What was happening to modern architecture? Reflections of a symposium of 1948
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18537/est.v005.n009.08Abstract
On October 11th 1947, Lewis Mumford dedicated his column “The Sky Line” in ‘The New Yorker’ to the architecture of the Bay Region Style. Mumford presented his ideas about this trend while expressing his ambivalence in how the United States were receiving the European architecture of the International Style. That article helped to trigger a symposium at the MoMA of New York. The head figures of the architecture of the moment attended this symposium: Gropius, Breuer, Saarinen, Chermayeff, Nowicki, Hitchcock, Johnson, Barr, Scully, Blake… and Mumford himself. The title of the symposium seemed ambitious: “What Is Happening to Modern Architecture?” Although the speakers did not come to an agreement, their speeches shed light on issues that many thought but only few dared to note: modern architecture did not convinced society and it became an elitist product only for architects. One decade later these were crucial characteristics for Robert Venturi.
Keywords: Modern Architecture, Bay Region Style, MoMA, Mumford, Venturi.
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