About the Project American Modernism, The Camera and The Car
Mapping American Modernism is an architectural research project made possible by a generous award from the SOM Foundation. The goal of the project is to explore and define the relationships between the American Modern Movement (in architecture) and the American Landscape.
The social, political, and cultural ramifications of architecture, and vice versa, have always intrigued me. I find myself compulsively seeking out relationships that can join the two realms. And perhaps it is this reason that I also find myself in awe of the American Modern Movement. For me this is the most recent period in US Architecture that saw not only the generation of new homes and buildings in large numbers, but also an overall enthusiasm, both in the profession and from the public, concerning the quality and kind of architecture that was being produced. This is not to say that every building that was erected during this time was incredible, or even noteworthy, but moreover that architects had high hopes for improving the human condition and doing it in a way that was radically different than anything that had come before.
The goals of the research were four-fold:
1: Study the Modern Movement in the US; the architects, the buildings, the cities, the new materials, the ambitions.
2: Understand the social, political and cultural contexts in which all of this is unfolding.
3: Travel and document the buildings of the period, seeking out the most influential projects as well as numerous other exemplary works.
4: Explore and define the relationships between the American Modern Movement and the American Landscape (which in this case is not purely a physical idea).
Simply seeking out and cataloging all that remains from the Modern Movement was not enough, history books and monographs have exhausted this aspect for me. My interest piqued in the resolution that there was a better way to understand the buildings and the period. To define and map them based on more factors than the architect and the site. I sought to use new methods of mapping to depict the correlations, as well as to highlight the pluralities in American Modernism that serve to set the American Modern movement apart from that which had happened in Europe.
My tools include my camera, my camera equipment, a Garmin, a GPS tracker, laptop, external hard drives, a ream of paper, and a box of pens. The camera is my chief means of expression and documentation, I can’t stop taking pictures. I find myself wanting to spend days with each building, but I have several to see each day. I visited 461 buildings and residences and accumulated just under 6,000 photos. All of the equipment and materials I have brought along to steer the research fill up more of the car than two months worth of clothes and toiletries.
American Modernism Regionalism and Pluralism
Conventional wisdom suggests that Modernism was a style imported into the United States. By the early 1930’s many American architects, including Philip Johnson, Henry Russell Hitchcock, and Alfred Barr, had been touring Europe for several years and were profoundly impressed by the new architecture they saw rising. It owed nothing to the past and celebrated industrial production and the machine. American architects seemed to be clearly outpaced by their European colleagues. Nonetheless a few American architects were creating their own unique manifestations of Modernism based on their own analysis of building problems and contemporary needs. Although they were aware of developments in Europe, they had no desire to merely copy that architecture.
The American Modern movement had one important variable that the movement in Europe did not, the context of the United States and the American landscape. Architects such as John Yeon embraced the Modern movement in a uniquely American way. Yeon had traveled in Europe and had been impressed by modern design he saw in Scandinavia. Asked in 1936 by his good friend, Aubrey Watzek, to design a house, Yeon selected a high promontory just outside of Portland, Oregon, with a magnificent view of Mt. Hood to the east. He decided to create a thoroughly modern residence, but one designed in response to the local climate rather than adhering to abstract international formulas. The house was featured in several exhibitions and publications produced by the Museum of Modern Art and represented a distinct departure for the American Modern movement away from the Modern movement in Europe.
This influence of the American landscape and site context is echoed in countless works of American Modern architecture that followed. Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Albert Frey and so many others work progressed under a new tendency in Modernism to develop strong site and contextual relationships.
Road Trip Camera in Hand
When planning the travel component of the research I had numerous options. Much of the seminal architectural works of American Modernism are concentrated around urban centers. Perhaps the easiest method of travel would have been to fly to each urban center and focus on the architectural attributes of each. Instead I decided to pursue the project in a series of road trips. The road trip affords the ideal approach to understand the regional aspects that influenced the pluralities within American Modernism. By traveling from point to point by car, one is forced to slow down and experience each region, each place, each site, each building in its full context.
While the notion of a road trip is highly romantic and seems like a leisurely vacation-like approach, it is not to be taken lightly. The prospect of living out of one’s car, sitting for so long, mentally mapping so many places, and staring in the same direction for so many hours is absolutely grueling. Even so, the act of conquering such vast territories becomes empowering.
After countless hours and months of study in the intellectual pursuits of the American Modern Movement, grasping all that can be had through books, publications, archives, and original photos, I felt like I had a refined and absolute understanding of American Modernism. The road trip seemed as though it would function as the catalyst to reaffirm all of the knowledge that I had already conquered. The road trip instead put to work the notions I harbored. It quickly became apparent the extent that the American Landscape had informed vast differences in the architecture of the period from one coast to the next. The affect was astounding and the research has benefited immensely from the full immersion approach, visiting and investigating each building, each site. Touching the surfaces, feeling the space and ultimately achieving clarity in what made these buildings great and singular to a region, pluralistic to the country.
Feeling the desert breeze and then closing the massive length of hand operated panels designed to block the dust from the afternoon desert winds at the Kauffman House. Standing in the comfort of 72 degrees in the un-air conditioned Frey House II with all of the facades open to the naked 97 degree desert. Standing on the screened, covered porch of the Gropius House, comfortable and dry amidst the gently pattering rain in the full outdoor aroma. These are all quintessential moments in these places that fail to grasp the experience in any written form, as I undoubtedly fail you now in my own attempt. These are requisite experiences to understanding American Modernism, to understanding all architecture, without the experience of the place architecture is nothing, it is fleeting, it is an idea, not a memory.
76 Days 51 Cities 13,787 Miles 487 Gallons of Fuel 3 Oil Changes 1 Set of Tires 68 Complimentary Motel 6 Breakfasts 55 Toll Plazas 12 Tours 461 Buildings and Residences 59 Architects 5,960 Photographs
To find out more about the SOM Foundation you can visit their website here.
The social, political, and cultural ramifications of architecture, and vice versa, have always intrigued me. I find myself compulsively seeking out relationships that can join the two realms. And perhaps it is this reason that I also find myself in awe of the American Modern Movement. For me this is the most recent period in US Architecture that saw not only the generation of new homes and buildings in large numbers, but also an overall enthusiasm, both in the profession and from the public, concerning the quality and kind of architecture that was being produced. This is not to say that every building that was erected during this time was incredible, or even noteworthy, but moreover that architects had high hopes for improving the human condition and doing it in a way that was radically different than anything that had come before.
Conventional wisdom suggests that Modernism was a style imported into the United States. By the early 
The American Modern movement had one important variable that the movement in Europe did not, the context of the United States and the American landscape. Architects such as John Yeon embraced the Modern movement in a uniquely American way. Yeon had traveled in Europe and had been impressed by modern design he saw in Scandinavia. Asked in 1936 by his good friend, Aubrey Watzek, to design a house, Yeon selected a high promontory just outside of Portland, Oregon, with a magnificent view of Mt. Hood to the east. He decided to create a thoroughly modern residence, but one designed in response to the local climate rather than adhering to abstract international formulas. The house was featured in several exhibitions and publications produced by the Museum of Modern Art and represented a distinct departure for the American Modern movement away from the Modern movement in Europe.
This influence of the American landscape and site context is echoed in countless works of American Modern architecture that followed. Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Albert Frey and so many others work progressed under a new tendency in Modernism to develop strong site and contextual relationships.
After countless hours and months of study in the intellectual pursuits of the American Modern Movement, grasping all that can be had through books, publications, archives, and original photos, I felt like I had a refined and absolute understanding of American Modernism. The road trip seemed as though it would function as the catalyst to reaffirm all of the knowledge that I had already conquered. The road trip instead put to work the notions I harbored. It quickly became apparent the extent that the American Landscape had informed vast differences in the architecture of the period from one coast to the next. The affect was astounding and the research has benefited immensely from the full immersion approach, visiting and investigating each building, each site. Touching the surfaces, feeling the space and ultimately achieving clarity in what made these buildings great and singular to a region, pluralistic to the country.
Feeling the desert breeze and then closing the massive length of hand operated panels designed to block the dust from the afternoon desert winds at the Kauffman House. Standing in the comfort of 72 degrees in the un-air conditioned Frey House II with all of the facades open to the naked 97 degree desert. Standing on the screened, covered porch of the Gropius House, comfortable and dry amidst the gently pattering rain in the full outdoor aroma. These are all quintessential moments in these places that fail to grasp the experience in any written form, as I undoubtedly fail you now in my own attempt. These are requisite experiences to understanding American Modernism, to understanding all architecture, without the experience of the place architecture is nothing, it is fleeting, it is an idea, not a memory.