What is Happening to Modern Architecture?

Lewis Mumford and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s impassioned confrontation at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1948 symposium, «What is Happening to Modern Architecture?» culminated a 20-year-long debate between the two historian-critics. At stake were no less than two strongly competing points of view, based on two competing historiographies for modern architecture: Mumford was indebted to «organic» principles, and guided by ecological and cultural concerns, whereas Hitchcock favored the machine metaphor, its criteria formal, style-oriented, and symbolic. Inciting the confrontation was Mumford’s article, «Status Quo,» published in the widely read journal, The New Yorker in October 1947. There, Mumford proposed the «Bay Region style» as an alternative to the «international style,»—the latter representing for him far too narrow, even sterile modernism still being promoted by the Museum of Modern Art fifteen years after its «international style» exhibition. Mumford argued that Hitchcock had overlooked modernism’s complexity, sense of social purpose, and «personalism» by continuing to identify it with modernist paintings and by investing it with a false and narrow symbolism of the machine. Such a pointed questioning of the «international style» as modernism’s principle mode of explanation looked like an act of heresy to Hitchcock as well as to his associates at the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr and Philip Johnson—so they organized the symposium, «What is Happening to Modern Architecture?» for February 1948 as the Museum’s official response.Peer Reviewe

The tower : a study in change of meaning

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Includes bibliographies.by Gail Fenske.M.S

The "Skyscraper problem" and the city beautiful : the Woolworth Building

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988.Includes bibliographical references.The "skyscraper problem" challenged the thought and practice of civic designers and architects prior to World War I. It referred to the incompatibility of City Beautiful principles with economically propelled land development, and to the contradiction between the notion of architecture as an art and the skyscraper's programmatic and technical requirements. Civic designers in New York had difficulty accommodating the skyscraper in their large-scale plans. They also found that it intruded on their vision for the business street, hindered their attempts to plan City Hall Park as New York's civic center, and created a chaotic skyline. Bruce Price, Louis Sullivan, Thomas Hastings, Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, and other architects suggested alternative proposals for subjecting the skyscraper to the constraints of design . Prior to the design of the Woolworth Building, however, architectural critics did not unanimously endorse any single approach. Frank Woolworth chose a site for his proposed headquarters at the intersection of City Hall Park, New York's civic center, with lower Broadway, the spine of its business district . Woolworth commissioned Cass Gilbert to design the Woolworth Building in 1910. Gilbert shared the City Beautiful vision of McKim, Mead & White and Daniel Burnham. He also accepted the skyscraper's pragmatic requirements. Woolworth intended his headquarters to function as a speculative office building, but also to look like a civic institution. The imagery of a civic institution would represent the capitol of his commercial "empire" as well as display his civic-mindedness, wealth, and cosmopolitanism. The Woolworth Building's siting at New York's civic center, its composition, its arcade, and its sculptural and mural decoration identified it with the prevailing concept of the civic building. The soaring vertical piers of its exterior recalled Gilbert's earlier design for the West Street Building, which was influenced by the functionalist ideas of Louis Sullivan. The Woolworth Building convinced critics that a suitable architectural expression could be found for the skyscraper. Zoning reformers regarded it as a benign skyscraper. Contemporary observers attuned to City Beautiful aesthetic principles thought that the Woolworth Building strengthened the order and image of New York's civic center and enhanced the view of the city from afar.by Gail Fenske.Ph.D

What is Happening to Modern Architecture?

Lewis Mumford and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s impassioned confrontation at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1948 symposium, «What is Happening to Modern Architecture?» culminated a 20-year-long debate between the two historian-critics. At stake were no less than two strongly competing points of view, based on two competing historiographies for modern architecture: Mumford was indebted to «organic» principles, and guided by ecological and cultural concerns, whereas Hitchcock favored the machine metaphor, its criteria formal, style-oriented, and symbolic. Inciting the confrontation was Mumford’s article, «Status Quo,» published in the widely read journal, The New Yorker in October 1947. There, Mumford proposed the «Bay Region style» as an alternative to the «international style,»—the latter representing for him far too narrow, even sterile modernism still being promoted by the Museum of Modern Art fifteen years after its «international style» exhibition. Mumford argued that Hitchcock had overlooked modernism’s complexity, sense of social purpose, and «personalism» by continuing to identify it with modernist paintings and by investing it with a false and narrow symbolism of the machine. Such a pointed questioning of the «international style» as modernism’s principle mode of explanation looked like an act of heresy to Hitchcock as well as to his associates at the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr and Philip Johnson—so they organized the symposium, «What is Happening to Modern Architecture?» for February 1948 as the Museum’s official response.Peer Reviewe