A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War by Daniel A. Barber (review)

Solar architecture is often associated with the oil crisis of the 1970s and the rise of the environmental and counterculture movements of Ecological Architecture, Appropriate Technology, and Bioregionalism. In this book, Daniel Barber describes the early history of solar architecture in the United States between the 1930s and the 1950s, one that involved multiple housing experiments by mainstream researchers and practitioners. Barber, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, situates this architectural history within the broader political, economic, and cultural dynamics leading up to and immediately following the Second World War.

Barber's story begins in the late 1930s when a handful of architects supplemented vernacular design principles with contemporary innovations to produce distinctive housing designs with prominent southern facades. Barber emphasizes the commonalities between solar design and modern architecture elements such as open plan interiors, flat roofs, and expansive transparent facades. The solar design discourse shifted dramatically during the cold war as the perceived threat of resource scarcity called for energy efficiency and self-sufficiency. Passive solar strategies developed in the 1930s and 1940s were replaced by engineered systems with heating panels and phase-changing chemicals to optimize building performance, reduce energy dependence, and produce economic savings.

Much of the book is devoted to detailed descriptions of experimental houses designed and built by researchers and practitioners to test scientific principles related to building orientation and roof angle, shading and glazing requirements, and optimal energy storage capacity. The experiments not only informed building science and design principles but also served as demonstration projects to promote solar design to the general public through tours, exhibitions, and popular features in Life, Ladies' Home Journal, and Fortune. Solar design validated the functional as well as stylistic attributes of architectural design.

Two geographies are prominently featured in Barber's narrative. MIT engineers and architects in the Northeast engaged in a long-term research program that included a succession of experimental houses beginning in the late 1930s. By the 1950s, the locus of activity had shifted to the Southwest and specifically to Phoenix, where the Stanford Research Institute and the Association for Applied Solar Energy hosted conferences, competitions, and exhibitions. In both regions, solar house experiments involved a mix of actors from academia, government, and the private sector, a precursor to today's commonplace triple helix of scientific research. A highlight of Barber's research is the emphasis on lesser-known advocates of solar architecture. Of particular note are George Fred Keck, an architect who designed multiple solar houses in the Midwest in the 1930s and 1940s, and Maria Telkes, a material scientist who championed the use of chemical heat-storage technologies. Both had an indelible influence on solar design and deserve their own biographies.

Of course, Barber's history of solar architecture is not confined to building science and public demonstrations. He argues that "solar architecture was part of the narrative of progress and modernization that was central to both the architectural discussion and that of economic, technological, and bureaucratic modernization in the period" (p. 6). The purpose of design was to instigate cultural transformation and solar houses promised to reduce heating bills and provide energy independence with no sacrifice to quality of life. However, this required the complex coordination of technical and design strategies as well as the willingness of occupants to operate their houses properly. Ultimately, mechanical heating and ventilation systems would emerge as the dominant approach to condition houses because they could be easily integrated into any housing configuration and could take advantage of the increasingly ubiquitous infrastructure networks for natural gas, electricity, and heating oil.

Barber's insights on solar architecture build upon the classic works on architecture and technology from Giedion, Mumford, and Banham as well as the twentieth-century histories of Ecological Architecture and Building Science. His emphasis on the researchers and practitioners who designed, built, and operated experimental houses...