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Exhibition 58: Modern Architecture in England, Museum of Modern Art, 1937

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

Extract

Exhibition 58: Modern Architecture in England, held between 10 February and 7 March 1937 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), was a notable event. Amidst claims that ‘England leads the world in modern architectural activity’, the exhibition ‘amazed New Yorkers’ and equally surprised English commentators. However, it has not subsequently received any extended investigation. The present purpose is to look at it as a multiple sequence of events, involving other exhibitions, associated publications and the trajectories of individuals and institutions, through which tensions came to the surface about the definition and direction of Modernism in England and elsewhere. Such an analysis throws new light on issues such as the motives for staging the exhibition, the personnel involved and associated questions relating to the role of émigré architects in Britain and the USA, some of which have been misinterpreted in recent commentaries.Hitchcock's unequivocal claim for the importance of English Modernism at this point still arouses disbelief, and raises a question whether it can be accepted at face value or requires explaining in terms of some other hidden intention.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. 2013

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References

Notes

1 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell Jr, ‘Modern Architecture in England’, in Modern Architecture in England (New York, 1937), p. 25 Google Scholar; Gardner-Medwin, R., ‘American Tribute or the Astonishing Museum’, Architects' journal, 85 (6 May 1937) P 788.Google Scholar

2 The most substantial existing treatment comes in Stritzler-Levine, Nina, ‘Curating History, Exhibiting Ideas: Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Architecture Exhibition Practice at the MoMA’, in Summerson and Hitchcock: Centenary Essays on Architectural Historiography, ed. Salmon, Frank (London, 2006), pp. 3368.Google Scholar

3 See Riley, Terence, The International Style: Exhibition 15 and the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1992).Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 35.

5 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, ‘English Architecture in the Early 20th Century: 1900-1939’, Zodiac, 18 (1968),p. 7.Google Scholar For a biographical account of Hitchcock, see Broderick, Mosette, ‘Talk from the Table’, in Summerson and Hitchcock, ed. Salmon, , pp. 718.Google Scholar

6 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, ‘The Decline of Architecture’, Hound and Horn, 1 (1927), p. 30.Google Scholar

7 Architectural Record, 63 (1928), p. 494 Google Scholar; 64 (1929), pp. 87–88, 263, 353 and 537–38; 65 (1930), pp. 209–10.

8 Modern Architecture in England, p. 10, n. 1.

9 Ibid.

10 J.N.S[ummerson], ‘Publications Received’. This item was consulted in the MoMA press cuttings collection, where it is identified as having been taken from Burlington Magazine,November 1937. This is evidently a misidentification, as it cannot be found in the relevant edition or any other possible ones.

11 Gavin Stamp records that in the summer of 1936, Hitchcock visited Glasgow and commissioned new photographs of Thomson's work from T. & R. Annan who had negatives from the nineteenth century, one of which was the Moray Place image. See Stamp, , ‘Hitchcock, Summerson and Glasgow’, in Summerson and Hitchcock, ed. Salmon, , pp. 137-38.Google Scholar

12 Modern Architecture in England, p.16.

13 Hitchcock, in Zodiac, 18 (1968), p. 10.Google Scholar Pilichowski, whose work clearly impressed him but is now chiefly remembered as Lubetkin's collaborator for a project in Plumstead, South-East London, was born and educated in England despite his foreign name. His major work, at Whittinghame College near Brighton, represented in the exhibition, was demolished long ago.

14 MoMA Press Release 10136-25,10-11 October 1936.

15 Emberton's Royal Corinthian Yacht Club was included in the show, illustrated in the catalogue and in the International Style book. Amyas Connell's High and Over was listed and exhibited but not illustrated in either publication.

16 Fraser, Murray with Kerr, Joe, Architecture and the Special Relationship(Abingdon, 2007), p. 117 Google Scholar; Hitchcock, , ‘Modern Architecture in England’, p. 30.Google Scholar

17 Isaacs, Reginald, Gropius, an Illustrated Biography of the Creator of the Bauhaus(Boston, 1991), p. 216.Google Scholar

18 Fraser, and Kerr, , Architecture and the Special Relationship, p. 118 Google Scholar; Hitchcock, , ‘Modern Architecture in England’, pp. 3941.Google Scholar

19 See Stern, Robert A.M., Gilmartin, Gregory and Mellins, Thomas, New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars(New York, 1987), pp. 343–44.Google Scholar

20 In her memoirs (as Carter, Ernestine, With Tongue in Chic (London, 1974), p. 37 Google Scholar), Fantl describes Hitchcock's tiepin, made by Alexander Calder as a farewell gift for the trip, which he gave to her, thinking it too large for its purpose. She wore it proudly as a lapel pin until a MoMA colleague pointed out that it was rebus on Hitchcock's name. In an obituary of Hitchcock, in Architectural Review (181 (May 1987), p. 4)Google Scholar, Summerson recalled seeing Hitchcock and Fantl together, both for the first time, at the Café Royal: ‘He was with an attractive woman to whom he was delivering a lecture on the sources of the architectural ornament of the Café.’ Carter left no personal archive, but I am grateful to Sebastian Carter for letting me see his aunt and uncle's photograph album for 1937–39, and to Sir Harold Evans, Phillida Gili and others for reminiscences.

21 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, Fantl to Hastings, 17 June 1935.

22 Ibid.

23 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, Letter from Architectural Review to Fantl, 24 July 1936; A.M.M., Una Mostra di architettura al “ Museum of Modern Art” di New York’, Casabella, 120 (December 1937), pp. 2829 Google Scholar (p. 29, author's translation of ‘Ernestine M. Fantl, come abbiamo già detto, ha presieduto all'ordinamento di questa espozione e non si è accontentata di acceratare la diffusione di una edilizia moderna in Inghilterra: a lei principalmente, crediamo, bisogna riconoscere il merito di una scelta rigoroso delle opera’).

24 ‘New York Painters and English Architects’, Brooklyn Eagle, 14 February 1937 (MoMA mf 8:431); Mumford, Lewis, in the The Sky Line, 6 March 1937 (mf 8: 417).Google Scholar

25 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, p. 37.Google Scholar

26 Barbara Burman, ‘Ernestine Carter', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48273(accessed on 25 April 2013); Keenan, Brigid, ‘The Importance of Being Ernestine’, Sunday Times,7 August 1983, p. 33 Google Scholar; Portland, Oregon, John Yeon Papers (private collection), Daisy Barr to John Yeon, 29 July 1943, kindly communicated by Marc Treib.

27 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, p. 41.Google Scholar Isaacs, , Gropius, pp. 216–17Google Scholar, which includes Mies among those that Alfred Barr interviewed in August 1936. Gropius was Hudnut's preferred candidate, and he was appointed on 13 November.

28 One of Fantl's jobs at MoMA in October-November 1935 was to organize an exhibition and lecture tour for Le Corbusier. He complained continually, but apologized to her in Paris and presented her with one of his paintings.

29 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, p. 47.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 48; MoMA press release, 8 October 1936, www.moma.org.docs/press_archives/347/releases/ MoMA_0043.pdf?2010 (accessed on 25 September 2012).

31 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, Kaufmann to Fantl, 4 October 1935.

32 SeeLubetkin's letter to Wells Coates’, Architectural Review, 166 (November 1979), p. 330.Google Scholar

33 Stritzler-Levine, , ‘Curating History, Exhibiting Ideas’, p. 49 Google Scholar; Gold, John R., The Experience of Modernism: Modern Architects and the Future City(London, 1997), p. 125.Google Scholar

34 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, single sheet titled ‘Modern Architects'. It contains twenty-seven names and addresses of architectural practices in London.

35 The interior projects exhibited were Chermayeff's apartment for Dorothy Elmhirst in Upper Brook Street, Coates's own studio flat in Yeoman's Row, and flats in Earl's Terrace, Edwardes Square by Pilichowski.

36 , J.N.S. [Summerson, John], ‘English Modernists’, Architect and Building News, 150 (16 April 1937), p. 74.Google Scholar

37 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, p. 50 Google Scholar; Riley, Terence, Philip Johnson and the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1998), p. 42.Google Scholar The Mies and Reich display was Die Wohnung Unserer Zeit at the Deutsche Werkbund exhibition.

38 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, single sheet ‘Material loaned for exhibition now being returned to owners'.

39 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, pp. 4950.Google Scholar Osbert Lancaster's first book, Progress at Pelvis Bay, was published by John Murray of London in 1936, after excerpts had appeared in the Architectural Review.

40 Modern Architecture in England, p. 25.

41 Carter, , With Tongue in Chic, p. 49.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., pp. 34–35. The silent sixteen-minute film ‘The New Architecture and London Zoo’ was one of two made in England by Moholy-Nagy, the other being Lobsters(1935). Moholy-Nagy met Jenkins during the editing of Lobsters, having ‘borrowed’ his cutting room without prior arrangement (infor-mation courtesy of Dr David Boswell). Part of the London Zoo film may be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hex_09OVto (accessed on 25 April 2013).

43 Friedman, William, ‘Industrial Arts’, New Masses, 23 February 1937.Google Scholar

44 New York, MoMA Archives, Reg. Files, Exhibition 58, Lubetkin to Fantl, 26 August 1936. John Allan, Lubetkin's biographer, has found no other mention of this plan in documents or oral history (personal communication).

45 Lubetkin, Berthold, ‘Modern Architecture in England’, American Architect and Architecture(February 1937), pp. 2930.Google Scholar

46 MoMA press release II.1.75.4.

47 Mumford, Lewis, ‘The Sky Line’, New Yorker, 6 March 1937.Google Scholar

48 Modern Architecture in England, p. 15.

49 Mumford, ‘The Sky Line'.

50 Notes and Topics’, Architects’ Journal, 85 (11 March 1937), p. 415.Google Scholar

51 Beauty in New Buildings — the Direct Appeal’, The Times, 5 October 1937, p. 15.Google ScholarThe author was almost certainly Charles Marriott.

52 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, ‘An American Critic in England’, Architect and Building News, 149 (15 January 1937), p. 69.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 37.

54 Corbusier, Le, ‘The Vertical Garden City’, Architectural Review, 79 (January 1936), pp. 910 and 70.Google Scholar

55 Museum of Modern Art, Art in Our Time(New York, 1939), p. 309.Google ScholarPubMed

56 Modern Architecture in England, p. 38.

57 SeeBarry Bergdoll, ‘Romantic Modernity in the 1930s. Henry-Russell Hitchcock's Architecture: Twentieth and Nineteenth Centuries?’, in Summerson and Hitchcock, ed. Salmon, , pp. 193208 Google Scholar; Powers, Alan, ‘John Summerson and Romanticism’, ibid., pp. 209–19.Google Scholar

58 Modern Architecture in England, p. 33.

59 Ibid., p. 35.

60 The pavilion was jointly credited to Breuer and Yorke, and, while the design was probably by Breuer, a witness of the time, Randall Evans, who worked with them, was certain that its realization required Yorke's hitherto unexercised knowledge of stone quarries and masonry techniques.

61 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, ‘L'Architecture Contemporaine en Angleterre’, Cahiers d'art, 3 (1928), pp. 443– 46 (p. 446).Google Scholar

62 Modern Architecture in England, p. 28, n. 2.

63 Ibid., p. 30; Hitchcock, Henry-Russell and Johnson, Philip, The International Style: Architecture since 1922 (New York, 1932).Google Scholar The book came out with Exhibition 15, but was a different publication to the catalogue of the show.

64 Modern Architecture in England, p. 28.

65 Ibid,, p. 32.

66 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 70 Google Scholar; Modern Architecture in England, p. 31.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid., p. 38.

69 Hitchcock, , in Zodiac(1968), p. 9.Google Scholar

70 Modern Architecture in England, p. 40; Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 68.Google Scholar

71 Modern Architecture in England,pp. 37–38; Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 67.Google Scholar

72 E.A.J., ‘Architecture in England’, New York Times, 14 February 1937, p. 9.Google ScholarPubMed

73 Modern Architecture in England, p. 40.

74 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 69.Google Scholar

75 Modern Architecture in England, p. 31; Martha Davidson, ‘Poster and House in Modern England', Art News, 20 February 1937.

76 Davidson, ‘Poster and House'.

77 William Friedman, ‘Industrial Arts', New Masses, 23 February 1937.

78 Bauer, Catherine, ‘Elements of English Housing Practice’, in Modern Architecture in England, pp. 1923 (p. 22).Google Scholar

79 Modern Architecture in England, p. 29; Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 69.Google Scholar

80 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p .68.Google Scholar

81 Richards, J.M., ‘Criticism in the Thirties’, in Concerning Architecture, ed. Summerson, John (London, 1967), p. 252.Google Scholar

82 Lubetkin, , ‘Modern Architecture in England’, p. 30.Google Scholar

83 See Darling, Elizabeth, ‘ Focus,a Little Magazine and Architectural Modernism in 1930s Britain’, Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, 3/1 (2012), pp. 3963.Google Scholar

84 Cox, Anthony, ‘Highpoint II, North Hill, Highgate’, Focus, 2 (1938), pp. 7179 Google Scholar; Kallmann, Gerhard, ‘A Human Architecture’, Focus, 1 (1937), p. 40.Google Scholar Kallmann (1915-2012), then a student at the Architectural Association, was the future architect of Boston City Hall.

85 Modern Architecture in England,p. 25. Lubetkin and Goldfinger came to London from Paris in search of better opportunities for building and a more stable political situation.

86 Fraser, and Kerr, , Architecture and the Special Relationship, p. 117.Google Scholar

87 A.M.M., ‘Una Mostra di architettura', p. 28.Google Scholar

88 Modern Architecture in England, p. 30.

89 A.M.M., ‘Una Mostra di architettura', p. 28.Google Scholar In the case of Gropius and Breuer, the partners tended to work on separate projects although Hitchcock does not show awareness of this. The attribution of different elements in the Mendelsohn and Chermayeff partnership is more complex.

90 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 70.Google Scholar

91 Summerson, ‘English Modernists'.

92 Ibid., p. 31; Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 69.Google Scholar

93 Lubetkin, , ‘Modern Architecture in England’, p. 29.Google Scholar

94 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 70.Google Scholar

95 Summerson, ‘English Modernists'.

96 Book Review: Modern Architecture in England’, RIBA Journal, 44 (22 May 1937), pp. 746–47.Google Scholar

97 Hitchcock, , Modern Architecture in England,p. 41.Google Scholar

98 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, ‘The Architectural Future of America’, Architectural Review(July 1937), p. 2.Google Scholar

99 Hitchcock, , ‘An American Critic in England’, p. 70.Google Scholar

100 Summerson, John, ‘Introduction’ to Trevor Dannatt, Modern Architecture in Britain(London, 1959), pp. 1128.Google Scholar

101 Architectural Association Journal, 72 (1956), pp. 94115 Google Scholar: feature on Connell, Ward & Lucas edited by Brian Housden. This received letters of commendation from Peter Smithson and Colin Rowe. Gold, Michael, ‘Sir Owen Williams, KBE’, Zodiac, 18 (1968), pp. 1130.Google Scholar

102 James Stirling's slides are in the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

103 See Summerson and Hitchcock, ed. Salmon, , p. xvii.Google Scholar