1942: Architecture

All building not directly connected with the prosecution of the war was banned in 1942. Even essential construction was held up by shortages of building material.

In an effort to conserve our limited supply of metal for armament, such necessities as electrical wiring and fixtures, pipes, flashing, structural steel, gutters, hardware, reinforcing rods and plumbing fixtures were made available to builders only on a strict system of priorities. During the year substitutes, commonly wood, had to be used. Finally even wood was placed on the shortage list and 'temporary' housing had to be built of solid masonry.

Government Building.

What building there was fell into four major categories: (1) construction by the Army and Navy; (2) factory construction, discouraged unless absolutely necessary; (3) office buildings for the greatly expanded group of government employees; and (4) housing for workers in war industries.

For obvious reasons, the work in the first two categories has almost invariably been secret. Some publicity was, however, given to the new buildings at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. Here Eltinge, Lamb & Schweikher designed some brick row-houses for officers and their families which show what skill and imagination can accomplish even within a limited budget. The houses are small, but open planning makes them seem rather spacious. Downstairs, only the kitchen-laundry is fully partitioned. Elsewhere, open wooden studs merely suggest divisions between rooms.

The reception center which has been built at this same naval station as a meeting place for enlisted men, their friends and families is outstanding. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill were the architects. The long, low building is entirely of wood and glass, and one feels that the wood was not just used as a substitute for metal, but that it was welcomed for its own special qualities. The roof of the main hall is supported by laminated wood arches, and a balcony along one side gives a pleasantly human scale. Walls are paneled in natural plywood. The entrance side of the ground floor is completely of glass, cleanly separated from the gay wooden canopy which shelters the entrance.

Examples of attractive, well-planned recreation centers on a smaller scale are the service men's canteens which the Pepsi-Cola Company has opened in New York and Washington, D. C.

The largest construction job of 1942 was the pentagonal four-story building erected in Arlington, Va., for the War Department. The 6,000,000 sq. ft. of floor space will provide twenty-five miles of offices for 40,000 government workers. The building is laid out about a great pentagonal court. Since most of the offices are artificially lighted and air-conditioned (each side of the pentagon measures about 200 feet from outer wall to court-facing wall), one wonders whether a more compact rectangular block would not have been a more economical building form. Provision is made for taxis and buses to drive right into the building and vertical communication is by means of ramps.

Housing Deficiency and Rectification.

It is impossible to estimate the loss of production which has been due to inadequate housing. Unable to find decent living quarters for himself and his family in one city, the worker moves on to the next. This quick labor turnover, fatal to efficient production, is found not only in the industrial cities, but in Washington, where there is a serious shortage of accommodations for office workers. This important problem was dramatized in an exhibition, War Housing, held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the early spring, then circulated about the United States.

One important effect of the war has been encouragement to prefabrication. The government has been using prefabricated houses as quickly as the manufacturers could turn them out. The largest and most attractive group of prefabricated-panel houses remains the Carquinez Heights project at Vallejo, Calif. Some of the houses are of plywood, others are of composition-board over wood frame, and all are demountable.

But prefabrication is not the only answer. On one corner of the tract, the architect of the project, William Wilson Wurster, has built a small group of experimental houses of three different types, each one not only better looking but actually cheaper than the mass-produced prefabricated houses nearby.

Also at Carquinez Heights are prefabricated, demountable dormitories built by the Farm Security Administration for single workers. Room-width prefabricated panels are used in unusual two-story platform construction.

At Beaumont, Texas, David R. Williams has designed an original and successful group of demountable, rectangular, one-story buildings to house four families, one at each corner. Kitchens and bathrooms are concentrated at the center, lighted and ventilated beneath a monitor roof. The Federal Public Housing Authority was so pleased with the economy of this scheme that they have encouraged its imitation elsewhere.

The housing development at Center Line, Mich., is planned around a school-community center which is as handsome in appearance as it is progressive in plan. Classrooms and community offices are in separate one-story wings, dominated by an auditorium with an asymmetrical double-pitched roof. Each classroom has its own door to the outside. Most of the building is wood frame, finished with vertical boarding and contrasting vividly with occasional massive brick walls, unbroken by windows. Eero Saarinen was the architect.

Outstanding Buildings.

Among buildings not connected with the war but brought to completion in the early months of the year is the Motion Picture Country House in the San Fernando Valley, Calif. This group of buildings for retired members of the movie industry, designed by the offices of W. L. Pereira, is a beautiful example of open, articulated planning and revealed structure.

Another outstanding building is the Tabernacle Church of Christ, Columbus, Indiana, one of the few modern churches in the country and one of the few churches anywhere in the world that dares to be asymmetrical. The cleanly differentiated elements of church and Bible School are arranged about a large reflecting pool: the quiet composition is punctuated by the free-standing vertical of a bell tower. The church interior is particularly impressive. Floor-to-ceiling window slits face the pool on the west, and the chancel receives a dramatic benediction of sunlight from the cast through a great surface of glass block concealed by an unusual oak screen. The architects, Eliel & Eero Saarinen, with E. D. Pierre and George Wright have affirmed in this dignified, straightforward design the important place which the Church can take in the modern world.