Shaping the Modern American City

SHAPING THE MODERN AMERICAN CITY ReynerBanham. A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Buildingand European Modern Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1986. ix + 266 pp.Illus. TodA. Marder. The Critical Edge: Controversy in RecentAmerican Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: TheMIT Press for The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 1985. 203 pp. Illus. PhilipJohnson/John Burgee: Architecture 1979-1985, intro. by Carleton Knight III. New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc. I92 pp. Illus. George Kapelos Thecommon thread in these three very different books is architecture, but seen from three diverse perspectives: architectural research, history and current practice. Taken together they reflect the lively debate among architects, critics andthe general public on the state of the profession in the United States today. There is one work of serious architectural history in this collection of three books:Reyner Banham' s A Concrete Atlantis. It stands as a good representative work of its type and is a jumping off point for the discussion of the second book, The Critical Edge. The Critical Edge, which is by far the most interesting ofthe three books, is a collection of essays on current building projects and the role of the critic in the development of concensus on architecture. The final book, a description of recent projects by the architectural firm of Philip Johnson and John Burgee of New York, is the least substantial, but in fact is the most telling. It stands as a signpost presenting a vision of the future for this complex and, to the uninitiated, often bewildering profession. A Concrete Atlantis is a continuation of Reyner Banham' s quest for the connection between technology and modernism in North America and abroad. InEurope, modernism is that form of architecture which first saw expression in theworks of Le Corbusier, Eric Mendellsohn and Walter Gropius tn the l920s. Theseearly advocates of a modern style were most influenced by the robust and unpretentious buildings of industrial America. 116 George Kapelos The title, A Concrete Atlantis, refers to what Banham considers an important class of buildings, built of a simple material, which up until now have gone unnoticed and unstudied. Structures such as grain elevators and factory buildings were admired by European architects as the products of the industrial age, both for their form and function. These buildings in reinforced concrete and steel-new materials of the age-were considered functionally honest, structurally economical and up-to-the-minute. As such they were seen as prototypical of building form to be used in the creation of a truly modem architecture. American industrial buildings were therefore seen by many Europeans as being the hope of the future. They were photographed frequently and published widely in Europe. As architecture is so much a visual art form, the importance of photography in recording this form of architecture cannot be overestimated. In the early teens in Germany articles circulated extolling the virtues of American grain elevators and factories. Photographs of these buildings were used by Walter Gropius, the German father of modern architecture, in an article in I9I3, and as early as I9I4 by the Italian futurist Antonio San'Elia. The best-known example of this use of photography is by the Swiss-born architect, Le Corbusier. In his classic 1923 treatise, Vers Une Architecture, anonymous grain elevators (actually placed in Thunder Bay and Buffalo) are glorified. Banham concentrates on two archetypes which were much admired by the European modernists: the daylight factory and the grain elevator. Banham also explores the development of concrete. Americans promoted and perfected the use of concrete and reinforced concrete in industrial buildings at the tum of the century, and were admired for it in Europe. Banham sets out to explore the origins of the two archetypes and the way they became popular through the use of reinforced concrete. In doing so, he explains the fascination and role that these buildings played in the development of modern architecture in Europe. We learn in great detail about the daylight factory (so named because of the large expanses of glass, which permitted daylight to flood the interior of what were previously dreary and forbidding structures.) These buildings evolved from the timber frame structures of the industrial revolution of the early 1800s. The...