawings, Rudolph has chal-

standing works include Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro; lenged and advanced the role of the architect in the modern
Resort Development, Barra da Tijuca, Brazil; Seguradores Office world. Outstanding works include Healy Guest House, Siesta

Building, Rio de Janeiro; SOTREQ-Caterpillar Offices and Key, Florida; Riverview High School, Sarasota; Jewett Arts

Showroom, Rio de Janeiro. Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts; Art and
Architecture Building, Yale University; Blue Cross-Blue Shield

Ernesto Rogers (1909-1969). Born in Trieste, Italy, Rogers Building, with Anderson, Beckwith, and Haible, Boston;
studied at the Milan Polytechnic. As a founding and active mem- Tuskegee Institute Interdenominational Chapel, Tuskegee,

ber of the Milan-based architectural firm BBPR — Banfi, Alabama.

Belgiojoso, Peressutti, and Rogers — he contributed to their award-
winning buildings. He was a frequent speaker on architecture Eero Saarinen (1910-1961). Born in Kirkkonummi, Finland,

and an early and important Italian representative at CIAM Saarinen studied sculpture in Paris and architecture at Yale

(Congres Intemationaux dArchitecture Moderne). As editor of University, New Haven. He worked with his famous father, Eliel,

Domus and Casabella Rogers became the most internationally on projects such as the pioneering Crow Island School in

influential Italian writer on modern architecture and design. Winnetka, Illinois. He then established his own practice in

Outstanding works include Monument to Italian Victims of the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Unified only by a modern approach
Concentration Camps, Milan; remodeling of the Sforza Castle to color, form, and materials, Saarinen's buildings are character-

Museum, Milan; Torre Velasca, Milan; Italian Pavilion, 1958 ized by remarkable diversity. Working with intense vigor, he

Brussels Exhibition, Belgium. sought in each project its appropriate form. He attempted not
only to satisfy the demands of each project, but with each one to

Alfred Roth (b. 1903). Born in Wangen, Switzerland, Roth make a new architectural statement. Saarinen died suddenly at

studied at the Technical College in Zurich. He worked with his the height of his career as one of the most respected and talent-

teacher, Karl Moser, then with Le Corbusier on two houses for the ed architects of his generation. Outstanding works include
Weissenhof Exhibition in Stuttgart. After some years in Sweden, General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan; Jefferson
he established his practice in Zurich. In partnership with Emil Roth National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri; Chapel and
and Marcel Breuer, he built the well-known Doldertal Apartments Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

for the art historian Sigfried Giedion. Working internationally, he Cambridge, Massachusetts; Ingalls Hockey Rink, Yale University,

designed buildings in Sweden, the United States, Yugoslavia, New Haven, Connecticut; TWA Terminal, Kennedy International

and the Middle East. As a prolific author and the editor of the Airport, New York City; John Deere Headquarters, Moline,

Swiss architectural magazine Werk, Roth was an ardent advo- Illinois; Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, New Jersey; Dulles

cate of the contribution of education and architecture to improv- International Airport, Reston, Virginia; CBS Building, New York

ing people's lives. Other outstanding works include Apartments, City.

Goteborg, Sweden; Roth House, Zurich; Swiss Pavilion, 1957

Triennial Exhibition, Milan. Mario Salvadori (b. 1907). Born in Rome, Salvadori was
educated at the University of Rome and University College,

Paul Rudolph (b. 1918). Born in Elkton, Kentucky, Rudolph London. One of the leading concrete structural engineers in the

received his architectural training at Alabama Polytechnic Institute world, he worked with engineering firms such as Weidlinger

and with Walter Gropius at Harvard University Cambridge, Associates, New York City. He is renowned in the field of educa-
Massachusetts. He began his practice in partnership with Ralph tion: his technical books have been translated into multiple lan-

Twitchell in Sarasota, Florida, and subsequently worked alone guages; he has lectured at universities throughout the world; he
there and in Boston, New York, and New Haven, where he was established and taught some seventeen courses in engineering
chairman of the Department of Architecture at Yale University. His mathematics at Columbia University New York; and he instituted

buildings, executed in an individual, modern style, are located in a pioneering program and educational center on the built envi-

299
ronment in elementary, junior high, and high schools in 'New York World War II, he emigrated to the United States. In New York

City. Outstanding buildings include La Concha Resort Hotel and City he became associated with Paul Lester Wiener and the two

Nightclub, San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Louis Priory Church, St. worked on a number of important city planning projects in

Louis, Missouri. Central and South America. On Walter Gropius's recommenda-

tion he was appointed dean of the faculty and professor of archi-

TomAs Sanabria (b. 1922). Born in Caracas, Venezuela, tecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge,
Sanabria studied at the Institute of Civil Engineering of Venezuela Massachusetts, where he established the first professional urban-

in Caracas and the Harvard Graduate School of Design in design degree course. He subsequently opened an office in

Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Harvard he studied with Walter Cambridge in partnership with Huson Jackson and Ronald
Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Sanabria returned to Caracas, Gourley and designed a number of houses, offices, and universi-

where he became one of his country's most recognized architec- ty buildings. As a dedicated internationalist and officer in CIAM
tural talents. He designed a wide range of hotels, banks, industri- (Congres Internationaux d Architecture Moderne), a cultural

al, educational, cultural, and government buildings. He made an leader integrating modern art and sculpture into architecture, an
important contribution to the development of the profession in his author and educator, Sert played an important role in the modern
own country and internationally. Outstanding works include C.A. movement. Other outstanding works include Studio for Joan Miro,
La Electricidad de Caracas, San Bernardino, Venezuela; Hotel Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Apartment House, Calle Muntaner,
Humboldt, Caracas; First National City Bank, Caracas; Barcelona; United States Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq; Sert House,
Laboratories Abbott, Caracas. Cambridge; Health and Administration Building, Harvard
University; Fondation Maeght, St.-Paul-de-Vence, France;
MARC SAUGEY (1908-1971). Born in Vesenaz, Switzerland, Peabody Terrace Married Students Housing, Harvard University.

and based in Geneva, Saugey combined a sharp intellectual

approach with a strong appreciation of technology and design. RUDOLF Steiger (1900-1982). Born in Zurich, Switzerland,

His numerous buildings established him as a modern architectural Steiger studied at the University of Zurich with the Swiss architect

leader in Switzerland. Outstanding works include Malagnou-Parc Karl Moser. In partnership with Max Haefeli and Werner Moser
Apartments, Geneva; Gare-Centre, Geneva. in Zurich, he made an important contribution to postwar Swiss

housing and most particularly to town planning. Outstanding

Paul Schweikher (b. 1903). Born in Denver, Colorado, buildings include Werkbund Neubuhl Estate, Zurich; Hochhaus
Schweikher studied at Yale University School of Architecture, zur Palme, Zurich; Prilly Housing, Lausanne.

New Haven, and practiced with several firms in Chicago. A

dedicated educator, he served as professor and chairman of the Edward Durell Stone (1902-1978). Born in Fayetteville,

Yale School of Architecture, and later in the same position at Arkansas, Stone studied art at the University of Arkansas, entered

Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He designed with integri- the School of Architecture at Harvard University, Cambridge,
ty in a forthright manner, selecting simple forms and durable, nat- Massachusetts, and transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of

ural materials. Outstanding works include Stone House, Topeka, Technology, Cambridge, to study modern design with Jacques

Kansas; Unitarian Church, Evanston, Illinois; Women's Dormitory, Carlu. He toured Europe on a Rotch Traveling Fellowship and on
Maryville College, Tennessee; Chicago Hall Language Center, returning to the United States assisted in the design of Radio City

Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; Trinity United Music Hall in New York City. Based in that city he worked in the

Presbyterian Church, East Liverpool, Ohio; Knoxville Branch, International Style, designing the much-admired Mandel House in

Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh. Mount Kisco, New York, and, with Philip Goodwin, the original

Museum of Modern Art building in New York City. He then

JOSE LUIS SERT (1902-1983). Born in Barcelona, Sert stud- departed from the pure principles of the modern style to create a
ied at the School of Architecture there. He worked briefly in the more personal idiom that embraced ornamentation. Examples
office of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret in Paris, and upon from this phase of his career include a series of buildings protect-

returning to Barcelona he opened his own office. Later he went ed by ornamental sun-shielding or grilles, among them the United

back to Paris, where for the 1937 World's Fair he designed the States Embassy in New Delhi, India. Other outstanding works
Spanish Republican Pavilion made famous by Picasso's include El Panama Hotel, Panama City, Panama; Robert Popper
Guernica, Joan Miro's painting El Segador Catalan, and House, White Plains, New York; United States Pavilion, 1962
Alexander Calder's Mercury Fountain. Before the outbreak of World's Fair, Brussels, Belgium.

300
Kenzo TangE (b. 1913). Born in Imabari, Japan, Tange stud- rent, modern housing remain unsurpassed. He was founding pres-

ied architecture, city planning, and engineering at the University ident of the Venezuelan Association of Architects. Villanueva
of Tokyo, where he subsequently became assistant professor of greatly enriched the profession with his dedication to social

architecture. He worked for Kunio Mayekawa before starting his goals, and he brilliantly established modern architecture in

own Tokyo office. Tange won the architectural competition for the Venezuela. Other outstanding works include Bullring, Maracay,
Hiroshima Peace Museum, Hiroshima, Japan, and later the com- Venezuela; Venezuela Pavilion, 1939 World's Fair, Paris;

petition for the Tokyo City Hall complex. His graceful Yoyogi General Rafael Urdaneta Housing Development, Maracaibo,
Gymnasium for the Tokyo Olympic Games capped this period, Venezuela.

which merged Le Corbusier's modernism with the spirit of tradi-

tional Japanese architecture. Tange then repudiated regionalism Paul WEIDLINGER (b. 1914). Born in Budapest, Hungary,

and became an exponent of the abstract International Style, exe- Weidlinger studied at the Technical Institute in Brno, Czechoslo-

cuting designs worldwide. He also created a number of city vakia, and the Swiss Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. He worked as
plans, including the Future Tokyo, which although unrealized a designer with Le Corbusier in Paris and as an engineer with a

remains an influential study in planning. Talented, innovative, and number of organizations in South America and the United States.

intellectually curious, Tange is recognized as Japan's leading sec- His own consulting engineering firm, Weidlinger Associates,

ond-generation modern architect. Other outstanding works New York City, has an international reputation for commercial,

include Kagawa Prefectural Government Office, Takamatsu, institutional, and defense structures. As an educator, author, and
Japan; Imabari City Hall, Ehime, Japan; Kurashiki City Hall, engineer, working with many of the world's leading architects,

Okayama, Japan. Weidlinger has contributed notably and creatively to the

advancement of modern architecture. Outstanding buildings

Martin Vegas (b. 1926). Born in Caracas, Venezuela, include Reader's Digest Office Building, Tokyo; Banque Lambert,
Vegas studied with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Brussels, Belgium; United States Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq;

Institute of Technology in Chicago. On returning to Caracas he Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New
established a practice with the Argentinian Jose Miguel Galia; Haven, Connecticut; United States Embassy, Athens; Carpenter
they provided Venezuela with worthy examples of International Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Style architecture, combining Miesian precision with respect for Massachusetts.

the South American climate and regional materials. Outstanding

works include Polar Building, Caracas; Commerce and Philip Will Jr. ( 1906-1985). Born in Rochester, New York,

Agriculture Bank, Caracas; Eastern Professional Center of Sabara Will studied at Cornell University School of Architecture, Ithaca,

Grande, Caracas; Twin Morochos Apartments, Caracas. New York. He moved to Chicago to work with General House,
Inc., an early manufacturer of prefabricated homes. With
Carlos Raul Vi ll an ueva (1900-1975). Born in London, Lawrence B. Perkins and E.T. Wheeler, he formed a partnership
where his father was in the Venezuelan diplomatic service, and collaborated with the Saarinens on the innovative Crow
Villanueva was educated at the Lycee Condorcet in Paris. He Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. Perkins and Will became one
obtained a degree in architecture from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of America's largest architectural firms, with additional offices in

there and then returned to Caracas to begin private practice. The New York City and Washington, D.C. With the firm he designed
University City project for the City University of Caracas spanned a number of schools, such as Heathcote School in Scarsdale,

much of his career. For it he executed the master plan and New York, which had wide influence on modern educational
designed its Medical Center, Library, Concert Hall, Botanical building design. During his career he produced a wide range of

Institute, the Humanities, Science, and Physics Building, and buildings in both size and type. Other outstanding works include

School of Dentistry. He also designed the School of Architecture Steel House, General Houses, Inc., Century of Progress
and Urbanism, which he founded and where he served as pro- Exposition, Chicago; Philip Will Jr. House, Evanston, Illinois;

fessor. The culmination of the University City project was the Rockford Memorial Hospital, Rockford, Illinois; U.S. Gypsum
breathtaking concrete Olympic Stadium. Villanueva served as Building, Chicago; Scott Foresman Office Building, Glenview,
architect to the Ministry of Public Works and founder and director Illinois.

of the National Planning Commission. Many of his architectural

aims were realized in an outstanding series of major housing Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). Born in Richland

developments, and his concepts and designs for low-cost, low- Center, Wisconsin, Wright studied engineering at the University

iOl
of Wisconsin, Madison, and worked in the office of the Chicago UC-Berkeley. In addition he was founder and dean of the

residential architectj. Lyman Silsbee and then as assistant to Louis College of Environmental Design at UC-Berkeley. Through archi-
Sullivan in the office of Adler and Sullivan. He designed a series tectural education Wurster was determined to expand the scope
of houses for the latter firm. Then, without Sullivan's knowledge, of the profession to include concern for the total environment. He
he executed some houses on his own, which caused an abrupt believed architecture is a social art and that buildings should be
break in their contractual relationship. From his studio and home a forthright response to regional needs and conditions.
in Oak Park, Illinois, Wright created the influential open-plan Outstanding works include Gregory Farmhouse, Santa Cruz,
Prairie Houses. Outstanding examples are his own home; the California; Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences,

Will its House, Highland Park, Illinois; the Thomas House, Oak Medical Plaza, Married Students Housing, Stanford University,

Park, Illinois; the Dana House, Springfield, Illinois; the Martin Palo Alto, California; Golden Gateway Redevelopment Project,

House, Buffalo, New York; the Robie House, Chicago; and the San Francisco; Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco; Cowell
Coonley House, Riverside, Illinois. During the same period he College, University of California, Santa Cruz.

designed the Larkin Administration and Office Building in Buffalo,

New York, and Unity Temple in Oak Park, pioneering the use of MlNORU YAMASAKl (1912-1986). Born in Seattle,

monolithic reinforced concrete. Wright journeyed to Europe, Washington, Yamasaki was educated at the University of

where the publication of his early work by Wasmuth in Berlin had Washington, Seattle, and at New York University, New York
a broad impact. He went to Japan during the construction of the City. He worked as a designer for prominent firms in New York

Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Facing difficult times he then returned to City and Detroit; throughout his career he preferred to work in

Wisconsin. He was commissioned by Aline Barnsdall to design teams and did not set up his own private practice. Combining
her Los Angeles home; the result was the concrete "Hollyhock" functional and humanistic values, Yamasaki explored ways to

House. A number of textile block residences followed, including bring the enrichment of machine-made ornament to his modern
the Millard House in Pasadena and the Ennis House in Los architectural forms. Among his award-winning buildings are the
Angeles. In the 1930s he formed the Taliesin Fellowship, based in Terminal Building at Lambert Airport, designed with George
Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Scottsdale, Arizona. During this Hellmuth and Joseph Leinweber, St. Louis, Missouri, and the twin

period he designed the Johnson Wax Company Administration towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Other out-

Building and Johnson's house, Wingspread, in Racine, and the standing works include McGregor Memorial Community
Kaufmann house, Fallingwater, in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. One of Conference Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan;

his last works was among his most celebrated, the Solomon R. Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office, Southfield, Michigan.
Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Wright's professional

life spanned seventy years. As a speaker, writer, teacher, and JUNZO YOSHIMURA (b. 1908). Born in Tokyo, Yoshimura

designer of nearly a thousand buildings, some four hundred built, graduated from the Tokyo Art Institute. He was exposed to the

Wright was surely one of the greatest and certainly the best new International Style when he worked with Antonin Raymond;
known architectural genius of the twentieth century. Other out- he then opened his own office in Tokyo. His projects include

standing works include Thomas H. Gale House and Cheney houses, offices, museums, and college buildings. He made a
House, Oak Park; Winslow House and Roberts House, River noteworthy contribution to Japanese professional education as
Forest, Illinois; Broadacre City (unrealized); Usonian houses such professor of architecture at the Tokyo College of Arts. In his build-

as the Herbert Jacobs House, Madison; H.C. Price Tower, ings Yoshimura mixed modern international and traditional

Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Japanese elements with widely admired skill. Outstanding works

include International House of Japan (with Kunio Mayekawa and

William Wurster (1895-1973). Born in Stockton, Junzo Sakakura), Tokyo; Hotel Kowaku-en, Hakone, Japan;
California, Wurster studied architecture at the University of National Cash Register Building, Tokyo; Aichi Prefecture College
California, Berkeley. As a principal partner in the firm Wurster, of Arts, Nagakute, Japan.
Bernardi, and Emmons, he designed a great number of resi-

dences, housing projects, and institutional and commercial build-

ings. He was a fellow of the Harvard Graduate School of

Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dean of the Harvard

University School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, and the College of Architecture at

302
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Jordy William H. American Buildings and Their Architects: The Architects. 2nd ed. Chicago and London: St. James Press,

Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century. 1987.

Vol. 4. New York: Doubleday, 1972. Moss, William. An Oral History Program Manual. New York:

Kandinsky, Vasily. Point and Line to Plane. New York: Solomon R. Frederick A. Praeger, 1974.

Guggenheim Foundation, 1947. Mumford, Lewis. The Culture of Our Cities. New York: Harcourt,

Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr. What Is Modern Design? New York: The Brace, and Company, 1942.
Museum of Modern Art, 1950. Murphy, Wendy Buehur. Frank Lloyd Wright. Englewood Cliffs,

Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr. and Ben Raeburn, eds. Frank Lloyd Wright, New Jersey: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.

Writings and Buildings. New York: Horizon Press, 1960. Neutra, Richard J. Life and Human Habitat. New York: George
Kidder Smith, G.E. Looking at Architecture. New York: Harry N. Wittenborn, 1956.
Abrams, 1990. Oud, J.J. P. Mein Weg in De Stijl. The Hague and Rotterdam:
— . The New Architecture of Europe: An Illustrated Nijgh en Van Ditmar, 1958.

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Papadaki, Stamo. Oscar Niemeyer. Masters of World York: Facts on File, 1991

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New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1964. Hall, 1985.

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Reynolds Metals Company, 1956. Complete Catalog. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT
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Masters of Modern Architecture. New York: George Press, 1978.

Braziller, 1958. .
The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. Chicago: The
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Walter Gropius. New York: Viking Penguin Books, 1986. Tafel, Edgar. Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd

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.
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.
Twentieth-Century Architecture: A Visual History. New The Scarecrow Press, 1982.

305
 !1 1 I

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 Bratke:
Visitor's Guide Legislative Assembly (Assembleia Legislativa do Estado de Sao
Paulo)

Palacio 9 dejulho, 04097-Sao Paulo-SP-Brazil

Town Hall (Prefeitura de Santo Andre)

The way to appreciate a work of architecture is to experience it. Praca IV Centenario, s/no 09015-080 Santo Andre-SP-Brazil

As Frank Lloyd Wright warned me, "Architecture is what photog-

raphy leaves out. " Simply to view a great building is worth the Breuer:
trip. To walk through it is to enjoy the superb pleasure of interior Annunciation Priory
space that architecture alone provides. 7520 University Drive, Bismarck, North Dakota 58504

Arranged by architect, this list features more than one hundred Arts Center, Sarah Lawrence College

fifty important buildings that may be visited. It includes only the 1 Meadway, Bronxville, New York 10708

work K)f the modern architects in this book, and only their work Engineering Building, Yale University

within the period covered in the book. Like the Oral History, /'/ 15 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

does not include the many outstanding Post-Modern architects or St. Francis de Sales Church
buildings. 2929 McCracken Avenue, Muskegon, Michigan 49441
Some of these buildings may be viewed only from the exterior, St. Johns University Church
but a good number are open to the public. Many offer special Collegeville, Minnesota 56321

tours. It is advisable to secure up-to-date information in advance. Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10021

Aalto:
Aalborg Art Museum (Nordjyliands Kunstmuseum) Bunshaft (Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill):
Kong Christians Alle 50, DK 9000, Aalborg, Denmark Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

Baker House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 121 Wall Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

362 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, Massachussetts 02139 Lever House

House of Culture {Kulttuuritalo) 390 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10022

Sturenkatu 4, 00510 Helsinki, Finland Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building

National Pensions Institute (Kansanelakelaitos) 510 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10036
Nordenskoldinkatu 12, 00250 Helsinki, Finland

Saynatsalo Town Hall (Saynatsalon Kunnantalo) Candela:

40900 Saynatsalo, Finland Chapel at Lomas de Cuernavaca
Dead end of Paseo de la Reforma, Lomas de Cuernavaca,

Belluschi: Temixco, Morelos, Mexico

Chapel, Portsmouth Abbey School Church of the Miraculous Virgin (Iglesia de la Virgen de la

285 Cory's Lane, Portsmouth, Rhode Island 02871 Medalla Milagrosa)

First Presbyterian Church Ixcateopan y Matias Romero, Col. Vertiz Narvarte, Mexico,

216 South Third Street, Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424 D.F.

Portland Art Museum Las Chalupas Restaurant

1219 South West Park Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97205 Jardines Flotantes, Xochimilco, Mexico, D.F.

Unitarian Church
4848 Turner Street, Rockford, Illinois 61107 Catalano:
Julius Adams Stratton Student Center, Massachusetts Institute

Bill: of Technology
School of Design (Fachhochschule Uim, Fachberelch 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Gestaltung)
Prittvvitzstrasse 10, W-7900 Ulm, Germany Gam pi:
Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church
62 Santa Rose Avenue, San Francisco, California 94112

308
Contini: Jacobsen:
MlDTOWN PlAZA Town Hall
Broad and Clinton Streets, Rochester, New York 14604 Rodovre Parkvej 150, DK 2610 Rodovre, Denmark

Dudok: Johnson:
Town Hall Amon Carter Museum
Dudokpark 1, 1217JE Hilversum, the Netherlands 3501 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel Synagogue
Fuller: 1575 King Street, Port Chester, New York 10573

Geodesic Dome Kline Biology Tower, Yale University

Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, Flushing, New York 11368 219 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
Kline Geology Tower, Yale University

Goff: 210 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church Lab of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University

1301 South Boston Avenue, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74119 60 College Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
Ford House Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute

404 South Edgelawn, Aurora, Illinois 60506 310 Genesee Street, Utica, New York 13502

New York State Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Gropius: 20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, New York 10023
Academic Quadrangle, Brandeis University New Harmony Shrine
415 South Street, Waltham, Massachusetts 02254 420 North Street, New Harmony, Indiana 47631
Arts and Communications Building, Phillips Academy Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska
Main Street, Andover, Massachusetts 01810 12th and R Streets, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588
Bauhaus
Thdlmannallee 38, 0-4500, Dessau, Germany Kalvv.
Gropius House (Society for the Preservation of New England Dining Hall and Library, Phillips Exeter Academy
Antiquities} Exeter, New Hampshire 03833
68 Baker Bridge Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts 01773 First Unitarian Church
Pan American (Met Life) Building 220 Winton Road South, Rochester, New York 14610

200 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10166 Goddard Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania
PUTTERHAM BRANCH LIBRARY Hamilton Walk at 37th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

959 West Roxbury Parkway, Brookline, Massachusetts 02167 19104

Residential Complex, Children's Hospital Jewish Community Center Bath House
300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 999 Lower Ferry Road, Trenton, New Jersey 08628
United States Embassy Kimbell Art Museum
Queen Sofia Street, Athens, Greece 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Richards Medical Research Building, University of Pennsylvania
Gruen: Hamilton Walk at 37th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Northland Shopping Center 19104

21500 North Western Highway, BC2, Southfield (Detroit), Salk Institute

Michigan 48075 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, Lajolla, California 92037
Southdale Shopping Center Yale Art Gallery, Yale University

6601 France Avenue South, Edina (Minneapolis), Minnesota 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
55435 Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Hentrich:
BASF Tower
Carl-Bosch-Strasse, W-6700 Ludwigshafen, Germany

309
 1

Koch: 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282

Lewis Wharf New National Gallery (Nationalgaleriej

32 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02110 Altes Museum, Bodestrasse 1-3, 0-1020, Berlin, Germany
Public Library Seagram Building

610 Main Street, Fitchburg, Massachusetts 01420 375 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10152

Wellesley Free Library TUGENDHAT HOUSE

530 Washington Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02181 Cemopolnf 45, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

Le Corbusier: Nervi:
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University Exhibition Hall (Palazzo delle Espozioni)

24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Corso Massimo DAzeglio, Turin, Italy

High Court Building Sports Palace (Paiazzetto dello Sport)

Capitol Complex, Uttar Marg (Sector 1), Chandigarh, India Quartiere E.U.R., via C. Columbo, Rome, Italy

Le Couvent Sainte-Marie-de-ia-Tourette

Eveux-sur-lArbresle, 69210 (Rhone), France Neutra:

Notre-Dame-du-Haut Community Church
70250 Ronchamp (Haute-Saone), France 12141 Lewis Street, Garden Grove, California 92640
Swiss Pavilion, University City (Pavillon Suisse, Cite Universitaire) Corona Avenue Elementary School

7, boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, France 3825 Bell Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90001

Unite d' Habitation

280, boulevard Michelet, 13000 Marseilles (Bouches-du- Niemeyer:

Rhone), France Brasilia Cathedral

Villa Savoye Eixo Monumental, 70000-Brasilia DF-Brazil

82, avenue Blanche de Castille, Beauregard, 78300 Poissy,

Church of St. Francis of Assisi (Igreja de Sao Francisco de

France Assisj

Pampulha, 30000 Belo Horizonte-MG-Brazil

Mayekawa: Plaza of Three Powers (Praca dos Tres Poderes)

Kanagawa Prefectural Concert Hall and Public Library Congresso Nacional, 70000-Brasilia DF-Brazil

9-2, Koyogaoka, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken,

Japan O 'Gorman:
Tokyo Cultural Hall National Library, University of Mexico

5-45, Ueno Koen, Taito-ku, Tokyo, Japan Ciudad Universitana, Delegacion, Coyoacan, Mexico, D.F.

04510

Mies van der Rohe:

860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments Olid:
860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611 Row Houses
Federal Center 2e Scheepvaartstraat, Hook of Holland, the Netherlands

South Dearborn between Jackson Boulevard and Adams

Street, Chicago, Illinois
Pei:

Highfield House Cecil and Ida Green Building, Massachusetts Institute of

4000 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 Technology

S.R. Crown Hall, Perlstein Hall, Robert F Carr Memorial Chapel 21 Ames Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

of St. Savior, Main Campus, Illinois Institute of Technology Chancellory for United States Embassy

33rd and State Streets, Chicago, Illinois 60616 Abadie Santos, 808 Montevideo, Uruguay

Lafayette Park Denver Hilton Hotel

Lafayette Avenue between Rivard and Orleans Streets, Detroit,

7801 East Orchard Road, Englewood, Colorado 801 1

Michigan East-West Center, University of Hawaii

Mellon Hall Science Center, Duquesne University Manoa Campus, 2444 Dole Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822

310
Everson Museum of Art Washington, D.C. 20041
401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York 13202 Ingalls Hockey Rink, Yale University

H. Leslie Hoffman Hall, University of Southern California 73 Sachem Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
701 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90089 Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

National Center for Atmospheric Research Information available from National Park Service, Jefferson

1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, Colorado 80303 National Expansion Memorial, 11 North 4th Street, St. Louis,

Roosevelt Field Shopping Center Missouri 63102

Old Country Road, Meadowbrook Parkway, Garden City, John Deere and Company Administrative Center
New York 11530 John Deere Road, Moline, Illinois 61265
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

215 University Place, Syracuse, New York 13244 Milwaukee County War Memorial Center
University Plaza, New York University 750 North Lincoln Memorial Drive, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
100 and 110 Bleecker Street, New York, New York 10012 53202
505 West Broadway [Mitchell-Lama Apartments), New York, Stiles and Morse Colleges, Yale University

New York 10012 302-304 York Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
Thomas J. Watson IBM Research Center
Ponti: Route 134 East, Yorktown, New York 10598
Pirelli Tower TWA Terminal, Kennedy International Airport
Piazza Duca DAusta, Milan, Italy Building 60, Jamaica, New York 11430

United States Embassy

Rapson: 24 Grosvenor Square, W1A 1AE, London, England

Tyrone Guthrie Theater United States Embassy

725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis, Minnesota Drammensveien 18, 0255 Oslo, Norway
United States Embassy Yale Cooperative Building, Yale University

Dag Hammarskjolds Alle 24, DK 2100, Copenhagen 0, 66 Broadway, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
Denmark
United States Embassy Office Building Schweikher:
Stockholm, Sweden Fine Arts Center, Maryville College

502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville, Tennessee 37801

Rudolph: First Methodist Church
Art and Architecture Building, Yale University 404 Second Street, Plainfield, Iowa 50666
180 York Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
jewett Arts Center, Wellesley College Sen:
106 Central Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02181 FONDATION MAEGHT
Married Students Housing, Yale University 06570 St.-Paul-de-Vence, France

292-311 Mansfield Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 Holyoke Center, Harvard University

Southeastern Massachusetts University 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts 02747 02138
Martin Luther King Elementary School
Saarinen 100 Putnam Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
CBS Building New England Gas and Electric Association Headquarters

51 West 52nd Street, New York, New York 10019 130 Austin Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02129
Chapel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Schools of Law and Education, Boston University

48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
Concordia Theological Seminary
6600 North Clinton Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46825
Dulles International Airport

311
Stone: Rosenbaum House

The Museum of Modern Art 601 Riverview Drive, Florence, Alabama 35630
II West 53rd Street, New York, New York 10019 Robie House

State Legislative Building

University of Chicago, 5757 Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago,

16 West Jones Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27603 Illinois 60637

Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
3133 West Highway 34, Grand Island, Nebraska 68801 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10128

United States Embassy Taliesin West

Shantipath, Chanaryapuri, New Delhi, India 110021 Cactus Road and 108th Street, Scottsdale, Arizona 85261
Unity Temple

Tange: 875 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois 60301

Hiroshima Peace Museum

l->2 Nakajimacho, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, Japan 733 Yamasaki:
Lambert Airport

Wright: 10701 Lambert International Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63145

Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, Esplanades, Ordway Building, Polk McGregor Memorial Community Conference Center, Wayne
County Science Building, and Roux Library, Florida Southern State University

College 495 West Ferry Mall, Detroit, Michigan 48202

III Lake Hollingsworth Drive, Lakeland, Florida 33801

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church Yoshimum:

9400 West Congress Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53225 International House of Japan
Barnsdall "Hollyhock" House 11-16, Roppongi 5-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan

4800 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90027

Beth Shalom Synagogue
8231 Old York Road, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania 19117

Dana-Thomas House
301 East Lawrence Avenue, Springfield, Illinois 62703
Ennis-Brown House
2655 Glendower Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90027
Fallingwater

Route 381, south of Mill Run, Bear Run, Pennsylvania 15464

Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio

951 Chicago Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois 60302
Hillside Home School at Taliesin

Highway 23, Spring Green, Wisconsin 53588

Johnson Wax Administration Building
1525 Howe Street, Racine, Wisconsin 53403
Kalita Humphreys Theater, The Dallas Theater Center
3636 Turtle Creek Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75200
Marin County Civic Center

3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael, California 94903

Meyer May House
450 Madison Street, SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
Morris Store
140 Maiden Lane, San Francisco, California 94108
Pope-Leighey House
Woodlawn Plantation, 9000 Richmond Highway (Route 1 ),

Mount Vernon, Virginia 22309

312
 New York City; New York
Acknowledgments Museum
Library, New
of Modern Art,

York City; the library of the American

The Public

Institute of

Architects, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Bodleian

Special thanks are due to Patricia Del Grosso, Curator of The Oral Library, Oxford University England; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

History of Modern Architecture project, Rachel Paul, Edward Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the architects and
Hamilton, Robert Riley, The Ford Foundation, Reynolds Metals engineers, many of them friends, without whose help, patience, and
Company, and The Graham Foundation. encouragement The Oral History of Modern Architecture would not

I am indebted to the team at Abrams: Paul Gottlieb, Publisher; in exist: Alvar Aalto, Pietro Belluschi, Max Bill, Oswaldo Bratke, Marcel
far more than the usual sense to my insightful editor, Diana Murphy; Breuer, Gordon Bunshaft, Felix Candela, Eduardo Catalano, Mario
to Bob McKee, who created the design of the book and accompa- Ciampi, Edgardo Contini, Willem Dudok, Buckminster Fuller, Jose

nying CD; Sam Antupit, Director, Art and Design; Barbara Lyons, Miguel Galia, Bruce Goff, Charles Goodman, Walter Gropius,
Director, Rights and Reproductions; and Gertrud Brehme, Production Victor Gruen, Helmut Hentrich, Arnejacobsen, Philip Johnson, Louis

Manager. Kahn, Carl Koch, Le Corbusier, Kunio Mayekawa, Ludwig Mies van
I would also like to acknowledge the valued help and expertise of der Rohe, Pier Luigi Nervi, Richard Neutra, Oscar Niemeyer, Eliot

Paul Goodrich, digital editor and engineer, Carolyn Fabricant, Noyes, Juan OGorman, J.J.P. Oud, [Link], Enrico Peressutti, Gio
Sidney Liebowitz, William Murphy, Louis Muller, Patricia Goldstein, Ponti, L.L. Rado, Ralph Rapson, Antonin Raymond, Affonso Reidy,

Meg Wormley, Stephanie Jackson, Neil Perlman, Paul Weidlinger; Marcelo Roberto, Ernesto Rogers, Alfred Roth, Paul Rudolph, Eero

Jacques Barsac and Christian Archambeau of Cine Service Saarinen, Mario Salvadori, Tomas Sanabria, Marc Saugey, Paul

Technique, Paris; Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris; Mary Daniels of the Schwiekher, Jose Luis Sert, Rudolf Steiger, Edward Durell Stone,

Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Kenzo Tange, Martin Vegas, Carlos Villanueva, Paul Weidlinger,

Massachusetts; Mariejosiane Rouchon, Institut National de lAudio Philip Will Jr., Frank Lloyd Wright, William Wurster, Minoru

Visuel, Paris; Trevor Lummis and the Oral History Association; The Yamasaki, andjunzo Yoshimura.

Credits
b = bottom, c = center, I = left, r = right, t = top Photographer, courtesy Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, p. 261 ; C. A.

Dehl, p. 24; Dell and Wainwright Photographers, courtesy

Architectural Review, p. 190; ©John Ebstel, pp. 215, 216; Erben

Wayne Andrews, p. 123 r; Wayne Andrews, © ESTO, p. 93; The Photographer, courtesy Harvard University, p. 247; Fondation

Architects' Collaborative, p. 177; Architectural Publishers Artemis Maeght, p. 259; reproduced from p. 159, Kenneth Frampton,

Source, reproduced from p. 164, Kenneth Frampton, A/loc/ern Modern Architecture, A Critical History, Thames and Hudson,
Architecture, A Critical History, Thames and Hudson, London, 1980, London, 1980, p. 143 t; Lionel Freedman, p. 220; Marcel
p. 159; Architectural Review, p. 55; courtesy The Art Institute of Gautherot, p. 241 ; Marcel Gautherot Photographer, reproduced
Chicago, p. 98 c; Arteaga Photos, p. 200 t; Bauhaus Archive, from p. 130, John Peter, Masters of Modern Architecture, Bonanza

p. 189; reproduced from p. 171, Willy Boesiger, (e Corbusier, Books, New York, 1958, p. 245; Marcel Gautherot Photographer,
Oeuvre Complete, 1938—1946, Les Editions d Architecture, reproduced from i If us. 132, Stamo Papadaki, Oscar Niemeyer,

Erlenbach-Zurich, Switzerland, 1946, p. 147; courtesy Oswaldo Masters of World Architecture Series, George Braziller, Inc., New
Bratke, pp.46 bl, 47 t; Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, York, 1960, p. 242 t; Alexandre Georges, p. 225; Helga Schmidt
p. 117 r; courtesy Felix Candela, pp. 74, 75 t; collection Centre Glassner, p. 142 bl; courtesy Gruen Associates, p. 79; courtesy

Canadien dArchitecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Harvard University, pp.149, 185, 252, 253, 255, 258 b; Robert

Montreal, pp.51, 115, 141 1, 184, 226 t, 254; Chicago D. Harvey Studio, Otto Hassenberg, p. 180; Hedrich-Blessing,

Architectural Photographing Company, p. 133; The Chicago pp. 82-83, 86, 89, 90 t, 91, 170; Hedrich-Blessing

Historical Society, p. 36 b; Condit Studio, p. 401; George Cserna Photographers, courtesy Lohan Associates, Chicago, pp. 88, 90 b,

513
169; Lucien Herve, pp.50, 97 t, 100 b, 105, 137, 140 b, 140 t, p. 25, Aline Saarinen, ed., Eero Saarinen on his Work, Yale

141 b, 142 c, 142 t, 143 r, 148; David Hicks Photographer, repro- University Press, New Haven, 1962, p. 209; courtesy SANDAK, An
duced from p. 202, Dennis Sharp, A Visual History of Twentieth- Imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 196; courtesy

Century Architecture, New York Graphic Society, Ltd. /William Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, p. 30; Ezra Stoller, © ESTO,
Heinemann, Ltd., 1972, p. 38; Chuji Hirayama Photographer, repro- pp.26, 42 t, 43, 72, 100 t, 167, 175, 193, 194, 204, 205,

duced from p. 178, illus. 7.17, David B. Stewart, The Making of A 206, 226 b, 231, 232, 234, 264; © William Allin Starrer,

Modem Japanese Architecture, 1868 to the Present, Kodan-sha, Ltd., pp.112, 116, 117 1, 121, 122, 128; Struwing, p,102;Masami
Japan, 1987, p. 32 It; David Hirsch, pp.161, 272-73; courtesy Tanigawa Photographer, courtesy William Allin Starrer, p. 126 t;

HPP, Hentrich-Petschnigg and Partner 'KG, p. 75 r; Ingervo Marvin Trachtenberg, pp. 60-61, 64, 87 b, 146; courtesy United

Photographer, courtesy The Museum of Finnish Architecture, States Embassy, Brazil, p. 94; University of Pennsylvania, Louis I.

pp. 44-45, 46 c; reproduced from p. 249, Reginald Isaacs, Walter Kahn Collection, Architectural Archives of the University of

Gropius, An Illustrated Biography of the Creator of the Bauhaus, Pennsylvania, Gift of Richard Saul Wurman, pp. 222, 223;

Bulfinch Press, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1983, p. 181 ; courtesy University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Johnson Wax, pp. 123 b, 124; © Clemens Kalischer, p. 37; Phokion Commission, Louis I. Kahn Collection, pp.219, 221; Tony Vaccaro,

Karas Photographer, courtesy Harvard University, p. 256; Phokion pp.3 r, 118-19, 139; courtesy Weidlinger Associates, p. 67 b;

Karas Photographer, courtesy Serf, Jackson and Associates, p. 257; courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, The Frank Lloyd Wright

G.E. Kidder Smith, pp.54 t, 81, 84, 85, 150, 213, 237; G.E. Foundation, pp. 97 b, © 1957, 126 b, ©1957, 127, ©1958, 130.

Kidder Smith Photographer, courtesy SANDAK, An Imprint of

Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 58, 92 t; Kolmio Photographer, Berlage quotation on p. 159 is taken from Sergio Polano, Hendrik

courtesy The Museum of Finnish Architecture, pp. 3, 68 t; Balthazar Petrus Berlage, Complete Works, New York, Rizzoli, 1988, p. 98.

Korab, pp.71, 155, 172, 173, 198, 200b, 210; F.S. Lincoln Lao-tse quotation on p. 120 is taken from Lao-tse, The Wisdom of

Photographer, reproduced from illus. 57 Stamo Papadaki, Oscar Laotse, trans., ed., and introduction by Lin Yutang, New York,
Niemeyer, Masters of World Architecture Series, George Braziller, Random House, The Modern Library, 1948, p. 87 Le Corbusier quo-

Inc., New York, 1960, p. 239; Massachusetts Institute of tation on p. 106 is taken from Le Corbusier, Towards a New
Technology Historical Collections, p. 107; © Rollie McKenna, Architecture, London, The Architectural Press, 1946, p. 210. Loos

pp. 22-23, 34, 36 t, 52 t, 95; courtesy Metlife Archives, p. 54 b; quotation on p. 94 is taken from Benedetto Gravagnuolo, Adolf

Joseph Molitor Photographer, courtesy Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, Loos, New York, Rizzoli, 1982, p. 20. Maillart quotation on p. 30 is

p. 265; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, p. 230; The Museum of taken from Max Bill, Robert Maillart, Verlag fur Architektur A.G.,

Modern Art, pp. 4-5, 28, 62, 166, 182; Oscar Niemeyer, repro- Erlenbach-Zurich, 1949, p. 15. Mies van der Rohe quotation on
duced from p. 46, Claudius Coulin, Drawings by Architects, from the p. 181 is taken from Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus, Cambridge,

Ninth Century to the Present Day, Reinhold Publishing, New York, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 1969, p. vii. Sullivan quotation on

1962, p. 238 t; reproduced from illus. 113, Stamo Papadaki, Oscar p. 125 is taken from Louis Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, New
Niemeyer, Masters of World Architecture Series, George Braziller, York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1956, pp. 257-58. Venturi quotation

Inc., New York, 1960, p. 242 b; Rondal Partridge, p. 68 b; cour- on p. 274 is taken from Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradic-

tesy Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, p. 267 b and t; Pei Cobb Freed tion in Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art Papers on

and Partners Source, reproduced from p. 60, Carter Wiseman, /.A/1. Architecture, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1966, p. 22.

Pei: A Profile in American Architecture, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New Viollet-le-Duc quotation on p. 109 is taken from Eugene-Emanuel

York, 1990, p. 271 John ;

Peter, pp. 2 bl, br, and I, 3 br and c, 27, Viollet-le-Duc, Lectures on Architecture, London, Sampson, Low,
29, 33, 35, 40 t, 42 I, 49, 52 I, 53 r, 63, 66, 67 r, 73, 76, 78, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1877, p. 283. Wagner quotation
87 r, 98 I, 101, 106, 157, 178, 197, 214, 229, 243, 244, 248, on p. 93 is taken from Frank Borsi and Ezio Godoli, Vienna 1900:
263; Roy E. Petersen Photographer, reproduced from p. 95, Frank Architecture and Design, New York, Rizzoli, 1986, p. 160.

Lloyd Wright, The Living City, Horizon Press, New York, 1958,

p. 53 c; courtesy Philadelphia City Planning Commission, p. 266;

courtesy Pirelli Company, p. 47 r; Louis Reens Photographer, courtesy

The Architects' Collaborative, p. 191 ; Louis Reens Photographer, cour-

tesy Weidlinger Associates, p. 258 t; Steve Rosenthal, p. 269; cour-

tesy Alfred Roth, pp.56, 57; Jan C. Rowan, p. 70; reproduced from

314
 Beaux-Arts style, 12, 13, 14, 15,45, 114, Center City project (1956), 221
Index 116, 270, 271, 274 chairs, 106, 166-67, 203, 276-77
Numbers in italics refer to pages Becket, Welton, 275 Chamberlain House, 176
bearing illustrations. Behrens, Peter, 9, 21, 52, 140, 156, 159, Chandigarh, 104, 148, 291
179, 289 Trench of Consideration, 148
Bell Telephone Laboratories, 205 Chanin, Irwin, 54
Belluschi, Pietro, 40; 40 Chartres, Cathedral of, 68, 104, 244
Aalto, Alvar, 8, 9, 46, 58, 68, 83, 92, biography of, 292 Chicago World's Fair, 18, 26
95, 99, 107, 289; 6, 45, 46, 58, 68, Berlage, Hendrik Petrus, 9, 19, 21, 62, Churchill, Winston, 11

92, 107 109, 159, 289 Church of Notre-Dame (Le Raincy), 19

biography of, 292 Berlin Turbine Factory, 21 Church of St. Francis of Assisi, 241
Abramovitz, Max, 227 Bertoia, Harry, 80, 277 Church of the Miraculous Virgin, 74
AC (Arquitectura Contemporanea), 251 Bill, Max, 38, 49, 63, 278; 38, 63 CIAM (Congres Intemationaux
Adler, Dankmar, 114, 115, 116, 127; 116 biography of, 292 d'Architecture Moderne), 51, 180, 251,

AIA (American Institute of Architects),! 14 Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building, 37; 37 254, 256; 51
air-conditioning, 36, 37, 47, 127, 145, Brasilia, 143, 236, 238-40, 243, 244, Ciampi, Mario, 74, 106
264 245, 291 ; 237, 238 biography of, 293
aircraft industry, 28-29 Brasilia Cathedral, 244 Cidade dos Motores, plan, 255
airport terminals, 205-6 Bratke, Oswaldo Arthur, 46-47; 46, 47 cities, city planning, 53-59, 142, 144,
Albers, Josef, 63, 78, 182, 187 254 biography of, 292 169, 194, 207 219-20, 221-22,
aluminum, 28, 40, 125 Brazil, 33, 103, 240-41, 244, 245, 247 255, 256, 257-58, 278-79,
American Institute of Architects (AIA), 1 14 255-56 282
Amsterdam Stock Exchange Building, 19 Brazilian Pavilion, World's Fair, 239 Pei on, 263-64, 265, 267

Architects' Collaborative, The (TAC),177; Breuer, Marcel, 8, 9, 53-54, 72, 103, suburbs, 131, 282

185, 191 176, 254, 6, 53, 54, 177 see also housing
Arquitectura Contemporanea (AC], 251 biography 292of, City Hall (Stockholm), 99
art, 17-18, 60-81, 149, 185-86, Breuer chair, 277 City Hall (Tokyo), 94-95
210-11, 267 281 brick, 27, 31, 34,40 Clarke, Gilmore, 54
Art and Technique in New Unity, 1 84 Broadacre City, 53, 130; 53 Cobb, Henry 269; 269
Art Nouveau, 18, 20, 63, 173, 276, 277 Brooklyn Bridge, 15 Colonnade Park Apartments, 173
Arts and Crafts movement, 18, 276 Brown, Denise Scott, 273 color, 71-74, 79, 162-63, 267, 268,
Asplund, Gunnar, 8 Brown, William Hoskins, 42 281
Associated City Planners, 222 Brunei, Isambard Kingdom, 16 Complexity and Contradiction in

Augustine, St., 155, 158 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 232, 271 Architecture (Venturi), 10, 273, 274
Bunshaft, Gordon, 42-43, 73, 100-101, concrete, 24, 27 30, 31-32, 33, 34,
Bacardi Administration Building (Mexico), 286-87; 30, 42, 43 126, 127 148, 166-67, 168, 204-5,
172; 172 biography of, 292-93 233
Bacardi Office Building (Cuba), 171 reinforced, 26, 27 28, 29, 31, 33, 34,

Baghdad, Wright's plan for, 129-30; 130 Colder, Alexander, 80, 210, 246, 253, 38-39, 124, 140, 241; 191

Baker House, Massachusetts Institute of 255; 170, 253 Congres Intemationaux d'Architecture

Technology, 107; 107 Candela, Felix, 74, 280, 285; 74, 75 Moderne (CIAM), 51, 180, 251, 254,
Barcelona, 249, 250, 251, 253 biography of, 293 256; 51
Barcelona chair, 106, 166-67, 276-77 Can Our Cities Survive? (Serf), 254, Congressional Palace, 239-40, 244
Barcelona Pavilion, 87, 91, 99, 103, 105, 257-58; 254 Constructivism, 63; 97
162, 170, 174 Caracas, City University of, Olympic Contamin, Victor, 16
Barnsdall "Hollyhock" house, 92; 92 Stadium at, 23, 34 Contini, Edgardo, 73, 284
Baroque style, 66, 87, 95, 165, 172, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, biography of, 293
233, 271, 274, 276, 277 Harvard University, 149 Coonley House, 116; ///
Bauhaus, 8, 63, 151, 163-64, 176, 179, Carson, Pirie & 87
Scott Building, Peter Cooper Village, 266; 54
181-85, 186-89, 191, 254, 270; 5, Amon Carter Museum, 230-31 231 ; Corfs, Bill, 114
38, 177, 182, 184 Catalano, Eduardo, 15, 28-29, 46, 99, Costa, Lucio, 8, 94, 143, 236, 237, 245,
Bauhaus Master Houses, 189 276, 289 291 ; 94, 239
Baukunst, 164 biography of, 293 Couvent Sainte-Marie-de-la-Tourette, Le, 96,
beauty, 67, 69, 155, 244 Center City, proposal for (1950), 222 147; 137

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craftspeople, 18, 183, 186 Fondation Maeght, 247 259; 259 on color, 73
Cranbrook Academy, 192, 208, 209 Ford, Henry, 26, 130 on prefabrication, 38-40
S. R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Ford House, 28 on teamwork, 49, 50, 179-80, 186
Technology, 104; 165 Ford Rotunda, 26; 26 Gropius House, 177
Crystal Palace, 15, 277 Form and Color, 73 group practice, see teamwork
curtain wall, 28, 145, 199, 210; 180 "form follows function," 16, 168, 270, 271, Gruen, Victor, 20, 29-30, 71-72, 79,
279 98-99; 29, 79
Davis, Stuart, 80, 210 Foster, Richard, 234 biography of, 294
decoration, see ornament fountains, 76, 77 Guaranty Building, 19
De Divina Proportione (Pacioli), 147 Frank, Josef, 151 Guernica (Picasso), 247, 252-53; 253
John Deere and Company Administrative Froebel, Friedrich, 1 12 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 103,
Center, 205; 205 Fry, Maxwell, 105, 190 123, 124, 205, 229; 111

Defense, La, model, 267; 267 Fuller, R. Buckminster, 16, 22, 25-26; 26
de la Mora, Enrique, 74 biography of, 293-94 Haefeli, Max, 51, 278
De Mars, Vernon, 42 function, 15, 16-17, 22-23, 24-26, 69, Hafner, Jean-Jacques, 14

Dermee, Paul, 140; 140 205-6 John Hancock Tower, 269; 269
Deutsche Werkbund, 18, 164, 183 form and, 16, 168, 270, 271, 279 Harumi Housing, 32
Dinkeloojohn, 209, 210 Harvard University, 14, 224, 268; 185
Dow, Alden, 121 Galia, Jose Miguel, 31-32,52, 105, 106, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 149
Drake University, 80 284; 52 Graduate Center, 185
Drew, Jane, 105 biography of, 294 Gropius at, 176, 189-90
Dudok, Willem, 24-25, 55, 65-66, 98, Gamier, Tony, 9, 20, 21 Holyoke Center, 256
278, 281, 284-85; 24, 66 Gaudi, Antonio, 74, 95, 96, 123 Peabody Terrace Married Students
biography of, 293 General Motors Technical Center, 54, Housing, 257
Dulles International Airport, 206 72-73, 80, 81, 102, 109, 192, 194, Sert at, 246, 254, 257 258
Duquesne University, Mellon Hall Science 199, 208, 209, 275, 277; 194 Hayashi, Aisaku, 133
Center at, 170; 169 plan, 209 Heathcote Elementary School, 36
Dutert, Ferdinand, 16 German Pavilion, International Exposition, heating, 127
88 Helix Apartment, model, 264
Eames, Charles, 106, 276 Giedion, Sigfried, 45, 51, 137 Hentrich, Helmut, 57, 75, 102-3; 75
Eastgate Apartments, 42 glass, 26, 27, 29-30, 125, 166 biography of, 294-95
Eiffel, Gustave, 15, 16 skyscraper, model, 166; 166 Hillside Home School, 122; 122
Eiffel Tower, 15, 16, 127 Glass House, 77 224, 225, 235; 225 Hiroshige, 117, 120
860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Goff, Bruce, 28, 96-98, 274, 275, 289; Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 10, 16, 224,

84, 85, 86, 87 88, 100, 102, 104, 28 225, 275; 226
105, 154, 268, 275; 86 biography of, 294 Hokusai, 117 120
Einstein, Albert, 56, 153 Goodman, Charles, 41 "Hollyhock" house, 92; 92
Engels, Friedrich, 18 biography of, 294 Hollywood Club, 98; 97
Equitable Savings and Loan Association Gothic style, 59, 74, 75, 95, 109, 114, Holy Family Cathedral (Barcelona), 95,
Building, 40 165, 193, 197, 276, 286, 288 96-97
Esprit Nouveau, I', 140; 140 Gourley, Ronald, 149, 256, 257 Holyoke Center, Harvard University, 256
Exhibition Hall (Turin), 70; 70 Government Center master plan, 267; 267 Hood, Raymond, 269
Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, 141; 142 Graduate Center, Harvard University, 185 Hook of Holland Housing, 62
Grand Central Station, 68, 206 Horta, Victor, 18

Fagus Factory, 176; 180 Grasset, Eugene, 140 Hotel Diamantina, 243
Fallingwater, 89, 92, 95, 96, 99, 102, Greenbelt, 131 housing, 51-52, 89, 103-4, 141, 150,
106; 82, 89 Gropius, Walter, 8, 9, 11, 21, 47, 51, 52, 206-7 265-66, 281-83
Faneuil Hall, 267 95, 99, 101, 103-4, 108, 135, 141, prefabricated, 37-43, 128-29, 255
Famsworth House, 89, 162, 235; 90 151, 163, 164, 176-91, 254, 255, Huntington Hartford Country Club Project,
Federal Center (Chicago), 170; 170 258, 259, 271, 277 278,' 288, 289; 98; 97
Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 266; 265 5, 177, 179, 180, 182, 185, 189,
Feininger, Lyonel, 181, 184 190 IBM, 72
Fellowship House, Institute of Zurich, 57 on art, 78 IBM Plant, 210; 210
FHA (Federal Housing Authority), 266; 265 biography of, 294 Illinois Institute of Technology 102,

316
 162; 155 Kindergarten Chats (Sullivan), 16, 115, Lutheran College, 275
chapel at, 204 124; 115

S. R. Crown Hall, 104; 165 Kips Bay Plaza, 260, 266; 265 McGregor Memorial Community
Imperial Hotel, 106, 111, 126, 127, Klee, Paul, 63, 154, 162, 181, 184 Conference Center, Wayne State

133-35; 126, 133 Koch, Carl, 41-42, 99, 100, 278-79; 42 University, 71
Impington College, classroom wing, 190 biography of, 295 machines, 16, 17, 18, 25, 35-37, 78,
Ingalls Hockey Rink, 204 Kresge Auditorium, The Massachusetts 142, 143
Institute of Zurich, 57; 57 Institute of Technology, 198; 197 prefabrication, 37-43, 128-29, 255
International Style, The: Architecture Since Krupp office building, 169 see also technology
1922 (Hitchcock and Johnson], 10, 16, Mackintosh, Charles Rennie, 19, 289
224; 226 Lake Shore Drive, see 860-880 Lake Shore Maillart, Robert, 30, 123, 168
Itten, Johannes, 187 Drive Apartments Maison du Peuple, 18

Izenour, Steven, 273 landscape architecture, 76 Mansfield, Howard, 117

Lao-tse, 120, 121, 263 Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building, 29;
Jackson, Huson, 149, 256, 257 Larkin Company Building, 117; 117 30
Jacobsen, Arne, 98, 102; 98, 102 League of Nations project, 143, 150, 250; marble, 232, 233, 280, 281
biography of, 295 143 Marseilles apartments, see Unite

Japan, 18, 32,48, 117-20 Leao, Carlos, 94 d'Habitation

Jeanneret, Pierre, 148; 250; 87, 105, 142, Learning horn Las Vegas (Venturi, Brown, Marshall Erdman Company House, 128
143 and Izenour), 273 Martin House, 117
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, Le Corbusier, 8, 9, 17, 20, 21, 47, 51, 52, Marx, Karl, 18

199, 201-2; 200 53, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, Marx, Roberto Burle, 239
Jewett Arts Center, Wellesley College, 75 96, 97 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),

Jewish Community Center Bath House, 215; 104, 105, 106, 136-53, 179, 204, 197
215 215, 287-88, 289, 291; 6, 61, 64, Baker House, 107; 107
Jimenez, Jorge Bravo, 95 84, 87 94, 97, 100, 105, 137, 138, chapel at, 80, 194, 197-98; 81
Johnson, Philip, 9, 10, 16, 77, 98, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149, Kresge Auditorium, 109, 194, 198,
224-35, 274-78; 167 175, 225, 150 209; 197
226, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234 biography of, 295-96 materials, 26-35, 36, 59, 125-26, 138,
biography of, 295 concrete used by, 27, 30, 34 148, 162, 174, 195, 198, 199, 203,
on great works, 84-87 on "functional architecture," 279 233, 256, 280-81
on materials, 31 Johnson on, 84, 85, 175, 274, 276, 277 Mies van der Rohe on, 161, 162, 163,
on Mies van der Rohe, 77, 84, 85-87, Niemeyeron, 237, 241, 243 166-68
155, 174-75, 233, 235, 274, 275, Open Hand, sketch of, 148 see also specific materials
276, 277 on painting, 63-64 Mayekawa, Kunio, 32, 279; 32
on Wright, 84-85, 228, 230, 274, Pei on, 264-65, 270, 271 biography of, 296
275, 276, 277 Roth on, 64,65, 137, 150-52 Mellon Hall Science Center, Duquesne
Johnson Wax Company Buildings, 92, Saarinen on, 108-9, 208 University, 170; 169
106, 123-24; 123 Saugey on, 106, 107 Mendelsohn, Erich, 225, 226
Administration Building, interior, 124 Sertand, 249, 250, 251, 256 Mercury Fountain, 253; 253
Weidlinger on, 137, 152-53 Messel, Alfred, 156
Kahn, Louis, 9, 212-23; 213, 215, 219, writings of, 136, 140-41, 148, 151, Metals Building, 170
220, 221, 222, 223 153, 249, 254; 141 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 266
biography of, 295 Yamasaki on, 71, 79 Mexico, University of, 285
on materials, 31 Leger, Fernand, 74, 152, 246, 251, 254 National Library at, 36
on style, 66 Lever House, 39, 102, 171-72, 264, Meyer, Adolph, 180
Kandinsky, Vasily, 63, 181, 184; 184 275; 43 Meyer, Hannes, 163, 188
Kennedy, Robert Woods, 42 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Michelangelo, 87, 210, 227, 271, 277
Kennedy Building, 78 226-27, 229, 230; 226 Midway Gardens, 98; 98
Kennedy International Airport, TWA Terminal Loeb Theater, 226 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 8, 9, 12, 15,

at, 201, 205, 233; 193 Logis et Loisirs, 51 16, 18, 21, 26, 27, 29, 52, 79, 83,
Kennedy library plan, 268-69 Logue, Ed, 267 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101,
Kepes, Georgy, 78 London County Council, 55 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 135, 151,
Kiley, Dan, 210 Loos, Adolf, 9, 20, 21, 63, 66,94 154-75, 181, 188, 216, 287 289,

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 290; 6, 86, 88, 90, 155, 157, 161, biography of, 296 Palace of the Trade Unions, 250
165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, Neutra, Richard, 9, 18, 20, 47, 48-49, Palacios, Augusto Perez, 95
173, 175, 273 93-94, 289; 6, 49, 93 Palais des Machines, 16
biography of, 296 biography of, 296 Palazzo Pitti, 159
brick country house project of, 159 Nevins, Allan, 7 Palladio, Andrea, 87, 99, 156, 162
Johnson on, 77, 84, 85-87, 155, New National Gallery, 161, 273 Pampulha Yacht Club, 243; 243
173-75, 233, 235, 274, 275, 276, New York State Pavilion, World's Fair, Parker, Theodore, 113
277 233-35; 234 parking tower project, 223
on multiple units, 265-66 New York State Theater, Lincoln Center for Parthenon, 101, 235, 274, 277
Pei on, 88, 271 the Performing Arts, 226 Pavilion de I'Esprit Nouveau, Le, 141; 142
Saarinenon, 108, 109, 204, 211 New York University, University Plaza at, Paxton, Joseph, 15, 16

Saugey on, 107 266; 261 Peabody Terrace Married Students Housing,
on the spread of cities, 59 Niemeyer, Oscar, 9, 10, 60, 74, 92, 94, Harvard University, 257
in stucco business, 13 99, 236-45, 291; 6, 94, 237, 238, Pedregulho Estate, 52
Mile High project, 123, 127; 126, 127 239, 241, 243, 244, 245 Pei, I. M., 9, 10, 191, 260-71, 275; 261,
Milwaukee War Memorial, 200 biography 297 of, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 271
Ministry of Education and Health, 94, 103; 46
on socialism, biography of, 297
94 Niemeyer House, 245 on great works, 88
Mirojoan, 74, 246, 247 249, 252; 253 Northland Shopping Center, 79 Pelli, Cesar, 201
Serfs studio for, 259; 247 Notre-Dame-du-Haut (Ronchamp), 10, 95, Pennsylvania, University of, 212
Mission style, 276, 277 96, 98, 99, 102, 145-46, 241, 276; Richards Medical Research Building at,

MIT, see Massachusetts Institute of 61, 64 216-17; 216

Technology interior, 146 Women's Dormitory at, 195-96
Modulor figure, 147-48, 153 Nowicki, Matthew, 87, 204, 234-35 Peressutti, Enrico, 50, 73; 73
second version, 147 Noyes, Eliot, 14, 25, 52-53, 72-73, biography of, 297-98
Moholy-Nagy Laszlo, 63, 152, 181, 187, 101-2; 72 on great works, 88-91, 96
254 biography of, 297 Perkins, Lawrence, 36
monasteries: Noyes House, 72 Perret, Auguste, 9, 19-20, 21, 148
St. Andrew's Priory, 218-19; 219 Pessac Housing Estates, 53, 141; 141

La Tourette, 96, 147; 137 O'GormanJuan, 13, 35, 95, 283; 36 Petschnigg, Hubert, 75
Mondrian, Piet, 17, 18, 62, 63, 64-65, biography of, 297 Phoenix-Rheinroh Building, 75
151, 174, 254-55 Olympic Stadium (Mexico City), 95; 95 Piazza San Marco, 100, 195, 227
Monuments Historiques, 145 Olympic Stadium, City University of Picasso, Pablo, 77 95, 108, 151, 152,
Moreira, Jorge, 94 Caracas, 23, 34 162, 241, 246-47, 249, 251,
Moro, Raul Salinas, 95 On Architecture (Vitruvius), 22 252-53, 254, 270; 253, 261
Morris, William, 18 Or, Douglas, 220 Pirelli Tower, 47
Morumbi Children's Hospital, 47 Ordonez, Joaquin, 75 Pisano, Leonardo, 153
Moser, Karl, 150, 151 ornament, 66, 71, 77, 78-79, 80-81, plastics, 26, 27, 28, 35, 40, 125
Moser, Werner, 51, 278 149, 210, 267-68, 280-81 Plattner, Warren, 209
Moss, William, 7 Otaniemi Institute of Technology, 45, 46 Plaza of the Three Powers, 240; 237
Mueller, Paul, 115 Otis, E. G., 36 Point and Line to Plane (Kandinsky), 184
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 229, OudJJ.P, 9, 17 18, 19, 27, 52, 62, 63, Ponti, Gio, 47, 92, 99, 288-89; 47
230; 230 64, 151, 175, 225, 277, 280, 287; biography of, 298
Museum of Modern Art, 10, 203, 224, 27,62 Portinari, Candido, 74; 241
225, 228-30, 273, 290 biography of, 297 Post-Modem architecture, 10, 272-73,
museums, 228-33, 266 Ozenfant, Amedee, 140, 254; 140 274
Ozenfant House, 276 Post Office Savings Bank, 20
National Library, University of Mexico, 36 prefabrication, 37-43, 128-29, 255
National Pensions Institute, 92; 92 Pacioli, Luca, 147 Presidential Palace, 240, 259; 258
nature, 132, 142 painting, 61, 63-64, 71, 74, 76, 81, 149, President's Palace of the Dawn, 238
Nebraska, University of, Sheldon Memorial 281 H. C. Price tower, 123, 124; 123
Art Gallery at, 231-32, 233; 232 Palace of the Soviets, 97, 250; 97 Projet d'un Immeuble, 250
Nervi, Pier Luigi, 8, 9, 19, 27, 30-31, 50, Palace of the Three Powers, 240, 244 Promontory, 102
69-70, 123, 289; 47, 50, 54, 70 Plaza of, 240; 237

318
Rado, L. L, 8, 34-35, 67, 283 Sagrada Familia, 95, 96-97 interior, 253
biography of, 298 St. Andrew's Priory project, 218-19; 219 Sports Center, 32
Rapson, Ralph, 40, 55-56, 103, 286; 42 St. Peter's, 77, 277 Stam, Mart, 51, 151

biography of, 298 Salk, Jonas, 212, 217 steel, 26-27, 31, 32, 38, 125, 126, 127,
Raymond, Antonin, 8, 14-15, 67; 67 Salk Institute, 212, 217; 2J3 148, 167-68, 204, 205
biography of, 298 Salvador! , Mario, 30, 69-70 steel-reinforced concrete, 26, 27, 28, 29,
on Wright, 14-15, 111, 133-35 biography of, 299-300 31, 33, 34, 38-39, 124, 140, 241;
Reader's Digest Building, 67 Sanabria, Tomas, 94-95 191

Reidy, Affonso Eduardo, 33, 52, 69, biography of, 300 Steiger, Rudolf, 50-51, 96, 278, 279-80,
103-4, 287; 33, 52, 94 Sandburg, Carl, 125 282-83
biography of, 298 Santa Sophia, 73 biography of, 300
Renaissance, 20, 73, 81, 193, 197, 271, Saugey, Marc," 19-20, 27, 38, 56, Stephenson, George, 16

277 280, 288 106-8, 283; 106 Stephenson, Robert, 16

Resor House, 162 biography of, 300 Stijl, De, 17-18; 24, 159
Richards Medical Research Building, Savoye House, see Villa Savoye stone, 31, 34, 35, 280-81
University of Pennsylvania, 216-17; 216 Schlemmer, Oskar, 63, 187 Stone, Edward Durell, 68, 282; 68
Richardson, Henry Hobson, 86, 274 Schmidt, Hans, 51 biography of, 300
Rietveld, Gerrit, 17-18 school design, 57 structure, 15, 16, 28-29, 81, 160, 161,
Rivera, Diego, 35 School of Art (Glasgow), 19 165, 166-67
roads, 221-22 School of Design (Ulm), 38; 38 Stuyvesant Town, 53, 266; 54
Roberto, Marcelo, 33, 58-59, 283-84 Schrodinger, Erwin, 160 suburbia, 131, 282
biography of, 298-99 Schweikher, Paul, 104 Sullivan, Louis, 9, 16, 19, 21, 86, 93,
Robie House, 27, 91, 105, 106; 91 biography of, 300 103, 109, 125, 127, 203, 274; 116

Roche, Kevin, 201, 209, 210 science, 128, 161, 185, 286 Kindergarten Chats, 16, 115, 124; 115
Rockefeller, Nelson, 234 see also technology Wright and, 114-16, 125
Rockefeller Center, 98, 130, 171, 265, sculpture, 63, 66, 69, 71, 74, 76, 77, 80, Sweeney, James Johnson, 123
269-70, 278 96, 149, 234-35, 281 Swiss Pavilion, University City, 101, 105,
Roebling, John August, 15, 16, 126 Seagram Building, 77, 86, 102, 104, 106; 100
Roehampton Estate, 55 166, 171-72, 174, 275, 276, 277;
Rogers, Ernesto, 27, 46, 50, 67, 95-96 167 175 TAC (The Architects' Collaborative], 177;
biography of, 299 Secretariat and Assembly Building, 105 185, 191

Romanesque style, 165, 276, 286 Segador Catalan, El (Miro), 253 Tacoma Bridge, 31

Romeo and Juliet Windmill, 113; 112 Sert, Jose Luis, 8, 9, 51, 246-59; 149, Taliesin, 10,99, 103, 111, 132
Ronchamp chapel, see Notre-Dame-du-Haut 247, 249, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, Taliesin Foundation (Fellowship), 121-22;
Roszak, Theodore, 80, 210-11 257, 258, 259 85
Roth, Alfred, 18-19, 33-34, 56-58, biography of, 300 Taliesin III, 100
64-65, 92-93; 56, 57 on color, 74 Taliesin West, 84-85, 87, 88, 101, 102,
biography of, 299 Sert, Jose Maria, 249 105; 85
on LeCorbusier, 64, 65, 137 150-52 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Tange, Kenzo, 9, 32-33, 47-48, 94,
Row Houses, 102 Nebraska, 231-32, 233; 232 101, 289; 32, 101
Royal Institute of British Architects, 131 SilsbeeJ. Lyman, 114, 115, 116 biography of, 301
Rudolph, Paul, 27-28, 37, 75-76, 105, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, 29, 204; Taut, Bruno, 52
191, 204, 285-86; 37,76 30, 43 teamwork, 49-51, 179-80, 186, 207-8,
biography of, 299 socialism, 18, 44-45 278-79
society, 44-59, 81, 103, 143, 168, 256, technology, 15, 16, 17, 22-43, 47, 48,

Saarinen, Eero, 9, 54, 72-73, 79-81, 279 55-56, 59, 69, 161, 216, 279, 286
101, 102, 192-211, 226, 233, 275, see also cities, city planning; housing see also machines
276, 289-90; 6, 81, 193, 194, 197, Society Hill apartments and town houses, Telford, Thomas, 16
198, 200, 204, 205, 206, 209, 210 260; 266 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 98, 99
biography of, 299 Southwest Washington, D.C., project, plan, theaters, 226
on function, 16-17 205-6 271 Thomas Aquinas, St., 18, 158, 160
influences of, 108-9 Spain, 251-52, 253, 257 "Three Reminders to Architects" (Le

Saarinen, Eliel, 9, 192, 193, 195, 208, Spanish Republican Pavilion, World's Fair, Corbusier), 140-41
289 246, 251-53; 252 Tillio Bonanci (Pisa no), 153

319
 8 ;

Torroja, Eduardo, 83 Venturi, Robert, 10, 272-73, 274 Women's Dormitory, University of

Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier), Vers une Architecture (Le Corbusier), 151 Pennsylvania, 195-96
249; 141 141 wood, 34, 35, 280
Town Hall, 24 Villanueva, Carlos Raul, 34, 87; 23, 34, Woolworth Building, 43
Town Planning Associates, 255 87 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 8, 9, 11, 16, 18, 19,

Transportation Building, 9 biography of, 301 20, 27, 53, 63, 79, 83, 87, 89, 90,
Tremaine House, 93; 93 Villa Savoye, 87, 101-2, 105, 106, 91, 92, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101, 102-3,

Trench of Consideration, 148; 148 250; 87 104, 105, 106, 110-35, 194, 271,
Tugendhat House, 91, 106; 90 Ville Contemporaine, 53 283, 286, 287 289; 6, 53, 82, 85,
TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), 98, 99 Ville Radieuse, La, 53, 143; 143 89, 91, 92, 97, 98, 100, 111, 112,

TWA Terminal, Kennedy International Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emanuel, 15, 109, 115, 116, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124,

Airport, 201, 205, 233; 193 213 126, 128, 133, 159
Vitruvius, 22, 49 biography of, 301-2
Ukiyo-e School, 117, 120 Voisin plan, 53, 142; 142 Gropius on, 179, 182
UNESCO Headquarters, 145; 54 Japanese culture and, 18, 117-20, 121,
Unite d'Habitation (Marseilles), 31, 84, 85, Wachsmann, Konrad, 39; 181 132, 134
88, 89, 91, 95, 100, 104, 106, 108, Wagner, Otto, 9, 20, 21, 93-94 Johnson on, 84-85, 229, 230, 274,
144-45, 241, 264, 275; 84, 150 Wainwright Building, 86, 87 275, 276, 277
United Nations Headquarters, 145, 153, George Washington Bridge, 31, 160, 164 Mies van der Rohe on, 159, 162
278 Watt, James, 16 Raymond on, 14-15, 111, 133-35
United States Embassy (Athens), 191 Wayne State University, McGregor Saarinen on, 204, 205, 210
United States Embassy (Baghdad), 259; Memorial Community Conference Saugey on, 107-8
258 Center at, 71 on workmanship and design, 25
United States Embassy (London), 81, Weidlinger, Paul, 35 Wundt, Wilhelm, 18
198-99; 198 biography of, 301 Wurster, William, 287
United States Embassy (New Delhi), 68 on Le Corbusier, 137, 152-53 biography of, 302
Unity Temple, 120; 121 Weissenhof exhibition, 52; 142
university campuses, 194, 195-97 Wellesley College, Jewett Arts Center at, Xochimilco Restaurant, 75
University Plaza, New York University, 266; 75
261 Werkbund, 18, 164, 183 Yale University, 212, 273
Urbanisme, L' (Le Corbusier), 151, 249 Werkbund Theater, 1 Yale Art Gallery, 220
urban planning, see cities, city planning When Democracy Builds (Wright), 130 Yamasaki, Minoru, 15, 57, 71, 78-79,
When the Cathedrals Were White (Le 104, 204, 281, 286; 71, 78
van den Broek, Johannes Hendrik, 51 Corbusier), 148 biography 302
of,

vandeVelde, Henri, 9, 18-19, 21, 163, Wiener, Paul Lester, 255; 239, 255 Yoshimura, Junzo, 285
191, 276, 289 Will, Philip, Jr., 36, 91; 36 biography of, 302
van Doesburg, Theo, 17 biography of, 301
van Eesteren, Cor, 51 Williams House, 116 Zeckendorf, Bill, 260, 263, 264, 266
Vasconcelos, Ermani, 94 Wingspread, 111 Zehrfuss, Bernard, 54
Vegas, Martin, 105, 284 Winslow House, 116; 116 Zurich, 57; 57
biography of, 301 Wolfsburg Church, 59

320
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 The enclosed compact disc features interviews with:

ALVAR AALTO RICHARD NEUTRA

MARCEL BREUER OSCAR NIEMEYER
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The text of the book contains interviews with the above plus:

PIETRO BELLUSCHi CARL KQGH MARC SAUGEY

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MARIO CIAMPI L. L. RADO PAUL WEIDLINGER
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