Modern architecture 1930s – A New Yorker State of Mind

An Urban Spectacle

Above: Rudolf Persson's rendering of the main entrance to the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, designed by Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund. The exhibition was a landmark event that introduced Functionalism to Swedish architecture and design.(Svensk Form)

Architecture critic Lewis Mumford turned his exacting eye on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art that looked to the future of building design. Of particular interest was an exhibit on those world expositions that have given us everything from the Eiffel Tower (1889 Exposition Universelle) to the car-dominated landscape that inspired millions of Depression-weary visitors at New York’s 1939 World’s Fair.

June 20, 1936 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.** Kronengold (1900–1986) created twenty-three covers for the *New Yorker from 1928 to 1947.* Born and raised in New Orleans, he frequently used watercolors and often painted scenes honoring his hometown. The June 20 cover was Kronengold’s seventeenth for the magazine.

Mumford made passing mention to the museum’s exhibit on government housing (he noted it was below MoMA’s standard) and then turned his attention to a review of world’s fairs, examining how they have inspired both waves of architectural achievement and “counterfeits of civic grandeur…”

BREAK FROM THE PAST…Images from the covers of MoMA’s exhibition catalogs depict the 1934-35 Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia (top, from the government housing exhibit) and the 1930 Stockholm Exposition. (MoMA.org)

STILL SERVING…the 1934-35 Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1998. *(Wikipedia)*

PONDERING what a modern exhibition should be, **Lewis Mumford** cited the granddaddy of them, the London Exhibition of 1851 (top), with its Crystal Palace, which he called “the first definitive monument of modern architecture,” as definitive and challenging as the Pavillon L’Esprit Nouveau (bottom), designed by **Le Corbusier** and **Pierre Jeanneret** for the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. *(devonandexeterinstitution.org/Wikipedia)*

SHAM AESTHETIC…Mumford referred to buildings in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (left) as “laborious limestone counterfeits of civic grandeur,” while praising the 1893 and 1900 Paris expositions for design innovations including the Art Nouveau style—at right is Le Pavillon Bleu, a lavish restaurant once located at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It was built by French architect René Dulong in collaboration with Belgian architect and designer Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. *(getzen.com/messynessychic.com)*

Looking ahead to the planned 1939 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows, Mumford believed the age of grand world expositions had passed, especially those that moved the needle on design innovation. Moreover, he observed that the lack of real drama or rational purpose would threaten bankruptcy to future fairs, a symptom especially acute in America: “…a hasty transfer of attention from the agents of production to the organs of reproduction; a bevy of naked hussies remind the spectator that there are other wonders in Nature besides the harnessing of Niagara Falls, or the five-millionth Ford car.”

POINTING TO THE FUTURE..Rosalie Fairbanks, a guide to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, points to the theme of the exposition—the Trylon and Perisphere—after the entire sheath of scaffolding was removed for the first time on February 22, 1939. (Associated Press)

Earth-movers were already at work sculpting the fair’s site from the swampland and ash heaps along the Flushing River when Mumford assembled a self-anointed advisory group in 1936. This group— the “Fair of the Future Committee”—urged the fair’s leaders to abandon superficial commercialism and instead demonstrate how technology could serve the public good and restore ecological balance in American communities. That did not come to pass; when the fair opened in 1939, Mumford wrote in his “Sky Line” column (titled “Genuine Bootleg”) that the committee’s “hopes and proposals for a major contribution to urban design were progressively defeated. Today their wreckage is strewed about the Fair, so thoroughly smashed and disfigured that their own fathers could scarcely identify the corpses.”

FUTURAMA was a popular exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Designed by **Norman Bel Geddes** for the General Motors pavilion, it proposed a sprawling car-based future that was the antitheses of **Lewis Mumford’s** vision of human-scaled, ecologically balanced development. *(Wikipedia)*

Mumford got one thing right. Although the 1939 fair attracted more than 45 million visitors, it lost a lot of money, recouping only 32 percent of its original cost.

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Only a Memory

In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White recalled the brief life of “America’s Little House” at 39th and Park in the Murray Hill neighborhood. The eight-room Georgian colonial was built in 1934 during the “Better Homes in America” campaign that promoted single-family home ownership as well as design innovations. The CBS radio network (which contributed $50,000 to the project) installed a studio in the house’s garage, from which it broadcast three national radio programs to a hundred stations across the country.

Open for about a year, the house was demolished in November 1935, its doors and interior furnishings sold to hostesses who had worked at the house. In its place William Van Alen—architect of the Chrysler Building—erected the all-steel “House of the Modern Age.”

CHANGE OF SCENE…At left, America’s Little House on Park Avenue and 39th Street, replaced by **William Van Alen’s** prefabricated steel house (right), “The House of the Modern Age,” detail from a photo by Berenice Abbott. (Wikipedia/cornell.edu)

…in the following week’s issue of The New Yorker, June 27, a back of the book ad from the Modernage Furniture Corporation touted the opening of “The House of the Modern Age”…

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Fan Fans

Staying on the domestic scene, here is an excerpt from Barbara Blake’s “About the House” column, where she updated readers on the latest in electric fans (air-conditioning in private homes was still a rarity).

ELECTRIC WIND…**Barbara Blake** highlighted the latest in electric fans including, clockwise from top left, the Airflow Safefan, which moved air with looped ribbons; the Samson Safeflex employed rubber blades as a safety feature; the noted designer **Robert Heller** produced these fan designs (1936 and 1937) modeled on airplane propellers. *(worthpoint.com/ebay.com/Montreal Museum of Fine Arts)*

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Billy’s Beef

In 1899 vaudevillian Billy Watson (aka Isaac Levie) formed his Beef Trust burlesque troupe of plus-sized women. Although his shows starred women in the 200-pound range, he also relied on slight-of-hand provided by the “Tights King” Morris Kohan, who apparently could produce tights that could make a person look either heavier or slimmer. “The Talk of the Town” explains in this excerpt:

WHERE’S THE BEEF?…**Billy Watson’s** burlesque troupe of plus-sized women—the Beef Trust— padded their profiles with the aid of specially designed tights. (Facebook.com)

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Divine Dilemma

In Part Two of Father Divine’s profile, St. Clair McKelway and A.J. Liebling recounted the preacher’s 1931 arrest, prompted by ongoing complaints from the citizens of Sayville, New York about the traffic jams caused by Divine’s daily feasts as well as the noise generated by the faithful who would holler hallelujahs late into the evening. During one of these late night revivals police raided Divine’s property and fined each of the seventy-eight followers a few dollars apiece. Divine, however, insisted on a jury trial, which was held seven months later. The charge: Maintaining a public nuisance.

Jurors convicted Divine, with a request for leniency, but Justice Lewis Smith sentenced the preacher to a year in prison, calling him a “menace to society.” However, four days later the judge dropped dead of a heart attack, and Divine was freed. The notion that the judge’s death was divine retribution was naturally perpetuated by the media. A brief excerpt, with illustration by Abe Birnbaum.

GET OUT OF JAIL CARD…In 1931 **Father Divine** was arrested for maintaining a public nuisance. Following a jury trial and conviction, the presiding judge dropped dead, leading the preacher’s freedom a few days later. *(facebook.com/nydailynews.com)*

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At the Movies

The drama film Private Number was based on the 1915 play Common Clay, which had already been made as a silent in 1919 and as a sound film in 1930. The play had a somewhat scandalous theme for the time (a young servant is fired when she becomes pregnant by her employer’s son), but thanks to the Hays Code, the more scandalous parts of the earlier films were omitted in 1936’s Private Number, leaving the viewer with little except for some “old-fashioned hocus pocus,” according to critic John Mosher.

THE BUTLER DID IT…In Private Number, **Basil Rathbone** portrayed a tyrannical butler with a personal interest in one of his new maids (**Loretta Young**). She in turn secretly marries the scion of the family (**Robert Taylor**) and bears his child. Clockwise from top left: Poster for the film; Rathbone, **Kane Richmon**d, and Young; Taylor, Young, and well-known canine actor Prince; rivals for a maid’s affection—Taylor and Rathbone. *(Wikipedia/imdb.com/basilrathbone.net)*

Thirty-nine-year-old Marion Davies appeared in one her final films, Hearts Divided, a musical based on the real-life marriage between American Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Patterson and Jérôme Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although in real life Napoleon annulled the marriage, Hollywood gave the couple a happier ending.

THREE’S A CROWD…Napoleon (**Claude Rains**) comes between lovers **Marion Davies** and **Dick Powell** in *Hearts Divided.* The two also shared an off-screen romance behind the back of William Randolph Hearst, with whom Davies had a long-term relationship and to whom she believed she owed her career. (imdb.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Illustrator R. John Holmgren drew up this non-partisan appeal for White Rock mineral water…

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…here is the cover of that July 1936 issue, illustrated by Abe Birnbaum, featuring caricatures of leading ladies including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Merle Oberon, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn…

…longtime member of the New Yorker coterie and contributor Alexander Woollcott appeared in this full-page ad endorsing the work of the American Civil Liberties Union…

…from the 1920s to the 1940s the Powers Reproduction Corporation was a prominent, New York City photo-engraving firm that created high-quality color images for magazines and advertising agencies…

…these back of the book ads joined forces to promote the healing waters of Saratoga Springs and the Gideon Putnam hotel and spa…apparently the waters and other spa services treated everything from heart conditions to obesity…

…Dr. Seuss returned with another scenario for insecticide use…

…on the inside back cover, the distillers of Four Roses Whiskey conjured up a June bride as an apt metaphor for their blending techniques…

…while Lucky Strike reclaimed the back cover with an ad that promoted its low acid cigarettes, whatever that meant…

…on to our illustrators and cartoonists, we begin with Arnold Hall…

…and Robert Day…

…with other featured spots from John Groth…

…Richard Taylor…

…and Otto Soglow…

…James Thurber drew up an unusual development in the sheepfold…

…Barbara Shermund posed a challenge for a hair dresser…

…and Shermund again, revealing a tactic of the modern woman…

…Carl Rose commanded a two-page spread to tell his tale of sin and redemption…

…Ned Hilton needed a hand at the subway station…

…Mary Petty gave us a patient in need of a second opinion…

…while Alan Dunn weighed summer camp options…

…and we close with Dunn, and a true urban escape…

Next Time: Poppy Returns…

People in Glass Houses

Above: The Morris B. Sanders Studio and Apartment is the second-oldest modern townhouse in Manhattan. Sanders designed the townhouse, located on 49th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue, in 1934 for his own use, and construction was completed in December 1935.  (Wikipedia/docomomo-nytri.org)

Today we barely notice the tens of thousands of shiny glass buildings that populate our cities, not to mention the countless postwar houses that feature vast expanses of glass from floor to ceiling.

April 11, 1936 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

In 1936 a house made of glass, especially as a structural element, seemed unlikely to most folks, if not downright bizarre. Enter Lewis Mumford, arts and architecture critic for The New Yorker, who was critical of many modern industrial trends and often promoted his ideal of human-scaled, organic design in buildings and cities. Mumford was not opposed to new technologies, such as glass block, as long as it was employed with sensitivity and good taste. Here are some of Mumford’s observations after visiting the American Glass Industries Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum:

NEW NEIGHBOR…**Morris B. Sanders’** studio and apartment at 219 East 49th Street in Turtle Bay boldly interrupted a stodgy row of brownstones. **Lewis Mumford** pronounced the 1936 building “very handsome.” The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as an official landmark in 2008. (curbed.com/Wikipedia)

The Sanders House wasn’t the first time a brownstone was replaced by a modernist building. That honor goes to another Turtle Bay-area house, just one block from the Sanders house, designed by architect William Lescaze in 1933-34.

ODD COUPLE…Designed by **William Lescaze** in the International Style between 1933 and 1934 as a renovation of a 19th-century brownstone townhouse, 211 East 48th Street was one of three houses in Manhattan designed by Lescaze. (atlasobscura.com/inside inside.org)

The Brooklyn Museum exhibition also included commercial examples such as one of the world’s first buildings to be completely covered in glass, the Owens-Illinois Glass Research Laboratory in Toledo, Ohio. Mumford also commented extensively on the new uses of glass in Times Square, namely the rebuilt Rialto Theatre and a Childs restaurant located next door. Excerpts:

THINGS TO COME…Clockwise, from top left, the Owens-Illinois Glass Research Laboratory in Toledo, Ohio, built between 1935 and 1936, is recognized as one of the world’s first buildings to be completely covered in glass, utilizing glass blocks for the facade; **Lewis Mumford** was less impressed with the use of glass by the newly rebuilt Rialto Theatre, but praised the new Childs location next door for being full of “vitality and color.” *(facebook.com/dinerhunter.com)*

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Down on Il Duce

Last week we saw Robert Benchley’s review of the anti-war play, Idiot’s Delight. This week he reviews another play with themes that resonated in the moment, Bitter Stream. Written by Victor Wolfson and adapted from Ignazio Silone’s novel, Fontamara, the play depicted the horrors of fascism as Mussolini’s Black Shirts brutally seize an Italian neighborhood. It featured relative newcomer Lee J. Cobb as well as Frances Bavier, who twenty-four years later would portray Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show. Excerpts:

TROUBLE IN SUNNY ITALY…A scene set in Fontamara Square in the play *Bitter Stream*, which ran for sixty-one performances at the Civic Repertory Theatre. At right, **Lee J. Cobb** portrayed Don Circonstantza, and **Frances Bavier** played the part of Soreanera. Bavier is best known for her portrayal of Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). (revolutions newsstand.com/facebook.com)

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Sick Leave

Also last week we saw the first part of Edmund Wilson’s account of his travels in the Soviet Union. For the April 11 installment of “A Reporter at Large” (titled “Scarlet Fever in Odessa”), Wilson recounted his six-week stay in a filthy Soviet hospital. Excerpts:

WANTING OUT…**Edmund Wilson** couldn’t wait to get out of the “terribly dirty” Odessa hospital where he was quarantined with scarlet fever for six weeks. At left, photo by **Margaret Bourke White**, “In a Hospital Waiting Room, Moscow,” 1932. At right, Wilson in 1936. (nyamcenterforhistory.org/Wikipedia)

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Gall in Gaul

In her Paris Letter, Janet Flanner continued to share her observations about the French mood (agitated) in the wake of the German occupation of the Rhineland.

HOW ABOUT A NICE DITTY INSTEAD?…**Janet Flanner** reported that there was a “near riot” when a performance at the Paramount Theater (left) included “military music.” At left, the Paramount in 1927; at right, a Popular Front demonstration in Paris, 1936. *(Wikimedia/Bibliothèque nationale de France)*

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At the Movies

Little Lord Fauntleroy was Selznick International Pictures’ most profitable film until Gone with the Wind, and it featured one of the top child stars of the 1930s, English-American child actor Freddie Bartholomew (1924–1992). However, New Yorker film critic John Mosher was “bored to extinction” by the popular film.

SLUMMING…At left, **Freddie Bartholomew** and **Mickey Rooney** in *Little Lord Fauntleroy*. Rooney once said of Bartholomew: “He was one of the finest, if not the finest child stars that we had on the scene at that time”; at right, **Aubrey Smith, Bartholomew** and **Dolores Costello** in a scene from the film. (MGM/Wikipedia)

One of Hollywood’s greatest screen villains, English actor Henry Daniell, caught Mosher’s attention for his “smooth” performance as a blackmailer in The Unguarded Hour. The critic also enjoyed the thriller The House of a Thousand Candles, but was left flat by Give Us This Night.

A MANNERED SCAMP was how **John Mosher** described one of Hollywood’s greatest screen villains, English actor Henry Daniell (right) in *The Unguarded Hour*, which also starred (at left) **Loretta Young** and **Lewis Stone**. *(imdb.com/facebook.com)*

THRILLS AND TRILLS…Top photo, **Mae Clarke** and **Phillips Holmes** in the spy thriller *The House of a Thousand Candles*; below, *Give Us This Night* was one of five films produced by Paramount that featured the popular Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano **Gladys Swarthout,** seen here with Polish opera singer and actor **Jan Kiepura.** *(imdb.com/mabumbe.com)*

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From Our Advertisers

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