Building the Home Front:

The Lanham Act and the Modernization of American Housing, 1940-1945

by

Lindsay Peterson

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Institute of Fine Arts

New York University

January, 2017

____________________________

Jean-Louis Cohen




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 © Lindsay Peterson

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 DEDICATION

To all of those who fought in World War II,

both abroad and on the home front,

including my grandparents,

Eugene and Anne Bruggeman and

Robert and Mary Helen Miller.

!iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the years a number of professors, archivists, colleagues and friends have helped shape

my approach to history. First among these is my advisor Jean-Louis Cohen, whose guidance has

been instrumental in every phase of this project. From helping me develop the dissertation’s early

structure, to offering technical insights and constructive criticism of the final drafts, his deep

knowledge of time period and its main actors has been an invaluable resource.

I would also like to thank my dissertation committee, including Robert Sflikin, Kent

Minturn and Nina Rappaport, for their thoughtful reading of my work. And I would like to express

my appreciation to several archivists who were especially helpful in retrieving documents,

drawings and other materials, and offered up fresh ideas and new information: Waverly Lowell at

the Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley; Mary Daniels at the Frances Loeb Library,

Harvard Graduate School of Design; Leslie Edwards at the Cranbrook Archives; and Bill Whitaker

and Nancy Thorne at the Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

The journey to this point began with my first ever class on architecture, taught by Leonard

Folgarait at Vanderbilt University. This general survey of modern architecture led to my

wholehearted fascination with the built environment and modernism, in particular. The professors

at Columbia University’s historic preservation program continued to foster this passion, especially

Andrew Dolkart, who taught me how the urban landscape could be a source of understanding of

cultural patterns and social history, and who encouraged me to continue my studies in a doctoral

program. I would like to thank both for guiding me towards such a stimulating profession.

Completing a dissertation requires the help and support of a great many colleagues and

friends. I am grateful to Mosette Broderick for her guidance and unfailing assistance during my

years as a doctoral student. I would like to thank Allyson McDavid and Stephanie Cirone, who read

parts of the dissertation, offering thoughtful comments and much needed emotional support.

!iv
Marissa Marvelli bravely read a draft of the full dissertation so that she could contribute to my

defense preparation. For that herculean effort I will forever be grateful.

A special thanks goes to my coworkers at Higgins Quasebarth & Partners, who

enthusiastically encouraged my studies over the years and gamely endured the ever-changing

“Where is Lindsay?” sign. Their interest and ideas always offered fresh inspiration and, sometimes,

new rabbit holes (or duck farms, shall we say?) to explore. Much of what I have learned about

design is due to their collective wisdom and the nerdy conversations we often have about the

history of buildings, the ways they change over time, and the role they play in our lives today.

Other family and friends were equally important to this process, and I am incredibly

thankful for their generous donations of time and resources. My father-in-law, Jeff Peterson,

cheerfully drove me to see an extant Lanham Act housing project in Pittsburgh. Chris and Claudine

Klose kindly let me stay with them and borrow their car while I worked at the FDR Library.

Natalie Pous hosted me while I worked at the National Archives. My mother-in-law, Julie

McGuire, frequently babysat so that I had additional time to write on the weekends. Thanks also

goes to Olivia Brazee, Megan Rispoli, Clearly Larkin and Lauren Wood who spent many hours

discussing with me how the work was going and reminding me that I could and would finish it.

My deepest thanks goes to my family, especially my parents Jay and Lois Miller, without

whose love and support this would not have been possible. Who knows, maybe I will end up at the

University of Boulder some day, after all. My sister Allison will also have my eternal gratitude for

being my most ardent cheerleader. I owe my greatest debt to my husband, Matt, whose devoted

editing and analysis contributed to making a better dissertation, and whose loyalty and love has

nurtured our family. Finally, my most loving thanks goes to Willa for all of the happy distractions

provided along the way. I hope I make you proud.

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 ABSTRACT

The dissertation examines the domestic architecture of the World War II home front,

specifically that which was built under the Lanham Act, a bill passed in October 1940 to provide

emergency housing for America’s defense production workers. The study aims to situate wartime

housing projects within the history of twentieth-century architecture and show that the nation’s

brief focus on emergency housing had a profound impact on the modernization of the home and the

urban landscape, in large part because of the unique objective: to attract low- and middle-income

workers and their families to live in the homes, so that they could contribute to the war effort.

The endeavor to provide housing to approximately eight million war workers occurred

against a backdrop of demands for economy and speed, as well as strategic concerns about national

migration, raw materials, transportation, and the threat of air raid attack. Despite these challenges,

many independent architects—including prominent American and European modernists—

creatively adapted their work to new modes of living, building techniques, construction methods,

and planning norms. In a reflection of the war’s uncertainty (and post-war possibilities), many

embraced the concept of flexibility as a primary objective in working out designs for structural

systems, house plans, furniture, schools, community and shopping centers, and even in the larger

project and town plans, which were expected to be able to adjust to future needs.

The goals of this study are to offer an analysis of American housing that focuses on specific

problems of aesthetics, technology, politics, and social history. It traces the federal government’s

role in financing, planning, standardizing, and building defense and war housing, and the

concomitant transformation of a piecemeal, craft-centered home building industry into a

technologically progressive arm of the American production machine. It also focuses on the work

of specific architects—particularly Clarence Stein and William Wurster—whose projects

challenged traditional notions of neighborhood planning, technology and materiality. The issues of

!vi
prefabrication and demountability, in particular, forced architects and manufacturers to reassess

their respective roles in the building profession, and the design implications of using standardized,

modular, and often moveable building components. What this analysis, and additional discussions

of landscape and community building design, demonstrates is that the objectives of modern

architecture, particularly its ethos of rational efficiency, was shown to be consistent with the

objectives of America’s war on the home front, that is, to mobilize workers and stimulate industry,

thus harnessing American production for victory.

!vii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv

ABSTRACT vi

LIST OF FIGURES ix

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1 A Sympathetic Framework: 16

Government and Housing During World War II

CHAPTER 2 Scatter as Communities: 67

Community Patterns Respond to Threats From the Air

CHAPTER 3 Standards for Defense: 114

Prefabrication, New Materials and Unit Planning

CHAPTER 4 Bulwark of American Democracy: 175

Experiments in School, Community, and Commercial Design

EPILOGUE 216

FIGURES 224

APPENDIX 320

BIBLIOGRAPHY 323

!viii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figs. A.1-A.3 View of the Kramer Homes, originally known as Centerline, in 229
Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by author)

Figs. A.4-A.6 View of the Aluminum City Terrace in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 230
(Photo by author)

Fig. 1.1 Chart showing that publicly financed units were initially mostly 231
composed of permanent units, but over the course of the war became
increasingly temporary. (Statistics cited from United States
Department of Labor, Handbook of Labor Statistics: 1947 Edition
(Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 192
(Table I-2).)

Fig. 1.2 Chart showing how FHA mortgages created a burst of new building. 231
However, as materials became scarce, even private building
decreased in the later war years. (Statistics cited from United States
Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States:
Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1975), 641.)

Fig. 1.3 Charles Forrest Palmer, Coordinator of the Division of Defense 232
Housing Coordination, 1940. (“People,” Architectural Forum 73
(August 1940): 4)

Fig. 1.4 View of the Techwood Homes in Atlanta, GA, built 1935. (Library 232
of Congress, HABS No. GA-2257, prepared 1993)

Fig. 1.5 Congressman Fritz G. Lanham. (Briscoe Center for American 232
History Digial Collections, University of Texas at Austin)

Fig. 1.6 Production flow chart from November 1940 show the distribution of 233
funds in to various housing agencies. (Architectural Forum 73
(November 1940): 443)

Fig. 1.7 Government-issued organization chart of housing agencies, May 233

1941. (Entry 21, Box 1; RG 207, NACP)

!ix
Fig. 1.8 John M. Carmody, Administrator of the Federal Works Agency. 234
(Architectural Forum 73 (November 1940): 14)

Fig. 1.9 Nathan Straus, Jr., Adminsitrator of the United States Housing 234
Authority. (Architectural Forum 78 (January 1943): 72)

Fig. 1.10 Catherine Bauer Wurster. (College of Environmental Design, 234

University of California, Berkeley: http://ced.berkeley.edu/about-
ced/college-history/)

Fig. 1.11 National Plan Service trade catalogue for the “Nickols” home, which 235
was designed to meet the requirements of FHA’s Title VI. (“The
Smaller Home: Easier to Build and Own,” published 1942, accessed
via the APT Hertiage Library: https://archive.org/details/
TheSmallerHomeEasierToBuildAndOwn)

Fig. 1.12 Clark Foreman, Director of the Division of Defense Housing within 235
the Federal Works Agency. (“Government Housers Meet,”
Architectural Forum 75 (July 1941): 8)

Fig. 1.13 Colonel Lawrence Westbrook, Director of the Mutual Home 235
Ownership Division within the Fedearl Works Agency.
(Architectural Forum 73 (November 1940): 14)

Fig. 1.14 Senator Harry Truman chairs a 1942 meeting of the Truman 236
Committee. (“Voices of World War II: Experiences From the Front
and Home,” Miller Nichols Library, University of Missouri, Kansas
City. Image retrieved from: https://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/ww2/
dday/truman-committee.htm)

Fig. 1.15 Dormitory in Vallejo, CA designed by Vernon DeMars. 236

(“Dormitories in Transition,” Architect and Engineer 152 (February
1943): 17)

Fig. 1.16 View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA. (UCB 237
Environmental Design Archives website, accessed 20 May 2016:
http://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb9f59p29h/?order=9&brand=oac4)

Fig. 1.17 View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA. (“The 237
Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 77 (December 1942):
60)

!x
Fig. 1.18 Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Cloverleaf Housing Project in 238
Pittsfield, MA, unbuilt. (FLLW FDN # 4203.002, The Frank Lloyd
Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ, retrieved from: http://
architecture.about.com/od/franklloydwright/ig/Guggenheim-
Exhibition/Cloverleaf-Quadruple-Housing.htm)

Fig. 1.19 Chart outlining the organization of the new National Housing 238
Agency. (“Housing Gets A One-Map Top,” Architectural Forum 76
(March 1942): 142)

Fig. 1.20 John B. Blandford, Jr., new head of the National Housing Agency. 239
(“Housing Gets A One-Map Top,” Architectural Forum 76 (March
1942): 141)

Fig. 1.21 Graphic depiction of the types of housing to be built. (“Blandford’s 239
Housing Program,” Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): 34)

Fig. 1.22 Herbert Emmerich, the head of the Fedearl Public Housing 239
Authority, within the National Housing Agency. (“Blandford’s Man,”
Architectural Forum 76 (April 1942): 198)

Figs. 1.23-1.24 View (above) and site plan (below) of the war community in Marin 240
City, CA. (Architectural Forum 79 (December 1943): 68-69)

Figs. 1.25-1.26 Typical two-story dormitoriy unit (above) and site plan with 241
dormitory buildings (left) by architect Paul Nelson. (“FPHA:
Duration Dormitories for Industiral Workers,” Architectural Record
92 (July 1942): 44-45)

Figs. 1.27-1.28 Rendering of dormitoriy unit (above) and site plan (right) by firm 241
Saarinen & Swanson. (“FPHA: Duration Dormitories for Industiral
Workers,” Architectural Record 92 (July 1942): 47)

Figs. 1.29-1.30 Rendering of dormitories in landscape (top) and basic plan of 100- 242
person dormitory unit (bottom) by architect Frederick L. Ackerman.
(“Duration Dormitories: Notes on the Technical Problem,”
Architectural Record 92 (August 1942): 32, 34)

!xi
Figs. 1.31-1.33 View of dormitoriy group in Sausalito, CA (top); diagram showing 243
how the buildings could flexibly adapt to the terrain (middle); and
community building floor plan (bottom) showing the variety of
amenities. (“Dormitories in Transition,” Architect and Engineer 152
(February 1943): 14, 19)

Fig. 1.34 Chart showing the value of new construction during the war years. 244
As Blandford suggested in December 1943, war housing had indeed
met its home stretch and would taper off in 1944 and 1945. (United
States Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United
States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1975), 618-619.

Fig. 1.35 View of factory in Southbridge, MA converted to housing during 245

World War II. (“Popular Program,” Architectural Forum 79
(December 1943): 47)

Fig. 1.36 Diagram showing the potential uses of temporary war housing. 245
(Architectural Forum 82 (January 1945): 8)

Fig. 1.37 Advertisement for a Currier House. (Architectural Forum 75 246

(December 1941): 422)

Fig. 1.38 Site plan of Audubon Village in Camden, NJ, designed by Oscar 246
Stonorov and Joseph N. Hettel. (“Government Housing in a Hurry,”
Architectural Forum 74 (May1941): 341)

Fig. 1.39 View of the Sojurner Truth project shortly after completion, 246
Feburary 1942. (Library of Congress)

Fig. 1.40 Image of the riot that ensued when black residents tried to move into 247
the Sojurner Truth project in Detroit, Michigan. (“Detroiters in Riot
on Negro Project,” New York Times, 1 March 1942, p. 40)

Figs. 1.41-1.42 Image stills from the movie “Homes for Defense,” which was 247
produced by the Office for Emergency Management. It compares
slum conditions (left) to that of modern defense housing (right).
(Film accessed from archive.org)

!xii
Fig. 1.43 Image of the gallery illustrating the bad living conditions that 248
confronted industrial workers in the “Wartime Housing” exhibit at
MoMA. (“In the Housing Picture...” Architectural Record 91 (May
1942): 64)

Fig. 1.44 Image of the brighter gallery showing modern housing and modern 248
site plans in the “Wartime Housing” exhibit at MoMA. (“In the
Housing Picture...” Architectural Record 91 (May 1942): 66)

Fig. 1.45 Image of NHA Administrator John B. Blandford, Jr. (left), National 249
Committee on the Housing Emergency Chairman Dorothy
Rosenman, and MoMA president John Hay Whitney at the “Wartime
Housing” exhibit. (“In the Housing Picture...” Architectural Record
91 (May 1942): 66)

Fig. 1.46 Cartoon by Alan Dunn discussing prefabrication. (Architectural 249

Record 94 (November 1943): 7)

Fig. 2.1 Plan of Yorkship Village in Camden, NJ, by Electus D. Litchfield, 250
1918. (Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City,
864)

Fig. 2.2 Plan of Seaside Village in Bridgeport, CT, by Arthur A. Shurtleff, 250
1918. (Paradise Planned, 899)

Fig. 2.3 Partial plan of Radburn, NJ, by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, 250
1929. (Paradise Planned, 276)

Fig. 2.4 “Residential Park Project” by Robert Alexander. August 4, 1935. 251
(The Village Green: Cultural Landscape Report)

Fig. 2.5 Thousand Gardens site plan scheme, April 1938. (Box 17, CSP, 251
CUL)

Fig. 2.6 Thousand Gardens site plan scheme, July 15, 1938. (The Village 252
Green)

Fig. 2.7 Baldwin Hills Village final site plan. (“Baldwin Hills Village,” 252
Pencil Points 25 (September 1944): 49)

!xiii
Fig. 2.8 Baldwin Hills Village plan detail showing garage courts and service 253
driveways. (“Baldwin Hills Village,” Pencil Points 25 (September
1944): 48)

Fig. 2.9 Aerial photo of Baldwin Hills Village, circa 1941. (The Village 253
Green)

Fig. 2.10 Aerial photo of Baldwin Hills Village, circa 1960. (“Baldwin Hills 253
Village-Deisgn or Accident,” Arts and Architecture 81 (October
1964): 21)

Fig. 2.11 Indian Head site plan by Clarence Stein. (“Prefabricators Put on a 254
Show,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 188)

Fig. 2.12 Illustration of interregional migration in the United States from 254
1940-1945. (Henry S. Shyrock, Jr. “Wartime Shifts of the Civilian
Population,” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July
1947): 273)

Fig. 2.13 Illustration of percent change in civilian population by county from 255
April 1940 to November 1943. (Henry S. Shyrock, Jr. “Wartime
Shifts of the Civilian Population,” The Milbank Memorial Fund
Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July 1947): 274)

Fig. 2.14 Government pamphlet illustrating “Defense Town.” (United States 255
Office of Emergency Management, Homes for Defense: A Statement
of Function (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1941), 18-19)

Fig. 2.15 View from the roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, January 1941. 256
(Alan Taylor, “World War II: Conflict Spreads Across the Globe,”
The Atlantic website, accessed January 22, 2016: http://
www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/world-war-ii-conflict-spreads-
around-the-globe/100107/)

Fig. 2.16 Depiction of the “regional city,”by Clarence Stein. (“City Patterns 256
Past and Future,” Pencil Points 23 (June 1942): 53)

Fig. 2.17 Percival Goodman’s depiction of “Defense Town” and “Peace 257
Town.” (“Defense-Time Planning for Peace-Time Use,”
Architectural Record 88, no. 5 (November 1940): 95)

!xiv
Fig. 2.18 Site plan of Ohio View Acres, in Stowe Township, PA. 258
(Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): 83)

Fig. 2.19 Photo of model of Ohio View Acres. (Box 2, CSP, CUL) 258

Fig. 2.20 View of Ohio View Acres from afar. (Box 2, CSP, CUL) 258

Fig. 2.21 Rendering of Ohio View Acres. (Box 2, CSP, CUL) 258

Fig. 2.22 Detail of the Griswold planting plan, dated June 18, 1941. (Box 40, 259
CSP, CUL)

Fig. 2.23 Site plan for Shalercrest in Shaler Township, PA, dated June 30, 259
1941. (Box 40, CSP, CUL)

Fig. 2.24 Model of Clairton, PA. (Box 2, CSP, CUL) 260

Fig. 2.25 Rendering of Clairton, PA, dated September 1941. (Box 2, CSP, 260
CUL)

Fig. 2.26 Map showing the Pittsburgh defense housing projects. (Kirsitin 261
Szylvian Bailey, “Defense Housing in Greater Pittsburgh,”
Pittsburgh History (1990): 18)

Figs. 2.27-2.29 Model and site plan of Monongahela Heights by Edward Durell 261
Stone. (“Planning War Housing,” Architectural Forum 76 (May
1942): 268-69)

Fig. 2.30 Poster by the Office of Emergency Management, 1942. (Design for 262
Victory, 35)

Fig. 2.31 Poster by the Office of Defense Transportation, U.S. Office of War 262
Information, 1943. (Design for Victory, 35)

Fig. 2.32 Sample site plan. (Albert Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site 263
Plans?” Pencil Points 23, no. 5 (May 1942): 247)

!xv
Fig. 2.33 Sample site plan. (Albert Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site 263
Plans?” Pencil Points 23, no. 5 (May 1942): 247)

Fig. 2.34 Aerial view of Avion Village. Grand Prairie, TX. (Thomas S. Hines, 264
Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture, 195)

Fig. 2.35 Partial site plan of Avion Village. (“Lone Star Community,” The 264
Architect Newspaper (May 8, 2015), accessed January 22, 2016:
http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?
id=8013#.VnQyFbSi2Id)

Figs. 2.36-2.37 Plan and aerial photo of Channel Heights. (Thomas S. Hines, 264
Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture, 196)

Fig. 2.38 Site plan of Center Line, MI, by Eliel and Eero Saarinen. 265
(Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 229)

Fig. 2.39 Diagram of family types versus shelter needs. (“Mixed Rental 265
Neighborhood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79 (October
1943): 80)

Fig. 2.40 Site plan of the Washington, DC project.(“Mixed Rental 265

Neighborhood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79 (October
1943): 82)

Fig. 2.41 Model of the Washington, DC project. (“Mixed Rental 266

Neighborhood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79 (October
1943): 82)

Fig. 2.42 “Before” plan of the temporary war housing community in San 266
Francisco. (“Converted War Housing, San Francisco,” Architectural
Forum 79 (October 1943): 69)

Fig. 2.43 “After” plan of the temporary war housing community in San 266
Francisco. (“Converted War Housing, San Francisco,” Architectural
Forum 79 (October 1943): 70)

Fig. 2.44 Site plan for a small rural development in Boston. (“Small Rural 267
Development, Boston, Mass.,” Architectural Forum 80 (April 1944):
76)

!xvi
Fig. 2.45 Figure 2.46: Planned Neighborhood of 194X. (“Desert Housing 267
Project, Tuscon, Ariz.,” Architectural Forum 80 (April 1944): 85)

Figs. 2.46-2.48 Site plans for Willow Run by Mayer and Whittlessey (top left), 268
Skidmore, Owning and Merrill (top right) and Kahn and Stonorov
(left). (“Town of Willow Run: Civic Center and Proposed
Neighborhood Units,” Architectural Forum 78 (March 1943): 42, 47,
52)

Fig. 2.49 Pennyback Woods site plan, dated July 30, 1941. (Drawing L0, 269
Project 115: Pennyback, Oversize office drawings (series D), LKC,
AAUP)

Fig. 2.50 Pennyback Woods landscape site plan, dated July 30, 1941. 269
(Drawing L1, Project 115: Pennyback, Oversize office drawings
(series D), LKC, AAUP))

Figs. 2.51-2.53 Pennyback planting site plans, showing Building type “B” (top left), 270
building type “C” and “D” (top right), and building type
“E” (bottom), dated July 30, 1941. Drawing L1. 1941-07-30.
(Drawing L1, Project 115: Pennyback, Oversize office drawings
(series D), LKC, AAUP))

Fig. 2.54 Site plan of Carver Court in Coatesville, PA, dated October 28, 1942. 271
(Drawing A0, Project 110: Carver Court, Oversize office drawings
(series D), LKC, AAUP)

Fig. 2.55 Detail of a partial site plan showing landscape, dated October 28, 271
1942. (Drawing A1, Project 110: Carver Court, Oversize office
drawings (series D), LKC, AAUP)

Fig. 2.56 Plan of the Pine Ford Acres administration and maintenance 271
building, dated November 11, 1942. (Drawing “Architectural and
Landscape block site plan,” Project 120: Pine Ford/Middletown,
Oversize office drawings (series D), LKC, AAUP)

Fig. 2.57 Chabot Terrace site plan. (“Public and Commercial Structures, 272
Chabot Terrace,” Pencil Points 25 (October 1944): 79)

Figs. 2.58-2.59 Landscape site plan for Chabot Terrace. (Marc Treib, Thomas 272
Church Landscape Architect, 114)

!xvii
Fig. 2.60 Vallejo dorms landscape plan. (Marc Treib, Dorothee Imbert, Garrett 273
Eckbo, 146)

Fig. 3.1 View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA. (UCB 274
Environmental Design Archives website, accessed 23 November
2014: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb9f59p29h/?order=9)

Fig. 3.2 Map showing defense housing projects in Vallejo. (Housing 274
Authority of the City of Vallejo, Your War Job, Your Community,
Your Home (1945))

Fig. 3.3 View of houses at Roosevelt Terrace. (“Vallejo Housing Authority 274
Supplment,” California Arts and Architecture (June 1943):46)

Fig. 3.4 View of Federal Terrace. (“Vallejo War Housing Case History,” 275
California Arts and Architecture 59 (December 1942): 24)

Fig. 3.5 View the Hillside Dormitories, designed by Vernon DeMars. 275
Architect and Engineer 152, no 2 (Feburary 1943): 17)

Fig. 3.6 Site plan of Carquinez Heights. (“Carquinez Heights,” California 275
Arts and Architecture 57 (November 1941): 35)

Fig. 3.7 Federal Works Agency Defense Housing Projects working drawings. 276
(Folder: CAL-4086 Carquinez, V. 16, Wurster Collection, UCB)

Fig. 3.8 View of the plywood prefabricated houses. (“Vallejo’s Prefabricated 276
Houses,” Architect and Engineer 149, no. 2 (May 1942): 30)

Fig. 3.9 Plans of both types of prefabricated houses. (Architectural Forum 276
(October 1941): 226)

Fig. 3.10 Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion Deployment Unit, 1940. (“Building 277
for Defense,” in Architectural Forum 74 (June 1941): 425)

Figs. 3.11-3.12 Proposal (left and above) for the “V House,” by Joseph Allen Stein. 277
(“A Wartime Approach to Prefabrication,” Architectural Forum 77
July 1942): 78)

!xviii
Fig. 3.13 Eero Saarinen, “Demountable House,” constructed for the U.S. 278
Gypsum Company, 1940. (Shanken, 194X: Architecture, Planning
and Consumer Culture on the Homefront, 109).

Figs. 3.14-3.15 Charts by architect Samuel Paul, meant to demonstrate the 278
importance of the designer in prefabrication. (Samuel Paul,
“Prefabrication Pattern,” The New Pencil Points 24 (April 1943):
56-57).

Fig. 3.16 Indian Head site plan by Clarence Stein. (“Prefabricators Put on a 279
Show,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 188)

Figs. 3.17-3.18 Assembly for prefabrication at Carquinez Heights. (“Defense 279

Houses at Vallejo, Calif.,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941):
226)

Fig. 3.19 U.S. Naval blimp hangar has glued-laminated timber arches with a 280
clear span which rise 153 feet and provide a 237 foot unobstructed
opening. (Talbot Hamlin, “The Architecture of the Future,” Pencil
Points 24 (April 1943): 66)

Fig. 3.20 Assembly Line Factory Production of the Gunnison Housing 280
Corporation, ca. 1937. (Hounshell, From the American System to
Mass Production, 1800-1932, 312)

Fig. 3.21 Richard Neutra, Plywood Model House, 1936. (Hines, Richard 280
Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture, 130)

Fig. 3.22 Douglas Fir advertisement for the House of Plywood, 1939. 280
(Shanken, JSAH, 416)

Fig. 3.23 Plywood plane flying over Long Island (New York Times, September 281
24, 1941, 10)

Fig. 3.24 Homasote walls and partitions being erected. It was reported that the 281
ready-cut pieces could be erected in 15 to 20 minutes per house.
Special screws made it possible to demount just as easily.
(“Prefabircation: The Homasote House,” Interiors 102 (May 1943):
42)

!xix
Fig. 3.25 View showing the redwood on sides of houses. (“Carquinez 281
Heights,” California Arts and Architecture 59 (June 1942))

Fig. 3.26 Diagram showing the Vallejo Housing Authority’s suggestions for 282
arranging a typical living room. (Vallejo Housing Authority, Your
Home, no. 2 (ca. 1943))

Fig. 3.27 Prize-winning interior design for war housing by John E. Maier. 282
(“Prize-Winning Interiors for War Houses,” Architectural Forum 76
(May 1942): 12)

Fig. 3.28 Dan Cooper’s PATKO furniture line. (Architectural Forum 77 (July 283
1942): 4)

Fig. 3.29 Sketch of Dan Cooper’s PATKO expanding house. (“Interiors to 283
Come,” Interiors 102 (January 1943): 33)

Fig. 3.30 Images of Calvert Coggeshall’s Plyline furniture. (“Designed for the 284
People’s Housing,” Interiors 101 (July 1942): 30)

Fig. 3.31 Everett Brown’s Flexi-Unit furniture. (“Toward the People’s 284
Housing Furniture a La Carte,” Interiors 102 (September 1942): 40)

Figs. 3.32-3.33 Axonometric drawings showing the interiors of Richard Neutra 285
Channel Heights housing project. (“Interiors - CAL. 4108,”
California Arts and Architecture 60 (February 1943): 28)

Fig. 3.34 Chair from Channel Heights housing project, 1941-42. (Living in a 285
Modern Way: California Design 1930-1965, 124)

Fig. 3.35 Site plan of the Carquinez Heights experimental houses. (Box 211, 286
WWC, EDA)

Fig. 3.36 Axonometric view of the site plan. (“A New Approach to Large 286
Scale Housing,” California Arts and Architecture 59 (April 1942):
27)

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Fig. 3.37 View of the experimental two-story frame house at Carquinez 287
Heights (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts
and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 48)

Fig. 3.38 Experimental two-story frame house plan. (“Vallejo Housing 287
Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June
1943): 48)

Fig. 3.39 Interior view of the living room and kitchen in the experimental two- 288
story frame houses. ((UCB Environmental Design Archives website,
accessed 23 November 2014: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/
hb9f59p29h/?order=9)

Fig. 3.40 Axonometric view of the experimental two-story frame house. 288
(“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and
Architecture 60 (June 1943): 48)

Fig. 3.41 View of the experimental frame bent houses at Carquinez Heights 289
(“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and
Architecture 60 (June 1943): 49)

Fig. 3.42 Axonometric view of the experimental frame-bent house. (“Vallejo 289
Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60
(June 1943): 49)

Fig. 3.43 Experimental frame-bent house plan. (“Vallejo Housing Authority 289
Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 49)

Fig. 3.44 View of the experimental masonry house at Carquinez Heights. 290
(“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and
Architecture 60 (June 1943): 50)

Fig. 3.45 Axonometric view of the experimental masonry house (“Vallejo 290
Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60
(June 1943): 50)

Fig. 3.46 Experimental masonry house plan. (“Vallejo Housing Authority 290
Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 50)

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Fig. 3.47 View of the Windsor Locks housing project, designed by Hugh 291
Stubbins. (“Windsor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942):
328)

Fig. 3.48 Windsor Locks site plan. (“Windsor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 291
(May 1942): 328)

Figs. 3.49-3.50 Windsor Locks three-bedroom house (top) and plan (bottom). 292
(“Windsor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 329)

Fig. 3.51 Mechanical unit in the Windsor Locks houses (Clipping from the 293
Springfield Republican, Hugh Stubbins Collection, Harvard
University)

Fig. 3.52 Elevation of the mechincal unit, which included kitchen and 293
bathroom fixtures, hotwater and heating equipment. (“Houses at
Windsor Locks, Conn.,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941):
2115)

Fig. 3.53 Bethlehem, PA housing project, designed by Antonin Raymond. 294

(“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural Forum 75
(October 1941): 237)

Fig. 3.54 Aerial view of the project. (“Working with USHA,” Pencil Points 42 294
(November 1941): 690)

Figs. 3.55-3.56 Type D and E elevations at Bethlehem, PA. (“Defense Houses at 295
Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 237)

Figs. 3.57-3.58 Type D (top) and E (bottom) plans at Bethlehem, PA. (“Defense 296
Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941):
236-7)

Fig. 3.59 Type F plan. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural 297
Forum 75 (October 1941): 238)

Fig. 3.60 Type F section. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural 297
Forum 75 (October 1941): 238)

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Fig. 3.61 Site plan of experimental housing project Alexandria, VA, designed 298
by Kastner and Hibben. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,”
Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 235)

Figs. 3.62-3.63 Type B views of exteiror and cut-away structure. (“Defense Houses 298
at Alexandria, VA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 234)

Fig. 3.64 Type B plan. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,” Architectural 298
Forum 75 (October 1941): 234)

Fig. 3.65 Rendering of the Type C house.(“Defense Houses at Alexandria, 299

VA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 235)

Fig. 3.66 Plan of the Type C house. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,” 299
Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 235)

Fig. 3.67 View of Chabot Terrace (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplment,” 300
California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 34)

Figs. 3.68-3.69 Wurster’s “Flexible” House for Happier Living, exterior rendering 301
and plan. (Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?)

Figs. 3.70-3.71 Wurster’s proposal for “flexible space” for the “New House of 301
194X,” showing options for flexible living. (“Flexible Space,”
Architectural Forum 77 (September 1942): 141)

Fig. 3.72 Proposed alterations to Carquinez Heights. (Living in a Modern 302

Way: California Design 1930-1965, 45)

Fig. 3.73 Proposed alterations to Carquinez Heights. (Flat file 528, WWC, 302
EDA)

Fig. 3.74 Fabric house for the “New House of 194X.” (“Fabric House,” 303
Architectural Forum 77 (September 1942): 87)

Fig. 4.1 Clarence Perry’s neighborhood unit of 1929. (New York Regional 304
Survey, v. 7 (1929) retrieved from Wikipedia)

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Fig. 4.2 1943 sketch of school-based neighborhood units by N.L. Englehardt, 304
Jr. (Architectural Forum 79 (October 1943): 90)

Fig. 4.3 Richard Neutra’s theoretical “ring school,” 1925. (Barbara 304
Lamprecht, “The Obsolescence of Optimism?: Neutra and
Axlender’s U.S. Embassy, Karachi, Pakistan,” blog post on
Lamprecht ArchiTEXTual: https://barbaralamprecht.com/
2012/06/23/the-obsolescence-of-optimism-neutra-and-alexanders-u-
s-embassy-karachi-pakistan/)

Fig. 4.4 Richard Neutra’s Corona Avenue School, 1935. ( https:// 305
en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Corona_School)

Figs. 4.5-4.6 Exterior view and site plan of the Crow Island School designed by 305
Eliel and Eero Saarinen with Perkins Wheeler and Will, and built in
Winnetka, Illinois in 1939-40. (Architectural Forum 75 (August
1941): 79, 83)

Fig. 4.7 Site plan for the housing project at Centerline, Michigan. The area 306
highlighted in black is the school and community center. (Pencil
Points 23 (November 1942): 56)

Fig. 4.8 Centerline school and community center. (Pencil Points 23 306
(November 1942): 57)

Fig. 4.9 View of the Centerline elementary school wing. (Pencil Points 23 307
(November 1942): 56)

Figs. 4.10-4.11 Plan and exterior view of the Centerline kindergarten. (Pencil Points 307
23 (November 1942): 60)

Figs. 4.12-4.13 Exterior and interior view of the Centerline community room/ 308
auditorium/gymnasium. (Pencil Points 23 (November 1942): 60)

Fig. 4.14 Aerial view of Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California, 308
designed by Franklin & Kump, 1940. (“Advanced California School
Meets Limited Budget,” Architectural Record 89 (June 1941): 82)

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Fig. 4.15 Section of a typical classroom showing the independent classroom 308
structural unit and the connecting corridor. (“The School Plant Re-
examined,” Pencil Points 24 (September 1943): 48)

Fig. 4.16 View of the Carquinez Heights school in Vallejo, California, 309
designed by Franklin & Kump. (“War Needs Community Facilities,”
Architectural Record 91 (May 1942): 48-49)

Fig. 4.17 Sketch showing how the prefabricated school units could be adapted 309
to other purposes such as administrative offices. (“Manufactured,
Prefabricated, Classroom-Office-Kindergarten Units,” Pencil Points
24 (September 1943): 57)

Fig. 4.18 Diagram showing the flexibility offered by standardized units, as 310
opposed to units with built-in furniture. (“Manufactured,
Prefabricated, Classroom-Office-Kindergarten Units,” Pencil Points
24 (September 1943): 58)

Fig. 4.19 Rendering of a house design by Wurster, Bernadi and Kump that 310
grew out of school prefabrication design. (“Prefabrication for
Flexible Planning,” Architectural Record (August 1945): 97)

Fig. 4.20 Photograph and plan of the Victory Park School in Compton, CA, 311
designed by Adrian Wilson and Theodore Criley, Jr. (“Victory Park
Housing,” Architectural Record 97 (January 1945): 66)

Figs. 4.21-4.22 Site plan and rendering (left) and interior view (right) of the 311
permanent Norwayne schools designed by August O’Dell and
Hewlett & Luckenbach in SOM-designed communities in Wayne,
Michigan. (“Two Schools Designed for Community Use,”
Architectural Record 95 (March 1944): 92, 94)

Fig. 4.23 View of three model of the Rugen School, in Glenview, Illinois, 312
designed by Perkins, Wheeler and Will. The image was meant to
show the various stages through which the school was expected to
grow. (“Rugen School,” Pencil Points 24 (September 1943): 36)

Fig. 4.24 Interior view of the Rugen School in Glenview, Illinois, designed by 312
Perkins, Wheeler and Will. (Pencil Points) 24 (September 1943): 42)

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Figs. 4.25-4.26 Parkview Elementary School (top) in Newport News, Virginia and 313
Elementary School (bottom) in Childersberg, Alabama. (“Lessons
from the Lanham Act,” The American School and University (1944):
51)

Fig. 4.27 Cover of Serge Chermayeff’s pamphlet on nursery schools for 313
Revere Copper & Brass. (Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 1)

Fig. 4.28 Diagram showing how the standardized structural module could be 314
combined in different arrangements for a variety of nursery school
space requirements. (Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 12-13)

Figs. 4.29-4.30 Winning design for a community nursery by Jane Dorsey (left) and 314
the second prize by John Thiele (left). (“Rorimer Medal
Competition,” Pencil Points 23 (February 1942): 68, 69)

Fig. 4.31 Site plan and model of Channel Heights in San Pedro, California, 315
designed by Richard Neutra. (“Channel Heights Housing Project,”
Architectural Forum (March 1944): 66)

Figs. 4.32-4.33 Nursery school plan (connected to community building at left) and 315
view from the glass-enclosed teacher office. (“Channel Heights
Housing Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 72, 73)

Fig. 4.34 Exterior view of the Channel Heights nursery school. In the 316
background is the attached community center. (“Channel Heights
Housing Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 72)

Fig. 4.35 View of the McLean Houses, built in Washington, D.C. and designed 316
by Kenneth Franzheim. (“Washington Housing,” Architectural
Forum 80 (January 1944): 60)

Figs. 4.36-4.37 Exterior view and plan (above) of the prefabricated nursery school 316
built at McLean Gardens in Washington DC and designed by
Holden, McLaughlin and Associates. (“Prefabricated Schools,”
Architectural Forum 80 (March 1944): 63)

Fig. 4.38 Radial plan for the nursery school at the Swan Island Shipyard, 317
designed by Wolff & Phillips (“Designed for 24-Hour Child Care,”
Architectural Record 95 (March 1944): 85)

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Fig. 4.39 View of the interior playground at the Swan Island Shipyard nursery 317
school (Kaiser Company and Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, An
Experiment in Services for Employees: Child Service Centers
(Portland, Or: Kaiser Co., Portland Yard, 1945))

Figs. 4.40-4.41 Exterior view (top) of the Swan Island nursery school showing its 318
relation to the shipyard, and an interior view (bottom), showing the
large amount of glazing allowing views towards the shipyard.
(“Designed for 24-Hour Child Care,” Architectural Record 95
(March 1944): 85, 87)

Fig. 4.42 Chart showing the FPHA space requirements for community 319
facilities. (Entry 26, Box 8; RG 207, NACP)

Figs. 4.43-4.44 Bellmawr Homes exterior view (top) and site plan (bottom), locate 320
din Camden, NJ and designed by Mayer, Whittlesey and Hettel.
(“Housing Project, Bellmawr, NJ,” Architectural Forum 78 (January
1943): 74, 75)

Figs. 4.45-4.46 View of the Bellmawr Homes community center (above) and site 321
plan (below). (“Housing Project, Bellmawr, NJ,” Architectural
Forum 78 (January 1943): 74, 75)

Fig. 4.47 View of the community center at Berea, Ohio designed by J. Byers 322
Hays, Wilber Watson and Associates. (“Community Facilities,”
Architectural Record 97 (June 1945): 89)

Fig. 4.48 View of the community center at Pine Ford Acres in Middletown, 322
Pennsylvania by George Howe and Louis I. Kahn. (“Two Wartime
Community Centers,” Architectural Forum 84 (January 1946): 111)

Fig. 4.49 View of Howe and Kahn’s proposed expansion to the community 322
center. (“Two Wartime Community Centers,” Architectural Forum
84 (January 1946): 110)

Fig. 4.50 FPHA shopping center standards (“Shopping Centers for War 323
Workers,” Architectural Record 92 (October 1942): 69)

Fig. 4.51 Plan of the shopping center for a project in Vancouver, Washington, 323
designed by AE Doyle and Associates. (“Commercial Facilities for
4,500 Families,” Architectural Record 92 (October 1942): 66)

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Figs. 4.52-4.53 Channel Heights supermarket, photo (left) and plan and section 323
(right), designed by Richard Neutra. (“Channel Heights Housing
Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 74)

Figs. 4.54-4.55 Cover (left) and rendering (right) of a landscaped, pedestrian- 324
friendly Main Street, and reimagined surrounding areas. (Revere
Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 1, 7)

Figs. 4.56-4.57 Sketch (left) and photograph (right) of the Linda Vista shopping 324
center in San Diego, CA, designed by Smith and Gibberson. (“Grass
on Main Street Becomes a Reality,” Architectural Forum 81
(September 1944): 84, 86-87)

Figs. 4.58-4.59 View of two different types of storefront configurations at Linda 325
Vista. (“Grass on Main Street Becomes a Reality,” Architectural
Forum 81 (September 1944): 88-89)

Fig. 4.60 View of a covered walkway at the Linda Vista shopping center. 325
(“Grass on Main Street Becomes a Reality,” Architectural Forum 81
(September 1944): 90-91)

Fig. 4.61 Figure 4.61: Design by John Dinwiddie for a Church-Community- 326
House for the post-war period. (“A Monument the Living Can Use,”
Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1944): 4)

Fig. E.1 Chart showing the cost of housing units over the course of the war. 327
(United States Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1975), 639)

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 INTRODUCTION

During World War II, the United States government confronted a crisis on the home front.

As men and women answered the call to join the front lines of production, and flocked to

shipyards, steel mills, aircraft plants and ordnance factories, they set in motion the largest

voluntary internal migration of human capital in the history of the United States. Where to house

the approximately eight million workers and their families as they entered unprepared communities

near converted, or newly-built industrial centers, became a major predicament that threatened the

Allied partners primary source of matériel.1 The National Defense Housing Act, commonly known

as the Lanham Act and passed in October 1940, was intended to alleviate the problem by providing

funding for a variety of emergency housing types located in defense-production areas. This

included the conversion of existing homes, the provision of portable trailers and dormitories, and

most significantly, the creation of entire planned communities, some built of temporary

construction and some of permanent construction. This study aims to demonstrate that the nation’s

focus on emergency housing had a profound impact on the modernization of the home and the

urban landscape, in large part because of the unique objective: to attract low- and middle-income

workers and their families to live in the homes, so that they could contribute to the war effort. The

thesis, briefly stated, is that it was a moment of critical innovation by independent architects—

working in close collaboration with the government—in planning, designing and engineering the

modern house, as well as developing the modern city, despite the restraints that the war imposed.

A long-standing narrative in the discourse of architecture divides the history of housing into

the “pre-war” and “post-war” periods. From the millions of housing units built during World War

1
For “eight million” see “U.S. Wartime Housing,” Architectural Review 96 (August 1944): 29. In
1947, statistician Henry S. Shyrock estimated that 6,480,000 workers had migrated between the
attacks on Pearl Harbor and March 1945. See Henry S. Shyrock, “Wartime Shifts of the Civilian
Population,” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July 1947): 279.

!1
II, however, there is much to be learned about the history of public-private partnerships, materials

and technology, American modern design, living habits, and community building, that could,

potentially, inform designs for emergency housing in the future. This history is as much about

architecture as it is about how a democracy responds to a national crisis, and the types of complex

interactions that result when diverse groups of people must work together to find a solution to a

common problem. Indeed, a wide variety of producers, administrators, designers and stakeholders

excitedly engrossed themselves in the project, in no small part because of the prospective

significance of their work in the post-war future. This included “progressive” government officials,

who sought to create a model of housing and community planning that could be used by public and

private developers during peacetime. Also contributing were American and European modernist

architects, who produced a spectrum of forward-looking house designs for complete planned

communities, which, by prioritizing affordable, healthy living for workers and families, anticipated

the post-war housing market.

The goals of this study are to offer an analysis of American defense (June 1940 to the

attack on Pearl Harbor) and war (Pearl Harbor to September 1945) housing that focuses on specific

problems of aesthetics, technology, politics, and social history. Questions I consider include: How

did the collaboration between government and the architectural community manifest itself in

design? How did other agents, such as manufacturers, prefabricators, labor groups, racial groups,

financiers and so-called housers, a group of reformers, researchers and theorists, participate? How

did these intellectual collaborations and interactions affect discourse and practice? How was urban

planning and landscape theorized? What was the effect of material shortages, unforgiving

construction deadlines, and the threat of air raid attack? How were new technologies incorporated

and building practices modernized? To what extent was utilitarian design governed by desire or

necessity? Who were the residents? How did they use the structures? To what degree were they

!2
successful? When, and why, did some fail? And, to what degree can we perceive connections

between wartime choices and post-war design?

One of the most revelatory themes of this study is the degree to which designers embraced

the notion of flexibility and adopted it as a primary objective in working out designs for structural

systems, house plans, furniture, schools, community and shopping centers, and even in the larger

project and town plans, which were expected to be able to adjust to future needs. In large part, the

embrace of the idea of flexibility was a response to the war’s uncertainty. As production needs

shifted, people were expected to adjust, by moving alone or with their families to areas that needed

workers. Anticipating these moves, designers planned housing that could adapt to different types of

families, and, in some cases, houses that could themselves be taken apart and relocated as

determined by national production requirements.

During the war, both government and architectural professionals operated in a state of crisis

and felt an acute sense of urgency to turn out quick and economical results. However, at the same

time, these professionals also sought to project beyond the war, and therefore explicitly framed

many of their wartime choices in terms of their post-war implications. As the emergency’s need for

speed inspired creative new building techniques, construction methods, and planning norms—

many of which embraced the concept of flexibility—those with a progressive, or entrepreneurial,

spirit began to proactively recycle those ideas for peacetime. Thus, the adoption of flexibility as a

desirable building mode reflected two contradictory outlooks: that of an emergency crisis rooted in

the anxiety-ridden present, and that of a promising post-war future, in which flexible living,

socializing and shopping arrangements were potentially attractive enticements to the newly

empowered American consumer.

Societal changes in the early 1940s also inspired a more flexible perspective of the home

for many Americans. This stemmed from the need for an increased adaptability to change in family

!3
structure and values, technological advancements, including the widespread adoption of the

automobile, and the vast and constant movement of people that characterized the war years. In a

sense, the creation of the flexible home—as well as separate, but attendant communal spaces—was

an inherently hopeful exercise that firmly laid out the thesis that, despite being borne of wartime

necessity, housing could still embody the characteristics of a functioning democracy, which, above

all, valued individual freedom. Designers foresaw a future of continuous change and

experimentation, but wartime housing also expressed hope for the times ahead, when each

individual could bring to fruition his or her American dream.

Another common theme throughout this study is the exceptional nature of the public-

private partnership that was born from the war housing program. In contrast to the New Deal years,

when local authorities and local architects tackled the issue of public housing with a measure of

autonomy from the federal government, the war years saw this administrative construct reverse

itself. As the federal housing agencies consolidated power under the Division of Defense Housing

Coordination (1940-1942), the Federal Works Agency (FWA, 1939-1949), and later, the National

Housing Agency (1942-1947) and its subordinate Federal Public Housing Authority (1942-1949),

the influence of local authorities was significantly diminished and a greater number of projects

were given to non-local architects. In other words, the war was a brief moment when national

standards predominated, propagating new housing norms—such as prefabrication—that were

visible to a broad swath of the American public. Furthermore, housing’s main producers played a

consequential role in enforcing the government’s narrative on the positive aspects of these new

standards, and the precedents that had been broken. Companies like Revere Copper & Brass

published extensive literature promoting wartime advancements in housing, planning and

community living, insisting that many, if not all of these, would evolve to bring the post-war

consumer a higher standard of living at a lower cost. In this way, private companies sometimes

!4
participated in creating soft propaganda, which helped to facilitate a generally optimistic and

morale-boosting view of wartime building, perhaps at the expense of some of the grittier, and less

successful, aspects of the reality.

Recent scholarship on American architecture and housing has treated the war years sparsely

and unevenly. While some general surveys such as Leland Roth’s American Architecture: A

History (2016) and Dell Upton’s Architecture in the United States (1998) do present the wartime

housing program in an encyclopedic fashion, briefly describing the legislation and the most famous

projects designed and built by progressive architects, others, like Carter Wiseman’s Shaping a

Nation: Twentieth-Century American Architecture and its Makers (1998), avoid the issue all

together. More focused studies on American housing have been similarly inconsistent. Several have

aimed to contextualize the war housing program within the trend of post-war suburban expansion,

such as Gwendolyn Wright’s Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (1981)

and Dolores Hayden’s Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 (2003). 2

While there are many connections to make between war housing and post-war development, often

the description of the war housing program is brief and takes little account of the complex

interactions that brought about that housing, much less the technical, material and economic

significance of what was built. Moreover, these and other authors have primarily focused on the

private housing that was built during the war, and offer little explanation as to the significance of

wartime public housing.3

2 For examples of studies that discuss the war housing program within the context of post-war
development, see Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981), 242; Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban
Growth, 1820-2000 (New York: Vintage Books, 2003): 129-130.
3
Studies that are heavily focused on private housing include John Archer, Architecture and
Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690 - 2000 (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2005), and Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the
United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

!5
 Planning-focused studies have offered a slightly more detailed account of the war housing

program. Of these, the most extensive to date is Mel Scott’s American City Planning Since 1890

(1969), which describes wartime effects on zoning, transportation, and the general expansion of

city planning efforts across the country; yet the focus here is the planning function of modern

government, rather than its real effects on the design of communities and cities.4 Although some

wartime projects by major architects such as Richard J. Neutra, Louis I. Kahn, Antonin Raymond,

and William Wurster have received monographic treatment, these studies do not usually address

the broader ramifications of the collaboration between architecture and government or extend

beyond a limited chronology or geography.5

This study fits into a recent body of work that has begun to debunk the view that the war

was a period of architectural stagnation, or one in which architects didn’t build but simply turned

to planning and theory, as Andrew Shanken has argued in 194X: Architecture, Planning, and

Consumer Culture on the American Home Front (2009). This includes Donald Albrecht’s World

War II and the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation (1995), especially the

chapters by Peter S. Reed and Greg Hise, which explore the employment of modern design in war

housing and the regional transformations that resulted from modern community planning,

4 Additionally,the efforts of specific planning groups during World War II, such as the National
Resources Planning Board, have been comprehensively documented by Alan Brinkley and Philip J.
Fungiello. See Philip J. Funigiello, “City Planning in World War II: The Experience of the National
Resources Planning Board,” in Introduction to Planning History in the United States, ed. Donald
A. Krueckeberg (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1983), and Alan
Brinkley, “The National Resources Planning Board and Reconstruction of Planning,” in The
American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy, ed. Robert Fishman (Washington, DC: The
Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000).
5
For works on these architects, see: David B. Brownlee and David G. DeLong, Louis I. Kahn: In
the Realm of Architecture (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991); Thomas S. Hines,
Richard Neutra And the Search for Modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 2005); Kurt G.F.
Helfrich and William Whitaker, ed. Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of
Antonin and Noém Raymond (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006); Marc Trieb, An
Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995).

!6
industrialization and migration. Similarly, Jean-Louis Cohen’s Architecture in Uniform: Designing

and Building for the Second World War (2011) examines worker housing within an international

context, juxtaposing American examples with those in Germany and Russia. The most extensive

publications to date on wartime housing are the essays (1994, 2000), and recent book, The Mutual

Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities for the Urban Middle Class (2015), by Kristin B.

Szylvian, which specifically focuses on eight pilot projects created under the auspices of the FWA’s

Lawrence Westbrook in 1940-1941, that utilized the cooperative ownership concept, and many

others that were later sold under cooperative arrangements.6 In the book, Szylvian explores the

close relationship between mutual housing and modern architecture, including projects by Richard

J. Neutra, Louis I. Kahn, George Howe and Albert Mayer, but her real focus is less on design than

on modernism’s effect on urban and housing policy, and the ways in which the mutual home

ownership program offered alternatives to the real estate industry, commercial rental markets, and

even public housing. Eric Mumford has also looked broadly at the implications of wartime

housing, but his analysis in the Journal of Architectural Education (2008) is rather narrowly

focused on the effects of the defense migration on American urbanism.7 Nevertheless, this

dissertation aims to build on his argument that the wartime buildup accelerated the trend toward

decentralization and auto-based metropolitan and regional patterns.

Other examples of recent war housing scholarship have narrowed in on specific sites and

cities. This includes Sarah Jo Peterson’s Planning the Home Front: Building Bombers and

6 Kristin Szylvian, The Mutual Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities for the Urban Middle
Class (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015); Kristin Szylvian, “Bauhaus on Trial:
Aluminum City Terrace and the Federal Defense Housing Policy,” Planning Perspectives 9 (1994):
229-254; and Kristin Szylvian, “The Federal Housing Program During World War II,” in From
Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth-Century
America, ed. by John F. Bauman, Roger Biles and Kristin M. Szylvian (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000).
7
Eric Mumford, “National Defense and the Transformations of American Urbanism, 1940-1942,”
Journal of Architectural Education 61, no. 3 (February 1, 2008): 25-34.

!7
Communities at Willow Run (2013), which offers an insightful examination of the housing program

with respect to industrial production at the Willow Run bomber plant, located outside of Ypsilanti,

Michigan. Also part of this group is Julie Courtwright’s analysis of war housing in Wichita, Kansas

in Kansas History (2000), Zenia Kotval’s investigation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s doomed project

for Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the Journal of Planning History (2003), Elyse Margeurite Marks’

master’s thesis (Columbia University, 2012) on Aero Acres and the development of the Cemesto

House, and Barbara Brown Wilson’s examination of Richard Neutra and David Williams’ Avion

Village in Grand Prairie, Texas, as a model of “sustainable development” in the Journal of

Planning (2015).8 Some scholarship has focused on the intersection of racial issues and wartime

housing. Lori Ellen Cole’s dissertation (Carnegie Mellon University, 1995) concentrates on race,

class and identity in the defense housing in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela Valley.9 Both Rudy

Pearson in the Oregon Historical Quarterly (Summer 2001) and Heather Fryer in the Pacific

Northwest Quarterly (Winter 2004/2005) delved into the experiences of African Americans in

Portland, Oregon’s defense housing projects.10 And Todd M. Michney has investigated the

experience of African Americans in Cleveland, Ohio’s public housing during World War II in the

Journal of Social History (2007).11

8 Julie Courtwright, “Want to Build a Miracle City?: War Housing in Wichita,” Kansas History
2000): 218-239; Zenia Kotval, “Opportunity Lost: A Clash Between Politics, Planning, and Design
in Defense Housing for Pittsfield, Massachusetts,” Journal of Planning History 2, no. 25 (February
2003): 25-46; Elyse Margeurite Marks, “The World War II Defense Housing Community of Aero
Acres: Case Study for the Future Preservation of Historic Planned Suburban Communities,” (M.A.
thesis, Columbia University, 2012); Barbara Brown Wilson, “Before The ‘Triple Bottom Line”:
New Deal Defense Housing as Proto-Sustainability,” Journal of Planning History 14, no. 1 (2015):
4-18.
9
Lori Ellen Cole, “Voices and Choices: Race, Class, and Identity, Homestead, Pennsylvania,
1941-1945,” (Ph.D. diss., Carnegie Mellon University, 1994).
10 Rudy Pearson, “‘A Menace to the Neighborhood,’: Housing and African Americans in Portland,

1941-1945,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 102, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 158-179; Heather Fryer,
“Race, Industry, and the Aesthetic of a Changing Community in World War II Portland,” The
Pacific Northwest Quarterly 96, no. 1 (Winter 2004/2005): 3-13.
11
Todd M. Michney, “Constrained Communities: Black Cleveland’s Experience with World War II
Public Housing,” Journal of Social History 40, no. 4 (Summer 2007): 933-956.

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 Other publicly- and privately-financed Lanham Act sites have gained recognition in recent

years by being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which is administrated by the

National Park Service (NPS) and includes buildings and sites that are over fifty years old. These

include projects such as Kensington Gardens (William I. Hohausuer, 1941-1942) in Buffalo, New

York, listed in 2010; Atchison Village (John Carl Warnecke, 1941) in Richmond, California, listed

in 2003; Christeele Acres (Groneman and Company Contractors, 1943) in Orem, Utah, listed in

1999; Park Lane Manor (John F. Suppes, 1941-1943) in Akron, Ohio, listed in 2007; President

Gardens (Gentry and Voskamp, 1945) in Jackson, Missouri, listed in 2007; and, in the realm of

community buildings, the John E.L. Huse School (Alonzo J. Harriman, 1940-1942) in Bath, Maine,

listed in 2016, just to name a few.12 Other sites, such as the Pittsburgh Industrial District and its

World War II structures in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which was documented in 1994, have

been included in the Historic American Engineering Record. 13

In contrast to the existing scholarship, this dissertation aims to both broaden the discussion

of Lanham Act architecture nationally, as well as narrow the focus on issues of design. Building the

home front for American production workers was a national project, yet it was also orchestrated at

an individual level, one project at a time. To uncover its roots, I first traced the history of this

decidedly “top down” government program at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

12 National Register of Historic Places, Kensington Gardens Apartment Complex, Buffalo, New
York, National Register #10000989, listed 2010; National Register of Historic Places, Atchison
Village Defense Housing Project, Cal. 4171-X, Richmond, California, National Register
#03000472, listed 2003; National Register of Historic Places, Christeele Acres Historic District,
Orem, Utah, National Register #99001626, listed 1999; National Register of Historic Places, Cole
Avenue Housing Project Historic District (Other name: Park Lane Manor), Akron, Ohio, National
Register #07001090, listed 2007; National Register of Historic Places, President Gardens
Apartments Historic District, Jackson, Missouri, National Register #98001503, listed 2007; “Bath
School Listed on the National Register of Historic Places,” August 4, 2016, accessed October 29,
2016, http://bangordailynews.com/community/bath-school-listed-on-national-register-of-historic-
places/.
13
Historic American Engineering Record, Pittsburgh Industrial District, World War II Structures,
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA, HAER No. PA-343, Library of Congress, documentation
compiled ca. 1994, accessed October 29, 2016, https://www.loc.gov/item/pa3159/.

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This repository holds the records of the Defense Housing Coordinator and the Division of Defense

Housing Coordination (DDHC, 1940-42), the Federal Works Agency (FWA, 1939-49), and the

National Housing Agency, which in 1942 absorbed the housing duties of both the DDHC and

FWA. Within this vast collection are administrative histories, operations manuals, standards

guidelines, correspondence, speeches, press releases, memos, surveys, and countless reports on

construction, specifications, materials, prefabrication, labor, wages, statistics, eligibility and rent

rules, as well as post-war planning. This documentation is at the crux of much of this dissertation,

as it outlines the mercurial rules and shifting expectations under which defense and war housing

was built.14

For additional information not included in the National Archives, I relied on the papers of

several government figures, including the Charles F. Palmer Papers (1892-1973) at the Stuart A.

Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; the

Nathan Straus, Jr. Papers (1919-1961) and John Carmody Papers (1900-1958) at the Franklin D.

Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York; and the vertical files (VF collection) at the Frances

Loeb Library at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, which contained an astounding

collection of pamphlets, reports, speeches, and other materials published by the government, as

well as numerous other housing-interested organizations.

Other archival collections that proved helpful were those of figures who were deeply

involved in both intellectual, government and design circles. This study leans heavily on the

writings of two influential individuals: Clarence Stein (1905-1983), an urban planner, architect,

writer, and major proponent of the garden city movement in the United States, whose papers are

held within the Rare and Manuscript Collections of the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University

14
Construction plans of housing projects built under the Lanham Act are also located at the
National Archives at College Park, College Park, Maryland, although they were not consulted for
this study. The archive is part of the Records of the Public Housing Administration (1895-1967),
Record Group 196 and is preserved on DVD.

!10
in Ithaca, New York; and Catherine Bauer Wurster (1905-1964), a well-connected public housing

advocate who worked in government, at universities, and with numerous housing associations,

whose papers are held by the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. As

members of the Regional Plan Association of American (RPAA), both Stein and Bauer were

established thinkers on housing, and highly communicative with their peers throughout the war

years. Furthermore, Bauer was married to William Wurster, a Bay Area architect who had direct

experience building defense housing. Both Bauer and Stein’s personal and professional

correspondence offers a revealing window into the inner machinations of government, as well as

specialized interest groups, architects, architectural journals, museums and, of course, their own

views on war housing and how it could be harnessed for the future.

The study does not purport to be a survey of all defense and war housing projects of the

1940s. Since the goal of this project was to answer broader questions about the impact of the war

housing program on design generally, I chose not to impose any temporal or spatial framework for

selecting housing projects to study. This allowed for a wide umbrella, but the most accessible

records were, inevitably, those of the architectural elite. Although this circumscription narrows the

project dramatically, and perhaps offers less diversification of examples, these designers were the

ones whose experiments captivated the architectural press, and had the greatest opportunity to shift

the discourse. Their collections contain valuable first-hand documentation of the average

architect’s experience building war housing. This includes the work of: the Louis I. Kahn

(1901-1974), whose papers are located in the Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania;

Eliel (1873-1950) and Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) in the Saarinen Family Papers, the J. Robert F.

Swanson and Pipsan Saarinen Swanson Papers, and the Vertical Files at the Cranbrook Archives in

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Hugh Stubbins (1912-2006) in the Hugh Stubbins Archive: The Early

Years Collection in the Special Collections of the Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University;

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William Wurster (1895-1973) in the Wurster, Bernadi, and Emmons Collection in the

Environmental Design Archives at the University of California, Berkeley; Richard Neutra

(1892-1970) in the Richard and Dion Neutra Papers in the Charles E. Young Research Library at

the University of California, Los Angeles; and finally, Clarence Stein, whose papers are at Cornell

University, as mentioned above. For additional examples outside of these archives, I relied on

architectural journals such as the Architectural Forum, Architectural Record, and Pencil Points,

among others, to complete the national picture.

The following chapters have been organized thematically, with each focused on subjects

including politics, planning, house design, and community building design. Chapter One, “A

Sympathetic Framework: Government and Housing During World War II,” examines the

government’s role in financing, planning, standardizing, and building defense and war housing. As

the nation’s largest client, the United States government held incredible control over the wartime

housing apparatus and was intimately involved in the minutiae of planning and design. This

chapter establishes a genealogy of issues such as prefabrication, demountability, material

innovation, and community planning, as they were vetted by the numerous housing agencies,

Congress, the president’s office, and significantly, the press. The analysis begins chronologically

and outlines the conception of the housing program and the numerous personalities that were put in

charge of transforming a piecemeal, craft-centered home building industry into a technologically

progressive arm of the American production machine. It also traces numerous internal and external

conflicts that not only prompted a complete reorganization of the housing administrative structure,

but likely helped shape the direction of public and private housing into the post-war period.

Finally, the chapter shifts its focus to the social agents—labor, racial groups, the press, and the

museum—that each played a powerful role in influencing the form that housing would take, and

offers an analysis of their involvement in the intellectual discourse.

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 Chapter Two, “Scatter as Communities: Community Patterns Respond to Threats From the

Air,” focuses on problems of planning during World War II. Specifically, it follows Clarence

Stein’s efforts to reframe the garden city concept as an appropriate planning method to protect

Americans from air raid attack. An analysis of these efforts requires an historical account of Stein’s

critiques of war housing during World War I, his experience designing the project at Baldwin Hills

Village, and his work as a consultant to the FWA. Discussion of “garden city” principles occurred

against a backdrop of strategic concerns about raw materials, labor, transportation, assembly and

distribution points, as well as the threat of air raid attack, which loomed large over the topic of

industrial and residential decentralization. Stein’s call to “scatter as communities” reflected a high

level of anxiety about aerial attack and did much to promote decentralization as a way to keep new

war housing communities—and post-war communities—safe. Stein aimed to show, in his designs

for several projects in Pittsburgh, the benefits of decentralized, self-sufficient communities. Other

projects by modernist architects also sought to evaluate housing on the basis of its long-term

usefulness as well as its ability to indoctrinate the general public to the garden city idea and the

community patterns it could foster. Finally, this chapter examines landscape design, which was

considered a means of maintaining morale among war workers living in housing projects, as well

as providing camouflage against air raid attack.

Chapter Three, “Standards for Defense: Prefabrication, New Materials and Unit Planning,”

is largely a case study that telescopes the framework of this study. Here I examine William

Wurster’s Carquinez Heights in Vallejo, California, and its role as a national model for how

factory-produced prefabricated materials could be combined to address the needs of war worker

families, for affordability and flexibility. This site was significant for both for the explicit

government endorsement of its design and construction technology, as well as for the reception it

received from the architectural and national press. It also highlights advancements made in

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prefabrication, new materials (like manufactured wood), and unit planning, over the course of the

war years. Experimental units, at Carquinez Heights and other defense and war projects by

architects such as Hugh Stubbins, Antonin Raymond, and Alfred Kastner and Thomas Hibben, also

highlighted the new connections between design and industry, and their possible applications in

post-war living.

Chapter Four “Bulwark of American Democracy: Experiments in School, Community, and

Commercial Design,” appraises the community facilities built for war workers, and how they

responded to evolving ideologies and practices in the fields of education, recreation, and

commercial enterprise. The chapter begins by tracing the popularization of the “community

school,” a model for education and recreation that sought to dissolve the boundaries between

schools and the communities that surrounded them. Lanham Act schools experimented with this

concept and increasingly likened its design to that of a factory in that it could be standardized, but

also tailored to specific production or educational demands. The construction of nursery schools

also illustrated the resourcefulness of wartime designers, and its proliferation around the country

helped democratize early childhood education and offer a template for public preschool education.

Community buildings, however, were much more identifiable as the physical and symbolic center

of defense- and war-built neighborhoods. Tasked with boosting morale, as well as providing

flexibility and community feeling, the design of these structures offer a means of interpreting

wartime impressions of modernity and democracy. Finally, this chapter focuses on retail spaces,

which adapted to the multi-nucleated pattern of wartime communities. With a more pedestrian-

focused layout, partially in response to rubber and gas shortages, these shopping centers presaged

the rethinking of “Main Street” within the context of the automotive post-war world.

Today, little remains of Lanham Act architecture. By the end of World War II, war housing

was anathema to Congress and the real estate industry, each of which perceived it as a stumbling

!14
block to returning back to “normal.” Thus, the government began to slowly extract itself from its

extensive war housing business, a process that took over ten years. Many communities were

transferred for veterans’ use, while some were sold to private investors or to residents who formed

cooperatives. Others were auctioned or demolished. Some survivors include Eliel and Eero

Saarinen’s Centerline project (Fig. A.1-A.3) in Detroit, Michigan, now known as the Kramer

Homes, and Walter Gropius’ New Kensington project (Fig. A.4-A.6) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

both of which I had the chance to visit in the course of writing this dissertation. At both, the

residential buildings are visually unimpressive, with exposed wood now replaced with bland

aluminum siding, and the community buildings obscured by later alterations, but the sympathetic,

and in Gropius’ case, dramatic, site planning of both sites is still discernible.

In 2015, the United States marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Yet, it

seems that interest in home front studies, particularly the planned communities that were built

before and during the war, is growing. This study aims to participate in that discourse and

acknowledge the importance of design innovations made during the war and their place in

twentieth-century architectural history.

!15
 CHAPTER 1

A Sympathetic Framework: Government and Housing During World War II

In the early 1940s, housing as a government function was a comparatively recent

phenomenon, born from necessity during World War I and expanded during the 1930s as a part of

the New Deal. When the foreign political situation became threatening in 1940, many government

officials saw the looming emergency as an opportunity to continue, and broaden, the existing

Congressional mandate to provide low-cost housing to the nation’s poor. However, the realities of

the wartime crisis, which forced the government to house people based on their involvement in

defense work rather than economic status, significantly disrupted this directive, and led to many

changes in the way that the government financed, planned, managed, and even talked about

housing. By the end of World War II, the subject of housing was a battle ground, perhaps more than

ever before, for basic social and economic interests. Authorities with conflicting ideologies

clashed: civil and military, local and federal, management and labor, proponents of public housing

and of private construction, as well as the new tenants and existing inhabitants of defense towns

across the country.

As the federal government took an even larger share of the responsibility for the nation’s

housing, and as the home assumed a new, more patriotic, importance in American life, questions

emerged, such as: Who was government-financed housing for? What should it look like? Who

should build it, and how should it be built? Where did local responsibility end and national

responsibility begin? Could American individualism make concessions to collective action? And

could good architecture and democracy co-exist? When considered within the context of the

rapidly changing war economy, with its vast military production program, it is unsurprising that

government officials—the moral and practical leaders of the day—played an outsized role in

!16
determining many of the answers to these questions, influencing the shape of housing well into the

post-war years.

At this turning point between New Deal liberalism and post-war conservatism, government

housing officials sought to manage the wartime crisis by centralizing power and scientifically

managing problems of administration. From 1940 to 1945, the government built or financed over

two million permanent and temporary housing units under the Lanham Act and other legislation. 1

Of this, over 625,000 units were classified as public housing, owned by a local or federal

government authority (Fig. 1.1); the remainder was private housing financed with subsidized

government loans (Fig. 1.2). The scale of the government’s accomplishment, an undeniable

organizational feat, was unlike any American building campaign that had come before. Yet it is less

clear what impact the defense and war housing program had beyond the physical construction of

housing units.

While some scholars such as Richard Polenberg and Geoffrey Perrett have underscored the

intensity of the war’s impact on American life, others like John Morton Blum and John W. Jeffries

argue that it would be a mistake to see developments of the war period primarily in terms of

change, and that in fact, during the war, Americans sought to maintain their basic values, looking

ahead through the lens of the past.2 In many respects, the processes of planning, design,

construction and financing housing underwent demonstrably significant change—including new

aesthetics and social concepts—that was visible to average Americans. At the same time, many of

1 The total number of housing units built or financed by the government has been estimated from
the United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times
to 1970, part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 639. For a more
detailed breakdown of the 625,505 were authorized by Lanham Act (Public Law 849, 76th
Congress, approved October, 1940) and their disposition, see “1940-1955: The Story of World War
II Housing From Construction to Disposition,” Journal of Housing 12 (May 1955): 154. Of the
Lanham Act units, 182,095 were permanent and 444,334 were temporary. Another 93,181 units
were built under other legislation, and by agencies such as the Defense Homes Corporation.
2
This outline of the contrasting scholarly views was laid out by Allan M. Winkler in Home Front
USA: America During World War II (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davison, Inc, 2000), 106-109.

!17
those involved in the effort to build housing, as well as those who were the intended recipients of

the housing, fought to maintain the status quo that had existed before the war. Through an

examination of government policy on defense housing, the administrative structure of the program,

the political infighting that threatened housing production, and the associated issues of race, labor

and media relations, this chapter will explore the new patterns—in government and society—that

influenced housing and the basic fabric of American life both inside, and outside, of the home.

The beginnings of the defense housing program

The government swiftly recognized the need for new housing in areas of defense activities after

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a state of national emergency in September 1939. At

Roosevelt’s request, the Central Housing Committee—a group Roosevelt had appointed in 1936 to

coordinate all federal housing activities—prepared a report analyzing prospective defense housing

needs and services.3 The committee made a number of recommendations that would have a lasting

effect on the defense housing program. Among other things, it pointed out that defense housing

should anticipate population shifts and be a prime factor in the location of new or established

industries; it identified the benefit of permanent housing and the importance of community and

commercial facilities in new towns; and determined that all of the housing could be provided by

the existing housing agencies at the federal government’s disposal. It also advised the president to

name a defense housing coordinator, who would be responsible for the general planning and

execution of the defense housing program, a recognition of the need to avoid the mistakes of the

early days of World War I, when the lack of an structured program resulted in delays, errors and the

construction of makeshift homes.

3
Hymen Ezra Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of the Administrator National Housing
Agency During the War Housing Program, World War II,” December 1945; General NHA Records,
1942-74, Entry 24, Box 1; General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
[HUD], Record Group 207; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

!18
 In July 1940, the National Defense Advisory Commission considered the committee’s

report and ultimately recommended Charles F. Palmer (Fig. 1.3), then the chairman of the board of

governors of the National Association of Housing Officials (NAHO), to be appointed as housing

coordinator.4 Palmer had a background as a real estate developer in Atlanta, Georgia, where he

owned and managed several large commercial properties. In 1933, he became a recognized

“houser” when he steered the first U.S. public housing project toward Atlanta, and worked to block

the attempts of local realtors to prevent its construction.5 Built through slum clearance by the

Public Works Administration (PWA) and dedicated by Roosevelt in person in 1935, the Techwood

Homes (Fig. 1.4) consisted of two-story row houses and three-story garden apartments on a

twenty-two acre site. The residents—all white—enjoyed lush landscaping, playgrounds and a

variety of community buildings.6 The project was envisioned as a temporary refuge for families

down on their luck during the Depression and represented the first large-scale attempt to eradicate

slum housing in a socially humanitarian way. After traveling abroad to see European public

housing projects, Palmer became a lobbyist for permanent housing legislation in the United States,

and made efforts to convince the real estate industry to adopt a policy of “enlightened capitalism,”

by which he meant they should cooperate with the national movement for public housing. 7 In 1937,

the same year that the United States Housing Act was passed, Techwood Homes was offered up as

4 The National Defense Advisory Commission was part of the Council of National Defense, an
executive branch committee established in WWI to inventory the nation’s resources, and briefly
revived by Roosevelt tin 1940. The Council of National Defense would ultimately be replaced by
the Office of Production Management in 1941. Palmer was appointed by the Commission on
August 19th, 1940.
5
“The Month in Building,” Architectural Forum 73 (August 1940): 4.
6 Florence Fleming Corley, "Atlanta's Techwood and University Homes Projects: The Nation's

Laboratory for Public Housing," Atlanta History (Winter 1987-88): 17-36. Subsequently, Palmer
conceived of a sister project called University Homes, which housed African Americans.
7
Lee S. Coopers, “Urges Real Estate To Aid Slum Poor,” New York Times, June 24, 1937, 46.

!19
proof that the “U.S. is a good landlord.”8 Palmer’s background made him a compelling candidate

for defense housing coordinator in 1940. His career spanned the worlds of both private and public

housing, effectively mixing “sociology,” as Architecture Forum explained, “with a heaping

measure of realism.” 9 Yet, as one of the most prominent figures leading the defense housing

program, Palmer came to be divisive symbol of the program’s dysfunction. His effort to

strategically straddle the divide between private and public interests left him unable to satisfy

either side, and thus—perhaps correctly—he came to be blamed for most of the program’s early

shortcomings.

Even before Palmer’s appointment, the defense housing program was well under way. By

June 1940, the housing program established under the Housing Act of 1937—which programmed

housing primarily through local housing authorities—was altered from a civilian to a defense

program, and the United States Housing Authority (USHA) was charged under Public Act 671 with

building public housing developments for civilian employees of the armed forces and defense

contractors with funds originally appropriated for low-income housing.10 On October 12, 1940,

Congress passed the National Housing for Defense Act, commonly referred to as the Lanham Act,

authorizing $150 million to construct housing for civilian workers in defense industries. The act

was sponsored by Democratic Representative Fritz Lanham of Texas (Image 1.5), who had been

8
“Techwood is Cited as Proof that U.S. is Good Landlord,” The Atlanta Constitution, September
10, 1937, 3. The United States Housing Act of 1937 established the United States Housing
Authority (USHA), a loan granting agency that effectively decentralized the federal housing
program to local public housing agencies.
9 “The Month in Building,” Architectural Forum, 4.
10
On June 28 1940, the President signed the defense housing amendment, Public 671, which
permitted USHA to engage in defense housing. Since no appropriation accompanied this
legislation, USHA provided money from its regular funds. Note that at this point the slum
elimination requirement was deferred with regard defense housing. For more on USHA’s part in
the defense program see “Straus Reviews Housing Progress,” New York Times, June 13, 1940, 164;
and “Defers USHA Ruling on Slum Houses,” New Journal and Guide, April 19, 1941, 20.

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chairman of the Public Buildings Committee since 1932.11 An opponent of low-income public

housing, Lanham oversaw the inclusion of several amendments intended to protect the interests of

private developers, notably including a stipulation that federally assisted defense housing would

only be constructed in areas ill-served by private interests.12 In addition to the Lanham Act, the

Army and Navy were given $100 million to build housing, and the Reconstruction Finance

Corporation (RFC) was given $50 million to spur private capital, mostly through Federal Housing

Administration (FHA) mortgages. In November 1940 Architectural Record quipped that if you mix

these “ingredients and stir into them a set of highly individualistic government housing agencies

plus a coordinator or two… you have a national defense program now on fire.”13

From the beginning, determining which agencies controlled which parts of the defense

housing program was not an easy task. Instead of entrusting the program to one entity, the job was

parceled out to nine different federal agencies, including the USHA, the FHA, the RFC, the

Federal Works Agency (FWA), the Public Buildings Administration (PBA), the Farm Security

Administration (FSA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Federal Home Loan Bank Board

(FHLBB), and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). Competition between these agencies

for defense housing work was intense. “Traditionally, the several housing agencies have fought like

Kilkenny cats without being able to eat each other up,” wrote the Architectural Record. “All, of

course, are shouldering for position in the defense activities which are the focus of everything in

Washington.”14 The rivalries centered most clearly on funding, first, and then on competition for

skilled personnel and building materials. Architectural Forum’s production flow chart (Fig. 1.6)

from November 1940—a complicated diagram of criss-crossed lines—conceptualized the

11 Lawrence A. Landis, “Lanham, Frederick Garland,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed

October 1, 2016, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla33.
12
For the text of the act, see Public Law No.76–862, 54 Stat. 1125 (1940).
13 “News From Washington on Defense Housing,” Architectural Record 88 (November 1940): 16.
14
Ibid.

!21
convoluted funding structure that would go into building both public and private defense housing.

The government’s chart (Fig. 1.7) was slightly more instructive, noting the amount of each

appropriation and which entities the money would flow toward. However, the number of agencies

involved, the scale of the housing crisis, and the piecemeal nature of the legislation enacted by

Congress were early signs that housing could, potentially, suffer from divided leadership. Indeed,

many housing agencies saw the defense program as their opportunity to obtain a new lease of life.

Even agencies that had previously had no defined role in building housing, like the PBA—which

had previously been responsible for the construction of federal buildings such as post offices—

sought to secure defense housing money. For Warren Jay Vinton, the chief economist and planning

officer at USHA, it was “as though the job of building battleships had been parceled out, not only

to the Navy, but also to the Post Office Department, to the Department of Agriculture, and to the

new Navy Coordinator.”15 Within this tangled setup, the agencies lobbied for control over the

program and sparked feuds that would have a lasting effect on the future of public housing in the

United States.

In the end, the FWA and its administrator, John Carmody (Fig. 1.8), emerged from the fray

with the most significant role in the defense housing program. Carmody came from a business

background, having worked in the steel, garment and coal industries. He got his start in

government as the chief engineer of the Civil Works Administration in 1933, and went on to

positions in the National Mediation Board and then National Labor Relations Board. In 1937,

Roosevelt appointed him as administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration and then as

head of the FWA in 1939. The Lanham Act gave Carmody $150 million, which would be disbursed

through FWA’s subagencies: the FSA, USHA, TVA and PBA. Carmody could only build housing,

15
Warren Jay Vinton, “Memorandum on Housing for Workers in National Defense,” January 5,
1941; Carton 10, Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers, BANC MSS 74/163c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.

!22
however, upon orders of Defense Coordinator Palmer, via orders from the president. Thus, despite

having power over significant funds, Carmody’s hands were tied when it came to certain aspects of

the planning process, including where and how much housing should be built.

USHA, which predated the FWA and had extensive experience building public housing,

suffered under this framework. Administrator Nathan Straus (Fig. 1.9) was unpopular on Capitol

Hill, and some members of Congress objected to the participation of USHA and its low-income

housing work in the defense housing program.16 With the onset of war, USHA and its

approximately 500 local housing agencies were attacked as inefficient and extravagant, and the

agency was denied appropriations of its own, leaving it to mostly build defense housing out of its

existing funds for non-defense related slum clearance. Some housing experts, like Charles Abrams,

were appalled by the sidelining of USHA, and saw it as the death knell of public housing in the

United States.17 Abrams wrote to Carmody in October 1940, alarmed that public housing was about

to be “thrown overboard,” and implored the FWA administrator to consider the situation carefully.

“Up to now,” Abrams warned, “the public seems to be unfamiliar with what has happened, but I

think that if the program is scuttled it may cause much public resentment.”18 Abrams argued that

USHA was the only agency capable of handling the challenges of working with local authorities

and negotiating the requisite deals regarding streets, utilities and other local matters. Nevertheless,

USHA would continue to be shunned within the larger defense housing picture.

Although Palmer’s position as defense coordinator initially came with limited authority, by

early 1941 he established himself as the prime administrative figure in defense housing matters. As

part of his original job description, Palmer exercised his authority under the “general direction” of

16
“Defense Advisors Tell Housing Role,” New York Times, August 20, 1940, 19.
17 Charles Abrams, “Must Defense Wreck Housing,” The Nation 151 (October 19, 1940): 359-361.
18
Charles Abrams to John Carmody, October 11, 1941; Correspondence of John Carmody,
1939-41; Entry 1, Box 1; General Records of the Federal Works Agency, Record Group 162;
National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

!23
the National Defense Advisory Commission, effectively serving as a middle man between the

commissioners and the various housing agencies.19 Acting more as a mediator than coordinator,

Palmer was only able to determine and measure the need for housing and pass on his findings (with

the president’s approval) to Carmody at the FWA, who held most of the non-military purse strings.

This caused a notable amount of friction between the men. “Jealous of Palmer’s rank,”

Architectural Forum wrote in early 1941, “Carmody has not followed his recommendations

without time-consuming arguments and peace-disrupting bickering concerning the types of

housing needed. With an over abundance of bosses the defense housing program has thus suffered

from divided authority.”20 On January 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the

Division of Defense Housing Coordination (DDHC), giving Palmer authority to act as his

representative with the housing agencies and to determine defense housing standards, coordinate

research data and review all proposed housing legislation.21 Although he still had no punitive

powers to crack down on housing agencies and their officials, Roosevelt's order was a sign of

tremendous confidence on behalf of the president and offered a strong counterpoint to Palmer’s

many detractors, including the national defense advisory commissioners, who wanted defense

housing within their offices, the professional public housers at USHA, who had received little work

to date, and Carmody, who had flouted his position.22 Despite this show of support, the president’s

move only further inflamed the tense relationships between the government agencies, leading to

19 “Defense Advisors Tell Housing Role,” New York Times, August 20, 1940, 19.
20
“State of the Program,” Architectural Forum 74 (February 1941): 82.
21 According to the NHA’s Administrative History of late 1945, the Bureau of the Budget played a

significant role in creating an independent position for Palmer. Specifically, the agency wanted
Palmer to operated within the Office of Emergency Management, rather than the Council of
National Defense. For more, see Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of the
Administrator,” RG 207, NACP.
22
As far as the National Defense Advisory Commission was concerned, it was mostly labor’s
representative, Sidney Hillman, and the consumer representative, Harriet Elliot, who opposed
Palmer’s elevation.

!24
disagreements that would eventually spill over into public view, sowing confusion and

undermining confidence in the government’s ability to do the job.

Housing disputes escalate

As the Lanham Act appropriations neared exhaustion in early 1941, and the prospect of more

appropriations and amendments to the act became likely, debates over various aspects of the

defense housing program intensified. These disputes covered a variety of issues including the

defense homes themselves (their location, quality, ability to procure priorities for building

materials, method of construction, and what kind of amenities they should include), financing

(including Congressional supervision over the allocated war housing funds, the amount of

additional appropriations for public housing, and subsidies for private development), and authority

(local versus federal, coordinator versus administrator, and Congress versus the housing agencies).

Moreover, as it became clear that the FWA was actively embracing modern architecture and

experimentation in design and construction methods, some chafed at the accelerated rate of change.

Although some of the tension between the various agencies had been reported occasionally in

newspapers and trade magazines, it wasn’t until the Truman Committee hearings of October and

November 1941 that the level of acrimony within the defense housing program was openly

exposed.

In February 1941, Palmer asked Congress for an additional $150 million to continue

building housing under the Lanham Act.23 The road to attaining this additional money, however,

was not smooth. Despite the urgency of the situation, the additional appropriation was held up in

23
In addition to the $150 million for federal construction, $6.75 million was also allocated for
temporary dwellings such as dorms and trailers. The federal construction funding alone was
estimated to provide 37,000 dwelling units in sixty defense areas. “Palmer to Ask Congressional
Action as Prior Appropriations Near Exhaustion,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1941, 2; “Asks
$156,750,000 in Defense Housing,” New York Times, February 6, 1941, 12.

!25
Congress by the House Rules Committee, and in particular by Representative William M. Colmer,

a Democrat who objected to the “frills” being included in projects programmed thus far, such as

electric refrigerators, electric ranges and “other such gadgets of the mechanical era.”24 Many in

Congress feared the prospect of over-spending, and were opposed to the idea of pampering defense

workers with brand new homes while servicemen were forced to leave theirs. Indeed, some

congressmen argued, the houses was built for the worker, the rents were low, and jobs were well-

paid; why, then, shouldn’t workers buy their own equipment, like refrigerators? Similarly, private

interests, such as an ice manufacturer from Mississippi (Colmer’s home state), argued to Congress

that workers should be able to choose their equipment, offering a rationale based on individual

freedom and democracy.

Reacting to these charges and attempting to combat the prospect of waste, Palmer and

Carmody promised that the equipment would be provided judiciously. Accordingly, the Lanham

committee added an amendment stating that “all items of cost shall be separately estimated with a

view towards economy” and that no “movable equipment” would be installed unless it was deemed

to be in the “public interest”—changes that resulted in an eventual authorization at the end of April

1941.25 This episode, which was widely portrayed in the media as a case of federal overreach and

overspending, underscored the dilemma faced by housing officials: how to build good houses

within a short period of time that would attract and retain defense workers, while at the same time

managing federal budgetary interests and the desires of the real estate industry, which saw

permanent government-owned housing as a threat to the private housing market.

In an effort to speed production, Palmer also pushed forward another proposal in his

request to Congress that would have consequences for the output of private builders. It was an

24 John B. Oakes, “U.S. Defense Housing Frills Hold Up Bill,” Washington Post, Mar 7, 1941, 2;
John B. Oakes, “Group Reports Housing Bill Minus ‘Frills’” Washington Post, March 11, 1941, 6.
25
“‘Frills’ Removed from Housing Plan,” The Baltimore Sun. May 14, 1941, 9.

!26
amendment to the National Housing Act, called Title VI, which would create a defense housing

insurance fund of $10 million, intended to expedite participation by private development in the

government’s housing effort. Under this amendment, loans to builders were insured up to ninety

percent of the FHA’s appraised value of the property where the value ranged from $4000 for a

single-family residence to $10,500 for a four-family apartment building. In other words, private

builders of defense housing would face far less risk as they constructed defense homes, and by

extension, the burden on the government to build defense housing would be lessened. This type of

mortgage insurance was a device that the government did not have at its disposal during World War

I when it wished to induce private permanent construction. Palmer explained that it was the

“adaptation of normal methods of financing to the present situation,” which would “provide an

expeditious and flexible method of producing the required housing with a minimum of dislocation

to the community, the private construction industry, and the system of residential financing.”26 This

was quite different from the long-standing Title II, which had only provided FHA mortgages to an

owner who was also an occupant. Now, under Title VI, speculative builders could obtain a

favorable mortgage on a dwelling unit and put it up either for sale or for rent, potentially opening

up the flood gates of private development.

Proponents of public housing and the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a longtime

housing advocate, strenuously opposed Title VI. They argued that helping the speculative builder

sell homes to workers who could hardly afford them, and who may not even work in the defense

industries, would put millions in public funding at risk.27 Edith Elmer Wood, a staunch public

housing supporter, argued that Title VI suspended most of the safeguards of the regular federal

mortgage insurance system in that both builders and home buyers could walk away from mortgage

contracts without repercussions. This, she argued, would leave those who truly desired home

26 “Asks $156,750,000 in Defense Housing.”

27
Vinton, “Memorandum on Housing for Workers in National Defense,” CBWP, BANC.

!27
ownership in the most trouble, since they would put the most money into the houses. “When the

emergency ends and the job ends, they will not be able to keep up their payments. Houses will be a

drug in the market. They will lose home and savings and will naturally—and rightly—blame their

government. The more widely Title VI will have been used,” she wrote, “the more such tragedies

there will be.”28 Renowned houser Catherine Bauer (Fig. 1.10) concurred, noting that “Title VI is a

much more serious problem than any row among Federal personalities.”29 Maintaining that the

amendment was a step back toward the unchecked speculative development of the 1920s, Bauer

cited the flourishing private development in Vallejo, California, which she predicted would become

a ghost town once the associated shipyard stopped booming. Moreover, she found, speculative

development was more often than not prohibitively expensive, of below-standard quality, and

inexplicably able to receive priorities for building materials despite the fact that there were no

assurances defense workers would occupy the homes.

Labor interests were more split on Title VI. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

saw the plan as an opportunity to build housing projects with private capital, but the AFL believed

the plan put workers, and the taxpayer, at unnecessary risk, calling it “the most astounding, most

outrageous, and most unethical legislative proposal ever advocated by the responsible officials of a

democratic government.”30 Ultimately, with Title VI, the government was beginning to shape its

postwar housing policy, in which economic motivations (namely, the determination to avoid a post-

war depression) trumped the concerns of public housing supporters and the AFL. By 1942,

companies like the National Plan Service were already advertising dwellings, like the

“Nickols” (Fig. 1.11), a two-unit home designed to meet the requirements of Title VI. The

28
Edith Elmer Wood, “Danger Points in Defense Housing,” Survey Graphic 30 (August 1941):
433.
29 Catherine Bauer, “On the Experience of California With Defense Housing Agencies and

Recommendations Therefrom,” November 12, 1941, Carton 10, CBWP, BANC.

30
American Federal of Labor quoted in Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of the
Administrator,” RG 207, NACP.

!28
development of Title VI clearly foreshadowed the trajectory of post-war housing, which would be

defined by a weakened public housing mechanism and robust federal subsidies for private

development.

While the government gave freer reign to private industry, it also extended its own reach. In

particular, the FWA stood out for making the most conspicuous effort to centralize its own power.

One of its tactics was to ignore local housing authorities (a key component of the 1937 U.S.

Housing Act), despite the urging of Palmer and Straus for maximum decentralization in the

housing program. Carmody dubiously asserted that he doubted the legal authority of the local

housing agencies, even in the face of Palmer’s assurance that they had sufficient jurisdiction.31 To

Bauer, this fondness for over-centralization, which in the 1930s had brought down Harold Ickes’

PWA Housing Division, was rooted in the “assumption that most local officials are either too

stupid to listen to, or trying to cheat the Federal Government.”32 Carmody also chose to ignore a

number of Palmer’s programming recommendations, including a call for “demountable” housing,

which could be built, dismantled, and possibly used again after the emergency. He also dismissed

guidelines for the location and density of housing project sites and the type of construction to be

used. Furthermore, Carmody created two new divisions for letting contracts—the Division of

Defense Housing, run by Clark Foreman (Fig. 1.12), and the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing

Division, run by Lawrence Westbrook (Fig. 1.13), both of which explicitly endorsed the use of

modern architecture—instead of assigning the work to his sub-agencies. He also concentrated all

project management supervision within his office. Carmody saw Palmer’s position as coordinator

as superfluous and believed his agency could do the job quicker, better, and cheaper. In testimony

31“Exhibit C: Confidential Memorandum,” April 30, 1941, included as part of Personal and
Confidential Report to the President on Defense Housing; General Records, 1940-42; Entry 22,
Box 12; RG 207, NACP.
32
Bauer, “On the Experience of California With Defense Housing Agencies and Recommendations
Therefrom.”

!29
before the House Public Buildings and Grounds Committee in mid-1941, Carmody said: “It is

simple as A, B, C, and if we complicate it with a lot of coordinators with very large staffs of men

duplicating everything that is done by this small group, we shall not only have a very expensive

operation but the job won’t even get started.” 33 With these actions, Carmody was attempting to

marshall control of the housing apparatus. But his statements only served to make it obvious that

the housing program was facing serious internal difficulties.

By early September 1941, the program’s intractable dysfunction was more than clear to

Palmer, who submitted a report to the president outlining the ups and downs of the defense housing

program to date.34 With a total direct and indirect governmental program of $793 million, more

than 200,000 houses as well as trailers and dormitories had been provided as part of the “largest

and most diverse program of public housing ever attempted by any nation.” However, he conceded,

the output could have been greater if the nine agencies charged with building this housing “had

paid less attention to their own ambitions and more to Uncle Sam’s needs.” Significantly, Palmer

strongly advocated for a prompt housing re-organization to centralize authority and responsibility,

since sheer persuasion was no longer getting the job done. “I once hoped and thought

reorganization could wait until after the emergency,” Palmer reflected. “It is now self-evident that

it cannot. Reorganization has already been too long postponed.” By this time, Roosevelt had

already tasked Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, an advisor and confident, with creating a reorganization

plan for the defense housing program. The conflict between Palmer and Carmody, soon revealed in

detail during hearings of the Truman Committee, further accelerated the path toward

reorganization.

33 This is something Carmody said before the Public Buildings and Grounds Committee during
hearings on H.R. 3570. See “Exhibit C: Confidential Memorandum,” April 30, 1941.
34
Charles Palmer to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, September 2, 1941, included as part of
Personal and Confidential Report to the President on Defense Housing; General Records, 1940-42;
Entry 22, Box 12; RG 207, NACP.

!30
 The Truman Committee (Fig. 1.14), otherwise known as the Special Committee

Investigating the National Defense Program, was a Congressional investigative body headed by

Senator Harry S. Truman.35 It was founded in March 1941 and charged with identifying waste,

inefficiency and corruption within the war production program. In October and November, it held

hearings on the subject of non-military housing and called Carmody, Palmer and Straus to testify.

In the hearings, all three expounded on issues that had been bones of contention between them,

including dormitories and demountable housing.36 The dormitories issue centered around the

question of who defense housing was meant for—families, or single men and women—and thus

the degree to which defense housing was an emergency measure versus a long-term program.

Carmody argued that the Lanham Act designated the funds be used only for family units, indicating

a preference for permanent construction that could make long-lasting contributions to localities

across the United States. Palmer insisted that it was perfectly legal to build dorms, and thus provide

housing for, in particular, young men who tended to move from factory to factory. Carmody

begrudgingly built dormitories, but as both agencies failed to consider the furnishings for these

buildings, many structures ended up largely vacant, providing more fodder for mutual

recrimination.

The truth was that the need for dormitories was acute, and became only more so after the

attacks on Pearl Harbor and America’s formal entry into the war. In 1943, Sally Carrighar wrote

about the building type for Architect and Engineer, noting that at the beginning of the war, the

worker without a family was generally perceived as a “sub-standard human being, as ready as the

buildings to vanish overnight,” and consequently only given thinly designed, ill-lit buildings to

35 The Truman Committee formed under the United States Senate, 77th Congress, First Session,
Pursuant to Senate Resolution 71.
36
“Senate Committee Investigating National Defense Program,” October 3, 1941; General Records
Subject File “Housing-Legislation;” Entry 22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP.

!31
reside in.37 As an “architecturally forgotten class,” they had to live in a makeshift way, constantly

reminded that they were the “outsiders” or “odd ones.” These early dorms, almost entirely built by

the FSA, were box-like structures with small rooms and few concessions to livability. Even so,

some architects saw this type as an opportunity to experiment. One such example is the dormitories

at Vallejo (Fig. 1.15), where Vernon DeMars tested prefabricated stressed-skin plywood panels,

which served a structural and cladding purpose. Carmody’s argument that building dormitories

would make the government a hotel operator—a notion Congress did not support—only

perpetuated the idea that dormitories were for transients, and delayed acceptance of the concept

that unattached adults might be entitled to suitable, adequate housing of their own.

The subject of demountable housing raised similar tensions. To Palmer, demountable

housing was an essential component of the defense housing program as it would both prevent

“ghost towns” from emerging once workers left defense areas at the war’s end, and prevent the

expansion of the public housing program without specific Congressional authorization. With this in

mind, Palmer instructed Carmody to build demountable houses; however, Carmody had

considerable trouble doing so and held significant reservations about the the concept itself. To the

Truman Committee, Carmody explained that he could find neither prefabricators able to provide

turn-key houses, nor manufacturers who had actually successfully proven they could successfully

build, demount, and then re-erect a habitable home. Despite this, the FWA’s Division of Defense

Housing set out to explore the problem, noting the tremendous amount of flexibility this type of

housing could provide. Eventually, it contracted nearly 1,700 demountable houses for Vallejo

(Figs. 1.16-1.17), designed by the modernist architect William Wurster. Carmody expressed

skepticism about the Vallejo project to the Truman Committee, commenting that “we hope, and

37
Sally Carrighar, “Dormitories in Transition,” Architect and Engineer 152-53 (February 1943):
15.

!32
according to the plans, they will have demountability.”38 As Carmody pushed back against

demountability, and sought to study the problem further, he successfully changed projects that were

intended to be demountable into permanent housing. Palmer admitted that this was allowed due to

the incredible need for housing, but also due to the FWA’s insistence on “additional research,

which in many instances, I think was unnecessary, and with more of determination to keep

investigating [than] finding out how to do the job.”39 Ultimately, Wurster’s project in Vallejo was a

resounding success, but it did not signal the government’s acceptance of demountability or

prefabrication as viable methods of construction.

More significant than these individual skirmishes was Senator Truman’s finding of an

overall lack of coordination between the agencies. In a report put out in January 1942, both Palmer

and Carmody were singled out for a blanket charge of “many mistakes, gross waste, extravagance,

inefficiency and petty jealousies.” 40 The committee found that with so many agencies involved, no

one was being held responsible, and thus delay and confusion prevailed. In the end, Senator

Truman found Straus’ testimony about the sidelining of USHA especially compelling, and a solid

example of mismanagement within the defense housing program. Straus told the committee that at

the beginning of the defense housing program he “felt a sense of exultation” as he surveyed “the

machinery available to build defense houses,” namely the local housing authorities he had helped

cultivate.41 Despite the construction of several successful early projects, he found USHA bypassed

time and time again.42 First, all of the Lanham Act money was given to the FWA, then the housing

38
Testimony by John Carmody in “Senate Committee Investigating National Defense Program,”
October 3, 1941.
39 Testimony by Charles Palmer in “Investigation of National Defense Program,” October 8, 1941;

General Records Subject File “Housing-Legislation;” Entry 22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP.
40
“Brickbats,” Architectural Forum 76, no. 2 (February 1942): 79.
41 Nathan Straus, “Statement… before the Special Senate Committee Investigating the National

Defense Program (The Truman Committee),” October 29, 1941; Carton 10, CBWP, BANC.
42
Some successful early projects included Centerline in Detroit, Michigan (Eliel & Eero Saarinen),
Middletown, Pennsylvania (George Howe & Louis I. Kahn) and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
(Antonin Raymond).

!33
work was given to the PBA, and finally the FWA created the Division of Defense Housing, a move

that Straus found “pernicious and costly in government, just as it would have been in business.”

The Division of Defense Housing, run by Clark Foreman, then raided USHA’s staff and centralized

administration of the public housing program in Washington, further hampering the growth of the

self-reliant local housing authorities. “The tested and existing machinery, instead of being the

spearhead of defense housing,” Straus complained, “was allowed to survive by sufferance.”

Indeed, the Truman Committee’s scathing report on the government’s defense program

corroborated many of Straus’ statements, calling out the diffusion of authority, the overly

centralized programming structure, the duplication of effort, and the woeful misuse of USHA’s

resources.

In early December 1941, the House and Senate again took up debate on the Lanham Act in

an attempt to replenish the program’s coffers, which had been depleted in August, once again. As

part of this effort, the Lanham committee proposed a number of amendments to the act including

barring USHA from any more war housing construction, giving all new work to the PBA,

prohibiting disposition of the housing projects to local agencies after the war, and requiring that

rents be based on value of dwellings rather than the incomes of workers, which would effectively

limit the availability of low-cost rentals. 43 These amendments reflected Congress’ mounting

animosity toward subsidized public housing and to USHA’s Nathan Straus, its growing conviction

that the war housing program was being marred by illegitimate social objectives, and its disdain for

the public feud between Palmer and Carmody.

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the subsequent declaration of war on

Japan made funding the defense housing program supremely urgent, yet the details of the Lanham

Act and its appropriations were mired in conflict.44 Palmer believed that the amendments would be

43 These were passed by Congress as H.R. 6128 in the 77th Congress, First Session.
44
“Politicos in Congress Gum up War Housing,” New York Daily News, December 22, 1941.

!34
fatal to the program and in a letter to Lanham implored him to reconsider. 45 When the Senate

refused to pass the bill, it was obvious political sacrifices would need to be made to clear the

impasse. Soon after, the major heads of the housing agencies began to roll: Straus handed in his

resignation to the president; Carmody was shifted to the Maritime Commission, clearing the way

for the Congressionally acceptable choice of Brigadier General Phillip B. Fleming to take over;

and Clark Foreman, the head of the FWA’s Division of Defense Housing (which was never fully

authorized by Congress) was transferred to other duties.46 Another casualty of these changes was

the FWA’s foray into experimental modern architecture. When the FWA’s Division of Defense

Housing was dissolved, some projects were canceled, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s commission

for 100 permanent defense homes in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (Fig. 1.18). At issue was Congress’

insistence on the use of local architects and the adherence to local city planning codes and local

traditions. Wright countered, however, that the project was being abandoned without even

considering its extraordinary economy and the design’s ability to offer “a rapid short-cut to

scientific building.”47 Nevertheless, Wright's objections went unacknowledged and the project was

scrapped.

Others who lined up with Palmer in opposition to the proposed Lanham Act amendments

included officials from the War Department; the AFL, which said the amendments would “serve to

defeat the very purpose for which the Bill has been proposed"; and the CIO, which called the

45
Charles Palmer to Congressman Fritz Lanham, December 2, 1941; General Records Subject File
“Housing-Legislation;” Entry 22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP.
46 Winifred Mallons, “Straus Quits Post as Head of USHA,” New York Times, January 6, 1942, 17.

Carmody helped Foreman find another job. See John Carmody to Herbert Emmerich, February 20,
1942; General Correspondence; Box 64, John Carmody Papers, 1900-1966, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Library, Hyde Park, New York.
47
“Wright Loses Job on Defense Homes,” New York Times, January 22, 1942, 23. Also notable is
Clark Foreman's letter to Life magazine defending Wright's design, see Clark Foreman, “Frank
Lloyd Wright,” Life (September 2, 1946): 21. Ultimately, the project was given to a local architect
and designated as demountable.

!35
amendments “utterly unsocial, unintelligent, and inexcusable.”48 Bauer called the amendments

“disastrous,” and called again for a single public housing agency.49 Yet private stakeholders, like

Morton Bodfish of the U.S. Savings and Loan League, who thought the defense housing program

had been used to unjustly promote and expand the public housing program, celebrated the

amendments. In a letter to Palmer, Bodfish implied that low-rent defense housing was socialist

endeavor, calling income-based rentals “more foreign than American.” Moreover, he suggested that

any projects using public funds should reduce their construction costs and provide only bare

accommodations, so that people, particularly deployed soldiers living in tents, wouldn’t see them

as “semi-luxurious.” 50 As a focal point of social and economic issues, the Lanham Act became a

vehicle by which competing interests could further their own goals, and consequently, attempt to

influence post-war policy.

After some negotiation, the House and Senate agreed on a compromise draft, and in

January 1942 the major changes to the Lanham Act went into effect.51 These included $300 million

in additional appropriations for permanent housing and $150 million for community facilities, an

increase in the average cost of permanent dwelling units, and new powers for the FWA

administrator (now Fleming), who could determine the need for temporary units (rather than the

president), declare policy on the disposition of housing, and give authority to construct projects

through the agencies as he chose, although consultation with local housing authorities was now

mandatory. As far as rental prices were concerned, the administrator was instructed to fix rental

prices on the value of the unit, but given license to, “in exceptional cases,” adjust the rental to the

48 Representatives of the AFL and CIO quoted in Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of
the Administrator,” RG 207, NACP.
49
Catherine Bauer to Senator Robert F. Wagner, December 18, 1941; Box 1, CBWP, BANC.
50 Morton Bodfish to Charles Palmer, December 19, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-

Legislation;” Entry 22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP.

51
The compromise was passed as Public Law No. 409 on January 21, 1942, and was signed by the
president on January 22.

!36
income of the tenant during the emergency, thus continuing to subsidize low-rent housing and

continue the mandate of public housing. As significant as these changes were, they hardly affected

the greater governmental structure with its hydra-headed and sprawling administration. Before

America entered the war, some worried that reorganization, a complicated procedure that in

peacetime would have required legislation, would slow the housing machine. However, with the

declaration of war on December 11, 1941, and the revival of the Overman Act of World War I—an

emergency law that expanded federal power, authorizing the president to consolidate governmental

agencies to more efficiently prosecute the war—reorganization became all but a foregone

conclusion.52

Coordination gives way to consolidation

As the subject of housing reorganization was discussed in architectural and governmental circles,

many wondered what would happen to Palmer and his Division of Defense Housing Coordination.

In early December the New York Times reported that Judge Rosenman, who was working on a plan

for a huge new agency to take over all the government housing activities, insisted on a clarification

of Palmer’s role.53 Although some housing authorities had urged that Palmer’s office be abolished,

Rosenman found its role a necessary “balance between public and private housing.” Indeed,

Palmer had held a tenuous role as the middle man between these realms. He complained to the

Truman Committee that he had been “violently attacked by extremists on both sides… accused, on

the one hand, of fostering needless public housing and, on the other hand, of favoring real estate

52 During World War II, the emergency law was not known as the Overman Act. It was called the
War Powers Act of 1941, also known as the First War Powers Act, and was signed by President
Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941. It gave the President the ability to not only
reorganize and shift the functions of any Federal agency, but also transfer appropriations.
53
Thomas J. Hamilton, “Asks That Palmer Be Kept on Housing,” New York Times, December 4,
1941, 18.

!37
interests.”54 Catherine Bauer thought his real problem was that he had attempted to play an overly

elaborate game of public relations. “I think he assumed that, since public housing would have to be

done anyway to a certain extent, it would be tactical to try to win over the real estate boys by

acting unfriendly to the experienced public housers and their agencies (thereby settling some

personal scores at the same time).”55 Whether or not this was true, it was clear that Palmer's role

did hold some value despite the difficulties he faced with the housing agencies, particularly

Carmody and the FWA. Arguably, the acrimony he faced could be attributed just as much to the

lack of definition of the jurisdictions of both the DDHC and the FWA as to clashing personalities.

Still, Bauer worried that the destructive feuds between Palmer, Carmody and Straus were

indicative of greater problems within the country itself. “The successful operation of a bureaucracy

in a democratic country on such matters as housing seems to me,” she wrote, “in the long run,

almost more important than the war itself (which we’re bound to win sooner or later, while of the

other I’m not so nearly certain).” 56 Housing, and its administrative structure, could, she implied, be

symbolic of democracy itself when its driving force was the needs of the American people,

recognized, expressed and fulfilled by themselves.

Rosenman’s plan was finally made clear at the end of February 1942, when Roosevelt

signed an executive order to create a streamlined National Housing Agency (NHA), which would

have a single administrator with full power to carry out a swifter and more efficient prosecution of

the government’s housing work. By this time, sixteen different agencies were involved with

housing (including some within the Federal Loan Agency), either building with public funds or

54
Charles Palmer, “Additional Statement, Submitted to the Special Senate Committee
Investigating the National Defense Program,” November 29, 1941; Entry 22, Box 12; RG 207,
NACP.
55 Catherine Bauer to Jacob Crane, June 16, 1942; Box 1, CBWP, BANC.
56
Ibid.

!38
encouraging private enterprise to do so through the extension of government credit or guarantees.57

Within the new agency there were three constituent units (Fig. 1.19): the Federal Public Housing

Authority (FPHA), which would control housing built with public money; the Federal Housing

Administration (FHA), which would guarantee or insure mortgages placed by banks and lending

institutions; and the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration (FHLBA), which would finance

home ownership and construction. Although some speculated that Palmer’s Division of Defense

Housing Coordination could survive the shake-up, the agency, and with it the grievances laid on

Palmer’s head, disappeared with reorganization.58 The government’s press release commended

Palmer’s “excellent and patriotic” service rendered under “the difficult procedure and the scattered

responsibility which has been in effect heretofore.”59 Shortly after, Palmer was sent to England at

the president’s request to study housing methods and post-war planning as a representative of the

NHA.

The new head of the NHA was John B. Blandford, Jr. (Fig. 1.20), a mechanical engineer by

training and career public servant who had worked in local city governments, as general manager

at the TVA (1933-39), and most recently as assistant director of the budget (1939-41) before taking

control of the NHA. Where Palmer and Carmody could be hot headed, Blandford was expected to

be a level-minded bureaucrat through and through. Now that the administrative pattern was

streamlined, architectural journals puzzled over what direction Blandford would steer the program.

57
The agencies included: the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Home Loan Bank
Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank System, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation,
the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the United States Housing Authority, the Defense Homes
Corporation, and the non-farm public housing of the Farm Security Administration, the Federal
Works Agency, the Public Buildings Administration, the Division of Defense Housing (within the
Federal Works Agency), the War and Navy Departments, the defense housing of the Farm Security
Administration, and the Division of Defense Housing Coordination.
58 Kendall Hoyt wrote that he thought Palmer might survive: “Quite possibly the Defense Housing

Coordinator’s office will ride through in fair shape,” in “Government Moves to Strengthen Defense
Construction,” Architectural Record 91, no. 1 (January 1942): 16.
59
Press release, February 24, 1942; General Records Subject File “Housing-Legislation;” Entry
22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP.

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Would war housing be expanded or contracted? Would local housing authorities, or Washington,

dominate? Would private enterprise be offered even more incentives to build? Would housing

standards improve? Or would increased speed bring housing quality down even further?

As the troubled days of the defense housing program began to pass (referred to by some

congressmen as “BB” or “Before Blandford”), the new NHA head laid out his plan for the agency

as he requested an additional $600 million from Congress.60 First, the NHA would immediately

decentralize operations to speed construction, creating ten regional offices to expedite the work.

Second, the focus of the NHA would shift to temporary housing, with ninety percent of new

construction consisting of temporary dormitories and mass shelter structures, effectively curtailing

the construction of permanent dwellings. In the early years of the war, top policy makers had seen

the emergency as an opportunity to shape a platform for an expanded post-war public housing

drive, but with the shift to temporary dwellings, this strategy was brought to a standstill. “Thus for

the first time since the construction program started,” Architectural Record wrote, “the

Administration has divorced the social aspects of the housing campaign from the immediate

exigencies of the critically short housing situation.”61 Indeed, given the dire housing shortage the

country faced in mid-1942, a Congress that was antagonistic toward public housing, daunting

gasoline and rubber shortages affecting the movement of materials and workers, as well as the

public takedowns of modernist housing projects such as Aluminum City Terrace, designed by

Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, Blandford likely had little choice but to end the experimental

phase of the war housing program.

The housing situation Blandford inherited was exceedingly grave. Twelve million new

workers were expected to be hired in war centers during 1942, most of which would be recruited

locally, but at least 1.6 million workers were estimated to arrive from other localities, requiring

60 “War Housing & Vice Versa,” Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): 34.
61
Raymond D. Dickey, “Washington News,” Architectural Record 92, no. 1 (July 1942): 7.

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over a million units of housing (Fig. 1.21). Some of these in-migrants could be housed in existing

structures (about 650,000 units) and some in private and public construction already programmed

(210,000 units). That meant that the rest would have to be housed in approximately 175,000 units

of publicly financed dormitories and apartments, 85,000 units of publicly financed family units,

and 200,000 units of private construction. Blandford appointed Herbert Emmerich (Fig. 1.22) to

lead the NHA’s public housing arm, which would be responsible for building some of these units.62

The new FPHA head came from a long career in public administration and housing, having

participated in the City Housing Corporation (designers, builders and managers of Sunnyside in

Queens, New York and Radburn, New Jersey), the War Production Board, and the Public

Administration Clearing House, where he made surveys in public administration. The choice was

celebrated by housers, who recognized Emmerich’s alignment with progressive social movements.

Yet coming directly from the War Production Board, Emmerich was keenly sensitive to the acute

scarcity of materials and recognized that areas with isolated war plants were unlikely to sustain a

permanent population after the war. Thus, in a shift, Emmerich fully embraced demountable

construction, as well as prefabrication in general, an acknowledgment that the flexibility of the

early war—when materials were less scarce and there was adequate political capital to build

permanent housing—was no longer an option.

Once the decision was made to build temporary housing, the production job was greatly

simplified with the adoption of standardized types and set allocations for strategic materials. As

Emmerich would later recall in the Journal of Housing, “the design problem and the priorities

problem were no longer bottlenecks and in two and one-half years we were able to complete

almost half a million units.” 63 A representative example of this type of temporary housing was the

62 Raymond R. Dickey, “Herbert Emmerich Appointed New Head of FPHA,” Architectural

Record 91, no. 4 (April 1942): 16.
63
Herbert Emmerich, “World War II Housing,” Journal of Housing 12 (July 1955): 233.

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complete war community for 6,000 that was built in Marin City, California (Figs. 1.23-1.24). Until

the war, this San Francisco suburb primarily consisted of commuters and retired businessmen.

When the U.S. Maritime Commission decided to build a new shipyard nearby in March 1942 that

all changed, and by mid-November an entire city of temporary dwellings was occupied, made up

of 700 apartments, 800 detached and semi-detached houses and 758 dormitories for single men,

along with community and commercial buildings.64 Undertaken by a newly created local housing

authority and designed by local architect Carl F. Grommé and landscape architect Thomas Church,

the project demonstrated the speed and scope of the NHA’s building program. All of the housing

was built using standard FPHA plans, gently adapted to local climactic conditions and materials.

Although the housing was austere, it was cheap, safe, and sturdy. It also used fewer critical

materials than permanent construction and aimed to sustain morale with well-planned community

buildings.

Of all the types of temporary construction, “duration dormitories” perhaps offered the best

opportunity to solve the housing crisis with their incredible residential capacity and their ability to

physically concentrate services like plumbing, thus saving materials. Creatively hemmed in on

other fronts, architects began to to analyze the dormitory type and offer new thoughts on

construction methods, materials and layouts. The FPHA retained architects such as Paul Nelson,

Saarinen & Swanson, and Frederick L. Ackerman to investigate the problem. Each devised a

variation of a building with central sanitary units flanked by sleeping wings (Figs. 1.25-1.30). Soon

dormitory design showed significant advances over those built during the early war. One example

is the dormitories that were built in Sausalito, California, designed by Blanchard, Maher & Ward

(Figs. 1.31-1.32). The structures—with two short wings extending from a central core—were

larger and less flimsy than the earlier FSA dorms and could flexibly adapt to local terrain. The

64
“Marin City, California,” Architectural Forum 79 (December 1943): 67-74.

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project, unlike its earlier predecessors, also included extensive community facilities such as

lounges with furniture, a gymnasium, game room, library, cafe and cafeteria (Fig. 1.33). To Sally

Carrighar, of Architect and Engineer, these amenities provided the “home element” other types of

housing rarely provided for single people.65 With the shift to temporary construction, an

increasingly streamlined production program, and a more businesslike attitude on the part of the

government, the public housing program did become more of a “war tool” and less of an

opportunity for social and architectural experiments. However, as the experience with dormitories

show, architects and planners still found ways to creatively challenge the status quo.

Nevertheless, in the eyes of many housers, Blandford was slowly discontinuing the most

stimulating aspects of the war housing program, particularly experimentation in design and

construction methods. When interviewed by the Architectural Forum in September 1943,

Blandford insisted that the NHA was definitely interested in new methods and modern design,

however, only “within a framework of orderly evolution of consumer tastes and demands and

orderly adjustment of the production and financing techniques of the building industry.” 66

Blandford expounded that the government shouldn’t promote “on a large scale” any specific

construction methods or designs without proof of their economic feasibility or public acceptance,

nor use large-scale publicly financed housing projects as subjects for these types of experiments.

Bauer found this point of view dogmatic and boring: “I’d almost rather deal with a reactionary who

is interested in housing and planning problems and issues per se, than a man who simply sees the

whole thing as an array of pressure groups, equally selfish and unreasonable, among whom he

must steer a cautious course that will somehow save his skin and prove that public administration

is a ‘pure’ science.”67

65
Carrighar, “Dormitories in Transition,” 25.
66 “An Interview with John B. Blandford, Jr.,” Architectural Forum 79 (September 1943): 61.
67
Catherine Bauer to Miss [?] Griffith, August 25, 1943; Box 1, CBWP, BANC.

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 Labor similarly found problems with Blandford’s philosophy on housing, particularly its

financing. The United Automobile Workers-Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO)

especially deplored his support for additional Title VI money, which gave a large share of critical

materials to private builders. “Thus, despite the supposed ending of the real estate regime of

Charles F. Palmer,” wrote R.J. Thomas, the president of the UAW-CIO, “the NHA is continuing the

fatal policy of helping private enterprise produce war housing despite the obvious fact that private

enterprise is not able to do so in time, or at the right place, or at rents and costs which war workers

can afford.”68 Regardless of these complaints, the war housing program operated more smoothly

under Blandford’s tenure, noticeably lacking the political drama of the housing program’s early

years.

In December 1943, Blandford presciently declared that war housing was in its home stretch

(Fig. 1.34). 69 Each day 2,000 new homes became ready for war workers to move into. It was

predicted that the program would reach its peak production in the spring of 1944, after which war

spending would level off and worker migration would subside. For 1944, the NHA estimated that

260,000 houses were needed—half to be built by private development and half by the FPHA.

However, Blandford’s request to Congress for an additional $200 million in public housing

appropriations fell on deaf ears. When he was only given $50 million—an amount that would

barely cover housing that was already programmed—he canceled the public housing program

altogether until Congress reconsidered the amount of the appropriation. With the public housing

program in limbo, the FPHA shifted its focus to its conversion program, which offered money to

renovate existing buildings for housing. This ongoing program was booming among an almost

universal chorus of approval: the War Production Board liked saving critical metal; Congress liked

68 R.J. Thomas (president of the UAW-CIO) to an unspecified congressman, June 1, 1942; General
Records Subject File “Housing-Labor;” Entry 26, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
69
“End in Sight,” Architectural Forum 79 (December 1943): 45.

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saving dollars; and property owners liked the revenue that federal leasing offered. A representative

example is the factory in Southbridge, Massachusetts (Fig. 1.35), which was converted into

lodging for 98 female workers at the American Optical Company plant. Overall, some 200,000

homes were provided by public and private conversions. 70

As the tide of the war turned in 1944, the NHA adjusted to diminishing requirements for

additional war housing. The country shifted focus to the post-war era, when the government would

have to dispose of surplus property, demobilize and reemploy manpower, and plan for returning

veterans and their families. Indicative of this shift was the replacement of Emmerich as head of

FPHA with Philip M. Klutznick, a lawyer who had previously headed the NHA’s homes’ use

program, which was responsible for finding lodging in existing housing for nearly two million war

workers. Klutznick, who took over in May 1944, had endeared himself to private enterprise and

oversaw the downsizing of the publicly financed part of the war housing program. Part of this

downsizing involved the disposition of existing war housing. Although authorities could begin to

organize for the transfer of permanent war housing projects to local governments for use as low-

rent projects, the thornier issue was what to do with the temporary housing, which by law the

government had to dispose of within two years of the war’s end and could not be sold for

residential use, despite that fact that about a half-million families still occupied them. By January

1944, 400,851 temporary units had been finished or were under construction, meaning that the

NHA would have to unload almost as much housing as private enterprise built in any previous war

year since 1929.71 To tear it all down, Architectural Forum estimated, would be something like

razing all of the houses in Detroit. Other options for disposition included materials salvage and use

as utility and farm buildings by city, state and federal agencies (Fig. 1.36). Despite the fact that the

70 “Popular Program,” Architectural Forum 79 (December 1943): 47.

71
“Temporary Turmoil,” Architectural Forum 80 (March 1944): 62.

!45
government’s portfolio consisted over near $2 billion worth of housing, many assumed that

disposition would could and would begin the moment the war was over.

However, even when the war ended in 1945, many communities still could not meet their

housing needs without the continuing use of temporary housing. Under the Servicemen’s

Readjustment Act of 1944 (more commonly known as the G.I. Bill), returning veterans could

obtain low-cost mortgage loans, but no provision was made for those who could only afford to

rent. Although more than a million mortgage applications were submitted before the end of 1944,

many veterans who could not afford to buy were excluded from the act’s benefits and had difficulty

finding housing. In response, Congress amended the Lanham Act to include Title V, which allowed

for the transfer of temporary dwellings from war use to veteran use. These housing shortages

continued for several years, and full disposition was ultimately deferred until 1950. According to

Emmerich, the move to delay the disposition of temporary structures “aided in the most successful

adjustment in American history of discharged soldiers back into civilian life,” proving, once again,

the essential nature of the housing built by the government during World War II.72 In organizing,

financing and managing one of the largest American building campaigns ever, the government

addressed many fundamental questions about housing and the extent to which it could factor into

the winning of a modern war.

Labor, race, and war housing

During World War II the American government regarded labor as an essential war tool. The

construction industry and its roster of laborers—carpenters, masons, electricians, and so on—who

built homes and community facilities for migrating workers were considered especially crucial,

since without them there would be few laborers to work at factories, and as a consequence, few

72
Emmerich, “World War II Housing,” 233.

!46
instruments of war to ensure victory. Labor had come of age with the government’s support of the

New Deal in the 1930s. Similarly, during World War II, an expanded workforce and increasingly

organized unions sparked a new language of inclusiveness, in which laborers were embraced as

patriots of almost equal importance to men on the front. In a 1942 speech to the AFL, FWA

Administrator Fleming proclaimed that “whether we wear the military uniform of khaki or the blue

denim uniform of labor, all of us, in all-out war, are in the Army.” 73 Although the suggestion that

victory could depend upon the carpenter or brick mason—now “soldiers of production”—might

have once seemed preposterous, Fleming underlined the essential nature of labor in that “the

commanders of today know that in modern war it is often difficult to tell just where the work of the

civilian leaves off and the work of the solider begins.”74

The two labor unions that dominated the buildings trades were the AFL, which at the time

controlled most construction labor, and the CIO, which had split from the AFL in 1938, afterward

controlling most shop work. Disputes between these two unions threatened production in the early

years of the defense housing program as each attempted to edge the other out. The key contention

between the groups was prefabrication. The CIO was the weaker group, but it gained power rapidly

during the early war years with the government’s demands for prefabricated dwellings, which

could be manufactured in shops. The AFL was the stronger and more entrenched organization, but

it intensely feared the effect of prefabrication upon craft unions, which it represented, and

eventually came to see prefabrication as synonymous with the CIO. What resulted from this

conflict was a “ticklish situation,” in which Virgil L. Bankson, the labor advisor to Palmer,

73 Brigadier General Philip B Fleming, “Labor Standards in War Time Construction,” (address
delivered to the 36th Annual Convention, Building and Construction Trades Department, American
Federation of Labor, in Toronto, Ontario, September 30, 1942); Speeches of the FWA
Administrators, 1942-43; Entry 32, Box 3; General Records of the Federal Works Agency, Record
Group 162; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
74
For a deeper analysis of the “homefront analogy,” where workers are given equal status as
soldiers, see James T. Sparrow, Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big
Government (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 72.

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counseled that no substance be given AFL’s “suspicion… that the use of prefabrication in defense

housing is advanced by persons… interested in breaking up the building trades,” nor should the

CIO be led to believe “that prefabrication is advanced to give their organization an opportunity for

growth under the guise of defense.”75 The resulting situation was that the AFL was strong and

displeased with prefabrication while the CIO was weak and pleased with the opportunities offered

by prefabrication.

One of the most public episodes of the feud between the labor unions occurred in 1941,

with the “Currier Case,” a controversy over project bidding on defense housing in Detroit. The

scandal began when the Currier Lumber Company, manufacturers and constructors of semi-

prefabricated houses, entered the lowest bid to construct 200 defense houses with CIO labor.

Although Currier submitted the lowest bid, the FWA was prevented from awarding the firm the

contract by the Office of Production Management (OPM), which oversaw the government’s

procurement contracts.76 As it happened, behind the scenes the AFL had cut a deal with the OPM in

which the union agreed to give up certain overtime demands and to submit disputes to negotiation

(in effect, a no-strike policy) in return for a monopoly on defense building. Currier’s bid was

denied because the AFL demanded that the government reject it, or else the union would call

strikes on every defense construction job in Michigan.77 The AFL’s main goal was to prevent

Currier from using CIO labor, and maintain its dominance over the building trades. The national

press and architectural magazines immediately picked up the story. When an anti-trust inquiry was

opened, the Currier case made the front page of the New York Times, and was termed a “cause

75
Virgil L. Bankson to Charles F. Palmer, June 6, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Prefabricated;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
76 The Office of Production Management was superseded by the War Production Board (WPB) in

January 1942 under Roosevelt’s Executive Order No. 9040. The new WPB chair, Donald Nelson,
received sweeping powers over the economic life of the nation.
77
Louis Stark, “AFL-CIO Fight Delays Housing,” New York Times, October 1, 1941, 38.

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célebre” for the CIO and for prefabrication as a construction method. 78 A public battle ensued

between the concept of craft building and prefabrication, with the government effectively stuck in

the middle, worried over the “industrial warfare” that could develop based on these labor

decisions.79 Officials were forced to grapple with the challenge of appeasing labor in the interest of

national defense, weighed against the value of maintaining a fair bidding process to ensure the

long-term health of the national economy, and equitable labor relations.

The editors of the Architectural Forum found the whole situation distressing, titling an

editorial on the subject: “Who is Defending What?” 80 Although the effect of the conflict on the

defense housing program was serious enough, the questions it posed were even more worrisome:

Should the government collaborate with unions when threatened? Would the government sanction

the rejection of prefabrication, which promised to provide decent housing for millions of laboring

men’s families? Some believed the future of prefabrication was assured regardless of the outcome

of the dispute. Palmer, commenting upon the Currier case, noted that prefabrication was “so

inevitable and so desirable that it can no more be resisted than the industrial revolution could have

been resisted.”81 However, others found some aspects of the case troubling. In a letter to the

Forum, Walter Gropius questioned how much of the case was politics and how much was an issue

of real technical progress. In particular, Gropius found the details of Currier’s bid, with its

estimated savings of forty-four percent, suspiciously low, suggesting that the firm's owner was

intentionally losing money in order to protect a longer-term goal. Gropius explained that “the

savings we all expect from prefabrication can come only step by step on an evolutionary basis.”82

Architects like Gropius wanted to know what prefabrication’s turn in the political spotlight would

78
Louis Stark, “AFL Conspiracy to Bar Contracts is Charged to OPM,” New York Times, October
4, 1941, 1.
79 Louis Stark, “Hillman Denies ‘Appeasing AFL,” New York Times, October 23, 1941, 1.
80
“Who is Defending What? —The Currier Case,” Architectural Forum 75 (November 1941): 330.
81 “Arnold May Act in Currier Case,” New York Times, October 11, 1941, 1.
82
Walter Gropius, letter to the editor, Architectural Forum 75 (November 1941): 26.

!49
mean for their future, and the future of the building industry. Ultimately, the bid was never

awarded to Currier. Undaunted, the firm launched a defense housing project of the same size in the

same area, but with private backing.83 Advertisements for the traditionally styled, compact “Currier

Built” houses (Fig. 1.37) boasted its status as a "subject of nation-wide discussion" as well as its

modern engineering and lower monthly cost than the would-be government project.

Although it was stymied in the Currier case, the CIO provided vocal support for policies

that were in line with its desires. One such program was the so-called Camden Plan, a public-

private scheme by which workers could achieve home ownership similar to housing policies tried

in Sweden, Denmark and England. As part of the plan, the government furnished all the initial

capital for a project, then sold or leased the entire property to a mutual housing company whose

stock would then be purchased on an installment plan by residents, eventually amortizing so that in

the end, the residents cooperatively owned and managed the property.84 The plan was designed by

Colonel Lawrence Westbrook, an alumnus of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the

WPA, who initially worked out the scheme for the unbuilt “Park Living Development,” designed

by Richard Neutra in Jacksonville, Florida. Unable to acquire the necessary capital to build the

project, the financing idea lay dormant until Carmody appointed Westbrook as an FWA special

assistant and gave him leave to try it, which he did at Audubon Village (Fig. 1.38) in Camden, New

Jersey, a 500-unit project designed by Oscar Stonorov and Joseph N. Hettel. 85 The project featured

large-scale site planning reminiscent of Radburn, New Jersey, and a variety of well-designed house

types. Since the shipbuilders who were to live in the project were predominately CIO, the union

83
“Currier House,” Architectural Forum 75 (December 1941): 422.
84 The Camden Plan program has been extensively documented in Kristin Szylvian’s The Mutual
Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities for the Urban Middle Class (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 2015).
85
Notably, Camden was the location of one of the most famous World War I-era defense housing
projects, Yorkshire Village, designed by Electus D. Litchfield. For more on the Audubon Village
project, see “Government Housing in a Hurry,” Architectural Forum 74 (May 1941): 341-44.

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demanded its construction workers be given a part in building the project, and that they be able to

submit input on the design. Notably, the CIO requested that the project feature prefabrication,

which would offer the benefit of speed, but also acknowledged that houses could not be turned out

like automobiles, since “people insist on their homes having individuality.”86 The CIO saw the

Camden Plan as a grassroots experiment that would provide affordable home ownership for a large

and important group, while ensuring a high-quality community environment, and simultaneously

planning for the post-war era. Although several mutual home ownership projects were constructed

—many by notable modernist architects—the program stumbled as officials came to question

whether it was covered under the Lanham Act. It ultimately disappeared with reorganization.87

In general, labor already enjoyed significant protections under New Deal-era legislation. 88

However, labor unions failed to offer the same job protections afforded to their white male

members to others, most notably African Americans and women, who entered the workforce in the

highest numbers ever. Few women worked in the building industry, but African Americans made

up a sizable portion of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the defense housing program.

In January 1941, these workers received additional protection through an executive order handed

down by FWA Administrator Carmody, who was in charge of letting contracts for millions of

dollars worth of housing work. Seeking to assure full participation of African American workers in

86
Memorandum by the Housing Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, submitted
to the Office of Emergency Management, April 14, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Legislation;” Entry 22, Box 4; RG 207, NACP. Notably, at Audubon, the AFL actually erected the
houses and seemed to like them: “Obvious conclusion is that the rank and file of AFL labor are not
as much opposed to prefabrication as the blanket protests of their dues-collecting chiefs would lead
the public to believe.” See “Government Housing in a Hurry,” Architectural Forum, 344.
87 Some other Camden Plan projects include: Greenmont Village in Ohio; Avion Village and Dallas

Park in Texas; Bellmawr, Audubon Village and Winfield Park in New Jersey; Pennypack Woods in
Pennsylvania; and Channel Heights in California.
88
This includes the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, which established a requirement to pay local
prevailing wages on federal construction projects, and the Walsh-Healey Act of 1936, which
established overtime pay, a minimum wage determined by the secretary of labor, an age
requirement, and other health and safety standards.

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the construction program, Carmody instituted a policy that contractors had to follow, barring

“discrimination by reason of race, creed, color or political affiliations in the employment of

persons, qualified by training and experience, for work in the development of defense housing.”89

This enforced integration ensured the hiring of black workers, leading to an overall increase in

their employment, their average monthly wages, and the number of skilled workers.90

Similarly, the DDHC developed a set of labor standards for the defense housing program.

However, as the arbiter of housing need, Palmer’s unit also considered the issue of housing

minority groups, not just employing them. The DDHC’s outline of basic policies stated that it

intended to integrate African Americans into the defense housing program. The need for housing

designated for African Americans was outlined as early as August 1940 by Sidney Hillman, who

noted that the need was for “flexibility.”91 By “flexibility,” Hillman meant the ability of projects to

“transition” from emergency workers with relatively high incomes to low-income residents,

possibly of a different race, when the crisis ended. Within this in mind, Hillman advised Palmer to

plan for several small projects, rather than one large project, in a given city that could adapt to

racial neighborhood patterns. This level of institutionalized segregation was hardly new. New Deal

housing projects had long been segregated along racial lines. However, the policies adopted during

World War II took notice of the fact that African Americans would increasingly participate in the

89
“Regulation providing against discrimination in work on defense housing,” January 6, 1941;
General Records Subject File “Housing-Contracts;” Entry 22, Box 2; RG 207, NACP. Also see
“FWA Chief Bans Color-Bar in Housing Program,” Chicago Defender, January 18, 1941, 3.
Carmody strengthened this policy in March with a second anti-discrimination regulation. Under
this rule, contractors were informed of the percentage of skilled and unskilled African-American
labor in the locality where the housing was to be built, and were expected to self-report a similar
percentage of African American workers on their payroll forms. The second regulation was a more
definitive document on what was considered discrimination. See R.R. Taylor to Palmer, Crane,
Fowler, Snow and Bankson, March 21, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-Labor;”
Entry 22, Box 3; RG 207, NACP.
90 “18,000 Race Families in Low Cost Units,” New Journal and Guide, June 28, 1941, 20.
91
Sidney Hillman to Charles Palmer, August 27, 1940; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Negroes;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.

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defense industries in greater proportion than other industries under normal conditions, and thus,

would need to be realistically considered in the planning of defense housing, if not the post-war

era.

By June 1941, $12 million was approved for defense housing for African Americans,

providing homes for 2,683 families in eleven urban centers, and similar housing for 435 families in

eight army camps, leading the Chicago Defender to the headline, “Foresee Integration in Defense

Program.” 92 Although African American workers had not shared in the defense housing program

proportionate to their needs, the tightening labor market and changing employment policies began

to bring about an ever-widening use of African American labor. Activism was also expanding the

power of African American workers. In March, A. Philip Randolph, the president of the

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in association with other civil rights activists, organized a

march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in the defense industry. Randolph threatened

to bring 250,000 African Americans to Washington to demonstrate against congressional resistance

to fair employment and demanded an ordinance banning discrimination. Roosevelt only partly

capitulated, signing Executive Order 8802 to create the Fair Employment Practices Committee

(FEPC), which banned racial discrimination in any defense industry receiving federal contracts,

and empowered the FEPC to investigate complaints and take action against alleged employment

discrimination. Consequently, the promise of the FEPC protections and the inducement of well-

paying defense industry jobs prompted millions of African Americans to migrate into urban

industrial centers along the West Coast and in the South.93

Despite these gains, African Americans experienced signifiant opposition in many places

across the country. In Buffalo, local Catholics strenuously and vocally opposed a proposed housing

92 “ Negro Workers Increasing in Defense Jobs,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 21, 1941, 1B;
“Foresee Integration in Defense Program,” Chicago Defender, June 28, 1941, 5.
93
After President Roosevelt's death the FEPC was let to expire in 1946. Although brought up again
in subsequent years, it never again gained a true foothold.

!53
project, leading Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League to deplore the “campaign of hate”

seen when African Americans entered certain neighborhoods.94 Other projects had difficulties

obtaining material priorities due to the uncertainty of where in-migrant black workers would settle,

prompting concerns that the loss of the homes would undermine their morale.95 By early 1942,

Palmer devised a system of interracial and public relations to help stem the opposition to new

housing projects intended for black residents. This set of policies was especially concerned with

site selection, and noted that local problems acquiring land for African-American projects should

not warrant the selection of sites which violate acceptable housing principles and standards. Also,

Palmer called on federal agencies to cooperate with local housing authorities, and public and civic

leadership before announcing the selection of a site. In a memo on the policies, Palmer insisted: “A

total war demands total participation by all of the people.”96 This, however, did not entirely prevent

racial violence from occurring.

At the 200-unit, USHA-built Sojourner Truth Housing Project in Detroit (Fig. 1.39), for

example, protests by white neighbors catapulted the racial tensions within the defense housing

program into the national spotlight. Programmed in June 1941, the Sojourner Truth project was one

of two planned for the northeastern section of Detroit; the other was in a white neighborhood.

Government officials chose a nearly empty site that abutted an industrial area and was also near a

middle-class black enclave named Conant Gardens. Whites living in the area deeply opposed the

project, and as completion neared in December, their complaints reached Congress, leading

Washington to switch the project to white occupancy. When Detroit Mayor Edward Jeffries, union

leaders and civil rights activists protested this change, asking that the project be returned to African

94
Lester B Granger (National Urban League) to Reverend John A. Duffy, October 22, 1941;
General Records Subject File “Housing-Negroes;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
95 “Statement Concerning the Effect of Priorities on USHA-Aided Projects for Negro Occupancy,”

1942?; General Records Subject File “Housing-Negroes;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
96
Memorandum by Charles Palmer, February 5, 1942; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Negroes;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.

!54
American families, federal officials once again changed their mind. However, on February 28,

1941, when the black residents began to move into the project, white picketers attempted to block

them, and a riot ensued (Fig. 1.40). Nearly 1,200 people joined the melée, and several were

injured. The project stood empty for nearly two months until 800 Michigan National Guard troops

were called in to stand guard as the first twelve families began to move into the project.97 Although

individual racism played a significant role in the protests, institutional racism, in the form of FHA

redlining (which denied federally-backed mortgages in the surrounding areas and brought down

property values) undoubtedly also provoked white residents.

With the highly public clashes over war housing, and a war production machine that

extended across the entire country, race relations ceased to be a particular concern of any one

locality and increasingly became a concern of the nation as a whole. Not only were violent racial

conflicts highly disruptive to the war effort from the viewpoint of production, but the NHA noted

that they were “a definite contribution to the objectives of our military enemies from the viewpoint

of morale, propaganda, sabotage.”98 The NHA was further hamstrung by the drastic Congressional

curtailment of appropriations for further development of war housing, which would have surely

lessened some of the tension caused by lack of adequate housing. Nevertheless, in August 1943,

the NHA reported to the president that although difficulties had arisen due to the attitudes of

various local groups, many African American groups had “seized the occasion not only to work for

more housing,” but to “try to change more or less established patterns under which members of

white and minority groups have lived in these localities in the past.”99 Although African Americans

made economic and employment gains during the war, they still suffered in the postwar

97
“800 Soldiers Protect 12 Families Moving In,” New York Times, April 30, 1942, 25.
98 Coleman Woodbury to Jonathan Daniels (administrative assistant to the president), August 12,
1943; General Records Subject File “2-2-0;” Entry 27, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
99
Ibid.

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readjustment period as industrial activity fell and returning serviceman replaced them in their

“temporary” jobs.

War housing in the media and the museum

From the outset, government officials recognized the importance of the media to the defense

housing program. The DDHC’s public relations department acted both as informational source and

propagandist for government housing, disseminating Washington’s message that the need for good

defense housing was urgent and desirable. This was done through a coordinated effort involving

newspapers, who received regular press releases on developments in the defense housing program,

and were encouraged to write special stories on the opening of housing projects (often designed to

stimulate rentals), as well as educational stories for localities in which the defense housing

program might be met with disfavor.100 The DDHC also took the airwaves, scheduling nation-wide

broadcasts for Palmer and scripted series that tied in with the overall defense program.

Additionally, newsreels, or short documentary films, featured the construction and operation of

actual defense housing projects. Speeches and government-printed publications further spread the

word about the defense housing program to local governments, trade organizations, social groups,

and private individuals and museum exhibits helped to educate the public and bolster the public

perception of the program, elevating the subject of housing—in this case, relatively bare-bones

housing—to the level of art. This operation functioned outside of the more overt homefront

propaganda poster campaign, which sought to instill a personal mission, to either work or fight,

among citizens. Instead, housing officials aimed to extend the mission of public housing, as well as

win the hearts and minds of those unacquainted with the program, as well as those who opposed it.

100
“Division of Defense Housing Coordination, Public Relations Program, 1941-1942," no date;
General Records Subject File “Housing-Information;” Entry 22, Box 3; RG 207, NACP.

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 In one extant radio recording—titled “The People’s Platform: Housing the National

Defense Housing Program,” broadcast on WNYC on January 25, 1941—the DDHC used the topic

of defense to more broadly address the country’s larger housing problems. The program covered

topics such as how much housing would be needed and who should be responsible for building it

and captured the voices of Jacob Crane, assistant coordinator of the DDHC, Cornelius D. Scully,

the mayor of Pittsburgh, George Backer, publisher and editor of the New York Post, and Arthur W.

Bend, housing chairman of the NAREB, as well as WNYC host Lyman Bryson.101 Playing a

delicate public relations game, Crane advocated for a holistic view of housing in relation to

defense. “Our position seems to me, must be: decent housing for defense workers as such is one

thing, but that decent housing for all American families is an inevitable part of total defense,

requiring total morale and total health of our people.” Here, Crane framed public housing as an

“inevitable” part of the defense program, necessary for the “morale” and “health” of the people,

and thus a crucial part of “total defense.” By situating public housing as a moral and social

imperative, essential to winning the war, he aimed to justify its existence outside of the production

problem. This viewpoint reflected that of the liberal housing administration, which time and again

showed its willingness to experiment. By making sweeping statements about providing “decent”

housing for all Americans—ostensibly for their morale and health—Crane sought support and

legitimacy for the defense housing program.

Similarly, the DDHC motion picture, sponsored by the OEM and released in October 1941,

offered a comparable diatribe against housing that aggravates “health, welfare and productivity.”102

The movie presents visual comparisons between run-down “slums” (Fig. 1.41) and freshly painted

101 “The People's Platform: Housing and the National Defense Program," WNYC radio broadcast,
January 25, 1941, accessed October 5, 2016: http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-peoples-platform-
housing-and-the-national-defense-program/.
102
Office of Emergency Management, “Homes for Defense-A Defense Report on Film,” October
1941, accessed October 5, 1941: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyWurz5a7os.

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defense houses (Fig. 1.42) located in new centers of industrial activity such as Newport News,

Virginia, Hartford, Connecticut, and Detroit. As historian Warren Susman has written, these types

of newsreels or documentary films were particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s, since

they allowed viewers to witness and judge events for themselves, rather than blindly trust a second-

hand source. According to Susman, they “provided a fresh way of understanding events… The

whole idea of the documentary ma[de] it possible to see, know, and feel the details of life… to feel

oneself part of some other’s experience.”103 Notably, the government’s film included segments

showing the construction of prefabricated houses, a sight few Americans had likely witnessed

before. Over soaring music, the announcer proclaims: “New methods to meet new emergencies.

Belt line production for planes, tanks and homes. America pioneers again! Affordable houses,

prefabricated houses, put together in jig time. Demountable to prevent the creations of ghost towns,

specters of the past. These homes could be used after the emergency for needy rural families.”

Indeed, housing officials had every reason to promote prefabrication, as it was already being used

in thousands of units across the country. While the public relations department aimed to acquaint

the public with prefabrication, it was, at the same time, wary of how to explain it. For example, the

movie uses the words “prefabrication” and “demountable,” even though the DDHC found that

when used interchangeably the terms were sometimes confusing. In general, since more of the

general public seemed to understand the term “prefabrication,” that became the concept to

promote.104 Including it in the movie—shown widely across the country—allowed the public to

judge the concept for themselves.

103 Warren Susman quoted in Suzanne Spencer, “Housing on Trial: The Museum of Modern Art
and the Campaign for Modern Housing in the United States,” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2004),
196-97.
104
Acton also noted that the demand for speed put prefabrication in a more “competitive position
than at any previous time in the history of public housing.” Howard Acton to Dana Doten,
December 23, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-Information;” Entry 22, Box 3; RG
207, NACP.

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 Although speeches, radio broadcasts and movies could accurately explain the legitimacy of

the defense housing program, the government left it to museums to influence the quality of the

houses and to visually explain more complicated topics such as site planning. In the summer of

1941, Clark Foreman of the FWA approached Philip Goodwin, the head the Museum of Modern

Art’s (MoMA) Department of Architecture, asking him to organize an exhibit of government

defense housing.105 Goodwin tapped Eliot Noyes, an architect in charge of the Department of

Industrial Design, to be the show’s director, and established a committee of local architects

including Edward Durell Stone, George Nelson, Max Abramovitz, and Donald Hatch to advise.

Noyes also solicited the advice of Catherine Bauer, who had long been involved in issues of public

housing. Bauer expressed interest in the project and offered her advice on the exhibition outline

Noyes sent her. In her opinion, the exhibition was less about dramatizing “the immediate social-

political-patriotic aspects of war housing need,” and more about encouraging better quality in

defense housing production.106 She elaborated:

It does seem to me that the Museum cannot hope to affect very much in the quantity
or location of war housing, but it can have a wide and timely influence in pointing
out that war housing needs are all but forcing a revolution in design, layout and
production methods of low-cost homes—a revolution which can result in very
positive gains, both for now and the future, if the opportunities and necessities of
the moment are intelligently grasped.

In particular, Bauer hoped that these ideas—about modern architecture, site planning, and

community facilities—would be absorbed by the local housing authorities, which had recently

been reinstated by the NHA post-reorganization.

105 Janet Henrich to Catherine Bauer, October 1, 1941, with attached Minutes of the Meeting of the
Architecture Committee of the Museum of Modern Art held on September 16, 1941; Box 32,
CBW, BANC. The minutes state that Goodwin said he was asked during the summer to propose an
exhibition of government defense housing by Clark Forman of the FWA. Suzanne Spencer’s
"Housing on Trial,” states that it was Bauer’s National Committee on the Housing Emergency that
approached Museum, 190.
106
Catherine Bauer to Eliot Noyes, March 11, 1942; Box 1, CBWP, BANC.

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 The plan was for a simple exhibition, with obvious contrasts between “good” and “bad,” so

that even “the intelligent layman who is in a position to use his influence toward better emergency

housing can quickly grasp the possibilities.” 107 It was organized as a walkthrough, with scenes

containing a series of images, voices and sounds. In addition to many of Bauer’s ideas, the exhibit

also reflected the influence of the MoMA's architectural committee, who, as Suzanne Spencer

explained in her dissertation “‘Housing on Trial’: The Museum of Modern Art and the Campaign

for Modern Housing in the United States, 1932-1952,” insisted that the “Wartime Housing” show

needed a strong rhetorical hook.108 Don Hatch, one of the committee members, declared that

housing should be dramatized as if it were critical to winning the war, and thus engage the museum

visitor on an emotional level. And it was. Scenes included a dark, cramped gallery where black-

and-white images of slums overlapped with the sounds of dripping faucets and heavy breathing

(Fig. 1.43). Issues of production delay were dramatized by images of sinking ships overlapped

with President Roosevelt’s voice urging speed. And finally, brighter galleries held the final scenes,

where housing production was shown in full swing and community planning was illustrated with

comparison of monotonous suburban developments and modern community plans (Fig. 1.44).

Indeed, by including only modern “good” examples, MoMA implicitly suggested the superiority of

modern design, technology and planning. At the end of the exhibit, visitors were given information

on how they could affect the housing in their own community.

The exhibition opened in April 1942 with a special event that brought together political and

cultural figures. Guests included NHA Administrator Blandford, New York Supreme Court Justice

Samuel I. Rosenman, who had worked as Roosevelt’s unofficial housing advisor, his wife, Dorothy

Rosenman, chairwoman of the National Committee on the Housing Emergency, and John Hay

Whitney, the president of the MoMA. The widespread media coverage—both in the mainstream

107 Noyes exhibition outline quoted in Spencer, “Housing on Trial,”191.

108
Spencer, “Housing on Trial,” 195.

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and architectural press—included publicity photos of the guests (Fig. 1.45) and the exhibit, as well

as speeches that were broadcast live on the radio. Whitney opened the event by explaining the

Museum’s interest in war housing:

…What has housing to do with art? This museum does not take the narrow view
that only painting and sculpture are in the category of art… The museum would not
hold an exhibition of wartime housing if we were not convinced that through it we
can encourage and point the way to housing that is designed according to the finest
architectural principles of beauty and use and built by the most efficient modern
mass production methods…109

With its show, MoMA intended to provide a springboard for national publicity on the housing

situation. Critics found the exhibit imaginative and visually arresting. Edward Alden Jewell of the

New York Times found it reminiscent of “high-pressure salesmanship,” but thought the average

visitor would be “too awed or scared or—in the final scenes—cheered, to think about anything

except the pith of the drama itself.”110 Lewis Mumford, in his Skyline column in the New Yorker,

wrote that the show was perhaps less remarkable for what is said, than how it said it. With its

documentary-like feel, it aimed not to prove that housing was urgent, but to “enable the public to

understand what kind is required and to create a demand for a more adequate conception of

housing than that which has guided most of the government agencies even in times of peace.”111

Others, however, found the show’s message one-sided. American Builder and Building Age wrote

that the exhibition was the most effective dramatization of the existing need for housing, but “in

the whole display there [was] nothing to indicate that private builders are able to do the job.”112

Noting the ability of public housers to attach “civic minded big names” to their events, which often

made headlines, they suggested that it was the “flare for publicity” that private builders ought to

study.

109 John Hay Whitney quoted in Spencer, “Housing on Trial,” 202.

110
Edward Alden Jewell, “A Melange of New York Activities,” New York Times, April 26, 1942,
X5.
111 Lewis Mumford, “The Sky Line: War and Peace,” The New Yorker (May 23, 1942): 56.
112
“Public Housers’ Publicity,” American Builder and Building Age 64 (June 1, 1942): 78.

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 Although the show was considered a publicity success, it was closed by June 1942 due to

cut backs in museum finances and the underwhelming public interest in New York.113 Thus, a small

traveling exhibition—of a more traditional variety, without movies or sound effects—was created

to better serve smaller institutions under even tighter budgets. Due MoMA’s inability to cover

circulation funds, however, the exhibition traveled to only eight cities, minimizing the impact that

the museum initially hoped to have.114 War housing as a museum subject perhaps had more success

overseas, where it fulfilled the government’s desire to advance its international mission by

promoting American architectural achievements. In 1943, the Office of War Information (OWI)

requested that MoMA create such an exhibit for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in

London. The exhibition—“U.S. Housing in War and Peace”—included several defense housing

examples such as Gropius and Breuer’s Aluminum City Terrace. However, as Spencer wrote,

“unlike ‘Wartime Housing,’ ‘U.S Housing in War in Peace’ made no reference to problems of

significant deficiencies in the U.S. war housing program… U.S. housing appears to have been

idealized in order to create an impression abroad that the U.S. was a technologically, socially, and

architecturally advanced nation.” 115 Ultimately, the success of this exhibit and others that touted

American building achievements abroad—particularly “American Builds,” which was shown in

Sweden in 1944—was incongruous with the conservative backlash against modern design and

planning at home. As the end of the war neared, Americans were bombarded by images of the

kinds of homes—mostly suburban single-family houses in traditional styles—that they could have

in the peacetime economy, contrasting sharply with the large-scale housing projects of the war

years.

113
Monroe Wheeler to Catherine Bauer, June 9, 1942; Box 32, CBWP, BANC.
114 Apparently few were interested in an abbreviated version that had only text panels, but no
sound. See, Spencer, “Housing on Trial,” 205. For an analysis of the show's run in Portland, see
Heather Fryer, “Race, Industry, and the Aesthetic of a Changing Community in WWII Portland,”
Pacific Northwest Quaterly 96, no. 1 (Winter 2004/2005): 3-6.
115
Spencer, “Housing on Trial,” 219-220.

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 During the early years of the housing program, government officials worked extensively

with the media and the museum to further their objectives for housing, whether that be to pass

legislation, increase public awareness, encourage production, or propagate architectural

modernism, new technologies, and construction methods on a wider scale. By bringing defense and

war housing as close to the American public as possible—either physically to their home towns, or

though the radio, movies and the press—officials hoped to instill a measure of general acceptance

for public housing and site planning, especially that of the modern variety.

Conclusion

During World War II, Americans increasingly looked to Washington for solutions, an attitude that

continued long after the war was over. The war’s impact freed the government from some of the

constraints of custom, allowing it to act on an unprecedented scale, and in the process attack

economic and social problems in a direct and rational way. While being forced to continuously

adapt to internal and external pressures—including material shortages, unforgiving construction

deadlines, political infighting, as well as the demands of private enterprise, public housing

advocates, labor unions, racial groups, and the public at large—the government oversaw the

transformation of a piecemeal, craft-centered home building industry into one of the most

technologically progressive branches of American industry, in large part because of the

government’s progressive views on housing, and its role as the nation’s largest client.

Of course, government-built defense and wartime housing fell far short of solving the

nation’s housing crisis or its social ills. Despite some innovative solutions to bridge the gap

between public and private housing, like the mutual home ownership concept, many still associated

war housing with charity, including members of Congress responsible for allocating

appropriations. Indeed, it is unclear to what degree public housing was truly democratized and

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popularized during the war—for every visually appealing, successfully planned project, there were

several others with poor locations, grim appearances, inadequate community facilities, overly rigid

tenant eligibility rules, and as Bauer observed, “a paternalistic company town atmosphere created

by management staff.”116 Moreover, in an attempt to give new methods, such as prefabrication,

mass-market appeal, the government, and the prefabricators it worked with, may have oversold the

concept, as a 1943 Architectural Record cartoon (Fig. 1.46) indicates. In it, two men stare at a tee-

pee while the captions reads: “They said something about a perfect example of an integrated,

demountable, prefabrication dwelling unit…”117 Although many came away from their experience

with prefabrication impressed by its economy and endless opportunities for flexibility, others saw

cheap, flimsy structures that stood in the face of decades of American building traditions.

Even so, many Americans familiarized themselves with a new conception of housing

standards, particularly in the realm of neighborhood planning. Architect and urban planner Edmund

N. Bacon saw this as a war-driven shift to concern for the family:

These things did not come about primarily through the efforts of the reformers.
They were the result of the impelling exigencies of war. It simply was discovered
that the individual as part of the average American family played a very vital part in
the pursuit of war, and that the elementary needs and wants of this family had to be
recognized if war efficiency were to be sustained. If the temporary change of
position of the family during the war does in fact result in a permanent new
orientation of its housing needs in the postwar world, it will be because a great
cross section of the American public participated in the new procedures, and
determined on the democratic basis that there was merit in them.118

Although African Americans, labor unions, and women were all forced to give back some, if not

all, of their war-time gains, American families reaped significant benefits from mobilization,

particularly in the realm of housing. During World War II, the basic needs and wants of American

116
Catherine Bauer to Herbert Emmerich, April 1, 1942; Box 1, CBWP, BANC.
117 Cartoon drawn by Alan Dunn, Architectural Record 94, no. 5 (November 1943).
118
Edmund N. Bacon, “Wartime Housing,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 229 (September 1943): 137. Bacon had worked at Cranbrook with Saarinen and at
the time of the article was the managing director of the Philadelphia Housing Association.

!64
families were exposed to public view, not on a humanitarian basis, but as a critical matter

necessitating changes in public policy. Although catalytic changes such as national migration and

the shifting economy threatened the existing social order, both government and private industry

sought to preserve the traditional family structure with the construction of planned neighborhoods

and millions of subsidized single-family private homes. While some demographics, such as non-

married workers, waited in vain for the same attention, families were given special status as the

backbone of American democracy. As Jacob Crane stated in 1942: “There is more danger of this

country being defeated by a break down of the home structure and the internal morale than there is

of physical defeat in battle by the Nazis and Japanese.”119

At war’s end, the NHA wrote a comprehensive history of the administration of the defense

and war housing program and made an assessment of how housing could be executed in a future

war. Some predicted that with the advent of the atomic bomb, all future wars would be of short

duration and housing was unlikely to play a major role. Others, however, felt that the probability of

a short duration would be greatest for the country initiating the war and that America was unlikely

to be the aggressor. Thus, housing could play a part as a means to shelter refugees and survivors,

making it “a vital factor in a persistent, long drawn out conflict where the fulminate victory would

depend upon civilian morale under adverse conditions.”120 The NHA report concluded that in the

event of such a future war, public coordination and control of the housing effort would be a

necessity. However, the experience of the DDHC and the NHA showed that this “united action”

depended primarily upon “the power to establish efficient organization and procedure in, what may

be called, (for want of a better word), a sympathetic framework.” In the end, the government’s

experience building housing during World War II showed what could be achieved with and without

119 Jacob Crane quoted in memorandum, E. Everett Ashley to Samuel J. Dennis, January 28, 1942;
General Records Subject File “Housing-Survey;” Entry 22, Box 13; RG 207, NACP.
120
Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of the Administrator,” RG 207, NACP.

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the “sympathetic framework” of Congress, local government, private industry, labor and the public

at large, as well as the origins of policies that would come to define housing in the post-war era.

!66
 CHAPTER 2

Scatter as Communities: Community Patterns Respond to Threats From the Air

In April 1941, Clarence Stein wrote in the political magazine Common Sense that “the basic

requirements of defense are similar to the practical needs of good living and industrial economy.”1

With this provocative statement Stein captured the mood of progressive-minded architects and

planners during World War II, who sought to reframe old theories—particularly that of the garden

city—as imperatives to the exigencies of war. Born in nineteenth-century Britain, the garden city

and its American offspring, Stein’s influential 1929 project at Radburn, NJ, had similar

requirements as those of defense: decentralized, self-contained settlements with defined space for

industry and housing, as well as clear controls for site planning and community development.

Throughout the 1930s, New Deal housing programs supported Radburn-like developments for the

urban poor, but World War II offered designers the chance to build new, ground-up communities

for the middle class, often outside of metropolitan centers. Although the government mandated

speed and cost efficiency, there was considerable opportunity for experimentation in planning in

the defense housing program. With policies that accelerated the trend toward decentralization,

standards that generated increasingly organic site plans and landscapes, the government, aiming to

realize defense production quotas, manage migration and avoid air raid attacks, became one of the

most progressive planners of the era.

The experience of architect and planner Clarence Stein during World War II—designing

Indian Head near Washington, DC; Ohio View Acres and Shalercrest near Pittsburgh, PA; and an

unbuilt project in Clariton, PA—offers an illustrative perspective on the government’s bold

planning policies. Stein became a significant planning propagandist during the war, arguing that, to

remain safe and retain workers, defense communities needed to incorporate planning ideas that had

1
Clarence Stein, “Housing for Defense,” Common Sense 10 (April 1941): 107.

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been slow to develop during peacetime. Importantly, Stein identified that these projects required a

new point of view; that is, an aerial view, or that of an enemy bomber. With spreading fear of air

raid attacks on United States soil before, and especially after, the bombings at Pearl Harbor in

December 1941, planners sought ways to confuse the enemy, and to hide buildings, especially ones

participating in the war effort. The threat promoted decentralization (an objective of regional

planners and social reformers) and ushered in even more modern planning schemes that effectively

abandoned Beaux Arts principles such as axis, symmetry and order. Progressive architects hired for

defense work by the government such as Richard Neutra, and Eliel and Eero Saarinen, used

Radburn’s planning objectives—long incorporated into federal standards—and built upon that

foundation with their own concepts of modernist design and planning, aiming to create complete

decentralized communities that followed garden city principles. Innovative landscape architects

such as Dan Kiley, Thomas Church and Garrett Eckbo echoed these efforts with their attempts to

provide housing projects with landscapes that aimed at being efficient, pleasant and at times,

camouflage. The country’s experience with regional wartime planning reverberated far into the

postwar era—acting as the first step towards an urban dispersion pattern grounded in defense

needs. In terms of site and landscape planning, defense and wartime housing offered a model that,

for the most part, did not extend into the postwar years. However, it did suggest alternative modes

of living that could be adopted by the era’s more diverse social groups and family types who might

wish to live outside of cities.

Clarence Stein and World War I defense housing

As early as World War I, Stein saw the potential of war-time housing to experiment with garden

city planning principles as well as provide lasting benefits to the nation’s ill-housed. When

America entered the the First World War in 1917, virtually no one recognized the relationship

!68
between industrial production and worker housing. As Miles L. Colean documented in his survey

Housing for Defense, there was almost no advance effort to estimate the needs of war workers or to

enlist the full resources of the building industry.2 It was only after severe crises had developed that

the government itself financed and built houses through the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC),

an agency of the U.S. Shipping Board, and the U.S. Housing Corporation (USHC), an entity

created during the conflict under the U.S. Department of Labor. The experience of these agencies

building defense housing deeply impacted Stein’s views. Wary of the federal government’s

complete power over the program, yet optimistic about the potential of war-time housing to

provide the answer to the bigger social problem of properly housing American workers, he was

disappointed in the government’s failure to experiment. “There is no time for experiments they will

tell you—their job is to get houses built before winter—good houses—as well built—as well

arranged as possible—but houses,” Stein wrote in the AIA Journal in 1918.3 Often, he found,

peace-time standards like beauty, permanency and comfort were sacrificed for speed. However, it

was experiments, he believed, that would provide insights into the needs of peace-time housing.

Some architects, nevertheless, were able to capitalize on the opportunity and managed to

experiment with garden city planning principles during World War I. Architects Frederick

Ackerman and Robert Kohn headed the EFC’s housing division, and with the assistance of Henry

Wright and Philadelphia engineer B.A. Haldeman, selected prominent architects and planners to

design new villages that, in many cases, illustrated the garden city idea. One of the most highly

regarded undertakings was Yorkshire Village (Fig. 2.1) in Camden, NJ, designed by Electus D.

Litchfield and his associate Pliny Rogers. The project, which constituted the nation’s first foray

into publicly-financed housing, utilized formal axes to organize a central village green and grouped

2 Twentieth Century Fund, Housing for Defense: A Review of the Role of Housing in Relation to
America’s Defense and a Program of Action (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1940): 1-30.
3
Clarence Stein, “Housing and Reconstruction,” Journal of the American Institute of Architects 6,
no. 10 (October 1918): 470.

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houses surrounded by a protective greenbelt.4 Similarly, the USHC, headed by New York builder

Otto Eidlitz, called upon the nation’s top architects, landscape architects and planners to design

housing projects serving munitions plants and other factories converted to war production. One of

its most successful ventures was a series of five planned subdivisions located in Bridgeport, CT

designed by architects R. Clipston Sturgis and landscape architect Arthur A. Shurtleff.5 One of

them, Seaside Village (Fig. 2.2), was particularly notable for its use of an irregular plan of curving,

tree-lined streets. Its low building masses were situated at varying angles with interspersed green

areas and a quasi-public square in the center. Despite these successes, the World War I housing

programs produced very few whole communities and in fact, only a little over 35,000 units overall

—the same number of publicly-financed units that would later be built every month during World

War II.6

While projects by each agency were celebrated by architectural journals, they were

lambasted by others, including William E. Shannon, a prominent realtor and manager of the Real

Estate and Commandeering Division of the USHC. Reflecting the increasing xenophobia of the

era, Shannon derided the use of English and German planning principles, particularly that of the

English “Village Beautiful” movement, which produced “blocked streets for the purpose of

seclusion” that are “crooked” even when the topography didn’t require it. 7 Shannon blamed the

“un-American scheme” on a group of Bureau landscape architects—Ackerman, Wright and others

—who stylized themselves as “Town Planners.” Shannon’s diatribe included political and

4 For more on Yorkship Village, see Michael H. Lang, “The Design of Yorkship Garden Village,”
in Mary Corbin Sies and Christopher Silver, eds. Planning the Twentieth-Century American City
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996): 120-144. Also see Robert A.M. Stern,
Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City (New York: Monacelli Press, 2013),
863-67.
5
For more on Bridgeport, CT, see Stern, 894.
6 Herbert Emmerich, “World War II Housing,” Journal of Housing 12 (July 1955): 233.
7
National Housing Association, “Invincible Ignorance,” Housing Betterment 8 (December 1919):
32-33. For more on the United States Housing Corporation see, Stern, 892.

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urbanistic comparisons. As opposed to Benjamin Franklin’s straight, broad streets, he likened the

garden city-inspired plans to those of the Medici period, “when towns were built for defense—

when streets were on angles and curves so they could be defended with the weapons of the day

from the rush of invading hordes.” Shannon’s polemic clearly represents the views of the real

estate industry, which held the deeply rooted belief that housing was a private, not public, business;

as well as growing provincialism and isolationism that would engulf American politics for nearly

two decades. Notably, his statement also clearly pointed out that the garden city, and its serpentine

streets, could be viewed as a defense advantage, an observation that was not particularly relevant

during World War I, but significant to the next conflict.

Ultimately, the EFC and the USHC would be criticized for the surprising quality of their

work, or as Colean wrote in 1940, “for doing too well what had been difficult to do at all.”8 Seaside

Village was specifically called out for its “undue elegance in design.” 9 But Stein still lamented that

most designers had no experience in the design of communities and instead chose a “wastefully

stereotyped method” of rectangular, linear blocks without regard for topography.10 In the end, the

legacy of the World War I housing program would be threefold. First, it proved to many that, if

necessary, the government could both finance and build housing. Second, it introduced industrial

workers, or the lower-middle class, to the best practices of the garden suburb and garden city.

Finally, it led to the creation the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) in 1923,

whose members included, in addition to Stein, Ackerman, Kohn and Wright, as well as influential

thinkers such as Lewis Mumford and Benton MacKaye, socially-minded developer Alexander

8
Twentieth Century Fund, Housing for Defense, 1.
9 Vincent Scully quoted in Stern, Paradise Planned, 899.
10
Clarence Stein, “Community Expansion in the First World War,” (paper presented at the
Conference on the Expansion of Industrial Communities With Regard to Housing and City
Planning at the University of Michigan College of Arch and Design, November 29, 1940), 12-13;
Box 6, Clarence Stein papers, #3600. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell
University Library.

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Bing, and later Catherine Bauer, Henry Churchill and Edith Elmer Wood, among others. Building

on ideas explored during World War I, Stein and by extension, the RPAA team, designed a housing

development in Radburn, NJ (Fig. 2.3), where Ebenezer Howard’s turn-of-the-century garden city

theory was fully incorporated into the post-World War I American landscape by introducing

superblocks with shared parkland, the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and

community planning under so-called “neighborhood unit” principles.11 Although the RPAA

dissolved in 1933, its objective—a comprehensive approach to land use and development based on

garden city principles—would live on in multitudes of public projects built by government

bureaus, and many former RPAA members, throughout the 1930s. 12

Baldwin Hills Village

One of Stein’s most notable projects to come out of this period was Baldwin Hills Village, a

privately sponsored and Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-financed development in Los

Angeles, CA, which was conceived in the mid-1930s, but due to a lack of financing not begun until

1940. Coincidentally, Baldwin Hills Village’s first units were rented on December 7, 1941, the

same day of the attack on Pearl Harbor.13 Unsurprisingly, the project was almost immediately fully

rented out to workers moving to Los Angeles to participate in the city’s growing war industry and

11
Clarence Perry’s “neighborhood unit” was intended to be a building block of a regional plan, as
explained in the 1929 Regional Plan for New York and Its Environs. They were self-sufficient
entities, often centered around schools, but were, importantly, still related to the larger urban area.
12 The group’s first experiment was at Sunnyside Gardens (1924-28), where Stein, Wright and

Ackerman designed affordable housing for working people, arranged around common green areas
in rows of one- to three-family private houses, co-op and rental apartment buildings, and stores and
garages on the periphery. For more, see Stanley Buder, Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City
Movement and the Modern Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 179. Buder
asserts that by 1933 the ideas of the RPAA had lost influence and were increasingly regarded as too
theoretical or idealistic.
13
Holly Kane, Steven Keylon, Sara Loe, The Village Green: Cultural Landscape Report
(December 2013), 6, accessed January 4, 2016, http://news.californiapreservation.org/wp-content/
uploads/2014/03/VillageGreenCLR.pdf.

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was subject to war-time controls on building materials and transportation. To Stein, this project,

which spanned two eras—the Depression and the dawn of the defense build-up—demonstrated

“the most complete and most characteristic expression” of the Radburn idea. As an “appropriated”

defense housing project, it also provides juxtaposition with his later, actual defense housing

projects in Pittsburgh.

Planning for Baldwin Hills Village began in 1935 when architects Reginald Johnson and

Eugene Lewis Wilson identified a 264-acre parcel of flat land outside of the Los Angeles city limits

where they were interested in developing a housing project.14 Eventually reduced to sixty-eight

acres and known as “Thousand Gardens,” the architects continued to work on the overall design

(with at least fifty layout proposals) and unsuccessfully apply for funding from the FHA. The first

drawings by associate architect Robert Alexander described a “residential park project” (Fig. 2.4)

using cul-de-sacs and an interior park system with traffic-free walkways. In April 1938 Clarence

Stein was brought in as a consultant, forming a new partnership known as the Associated

Architects. His duties were to advise on the planning scheme, prepare preliminary sketches, and act

as Johnson’s Eastern representative, working with the FHA to push the project through. 15

Early drawings by Stein show the development of the site. In April 1938 the layout (Fig.

2.5) consisted of a large unbroken central green with grouped housing and garage courts radiating

off of exterior roadways. Another scheme, from July (Fig. 2.6), showed a curvilinear plan that

shrank the interior central green and added additional landscaped areas on the perimeter.

Alternating housing courts—arranged as two parallel blocks or two bent blocks—penetrate the

central green, while their garage courts back onto the exterior drive. In the final design (Fig. 2.7),

14 Reginald Johnson acted as principal architect; Lewis Wilson, Edwin Merrill and Robert E.
Alexander were associated architects. Wilson would later go on to act as consultant on Richard
Neutra’s Channel Heights project, also located in Los Angeles.
15
Memorandum Agreement for Stein’s services in relation to Thousand Gardens, April 5, 1938;
Box 2, CS, CUL.

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the plan assumed a formal arrangement of two intersecting axes, with “an open suburban character,

orderly but informal,” as Catherine Bauer would describe it in Pencil Points in 1944.16 The central

green was divided into three distinct areas connected by tree-shaded malls, and the residential

buildings, which consisted of long rows, each accommodating three to ten rowhouse units with

private outdoor spaces, were arranged into a continuous S-shape and pushed further into the

landscape. Additionally, the private service driveways with garage courts (Fig 2.8) were inserted

into the space between units, allowing residents to bring their cars closer to their homes without

crossing any pedestrian paths.

Work began in March 1941 even as wartime material restrictions began to take effect and

the first units were occupied in January 1942. A photo (Fig 2.9) from that period shows the near

complete isolation of the project, which would later be surrounded by traditional single-family

speculative developments, in which Stein only saw “wide gray paved bands” that “dismember” and

“go from nowhere to nowhere” (Fig. 2.10).17 On the whole, Baldwin Hills Village visually and

functionally demonstrated the practical possibilities of the basic features of the Radburn idea:

superblock, homes facing central greens, and the separation of pedestrian and auto. The project

gained national attention beginning in 1944, when Catherine Bauer reviewed it for Pencil Points,

calling it “the most seriously progressive experiment in home building by private enterprise since

Radburn.” 18 Significantly, she posited that this “optimum,” or “even luxurious,” housing with its

spaciousness and community facilities, serving a relatively well-off economic group, could

influence the minimum standards for low-rent projects. This could be achieved by mandating lower

densities, as well as creating private outdoor space, bigger rooms and more storage. 19 Despite

Bauer’s criticisms of the plan’s emphasis on a central axis—which she described as “not merely

16 Catherine Bauer, “Baldwin Hills Village,” Pencil Points 25 (September 1944): 49.
17
Clarence Stein, “Baldwin Hills Village,” Town Planning Review 20 (Jan 1950): 394-95.
18 Bauer, “Baldwin Hills Village,” 46.
19
Bauer, “Baldwin Hills Village,” 60.

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unfashionable,” but also implying “a monumentality completely belied by the entire spirit of the

undertaking”—and of the inherent discrimination in its “careful selection of tenants,” the project

was selected as one of twelve communities included in “Looking At Your Neighborhood,” a special

exhibition put on by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from March to June 1944 in New York,

and elsewhere as part of a traveling exhibit until 1949.20 Additionally, in 1945 it was selected by

MoMA for Built in USA 1932-44, a compilation of buildings meant to demonstrate American

architectural progress since the 1932 International Exhibition of Modern Architecture. This project

would loom large over Stein’s career. While he would later omit his defense housing projects in

Pittsburgh from his curriculum vitae and his 1952 book Towards New Towns for America, Baldwin

Hills Village would feature in both.

Stein as defense housing consultant

As early at November 1940, Stein began plotting ways to ensure that the defense housing program

would lead to something lasting for peacetime. He wrote to Benton MacKaye, a core member of

the RPAA and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) alum, that he was meeting with Albert Mayer,

Henry Churchill and Oscar Stonorov to “discuss the question of how the services of the technicians

in planning can be made use of in the Defense Program.” 21 Indeed, the issue of planning had been

made acute by the war emergency long before America’s actual entrance into the conflict. As part

of the build-up of defense activities, government officials concerned with housing sought the

expertise of those with experience, like Stein, either in building defense housing during World War

20Bauer, “Baldwin Hills Village,” 55-56.

21
Clarence Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein: Architect of the Planned Community
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 406.

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I or with designing and building large housing developments through the country’s various housing

programs.22

In January 1941 Stein was given the opportunity to participate. He traveled to Washington

where he met with John Carmody, head of the Federal Works Agency (FWA) and Clark Foreman,

the director of the FWA’s Division of Defense Housing (DDH). There, Foreman asked Stein to be a

housing consultant and, in Stein’s accounting, “ten minutes later I had been transferred from the

U.S. Housing Authority.”23 Stein’s first piece of advice was that the government needed to provide

a program to architects designing site plans. “I suggested that Carmody was the client or

representative of the client, Uncle Sam, and that it was his business to provide the architect [with]

… a program: a clear statement on a few sheets of paper [that] would save lots of time and talk.”24

Foreman’s response: “Funny that nobody thought of that.” Foreman put him on the job and also

asked him make studies for the site plan of a Public Buildings Administration (PBA) development

(the future Indian Head) near Washington, DC. Writing to his wife, Aline McMahon, that his

comments could have already made him the “most unpopular architect in Washington,” Stein

mused that perhaps they would give him a job to get rid of him, but that “probably they will knife

me.” 25

Indian Head, a project of 650 houses for workers at a Navy powder plant in Indian Head,

Maryland, was Stein’s first public foray into the defense housing program. Built as a demonstration

of prefabrication and demountability, it was a testing ground for housing types and methods.

Organized around a central green with a baseball diamond, the site plan (Fig. 2.11) featured

grouped parking courts where home manufacturers—such as Home Building Corp, Standard

22 Stein was associated with the Resettlement Administration’s Greenbelt program, and acted as an
architectural consultant on greenbelt projects.
23
Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, January 18, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
24 Ibid.
25
Ibid.

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Houses Corp, and Sears, Roebuck & Co.—would put up their demonstration houses. The Radburn-

style development adjusted to its location above the Potomac River with two connecting roadways

and additional provisions for future parking and commercial units. The focus of the plan was the

large U-shaped road near the center, where Harnischfeger Corp., Standard Houses Corp. and

another unknown company, were erecting their houses in small groups. The rest of the houses were

located off of short streets that ended in cul-de-sacs. It was a high-density layout that firmly

rejected the idea of the conventional single-family subdivision that could be easily sold to

individual homeowners after the “emergency.”

Stein recognized that the site was going to feature “knock-down houses that are

individually anything but beautiful.” 26 However, to him, the houses were hardly the most important

part of the exercise. What was significant was that this project could signal the government’s

endorsement of his planning ideas. When the plan was accepted by Washington, Stein considered it

providence. To Aline, he wrote that “this should mean the acceptance of the idea of community

planning in place of the old type of subdivision, not only for Indian Head, but as a dominating

policy for the future.”27 Carmody echoed this sentiment, Stein assured Aline, with “picturesque

language,” where he made it clear that he wanted a change of policy and more action. When the

plan was completed in March Stein wrote: “The layout of Indian Head is pretty well done. I have

helped write out the rules of the game, and now I have designed one community as an example.” 28

As a demonstration of prefabrication and demountability, the project was considered a

debacle, however, architectural journals such as Architectural Forum and Pencil Points lauded

Stein’s plan. Frederick Gutheim noted that the effect of scores of prefabricated units en masse at

Indian Head was generally depressing, but that the “ingenious site planning” somewhat mitigated

26
Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 407.
27 Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 408.
28
Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 411.

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the bleak view.29 The larger problem was that the houses—assembled from pieces produced

elsewhere—were inflexible in their inability to adjust to the site and environment. However, the

Forum did concede that part of the blame for the houses’s shortcomings did perhaps rest on the fact

that they had to deliver parts to a remote, poorly serviced site. Gutheim wrote that the experiment

only proved that “a community of 650 families requires more than houses in order to live at

modern standards.”30

The prospect of large projects like Indian Head did much to raise the spirits of architects in

early 1941. At a cocktail party in New York Stein noted a sense of “gayety,” commenting that it

was “so different than it would have been two years ago—architects think they are going go to

have jobs.”31 Stein himself believed he would find employment shortly. In March he wrote to Aline

about a promising job prospect designing housing for a Congress of Industrial Workers (CIO)

union: “a self-owning community—lots of land—beautiful site—a dream.”32 Anxious to join the

effort, architects like Stein angled for plum jobs that they hoped would signal the end of the

Depression’s architectural drought. As the conflict progressed, it became clear that the focus in

architectural circles was shifting from the construction of isolated buildings to integrated groups, or

neighborhoods, bringing opportunity to architects like Stein, who had experience in this regard,

and a set of challenges for those who did not.

Architects were increasingly being asked to fulfill several roles as designers of large-scale

housing projects. This included having knowledge or expertise on financing, building

rationalization, social standards as well as the planning of towns, and by extension, regions. As the

Architectural Record concluded in a large feature titled “The Architect in Action,” the architect of

29 “Prefabricators Put on a Show,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 188; Frederick

Gutheim, “Indian Head Experiment in Prefabrication,” Pencil Points 22, no. 11 (November 1941):
724.
30
Gutheim, “Indian Head Experiment in Prefabrication,” 724.
31 Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, March 5, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
32
Ibid.

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1941 “occupies no ivory tower.”33 With the expanding scope of architectural service “you find the

alert architect adapting his methods to those of industry and rivaling his industrial clients in

efficiency and speed secured through organization.” Likened to a business or government

administrator, architects were expected to analyze problems of commerce, work closely with

doctors and teachers to facilitate ideal social conditions, and participate with town planning boards.

Most significant of all, the architect’s work was found to be increasingly a continuing service,

lasting the life of the building or project. “Among the changes that have come into the old art of

building,” the Record wrote, “perhaps the most decisive has been the acceleration of change.”34

Rapidly shifting needs in living, working and recreation—much of it a result of the defense build-

up—created a new need for an ever-present architect, able to service their work through its

lifespan, and adapt it to small modifications, as well as larger forces, such as decentralization.

Industrial decentralization, migration and air raid attacks

With the onset of hostilities in Europe, the United States embarked on a massive campaign of

industrial expansion that would reverberate long into the post-war period. By the middle of 1940,

America was building its own factories, as well as offering tax incentives and reimbursing private

capital outlays for private companies to do so. Many of these new plants, Architectural Record

noted in March 1940, were being built not in the urban nucleus, but in rural and satellite towns

where mobile populations would then follow.35 Industrial decentralization, as Eric Mumford has

shown, was well under way before Pearl Harbor. Initially, many new defense plants—a good

number designed by noted architect Albert Kahn—were located near existing industrial cities, but

before long efforts were made to distribute plants even wider, providing better access raw materials

33
Douglas Haskell, “The Architect in Action,” Architectural Record 89 (March 1941): 98.
34 Ibid.
35
“Performance Standards that Point Way to Better Houses,” Architectural Record 87, no. 3
(March 1940): 95.

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and new labor sources and thus bypassing the inefficiencies of the old centers. 36 The government

was careful to place the majority of these new plants in regions where unemployment (often areas

without agricultural work) was high, leading to most new construction occurring in the southern

and southwestern states. This contributed to long-lasting changes in growth patterns, with workers

leaving northern and central areas of the United States for the West and South (Figs. 2.12-2.13).37

Although these areas experienced the largest rate of in-migration, all sorts of places—including the

Northeast—felt the effects of industrial decentralization when new growth appeared on the

metropolitan periphery.

Indeed, the changing relationships in production and the increasing use of the automobile

pointed towards changes in the larger physical patterns of neighborhoods, cities and regions. Along

with a tremendous network of roads and utilities that had been constructed in the previous quarter

century, by 1941 the country boasted twenty-five million passenger vehicles (a sixfold increase

from 1917) and five million high speed trucks.38 These changes offered an unprecedented

expansion of opportunity for the average worker. As Douglas Haskell noted in Harper’s Magazine,

the existence of a large number of cars facilitated the American phenomenon of “moving labor

armies,” who could relocate at will, for better pay, or, as the experience of World War I proved,

better housing.39 “Impermanence is a part of any war boom,” Haskell wrote, “but this time it has

been compounded with mobility.” The act of migration—from farm to city, or city to city—was

hardly new, but the defense migration demonstrated “a greater swing and a faster pace.”40

36
Eric Mumford, “National Defense and the Transformations of American Urbanism, 1940-1942,”
Journal of Architectural Education 61, no. 3 (February 1, 2008): 26.
37 Architectural Forum referred to US Census findings (based on registrations for ration books)

that the fastest growing areas were West Coast, including Nevada and Arizona. See “Shifting
U.S.,” Architectural Forum 80 (May 1944): 60.
38
Buckminster Fuller, “Raw Materials Aplenty—Fabrication a Problem,” Architectural Forum 74
(January 1941): 23.
39 Douglas Haskell, “The Revolution in Housing-Building,” Harpers Magazine 85 (June 1, 1942):

51.
40
Twentieth Century Fund, Housing for Defense, 35.

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Moreover, these migrating workers were in a better economic position than those who received

public housing during the Depression, making them freer to demand better housing, or seek it out if

it did not become available.

Determined not to make the same mistakes as those made during World War I, when ill-

considered expansion made in the fever of war hysteria damaged some U.S. communities, calls

were made immediately to coordinate new defense housing with industrial expansion. The

Architectural Forum asserted that the prime lesson of World War I was that housing must be

considered in conjunction with military and industrial expansion, not after it.41 To that end, in

October 1940 the President appointed Charles Palmer as the Coordinator of the Division of

Defense Housing Coordination (DDHC), whose job it was to plan and program defense housing in

light of all the available facts about the need for workers, the duration of that need, and location.42

This was most clearly illustrated in a pamphlet published by the DDHC called “Homes for

Defense,” which described “Defense Town, U.S.A,” (Fig. 2.14) a community whose “suddenly

expanding industry has called in thousand of workers from outside its commuting area to man the

defense machines.”43 The new coordinated approach would contrast with that of 1917, when new

industry and housing was created within the environs of existing cities and towns, making them

more congested and largely disregarding idle labor elsewhere.44 The new strategy was to try and

locate industry where favorable labor and housing conditions already existed, and when they did

not, to program housing where needed.

41 W. Earle Andrews and Richard M. Bennett, “Defense Plan for the City” Architectural Forum 73
(November 1940): 437.
42
The DDHC was organized under the Office of Emergency Management. Palmer had a deep
interest in public housing and had experience with slum clearance with his Techwood Homes
project in Atlanta, GA which he built for the PWA. In 1955 published his memoir of his
experiences, titled Adventures of a Slum Fighter.
43 United States Office of Emergency Management, Homes for Defense: A Statement of Function

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1941), 13.

44
Twentieth Century Fund, Housing for Defense, 41.

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 In addition to strategic concerns about raw materials, labor, transportation, assembly and

distribution points, the threat of air raid attack also loomed large over the topic of industrial and

residential decentralization. With the onset of the London blitz in September 1940, Americans were

given visual evidence (Fig. 2.15) of the hazards of densely concentrated areas with high

populations. Industrial sites within cities further exacerbated the fear of residential devastation.

Thus, beginning in October 1940, the DDHC began to discuss how to protect housing projects

against bombing. Consulting with the National Resource Council’s Committee on Passive

Protection Against Bombing, it was clear that the most important medium of protection against

aerial attack was decentralization.45 As a planning agency, the DDHC did not directly control the

design and construction of individual housing projects, but it did produce the Summary of

Standards for Defense Housing, which was first issued in January 1941. This became the primary

vehicle for disseminating the government’s planning goals including the decentralization, or

dispersion, of housing projects, as well as site planning and landscape standards.

These initial standards were largely derived from the accepted guidelines of the FHA and

the United States Housing Authority (USHA), which was based on detailed and extensive

experience in large-scale planning. They stipulated typical requests for site selection regarding

flooding, utilities, and relationship to municipal services like schools, transportation and shopping;

and for site planning regarding streets and drives, access, parking, open spaces and density. For air

raid protection, commonly referred to as ARP, it only asked that defense housing located in the

“frontier zone” (200 miles from the coast lines and 250 miles from the North and South borders) be

no less than one mile from any important military objective (airplane factories, airports, arms and

munitions plants, chemical plants, etc.). Predicated on the mobility of the workers and their ability

45
Jacob Crane to Charles F. Palmer, October 16, 1940; General Records Subject File “Standards;”
Entry 22, Box 13; General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD],
Record Group 207; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

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to commute, a mile-plus distance between house and employment was not considered a problem.

Therefore, many new housing sites were located at some distance from industry. In terms of site

planning, the standards called for low densities and a dispersion of buildings. A tentative draft of

the standards noted that the inclusion of the air raid protection guidelines was “purely a precaution

and in no sense reflects any anxiety in this regard.”46 Palmer underscored this view when he spoke

to the American Institute of Planners the same month the standards were issued, noting that he had

“no way of knowing whether air-raid precautions are going to be a governing factor in community

planning, or whether they will cease to be of any interest.”47 The public’s anxiety levels were

another matter. The Architectural Record quipped that the matter of what to do about air raids

“may become the subject of a new and hysterical parlor game unless we all hold on to ourselves.”48

To Stein, the threat of air raid attacks provided an opportunity to promote his own planning

agenda—that is, the creation of decentralized, self-sufficient communities. In a Common Sense

article published shortly after his plan was approved for Indian Head, he pointed out the

vulnerability of existing industry located on the coast or close to the borders: “They are on rivers,

lakes, and other easily distinguishable geographic markers. They are massed in limited areas: they

are in cities where construction is concentrated. For water, gas, electricity, and raw materials they

are dependent on large centralized reservoirs, power plants, freight depots and transportation lines.

Because of the their prominent size all of these are easy targets.”49 Moreover, any attack on these

industrial buildings would also threaten residential areas. Stein’s solution to the problem was a

simple one: scatter people and buildings. “We must apply the method used by Colonial troops in

46 Tentative draft of the “Summary of Planning Standards for Defense Housing Projects,”
November 7, 1940, 2; General Records Subject File “Standards;” Entry 22, Box 13; RG 207,
NACP.
47
Charles F. Palmer, “Housing Coordination” (address delivered to the American Institute of
Planners in Washington, DC, January 25, 1941), Vertical files, Loeb Design Library, Harvard
University.
48 “Behind the Record,” Architectural Record 88, no. 4 (December 1940): 7.
49
Stein, “Housing for Defense,” 106.

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defending themselves from superior massed forces, by scattering in small groups through the

woods.” In fact, Stein argued that air attack should be a primary consideration in determining the

placement of housing as well as industry. Decentralization was a central tenet of his argument,

noting that new communities should be located far enough from industrial plants to escape danger

from bombardment and be surrounded by natural open areas, or greenbelts, for additional

protection. Both industry and housing, Stein insisted, should be placed so as to be difficult to see

from the air—hidden in the woods, or situated on uneven terrain, away from geographical markers

such as rivers. Additional camouflage would result from creating units of irregular pattern, with

building masses broken by large groupings of trees.

These small-scale, thrifty communities were the antithesis to Stein’s portrayal of “dinosaur

cities,” which were costly, congested, and inefficient in peacetime, and dangerous to boot in war.

Essential to the basic make-up of the scattered communities was their size, which would be large

enough to support a moderate economy, and their adoption of an auto-based lifestyle, which made

it possible for workers to live at some distance from their factories. As Stein explained, “For peace

as well as for war, the first requirement is to scatter instead of concentrate. Scatter not as

individuals, but as communities…” Although these modest communities would more clearly reflect

the coming times, when the country would demonstrate “less extravagant ways of living,” they

could also enjoy the benefits of big cities by grouping together into a “regional city,” consisting of

a constellation of moderate-sized towns separated by open areas and bound by highways (Fig.

2.16).

To some, Stein’s rhetoric was a stretch. Within a few months of the article’s publication, he

received a letter from Roland Wank, a Hungarian modernist who had designed a greenbelt town

and worked extensively with the TVA. Wank disagreed specifically, and “much to [his] regret,”

with Stein’s statement that the basic requirements of defense were similar to the practical needs of

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good living and industrial economy.50 While true of some requirements, Wank found Stein’s

stipulation that housing be located away from rivers, but near highways, baffling. Since both could

be seen from the air, why not locate housing near rivers, lakes or seashores? This response

summarized a viewpoint Wank would hold throughout the war. In a 1943 issue of Architectural

Record, Wank speculated on the effects of warfare on the principles of town planning, noting that if

one assumed the constant danger of aerial bombardment, even “the best defense of towns and cities

would be utmost drabness of detail and lack of identifiable organization.”51 To be sure, Wank

elaborated, “new design for merely staying alive differs a lot from design for living.”

Others wholeheartedly agreed with Stein’s premise. In the Architectural Record Percival

Goodman, an architect and urban theorist out of New York, wrote how defense-time planning

could be put to peace-time use.52 Illustrated with a model, Goodman described his hypothetical

“Defense Town” and “Peace Town” (Fig. 2.17), which were, in fact, the same place. Looking to the

example of European bombing, “Defense Town” developed from a number of laws that called for

the avoidance of concentrations and bottlenecks, the use of camouflage, a high level of

organization and the preservation of morale. The culmination of these edicts produced a self-

contained town of low ground coverage with an unsymmetrical plan following the natural ground

contour. Buildings were low and screened with trees or new planting. “Defense Town demands

decentralization as the only safe plan against air attack,” Goodman explained. “Peace Town

demands decentralization as the sound environment to achieve a normal, tranquil social and family

50
Roland A. Wank to Clarence Stein, May 13, 1941; Box 16, CSP, CUL.
51 Roland Wank, “Planned Communities: A Speculative Survey of Their Future,” Architectural
Record 93, no. 2 (February 1943):44.
52
Percival Goodman was a Jewish architect who eventually became a leading designer of
synagogues. As his New York Times obituary noted, he was “a lifelong student of utopias” and
“deeply committed to the belief that rational planning could create better cities.” See Paul
Goldberger, “Percival Goodman, 85, Synagogue Designer, Dies,” New York Times, October 12,
1989.

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life.”53 The requirements of “Defense Town,” Goodman pointed out, were in line with many of the

demands of the progressive planner: that a town should fit into the landscape and that the natural

contour of the terrain should be the inspiration for the site plan. Goodman concluded: “The

antithesis of peace is war, but insofar as town planning is concerned, modern defense ways and

modern peace ways are not, as we have just attempted to show, antithetical.”

Perhaps, Stein admitted in his response letter to Wank, his statement on the similarities

between the requirements of defense and peace was too inclusive. “It is unquestionably true that

although there are various similarities between the basic requirements of defense and good living,

under peaceful conditions, there are also essential differences,” Stein conceded. “The important

thing I thought was to call attention to those similar features which we are willing to accept on the

basis of defense and which we have been so slow in making part of our peacetime program.”54

Nevertheless, Stein recognized the defense program as a remarkable set of circumstances, in which

the government could determine the location of new industries and the form of new residential

communities, as it was financing both. “With single control,” he wrote, “it is possible to really plan

in a big way and to immediately carry out big plans.”55 Soon, he would be able to execute such

plans of his own.

The Pittsburgh projects

In April 1941 Stein traveled to Pittsburgh, PA where he was given two defense housing projects—

Ohio View Acres in Stowe Township and Shalercrest in Shaler Township—both funded by the

FWA and managed by the Allegheny County Housing Authority. These projects were part of a

larger drive to build 5000 units of housing in the county, where the housing shortage was acute and

53
Percival Goodman, “Defense-Time Planning for Peace-Time Use,” Architectural Record 88, no.
5 (November 1940): 95.
54 Clarence Stein to Roland A. Wank, June 26, 1941; Box 16, CSP, CUL.
55
Stein, “Housing for Defense,” 108.

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there was significant difficulty obtaining laborers.56 Although initially downcast that larger

developments were being offered to local architects, Stein’s enthusiasm for the two projects he

received on the urban periphery quickly lifted his spirits. “I have been walking up and down the

hills of Pittsburg—looking at sites,” he wrote. “The second one is splendid. A great plateau with

distant views. I can do something good with that one. The other, which is all hillside is much more

difficult—but it will be exciting.”57 Reflecting his experience with job scarcity, Stein wrote to

Aline after he was approved for the jobs in early May: “So we have a job and perhaps it will pay!

Is that too much to ask—the fun of creativity—and being paid for it too!?”58

In what was likely a first in his career, Stein simultaneously designed the two Pittsburgh

defense housing projects—which were both of limited size, and simple, but permanent construction

—as drawings for both were due on July 1, 1941. This speed was necessary due to the

government’s punishing fifty-nine day pre-construction timetable which called for completed

designs and working drawings in twenty-four days, after which the site was selected and acquired,

and bids taken. In May Stein visited Stowe Township and wrote to Aline that it had “a beauty, but

not a tender beauty,” as it was located high above the Ohio River and the “the fierce, ugly beauty

of industrial Pittsburgh.”59 It reminded him of the Cotswolds, an area of south central England

featuring rolling hills dotted with historical towns. His plan for Ohio View Acres (Fig. 2.18), as the

project in Stowe Township would be known, consisted of an informal and economical arrangement

of streets adjusted to the gently sloping hilltop plateau. A single entrance drive acted as the spine,

with two spur streets ending in cul-de-sacs, following the tradition of many of Stein’s previous

projects, in which cul-de-sac layouts with clustered parking were shown through systematic

analysis to be more cost effective in addition to providing a desired social outcome. Organized into

56 “300 Jobs for Defense Workers,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 9, 1941.

57
Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, May 1, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
58 Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, May 5, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
59
Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 416.

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row-house buildings (Fig. 2.19) of varying height, but uniform length, the 250 units were kept low

to maintain views from the houses (Figs. 2.20-2.21), particularly those with cantilevered balconies.

The landscape, by Ralph Griswold featured large trees along the streets and common green areas

with pear and dwarf fruit trees dotting the building peripheries (Fig. 2.22). The small community

was self-contained, surrounded by nature, and offered a measure of communal open space.

At Shalercrest, in Shaler Township, Stein experimented with an even more informal layout.

Here, on a rugged and irregular site, the 251 houses were grouped along a serpentine roadway that

predated the development (Fig. 2.23).60 As part of Stein's plan, two additional streets—one with a

cul-de-sac and one with a parking court—project from this main thoroughfare, with provision for

the construction of another similar road in the future. A small valley provided greenery and play

space. The buildings, of the same size and row-house type used at Ohio View Acres, were

organized in a seemingly disorganized fashion, situated at varied angles only loosely connected to

the roadway. Parking courts were located at various locations throughout. The unsystematic

building arrangement—a reaction to the hilly site and possibly to coal mines discovered

underground—and meandering circulation created both a complex streetscape on the ground as

well as a disguised presentation from the air. Although located outside of the “frontier zone,” in

which the threat of aerial bombing was considered more-or-less real at this time in 1941, Stein

used this project to practice what he preached; that is, to scatter, as people, as buildings and as

communities. To Benton MacKaye, he glowingly described his experience with both defense

projects: “They are really the stuff—just the kind of thing I attempted to describe in my Common

Sense article.”61

60 Angelique Bamberg, Chatham Village: Pittsburgh’s Garden City (Pittsburgh, PA: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2011), 150-54.
61
Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 420-21.

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 Stein was able to realize his vision with little interference from the local housing authority.

To Aline he wrote that they were doing their best to help and “giving me everything I ask for,

pretty nearly.”62 In June, his preliminary drawings of Ohio View Acres were approved unchanged

—“after a long day of argument and explanation”—and he was given two weeks to make final

drawings. It was “some kind of record” for approval he proclaimed, especially compared to

Baldwin Hills Village, which had taken over a year.63 The two Pittsburgh projects kept him busy

with their grueling timeline and he described to Aline the myriad decisions he faced:

The work of the various technicians must be coordinated. The form of and plan of
the house and site work, the sewers, the water lines, the gas lines and electric poles,
the roads and paths and steps—every step just where it belong and a place for the
garbage can. And then the landscape work—each shrub and tree in its place, and
each engineer must know what the other is doing so that the electric poles and the
trees don’t get in each other’s way. They must know at once, so they waste no time,
and we all finish on the dot.64

Nevertheless, he found them “great fun” and an opportunity for “doing some new things.” When

he presented both sets of plans in Washington to the FWA, who was financing both projects, he

was struck by Carmody’s energy in driving the $300 million program ahead: “Carmody [is]

bellowing: ‘Why? Why can’t you get the land there? What is holding up the survey there? Why not

move the tenants there?’” Overall, he told Aline, he “got the sense of something happening for

defense.”65

Before long, Stein was informed that there may be another “tempting” project on the table,

also located on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.66 For this project, in Clairton, PA, the Allegheny

Housing Authority wanted Stein to work with a local firm of brothers, Charles M. Stotz and

Edward Stotz, Jr., architect and engineer. To him, they seemed “straightforward, agreeable chaps”

62
Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 416.
63 Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, June 6, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
64
Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, June 26, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
65 Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, June 11, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
66
Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, June 25, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.

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although photographs of their work didn’t impress him “as to its originality.”67 They agreed to find

a way to work together “without stepping on each others toes,” and decided Stein should take lead

in design and site planning. Another hilltop plateau site, Clairton dispensed with cul-de-sac dead

ends and instead used long, intertwining curvilinear streets (Fig. 2.24). Organized into a rough

figure-eight shape with a V-shaped community center as its focal point, the housing units (similar,

or the same, to those at Ohio View Acres and Shalercrest), alternatively line the road or are set

back from the road in a variety of arrangements around parking courts. Like the other projects,

extensive landscaping was intended to help the site integrate into the surrounding hillside (Fig.

2.25). Within ten days Stein and the Stotz brothers prepared preliminary plans for a community of

499, however, they were soon informed that Carmody had halted work on the project due to a

sudden change in policy. “It was a shock. We were all steamed up to make a record job—as to

speed—and I think also—as to quality—and now we must put it aside…”68 This project, in

particular, gave particular attention to the community building, which acted as the core of the plan.

Although the team was given approval to finish the drawings in case the decision was reversed,

that eventuality didn’t occur, and soon Stein’s attention shifted (at the behest of the new director of

the National Housing Administration [NHA], Herbert Emmerich) to the problem of community

facilities.69 Indeed, the concept of the school as the basis on which to design a neighborhood, and

possibility of multi-use school-community centers would soon become Stein’s focus in the later

war years.

In all, sixteen defense hosing projects would be built in Pittsburgh (Fig. 2.26). As

Architectural Forum pointed out in 1944, the city was unique in that it gave architects like Stein

extraordinary latitude in developing their projects as well as remarkable encouragement to find

67
Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, July 16, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
68 Clarence Stein to Aline McMahon, July 29, 1941; Box 36, CSP, CUL.
69
Emmerich had collaborated with Stein on Radburn.

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ways to improve housing standards.70 Notable projects that grew out of this policy included

Aluminum City Terrace, designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, and Monongahela

Heights, designed by Edward Durell Stone. Aluminum City Terrace was situated on a hilly wooded

site (Fig. 2.27) and utilized an informal site plan for its 250 units in New Kensington, PA. Long

rowhouse-type buildings, all given a southern orientation, were located freely along the single

winding road and smaller courts. Heralded as one of the most modern defense housing projects yet,

the project caused a storm of controversy and angered tenants who noted how the orientation of the

buildings (with unpainted wood on the roadway and brick fronts facing away) made them look

drab from the street. However, the variety in site plan—both in type of buildings and arrangement

—drew much praise in architectural circles. At Monongahela Heights in West Milflin, PA, Edward

Durell Stone (in association with the firm Hill-Hoover-Heckler-Kohankie) arranged 342 units on

an irregular hillside (Figs. 2.28-2.29). Rectangular redwood-sheathed buildings—either short rows,

or long curved buildings nicknamed “the bent barracks”—followed a long single road that ended in

a loop. Less irregular than Aluminum City Terrace, the project still sought to preserve open spaces

and respond honestly to the terrain.

Along with sharing the Pittsburgh topography and enjoying the liberal attitude of the local

housing authorities, these projects were also typical of the era before Pearl Harbor, when

government motivation was at its highest to produce projects that were livable and could thus

retain workers in the defense industries, as well as provide lasting contributions for peace time.

Stein found it “much more satisfactory to do these jobs for Defense. One really gets them done.”

He confessed, however, that he would have like just a little more time for studying details,

although he didn’t “believe that the speed detracts greatly from the quality of the work.”71 Indeed,

Stein’s defense communities displayed many characteristics of the types of neighborhoods he

70 “Aluminum City Terrace Housing,” Architectural Forum 81 (July 1944): 64.

71
Clarence Stein to Reginald Johnson, August 1, 1941; Box 2, CSP, CUL.

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advocated for: they were cut off from the flow of city activities, where they could individually

develop a common, democratic life; they demonstrated spacious living with plenty of light, air and

vistas of nature; they practiced economy in the unessentials; and they permitted use of the

automobile with complete freedom and safety. Shunning any kind of monumentality seen at

Baldwin Hills Village, these projects showed Stein practicing a disarticulation in planning unlike

any of his previous projects.72 It is unclear whether this organicism stemmed from the topography,

or the time and financial constraints, or the threat of air raid attacks, or, whether, near the end of his

career, Stein accepted a more modern, European, approach to planning. Regardless, the projects

pointed toward towns that, in Stein’s view, could meet the needs of the future in their flexibility

with regards to space, technology and community needs. 73

The effect of Pearl Harbor on site selection and site planning

With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the United States’ formal entry into the

conflict, the nation’s attention definitively turned toward the possibility of aerial bombardment. By

January 1942 journals such the Architectural Forum produced reference guides on civilian defense,

noting that the possibility of sporadic air raids—the goal of which would be to lower civilian

morale and incite demands for military protection—was highest on the West coast.74 Although few

considered America to be in immediate danger of invasion, the surprise military strike by the

Japanese on one of the country’s naval bases fostered the idea that anything was possible. Almost

72
Visually, they come the closest to the Greenbelt towns, however, Stein acted on those projects as
consultant, not designer.
73 Clarence Stein, “City Patterns Past and Future,” Pencil Points 23 (June 1942): 52. Stein also

called for flexibility to meet the needs of the future, including the potential use of the airplane,
“which will determine the form of the future even more than the auto indicates the need of the
present.”
74
“Civilian Defense,” Architectural Forum 76 (January 1942): 1.

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immediately, some of the fundamental concepts which had guided the defense housing program

began to erode.

The most immediate problem was the rubber shortage that took hold beginning in January

1942 after the enemy cut off American rubber supply in Asia. 75 A massive rubber conservation

effort (Figs. 2.30-2.31) commenced to protect both the existing rubber supply as well as

conservation of rubber on wheels. 76 This forced a re-definition of standards for defense housing,

which had been premised on the mobility of workers, limited only to reasonable commuting

distances by private automobiles. Under the new standards, new housing projects were to be

located within a two mile radius (or walking distance) of the defense activity or public

transportation.77 Thus, projects were to be not less than one mile from the military objective, but

not more than two miles due to transportation concerns. Although the construction and

management of housing would require a certain amount of rubber, Herbert Emmerich,

commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA), one of the new units created in the

reorganization of the housing agencies in February 1942, remarked that “our housing should

assume a practically rubberless civilian life.”78 To the Architectural Forum this seemed a wise

decision, since commuting hadn’t been entirely satisfactory anyway, noting that in one plant the

bomber-production line had to be stopped for two hours between shifts just to allow workers to

75 Hymen Ezra Cohen, “Administrative History of the Office of the Administrator National
Housing Agency During the War Housing Program, World War II,” December 1945; General NHA
Records, 1942-74, Entry 24, Box 1; RG 207, NACP. For more on the rubber shortage, see William
M. Tuttle, Jr. “The Birth of an Industry: The Synthetic Rubber ‘Mess’ in World War II,”
Technology and Culture 22, no. 1 (1981): 35-67.
76
Jacob Carne to Joseph B. Eastman, January 29, 1942; General Records Subject File “Strategic
Material,” Entry 22, Box 13; RG 207, NACP.
77 E. Everett Ashley to Samuel J. Dennis, January 28, 1942; General Records Subject File

“Survey,” Entry 22, Box 13; RG 207, NACP.

78
Herbert Emmerich to Jacob Crane, September 9, 1942; Subject File of the War Housing
Program, 1942 - April 30, 1943, “Federal Public Housing Authority II,” Entry 26, Box 2; RG 207,
NACP.

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drive in and out of the plant.79 At the FWA, Baird Synder, the acting administrator after the housing

shakeup, noted that thus far virtually all defense housing projects had been built in large groupings,

often covering hundreds of acres, many of them at some distance from factories. But now, in an

attempt to simplify the problem of obtaining sites, and to ration rubber and gasoline, the FWA was

considering the possibility of erecting defense homes in small groupings in scattered localities,

roughly analogous to Stein’s Pittsburgh projects. However, the FWA’s smaller projects were

intended to be located in more central locations, especially along coastal areas, since a large project

“detached from the community is an easy target for the bomber.”80

In February 1942, just before it was dissolved by President Roosevelt and replaced by the

NHA, the DDHC released updated standards on planning considerations related to protection

against air raid attacks that significantly solidified its stance on decentralization and organic site

planning.81 For site selection, planners were instructed to continue locating projects at least one

mile, but not more than two miles, from important military targets, such as plants producing

explosive material or those employing 500 or more war workers.82 Natural camouflage such as

trees, woods and foliage, which were considered highly desirable types of protection, were also

deemed advantageous in the site selection process. In terms of site planning, the DDHC standards

called for a level of spaciousness and irregularity that far exceeded any federal standards created

thus far. Houses were to be dispersed throughout the project with low densities to mitigate the

possibility of damage by bombing. From the air, sites plans were to be “irregular in appearance” to

79 “War Housing,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 261.

80
Baird Snyder III (Acting administrator of the FWA), “Housing for Defense,” (address delivered
to the National Public Housing Conference in Washington DC, February 6, 1942); Speeches of the
FWA Administrators, 1939-41; Entry 32, Box 1; General Records of the Federal Works Agency,
Record Group 162; National Archives Building, College Park, MD.
81 “Planning Considerations Related to Protection Against Air Raids,” February 10, 1942; General

Records Subject File “Civilian Defense,” Entry 22, Box 1; RG 207, NACP.
82
Admittedly difficult, the DDHC offered assistance in planning new additional public
transportation if this would necessitate excessive and extravagant use of materials, time or money.

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reduce the possibility of being identified as well as decrease the hazard of strafing attack, in which

low-flying aircrafts could use fixed automatic weapons to precisely hit buildings. For this reason,

the DDHC standards explained, long straight rows, in particular, should be avoided since they were

more vulnerable than irregular arrangements. The DDHC also infused a sense of natural openness

into the projects with its mandates that planners avoid closed courts (since they produce greater

damage than in more open areas between buildings) as well as pavement and other hard surfaces

(which tend to stop bombs at the surface). The DDHC also appealed for flexibility in that they

requested planners leave open plots that could be used for the construction of air raid shelters, if

the need arose in the future.

As the war gained steam, other architects in addition to Stein began to vocally advocate for

defense housing projects to loosely follow garden city planning principles. In Pencil Points Albert

Mayer wrote that the “most prevalent and serious defect in the defense projects is the bad site

planning and site engineering.”83 Mayer found that the problems stemmed from architects’

inexperience with site planning as well the absence of serious study into the issues at hand.

Aesthetically, he found that projects were often not planned in unity—taking into account terrain,

color, texture, or the people who live there—and thus, not exercising any dramatic impact on

residents. Either plans were too clear and invariable (Fig. 2.32), with “no interest or thrill or

naturalism or living quality,” or they were all curves and angles and blocked views (Fig. 2.33),

which he found visually, mentally and physically confusing. In addition to a lack of domesticity,

livability, as well a lack of cost and maintenance economy, “the greatest single disadvantage,” he

wrote, “is that the architect sits far above the plan, sees the whole bird’s-eye pattern, and sees

effects that no else but an occasional aviator will ever see.” Of course, what Mayer failed to

appreciate was that the “architect-aviator,” as he called them, was, in many cases, doing just what

83
Albert Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site Plans?” Pencil Points 23, no. 5 (May 1942):
245.

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the government asked; that is, planning with respect to the threat of air raids, and as a result

perhaps sometimes minimizing the perspective from the ground.

In the Architectural Forum landscape architect Garret Eckbo echoed the view that site

planning for defense housing projects needed to be a collaborative effort between architecture,

engineering, landscape and planning for the development of the “total site space.” To Eckbo, too

often, site plans were stamped with “generalized preconceived patterns” such as a formal axial or

an informal irregular layout, when the best possible physical pattern was the one “within which a

group of people can develop a good social pattern.”84 Eckbo found fault with the government’s

planning standards, specifically its excessively high density and low space requirements. Open

space, he believed, rather than buildings, should be the controlling form of the site plan since that

is where the social activity would occur. Yet he offered contradictory statements on what

characteristics site plans should assume for defense. On the one hand, he noted that “good planning

and planning for defense for air attack require much the same sort of layout: that is, a decentralized

irregular arrangement with plenty of planted open space.” On the other hand, the appearance of the

physical pattern of buildings “from an airplane, from across the valley, or from anywhere else

outside itself is not very relevant.” To Eckbo, what was crucial was that the site’s physical pattern

reflect the social pattern.

By 1943, the worry over air raid attacks declined dramatically in architectural and

governmental circles. This was likely due to the fact that first, no Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack

ever materialized, and second, American troops in the European and Asian theaters were keeping

the enemy occupied there, and not at home. In March 1943, the NHA updated its standards once

again, and this time concerns about cost economy and livability eclipsed any bombing

considerations. Architects and planners were advised that project sites should be compact and that

84
Garrett Eckbo, “Site Planning,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 261.

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they should avoid hilly locations because of grading costs. More emphasis was given to the context

of the site. The standards noted that while the previous recommendations should still be followed

as closely as possible, “the specific conditions of each project should be considered.”85 Architects

were instructed to use the existing environment—both topography, landscape and surrounding

areas—to plan for inconspicuousness. However, the document cautioned, “irregularity of the plan

should not be carried to the point of sacrificing livability or making it difficult to move through.”

In fact, the standards recommended curved or bent building rows, which “give substantially the

same protection (at a given density) as as scattered placing of the buildings and are more

convenient and economical.” Reflecting the increasing scarcity of concrete for new roads and

paving, the standards advised the use of strips or loops of intensive development, combining

efficiency of site improvement (less utility lines, for example) with low property density and

undeveloped open spaces. Overall, these changes could be viewed as part of the shift from the

defense build-up years, when permanent public projects (many utopian in spirit) were the norm, to

the leaner war years, when temporary building was the government’s agenda. Although the

standards still supported general garden city principles, like the superblock and cul-de-sacs, as a

means of preventing “traffic danger,” later wartime projects lost some of the spontaneity that the

earlier projects demonstrated. The completed projects of the early war years, however, made a

definitive impact on the architectural discourse, as professionals began to explore what post-war

planning might look like.

Planned neighborhoods for 194X

85
“Bulletin No. 3” (includes Standards for War Housing, May 15, 1942, and revisions and
additions), March 10, 1943; Subject File of the War Housing Program, 1942 - April 30, 1943,
“Housing Standards,” Entry 26, Box 8; RG 207, NACP.

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As the nation’s sites shifted to the post-war era, architects made a point to evaluate their projects on

the basis of their longterm usefulness as well as their ability to indoctrinate the general public in

the garden city idea and the community patterns it could foster. One of these architects was

Richard Neutra, the designer of two defense housing projects: Avion Village (in association with

David Williams and Roscoe Dewitt) in Grand Prairie, TX and Channel Heights in Los Angeles,

CA.86 In Pencil Points Neutra outlined the war’s effect, noting that “much more than the last one,

[it] is upsetting the productional, the distributional, and the consumption equilibrium. And no

matter how it ends, the end will start an era.”87 With changing values, increased production and

consumerism, shifting geographies of employment, and moving populations, it was newcomers,

Neutra predicted, who would “mold a new ideology.” This new public “in the making” was

becoming, he observed, more receptive to the idea of planned, “humanly-framed neighborhoods,”

as seen in several defense housing projects. Moreover, the public’s experience of the projects

would provide “training value,” in which “new and fertile social habits can crystallize.”88

In both Avion Village and Channel Heights, Neutra acknowledged his attempts to further

develop and elaborate on Stein and Wright’s project at Radburn. Both were organized around

central greens, from which “fingerparks”—a key component of Neutra’s earlier, but unbuilt, “Park

Living” project in Jacksonville, FL—extended towards perimeter roadways. Dwellings were

placed along radial driving alleys or cul-de-sacs which penetrated from all sides. Both separated

pedestrian and automobile traffic, and provided extensive centrally-located community facilities as

well as individual residential yards and gardens. Notably, in Neutra’s telling, the natural spaces

were the organizing factor, not the houses or roadways. At Avion Village (Figs. 2.34-2.35), Neutra

86
At Avion Village, Williams acted as supervising architect, Dewitt as resident architect and Neutra
as chief planner and designer.
87 Richard J. Neutra, “Peace Can Gain From War’s Forced Changes,” Pencil Points 23 (November

1942): 29.
88
Neutra, “Peace Can Gain From War’s Forced Changes,” 33.

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created one large superblock with a more-or-less circular central green. At Channel Heights (Figs.

2.36-2.37), a more rugged site led him to use three superblocks, each connected by roadways as

well as underpasseses, giving the project’s site plan an extra dimension of circulation, as well as

interest. In these projects, Neutra hoped to demonstrate what a harmonized neighborhood, or

“living entity,” looked like: “Different, more convincing precedents have now actually been set

before the eyes of the postwar consumers; and postwar designers will not be bound to rigid,

obsolete, subdivision patterns.” Neutra argued that thoughtful planning, particularly garden city-

inspired ideals, could shape the social makeup of communities, both in peace and in war.

Similarly, Eliel and Eero Saarinen saw defense housing as an opportunity to solve social

problems by way of the garden city, and by extension, “organic decentralization,” Eliel’s concept

(laid out in his 1942 book The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, Its Future) in which satellite towns

would be scattered outside, but adjacent to cities. In the Saarinens’ only defense housing project,

Centerline, located in Detroit, MI, 476 houses were organized into a superblock with a central

shared park (Fig. 2.38). Although the houses—both short and long rows—were mostly standard

issue designs from USHA, the Saarinens were given more freedom with the plan, which utilized

both curved and straight streets, with buildings arranged in groups, or along roadways, and

variously oriented in relation to the drives. As Eero explained in a pamphlet published by the

National Association of Housing Officials (NAHO): “We tried to use this freedom to achieve a

unity and consciousness of a community grouped around one large green area.”89 Although it

didn’t fully separate pedestrian and automobile, the concentric streets acted in an insular fashion.

In fact, looking back on the project after it was completed, the Saarinens remarked that they could

do it again, they would have made the project more integrated with the surrounding community,

89
Eero Saarinen, “Architecture and Defense Housing,” (speech made at the National Association
of Housing Officials Region V Conference in Toledo, January 22, 1942); Vertical Files, Cranbrook
Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

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which consisted of typical single-family dwellings. Instead of the perimeter of two-story houses,

which gave a “too-solid effect,” they would have put the taller buildings around the central green

and the lower, one-story buildings on the perimeter. “This would have given a happier transition

between the surrounding community and the project.” 90 To the Saarinens, it was the physical and

emotional experience of the residents that mattered the most. Indeed, it was necessary not only to

house an aggregate of people, “but to give them home and the realities and beauties of community

life—community life not only based on the force of close neighborhood association but more on

the physiological of community participation and community pride.”91 Both projects by Neutra and

by the Saarinens demonstrated the concept of physical control (by plan) of the environment

towards a social objective.

The Architectural Forum also tackled the issue of large-scale planning with its series on

“Planned Neighborhoods for 194X.” Citing shifts in thinking about buildings (from isolated one-

offs to integrated groups) as well as terrific changes in the country’s most deep-seated beliefs about

land use and tenure, the architectural journal sought to predict how designers might approach

neighborhood planning in the future. One notable project was for a mixed rental neighborhood for

1000 families outside of the District of Columbia. Designed by Vernon DeMars, Carl Koch, Mary

Goldwater, John Johansen and Paul Stone, the 175-acre project for federal workers sought to

combine the benefits of city life (social variety, apartment living) with the amenities of the city’s

periphery (outdoor living). With the use of “positive planning,” entailing a new approach to zoning

based principally on overall density restrictions, the architects hoped to reduce social and economic

stratification, and create “a variety of family types and personalities, akin to that of a small

town.”92

90
“Center Line, Michigan,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 261.
91 Eero Saarinen, “Architecture and Defense Housing,” Cranbrook Archives.
92
“Mixed Rental Neighborhood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79 (October 1943): 80.

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 Thus, the architects planned for a variety of dwelling types meant to accommodate any type

of family, including single and double houses, rowhouses, two- and three-story flat, and elevator

apartments (Fig. 2.39). Buildings were grouped around a central green as well as “green strips,”

that radiated between double houses and row houses (Figs. 2.40-2.41). The apartment buildings

were placed in the wooded area where views were the best; single detached houses were placed on

the steep, thickly wooded south slope. Extensive community facilities including a “block center”

within each green strip, and schools, libraries, shops. Although the proposal was unclear on where

funding would come from, it made clear that decentralized, controlled developments that featured

extensive communal areas, both indoors and outdoors—as seen in many defense housing projects

—would be a part of the postwar world.

A project that took that concept to its logical conclusion was Francis E. Lloyd, Hervey

Parke Clark, Ronald Lynn Campbell and developer David D. Bohannon’s plan to convert a

temporary war housing project (Fig. 2.42) in San Francisco, CA into a livable postwar community.

Based on the provisions of the amended Lanham Act which stipulated that temporary public

housing would be removed after the emergency—likely razed and then turned over to new owners

—the architects designed the project with the premise that they would retain the existing street

pattern, utilities services, and the foundations and floor slabs of the temporary buildings. The goal

was to reduce the overall density, relieve the mass scale by grouping housing and separate

properties for individual ownership. Their solution (Fig. 2.43) took the foundation footprints of the

temporary buildings and out of them created new single-story detached units; one-story and four-

family rental units with detached garages; additionally, two-story, three-bedroom houses were

proposed to be built on new foundations. All of these buildings would then be organized around

entrance courts, which were both a matter of necessity as well as a pedestrian safety measure. “The

principal appeal of the whole scheme,” Architectural Forum wrote, “would be the quietness of the

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neighborhood quality of these cul-de-sac courts.”93 The former management and community

building was retained as a meeting place and for a block of shops. Here, the architects took the

basic foundation of the government’s standards for war housing, which had been meant to cultivate

democracy and community life, and thus retain workers, and re-imagined them for postwar

families of different sizes and means.

When Architectural Forum published the second part of the “Planned Neighborhoods for

194X” series in April 1944, they noted that the repetition was meant to “express a conviction of the

editors that town planning is due to assume an importance that its most enthusiastic supporters

would still hesitate to predict.” 94 Nowhere, they concluded, did they see a desire to return to the

“super-metropolis dream.” Instead, they found that planners preferred discreet projects that could

be coordinated as part of a general plan—a piecemeal approach to rebuilding cities and developing

outer areas. In echoes of Radburn, the Forum described the state of modern planning:

Planners have agreed, at long last, that a unit of manageable size must be the cell
from which the city grows. Within such a unit, whether residential neighborhood or
commercial center, man’s two feet again become a pleasant and efficient means of
getting around. At the same time, in the process of restoring to the pedestrian the
domain which is rightfully his, the motor vehicle almost automatically obtains the
channel it must have for safe, fast movement.95

Planning on the neighborhood level was deemed both a realistic endeavor and a safeguard of

human scale. Yet, by this time, and in contrast to the highly progressive proposals for the “House

of 194X,” nearly every residential proposal for the “Planned Neighborhood of 194X” was a

watered down version of Radburn, and seemingly far from the innovative planning seen in some of

the early defense housing projects. Some projects, like Samuel Glaser and Ladislav Rado’s small

rural development (Fig. 2.44) near Boston, MA, eschewed communal open spaces for private rear

gardens; others, like Arthur T. Brown, Andre M. Faure, Roy P. Drachman and John W. Joynt’s

93
“Converted War Housing, San Francisco,” Architectural Forum 79 (October 1943): 72.
94 “Planned Neighborhoods for 194X,” Architectural Forum 80 (April 1944): 71.
95
Ibid.

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desert housing project (Fig. 2.45) in Tuscon, AZ, adopted traditional subdivision plots. As the

client shifted from government bureau to private developer, the planning paradigm began to revert

back to what had come before. Indeed, Demars, Koch, and their associates on the mixed rental

neighborhood near Washington commented that, although the “war has taught us to think big about

housing, “much of what had been done “has had the earmarks of the pre-war project—its self-

consciousness and air of being ‘different.’”96 As in World War I, it was clear that building design

and planning, if not the architectural profession itself, were going to be revitalized, just not quite as

supporters of the garden city, and advocates for holistic community planning, had hoped.

Perhaps no project demonstrated this failure as well as Willow Run, the doomed project for

6,000 families at a Henry Ford bomber plant outside of Detroit, Michigan. What began as a

collaboration between the FPHA and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union, ultimately

exposed the benefits and pitfalls of a federally-led planning process. On the positive side was the

imaginative approach to regional planning—with an express highway that would shuttle workers

into suburbia—and the three “neighborhood units” (Figs. 2.46-2.48) by the project’s architects

including Albert Mayer and Julian Whittlesey, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Louis I. Kahn and

Oscar Stonorov, with a town center by Eliel Saarinen and Robert F. Swanson. Each created their

own Radburn-inspired plan, offering compelling models for post-war living, and the entire project

received support from the Roosevelt administration and local officials. Yet partisan politics and an

intensifying war in October 1942 led the government to scrap the plan for the permanent

communities and replace them with dormitories to be known as Willow Village and Willow Lodge.

It was a far come down from the initial scheme, which ultimately remained just paper plans, and a

semi-disaster for workers, many who remained in “Hoovervilles” for almost two years. But to the

journal Task, what was most damning was that the experience had “undermined the whole

96
“Mixed Rental Neighborhood, Washington,” 79.

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conception of low-cost government housing,” and especially, it seemed, the ability to undertake

large-scale plans.97

War landscapes

Along with thoughtful site planning, landscape was also viewed as a means of maintaining morale

among war workers living in defense housing projects, as well as providing camouflage against air

raid attack. In April 1941, Charles W. Eliot, the director of the National Resources Planning Board,

wrote in Landscape Architecture about the possibilities of the landscape architect as a “constructive

factor” in winning the war. Their particular value, he asserted, was in their ability to provide a

“hopeful outlook” through their art. “Landscape architects,” he wrote, “as people who are patient,

who have been schooled in the design of things which take a long time to come to their full

fruition, who believe in change as a basic element in their design and in all their thinking, can play

a very useful role in this problem of morale.”98 By equipping defense housing projects with beauty

and a measure of livability, landscape could be a device to ensure that war workers and their

families remained in their jobs through the duration.

The inception of the defense housing program coincided with a sea change in landscape

architecture theory and practice. This arguably began with Christopher Tunnard’s 1938 Gardens in

the Modern Landscape, which called for new landscapes based on functional, artistic and

empathetic considerations, rather than the formulaic prescriptions of the Beaux Arts system. These

ideas were furthered and expanded by his students, Garrett Eckbo, Dan Kiley and James C. Rose in

97 Hermann H. Field, “The Lesson of Willow Run,” Task, no. 4 (1943): 9-17. For more on Willow
Run, see “Town of Willow Run: Civic Center and Proposed Neighborhood Units,” Architectural
Forum 78 (March 1943): 37-54 and Tracy B. Augur, “Planning Principles Applied in Wartime: An
Account of the Planning of a Town for Willow Run Workers,” Architectural Record 93 (January
1943): 72-77.
98
Charles W. Eliot, “Considerations of Defense and Post-Defense Planning,” Landscape
Architecture 31 (April 1941): 123.

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a series of articles published in Architectural Record in 1939 and 1940 discussing landscape design

in the urban, rural and primeval environment.99 In them, they called for collaborative, cohesive

design and planning, and advocated for landscapes that rejected historic styles and Beaux Arts

principles, embraced space rather than pattern, used plants for their individual botanical and

sculptural qualities, and regarded landscapes as social endeavors.100 In their February 1940 article

on the primeval landscape, Eckbo, Kiley and Rose explained that the real problem was to make

man’s environment “flexible in use, adaptable in form, economical in effort, and productive in

bringing to individuals an enlarged horizon of cultural, scientific, and social integrity.”101 As it

happened, their modernist views aligned well with the upcoming defense housing program’s

strictures, in which democracy, economy, scientific analysis and ingenuity would be the order of

the day.

Where the landscape designer fit into the overall defense housing planning process,

however, remained a source of anxiety for some some in the field. In May 1942, Dorothy May

Anderson wrote in Pencil Points that landscape architecture was more than just an art; rather it was

an essential part of the overall planning process. “Stripped to the barest functional bones,” she

explained, “site and shelter are inseparable, integral parts of one design.”102 Exasperated that a

recent article on a defense housing project for 3000 families in Linda Vista, CA had failed to

mention the words landscape architecture even once, she wrote that perhaps the substitute term for

what she and her colleagues did was “site planning,” since “the method of design is exactly the

99 “Landscape Design in the Urban Environment,” “Landscape Design in the Rural Environment,”
and “Landscape Design in the Primeval Environment,” which appeared in Architectural Record in
May and August 1939 and February 1940, respectively.
100
See Marc Trieb “Axioms for a Modern Landscape Architecture,” in Modern Landscape
Architecture: A Critical Review, ed. Marc Trieb (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 53-55.
101 Garrett Eckbo, Daniel U. Kiley, James C. Rose, “Landscape Design in the Primeval

Environment,” Architectural Record 87 (February 1940): 74.

102
Dorothy May Anderson, “What Is a Landscape Architect?” Pencil Points 23, no. 2 (February
1942): 111.

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same.” However, she clarified: “If SITE PLANNING is to be the streamlined version of

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE it must include planting; one cannot lop off this part of the

unified whole just because the most visible part of its execution, of necessity, comes last.” Finding

the term “landscape architecture” almost completely meaningless, Anderson argued for a less

stratified framework of professional responsibilities. Indeed, other landscape architects, such as

Eckbo, echoed these thoughts and observations by implicitly arguing for the landscape designers

expanded role. He saw landscape design as an integral part of the overall planning process—along

with town planning, architecture and engineering—and contended that the landscape designer

should be involved from the building, particularly, “if he is to be saved from the fate of being an

exterior decorator for architecture.”103 Eckbo went further, suggesting that new professional

boundaries would make more sense, including planners (who plan the use of the land), space

designers (who broaden the functions of architects, landscape architects and engineers) and object

designers (who would organize, furnish and equip interior spaces). Eckbo saw planting, in addition

to providing shade, greenery, color and general amenity, as “the final refining element in the

complete organization of the site space.”

Kiley, for one, was able to put these ideas into practice at Pennypack Woods, a FWA (and

Mutual Home Ownership) project designed by George Howe, Louis Kahn and Oscar Stonorov in

1941. Located outside of Philadelphia, the project consisted of 1000 dwellings for industrial

workers on 120 acres of gently rolling slopes.104 In it, buildings of various sizes and arrangements

—made up primarily of long six-unit rowhouse buildings and smaller staggered buildings with

twin units—were grouped around cul-de-sacs that extended into a central green (Fig. 2.49). Aiming

for cost efficiency as well as functionality, Kiley examined the project from the view of the overall

103Eckbo, “Site Planning,” 261.

104
Federal Works Agency press release, July 11, 1941; Speeches of the FWA Administrators,
1939-41; Entry 32, Box 1; RG 162, NACP.

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site plan, the cul-de-sac unit, as well as the individual residences. At the site plan level, Kiley used

large canopy trees to line the streets and created a long, curved windbreak, or spatial break, of

planetrees in the open green; small trees structured the more domestic spaces. At the building

peripheries (Fig. 2.50), rectangular and curved blocks of shrubs and small colorful trees provided

privacy between both buildings and individual units, sun and wind protection, and most

importantly, they helped to functionally organize the space according to its human use. Each unit

(Figs. 2.51-2.53) was provided additional interest in the form of low ground cover such as ivy and

vines that were meant to climb each unit’s terrace. Pragmatic in its concern for orientation, climate

control and social use, the project adhered well to the government’s requirements for economy and

speed.

In 1941, Kiley worked on a total of eight defense housing projects; five of those with

Howe, Kahn and Stonorov. He adapted this same practical approach to landscape on each project.

At Carver Court, a project for black steel workers in Coatesville, PA, buildings lined a loop of a

former racetrack at the base of a hill (Fig. 2.54). In this project Howe, Kahn and Stonorov

experimented with alternative living arrangements. In reevaluating and analyzing the plans of one,

two and three bedroom units, they hypothesized that the only aspect that really mattered in the

design of war housing was “essential space,” which encompassed the required space (as opposed to

minimum space) for storage, waste and laundry.105 At Coatesville, the architects transposed the

basement to the ground level and placed all living spaces on the second floor, creating a flexible

carport/shelter/play area on the ground level as well as possibilities of circulation through the

“ground-freed” structure. Responding to this inventive arrangement, Kiley organized plantings—

both medium-size trees and shrubs—that would screen and protect these flexible indoor-outdoor

spaces (Fig. 2.55). In the wider site plan Kiley created planes with rows of trees and hedges that

105
George Howe, Oscar Stonorov and Louis I. Kahn, “‘Standards’ Versus Essential Space,”
Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 308.

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intersected with free-standing biomorphic clumps of trees, providing a three-dimensional

organization to the space. In this project, he also provided the tenants with planting beds, giving

them a functional space to grow plants or food. In addition to the benefits of growing one’s own

produce, these “victory gardens” also functioned as civil morale boosters in that residents could

feel empowered by their contribution of labor to the war effort. At Pine Ford Acres in Middletown,

PA, a 450-unit USHA project designed by Howe, Kahn and Stonorov in 1942, Kiley also gave the

community buildings the same commonsensical, yet appealing, treatment. Here, around an

administration building and maintenance building (Fig. 2.56), Kiley chose a range of colorful trees

with large or medium canopies—golden willows, purple-flowering eastern redbuds, sourwoods

that turn bright red in fall, white-flowering cherry trees, and tall, hardy oriental planes—to spatially

organize the surrounding landscape in both rows and belts, as well as more organically situated

clumps. Near the children’s play yard, Kiley used bent hedgerows and one large evergreen tree to

effectively anchor the eye as well as coordinate functions by space. Through his experiments,

landscape increasingly exhibited a structure that was separate from the buildings on the site.

At Vallejo, CA, the site of two massive defense housing projects near the Mare Island Navy

Yard, Eckbo and Thomas Church were able to experiment with with designs of immense scale.

Working closely with architect William Wurster, Church adapted the landscape at both Carquinez

Heights and Chabot Terrace to the dry Northern California climate. Although documentation of

landscape at the dramatically hilly Carquinez Heights project is not available and photographs of

the site were taken before planting, we know that the government found the landscape plan highly

unconventional. Rufe Newman, of the FWA’s Division of Defense Housing, criticized the plan

“with the opinion that is is as unorthodox as the site plan.”106 He found the plantings displeasingly

106
Rufe Newman to Talbot Wegg, December 17, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.
23, William W. Wurster/Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Collection, (1976-2), Environmental Design
Archives, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

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dissociated from the project’s dwellings, roads, walks and open areas and thought that trees were

planted too close to each other and that circular groupings of vegetation added nothing to the

design. “In general,” he wrote, “the planting for the entire project is ‘spotty’ with trees heavily

concentrated in small groups while the major part of the development is bare of planting.” Like

Eckbo, Kiley and Rose, Church meant to use landscape as a means of site organization and was

highly attuned to the individual properties of the planting materials he chose. Church wrote to

Wurster that Newman simply didn’t understand local conditions or “what we set out to do,” for that

matter.107 The Eucalyptus trees were meant to be clumped to give the effect of “one tree with

several forks,” noting that it would take nine to twelve of them to give the group any weight,

particularly on a project of this size. Consistently placed tree planting simply did not make sense

on the rolling, bare brown hills, where historically Eucalyptus had been planting in lines and

clumps by early settlers. “We saw no valid reason,” Church explained, “to contrive a soft,

obviously landscaped, suburban effect with the planting, particularly when the allowances for

installation and maintenance are at a minimum.” Viewing the plantings as functional, Church

preferred to organize the trees as wind breaks and as three-dimensional organizational tools that

could allow for “the preservation of views.”

Coming after Pearl Harbor, Wurster and Church took a slightly different approach to site

planning and landscape at Chabot Terrace. Here, construction was grouped into a number of more-

or-less distinct sectors in which the architects could control the “emergency strips” or “catastrophe

belts” between the areas for fire and bombing protection. In peacetime, these breaks also served as

green belts, breaking the monotony of the structures and helping to arrange play spaces and road

layout (Fig. 2.57).108 In Church’s landscape, rows of Eucalyptus and poplars snaked their way

107 Thomas Church to William Wurster, December 31, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez
Heights],V.23, WWC, EDA.
108
William Wurster to Frank Lopez, August 9, 1944, Folder: Cal 4211 [Chabot Terrace],
Correspondence, Photo and sound 1943-45, WWC, EDA.

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through the various housing blocks, curving and bending between units (Figs. 2.58-2.59). As

Wurster explained, Church was aiming to emphasize “the space between the houses” rather than

the houses—temporary, demountable structures—themselves. 109 Responding to this design, the

FPHA asked Church to limit the screen plantings to those that were “functional primarily.”110 Of

course, to Church, these sinuous, geometrical arrangements were functional in their ability to shape

space. He also endowed individual types of plants with the ability to carry out specific tasks, for

example, the service court fruit trees which he was forced to eliminate after being asked cut over

$50,000 from his landscape budget. Church lamented that their loss “would deprive the project of

much color and interest.”111 With his biomorphic forms, Church aimed to mitigate the rigidity of

the site plan. At Vallejo’s “duration dormitories” Eckbo’s landscape displayed many of the same

characteristics of Church’s Chabot Terrace design. In it he attempted to order the space through

curved and bent rows of Lombardy poplars and weeping willows, as well as scattered vegetal

plantings (Fig. 2.60). Trees and plantings are lined up in rows, keyed to the edges of various

buildings, or envelop them in arced arrangements. Formal in some areas and abstract in others, the

landscape manages to both group buildings and sections of buildings, and yet give each some

individual space.

By March 1943, the Standards for War Housing included a section on landscape design

which clearly echoed the pragmatic approach adopted by Kiley, Church and Eckbo. Calling for

simplicity in design, the standards asked landscape architects to prioritize ease of maintenance,

economy and appearance in housing projects.112 In particular, it appealed for the use of “suitable”

plant materials that were selected on basis of climate, soils, availability, life rate and growth, and

109 Ibid.
110
Federal Public Housing Authority to Chabot Terrace landscape architects, May 9, 1942, folder:
Cal 4211 [Chabot Terrace], Correspondence & notes, landscape 1942-43, WWC, EDA.
111 Thomas Church to William Wurster, October 5, 1942, folder: Cal 4211 [Chabot Terrace],

Correspondence & notes, landscape 1942-43, WWC, EDA.

112
“Bulletin No. 3,” March 10, 1943, RG 207, NACP.

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durability. Through various devices, the Standards also sought to relieve monotony by humanizing

otherwise standardized buildings and repetitive site plans: trees were to be planted irregularly and

interspersed between buildings so as to separate wall planes of buildings seen in perspective view.

Tenant plantings would help “obscure the artificial lines and areas on the ground and to break or

blur the shadows of buildings;” shrubs would help make the projects “look less crowded by

visually reducing exposed wall;” and vines could be used liberally on masonry walls at blank ends,

and in narrow courts, where they “tend to reduce noise and glare and tend to diminish the crowded

effect of large projects.” Architectural vistas, it claimed, could be enhanced by the addition of

small trees planted close to buildings. The Standards encouraged landscape architects to

contemplate the project as a whole by enhancing the open spaces and views, while at the same time

softening the often simplistic buildings.

The government also sought to help landscape architects provide camouflage through their

designs. Since the war’s end was unknown, it acknowledged that “long range considerations of air

raid protection and the camouflage value of plant materials should influence the design to a

reasonable degree.” 113 Tall trees of approximately six to eight feet, like the irregular placing of

buildings, could provide protection against strafing attack and provide a “shadow breaking effect.”

Thus, the government asked landscape designers to think in three-dimensions, studying planting

design in elevation as well as plan, and considering the height and spread of individual plants. “Do

not let the planting become a trivial decoration of individual buildings,” the Standards admonished.

“Plant for breadth and an effect of simple practicality; plant to facilitate land use.” With their

abstract, loosely Cubistic designs, modernist landscape architects like Eckbo, Kiley and Church

offered an alternative to the formal, conservative solutions seen in many other defense housing

projects and what’s more, provided a measure of camouflage with their biomorphic forms.

113
Ibid.

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Although subject to cost controls, these three architects proved that low-cost housing could have

both landscapes with plastic designs that focused on form and material, somewhat like painting and

sculpture, concurrently with those that fostered practical, functional, human-scaled activities. As

Eckbo would later describe in his 1949 book Landscape for Living, “speculative developments are

notoriously minimal in their approach to landscaping,” however, “the potential of co-operative

activity, in terms of physical quality and neighborhood character, is unlimited.”114

Conclusion

Like the idealistic “housers” of the World War I and the New Deal, World War II-era planners

perceived federally-sponsored defense and war housing projects as the first steps towards a new

age of social reconstruction, in which neighborly communities with natural surroundings, space,

privacy and freer use of the machine would foster democracy and individual freedom. As Talbot

Hamlin put it in 1941: the aim was for a “community pattern,” which “shall be itself an inspiration

to good work, an example to the rest of the country, an expression of the broad base of American

democracy.”115 However, others, like Albert Mayer, acknowledged the inherent risk that utopian

defense housing projects posed for the future, writing that if the public “find that we haven’t been

able to make good on the rosy picture we’ve given them of the advantages of large-scale housing

and community planning, the people and Congress are going to tend to say NO to further

efforts.” 116 The entire experiment hinged on the public’s acceptance of neighborhood planning, and

by extension, the garden city.

By war’s end, the architectural community yearned for a new language to deal with the

problems of planning. Reflecting fatigue on the subject, Stein wrote to Benton MacKaye near the

114
Garrett Eckbo, Landscape for Living (1950: repr., Santa Monica, CA: Hennessey and Ingalls,
2002), 202.
115 Talbot F. Hamlin, “A Pot Pourri for Architects,” Pencil Points 22, no. 1 (January 1941): 58.
116
Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site Plans?,” 258.

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end of 1942 that he didn’t like the word “planning” anymore; it seemed worn out.117 The word

appeared to lose even more of its meaning when related to postwar endeavors. Howard Myers,

editor and publisher of Architectural Forum wrote in 1944 that the term “post-war planning” was

mostly an empty phrase, since large-scale housing, both private and public, seemed to be more

myth than promise.118 Even the “garden city” seemed to lose much of its original, albeit

Americanized, meaning. In 1946 Bauer wrote that the garden city movement had been corrupted

“to signify nothing more than a segregated upper-class suburb of orderly, one-family houses.”119

Stein’s solution was to rebrand the movement. “New Towns,” as Stein eventually came to

call them, were meant to reflect the new age that had developed during the war, in which there was

little or no domestic service, increased leisure time, increased equality of opportunity, and new

forms of mechanization. Although his book Toward New Towns for America discussed Sunnyside,

Radburn, Chatham Village, Phipps Gardens, Hillside, Greenbelt and Baldwin Hills Village as steps

toward creating New Towns, Stein’s defense housing projects—at Indian Head, Stowe and Shaler

townships, and Clairton—were omitted. Yet, without doubt, these projects were also instrumental

in furthering that ideology, in which the objective was fundamentally social rather than

commercial. Harnessing the particular requirements of defense, and the considerable power, wealth

and scope of the federal government, Stein and others were able to experimentally design

decentralized, self-contained communities which reflected the desire to revitalize the idea of the

garden city and, as Stein remarked in 1940, bring about “the life that we want to live after this

emergency.”120

117 Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein, 442.

118
Howard Myers, “Was the Architect of Tomorrow Here Yesterday?,” Journal of the American
Institute of Architects 2, no. 1 (July 1944): 15.
119 Catherine Bauer, “Garden Cities and the Metropolis: A Reply,” The Journal of Land & Public

Utility Economics 22, no. 1 (February 1946): 65.

120
Stein, “Community Expansion in the First World War,” 15.

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 CHAPTER 3

Standards for Defense: Prefabrication, New Materials and Unit Planning

During World War II, emergency speed, restricted materials and scarce labor on the

American home front challenged traditional methods of construction and rigid concepts of housing

design. With cheap, new materials and a rationalized factory method of manufacturing and

assembling house components, defense and war housing provided a model for diversification in

home building that had never before been so economically or technologically feasible. Through

progressive government-led initiatives, primarily spearheaded by Clark Foreman, the director of

the Division of Defense Housing (DDH) within the Federal Works Agency (FWA), war housing

became an important site for experimentation in design and construction of the low-cost small

home. Although not always successful, these projects sparked considerable interest from within the

architectural community, which took the advancements made in house construction and design in

the 1930s and adapted them to war-time needs, ultimately pointing the way towards developments

that would be seen in housing in the post-war years. Indeed, the hope among architects, planners

and government officials associated with these experiments—involving prefabrication, new

materials and innovative unit planning—was that they would usher in more efficient, low-cost,

modern homes that could be built during peace-time.

A representative example of these types of investigations is William Wurster’s commission

to design 1,692 demountable houses at Carquinez Heights (Fig. 3.1) in Vallejo, California, a

community of 30,000 next to the Mare Island Navy Yard, twenty-five miles north of San Francisco.

For Wurster, the project was an opportunity to experiment with new materials and modular

construction. Although Carquinez Heights is significant for its site planning and landscape design,

this chapter will explore how this project became a focal point for discussion within the

architectural community about the processes of prefabrication and its relation to modernist design,

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as well as the newest, most dramatically improved, or increasingly produced materials of the war—

such as plywood and homasote. In addition to the thousands of prefabricated units Wurster

designed for Carquinez Heights, he was also asked to participate, along with a number of other

progressive architects such as Hugh Stubbins, Antonin Raymond and Alfred Kastner, in creating a

group of “experimental” units, which would explore different materials, plans and modes of living.

These houses, in particular, came closest to the dream of the small house to come. The “New

House of 194X,” Architectural Forum asserted, could function as “potent propaganda,” if

architects worked these projects out with a real appreciation for what the war was about (i.e.,

democracy, individuality, freedom) and a clear understanding of peace-time potential.1 Even

though the results were often reduced to the barest bones, what was built offered the country

practical laboratory experience with experimental building methods and stream-lined production

processes, and suggested new ways of living.

Experimentation and flexibility in housing

This desire for and implementation of experimentation in war housing was influenced in large part

by the new migration patterns and changed living habits of the country’s population, a large

segment of which resettled in California during the war years. In 1943, progressive houser

Catherine Bauer (also William Wurster’s wife) estimated in The American Scholar that some

fourteen to fifteen million civilians would have moved by the end of the crisis, meaning between

one-fourth and one-sixth of the American population would be “in a state of flux physically and

psychologically.”2 These war workers, she implied, were a malleable population whose housing

preferences could be shaped during the crisis, as their “personal preferences and qualitative

1“The New House of 194X,” Architectural Forum 77 (September 1942): 65.

2
Catherine Bauer, “Cities in Flux: A Challenge to Postwar Planners,” The American Scholar 13,
no. 1 (Winter 1943): 70.

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judgements will have great influence on the choice of future homes.” 3 Government officials, such

as Talbot Wegg, the director of special operations at FWA, considered the American defense build-

up an ideal opportunity to “mold and lead public opinion instead of following it,” introducing

modern, streamlined prefabricated architecture to a wide swath of the general public.4 In fact, the

technological advancements of the early twentieth century had already brought about considerable

shifts in the tastes and preferences of the American population by the early 1940s. General Philip

B. Fleming, the administrator of the FWA beginning in 1942, noted that the radio, moving picture,

automobile and airplane had “obliterated differences of custom, of manners and of speech, and

attenuated local loyalties.”5 As architectural journals and other literature from the period show, a

remarkable effect of this loosening of local habits and increasing homogenization (or perhaps,

Americanization) of the national population was a desire by many for what one might term a

democratic individuality, or flexibility, in home design.

Perhaps one of the greatest changes in this period was not in the realm of new materials or

factory methods of production, but was rather a conceptual shift in the understanding of the

physical and perceived space in the average American home. A new trend of flexibility emerged

during the war years that reflected the need for an increased adaptability to change, due in large

part to the massive number of Americans who were experiencing change—both in their living

situations and with the influx of technological advancements—on a scale that had never before

been imagined. As early as August 1940, the same moment that government war housing program

began to take shape, Architectural Forum noted that “outstanding among the changes in house

3
Ibid, 71.
4 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing with
Division of Defense Housing (November 10th and 11th, 1941), 115.
5
Major General Philip B. Fleming, “The City and Uncle Sam,” (speech given to the American
Municipal Association in Chicago, IL, November 17, 1945); Speeches of the FWA Administrators
1939-49; Entry 32, Box 4; General Records of the Federal Works Agency, Record Group 162,
National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. Fleming became the administrator of the
Federal Works Agency in 1942.

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design is the growing importance of flexibility, itself a reflection of new ways of living.”6 These

new modes of living included a lessening in the differentiation of size and character of houses of

different social groups, the introduction of automobiles, and the growing redundancy of servants.

The war accelerated these trends and brought further adjustments to national living habits such as

women exchanging domestic duties for jobs in commerce and industry, as well as the introduction

of communal services such as recreational facilities and child care. In an attempt to eliminate non-

essential customs, houses necessarily became small enough to only contain needed items and

versatile enough to accommodate the shifting needs of American families as their values and their

size changed over time. Some of this requirement for flexibility reflected the possibilities inherent

in the modern movement and new technological advancements, but it also, importantly, stemmed

from economy and necessity.

Practitioners working directly in the war housing program asked themselves questions

including: How could factory-produced prefabricated materials be combined to address the needs

of war worker families—for flexibility and affordability? How could architects square

standardization and technological innovation with custom fabrication? Exactly what level of

quality and convenience should a small house achieve? Could architectural virtue be found in

wartime necessity? War housing projects such as Carquinez Heights aroused a storm of

controversy over the appearance and durability of low-cost houses, but also managed to focus

public attention on the value of prefabrication and demountability—the ability to deconstruct a

building and reconstruct it elsewhere—in the war housing program. The project generated spirited

debate over the idea of individuality and variety in public housing projects, prompting designers

and manufacturers to discuss whether war worker houses were simply generic emergency

dwellings, or opportunities to incorporate visual diversity (and an element of democratic

6
“Home,” Architectural Forum 73 (August 1940): 250.

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individuality) into mass housing. In terms of unit planning, Carquinez Heights and other

experimental projects such as those by Stubbins, Antonin and Kastner show architects moving

increasingly away from Beaux Arts traditions towards more informal designs featuring a perceived

sense of spaciousness with an interlocking of inside and outside, a lack of compartments, and lack

of focal axes. The call for flexibility was also tied inextricably to the ever-changing uses of space

and inspired architects to investigate the idea of multi-use rooms, movable partitions, inventive

storage solutions and cheap, suitable furniture.

National migration, as well as changes in living habit and aesthetic tastes offered an

opportunity for the “technicians” of the architectural community to scientifically reconsider the

construction (with its concomitant issues of cost) and organization of the average middle-class

home. The defense and wartime housing programs provided the perfect opportunity—albeit one

rooted in scarcity and crisis—for modernists to extend their agenda of a supposed rational

simplicity in house design, planning and construction. Their intended contribution: dynamic

architectural qualities that would inspire in the average middle-class American a sense of

egalitarian community in tandem with individual freedom.

Vallejo and Carquinez Heights

On April 23, 1941 the FWA issued a press release announcing a new war housing project of 1,600

demountable units (later increased to approximately 1,700 units) for civilian shipyard workers and

Navy enlisted personnel in Vallejo, CA, a community near the Mare Island Navy Yard, which

served as the controlling submarine and shipbuilding port in the San Francisco Bay area during

World War II (Fig. 3.2).7 The next month, William Wurster, a local residential architect who had

7
Federal Works Agency, “Memorandum for the press,” April 23, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086
[Carquinez Heights], V.16, William W. Wurster/Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Collection,
(1976-2), Environmental Design Archives, College of Environmental Design, University of
California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

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achieved a reputation for blending international modernist trends with an interest in regional

materials (particularly wood), climate, and livability, was appointed as consultant to the project.

Often considered the founder of the Bay Area style, Wurster’s houses generally sought pragmatic

and utilitarian solutions that were without extravagance or showmanship. The broad framework of

the project was to build a practical, demountable community under the most rigorous discipline of

economy and speed.

Vallejo offers up an instructive case history in defense- and war-time housing types. After

the initial influx of new workers started arriving in 1940, when the population of Vallejo was about

30,000, several federal housing projects began under various agencies, including the Farm Security

Administration (FSA), the Public Buildings Administration (PBA), the FWA, and later the Federal

Public Housing Authority (FPHA). These projects, notably, were instigated without a central

coordination scheme and created a somewhat haphazard building pattern in Vallejo. Early in the

scramble, the Navy requested and received the 600-unit Roosevelt Terrace (Fig. 3.3), the only

permanently constructed project in the area. Despite its “handsome facade” the project had

inadequate front yards, scarcely usable rear yards, no community building and no play areas.8

Federal Terrace was then developed (Fig. 3.4), an 858-unit project by the PBA, the least distinctive

of the projects, called “formless and without cohesion” by California Arts & Architecture.9 Soon

after, the Hillside Dormitories (Fig. 3.5) were built in the form of thirty-eight prefabricated

structures by Plywood Structures and designed by Vernon Demars under the FSA, and later came

an additional 200 small cabins designed for temporary occupancy. By 1941, time had become a

major factor as busloads of new workers continued to arrive in Vallejo on a daily basis. In May,

William Wurster was given the largest commission at Vallejo to date: Carquinez Heights.

8 “Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 37.
9
“Vallejo War Housing Case History,” California Arts and Architecture 59 (Dec 1942): 23.

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 Site planning occupied the first few weeks of design preparation on Carquinez Heights.

Acting as site engineer, Wurster chose a spot in “the country” that would allow additional acreage

not available in the densely built up town of Vallejo.10 The site south of Vallejo was considered

admirably situated with respect to community and commercial facilities, and was within walking

distance of the Mare Island Ferry. The location took into account the possibility of air raids, being a

relatively safe distance of over one mile from the Navy activity on Mare Island. The scheme

Wurster’s office devised adhered closely to the existing terrain, placing the houses in varying rows

and levels (Fig. 3.6). Essentially an earth terracing system, the floor level of each house was

dictated by the existing grade. According to Wurster, each house was “dropped into place wherever

it would naturally fall,” with posts and skirting put under it to accommodate the slope.11

In Wurster’s scheme, the site plan was inextricably tied to the design of the houses. Like

other architects participating in the defense housing program, Wurster was expected to work from a

standard, government-issued set of working drawings and details, in this case, those issued by the

FWA (Fig. 3.7). These standard drawings represented an elastic starting point for design in defense

housing. While defining the standards ever more rigidly, some agencies—particularly the FWA and

USHA in the first years of the program—were searching intensively for clever solutions to the

problems of construction, design and space planning and asking architects to deviate from these

standards. The houses, it was pointed out, were not intended to be “minimum” or “industrial”

housing, nor slum clearance, nor speculative development.12 Defense houses were to be viewed as

10
H. Tudor Morsell to JH Brown, June 13, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.16,
WWC, EDA.
11 William Wurster, “Carquinez Heights,” California Arts and Architecture 58 (November 1941):

34. The site plan’s advantages included being incredibly economical (an absolute minimum of
earth had to be moved), expeditious (it avoided construction work over the months-long California
rainy season), and environmentally and aesthetically pleasing as it minimized scarring the natural
hillside. The adherence of the plan to the existing terrain, in particular, gave the rows of houses
great animation as they overlooked the Bay.
12
“Plan Standards for Defense Housing,” Architectural Record 90 (November 1941): 72.

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a unique and special technical problem that required builders, engineers and the architect to

employ their skill and ingenuity to ensure that war workers lived with dignity and maintained the

high morale necessary for war-time production. However, the sheer existence of the standards as

well as a stringent materials priorities system ensured that most war-time construction was

effectively modern, with imaginative structural systems, simple volumes and finishes, and little or

no ornament.

Wartime standardized housing for war workers was already perceived by some—

particularly those in private industry—as a collectivist trend that represented the antithesis of

single-family dwellings for middle-class suburbia. There was considerable disagreement as to

whether war housing should reflect peacetime sentiments of moral reformation or social uplift, or

simply act as a war tool.13 Much of the literature of the wartime housing movement used phrases

such as “utopian,” “communistic,” or “socialistic,” both the influences of earlier unsuccessful

undertakings in community building and inherent opposition to government intervention in

traditional methods of home planning, construction and operation. One former housing consultant,

for instance, wrote to two of the nation’s leading women’s magazines: “The prefabricated house

sets a definite limit on the American family. It tends to make the family adjust itself to a modulated

enclosure. It ‘cans’ America. And any canned peoples lose their initiative, their imagination, and

sometimes their contact with God.”14 Most progressive architects, like Wurster, agreed on the

simple premise that project tenants should enjoy their homes, and were thus made into amateur

sociologists as they selected the construction methods, orientation, materials, and layouts of the

13 See the letter from RJ Thomas (president of the UAW-CIO) to [Congressman], June 1, 1942;
Housing-Labor 5/1/42 - 8/30/42; Entry 26, Box 6; General Records of the Department of Housing
and Urban Development [HUD], Record Group 207, National Archives at College Park, College
Park, MD.
14
Unnamed housing consultant quoted in Edmond H. Hoben, foreward to National Association of
Housing Officials, “4 Papers on Housing Design: Monographs on Site and Unit Planning,”
September 1942, Folder VF NAC 1433.3 Ar, Loeb Design Collection, Loeb Design Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

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houses. From the outset, Wurster and others were working against the associations that came with

government prefabricated housing including enforced regimentation, socialism, and industry-wide

stagnation.

The prefabricators for Carquinez Heights—Plywood Structures, Inc. of Los Angeles and

the Homasote Co.—had already been chosen by government administrators before Wurster was

brought in. Nevertheless, Wurster was given the job of improving upon the prefabricated systems

and incorporating functional and aesthetic elements into the design. In June 1941, Wurster wrote to

Talbot Wegg, the director of special operations at FWA: “We must struggle to incorporate good

things in these houses—to that end my office is working hard.”15 The two types of houses were

constructed from standardized-panel systems of either plywood or homasote. The one-story

structures were arranged in a staggered pattern along the hillside (Fig. 3.8), with their main living

room entrance at grade and an elevated kitchen entrance at the rear. The plans were mirror images

of each other, with a large living room and medium-sized kitchen on one side and two bedrooms on

the other (Fig. 3.9). Otherwise, each unit was complete in itself with double party walls, so that

they could be salvaged and reconstructed elsewhere if and when the time came.

While in some respects Wurster was able to resist the prevailing tendency of prefabricators

to de-individualize houses, he admitted that the houses were virtually all alike and made no

apology for it. He admonished against the creation of “false effects,” like inoperable shutters or

other function-less ornamentation, calling them “ridiculous” in a project of Carquinez Heights’

scale. Wurster preferred more of a holistic and functionalist outlook, noting that no individual

house was significant in itself; rather, he advanced the view that the project functioned as an

ensemble. “Far better to accept the scale as a proud virtue,” Wurster wrote in California Arts &

Architecture, “relating the enterprise to the great classic squares where men did not turn

15
William W. Wurster to Talbot Wegg, June 9, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.25,
WWC, EDA.

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somersaults to stress in solo every thin slice of a house.”16 The limited improvements he did make

included alternative unit siting, plan rotation, rearranged windows (providing east and west

exposure, meaning that in all seasons and at all periods of day there would be a chance for sun) and

variation in roof types, including flat roofs, which would “allow for the greatest flexibility in

placing,” meaning they accommodated views better than pitched ones.17 Yet Wurster quietly

acknowledged the somewhat inauthentic nature of the designing process. In June 1941, he wrote to

William Kessling, a Los Angeles architect, that although the essence of the work lay in the looks of

the project—a particular challenge due to the speed—they were contracting for the houses “as

packaged goods (like an automobile).”18 In other words, individualized design was a limited

concept when working with factory-produced houses. The design dilemma here rested between the

efficiency of prefabricated standardization and the desire for individualization, recognizing that the

act of making a home (especially during war time) is a transient and continuously developing act,

depending much on the range of occupant lifestyles. Thus, the project acted as both an opportunity

for, and restriction against, inventively designing a prefabricated house for the average middle-

class family.

Instead of providing a new prototype for a mass-produced, individualized house, the bulk

of the Carquinez Heights houses (not including the experimental ones) accomplished another goal

of housing advocates and the manufacturers of house components: it sensationalized and

aggrandized the process of prefabrication. Catherine Bauer observed that the construction and final

appearance of the nearly 1,700 houses on a bare mountainside was far from dull, and was, she

wrote, “the first time I’ve seen anything that dramatized simplified rational building processes and

16
William Wurster, “Carquinez Heights,” 34.
17 William W. Wurster, “Data Outline for Vallejo Defense Housing,” June 13, 1941, Folder: Cal
4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.25, WWC, EDA.
18
William W. Wurster to William Kissing, June 8, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.
16, WWC, EDA.

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prefabrication to a point where you begin to get excited about it.”19 Architectural journals made

sure to emphasize that it was the production and erection of these prefabricated houses, as well as

the extensive use of new wood-based materials, that was newsworthy.

House prefabrication and demountability in the early 1940s

For the first time, under the urgent necessity of the war program tens of thousands of small houses

were being built in a manner of hours rather than weeks, without a marked loss of quality and for

far cheaper than traditional houses. Throughout the early 1940s, the idea of prefabrication was

hotly debated by manufacturers, architects, housing advocates, federal and local officials, and the

architectural press. In its favor were the quick construction speed, a reduced amount of labor, the

ability to build on a demountable basis, a measure of even quality and low cost. Arguments against

prefabrication included skepticism on the part of the public, labor disputes, contractor problems,

and stultifying government procedure. The first two years of the war saw the almost explosive

removal of barriers to prefabricated and demountable construction and unleashed the creation of

innumerable experimental ideas.

The concept of prefabrication had, in one form or another, been around for nearly one

hundred years, but a more generalized movement towards prefabrication didn’t begin until the

Depression years, when builders realized that they had neglected one of the fastest growing

markets: the low-cost house. In one of its first issues, Fortune dubbed prefabrication “the greatest

commercial opportunity of the age.” 20 As the number of idle factories grew during the 1930s,

prognosticators began to discuss the possibility of using them to produce new houses for this

untapped market. Many of the early prefabricators were the same names who would would later

19 Catherine Bauer to [infant], August 31, 1941, Box 1, Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers, BANC
MSS 74/163c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
20
Fortune quoted in “The Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 77 (December 1942): 51.

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jump at the chance to build prefabricated war housing. Early prefab houses were built by steel

companies like American Rolling Mills, U.S. Steel, Republic Steel, Harnischfeger Corp. and

American Houses. But new companies with cutting-edge products like Celotext (cane-fiber

insulation board), homasote (wall board with wood pulp and newspaper ground with resin), and

plywood (an assembly of wood veneers bonded together with adhesive) soon entered the field.

During the 1930s, scores of experimental houses were built with virtually every material

that existed at that point, and in many cases with materials that previously existed only in the

designer’s imagination. However, while many experimental houses were built and put up for sale,

in most cases the actual production facilities and ability to fill orders did not exist. Thus, the

prefabrication movement developed in an atmosphere of conflicting assertions which had as its net

effect the undermining of public and professional confidence in even those firms that were in a

position to deliver actual houses. Projects that looked promising and could have possibly

succeeded if large-scale, mass production methods had been employed were too expensive to be

constructed as only a small-scale operation. Despite the considerable hype, the pre-war industry

still lacked an actual mass-scale production method that could be applied to housing and a way to

merchandise the new product.

Of all types of houses, the wood frame house came closest to achieving some semblance of

prefabrication. With the introduction of machine-cut nails and the production of wood in standard

sizes, this house introduced into home construction the first elements of the prescheduled

procedure upon which modern mass production is based. The balloon frame (first used in the

1830s), in particular, produced a standard structure onto which any exterior veneer could be placed.

However, erection of the average wooden frame house remained a largely handicraft procedure

executed on site. The typical “mail order house,” like those purchased from the Sear’s catalogue,

fit some of the criteria of the wooden prefabricated house, in that they were assembled from pre-

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cut components and delivered to the site for erection. However, the use of handicraft erection on

site ensured that construction practice never took more than partial advantage of the benefits of

mass production. Eventually, the war would set the carpenter’s saw to power and put his modified

balloon frame on the jig-table, thus vastly accelerating traditional fabrication.

By the 1940s, there remained considerable confusion over the practice of prefabrication. In

December 1942, Architectural Forum wrote: “Prefabrication is all things to all men, and a source

of confusion to many.” 21 It was seen as the industry’s key hope for prosperity after the war, but was

still “obscured by a fog of claims and counter-claims, and yet manages to rise above this fog as one

of the few widely-recognized objectives of a rudderless industry. Its basis is not so much a logical

theory as a cult. And as a cult it has won ardent and persuasive adherents, united by a belief in a

better house, for less money, through more efficient methods of house production.” Between 1940

and 1942 the federal government— soon the prefabricators’ best (and only) customer—purchased

almost 75,000 prefabricated dwellings for war workers in crowded industrial centers. The sheer

quantity of houses, the journal asserted, had “brought the prefabrication movement out of the stage

of experiment and into the stage of actual mass-production.”22

The government’s role in and influence over the prefabrication industry was significant. In

the 1930s, the Bureau of Standards in the Department of Commerce had maintained a moderate-

sized role in the industry by testing structural methods, materials, equipment, and establishing

universal guidelines throughout the industry. With the onset of the war, the government also began

to act as an arbiter of standards, determining the need, location, cost, size and quality of the houses.

Significantly, the government was also responsible for choosing the architect (a reversal of earlier

government procedures which allowed local agencies to pick their own architect) to create a site

plan and alter the houses, if necessary, to fit the locality. The job of determining where and how

21 “The Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 77 (December 1942): 49.

22
“The Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 77 (December 1942): 59.

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much housing was needed was given to the Division of Defense Housing Coordination (DDHC),

under the direction of Coordinator Charles Palmer. The actual construction of housing was left to

the FWA, established in 1939 and headed by John Carmody.23

When the initial burst of housing lagged, the FWA established a dedicated Division of

Defense Housing (DDH). The division was announced on April 5, 1941 and run by thirty-year old

Clark Foreman, a one-time head of PWA’s power division, who was chosen with the view “that

efficient, speedy defense housing construction needs new blood and fresh viewpoints.”24 Assisting

Foreman was a largely progressive roster of housing professionals including Sherwood Reeder,

former manager of the FSA “greenbelt” housing project near Milwaukee. The rest of the DDH was

broken into four sections: prefabrication (Rufe B. Newman, Jr., a past Public Works Administration

(PWA) director), special operations (Talbot Wegg, previously from USHA), construction review

(architect Kline Fulmer, erstwhile resident manager of the FSA’s Maryland’s greenbelt project),

and management. All prefabrication work undertaken during the war was centralized under the

FWA, and later the National Housing Agency (NHA), following the merger of the housing

agencies in early 1942.

In 1941, the FWA’s Carmody began a search for architects who had had “actual experience

with large scale building of houses in the $2000 to $3000 range.” 25 In a letter to Howard Myers,

the publisher of Architectural Forum, Carmody skeptically asked for examples of prefabricated

projects, particularly of the demountable type, that he could visit. The truth was that by early 1941,

very few demountable houses had been built. Myers pointed Carmody to the work of USHA and

23
The FWA was responsible for organizing its affiliated agencies including the USHA under
Nathan Straus and the PBA. A smaller amount of defense housing was done by the FSA, which had
built effective minimum standard houses before the war, and the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA).
24 “Government Housers Meet,” Architectural Forum 75 (July 1941): 8.
25
John Carmody to Howard Myers, February 6, 1941; Correspondence of John Carmody, 1939-41;
Entry 1, Box 1; RG 162, NACP.

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the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), but noted that demountable housing “has been

virtually non-existent.”26 Indeed, demountability was only receiving serious consideration for the

first time during the war, and mostly by the prefabricators.

Declared prefab’s “perennial twin,” demountable housing quickly became a flashpoint in

the war housing debate. 27 Defense housing was under an incredibly tight timeline: a fifty-nine day

pre-construction timetable which called for completed designs and working drawings in twenty-

four days, after which the site was selected and acquired, and bids taken. It was, as Foreman

described, “the shortest schedule construction has ever been on in the history of this country.”28

Demountable housing, in combination with prefabrication, seemed an ideal solution to achieve this

extraordinary speed. In particular, demountability ensured that when need for war workers

evaporated in one locality, houses could easily and quickly be deconstructed and moved to the next

locality with need for war workers. But questions plagued those involved: Did a demountable

house have to be a prefabricated house? Was it appropriate to be experimenting with these types of

houses during a large-scale emergency? Were they actually less expensive and quicker to build?

What did it mean for towns and regions if these houses were only temporary?

In June 1941, Architectural Forum’s Howard Myers published images of a prefabricated

house he believed would fit Carmody’s requirements of being completely demountable as well as

within the $2000 to $3000 range: Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Deployment Unit (DDU) (Fig.

3.10). Based on the steel grain bin produced by the Butler Manufacturing Co., the largest sheet

metal fabricator in America at the time, the domed metallic silo offered a “newsworthy price” of

$1,200 including utilities and furniture.29 The DDU, a continuation of Fuller’s earlier visions for

26 Howard Myers to John Carmody, February 18, 1941; Correspondence of John Carmody,
1939-41; Entry 1, Box 1; RG 162, NACP.
27
“Demountable Houses,” Architectural Forum 74 (May 1941): 22.
28 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 79.
29
“1,000 Houses a Day at $1,200 Each,” Architectural Forum 74 (June 1941): 425.

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easily transported, light dwellings, capitalized on the potential of metal to provide low cost

housing. Fuller submitted the plan to the DDHC, which determined that although the house had

“some intriguing features, it does not seem to offer anything different from what is now available

at a lower price.” Additionally, they observed that the house made little accommodation for the

people who would actually live in it, since it lacked provisions for taking care of clothes, a water

supply and “the practical necessities required in a unit where a family is to live.”30 It was true, the

separation of rooms by canvas curtains gave the advantage of flexibility, but at the considerable

expense of privacy. Moreover, the building’s loose connection to the ground alerted them to the

“possibility of its being blown off the brick base in a high wind.” 31 The final blow to the DDU was

the simple fact that steel was needed in national defense and could not be spared for housing when

other materials were still readily available. The DDU was not a viable solution to the defense

housing dilemma, yet the structure excited the architectural community and stimulated ideas about

lightness, materials, and processes into the prefabrication debate.

Architects began to pepper industry journals with their approaches—many unrealized—to

wartime prefabrication and demountability. Joseph Allen Stein, a Bay Area architect who was

educated at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, published his proposal in

July 1942. Its primary feature was a series of diagonal interior wood supports used in combination

with a cantilevered roof, resulting in a reduction of footing areas and a high degree of flexibility in

the placing of interior and exterior walls (Figs. 3.11-3.12). The plywood and concrete-block

structure—otherwise known as the “V house”—was conceived from the standpoint of materials

conservation and air raid protection, as well as social and functional considerations. Stein found

that prefabrication’s failure thus far was based in the fact “that prefabrication has only rationalized

30 Carl Bradt to Charles Palmer, June 2, 1941; General Records Subject File “Temporary Shelter;”
Entry 22, Box 15; RG 207, NACP.
31
Ibid.

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traditional work-processes and the forms resulting therefrom, when the reason for existence of

these forms had ceased to exist at the moment of the introduction of prefabrication.”32 In other

words, mass-produced houses need not follow preconceived notions of form and structure—this

was an opportunity to think outside the box, literally. His design, he argued, offered the advantages

of economy and flexibility with its cheap, readily available materials; its use of diagonal supports,

which could maintain structural soundness if a bomb blew out a side wall; and its bowed-up

plywood roof panels, which would be light, cheap and afford a high degree of resistance to

suddenly applied loads, like falling debris. Additionally, the plan would allow a freer use of space

with increased privacy and wider use possibilities that would reduce housework for women joining

the work force.

Stein’s prefabricated house was not unlike many other popular ideas—such as “mast”

houses and “shape-engineered” houses—meant to stimulate interest in mass production and

suggest changes to the traditional structure possible through prefabrication. Mast houses, for

example had first appeared around 1920 with Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for a Chicago

skyscraper, and continued to be explored through Fuller’s first Dymaxion House (1927), a

hexagonal-shaped structure suspended mid-air on a central core or mast, intended to be suitable for

any climatic region. Other mast houses included George Fred Keck’s House of Tomorrow (1933),

built at the Chicago Century of Progress, in which he used a central steel core in a twelve-sided

structure, and Richard Neutra’s Diatom One-Plus-Two house (1926), a rectangular structure with

masts that suspended the walls, floor and ceiling. In Saarinen’s 1940 design for a Demountable

Space (Fig. 3.13), created for the U.S. Gypsum company, the house was composed of steel-frame

walls that could be fitted with customized panels or windows, all of which was supported with a

32
Joseph Allen Stein, “A Wartime Approach to Prefabrication,” Architectural Forum 77 (July
1942): 78; see also, Joseph Allen Stein, “Blueprint for War Housing,” California Arts and
Architecture 59 (May 1942): 18.

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central structural mast that utilized suspension cables.33 As Andrew Shanken wrote, this building

distinguished itself “with a host of cheap, prefabricated, interchangeable materials, serving as their

kit of parts,” in which Saarinen “traded in the crafting of the wall… for the sculpting of the

space.”34 It was the ultimate expression of flexible living, with thin, clean, simple forms. All of

these examples reflected new demands on the architect to merge his talents with that of the

engineer, looking forward to a time when the building industry would become one systemized

entity, offering endlessly unique designs to home owners across the country.35

Another type of prefabricated house was the “shape engineered” house. These houses

served to illustrate in extreme form the new development of the manipulation of materials into

lightweight structures in which the surface covering, or skin, provided strength to the structure.36

Also called “stressed skin” prefabrication, this type of house included examples such as Corwin

Wilson’s trailer (1937), a lightweight “eggshell” mobile house; Fuller’s Dymaxion II (1941); and

Martin Wagner’s iron igloo house. The stressed skin was often compared to the exterior of an

airplane, where the stress of the structure is spread through the surface. When extrapolated into

futuristic examples, the stressed skin principle offered a precedent-shattering approach to housing

that could be affordable, lightweight, sturdy, and importantly, easy to transport. Likewise, the war-

time call for demountability offered new incentives to incorporate uncomplicated transportability

into the field of prefabrication.

The concepts of prefabrication and demountability contained different meanings and goals

for various stakeholder groups. To those who represented private industry, like Morton Bodfish of

33 “Demountable Space,”Architectural Forum 76 (March 1942).

34
Andrew Shanken, 194X: Architecture, Planning and Consumer Culture on the American Home
Front (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2009), 110.
35 For more insight into the architectural profession during World War II see Philip Nobel, “Who

Built Mr. Blandings’ Dream House,” in Architecture and Film, ed. Mark Lamster (New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 2000): 49-87.
36
“The Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 78 (January 1943): 59.

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the U.S. Savings and Loan League, demountable housing was an opportunity to make sure that war

housing remained only a temporary foray into the realm of middle-class housing and that the

government avoided “the temptation to turn the present War emergency into an open sesame of

public housing expansion.”37 The government, on the other hand, while vigorously endorsing the

idea of demountable housing, was deeply concerned about the public’s perception of these types of

houses. First of all, it worried that the public had a mistaken impression of what constitutes a

demountable house, believing “that it is a poorly built shanty which can be blown away with the

wind,” not unlike its own perception of Fuller’s DDU.38 Second, it was concerned about the slow

progress of the demountable house’s development, having become “so thoroughly identified in the

public’s mind with this type of construction” that the government would “receive the blame for any

delay in their appearance.”39 A final concern revolved around the aesthetics of prefabricated

houses, which the public thought “must follow unfamiliar shapes” and would be “startling and

often unpleasing in appearance.”40 William V. Reed, the director of standards in the DDHC, played

down these concerns by noting that prefabricated defense houses were being designed within “the

traditions of simple, American architecture,” and would “fit in with the character of any

community in which they are built.”41 Alternatively, Rufe B. Newman, Jr., the head of

prefabrication under the FWA, contradicted that sentiment when he posed the housing issue as a

pure production problem, noting he had “scant use for ‘art.’”42

37 Morton Bodfish to Charles Palmer, December 17, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Prefabricated;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
38
Philip Klutznick to Howard Acton, January 15, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-
Prefabricated;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
39 David Snow to Charles Palmer, February 13, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing-

Prefabricated;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.

40
Willam Reed to Howard Acton, January 14, 1942; General Records Subject File “Temporary
Shelter - Publicity;” Entry 22, Box 15; RG 207, NACP.
41 Ibid.
42
“Pinch-Hitter,” Architectural Forum 76 (February 1942): 4.

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 Architects fiercely contested this view that prefabrication did not require “art,” as it were.

Supporters of architects’ involvement in prefabrication included Miles Colean, of the Twentieth

Century Fund, who argued that prefabrication desperately needed the architect, who could offer

economy, convenience, comfort and attractive appearance to otherwise monotonous houses.

Architects had a tendency, he lamented, to look at prefab as “a bugaboo threatening the sanctity of

his craft.”43 But he saw prefabrication as bringing new freedoms to the architect and pointed out

successful wartime examples like Avion Village in Grand Prairie, Texas by Richard Neutra. Joseph

Hudnut, dean of the Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, agreed with this view and called for

architects to not neglect the arts in their defense housing projects.44 Architect Arthur C. Holden saw

it as an opportunity for the “real designer;” that is, one who could create a new means of

expression with the medium.45 Others, like Eero Saarinen, suggested that through prefabrication

architects had an opportunity to make advancements in the practical aspects of house design like

bedroom and closet planning.46 Architect Samuel Paul made the designer’s importance even clearer

with charts (Fig. 3.14-3.15) that situated his centrality to the prefabrication picture. 47

One of the first major demonstrations of prefabrication, as well as demountability, came

with the construction of 650 houses for workers at a Navy powder plant in Indian Head, Maryland

in the summer of 1941. From the beginning, it was seen by government officials as a testing

ground for the types of housing that would be built in the defense housing program. Foreman wrote

to Palmer in February of 1941 that the project would be “considered the beginning of the important

43
Miles Colean, “Prefabrication Needs the Architect,” Architectural Record 90 (September 1941):
64.
44 Joseph Hudnut, “The Art in Housing,” Architectural Record 93 (January 1943): 57.
45
Arthur C. Holden, “Prefabrication and the Architect,” Architect and Engineer 149, no. 2 (May
1942): 29.
46 “Prefabrication Conference,” Architectural Forum 80 (May 1944): 74.
47
Samuel Paul, “Prefabrication Pattern,” The New Pencil Points 24 (April 1943): 56-57.

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role which we think demountable housing should play in the total defense program.”48 Here, ten

different prefabricators put up units of identical plan and elevation. To determine the most efficient

of these structural systems, one of each type was demounted, transported over rough roads and

then re-erected on new foundations. Considered a complete flop as a demonstration, and dubbed

the “Indian Headache” by the Forum and “generally depressing” by Frederick Gutheim in Pencil

Points, the project did little more than boost the confidence of existing prefabricators and act as a

proving ground for newcomers.49 A successful site plan by Clarence Stein (Fig. 3.16) did little to

hide the shortcomings of the houses including troubled panel joints, problematic methods of

protecting finished panels during transit and onsite handling, a lack of precision in the shop

prefabrication process, and in some cases faulty manufacturing. Despite these problems, the

industry was declared “definitely on its way,” in that it showed that attractive houses could be built

at low prices that were competitive with conventional methods.

Debating mass-production and individuality at Carquinez Heights

The project at Carquinez Heights was one of the first large-scale examples of wartime housing to

conduct extensive research in prefabricated architecture. The construction of the bulk of the houses

was split between two contractors: Barret & Hilp, which constructed 992 homes featuring

homasote, and Robert McCarthy, which constructed 690 units making use of plywood.50 Central

fabricating plants produced walls and partitions that were made section by section and trucked to

the desired location (Figs. 3.17-3.18). Because of the flat roof design, it was possible to build both

48
Clark Foreman to Charles Palmer, February 10, 1941. General Records Subject File “Housing-
Prefabricated;” Entry 22, Box 6; RG 207, NACP.
49 “Prefabricators Put on a Show,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 188; Frederick

Gutheim, “Indian Head Experiment in Prefabrication,” Pencil Points 22, no. 11 (November 1941):
724.
50
“Products and Practices: Vallejo Construction Data,” California Arts and Architecture 58
(November 1941): 38.

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ceiling and roof at the same time. Wall sections were installed in tandem with prefab plumbing,

and then after the roof sections were placed by crane, the unit was ready for paint or wallpaper. 51

Architectural journals and popular magazines dramatically illustrated the piece-by-piece

construction, prompting wide discussion about the perceived success, or failure, of the project.

Reaction to the Carquinez Heights project, which reached its final utility date on January 1,

1942, was swift, intense and considerably varied. Criticism and praise touched on all aspects of the

project, including exterior and interior design, the ability to provide variety in prefabricated houses,

the involvement (or lack thereof) of the architect, the public’s reaction to prefabrication and

demountability, and the the role of modernism in mass housing projects. Wurster generally found

that people either hated it or loved it. 52 Nevertheless, in her correspondence to contemporaries like

Howard Myers at the Forum and Jacob Crane at the DDHC, Bauer noted Wurster’s sheer pleasure

in the project and the debates it generated. To Crane she wrote that he was “living, eating and

sleeping with Vallejo,” and to Myers that he was “wonderful as ever, and still having lots of fun

with one bureaucratic housing crisis after another.”53 Wurster excelled at dealing with them, she

claimed, because “he refuses to believe it’s really so complicated.” 54

In general, the government was pleased the the project stayed within budget (with a per-

unit cost of $2,845) and that it was getting instant recognition from the architectural press.

However, some media outlets dismissed the project. In March 1942 an anonymous author in Time

took the prefabrication industry and the government to task, noting that Washington housing

planners were minimizing the word “prefabricated” in exchange for the word “demountable.” It

pointed out Wurster’s project specifically as a poor example of demountable housing: “If all of

51 “America Builds,” California Arts and Architecture 58 (November 1941): 36.

52
William Wurster, “Carquinez Heights,” 34.
53 Catherine Bauer to Jake [Crane], May 8, 1942, Box 1, CBWP, BANC; Catherine Bauer to

Howard [Myers], July 28, 1942, Box 1, CBWP, BANC.

54
Bauer to [Crane], May 8, 1941, CBWP, BANC.

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them continue to be such eyesores as the hivelike… colony completed last fall at Vallejo, Calif…

they never will be missed.”55 Wurster responded to Time the next month by explaining that:

“Standardized prefabricated houses on a bare piece of ground cannot and should not look like a

country club suburb.”56 He counteracted that the project was far from “drab” and in fact, was “bold

and dramatic and interesting” with bold colors that “might shock but would hardly bore your

editors.”

In May, the San Francisco-based journal Architect and Engineer called Time’s remarks

“cruel” and “premature,” as the landscape had not been completed.57 It also derided Henry Luce’s

organization for being somewhat hypocritical, considering Time’s sister magazine, Architectural

Forum, had successfully promoted the use of prefabrication by vigorously soliciting the patronage

of manufacturers. In addition, it identified Time with the entire eastern architectural establishment,

noting that:

Eastern architects acknowledgely have been looking to the west for new and
desirable departures from time-worn eastern styles of architecture. Perhaps the
editors [of Time] should do likewise but apparently they are wedded to the
Philadelphia style of great rows of identical brick houses. Well, it must be admitted
that the varying colors simplify the problem of identification…[unlike] that
monotone which seems so to delight some eastern editors.58

Several of these points of contention seemed to revolve around the prevalence of black and white

photography, and viewers’ reactions either for or against the stark, cubistic structures the houses

seemed to represent. Admired for their rational utility, images of the houses did little to spur the

average member of the public to call them beautiful.

Perhaps one of the most spirited and revealing discussions about the concept of mass

production and how people actually experienced and lived in prefabricated houses came at a

55 “Prefabrication’s Chance,” Time 39, no. 11 (March 16, 1942): 79.

56
William Wurster, "Letter to the Editor," Time 39, no. 15 (April 13, 1942): 10.
57 "Vallejo's Prefabricated Houses," Architect and Engineer 149, no. 2 (May 1942): 32.
58
Ibid.

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meeting between FWA officials and prefabricators in November 1941. It followed a previous

conference held by John Carmody in February, where both government officials and the

prefabricators had agreed that there should be both an increased measure of livability in the

average prefabricated house, as well as an acknowledgment that the prefabricated houses built

during the war were going to have an effect, either good or bad, on post-war houses to come. The

November meeting was moderated by Clark Foreman, who invited a group of twenty-five

prefabricators in addition to William Wurster, who spoke about his experience working with

prefabrication at Carquinez Heights. FWA employees Rufe B. Newman (head of prefabrication),

Talbot Wegg (head of special operations) and Kline Fulmer (head of construction review) were also

in attendance.

The proceedings began by tackling the issue of variation in demountable housing projects,

which often ranged from 100 to 500 houses. Foreman described the government’s position: “At the

beginning we thought of the individual house and said, ‘That is a very nice house, let’s have two

hundred.’ When we saw 200 of them one right after the other, it was very monotonous and we

became a different sort of client.”59 Could (and would) prefabricators, he asked, add a measure of

variety into these projects? Was it possible to get a solution where an architect wasn’t needed to

vary the houses after they were offered?

These weren’t idle or unique questions. In the February 1941 issue of Pencil Points, Talbot

Hamlin had explored the concept of “Variety and Harmony,” in which he questioned the modern

rational of placing beauty and utility at opposite poles. National morale, in his view, was

significantly intertwined with visual stimuli, as experienced in factory plants and hospitals, and

even housing. Monotony, he believed, could be a residential hazard, as it “breeds exhaustion,

and… leads either to a kind of hypnotic but unrestful deadening of sensitiveness, or else to a

59
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 178.

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gradual building up of tension after tension due to the frustrated desire for escape and change, until

finally the system cracks in a nervous breakdown or erupts into unthinking violence.”60

Community beauty—particularly in housing—was not a silly luxury, but a crucial element in the

human environment, and an important means to the development of personality and efficiency.

Hamlin lamented the frequent elimination (often for economy’s sake) of many things that “make

up the humanity of a residential community;” that is, aspects that provided variety, such as porches,

balconies, and projections that function to bring shadow into the composition.61

At the meeting, Foreman and Wurster explicated their theories on how to achieve a

modicum of visual diversity in mass-produced housing. To Wurster, the notion of variation and

flexibility was an ideal goal, achievable even within the restraints of economy. In his opinion, it

had everything to do with the whole plan, both of the site and the individual houses. His various

suggestions to achieve this goal included providing local color to projects, typically in the guise of

regional materials and textures, as well as elements that would affect the plan and form of the

structure, like porches and single rooms (or possibly, garages) that could be added on the ends of

units.62 Wurster adhered to a functionalist understanding of the houses he was designing. Fake

shutters or artificial blinds wouldn’t add anything in the long term to individual houses in a large

scheme, but a trellis where one could grow something, or a porch that would keep one from getting

wet would greatly add to the value (both visually and functionally) of the house. “If in your design

you apply features which can be used instead of just looked at, the design will mean ten times more

to every bit of life. Styles do not change in use. They may change in looks. If you can make

something usable as well as ornamental of your design, it will be worth while even though the

ornamentations are out of style.”63 Window organization, roof overhangs and color were also

60 Talbot Hamlin, “Variety and Harmony,” Pencil Points 22, no. 2 (February 1941): 83.
61
Hamlin, “Variety and Harmony,” 85.
62 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 179, 195.
63
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing,149.

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suggested by Foreman as elements that could do much to brighten up the individual house.

Structure or system, as well, could offer another route to varying form, emerging from the type of

prefabrication system used.

This discussion was, of course, directly related to the role of the architect in the process of

designing and manufacturing mass housing. Foster Gunnison, the self-titled “Henry Ford of

housing,” a longtime participant in the prefabrication industry and the first to build houses on an

assembly line basis, was a skeptic of architects, stating that the “problem in Washington has been

too much an architectural problem, too much a technical problem,” when instead it should be an

administrative problem.64 His complaint was that the industry in general had had a great deal of

trouble with outside architects unfamiliar with factory techniques and problems, as well as the

process of starting with machines rather than blueprints. This sentiment reflects a common opinion

held during the war, that the job of architects was simply to add frills onto a building. Defending

the architect’s role, Wurster declared that prefabricators and architects need not be quarreling, as

the future would be stronger if there was a common point of view as to where they were going.65

Intimately connected to the question of variety in mass housing and the role that the

architect could play in mitigating the rejection of these types of projects was the idea of the

public’s acceptance of prefabrication. The discussion at the Meeting of Prefabricators revolved

around whether the public had good or bad taste, and whether or not the prefabricator should give

the public what he wants (even if bad), or give him what he “ought to have.”66 Women, in

particular, were seen as a stumbling block to putting prefabrication into widespread use as they

were the ones who choose the homes even though, according to Gunnison, home sellers “always

64
David A. Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: 1800-1932 The
Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1984), 311; U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of
Prefabricated Housing, 54.
65 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing,143.
66
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 138.

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have to let the man think he is buying it to satisfy his ego, but it is the woman who gets what she

wants.” 67 Kline Fulmer offered that the government (through various surveys) had determined that

habit played a large factor in women’s choices and that more often than not, new habits overruled

old ones; even though the public might initially reject prefabrication, the habit factor would soon

overcome even the most drastic difficulties.

Particularly thorny was the issue of “streamlined” prefabricated houses, or those with

modern leanings, like Carquinez Heights. It was suggested that once the public saw their neighbors

living in these sort of houses it would reduce the antagonism that often occurs when modern

houses are placed directly beside older-style houses. “The people living in these dwellings

throughout the duration of the Defense period,” one prefabricator noted, “will themselves learn

from their own experience that the prefabricated houses have a great deal to offer which they had

not realized and about which they had been misled in the past.” 68 At Carquinez Heights, Vaux

Wilson, the vice president of the Homasote Co., noted that public acceptance was tough, but “once

we got a house in a community its success was soon gossiped around and we got acceptance in that

community. The same sort of thing has been growing all over the country [about prefab].” 69 Wilson

asserted that public housing rather than individual houses was the route to get public acceptance,

where you could get far out in front of the public and in return reap great amounts of publicity and

“untold benefits” from its success. Should prefabricators act more like the auto industry, which

pioneered design and essentially forced the public to catch up to it? It it hadn't, Wegg

hypothesized, the auto industry “would still be building automobiles with buggy wheels and whip

sockets on the dashboard.”70 As an open minded client, Wegg urged the manufacturers to do

“something new and progressive,” as opposed to the familiar, which was required by their private

67 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 122.
68
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 183.
69 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 185.
70
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 140.

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clients. 71 Some prefabricators balked, saying that the defense housing was only going to last a

limited amount of time, and they had to proceed believing that defense housing would lead to

conditions whereby public acceptance would be widened.

In general, the meeting underscored the significant gap between prefabricators, architects

and the government as client. Many of those involved left the conference as far apart on certain

issues as they were when it began. Better architecture was Foreman’s stated goal, but what exactly,

asked several participants, constituted better architecture? Foreman’s answer: “what Wurster

described,” that is, streamlined architecture that discovers a pleasing form.72 In response, Gunnison

dramatically pronounced that the prefabricated housing industry had “died right here in this

meeting,” since Foreman advocated violating every single principle of mass production, making

the job of trying to please the average post-war American customer difficult.73 Wurster’s retort: the

“prefabrication industry is going to die right here if you do not go in the direction of modern

thinking.”74

Inextricably tied to this discussion on mass production and individuality in prefabrication

was the question of how people actually live in their houses—how they experience materials and

space. At Carquinez Heights, materials played a critical role in the prefabrication process and

inspired more discussion about the place of these new products, like plywood and homasote, in the

modern architectural landscape.

71 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 141.
72
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 165.
73 U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 172.
74
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Meeting of the Manufacturers of Prefabricated Housing, 174.

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Material, color and interior design at Carquinez Heights

Wood, for Wurster, was a particularly Western material that “has a certain aura all its own.”75

However, during World War II wood took on new national significance as metals and other

traditional building materials were increasingly diverted to munitions and other armament

purposes. Over the years, wood had fallen out of favor as a progressive building material, but for a

time was revived as a uniquely American, affordable alternative and came to dominate the bulk of

war housing production. In 1943, Architectural Forum called it “the material of realization,” as

prefabricated wood houses were “no longer a matter of theory or experimentation,” but “a practical

production technique in use on a substantial scale.”76

Was the use of wood, though, a result of war conditions? Or was the use of wood evidence

of the fundamental soundness and superiority of wood for the purpose? The answer is yes to both.

War conditions dictated the need for demountable housing, which had much effect in determining

panel-type assembly—and the resultant maturation of sheet materials like plywood—as the choice

of prefabricators and architects. But wood also proved itself as plentiful, economical, and versatile,

and it provided a particularly American flavor. This was perhaps best expressed at the Museum of

Modern Art in September 1941, in a small exhibition titled “The Wooden House in America.” The

museum cited the “increasingly interesting and ingenious ways” wood was being used for modern

houses.77 In addition to displaying examples of new wood products such as plywood and wood

fiber panels, it cited prefabrication as a major interest, particularly when used in the “current

housing expansion for fast-growing communities,” where small building elements allowed “the

75
William W. Wurster to the San Francisco Chronicle, December 14, 1940, Folder:
Correspondence: San Francisco Chronicle, 1940-41, WWC, EDA.
76 “The Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 78 (April 1943): 71.
77
Museum of Modern Art, “The Wooden House in America: An Exhibition of Domestic
Architecture Opens at the Museum of Modern Art,” September 5, 1941, accessed November 7,
2014, http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/728/releases/
MOMA_1941_0065_1941-09-05_41905-64.pdf.

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utmost variety of architectural forms.” Wood, in both its natural and manufactured state, was thus

elevated into the realm of art.

Engineered wood evolved with an aesthetic and functional purpose in the 1930s. Long the

reigning material of choice for housing in America, wood had received a new lease on life with

advances in chemistry. The Architectural Record declared in 1939 the “Revival of Wood as a

Building Material.” Although wood had never stopped being essential to housing construction, it

was lamented that “little was done to refine this product and extend the horizon of its uses until

recently… It took the impact of the engineering age in architecture, with its emphasis on standards

of extreme exactitude and its demand for efficiency, to jolt the lumber products industry from its

state of tolerant complacency.”78 The major advancements in wood appeared in two forms: glued

laminated timber and plywood. Both had existed in rudimentary form since the nineteenth century,

but were dramatically improved with the discovery of synthetic-resin glues in the early 1930s.

Glued laminated timber, a structural material composed of wood laminations glued together

so that the grains of all laminations are longitudinally parallel, was used in the 1930s for arches

covering long spans in auditoriums, barns, gyms, churches, garages, storage facilities, and

warehouses, primarily in Wisconsin.79 The war offered an opportunity for this advancement to

reach a broader market, especially since steel had been diverted for war equipment. Unit

Structures, a company founded in 1934 in Wisconsin, persuaded the U.S. military to use glued

laminated timber to construct roofs in military drill halls, storage facilities, aircraft hangars and

factories (Fig. 3.19).80 Although glued laminated timber was clearly ideal for industrial purposes,

some speculated that this development could have an impact on residential building. In the journal

78
“Revival of Wood as a Building Material,” Architectural Record 86 (December 1939): 63.
79 Andrew McNall and David C. Fishetii, “Glued Laminated Timber,” in Twentieth Century
Building Materials: History and Conservation, ed. Thomas. C. Jester (New York: McGraw Hill,
1995), 138.
80
McNall and Fishetti, 137, 139.

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Pencil Points, architectural historian and critic Talbot Hamlin contemplated that, “Even in houses

we may find daring designers using high roofs for living room or studio or social hall, in which

there may be the same inspiring use of curves in section. These roofs, in combination with

skylights or monitors, can be seen as creating perhaps an entirely new type of well-lighted interior

space.”81 Hamlin admired the material’s aesthetic possibilities of soaring space, an abundance of

light, and curved forms not typically seen in houses.82 Yet glued laminated timber hardly fit into

the model of the low-cost small home. Plywood offered a much more compelling material for mass

housing production.

Like glued laminated timber, plywood represented an attempt to provide in a single

material the qualities formerly obtained from many. Plywood is an assembly of hardwood or

softwood veneers (thin sheets of wood) bonded together with an adhesive. The sheets are attached

so the grain of one runs at right angles to that of the next, providing extraordinary tensile strength.

“Hailed as the strongest and most rigid material by weight and thickness so far developed,” wrote

Architectural Forum in 1941,“wood in this reconstructed form is finding its way back into fields

where the hallmark of progress used to be a changeover from wood to steel.” 83 Plywood’s appeal

lay primarily in its potential as prefabricated panels that could be used for interior or exterior use,

but also in the promise of using plywood for molded forms that could literally bend to an

architect’s imagination. Due to the invention of urea-formaldehyde, a synthetic resin, plywood

panels could be produced with great stability, durability, and resistance to fungi, weather and fire.

The panels could be produced in large sheets by a quick, simple, and relatively cheap

81
Talbot Hamlin, “The Architecture of the Future: Part 2 - Techniques, Materials, and Design,”
Pencil Points 24 (April 1943): 67.
82 In addition to housing, Hamlin foresaw the use of glued laminated timber “for light and soaring

interiors in churches, for beautiful curved roofs over theaters and auditoria” as well. These arches
had “done much to liberate American architecture from the rule of the T-square and triangle.”
Hamlin, “The Architecture of the Future: Part 2,” 67.
83
“Plywood,” Architectural Forum 74 (March 1941): 197.

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manufacturing process. Initially, builders and architects experimented with prefabricated plywood

walls and partitions. By the mid-to-late 1930s, this research extended to structural plywood, and

houses were constructed entirely out of the material. What had once been primarily a source of

lumber and fuel became a chemical substance that could be analyzed, rearranged, and recombined

to form entirely new structural components.

Several houses of the 1930s that prominently used plywood were experimentations that

explored its potential for standardization and prefabrication in low-cost house design. The first

commercially prefabricated house with exterior plywood was built in 1936 by Foster Gunnison,

who would later go on to be a strident critic of architects’ participation in prefabrication.84

Gunnison adapted the waterproof plywood, stressed-skin panel, which combined framing, interior

and exterior walls, and insulation into one unit, developed by the U.S. Products Laboratory for use

in his Gunnison Magic Homes, Inc. (Fig. 3.20). Although Gunnison had proved that houses could

be produced in a factory, his experiment was not particularly successful. The standardized homes

were very similar and their pared-down appearance did not appeal to the highly personalized tastes

of the average American home buyer at the time.85 In the same year, Richard Neutra designed his

Plywood Model Demonstration House in the Architectural Building Material Exhibit sponsored by

the Los Angeles Building Center (Fig. 3.21). That house was the only example of modern design

among traditional cottages. It utilized a light metal frame with plywood panels (all donated by a

sponsor), held in place by metal strips and other industrially prefabricated parts. 86 Additionally, for

the Town of Tomorrow at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, Lawrence A. Kocher designed a

plywood house that was sponsored by Douglas Fir (Fig. 3.22). An advertisement for the company

84
David A. Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: 1800-1932 The
Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1984), 311.
85 Hounshell, 314.
86
Thomas S. Hines, Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli,
2005), 149.

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proclaimed that plywood meets not just one or two requirements of building, “but many, including

strength, large size, workability, durability, beauty and economy.”87 Even though all of these

houses demonstrated that plywood could be used as an essential structural material, the reality was

that the manufacturing output of plywood was relatively small. It was only with the onset of war

that Eastern and Western manufacturers of plywood made the resin-bonded product available on a

true mass-production basis.88 Plywood soon became a crucial alternate material for rearmament.

For example, it was used to build strong, light “plastic” airplanes that would have previously been

made of metal, like the one ceremonially flown over Long Island in 1941 (Fig. 3.23).

Homasote, while wood-based, was more of a recycled material, deriving from the pulp of

old newspapers and weatherproofing materials. The company was launched in 1909 as the Agosote

Millboard Company, which initially produced sanded panels that were used for automobile tops.

The company first introduced its “Versatile Homasote Board” in 1916 and billed it as being strong,

lightweight and weather resistant. 89 During World War I, it caught the eye of U.S. military officials,

who used the wall board for the exterior of field hospitals and military housing in France. By the

1920s, reduced demand for Agosote in automobile tops inspired the company to promote homasote

full time and to officially change the name of the company to match this objective. When World

War II came, the company realized that public image would go a long way in determining the

success of the product in the prefabrication field, and so it launched a marketing campaign to

promote its acceptance. First, it created a 400-page book geared for architects, contractors and

87
See advertisement published in Andrew Shanken, “Breaking the Taboo: Architects and
Advertising in Depression and War,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 3
(September 2010): 416. Douglas Fir also ran a series that included Neutra and California architect
William Wurster.
88 Between 1939 and 1947 total industry output of plywood increased by 380 percent. See McNall

and Fishetii, “Glued Laminated Timber,” 134.

89
Homasote Company, “About Homasote and Homasote Company,” accessed October 15, 2016,
http://www.homasote.com/about.aspx; “Prefabrication: The Homasote Home,” Interiors 102 (May
1943): 42.

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lumber dealers titled Tomorrow’s Homes, which detailed its materials and the prefabrication

method used in its “Precision-Built” system, launched in 1935, which employed the stressed-skin

principle of large panels glued and nailed to an assembled wood frame (Fig. 3.24).90 Homasote

also situated itself to tap into the $250-million defense housing budget. In the December 1940

Architectural Forum article “Old Newspapers to New Houses,” Homasote reached an elite class of

professional architects as well as the business and construction community, advertising its

advantages as being easily stocked, as well as transported and erected with minimal skill.

Carquinez Heights would be the first housing project using the Precision-Built prefabrication

system, and would be built in just seventy-three working days. In November 1941 the company

wistfully noted that in its early years, the erection of Precision-Built wall sections was practically a

spectacle sport, but “today it has become as commonplace as airplanes.”91

Ordinary wood was thus open to a whole new range of scientific experimentation, much of

it encouraged by government financing. Architects were urged by government officials to

experiment with “unusual materials, designs, and methods of prefabrication not used in normal

times.” 92 This ethos was intended to reflect the spirit of European scientific design, which used

theoretical studies and laboratory investigations to create rationalized structures. By truly

understanding materials, Americans could achieve the dual aims of producing “very daring

structures” while conserving strategic resources.93 As opposed to the model houses built in the

90 Cynthia Lee Henthorn. From Submarines to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939-59. (Ohio
University Press, 2006), 162. The homasote panels would be wet down before use in order to swell
them so that subsequent shrinkage would stretch the material on the frame. For additional
information on homasote, see Kathleen Catalano Milley, “Homastote: The ‘Greatest Advance in
300 Years of Building Construction,” APT Bulletin 28, no. 2/3 (1997): 58-63.
91
“Products and Practices: Vallejo Construction Data,” 38.
92 Herbert L. Whittemore of the National Bureau of Standards quoted in Robert Friedel, “Scarcity

and Promise: Materials and American Domestic Culture during World War II” in World War II and
the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation, ed. Donald Albrecht (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1995), 45.
93
Herbert L. Whittemore, “Material Shortages—Redesign and Substitution,” Engineering News-
Record 128-129 (January 15, 1942): 114.

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1930s and for the World Fairs, intended to sell a certain material or a patented type of construction,

most war-time houses were financed with public funds and activated by the desperate need for

housing in areas with war-related industries.94

Wurster’s project at Carquinez Heights revealed the dichotomy between rhetoric

celebrating the use of plywood—and to some degree, homasote—as an option for low-cost,

standardized housing and the attraction architects had to the materials as an illustration of modern

style. This conflict is revealed in a observation made by Wurster’s firm (either Wurster himself, or

his partner, Theodore Bernardi): “Although plywood costs more than plaster, we like it better

because it looks cheaper.”95 Plywood’s utilitarian aesthetic, it seems, offered a value that extended

beyond cost. For Wurster, in particular, the material gave the impression of being unpretentious. Its

value lay in its warm visual and tactile qualities—undoubtedly giving it the “definitive emotional

role” that Architectural Forum referred to in one article—as well its tectonic strength.96 Wurster

also incorporated natural wood in the houses, which provided verisimilitude with nature and a

modicum of local flavor. Redwood, a regional material, was used to sheathe the elevated sections

of the house (Fig. 3.25), and was left in a rough, untreated form. Wurster noted that, “to leave

redwood untreated is quite customary here and the untidy splash of dirt is absorbed in the color,”

acknowledging his concern for regional materials as well as their practical use. 97

Color, like the texture that came from plywood and homasote, also played a critical role in

the design of the houses. In an attempt to avoid dullness, Wurster chose a vibrant color scheme

94 For more on the expectations of experimentation in war-worker housing, see the letter from O.
Kline Fulmer of the Federal Works Agency to its Housing Director, Clark Foreman, published in
Antonin Raymond, “Working with USHA,” Pencil Points 42 (November 1941): 694.
95
William Wurster (or partner) quoted in Ester McCoy, “Arts & Architecture Case Study Houses,”
in Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Homes, ed. Elizabeth A.T.
Smith (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 22.
96 “Plywood,” 197.
97
William W. Wurster to Harold Lauren, June 20, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.
25, WWC, EDA.

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where a ring of natural-colored houses surrounded a central section of boldly-colored houses.98

Local Berkeley artist Dorothy Joralemon was invited to consult about the colors. She advised that

he approach the color scheme in the same large, abstract way that he had approached the plan,

letting the color build up and letting “one area against the other dictate…[the] flow and tension.”99

The majority of the plywood houses were rendered in their natural hues with a coating of varnish

and also in a deep oxide red, with smaller amounts in olive, cerulean blue and grayed yellow. The

homasote houses were largely done in a desert sand color as well as barn red, with smaller numbers

in olive, cerulean blue and grayed yellow. The colors were made to work across the rows in large

swaths and were intended to provoke increased interest to the eye as well as variety.

The use of color in the project was significant in several respects. First, it counteracted the

images of the stark, black and white images of the European siedlungen that had predominated

texts on mass housing. Color, like the use of natural materials, was meant to “humanize” the pure

and mechanistic International Style. Of course, this effect could only be appreciated in person, as

the published photos of Carquinez Heights often resembled the siedlungen in their black-and-white

uniformity. Wurster’s application of color also reflected the increased attention to both the science

of color (in terms of color measurement, systematization and control through chemistry) as well as

the study of color from a psychological standpoint. 100 This approach resulted in the emergence of a

new profession—the color engineer or color consultant, who was deemed capable of altering

individuals’ moods, creating spaciousness, as well as making adjustments to climate, orientation

and environment.

98
Wurster, “Carquinez Heights,” 34.
99 Dorothy Joralemon to William W. Wurster, July 20, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights]:
Construction Notes, WWC, EDA.
100
Hilaire Hiler, “Color in Architecture,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (September 1943):
18.

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 Color was seen as a visual tool with its own intrinsic value. In addition to Dorothy

Joralemon, the government hired color expert Shepard Vogelgesang, who was best known as the

former Director of Color at the Century of Progress in Chicago from 1933 to 1934, to comment on

Carquinez Heights.101 Vogelsang noted that when “seen on a gray day…the colors are highly

successful,” but added that a livelier red might have held with the scheme better. For the interior,

Wurster chose a combination of neutral colors and stained woodwork. For the plywood houses, he

decided to paint the bathroom and living room ceiling, but otherwise lacquer-coated the plywood,

which gave it “a ‘wood’ quality” and reduced maintenance.102 Vogelgesang liked Wurster’s use of

varnished plywood, but expected that it would be met with resistance by tenants unused to the

material. Overall, he thought the project “took courage and ability to produce.”103 To some, like

Hilaire Hiller of California Arts & Architecture, the addition of color into architecture had the

power to transform projects from a passé adherence to naturalism to a more egalitarian, popular

sphere. “The idea held by many of our most advanced architects, that natural materials, wood,

stone, plaster, undyed fabrics, etc. furnish sufficient color,” Hiller noted, “has frequently taken on

the dogmatic quality of modishness.”104 This was particularly true for women, to whom he

attributed a more pronounced desire for color than men, who were five times as likely to be

colorblind. Indeed, he observed that women found modern architecture uncomfortable in that it

lacked “coziness,” an allusion to mental comfort.

This mental comfort was deemed essential for war workers and their families arriving in

boomtowns and moving into houses that were either unfurnished or equipped with only the most

101 Vogelsegang was made the Director of Color after Joseph Urban died. See John E. Findling,
Chicago’s Great World Fairs (Manchester University Press, 1994), 135.
102
William W. Wurster to Clark Foreman, October 13, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez
Heights], V.14, WWC, EDA.
103 Shepard Vogelgesang, “Report on Color,” November 22, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez

Heights], V.14, WWC, EDA.

104
Hiler, “Color in Architecture,” 46.

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essential pieces of furniture. Workers found themselves in strange towns, adjusting to new jobs and

a new community. At Vallejo, the housing authority recognized the need to help tenants make their

living arrangements feel like home, as it were, and produced a guide, called Your Home, offering

suggestions on how to organize and furnish their homes in Carquinez Heights. Author Hilde Reiss

Friedman explained that although these were temporary accommodations for many workers, there

was no reason the houses shouldn’t be made attractive. This was possible through a measure of

common sense and practicality as well as a notably modern aesthetic, which called for simple

furniture arranged to allow conversation and circulation (Fig. 3.26).

But fitting existing furniture into the small spaces of Carquinez Heights was a challenge. In

endeavoring to furnish the model house, Catherine Bauer came away from the experience

depressed.105 Her furnishing suggestions—which attempted to extend the tenant’s perception of the

living space—often went unheeded by war workers, whom she concluded were “no different from

anybody else and includes about the same range of taste and tastelessness as our own personal

friends.”106 However, she noted that “they are more flexible and informal … than the average

settled small-town-middle-class family: fewer of them would feel a religious compulsion to buy

‘suites’… if the stores had anything else in stock.”107 In her view, the workers were ideally situated

to accept a new kind of furniture—appropriately sized, affordable, simply constructed and modern

—if only furniture companies would offer such items.

The problem of what furniture was available to war worker tenants did not go unnoticed by

government officials, whose hands were largely tied by the Lanham Act, which provided that no

moveable equipment be installed in housing units created with public funds unless the

105
Bauer wrote that the “whole topic of furniture depresses me so much… particularly since I
endeavored to furnish a model house at Vallejo out of a local furniture store… but the result was
neither very beautiful nor practically suitable, and not at all cheap.” Catherine Bauer to Edgar
[Kaufman], June 19, 1942, Box 1, CBWP, BANC.
106 Ibid.
107
Ibid.

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Administrator deemed such installation in the public interest. Alumnus of the World War I U.S.

Housing Corporation and author on slums and housing James Ford consulted with the DDHC,

offering his opinions on furniture in war housing communities. In 1942 he informed the

government that the available furniture for purchase by defense workers was largely inappropriate

on the grounds of price, style, material, construction, durability and size. In fact, most available

furniture items, he found, were reproductions of Colonial and Foreign period styles, which featured

needlessly costly construction, ornamentation and upholstering, all provided in an effort to produce

“consumer appeal,” but which were wholly unsuitable for the minimal dimensions of defense

housing. His suggestion: work with the manufacturers to look into the problem and encourage

them to employ competent designers. Ford wrote:

The designers and manufactures should be induced to use materials for which there
are no priorities; to make their designs strictly American instead of imitations of
European styles; to design furniture which will be functionally appropriate. Many
pieces should be flexible in use. All pieces should be simple, durable in
construction, all materials should be native. The designers of such laboratories
should have opportunities to experiment in the use of woods not commonly used
and synthetic materials on which there are no priorities.108

Furniture designers, he believed, could, like architects, be convinced to see that in the emergency

there was an opportunity for distinctively American designs. Architects who had only before

designed monumental buildings and expensive homes, he observed, had proved their capacity to

design low-cost government projects. Similarly, the furniture community would profit in the post-

war period by investigating simple, inexpensive and durable furniture.

This consumer angle was seen as a motivator. Baird Snyder, the acting administrator of the

FWA following the 1942 housing reorganization, called on the National Retail Furniture

Association to provide small furniture pieces, preferably of wood. The defense homes, he

explained, “are pretty attractive” and “in a good many instances, far better than the living quarters

108
James Ford to Harry F. Stiles, January 21, 1942; General Records Subject File “Housing -
Equipment;” Entry 22, Box 2; RG 207, NACP.

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formerly occupied by the worker and his family, and pride of occupancy provides a strong

incentive for them to covet something new, something better and more suitable.”109 Ford even

suggested that the government could sponsor or foster good furniture design, allowing handicraft

proposals to enter the realm of machine production, similar to a process that had occurred in

Sweden.110 To this end, Gladys Miller was hired by the PBA as a consultant for interior decorating.

In an article titled “Decorators for Defense” in the journal Interiors she urged designers to not

focus on mass housing, but rather each individual home, “giving the family opportunity to make it

theirs.”111 In a letter to the journal, British architect and furniture designer TH Robsjohn-Gibbings

noted that this was an opportunity to “pick up a gauntlet” and that this was Miller’s opportunity to

be remembered as “the woman who put American design on the greatest pinnacle of its history.”112

The American Institute of Decorators (AID) also recognized the opportunity inherent in

low-cost housing and the shift their profession would have to take to meet the new need for

economical and practical design solutions. In 1942, NHA Administrator Blandford wrote to the

AID, asking its members to help guide defense families in furniture selection since, for many, it

would be their first opportunity undertaking such a task.113 In AID’s journal, Walter Dorwin Teague

wrote that good interiors—with bright spaces and modern time-saving appliances—should be

adopted by the will of the people, not handed down by a beneficent government. The creative

problem at hand was: “to make the good things so attractive, so useful, so desirable that the

wanting of them will grow irresistibly in every mind; and to make them so simply, so practically,

so rationally that the want of them can be supplied by our great machine-complex easily and

109
Baird Snyder (speech given to the National Retail Furniture Association in Washington, DC, 19
February 1942); Speeches of the FWA Administrators, 1939-49; Entry 32, Box 1; RG 162, NACP.
110 James Ford to Jacob Crane, December 31, 1941; General Records Subject File “Housing -

Equipment;” Entry 22, Box 2; RG 207, NACP.

111
Gladys Miller, “Decorators for Defense,” Interiors 101 (December 1941): 6.
112 T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, “Pick Up a Gauntlet,” Interiors 101 (January 1942): 6, 60.
113
See Blandford letter in "Mass Housing and the Decorator,” The AID 1942 Annual (1942): 37.

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cheaply.”114 To achieve this goal, AID member Virginia Conner observed that a collaboration

needed to occur between the architect and the interior designer, particularly in the living, dining

and sleeping spaces, where the two professions could collaborate on the location of openings, as

well as the possibility of multi-purpose rooms, providing maximum use to minimum space.115

A 1942 competition, “Prize-Winning Interiors for War Houses,” sponsored by Interior

Design and Decoration and the AID awarded first prize to John E. Maier, who furnished a typical

small house with pieces that were good-looking and inexpensive (Fig. 3.27).116 Schemes submitted

were dominated by modern and early American furnishings. Maier’s winning design furnished the

four-room, two-bedroom defense house for $466.22 using unpainted modern furniture.

Architectural Forum noted that the competition was not only a smart piece of publicity, but also, if

followed through on, a real public service.117 “The job means helping the people moving into the

new war homes not only with design suggestions, but by persuading manufactures to bring out

better cheap lines, and by listing old material now on the market. It is a big job, but one worth

doing, for the decorator, like the architect, could well afford to broaden his activities.”118

Furniture published and advertised during the war years increasingly emphasized flexibility

and demountability, and was mostly made of wood. Examples of this include Dan Cooper’s

“PAKTO” line of inexpensive, small-scale demountable furniture made of natural and lacquered

plywood, originally designed for defense workers’ homes near the Norfolk Navy Yard (Fig. 3.28).

The simple and functional line featured interchangeable elements and ease of fabrication. 119 The

furniture line—and the associated PAKTO expanding house (Fig. 3.29) he designed to accompany

114 Walter Dorwin Teague, “Design for Peace,” American Institute of Decorators (1942): 53.
115
Virginia Conner, “Making Maximum Use of Minimum Space,” Architectural Record 88, no. 3
(September 1940): 61.
116 “Prize-Winning Interiors for War Houses,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 12.
117
“Name Winners in Defense House Contest,” Retailing Home Furnishings 14 (April 6, 1942): 4.
118 “Prize-Winning Interiors for War Houses,” 12.
119
“‘Patko’ Goes Into Production,” Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): 4.

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the furniture—were seen as a way to accommodate the great movements of population that he

believed would occur in the postwar period, where both house and furniture could grow with the

family.120 Pieces included side chairs, arm chairs, and various tables that could be easily

deconstructed and flat packed. Various components, such as the arms of the arm chair, could even

be repurposed as ends to a daybed.121 Department stores, like Bloomingdales, further highlighted

the individuality of Cooper’s furniture line by placing several key pieces—the basic chair and the

stacking cases—against a black wall and offered ideas on how to individualize the chairs with

painting and a combination of materials. This was a departure from the complete room setups that

had dominated department store furniture showcases and presented PAKTO as “duck soup for the

people who love to change rooms around.”122 Other similar lines also looked to capitalize on the

desire for suitable priced and scaled furnishings for prefabricated dwellings, or the “people’s

housing” as Interiors put it, such as Plyline Knock-down Furniture (Fig. 3.30), designed by Calvert

Coggeshall, and Flexi-Unit furniture (Fig. 3.31) designed by Everett Brown of the Marshall Field’s

store in Chicago.123

In the trade journal Retailing, L. Moholy-Nagy, a Hungarian painter and photographer, and

former Bauhaus professor, opined that the defense emergency did not actually present a new

problem to the avant garde in art, science and technology.124 Rather, the circumstances it generated

were merely a continuation of an existing problem: how to fix the discrepancy between the

scientific and technological potential of the age and the practice of production based upon an old

handicraft mentality. This discrepancy largely revolved around the acceptance of the public, who,

120
“Interiors to Come,” Interiors 102 (January 1943): 33.
121 “Designed for the People’s Housing,” Interiors 101 (July 1942): 28.
122
“For Trying It Yourself,” Retailing Home Furnishings 14, no. 51 (December 21, 1942).
123 “Designed for the People’s Housing,” 30; “Toward the People’s Housing Furniture a La Carte,”

Interiors 102 (September 1942): 40. For more information on Plyline also see “Plyline Knock-
Down Furniture,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 20-21.
124
L. Moholy-Nagy, “Design and the Defense Emergency,” Retailing Home Furnishings 13, no. 45
(November 10, 1941): 19.

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he deemed, were not yet ready to adjust themselves to new forms and appearances, having had

their tastes and mentalities warped by the housing and furniture industries. However, Moholy-

Nagy saw a future in which the general public appreciated modern furniture, especially that made

of plywood. Once the public had “learned to see the richness of the grain, the fine finish of the

veneer, and that is delighting in the ingeniously light construction which uses two or three joints

instead of the 20 to 40 shown on our handicraft imitations, executed by machine,” then they would

truly comprehend the “‘beauty’ of this type of furniture.”

All of these proposals posed the question: Is a house an enclosure for random objects, or is

it a complete unit? Frank Lloyd Wright took the view that tomorrow’s house would be mass

produced, but not standardized, and that the furniture would be designed when the house was built.

“The idea of a house as a box, dragging in stuff that ruins it, is outmoded,” Wright told

Architectural Forum.125 This view was shared by Richard Neutra, whose solution at Channel

Heights, the acclaimed defense housing project of 600 units in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los

Angeles, was to design all of the furniture and built-ins for the project. As early as 1938, Neutra

had noted that “no minimum or small dwelling project will ever be convincing or successful,

before the right furniture attitude has been developed in the inhabitants.” 126 Instead of allowing the

largely in-migrant defense workers, many arriving without furniture, to enter burdensome

installment agreements for largely, bulky furniture of questionable quality, Neutra suggested a

systematically organized wholesale supply of furniture that would fit the restricted sizes of the

rooms and ease the responsibilities of war workers—particularly female war workers—who were

being kept busy in the shipyards. Neutra’s layouts (Figs. 3.32-3.33), published in Interiors in

"Slum of Soul,” Architectural Forum 80 (January 1944): 104.

125
126
Richard Neutra, “Economic Background of Housing,” (lecture given to housing officials in
Washington, July 1938), Box 169, Folder 13, Richard and Dion Neutra Papers (Collection 1179),
Department of Special Collections, Manuscript Division, Charles E. Young Research Library,
University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

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January and March 1943, showed his highly detailed study of how to live in small spaces, with

adjustments to doorswings, windows, closets, outlets, all to suit the typical layout of his naturally-

finished furniture, including built-in open shelves that could be curtained, multi-use bed-couch

frames, and a minimalist writing desk. The movable furniture was intended to be particularly

flexible, including a dinette table; six sturdy, ply-bent chairs; one round table and two easy chairs.

All of the furniture kept the interior spaces as open as possible, and some pieces, like the easy chair

(Fig. 3.34) offered multiple uses with the ability to be used indoors and out. Fabric straps and a

loose cushion on a white pine, boomerang-shaped base meant that the chair avoided using critical

materials. Neutra quoted an approximate price of $300 for all of the furniture, fabrics, floor

coverings (reversible jute) per living room, kitchenette and two bedroom unit.127

But furniture design only acted as a band-aid solution to the problem of space organization

in the small defense homes. In contrast to this, the experimental units commissioned by the FWA,

and overseen by Foreman, took the idea of war housing as laboratory experiment one step further

by exploring new ways of living in association with unit planning, focusing on connections to the

outdoors, multi-use rooms and flexible space. Many of the solutions devised by Wurster and others

are shot through with aesthetic overtones of efficiency and livability and offer up the concept of

home as a space for individual discretion, using new materials (and textures and colors),

construction methods, and relationships to site and nature.

127
“Housing on Channel Heights,” Interiors 102 (March 1943): 23. Demonstrating that these types
of furnishings were not just for war workers and could possible be used after the war, Neutra re-
purposed some of the furniture design in his Nesbitt house of 1943, which was built of non-critical
materials including redwood and common brick. Also see “Neutra Looks at Wood and Steel,”
Interiors 102 (July 1943): 18-19.

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Unit planning and the Carquinez Heights experimental houses

In June 1941, Clark Foreman invited Wurster to design an additional twenty-five experimental

units at Carquinez Heights in addition to the 1700 he was already working on.128 This was part of a

coordinated effort by the FWA to lead the field of housing design, allowing architects more

freedom from federal standards than was customary. Carmody and Foreman looked to progressive

architects including Antonin Raymond, Alfred Kastner, and Hugh Stubbins to design experimental

units in which “they would develop new plans or new materials for construction so as to afford

better living conditions at a lower cost to the Government.”129 The experiments would act as small

housing laboratories with architects as “chief scientists,” as one of the participants, Antonin

Raymond, explained in Pencil Points. In a letter explaining the program, Kline Fulmer argued that

too often houses were designed for quick sale, using “eye appeal” to attract buyers who after

buying the house discovered that they would be forced to adjust their living habits to the house. “In

this program,” Fulmer postulated, “it is hoped that the architect will design the house with constant

relationship to the fourth dimension of livability.”130 The experimental projects would be scattered

across the nation, to allow for regional adaptability, and all would be examined for success or

failure (measured by concepts such as maintenance costs and general acceptability) over the

following decade. However, the initiative only lasted for a short period of time, as the 1942

housing agency reorganization and post-Pearl Harbor Congressional pressure demanded quicker,

less experimental projects.

At Carquinez Heights, Wurster was given complete freedom provided the cost did not

exceed the $2845 unit cost of the mass produced plywood and homasote houses and that the

128
Clark Foreman to William W. Wurster, June 16, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.
14, WWC, EDA.
129 Clark Foreman to William W. Wurster, September 18, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez

Heights], V.12, WWC, EDA.

130
Raymond, “Working with USHA,” 694.

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government “Standards for Defense Housing” were met. These experimental units were exempted

from the ironclad rule limiting the period allowed for preparation of designs and working drawings

to four work weeks. In October 1941, Architectural Forum noted that many of the experimental

projects were completed even within this standard time frame, proving that “imaginative design”

was possible under a strict time restraint.131 Additionally, as a possible benefit, Wurster was

allowed to disregard local building and zoning codes. As Fred Langhorst of Wurster’s office noted

in California Arts & Architecture, “the necessity for quick completion precluded leisurely research,

but the results aim directly at the very real problem of providing imaginative pleasant and livable

homes at a limited cost and and the accommodations and amenities sought by the authorities in

Washington.”132 The houses were not demountable, but the price would include all exterior steps,

balconies and underpinning and include additional items not present in the other houses such as

drying yards, porches, larger window areas, curtains and tracks in lieu of window shades, linoleum

in the kitchen, and vents for the stoves.133

Wurster considered these houses a “focal group” in the project (Fig. 3.35).134 In the houses,

Wurster experimented with several alternate systems of construction: eight houses utilized masonry

walls, seven had bent-wood frames, and ten were made of wood-skeleton frames. In each type of

house, Wurster experimented with light and space, eliminating all load-bearing partitions and

investigating architectural devices to connect inside to outside, create larger spaces (despite the

limited square footage) and play with focal axes. The process of construction was significant in

that each house allowed the roof to be placed before any walls or floor materials, providing

131 “Defense House Architects,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 212.

132
Fred Langhorst, “A New Approach to Large Scale Housing,” California Arts and Architecture
59 (April 1942): 28.
133 William W. Wurster to Pierce Williams, October 22, 1941, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez

Heights], V.12, WWC, EDA.

134
William W. Wurster to O. Kline Fulmer, January 23, 1942, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez
Heights], V.12, WWC, EDA.

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protection and allowing building operations to go on during the winter. The site plan featured a

central hall onto which the living rooms of the masonry and frame-bent houses faced, while the

skeleton frame buildings, each two stories high, were arranged down a nearby slope in step-like

formation (Fig. 3.36). All of the houses had easy access to drying yards, intended to provide a

measure of orderliness and pride in the project.

Each house carefully explored different concepts of modern house planning, a general

combination of interior design, furniture design and industrial design. Long isolated to the realm of

the well-off client—a group that could afford to depart from prevailing practices—the war inspired

the sentiment that as the principles of house planning became clear and as practices became

established, these new methods and processes would become available to all. Authors James Ford

and Katherine Morrow Ford, in their 1942 book Design of Modern Interiors, noted that the war

period would constrain the activities of the residential designer almost exclusively to the low-cost

field. These designers, they argued, would need to reevaluate the starting point or initial

consideration of modern interior design, “loosely but conveniently phrased ‘family requirements,’”

a term which covered obvious physical needs, but also “the entire gamut of interaction of [man’s]

native individuality with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual factors of daily living and

experience.”135 Homes were thus seen as a temporary respite from the chaos of the world, but also

as providing a sense of place—allowing regional sensitivity; a freedom of space, form, materials

and color; and some connection with the outdoors.

Wurster’s two-story skeleton frame house (Fig. 3.37) aimed for spaciousness and

flexibility as well as materials conservation with its utility piping, roofing and foundations. It

differed from conventional construction in that only posts and beams carried the load, rather than

all four outside walls. It was quickly erected, the roof first and then then prefabricated panels

135
James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, Design of Modern Interiors (New York: Architectural
Book Publishing Co, 1942), 7.

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fastened on or filled in for enclosure and bracing. The two-story arrangement had a two-bedroom

apartment on each floor, with plans that achieved a freedom not seen in the rest of the Carquinez

Heights project (Fig. 3.38). As opposed to the joined kitchen/bathroom plumbing unit used in the

1,692 plywood and homasote houses, in the skeleton frame house these were separated. Thus, the

living room and kitchen constituted one long area (twenty-eight feet long by twelve feet deep)

(Fig. 3.39) facing a glazed wall of alternating fixed and casement sash. At the second story, the

balcony and projecting overhang (painted white) served to extend the eye into the outdoors (Fig.

3.40). Curtain tracks along the windows and at the open kitchen provided screening options. These

features—in addition to shallow storage spread through the bedrooms and hall, and the three full-

height interior doors—made each area, as Fred Langhorst noted in his profile of the units in

California Arts and Architecture, a “part of the whole rather than a separate area in itself.”136 This

experiment showed the density that could be achieved with cheap, flexible materials like wood. It

also indicated the variety possible through balconies, overhangs and wide spans of large-paned

glazing.

The single-story, two-bedroom “frame bent” house (Fig. 3.41) demonstrated what Wurster

considered a new process for wooden house construction. Instead of the typical joining of columns

and roof truss, Wurster proposed joining column, roof truss and floor joist to make a surrounding

“bent” frame (Fig. 3.42). With underpinning and girders, twelve identical and interchangeable

frames, placed at three-foot intervals, allowed “the rough frame [to become] complete in one

operation.” 137 After that, the roofing, flooring, sash and siding could be applied. Wurster varied the

exterior cladding of the frame bent houses: on three of the units the exterior skin consisted of

“Super-Harbord” Douglas Fir plywood panels applied with a lapped horizontal joints; on the other

136Langhorst, “A New Approach to Large Scale Housing,” 29.

137
William W. Wurster to John Entenza, February 2, 1942, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights],
V.12, WWC, EDA.

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four, rough redwood bevel siding was used. In plan, the frame bent house had entries through the

living room as well as the kitchen, which in this case had a compact kitchen/bathroom plumbing

unit (Fig. 3.43). This arrangement allowed the addition of another large space for storage that had

not existed in the skeleton frame house. Like that house, though, large and continuous glass areas

and a bracketed overhang on the long side increased the apparent size of the rooms.

The third and final type of experimental house was the one-story, two-bedroom masonry

wall house (Fig. 3.44), which experimented with soundproofing, fireproofing and space

distribution. Wurster used four kinds of seismic-reinforced masonry—brick, Basalt block, Haydite

block and hollow tiles (all quarried within thirty miles of the site)—for comparative purposes. He

arranged the houses in two sets of staggered rows, where the masonry wall extensions acted as

dividing fins, adding a measure of privacy and sound-proofing to the living spaces (Fig. 3.45). The

smaller kitchens resulted in larger bedrooms and a larger living room. In this house, Wurster placed

particular emphasis on increasing the sense of space by training the eye to appreciate the various

dimensions of the interior and exterior. This was achieved through interior devices including full-

height doors and a non-bearing plywood diagonal partition between the front bedroom and living

room (Fig. 3.46), which acted as a sort of funnel for the eye, always leading it to the outdoors. He

also extended the planes of the walls and ceilings, as well as their material and color, from inside to

outside. The masonry was mostly painted, except for brick, which was given a clear waterproofing,

leaving its natural color intact. Like the other houses, Wurster also provided both facades

continuous glazed walls and a projecting overhang. In a letter to O. Kline Fulmer, head of FWA’s

construction review, in January 1942, Wurster explained his method of manipulating tenant’s sense

of space and effectively connecting indoors and outdoors: that if “set planes of a cube can be

broken so that the eye does not measure only the wall length of the rooms but includes that which

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is beyond too the seeming space has been expanded.” 138 Perhaps not surprising, the masonry walls

ended up costing more than the wood-based houses. The one-story frame bent house saved $45 per

unit, while the two-story skeleton frame house saved $90 per unit. However, the benefits gained in

fire protection with the masonry arguably added significant value to the houses.

Overall, the experimental houses ended up being cheaper than the plywood and homasote

houses even though they were contracted six months later than those houses and built virtually as

individual construction when it came to buying materials. Bauer noted that the houses were wildly

popular with tenants, and there was “much more demand for his experimental houses than for

anything else in Vallejo.” 139 In his article, Langhorst noted that these units were unfortunately

likely be a one-off experiment. Although the houses did in fact comply with most state and local

building codes, they weren’t subject to any at the time of construction. Individual builders, in

comparison, would likely have a difficult time “enmeshed in effortful and time-consuming

explanations to local building inspectors that the savings sought would disappear.”140 Without a

streamlining of local building ordinances, it was unlikely, he suggested, that the private builder

would ever be able to achieve similar savings. Although it could be argued that none of Wurster’s

experimental house systems were necessarily new, they were regarded as foundational to the

efforts to render the mass-produced house desirable to consumers in the future.

Other experimental projects

Several other architects also explored the relationship between design and industry in their

experimental houses, breaking through the bureaucratic interference the government sometimes

offered. Here, along with materials and structure, architects intensely investigated new types of

138
Wurster to Fulmer, January 23, 1942, Folder: Cal 4086 [Carquinez Heights], V.12, WWC, EDA.
139 Bauer to [Crane], 8 May 1941, CBWP, BANC.
140
Langhorst, “A New Approach to Large Scale Housing,” 29.

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house units, which Talbot Hamlin, in an article for Harper’s Magazine titled “Trend of the

American,” noted were “freer and more flexible and more beautiful than the old.” 141 Hamlin made

a note of several projects he thought were particularly interesting, including those in Windsor

Locks, Connecticut by Hugh Stubbins; in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Antonin Raymond; and in

Alexandria, Virginia by Kastner and Hibben. 142 “The workers fortunate enough to live in

communities like these,” Hamlin enthusiastically wrote, “will find a new life opening before them;

a new freedom and graciousness and beauty will surround them. Here is architecture vindicating

itself as a way to a richer life and thereby producing living beauty.”143 Each example was relatively

simple in design, but significantly offered middle-class inhabitants a chance to experience both

modern design (formerly the domain of the wealthy) and new ideas related to space and freedom,

both indicating potential for the post-war future.

Hugh Stubbins’ 85-family project at Windsor Locks (Fig. 3.47) explored the idea of multi-

purpose rooms, furniture placement and circulation.144 A graduate of Harvard’s School of Design,

Stubbins began his career designing residences with Royal Barry Wills, a proponent of the

American Colonial Revival style. Stubbins was a modernist, however, and eventually taught at

Harvard at the request of Walter Gropius. Ultimately, he became known for his post-war skyscraper

designs.145 Made for non-commissioned officers working at a nearby airfield and located on a flat,

treeless sandy site, Windsor Locks featured two types of units—a two-and three-bedroom scheme

141
Talbot Hamlin, “The Trend of American Architecture,” Harpers Magazine (January 1942): 170.
142 Many of these experimental projects took place under the aegis of FWA and USHA. In the case
of USHA, this was notable since prior to the war, architects had been appointed by local housing
authorities. With the defense housing era, USHA broke with this procedure to appoint architects
directly angering some progressive housers like Catherine Bauer.
143
Hamlin, “The Trend of American Architecture,” 170.
144 Stubbins was involved in two other defense housing projects including Cabin John, Maryland

and North Weymouth, MA. It is unclear if these were built.

145
One of Stubbins’ most famous designs is the Citicorp Center, built in 1977 in New York City.
Dennis Hevesi, “Hugh Stubbins Jr., 94, Creator of Emblematic Skyscrapers, is Dead,” New York
Times, July 11, 2006.

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—differentiated within the site plan by their diagonal placing, roofing profiles as well as a

combination of the types into various kinds of detached and semi-detached units (Fig. 3.48). In

both unit types, Stubbins opened the family area into a joint living-dining space, with carefully

placed furniture increasing its apparent size (Fig. 3.49-3.50). The kitchen was open to the dining

space, but screened from the living room proper. A broad expanse of living-room windows—

protected from the sun by slatted sunshades—allowed a connection to the outdoors. In terms of

circulation, Stubbins placed the house’s two entrances near each other, avoiding, as Architectural

Forum pointed out, “turning the living room into a corridor for cross-traffic from all parts of the

house.” 146 Additionally, a light plywood screen wall acted as a makeshift bedroom corridor,

separating it from the family area. Each bedroom featured a closet as well as a built-in writing or

dressing table.147

The design’s exceptional efficiency extended to the mechanical equipment unit (Figs.

3.51-3.52). Dubbed by The Springfield Sunday Republican as “the answer to prayer for an

economical automatic coal-burning heater,” it was based on the use of coal for both heating,

cooking and hot water. This “uncanny contraption” involved a coal-heated tank in the kitchen,

which sent hot water to a hidden box in the ceiling, which then spread hot air via ducts to all of the

rooms. With the addition of a thermostat that allowed tenants to regulate the temperature to their

liking, the device was described as one “that no low-cost home can afford to be without.”148 Noting

that the cellar, the traditional storage unit for coal and a traditional house component in New

England, was missing in these houses, however, the Republican wondered if cellars had been

“blithely written off as pretty much obsolete in the modern scheme of things,” and if thrift had

146
“Defense House Architects,” 212.
147 “Windsor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 328-31.
148
William Henry Wright, “Defense Housing Leads Way: Novel Features Introduced in Group of
65 Building Nearly Ready at Windsor Locks Project,” The Springfield Sunday Republican,
November 16, 1941.

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“triumphed at the expense of living efficiency.”149 In lieu of cellar coal bin, an outside coal box

was located near to the house, screened by a trellis for vines and climbing roses. However, the

design of the interior mechanical units may not have been perfect—when the project was

considered for inclusion in MoMA’s War Housing exhibition, Eliot Noyes noted that someone had

been asphyxiated in one of Stubbins’ houses.150

The project received accolades for its simple detailing. Exteriors were composed of vertical

California redwood shiplap, eliminating the need for trim around windows, and stained golden

brown by a weathering preservative that obviated the need for painting and retained the wood’s

natural color, leading architect and preservationist James Marston Fitch, to note some years later

that the project acted as "an extension of the New England wood tradition."151 Interior walls were

made of plywood and sheet rock tinted in pastel shades of pink and green and joined so as to leave

no break and give the effect of plaster. A local newspaper proclaimed that the project was,

“emergency construction, yes, but greatly to the point is the fact that what is being done for

defense workers and the military may be carried over later into general civilian home building

when economy will be the watchword and living will be reduced to the barest essentials as coming

generations are called upon to pay for the war on which we are embarking.”152 Defense architects,

the newspaper perceived, were on track to bring the low-cost home back within the means of the

ordinary worker and break the strangle hold of municipal building codes supporting high priced

union labor. Making its way into two MoMA shows—War Housing and Built in USA— Stubbins’

project produced excitement with its appearance, which took advantage of the striated effect of

vertical redwood siding on carefully studied elevations, to honest rather than forced effect.

149 Ibid.
150
Eliot Noyes to Catherine Bauer, March 16, 1942, Box 32, CBWP, BANC.
151 James Marston Fitch quoted in Matthew A. Postal, “Towards a Democratic Esthetic: The

Modern House in America 1932-1955” (PhD diss., City University of New York, 1998), 138.
152
Wright, “Defense Housing Leads Way.”

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 Antonin Raymond’s 750-house USHA-funded project Parkridge Homes in Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania included 168 dwelling units, mostly of the one-family, row house type, a traditional

form of construction in the region (Figs. 3.53-3.54).153 Raymond was an ardent supporter of the

new housing program and authored an article for Pencil Points titled “Working with the USHA

under the Lanham Act,” where he argued that the limitations of the Lanham Act had eliminated

waste, extravagance and false pretensions, bringing about a “a radical change toward better

understanding of the value of simplicity and direct solutions toward better design and the true art of

building.”154 Raymond saw the defense housing program as an opportunity to adopt a stripped-

down, functionalist agenda. He described the futility of architects’ trying to find “some epoch

making solution founded on artistic instincts, personal philosophy, abstract reasoning, or whatnot,”

and instead suggested that architects should have the knowledge of technicians (who know

standards, building methods, engineering and politics) as well as sociologists (who understand

social structure and habits and therefore can design livability from the point of view of a workman,

his wife and family).155 He was given an opportunity to adopt such a persona in his four

experimental units, exploring different construction methods and ways to approach modern unit

planning.

Featuring frame construction, flat roofs and partial basements, the experimental units were

split into two general types: two two-story units with similar plans but different framing systems

(Types D and E), and two one-story freestanding units that differed radically from the plan and

structure of the others (Type F). The two-story units were both—like the rest of the housing project

—a variation on the typical row house seen in Pennsylvania (Figs. 3.55-3.56). Both provided a

highly flexible open ground-floor plans (Figs. 3.57-3.58) with combined living, dining and kitchen

153
Prior to this USHA allowed local housing agencies to appoint architects to their projects. With
WWII, they broke with this procedure by appointing architects directly, angering Bauer.
154 Raymond, “Working with USHA,” 695.
155
Raymond, “Working with USHA,” 693.

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space. These adaptable spaces could be both divided, if desired, by curtain tracks between the

eating and living areas, as well as opened up further via the horizontal sliding windows and doors

that opened up to the screened porch at the rear. On the second floor, one of the units offered an

extra “bunk room,” screened from the other bedrooms by prefabricated closet units. Balconies

extended these rooms to the exterior and provided additional interest on the exterior. In terms of

framing systems, one unit utilized a post and girder frame and joistless, plank floors that were

cantilevered front and back; the other used conventional wall bearing construction. Although the

column and beam construction was lauded as Raymond’s “solution of the open plan,” the

“experimental framing system” was perhaps more revolutionary in terms of economy than in

introducing new features to a modern plan.156

The second type of experimental unit was a one-story freestanding house that provided

“unusually free circulation and increased flexibility” with its concentration of utilities in the middle

of the house (Fig. 3.59). The unusual arrangement left this area of the house without windows, and

thus Raymond added a roof monitor to provide light to the bathroom (Fig. 3.60). Additionally,

prefabricated closet units could be moved to vary the size of the two bedrooms or even shifted into

the identically-sized living room should the tenants want the extra storage space in there, or care to

repurpose the space. These features gave the houses what Pencil Points called “a total lack of

formality,” and with their affordable price tag of $3000, pointed the way towards postwar living. 157

In Alexandria, Virginia, the FWA gave Alfred Kastner and Thomas Hibben eleven buildings

to use for a full-scale test of various building systems (involving rammed earth walls and concrete)

and unit planning in a discreet group of houses (Fig. 3.61).158 Their aim was to find a cheaper

156
Raymond, “Working with USHA,” 690-95.
157 Raymond, “Working with USHA,” 692.
158
Kastner was a German-born architect who built a successful career in the United States in the
1930s with collaborator Oscar Stonorov, another German-born émigré. Together they designed the
Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933-34 and the Jersey Homesteads, which
housed 400 families.

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system of construction, fireproof if possible, which would enable them to give defense workers

more housing space than they could normally buy under conventional construction plans. Two of

their low-slung house types—which didn’t cost more than $2850—were single-story three-family

units that departed from the rectangular monotony of many of the standard defense housing

developments. The two building types (A and B) were built of bituminous earth block in one and

tamped earth walls stabilized by cement in the other. This new variant on an ancient structural

method offered advantages such as thick party walls which provided soundproofing “uncommon in

houses of this price class” and as well as a planar, modular sensibility that visually separated the

mass into piers and slab-like walls unbroken by inset windows (Figs. 3.62-3.63). 159 The low

spreading structures and their planar composition paid particular homage to Frank Lloyd Wright in

their emphasis on the use of natural materials and horizontal lines, including dominating rooflines

with wide overhanging eaves. Inside, rooms flowed into each other, all organized around a central

fireplace (Fig. 3.64). Indeed, the fireplaces in both unit types acted as a functional screen between

the living room and the kitchen.

Kastner and Hibben’s Type C house (Fig. 3.65) was a single-family one-story house built

entirely of precast lightweight reinforced concrete. The plan (Fig. 3.66) divided into two functional

halves, with living and sleeping space on opposite sides, one rising slightly higher than the other.

Notably, the kitchen was completely integrated with the living area, forming one open side to the

living space, which then opened up to a large terrace. The outdoors were further emphasized by the

functional roof, which was accessible from an exterior stair. In the renderings, the roof is shown

with a metal pipe rail (echoing images of European modern architecture) and large planters,

serving to animate the roofline. The Type D house consisted of three units, staggered in a similar

fashion as the houses at Carquinez Heights, which permitted more light and air, and followed

159
“Defense House Architects,” 234.

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mostly a conventional plan. The final experimental unit was Type E, a two-story apartment scheme

constructed of precast concrete featuring large terraces, wide windows and open plans. Here, larger

three-bedroom apartments on the ground floor provided additional space for large terraces for one-

bedroom apartments on the second floor.

In all, these experimental projects displayed many of the features that would be of interest

in the postwar period: cheap new materials and structural forms, and flexible, more casual living.

Architectural Forum’s 1942 competition for the “New House of 194X” assumed that the post-war

period would bring a surge in prefabrication, increased availability of new materials and

fabrication methods, as well as new and higher standards of illumination, thermal comfort and

atmospheric composition. While the proposals offered up dozens of ideas that would allow the

postwar house to be “easily modified for new requirements,” like a packaged bathroom, prefab

utility and structural units, movable space dividers, and houses of pressure-molded plastic and light

metals, it was only the defense program’s experimental units that actually put some of these

concepts—revolving around flexibility and economy—to practice. 160

Conclusion

In 1946, Thomas H. Creighton wrote in Pencil Points that between 1941 and 1945 there was a

“certain maturing of architectural design in the United States,” including a more careful use of

materials and direct and honest projection of the plan into the building, despite that fact that it was

a time of limited building.161 In terms of house design, the war years proved to many that

architectural virtue (of the modernist variety) could be found in necessity. Projects like Carquinez

160“The New House of 194X.”

161
“Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki: A Review of Architectural Progress During the War,” Pencil Points
27 (January 1946): 42.

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Heights helped illustrate the kinds of changes that were occurring in American design and building,

in areas such as prefabrication, materials and unit planning.

By 1943, the population at Vallejo was somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 and came

to include Wurster’s second project, Chabot Terrace (Fig. 3.67), located on the north side of

Vallejo, done in association with the architectural firm Kump & Franklin.162 Once again

participating as contractor, Robert McCarthy predicted that out of the Chabot Terrace project

would “develop an honest-to-goodness postwar housing plan with prefabricated houses built to suit

the most discriminating owner.”163 However, coming later in the war, the development and

construction of Chabot Terrace was delayed by material shortages and stricter rules, mostly for air-

raid protection, on visual aspects of the design, like color. Reflecting on the project, Bauer noted

that, like Carquinez Heights, it did not have much variety, but that that could be achieved through

furnishings and gardens. “But the same efficient process could, in peace time, produce as much

variation and freedom as might be desired—much more, than we’ve ever had in our gridiron

suburbs.” This “skeleton of utopia,” as she called it, exemplified the process of conceiving and

building modern communities all at once and was “one the most important things America can

learn for the future.” 164

Reflecting on his experience at Carquinez Heights, Wurster posited that there would be a

close relationship between war housing and postwar architecture. This relationship didn’t have so

much to do with the visual aspects of the project, which he considered over-touted, but rather its

use and the ability of a completely manufactured house to transform into a livable, individualized

162
“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” 33.
163 Frederick W. Jones, “Millions for War Housing,” Architect and Engineer 154-55 (July 1943):
20.
164
Catherine Bauer notes on “From the Ground Up,” November 20, 1942, Folder: Cal 4211
[Chabot Terrace], Correspondence, Photo and sound 1943-45, WWC, EDA.

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home.165 In fact, in 1942, Wurster contributed to Revere Copper and Brass’ series, titled “Revere’s

Part in Better Living,” that advertised the company’s copper products and their possible uses in

postwar homes. The fifteenth booklet in the series illustrated Wurster’s “Flexible House” (Fig.

3.68-3.69) constructed to cope with the changing demands of family life, featuring movable

partitions and a functional garden that would act as a “room without a roof.”166 Ample and

convenient storage space (often within the partitions themselves) were intended to make

housekeeping simpler and to encourage newly acquired wartime thriftiness. When an additional

room or bath was needed, Wurster explained, flexible interior “walls” could be shifted to make

bedrooms, a nursery or extra bath, proving that “as your living needs expand so the house grows.”

Other proposed houses in the Revere Copper and Brass series espoused the same ideals of

flexibility including those which could easily receive additions, like George Fred Keck’s

expandable “Defense and Post-War House,” Harwell Hamilton Harris’ “Segmental House,” and

Antonin Raymond’s “Hillside House.” Others, like A. Lawrence Kocher’s design, accommodated

variation in use and diversity in arrangement with a number of features include expandable wings,

interchangeable walls, and functional storage partitions. Many of the proposals explicitly noted that

there would be no standardization in these houses to come.

Wurster further described the concept of flexible space in the Forum’s competition for the

“House of 194X.”167 His proposal was a raised one-story house with room for storage and play

below. The living floor was emphasized as being simply “space,” not “boxlike permanent rooms.”

This ever-flexible space would begin as an open plan with a prefab kitchen and bathroom and

prefab closets (Figs. 3.70). As children entered the picture, the open space would be divided into

165
William W. Wurster, “Outline for WWW talk in Sacramento,” November 4, 1942, Folder: War
Housing, 1942, WWC, EDA.
166 William W. Wurster, “A Flexible House for Happier Living,” Revere Copper and Brass (New

York: Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?).

167
William W. Wurster, “Flexible Space,” Architectural Forum 77 (September 1942): 140-41.

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smaller areas through the addition of closet units, allowing up to two additional bedrooms and

areas for other uses (Fig. 3.71). Instead of an “expansible” plan, Wurster’s proposal offered a

dividable plan, which he saw as exceptionally simple, economical and adjustable. It provided the

maximum openness for a small family, and the maximum separateness for a large one.

Wurster put this concept of flexible living into practice when in 1947 he drew up plans for

alterations to Carquinez Heights. The drawings indicate that every other home would be removed,

converting the dense plan into “an idyllic postwar suburb with freestanding homes and spacious

yards,” as Wendy Kaplan explained in a recent exhibition on California design (Fig. 3.72).168 Both

garages and side porches with trellises would be added to the newly spaced houses, all carefully

landscaped with vines, shrubbery and trees. The side porch, in particular, epitomized Wurster’s

idea for a “room without a roof.” Viewed from the interior of the house through a large single-pane

window, the fenced-in space, complete with picnic table, acted as an extension to the interior space

(Fig. 3.73). These addenda captured the essence of flexible living and reinforced many of the ideas

Wurster, and the FWA’s Clark Foreman, had laid forth in the 1941 meeting of the prefabricators

about creating variety in mass housing.

Inspired to break free from the war’s many restrictions, post-war proposals for small house

living continued to emphasize the importance of flexible space and its close association with

democratic freedoms. This ethos was perhaps best expressed by Ralph Rapson and David Runnels,

whose entry in the Design for Postwar Living competition in California Arts & Architecture was

for a fabric house (Fig. 3.74), embodying a system of construction that was “a completely flexible

prefabricated answer to housing.” 169 Rapson had studied with Eliel Saarinen at Cranbrook, and

168 Wendy Kaplan, “Introduction,” in Living in a Modern Way: California Design 1930-1965, ed.
Wendy Kaplan (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011), 44.
169
Rapson’s Fabric house was also included in Architectural Forum’s competition for the House of
194X. See Ralph Rapson and David B. Runnels, “A Fabric House,” Architectural Forum 77
(September 1942): 87-88.

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were undoubtedly familiar with the goals and pitfalls of war housing. The house was largely

constructed of “roll-fab” walls and roof, placed over a skeleton of light metal, that allowed the

tenants to mold the house to their requirements. Although the plan didn’t win, the judges found the

idea “provocative and germinal.” Perhaps more intriguing than its actual aesthetics was the

reasoning behind the idea:

This plan is more than a solution; it is a statement of a basic living requirement—

flexibility. The postwar individual, long weary of war-time regulations and
restrictions, will demand those freedoms for which he fought. His shelter must, in
three dimensions, express these freedoms… No longer must man be pigeonholed
into ‘rectangularism’ but can literally clothe himself in his house. Since every
family, a different stages of its development, will have ever-changing requirements,
its shelter must have one major characteristic—FLEXIBILITY …This freedom of
planning does not imply the old concept of rugged individualism, but rather it
means closely knit community planning, based on flexibility and freedom of
expression… This is more than a solution; it is a statement of basic living
requirement—FLEXIBILITY. FLEXIBILITY FLEXIBILITY FLEXIBILITY.170

As war housing proved, every element of the house was open to the concept of flexibility, from

the structural elements and their assembly, to seemingly insignificant, but crucial choices in

furniture design and placement. The results of the emergency program were often spartan and

unembellished, but many projects managed to display considerable regional variety and

experimental quality. The publicly-financed defense housing program came to symbolize both

internal strength, the defense of democracy and social progress, and technical and economic

innovation, as well as government overreach, private opportunism, and profound (often

unwanted) changes in the architectural environment. With war housing, like Carquinez

Heights, an interest in the objectives of modern architecture—particularly its ethos of rational

efficiency, which embraced engineering, functionalism and experimentation with contemporary

materials and techniques—was shown to be consistent with the objectives of war.

170
Ralph Rapson and David B. Runnels, “A Fabric House,” California Arts and Architecture 60
(November 1943): 22.

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 CHAPTER 4

Bulwark of American Democracy: Experiments in School, Community,

and Commercial Design

As the American industrial landscape transformed under the demands of World War II

production, so too did the lives of average Americans working towards Allied victory. Part of this

change occurred at the community level, where government initiatives to retain workers in

industrial factories led to new consideration of worker’s social lives, especially those living in

government-financed defense housing projects built under the Lanham Act. In the past, when

communities—meaning here both collections of people in geographic areas, and groups of people

with a shared social structure—had grown slowly and naturally, social activities were housed in a

variety of buildings including churches and town halls, but with industrialization and the quick

growth of new industrial centers, spaces for traditional social exchange were greatly diminished.

During the country’s defense build-up in the early 1940s, the lack of natural social, and

educational, spaces became glaringly obvious in the multitude of new communities formed

practically overnight. The government grew concerned about morale, mental and physical health of

workers and their families, and the effects of these factors on worker turnover, absenteeism, and

non-entry to the workforce. In response, Congress passed broad legislation to finance the creation

of community facilities in areas critical to defense production. Executed under the Lanham

Community Facilities Act of June 1941, this building program included the construction of “public

works” such as schools, multi-use community buildings, commercial facilities, and healthcare

centers, as well as waterworks, sewers, streets and access roads, with $150 million administrated

by the Federal Works Agency (FWA).1 Community facilities constructed under this program

1
Some officials argued that this act included provisions for child care facilities, but it wasn’t until
1942 that they were official covered by the Lanham Act. In August 1943, former Works Progress
Administration nurseries using Lanham Act funds for operation were formally placed under the
Federal Works Agency.

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reflected evolving ideologies and practices in the fields of education, recreation, commercial

enterprise, and health care, and established a precedent of providing subsidies in these fields to

local communities.

Like the planning of defense communities and the design of defense houses, the

architecture of community facilities widely embodied the notion of flexibility, in that they were

designed so that they could be adapted to any future environment, objective, arrangement or

technology. The experimental nature of these structures, with their impermanence (most were

demountable, and hence temporary), and the economy with which they had to be built, fostered a

high degree of architectural ingenuity, as designers were asked to accommodate constantly shifting

social needs. The education and care of children, in particular, occupied the minds of policy-

makers, architects, and education professionals. As women entered the workforce and the demand

for childcare grew, the government financed and constructed nursery schools, a building type that

had rarely before been specially designed and built for the purpose. Schools accommodating older

children were also a site of experimentation, in which bare-bones structure provided modern

options for connections between indoors and outdoors, versatile arrangements within and between

classrooms, and in the way that the school building could be used in association with the rest of the

community. To many, the realization of these schools—particularly the so-called community

school, which could provide learning and social opportunities from cradle to grave—was seen as

no less than the future of American democracy, as well as the traditional family structure.

Community buildings, which accommodated a wider range of activities, were likewise

considered not merely “an architectural framework for social exchange,” as Talbot Hamlin wrote,

but also “a necessary addition” to American life.2 With a less fixed program, the average

community building offered options for neighborhoods and their sub-groups to assert their

2
Talbot Hamlin, “Community Buildings,” Pencil Points 22, no. 6 (June 1941): 385.

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democratic individuality, and often featured multi-use rooms of various sizes, with the ability, like

schools, and sometimes in conjunction with schools, to change shape and form as the community’s

requirements evolved over time. Although shopping centers and, and to a lesser extent, healthcare

facilities, also played a role in the shape of defense communities, it was schools and community

centers that acted as their true physical heart and raised the most contentious aesthetic issues.

Indeed, while architects promoted the inherent symbolism of these buildings within the

community, they also hotly contested any hint of monumentality, a concept that had lost favor with

the rise of foreign totalitarian regimes. Through an investigation of these building types, this

chapter will examine the effects of evolving social needs, objectives, and theories, and the

necessities of war, on the architecture of defense, war, and post-war community facilities.

Wartime education and community schools

Even before the United States entered the war in December 1941, it was clear that the European

conflict would have some kind of effect on American education. As education philosopher I.L.

Handel wrote in 1948, “the threat of impending war in Europe exercised a strong influence on the

trend of educational thought for several years before its actual outbreak,” largely due to the

“widespread realization that what was taking place in Europe was a direct challenge to the ideals

and institutions of democracy.”3 Indeed, during the war, the educational system, like many other

social institutions, faced a period of self-reflecting inquiry: Could it meet the challenge of war?

Could it also withstand the demands of peace that would follow? The problems the educational

system faced were numerous and included widespread illiteracy, a lack of academic and vocational

skills, inequality in educational opportunity, poorly paid teachers, and a lack of instruction in the

3
I.L. Handel, The Impact of the War Upon American Education (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1948), 12.

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history of international cultures and their affairs.4 Most significantly, critics found that American

education did not adequately inculcate students in the ideals of democracy, a principle that was at

the core of America’s self-image. This led some, like Frank G. Lopez, Jr., an editor at Architectural

Record, to ask in March 1942: “Why are we—as a nation—so unprepared mentally, physically,

morally for the conflict?”5

Educators and architects hoped to address this question as they contemplated the design of

new schools during World War II. Despite the fact that, in the end, the average American school

curriculum changed little in response to these challenges, except for incorporating extra war-related

activities, school architecture of the period did undergo a remarkable change in its use of materials,

method of construction, architectural vocabulary, and scope of use.6 Although school buildings

could not be expected to fix deficiencies in the curriculum, architects, officials and critics believed

there was an opportunity to effect social change—particularly instilling a sense of democracy in

the nation’s youth—through planning and design. This modernist agenda called for the use of

pared-down designs, but even more importantly, it required architects to give full expression to the

way that modern schools functioned with and within their communities. As school designers

increasingly turned their focus from the mechanistic features of school buildings, which had made

great advances in previous decades, new awareness was given to the social significance of school

spaces and their possible use in impressing democratic values upon students, both young and old.

4
Handel, The Impact of the War Upon American Education, 5-8.
5 Frank G. Lopez, Jr., “Time to Think—One War Blessing,” Architectural Record 91, no. 3 (March
1942): 67.
6
Schools participated in many war-related activities associated with mobilization, but it appears
that there were few long-term effects on the classroom. For more about the effect of World War II
on the American curriculum, see: Charles Dorn, American Education, Democracy and the Second
World War (New York: Palsgrave Macmillan, 2007), 170; and Ronald D. Cohen, “Schooling Uncle
Sam’s Children: Education in the USA, 1941-1945,” in Roy Lowe, ed. Education and the Second
World War: Studies in School and Social Change (New York: Routledge, 2012), 55.

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 One idea that gained significant traction during these years was the concept of the

“community school,” which sought to dissolve the boundaries between schools and the

communities that surrounded them. Born out of the Jane Addams settlement houses of the late-

nineteenth century, as well as educator John Dewey’s 1902 call for a “school as a social centre,”

and Charles Stewart Mott’s early community school experiments, the community school of the

early-twentieth century was a brain child of the progressive movement, offering civic and social

reform to the community as a whole.7 However, the conservatism of the 1920s and fledgling

bureaucratic system of the 1930s ensured that the community school was a rare type that only

manifested itself in a number of one-off, yet forward-thinking, examples in homestead

communities and in rural areas. These locales were ideal places to experiment with community

schools since they had small populations and few resources for purpose-built community centers

that could offer education and recreation spaces to adults.8

Among the most vocal proponents of the idea of the community school in the early 1940s

was N.L. Engelhardt, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and his son N.L.

Engelhardt, Jr, an employee of Newark Public Schools. Beginning with their co-written book

Planning the Community School of 1940, the Engelhardts advocated for a new kind of

neighborhood-centered school architecture in a score of published articles in education and

architecture journals. In their view, American education had progressed through a series of changes

that could be characterized as “church-centered, teacher-centered, child-centered, and curriculum-

centered.”9 Community-centered schools were the next logical step, since they reflected the

7
Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, Michael Joahnek, John Puckett, “The Enduring Appeal of Community
Schools,” American Educator (Summer 2009): 24.
8 For more on 1930s community schools see Sam F. Stack, Jr. The Arthurdale Community School:

Education and Reform in Depression Era Appalachia (University Press of Kentucky, 2016) and
Jeanita W. Richardson, The Full-Service Community School Movement (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009).
9
N.L. Engelhardt, “The Community School: A Definition,” The American School and University
(1941): 15.

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economic and social trends of the nation, especially the decentralization of American cities and a

shift in educational philosophies from emphasizing scholarship to imparting serviceable knowledge

and skills.

In blurring the line between educational and urban planning theory, the Engelhardts aimed

to popularize the community school both in terms of its pedagogical benefits, and also in terms of

the ways it could help shape the physical form of communities. In its special issue on post-war

planning, “Planned Neighborhoods for 194X,” Architectural Forum published an article by

Englehardt, Jr. describing the manner in which neighborhood units could be organized in relation

to schools. Criticizing schools of the past, which “mechanized” education in monumental buildings

set apartment from homes, he advocated for “a well-conceived neighborhood plan in which the

school has been created as an integral part of the daily life of all the people who reside in the

community.”10 The idea adhered closely to Clarence Perry’s 1929 concept of the “neighborhood

unit” (Fig. 4.1), which was physically organized around a central neighborhood school. 11 What

Engelhardt, Jr. added to the idea was an educational perspective. Specifically, he pointed out that

the modern education program had changed. In contrast to nineteenth-century education reformer

Henry Barnard’s recommendation that schools be surrounded by a yard of at least a half acre,

Engelhardt, Jr. pointed out that the modern education program was far less restricted and was, in

fact, “conceived in terms of neighborhoods of 100 to 500 acres, in which homes, farms, gardens,

parks, play areas, wooded land, work places and school buildings are so arranged and planned that

each contributes to the education and schooling of children, youths, and adults.” 12 In other words,

10
N.L. Engelhardt Jr., “The School-Neighborhood Nucleus,” Architectural Forum 79 (October
1943): 88.
11 This concept was realized most clearly at Radburn, NJ, designed by Henry Wright and Clarence

Stein and built in 1928. For more information on the evolution of Perry’s concept of neighborhod
planning, see Howard Gillette, Jr., "The Evolution of Neighborhood Planning: From the
Progressive Era to the 1949 Housing Act," Journal of Urban History 9 (August 1983): 421-444.
12
Engelhardt Jr., “The School-Neighborhood Nucleus,” 89.

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the community, and all of its physical features, were now an intrinsic component of the child’s, and

adult’s, education, and thus should be included in school planning. By his calculations, each

neighborhood could reasonably accommodate roughly 1,000 to 3,000 families, with subdivisions

based on elementary school enrollments. His sketch (Fig. 4.2) of a representative neighborhood

shows the variety of different neighborhood unit sizes with each “school-neighborhood nucleus”

organized around a central elementary school.13

Many of the defense and war communities built under the Lanham Act offered excellent

conditions for the creation of community schools and experimentation with school-neighborhood

planning methods. Community schools—which offered a high level of program flexibility—were

particularly appealing since material shortages and uncertain tenancy created a high level of

variability between housing projects. Indeed, shifting populations had a significant effect on

school-age enrollments in these areas. While the nation’s total school population was declining in

1941, Time magazine reported that defense-production centers were experiencing the worst

overcrowding of schools in the history of the United States.14

Although the Lanham Community Facilities Act was passed by Congress in June 1941 to

alleviate these problems, Time wrote that “all sorts of priorities and bottlenecks” were holding up

the construction of new schools just prior to the attack at Pearl Harbor. Of 600 emergency

schoolhouses that had been applied for, by September 1941 only twenty-nine had final approval

and none yet was under construction. Planning for these population shifts, which often affected a

high number of young children, was a concern for Engelhardt, who worried about the obsolescence

so often experienced with traditional school building design. As he explained in New Pencil Points,

13 Each unit is provided a half-mile radius, which was the maximum distance, he claimed, that
children five to eleven years of should be required to walk to school. In between the neighborhood
units were two junior high schools and one large senior high school, shared by the entire
community.
14
“Education: Priorities v. Schools,” Time 38, no. 11 (September 15, 1941), accessed September
30, 2016: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766090,00.html.

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“new communities being planned today will probably have peak elementary school enrollments in

the first two decades of their existence, with the greatest secondary school loads coming

subsequently.”15 Instead of eventually finding their elementary school classrooms empty and

unusable for anything else, schools, he urged, should consider the issue of future use in their

original planning.

This type of future-use planning extended from the design of classrooms to the external

appearance of the building. Classroom design, in particular, embodied the most controversial

pedagogical issues—mostly centering on whether they were planned for “traditional” or “activity”

learning. The former signified a continuance of familiar standards (i.e. a rectangular room with

fixed seats and a mounted chalkboard), while the latter grew out of a new educational philosophy

and practice, in which children could work independently or in groups, and be creative, both in

their thinking and in the way that they used space. In many ways, this second approach reflected an

increased concern for children’s emotions and needs, which had emerged as a school of thought in

the 1930s, as well as the new interest, that grew as war approached, that children be happy, and feel

like they could safely express their fears. In her 1942 book You, Your Children, and War Dorothy

W. Baruch wrote: “A child brings with him into the classroom his fears, his doubts, his hostilities,

his desire to play out his tensions concerning the war.”16 Despite this, she argued, schools were an

ideal site for children to learn about democratic living, originality, inventiveness, self-discipline,

self-expression, as well as their relationships and responsibilities to others. Museum of Modern Art

(MoMA) architecture curator Elizabeth B. Mock and architect Rudolf Mock expanded on this idea,

15 N.L. Engelhardt, “What Can School Designers Expect?,” The New Pencil Points 23 (November
1942): 48.
16
Dorothy W. Baruch, You, Your Children, and War (New York: Appleton-Century, 1942), 118.

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noting that “children’s needs aren’t just physical and intellectual, but also emotional,” and that

architects should consider the psychological effect of school buildings upon children.17

Of the two classroom models, the “activity”-based or modern classroom was routinely

described as an eminently flexible space—both in physical makeup and in use—that often included

movable partitions, movable furnishings and storage, and access to outdoor space. In the Mocks’

opinion, the ideal classroom was more of a “home room,” ideally “planned for unity and simplicity

of experience, and sufficiently spacious and well equipped to take care of most of the activities

which otherwise go on in a bewildering array of special rooms.”18 In particular, the feeling of space

—both spaciousness and the “treatment of space as flowing and continuous from one room to

another”—was attributed great significance in giving children a sense of freedom.” Along with

space, light also played an important role in these endlessly flexible interiors. Sliding or folding

glass doors, as well as both fixed and movable continuous-sash windows, could dematerialize

walls and provide unity between indoors and outdoors, as well as provide multi-source light for a

variety of furniture arrangements. Notably, all of these features also meant that the space could

easily be adapted to a wide variety of uses that were not strictly educational in nature.

Interior flexibility was often cited as a factor that could also influence the exterior design of

the building. Modernist Max Abramovitz wrote in American School and University that the

aesthetic expression of a school was affected by the use of these flexible classroom types, and the

multiplicity of interior uses, including “the endeavor to make the school building a part of

community life as a structure planned for day and evening use.” 19 The architectural expression of

these fluid interior spaces was understood to be intuitively and inherently modern, with simple

17
Elizabeth B. Mock and Rudolf Mock, “Schools Are For Children: Observations on Elementary
School Design,” The American School and University (1943): 37.
18 Mock and Mock, “Schools Are For Children: Observations on Elementary School Design,” 38.
19
Max Abramovitz, “The School Can Be An Esthetic Contribution to the Community,” The
American School and University (1941): 37.

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building masses, functional detailing and an honest use of materials. In architecture and education

journals, monumental school buildings were consistently derided as intimidating, inflexible, and

fake in their use of historical styles. The Mocks insisted bygone styles were incomprehensible to

children, since “they are realists, quick to detect a fake.”20 Instead, the one-story school was

offered as the most suitable solution with its low scale, indoor/outdoor permeability, and ability to

be constructed of light and cheap materials such as wood and prefabricated panels. “Much of the

clear beauty of the modern school,” they wrote, “is due to the bold articulation of its parts,” in

contrast to antiquated monumental schools, which are “compressed into one massive, non-

committal block.”21 The modern schoolhouse, then, was meant to be supremely plastic in form and

variable in use, as well as expressive of progressive educational thinking.

Many of these ideas had precedent in modernist school proposals and designs from the

previous decades. Richard Neutra’s 1926 scheme for a Ring Plan School (Fig. 4.3) provides one of

the earliest examples of a single-story structure, with “open-air” classrooms that featured flexible

seating and robust natural lighting.22 Neutra expanded on these ideas in 1935, with the

experimental Corona Avenue School (Fig. 4.4) in Bell, California. Although likened to a “drive-in

market” or “hangar” by the press, the design synthesized his ideas on how to incorporate nature

into learning and daily life. 23 Arguably the most important feature Neutra incorporated in the

single-story, single-wing arrangement was the sliding window walls that opened to the outside, and

would become a fixture in modern schools during and after the war. Another groundbreaking

modern school was the Crow Island School (Figs. 4.5-4.6), designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen

with Perkins Wheeler and Will, and built in Winnetka, Illinois in 1939-40. The single-story school

20 Mock and Mock, “Schools Are For Children: Observations on Elementary School Design,” 37.
21
Mock and Mock, “Schools Are For Children: Observations on Elementary School Design,” 41.
22 For Neutra’s description of the Ring-Plan School, see Richard Neutra, “The Ring Plan School,”

The Architect and Engineer 123, no. 3 (December 1935): 28.

23
R. Thomas Hille, Modern Schools: A Century of Design for Education (Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley and Sons, 2011), 287.

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accommodated a variety of ages in sequentially organized wings. Classrooms, which were

domestic in scale, paid special attention to materials, color, lighting and furniture, also featured

multi-use activity zones and a connection with the outdoors with large corner windows.

These examples outlined the characteristics of the modern functional school and became

highly influential as school construction increased during World War II. Like housing, schools

were soon elevated into the realm of art with the MoMA exhibition “Modern Architecture for the

Modern School,” designed by Elizabeth Mock in 1942. In it, Mock touted the “intimate and

personal qualities” of the modern elementary school and gave several examples from the 1930s

when school architecture was beginning to “catch up with new educational methods,” as well as

“new solutions” for wartime.24 In fact, some features of the early examples, like foldable partitions,

were eventually codified in the federal government’s official guide on design standards for war

housing projects. However, in contrast to the early experimental modern school buildings, which

had typically served solely as schools, the Federal Public Housing Authority’s (FPHA) standards

specifically noted that “when a school must be built as part of the project, it ought, if possible, to

be planned to serve also as a community building.”25 Community schools were meant to be

“closely integrated, with all of the facilities of the building being designed for dual use.” Thus,

looking to the successful examples of the 1930s, architects began to explore a more-or-less new

building type, with fewer resources and under stricter time restraints than ever before.

24 Museum of Modern Art, “Museum of Modern Art Opens Exhibition of Architecture for the
Modern School,” press release, accessed September 30, 2016: https://moma.org/d/c/press_releases/
W1siZiIsIjMyNTMzMyJdXQ.pdf?sha=6c1d00c8df98eb20.
25
“Bulletin No. 3” (includes Standards for War Housing, May 15, 1942, and revisions and
additions), March 10, 1943; Subject File of the War Housing Program, 1942 - April 30, 1943,
“Housing Standards,” Entry 26, Box 8; General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development [HUD], Record Group 207; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

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Lanham Act community schools

In Center Line, Michigan, architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen and J. Robert F. Swanson—who had

gained widespread acclaim for their school at Crow Island—explored the possibilities of multi-use

space in their school-community center, which was completed in 1941. Built for workers in

Detroit’s war industries, Center Line was a United States Housing Authority (USHA)-built, 476-

unit development centered around a central green (Fig. 4.7). Located directly on the green, the

school-community center economized materials with its wood construction, brick masonry

exteriors, and simple vertical boarding on the interior. The structure consisted of two intersecting

wings (Fig. 4.8): one with an elementary school and small attached kindergarten unit, and the other

with a large community room, medical clinic and project offices. Envisioned by the Saarinens and

Swanson as a “building in which life of entire war housing community could center,” the structure

occupied a place of prominence under the only large trees on the property.26

The elementary school wing (Fig. 4.9)—composed of eight classrooms situated off of a

double-loaded corridor—incorporated many aspects of the “activity” classroom with its

opportunities for mental and manual stimulation. Recalling Neutra’s Corona Avenue School, each

classroom opened to the east and west via large window walls with doors (a feature that was

relatively unique in the northern climate), providing the ability to extend the classroom to the

outdoors, and even further into the community. At the end of the wing was the kindergarten unit

(Figs. 4.10-4.11), which was located in a separate building, connected by a covered walkway. The

irregularly shaped structure had a south-facing window wall that led out to a separate play yard.

Inside, the architects provided a laboratory-type space, with a large open area for group learning, as

well as an alcove where children could work on individual projects. Practical skills, like learning to

put away over-clothing, were also stressed in the design, with a specially designed, spacious coat

26
“School-Community Center, Center Line, Michigan,” The New Pencil Points 23 (November
1942): 57.

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alcove. Movable cabinets offered multiple other ways to configure the space. Adjoined to the

school wing by a narrow connection, the community room/auditorium/gymnasium (Figs.

4.12-4.13) was located outside of the central school block, providing a noise buffer and lighting

from various elevations. It utilized many of the same design elements including large windows,

pitched ceilings and wood finishes. Wood trusses permitted an open floor plan without posts,

making the space suitable as a school assembly room, community banquet hall, or theater.

On the exterior, the building was organized into clearly articulated masses. Although it was

designed so that the spaces could function together, the arrangement allowed it to be managed by

different administrations, such as the housing and school authorities, with its variety of separate

entrances. Less apparent in the published black-and-white images is the use of color on the

buildings. According to Eero Saarinen, the overall color scheme for the project was “courageous,”

with shades of red, green, and yellow used on the houses to emphasize elements of the plot plan,

and blue used as an accent at vistas. The community school acted as the climax of the color

scheme, and was painted a brighter red than the houses, with some blues for contrast. As Saarinen

explained: “We never thought in terms of buildings with color, but more in terms of spaces, the

boundaries of which were to harmonize.”27 Thus, the community school acted as the visual focal

point of the project, or “the focal point for the people,” as Saarinen wrote, with its bright color and

imposing smoke stack. Although quasi-monumental in scale and setting, the community school

building was more clearly a social project, in which residents, both young and old, could

participate in community life.

Another firm that endeavored to incorporate the ideals of progressive education into

modern school design was Franklin & Kump. Led by Ernest J. Kump and Charles Franklin, the

27
Eero Saarinen, “Architecture and Defense Housing,” (speech made at the National Association
of Housing Officials Region V Conference in Toledo, January 22, 1942); Vertical Files, Cranbrook
Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

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California-based architects recognized the growing trend of the school-community concept, and

saw in it opportunities for advancements in planning, as well as design and technology. Located on

the West Coast, Franklin and Kump, and their associate John Lyon Reid, who worked on many of

their school designs, were better situated than most to capitalize on the changes occurring in school

plant design. Scores of new wartime cities, both small and large, were being created there on empty

land, free from existing traffic and use patterns, allowing schools to serve as the “nucleus of

neighborhood or community units.”28 Through careful neighborhood planning, and analysis of the

community’s needs, the firm aimed to produce community school buildings that “become

something of a symbol, the expression of a central organism which serves the needs of the

community, young and old alike.”29

While the use of words such as “nucleus” and “organism” echoed the bio-morphological

principles of Eliel Saarinen, Franklin and Kump were, in the end, more concerned with the

practical considerations of construction. In particular, they recognized that the design of schools

could easily lend itself to standardization, and thus began to apply prefabrication to school

construction during World War II. Central to their rationalization for the use of prefabrication was

the idea of flexibility, and the importance of flexibility to a community school. “Many school

districts,” Reid wrote in New Pencil Points in September 1943, “now find it difficult to absorb

improvements in curriculum and method because of permanent and costly plants rapidly

approaching obsolescence.”30 Their first demonstration came at Acalanes High School (Fig. 4.14)

in Lafayette, California, which was completed in 1940. The rural, car-centered school housed a

progressive curriculum and was used for adult community activities, both day and night. There,

Franklin and Kump worked out six main design principles to follow: one-story plan, long corridor

28
John Lyon Reid, “The School Plant Re-Examined,” New Pencil Points 24 (September 1943): 50.
29 Ibid.
30
Reid, “The School Plant Re-Examined,” 59.

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flanked by classroom wings, uniform orientation of rooms, multi-source daylight, standard

classroom size and shape, and complete separation of different systems such as structural,

partitional, storage, heating, lighting etc. All of these, especially the open-plan modular

construction, enabled cheap and quick changes in design, and potential shifts in program.31

At Carquinez Heights (1941) and Chabot Terrace (1943), in Vallejo, California, Franklin

and Kump used their six principles, expanded to include the additional principle of prefabrication,

in the plans they drew up for temporary elementary schools serving the large war communities

designed by architect William Wurster.32 Each classroom was an independent structural unit (Fig.

4.15), made of standard-sized wood girders, joists, and, at Carquinez Heights, prefabricated

plywood panels. Of uniform size (based on available timber sizes and school building codes), the

units were designed to be regularly spaced, and arranged along open corridors that connected all

the units of the group (Fig. 4.16). The resulting organization was a series of wings, like fingers,

stretching into open space. The design, which also included a large multi-use auditorium with

timber arch-rib trusses at Carquinez Heights, lent itself to endless repetition in a multitude of

groupings.33 Yet, as much as the scheme was meant to anchor the community with its amenities

and planning, the structures themselves were demountable, meaning that they could be

disassembled and reassembled elsewhere as needed. Even though Reid admitted in the American

School and University that these designs represented “minimum construction,” he offered the

possibility that the technology “may influence post-war design.”34

31 “Advanced California Schools Meets Limited Budget,” Architectural Record 89 (June 1941):
82-87; “Pioneer School has Proved the Value of its Scientific Design in Eight Years of Orderly
Growth,” Architectural Forum 91 (1949): 104.
32
Franklin & Kump used the same design in other places too. See the demountable school built for
the FWA at Pacific Beach in San Diego, CA: “Demountable School,” Architectural Record 91, no.
5 (May 1942): 68-69.
33 The auditorium at Chabot Terrace was cancelled to due cost concerns.
34
John Lyon Reid, “Community Schools Built in Wartime: Yardsticks by Which We May Measure
Progress,” The American School and University (1943): 32.

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 The function of the units, or “loft spaces,” as Reid called them, was highly interchangeable.

Since the units were standardized in construction, equipment, and dimensions, and the partitions

were light and non-structural, entire wings could easily be changed from educational to

administrative uses (Fig. 4.17). Other design features such as diffused lighting, unit-type

interchangeable cabinets, and moveable furniture only further enhanced the structure’s flexibility

(Fig. 4.18). By 1944, Kump had given his school construction theory a name: “time flexibility.” It

meant that an educator could move all of the walls and equipment at his or her whim to adjust to

different teaching strategies. “Coincidentally,” Architectural Forum noted, “it delights the modern

child. Now they’ll be able to take the whole d — — building apart and, as a taxpayer, we hope, put

it back together again.” 35 Following this logic, control of the school facility had, more than ever

before, shifted from administrator and educator to the student. Eventually, Kump began to market

the prototype, now named the “Pre-Bilt” school, as a package that could be combined with any

number of similar units to produce the desired school size.36 The prefab package was delivered by

truck and could be assembled within a few days. Recognizing how “childishly simple” the erection

process was, Kump, along with Wurster and Bernadi even repurposed the prefabricated design into

a residential version (Fig. 4.19) with a laminated arch system, offering “the complex flexibility of

planning and replanning.”37

To many observers, the modern school looked increasingly like a factory: a building that

was in many ways standardized, but also tailored to specific production demands. Architect

Lawrence B. Perkins, designer of several wartime schools, offered the factory as a model for

schools, which could adjust to the educational objectives of the day. This “factory solution”

35
“In the Forum,” Architectural Forum 80 (June 1944): 28.
36 Although he initially built it out of his own factory, he went on to sell the factory to the the
Standard Engineering Corporation, but retained the patent rights. For more, see “Prefabrication,”
Architectural Forum 82 (February 1945): 182.
37
“Prefabrication for Flexible Planning,” Architectural Record 98 (1945): 98.

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involved providing a large floor area that was well lit and well ventilated, and large enough for

every child to have forty to fifty square feet in which to work. “Imagine it subdivided by screens,

movable and reasonably soundproof. Imagine this factory-like floor subdivided in shapes and sizes,

dictated by the job to be done in each field of subject matter. Now imagine one more thing, move

your faculty around from student to student as helper and critic, so that the teacher’s base is no

longer the fixed point in your calculation.”38 Underlining his functionalist rationale, Perkins held

that there were only two important questions for a designer to ask himself (when designing

anything): What job must it do? And what is the best way to do that job? Similarly, William W.

Caudill, in his 1942 bulletin Space for Teaching, illustrated elementary classroom solutions that

took advantage of light distribution and natural ventilation, many of which, he noted, strongly

suggested a factory in their appearance. To critics of the modern aesthetic, he responded that

“growing children are entitled to as healthful an indoor environment as industrial workers.”39 Thus,

modern design was the order of the day for both industrial workers and their children.

Within a few years, the community school acquired both a basic functional typology and an

architectural vocabulary, and was being used in dozens of defense and war projects, including: the

temporary Victory Park school (Fig. 4.20) designed by Adrian Wilson and Theodore Criley, Jr in

Compton, California; the permanent Norwayne schools (Figs. 4.21-4.22) designed by August

O’Dell and Hewlett & Luckenbach in Skidmore, Owings & Merill’s-designed communities in

Wayne, Michigan; the Rugen School (Figs. 4.23-4.24) designed by Perkins, Wheeler and Will in

Glenview, Illinois; and many others. To be sure, many other school buildings recalled styles from

the past (Figs. 4.25-4.26), but increasingly, the newly built schools adopted the low-scale, finger-

spreading plans, that could accommodate community uses, reflecting broader changes in

38 Lawrence B. Perkins, “New Vs. Old Building Standards,” The American School and University
(1944): 24.
39
Review of Space for Teaching, William W. Caudhill, Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 24.

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educational practice. By the middle of the war, this general arrangement was part of a standardized

set of plans issued by the FWA, which allowed necessary adaptations to topography, orientation

and other conditions.

Many educators found virtue in wartime school plant design. Reflecting on Lanham Act

schools, education consultant Leonard Power, who acted as a consultant to the U.S. Office of

Education, concluded that despite government red tape and material limitations, they could offer

some valuable lessons in design, planning and administration.40 One of these was that “temporary”

schools—demountable or prefabricated—offered a blueprint for future standards for permanency.

In other words, the temporary war schools could, potentially, be very similar to permanent post-

war schools. He found them not only aesthetically pleasing, but also functionally superior, with

their high degree of lighting, ventilation, and ability to accommodate alterations and additions with

little effort and little cost. “Any other type of construction,” Powers wrote, “may one day before

long be considered too expensive and wasteful from the long-term point of view.” Similarly,

Powers saw post-war implications in the ways that Lanham Act schools were being used,

especially in their accommodation of adult education and recreation. Calling them “laboratories for

the community schools of the future,” he wrote that “when the whole community uses the school

plant, the whole community is more likely to understand its possibilities as an instrument of

education.” Finally, Powers added a word of caution about federal-run programs like the Lanham

Act. Noting that the FWA had treated the determination of need, and the design, of schools as

though they were “post offices,” he observed that state programs—which had established building

regulations and codes—were often weakened when the federal government dealt directly with local

governments. Schools, in his view, were better with increased collaboration, rather than less.

40
Leonard Power, “Lessons from the Lanham Act for School Plant Design and Construction,” The
American School and University (1944): 46.

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 Looking towards the post-war period, some speculated on the future prospects of the

community school. In March 1944 and June 1945, Architectural Record published issues dedicated

to the community school. As what editor Kenneth K. Stowell called the “bulwark of American

Democracy,” the modern community school would be the cultural, recreational and social center

for the neighborhood, for both young and old, and rich and poor.41 Citing changing educational

methods, he added that the post-war school must be “flexible,” capable of “multi-and-vari use,”

and easily and cheaply altered. 42 However, others expressed doubt about the community school.

Talbot Hamlin wondered whether these types of schools would ever truly appeal to adults. Even

though the all-day use of school buildings might be desirable, there still seemed, to some, “an aura

of set tasks to be done, set lessons to be learned,” making it “difficult to develop an easy social

feeling in such surroundings.” 43 More often, however, the community school was seen as problem-

free path to achieving the ideal of common neighborhood feeling. Indeed, Engelhardt believed that

war pressures and post-war necessity—including shifting populations and the demand for new

facilities—would only more firmly establish the community school in everyday American lives.44

Wartime nursery schools

At the beginning of World War II, nursery schools were not commonly part of the public school

system. During the 1930s, the country had experimented with public nursery schools as part of

Roosevelt’s New Deal. These “emergency” nursery schools, which were run by the Works Progress

Administration (WPA), were part of a nationwide jobs program for unemployed skilled workers,

and not intended to be an experiment in public pre-schooling. Even so, according to historian

41 Kenneth K. Stowell, “School for Democracy,” Architectural Record 97, no. 6 (June 1945): 71.
42
Kenneth K. Stowell, “The School of the Future,” Architectural Record 95, no. 3 (March 1944):
57.
43 Hamlin, “Community Buildings,” 386.
44
N.L. Engelhardt, “The Impact of the War Upon School Building Planning,” The American
School and University News (1942): 13.

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Barbara Beatty, the schools were “not to be desultory make-work or unregulated custodial child

care.”45 Staff included out-of-work school and health professionals, as well as nurses, nutritionists

and clerical workers, and the facilities, which were controlled by state and local education

agencies, and were notably called “schools.” In 1930 there were approximately 200 public nursery

schools in the United States; by 1934-35 the federal program served some 75,000 children in 1,900

public nursery schools.46 Many did see the program as a universal preschool experiment and hoped

it might become permanent. However, the program dwindled as relief funding dried up and local

communities declined to, or were unable to, continue them. Additionally, and perhaps most

damning, the program became intrinsically associated with poverty programs for poor children in

the public’s eye. However, according to Charles Dorn, the effect of these educationally rich

programs was to shift Americans’ perceptions of child care “from that of a social service to an

educationally enriching experience for young children.”47 In other words, preschool was beginning

to be appreciated for its pedagogical benefits, as well as the service it offered to parents.

With war mobilization, the concept of the public nursery school was revived. Like before, it

developed primarily as a jobs program, but this time it wasn't meant to employ out-of-work school

professionals. Instead, it was meant to allow women to join the workforce, and provide some form

of child care for children moving into war production areas, fifty percent of which were under five

years of age.48 The concept of encouraging, as well as logistically and financially supporting,

women to join the production line was not without controversy. The prevailing notion of a

woman’s role in society was that she would be a homemaker and raise children, acting as a

bulwark of the nuclear family. Critics denounced working mothers for being selfish, and even more

45 Barbara Beatty, Preschool Education in America: The Culture of Young Children from the
Colonial Era to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press: 1995), 179.
46
Beatty, Preschool Education in America, 181.
47 Dorn, American Education, Democracy and the Second World War, 173.
48
Howard L. White to Rose. H. Alschuler, June 6, 1942; Box 7, Clarence Stein papers, #3600.
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

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for neglecting their children. For example, Paul McNutt, the head of the War Manpower

Commission, said in July 1942 that “the first responsibility of women with young children, in war

and peace, is to give suitable care in their own homes to their children.”49 Notably, this comment

did not take into account the desperate need for additional factory workers, as well as the fact that

many of these women were their household’s sole breadwinner. However, as historian Margeret

O’Brien Steinfels wrote: “Under the impact of the war fervor, all previous prejudices, arguments,

and opinions about the danger of working mothers and daycare of children quickly disappeared.”50

Over the course of the war, the federal government would allot more than $50 million for the

construction, operation and maintenance of approximately 3,000 nursery schools nationally,

serving over a million and a half children.51

For the first years of the war, the childcare needs of younger children were primarily met

through the WPA nursery schools. Although the Lanham Community Facilities Act was passed in

1941, it wasn’t until July 1943 that child care centers, or nursery schools, were included in the

definition of community facilities that could be provided in “war-impact areas.” At this point the

WPA was dissolved, and the responsibility for the construction and operation of the nursery

schools was transferred to the FWA and jointly administered by Grace Langdon and Florence

Kerr.52 The need for Lanham Act child care centers was acute, and some experts predicted that by

September 1943 over one million young children would require some kind of supervision while

49 Paul McNutt quoted in Beatty, Preschool Education in America, 187.

50
Margeret O’Brien Steinfels, Who’s Minding the Children?: The History and Politics of Day
Care in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 67.
51 Harlow G. Unger, “Lanham Community Facilities Act,” in Encyclopedia of American

Education: F to P (New York: Facts on File, 2007), 638. Charles Dorn puts the number at a total
of 600,000 children, with 130,000 children at the height (American Education, Democracy and the
Second World War, 12). Of this, only $3 million was for construction (Steinfels, Who’s Minding the
Children, 67).
52
Grace Langdon had served as a WPA Emergency School specialist and then chief of the wartime
WPA Child Care and Protection Program. Florence Kerr had served as assistant commissioner of
the WPA and then as head of the War Public Services Bureau.

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their parents worked. 53 Even though cultural resistance began to wane, the construction of these

centers was slow. In the fall of 1943, the number of FWA centers only rose from 1,620 to 2,065

centers, with just over 58,600 children enrolled.54 To some, the creation of Lanham Act child care

centers was seen as the first real foray into public preschool education. As John E. Nichols, the

supervisor of school buildings in Connecticut’s State Department of Education, wrote in 1943:

“Now at last the door of public education has been opened to the nursery school—just a little,

cautiously and timidly in response to the clamorous knocking of industry and the god of war. Not

the front door, but the back—unlocked by federal money made available through the Lanham

Act.”55

Just as with elementary schools, the designers of nursery schools were asked to deal with a

number of conflicting educational theories and practices. The first question that had to be answered

was whether nursery schools would operate as custodial or educational programs. Although most

Lanham Act centers did develop and implement curricular programs, many others accepted the

custodial arrangement.56 At the time, educational professionals increasingly were calling for a more

pedagogic approach to nursery schools, but the conditions under which children gathered varied

widely, mostly due to the amount of funding available, number of children enrolled, and a

community’s views on early childhood education. As Rose H. Alschuler, a consultant to the FPHA,

wrote in Progressive Education in 1942: “Custodial programs will always fail, because children

need more than custodial care. Women in the United States, like women in England, can and will

work at top speed only they are certain about the care their children are receiving.”57 Notably, she

53
William M. Tuttle Jr., Daddy’s Gone to War: The Second World War in the Lives of America’s
Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 81.
54 Tuttle Jr., Daddy’s Gone to War, 75, 81.
55
John E. Nichols, “Children’s Centers and the Future,” The American School and University
(1943): 177.
56 Dorn, American Education, Democracy and the Second World War, 173.
57
Rose H. Alschuler, “We Need More Nursery Schools,” Progressive Education 19 (Oct 1942):
327.

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also advocated for coordinated community services (particularly health services) and the creation

of parent education programs for mothers, training courses for nursery school teachers, and the use

of community volunteers.

Despite these differences, experts largely agreed on the form nursery schools should take if

they had to be built from the ground up. Their characteristics included being a single level, with

rooms that were near the outdoors in appearance and in use, with adequate space and storage to

accommodate play space, a kitchen, and a bathroom, at the bare minimum.58 “Building and

equipment for a group of young children in a nursery school mean more than playthings and

shelter; they are an integral part of the educational program of the school,” wrote Catherine

Landreth, the author of a 1942 nursery school manual. “Young children learn by first-hand

experiences. The type of experiences they have in nursery school depends largely on the equipment

and facilities the school offers and the way in which these are made available to children.” 59

Similarly, Nichols wrote that nursery schools should not be in imposing structures of brick and

limestone, but one-story structures that “look like what they are—unaffected, friendly, restful

places, full of warmth and abounding in interesting things to learn and do.”60 Nursery school

buildings, although relatively simple in design and arrangement, were increasingly being viewed as

an essential component of a small child’s educational enrichment and emotional development.

The timeliness and urgency of the problem prompted architects and interior designers to

look anew at the building type. For example, in 1943, Russian-born British architect Serge

Chermayeff published a pamphlet titled “A Children’s Center or Nursery School,” (Fig. 4.27) as

part of Revere Copper and Brass’ promotional series that plugged progressive architectural

58
Rose H. Alschuler, ed. Children’s Centers: A Guide for Those Who Care For and About Young
Children (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1942), 101.
59 Catherine Landreth, Education of the Young Child: A Nursery School Manual (New York: John

Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1942), 22.

60
Nichols, “Children’s Centers and the Future,” 179.

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solutions for buildings and communities. Working with students at Brooklyn College, Chermayeff

portrayed the child care center as focal point of a neighborhood unit and devised a design for a

basic modular unit that could be combined in a number of ways “to meet different community

needs.”61 Each child-scaled unit (Fig. 4.28) was a standardized structural module that be added

together to create a number of school sizes and could adapt to a variety of materials, textures and

colors, as well as a high level of interchangeability if prefabricated panels, ceiling and walls were

used. Chermayeff described the building as a “living exhibition of spatial relationships,” that

young children would learn to apprehend, understand, and eventually enjoy.

Another theoretical nursery design came out of a competition held by the American

Institute of Decorators (AID) in February 1942, the results of which were published in

Architectural Record and Pencil Points. Noting the changing social and economic conditions

forcing mothers to work away from home, AID saw nursery schools as a new field opening up to

the interior designer who must “be able to handle functionally, economically and artistically both

civic and governmental housing projects.”62 The winner, Jane Dorsey, designed a modern day

nursery (Fig. 4.29) for Florida’s warm climate, with expansive window walls, a cantilevered roof,

large yard area, and mobile interior furniture including nesting work tables, meant to graduate size

with age. Second prize winner John W. Thiele took a similar approach (Fig. 4.30) to massing, site

planning, and furniture choices, illustrating the pervasiveness and wide acceptance of transparent,

streamlined and flexible design for for both buildings and furnishings.

Even under the constraints of the Lanham Act, some architects found ways to incorporate

innovative ideas into nursery schools. At the permanent Channel Heights project (Fig. 4.31), in San

Pedro, California—which featured a connected community building and nursery school at the

61 Serge Chermayeff, “A Children’s Center or Nursery School,” Revere Copper and Brass (New
York: Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?), 7.
62
Paul R. MacAlister, “Rorimer Competition 1942-43,” American Institute of Decorators (1942):
38.

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center of the project—Richard Neutra improved upon diagrammatic plans for child care centers

issued to him by the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA) in December 1942.63 Although he

kept the same floor area, rooms, storage compartments, built-in equipment and space for

furnishings as the FPHA plan, Neutra saw an opportunity to economize critical materials as well as

make the building function more efficiently for teachers, children, and even their parents. One of

the modifications involved re-situating the office and enclosing it with glass (Figs. 4.32-4.33), so

that teachers could—in panopticon fashion—have “simplified supervision by visual observation of

all classrooms and all play yards,” and even the children’s toilets.64 Neutra also re-situated the

kitchen so that it could received deliveries at the service entrance, and added a “service and

demonstration counter” overlooking a “mother’s porch” where women could gather for instruction

on childcare.65

Neutra sought to view the building from the child’s perspective. Thus, the main entrance to

the building, according to Neutra, was from the play yard, even though this was a completely

enclosed space meant to keep small children from roaming. Most photos of the nursery building

(Fig. 4.34) were taken from this perspective, a detail that aligned well with the inward-looking,

garden city typology of the entire project. These images also widely featured the spray pool, which

Architectural Forum noted was a “luxury few projects on high cost land could afford, and indeed

few private nurseries.”66 Inside, Neutra also facilitated a more open plan by removing posts,

giving the explanation that “children [are] often blinded by their play interest” and could be injured

if they hit the posts. Neutra’s “special design,” as the FPHA called it, showed a particular concern

63 The nursery building was not funded until August 1943, but Neutra began designing the building
in late 1942.
64
Richard Neutra, “Day Care Center for Housing Project CAL-4108, Channel Heights, San Pedro,
California,” no date; Box 35, Folder 12, Richard and Dion Neutra Papers (Collection 1179),
Department of Special Collections, Manuscript Division, Charles E. Young Research Library,
University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
65 See unmarked, undated drawing of nursery building, Oversize Folder 1214, RNP, UCLA.
66
“Channel Heights Housing Project,” Architectural Forum 80 (March 1944): 73.

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with how children experienced the structure, and even more how teachers and the community

could also interact with the space.67

Strikingly similar features were found at other child care centers, including the one

designed by Holden, McLaughlin and Associates at McLean Gardens, a large apartment and

dormitory complex constructed by the Defense Homes Corporation (an entity operating outside of

the Lanham Act) in Washington, DC in 1942-43. The simply detailed, low-slung prefabricated

structure stood out as a relatively modern addition to the complex (Fig. 4.35), which had been

designed in the Colonial Revival style by New York architect Kenneth Franzheim and his

associated Alan B. Mills. Social programs at the site were run by the FPHA, which regularly built

child care centers, but notably, at McLean Gardens, the school was donated by American Houses

Inc., a prefabricator, to the American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS). In fact, FPHA

Commissioner Herbert Emmerich’s wife, a former AWVS committee chairman, personally helped

get the school set up at McLean Gardens since she was “keenly interested in the provision of

adequate child care facilities in Washington.”68 Images and a plan of the nursery were published in

Architectural Forum and Architectural Record, which called it a “model center for child care.”69

The T-shaped building (Figs. 4.36-4.37) was organized into a wing with two age-specific play

rooms separated by a toilets, lockers and storage, as well as an administrative wing with an office,

kitchen, isolation room, and volunteers room. Like Neutra, the architects made provisions to

include parents in the care of their children. Here, it was in the form of two observation rooms,

through which parents could watch their children and teachers without being seen through an

intervening screen. Other features included direct access to outdoor play space, easy circulation

and child-size built-in furniture. As American Houses Inc. surely intended, this lightly built

67
Richard Neutra from Omer Mills, August 20, 1943; Box 35, Folder 11, RNP, UCLA.
68 “Prefabricated Schools,” Architectural Forum 80 (March 1944): 63.
69
“A Model Center for Child Care,” in Kenneth Reid, ed., School Planning: The Architectural
Record of a Decade (New York: F.W. Dodge Corporation, 1951), 400-401.

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structure offered a credible prototype of a standardized post-war nursery school, which could be

cheaply and easily placed in any given residential community.

Other architects were able to bypass some the red tape and standardized plans that were

associated with many Lanham Act projects. At the Kaiser Child Service Centers serving the

Portland and Swan Island Shipyards, schools were financed by the Maritime Commission and

operated on a corporate basis by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, who saw them as good public

relations and as a way to stabilize female employment at his shipyards.70 The company’s child care

centers were planned for maximum convenience for women working around the clock. In addition

to operating twenty-four hours a day, they were also located at the entrance of the shipyards, to

save the time and gas of working families. Architects Wolff and Phillips, who designed large

wartime communities for Kaiser, used the opportunity to experiment with the building type. At the

Swan Island shipyard, they created a radial plan (Fig. 4.38) with a central play yard (Fig. 4.39)

protected by the building itself, not unlike Neutra’s unbuilt 1928 “ring school.” The wheel

“spokes” contained fifteen classrooms, each with a separate entrance for quick and efficient drop-

off and pick-up, and long window walls with site lines to the shipyard (Figs. 4.40-4.41). As

Architectural Record suggested, young children could exclaim: “There goes Mummy’s ship!”71

The interior spaces included movable locker units and low-scale built-in storage. For maximum

convenience, a “Service Sales” room off of the entrance offered ready-cooked meals for mothers to

bring home, “assuring the family of a better dinner than she might be able to cook after a strenuous

work day.” In addition to receiving publicity for its unique plan, location, and services, the Kaiser

child care centers were also widely publicized for their innovative approach to early childhood care

70 M. Paul Holsinger and Mary Anne Schofield, Visions of War: World War II in Popular Literature
and Culture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 143.
71
“Designed for 24-hour Child Care,” Architectural Record 95, no. 3 (March 1944): 87.

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and education after they recruited specialized teachers from all around the country.72 The center

was featured in Parent’s Magazine, Progressive Education, and through a broadcast, newsreels and

photo exhibit sponsored by the Office of War Information. As an onsite childcare system, the

Kaiser center offered a compelling counterpoint to the Lanham Act nursery schools, which were

almost always located in residential areas, and bound by established standards and plans.

Enrollments for child care under the Lanham Act program peaked in July 1944 with over

3,100 centers serving almost 130,000 children.73 The program was a resounding success, despite

what some saw as a heavy-handed approach by the government. Indeed, the FWA, and later the

FPHA, had exerted almost complete control over building and operations, even bypassing child

and social welfare agencies. And since the government chose not to set standards for services at the

child care centers, allowing them to be supervised by local groups, educational quality varied

between centers.74 Nevertheless, once Armistice (or VJ-Day) arrived on September 2, 1945 around

2,800 centers were almost immediately shut down after federal funds were withdrawn. The day

after the armistice was signed the New York Herald Tribune and Wall Street Journal reported that

the wartime-morale-building Community Facilities Program “went out of business today,” and that

any work on the community facilities, including child care centers, would be carried on by

individual government civic organizations after October 31.75 In Los Angeles, Vierling Kersey, the

LA City School Superintendent noted that the effect of closings would be felt especially hard by

the widows of servicemen “who must work to support their families,” and whose children would

also feel the effect of the shutdown.76 Although President Truman did produce a short extension for

72
Mary Bryan Curd, “Child Service Centers, Swan Island shipyards,” Oregon Historical Society
(2015), accessed September 30, 2016: https://oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/child-service-
centers-swan-island-shipyards/#.V9wbCmOi1jN.
73 Tuttle Jr., Daddy’s Gone to War, 82.
74
Steinfels, Who’s Minding the Children, 68.
75 “One War-Time Agency Already Shuts Up Shop,” New York Herald Tribune, August 15, 1945,

8.
76
“U.S. To Curtail Child Care for Warworkers.” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1945, 11.

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child care funding, the urge to return to economic and familial “normalcy” was too overwhelming,

and most were shut down in 1946. 77 As Steinfels wrote, “a combination of ideological, economic,

and phycological reasons precluded serious consideration of the needs of working mothers and

young children for day care services,” leaving many women, large numbers of whom had migrated

across the country with no support network, little choice but to quit their jobs and return to the

home.78

The war-developed nursery school served to democratize early childhood education. Not

only did Lanham Act child care centers become, for a period of time, highly visible components of

neighborhoods, but they also introduced a new building type, and educational strategy, to a large

segment of the American middle class. In terms of design, the buildings were constructed of

materials that emphasized both transparency and warmth, and gave special attention to the young

child’s perspective. Furthermore, through both services and design, they sought to include parents

in the education and care of their child. Commenting on the value of Lanham Act child care

centers, consultant Leonard Power wrote that they “illustrate the demands which wartime

conditions have made upon the resourcefulness and inventive genius of architects, engineers and

educators.”79 While many hoped that Lanham Act centers could act as a template for post-war

nursery school design, politics and traditional social norms ended the modern public preschool

experiment.

Community buildings and commercial centers

In addition to the educational concerns of children, the federal government also considered the

social and physical needs of adults in Lanham Act financed housing projects. Although some

77
“White House Seeks Approval to Continue Child Care Centers,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August
28 ,1945, 15.
78 Steinfels, Who’s Minding the Children, 69.
79
Power, “Lessons from the Lanham Act,” 46.

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argued that schools should act as the neighborhood nucleus, architecturally, community buildings

were much more identifiable as the physical and symbolic center of defense- and war-built

neighborhoods. Community buildings were typically large, centrally located structures that housed

a wide assortment of functions including: managing offices, recreation spaces, meeting rooms,

libraries, craft rooms, kitchens, workshops, and child care centers, among other things. Even more

than schools, community buildings were morale boosters, intended give some measure of control

and leisure back to in-migrant workers, who often had no social and support network in the newly

built defense communities. Likewise, the design of these buildings was often intended to inspire

democratic and community feeling.

The concept of the community center building evolved over the early twentieth century.

Initially used in rural areas, or by labor unions as gathering spaces, community centers became

more ubiquitous through the 1910s and 1920s as industrial organizations, religious groups,

neighborhood clubs, and municipal groups sought to create spaces for cooperative living. The

federal government joined the “community center movement,” as author C.J. Bushnell called it in

1920, when it began to build defense communities during World War I.80 However, only about a

quarter of the forty-seven projects built by the Emergency Fleet Corporation and United States

Housing Corporation during World War I included a facility to serve as a neighborhood center.81 As

the size and scale of public housing projects grew throughout the New Deal, community centers

became larger, free-standing structures, as well as focal points in the design of neighborhoods.

Still, more often than not, these buildings catered to a small subset of the population, as they were

either built for specialized interest groups, or for low-income housing project residents living under

peacetime conditions.

80 C.J. Bushnell, “The Community Center Movement as a Moral Force,” International Journal of
Ethics 30, no. 3 (April 1920): 326-335.
81
Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996): 38-40.

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 During World War II, community facilities became an essential amenity for civilian war

workers and a crucial factor in preserving their mental and physical health. War production

required a great deal from civilian workers: training, long hours, multiple shifts, and, in some

cases, isolation due to the location of sensitive plants. These factors, wrote Rhea Radin, of the

Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services, could “cause physical and mental strains, fatigue,

lowered resistance, and nervousness.”82 In order to counteract these dangers, she advised that

“special plans” be made for after-hours relaxation and for physical activities, otherwise, efficiency,

she warned, could “be impaired by discontent and emotional disturbance which show themselves

in high labor turn-over, lack of concentration on the job, and in some instances complete

breakdown.” By May 1942, facilities for social and tenant activities were required in FPHA-built

projects of 50 units or more.83 In its standards, the FPHA noted that community buildings should

be located in a central position, and be easily accessible to tenants, but preferably not situated on a

main traffic artery.84 Within, it was mandated that social spaces take up the bulk of the interior

floor space. FPHA’s diagrammatic studies (Fig. 4.42) of community facilities based on size

indicate that the buildings should be low, spreading structures adjacent to shared open areas. As the

size of the projected community grew in the diagrams, so too did the footprint of the building and

range of offered amenities.

At Bellmawr Homes (Figs. 4.43-4.44) in Camden, New Jersey architects Mayer, Whittlesey

and Hettel designed a community building (Figs. 4.45-4.46) that was envisaged as a civic symbol

of both authority and joint purpose. The connected community, management and maintenance

buildings at the FWA-financed, 500-unit project were located at the terminus of two long common

82
Rhea Radin to Clarence Stein, 1943?; Box 9, CSP, CUL.
83 Although the Lanham Community Facilities Act wasn’t passed until June 1941, some early
Lanham Act projects were permitted to build community centers at 3% of the project’s total cost.
84
“Bulletin No. 3” (includes Standards for War Housing, May 15, 1942, and revisions and
additions), March 10, 1943; Subject File of the War Housing Program, 1942 - April 30, 1943,
“Housing Standards,” Entry 26, Box 8; RG 207, NACP.

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areas, each framed by long curving streets and a number of smaller courts. The plan aimed for both

human scale and unexpected views, and the community buildings (including a planned school)

acted as the visual climax. “What we tried to do was to open the plan as much as possible toward

these, so that from anywhere in the community one would be conscious of these community

symbols: The School, the Community House, the Commons,” the architects explained in

Architectural Forum.85 Like an Italian campanile hovering over a piazza, or nineteenth-century

church steeple rising over a village green—architectural features whose function was to draw

people together—they noted that the cypress-sheathed clock tower would accentuate community

consciousness. However, Mayer, Whittlesey and Hettel were not interested in the monumentality of

those earlier buildings. Therefore, for the community buildings they carried over the massing and

materiality of the two-story, flat-roofed brick houses in an effort to make them “architectural

culmination of the houses—not just great monsters of buildings lording it over them.” They

explained, “The overhangs are wider, the windows larger, the buildings longer, the shapes freer—

but nobody could doubt that the community buildings and houses belong to each other.”

Inside, the community building offered great flexibility, and opportunities for communal

interaction, with two unspecified social rooms, a nursery with folding partitions that could be used

by adults at night, and a small wing with a staff room, reception room and ping-pong room. The

highly functional tower was used for chair storage on the ground floor and community

photographic darkrooms on the upper level. In their design, Mayer, Whittlesey and Hettel aimed

for some connection to the past, but clearly recognized the community facilities were, unlike

municipal and religious buildings of old, a vital buttress to the life of these new modest

neighborhoods, and would have to provide “what each family can’t afford for itself.”

85
Albert Mayer, Julian Whittlesey, Joseph Hettel and associated architects, “Housing Project,
Bellmawr, NJ,” Architectural Forum 78 (January 1943): 74.

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 Many architects held great regard for symbolic importance of community buildings,

perhaps none more so than planner Clarence Stein, who was tasked by FHPA Commissioner

Emmerich to make a study of community facilities, including educational and recreational

buildings, and stores, and come up with a set of “flexible standards” that the FPHA could give to

project planners and architects.86 To Stein, these buildings were a physical representation of

democracy, where people could take part in making decisions about their lives and towns, and held

an ever-increasing importance as people’s leisure time increased, their homes became simpler and

servant-less, as the church came to hold less importance in people’s lives, and as interest in, and

desire for, exercise increased.87 In particular, he advocated for the special importance of planning

in the design of community facilities:

The neighborhood must focus on a neighborhood center. This center must be well-
defined, well placed for convenience of all, well planned to carry out all the varied
common work, well integrated—and it must be architecturally attractive. By that I
meant not only that the buildings should all be of good design. Far more important
they must be grouped and massed so that they form an ample and unified whole that
has character, unity and form. The center consisting of local public buildings and
their setting in the green of the central neighborhood park should be an architectural
group of such individuality and attractiveness that it will arouse in every neighbor a
feeling of pride and local patriotism. If his house is unsatisfactory, he won’t move
to the suburbs. No! No! This is his neighborhood. He will insist that his house and
his neighbors’ houses be rebuilt in harmony with the character and spirit of the
community center and of the neighborhood.88

As part of his work for the FPHA, Stein conducted a survey of community facilities around the

country and found that, too often, the buildings were lacking unity, spaciousness, and connection to

nature.89 Although there were a number of success stories, many others failed to plan for the future

and set aside space for room and growth. Within a short period of time the buildings were cramped,

86 Herbert Emmerich to Clarence Stein, April 23, 1942; Box 7, CSP, CUL.
87
Clarence Stein, “Building New Communities: Leisure Time Activities,” October 10, 1943; Box
7, CSP, CUL.
88 Clarence Stein, “Neighborhood Communities As the Basis of Democracy,” (address delivered to

the 31st Conference National Federation of Settlements in Cleveland, Ohio, May 19, 1944); Box 6,
CSP, CUL.
89
Clarence Stein, “Spacious Community Centers,” October 8, 1943; Box 7, CSP, CUL.

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with people demanding more space for clubs, nursery schools, assembly rooms, shops and play

space. “Things are changing in ideas, methods, forms, education, health care, recreation,” he said

to the Conference National Federation of Settlements in 1944. “We must keep form and structure

as flexible and fluid as possible… No more straight-jackets. No more monuments to architects—no

more mausoleums to dead philanthropists in which to perpetuate dead ideas and obsolete

procedure.”90

What Stein called for was clearly a “modern” monumentality, in which the building

expressed its symbolic value through its function, rather than through traditional ideas of solidity

and permanence, which historically served fixed institutions. Many community centers were built

of permanent construction, but many others were temporary and built with light, standardized

materials, which could sometimes be disassembled and later reconstructed. It raised the question:

What does a transitory building, intended for communal, morale-boosting purposes look like? How

could designers imply monumentality without actually creating monuments? To Stein, it was the

concept of flexibility and change that would provide architectural meaning. In 1945, he explained

that: “Impermanence rather than monumentality must characterize the architecture of a world in

flux. In monumental buildings, standards must be fixed over a long period. This, in a changing

world, leads to stifling of growth or to quick obsolescence… No ancient rules of architectural

relations and balances should limit the use of today and the possibility of change and evolution.”91

In other words, the building’s symbolism didn’t come from height or the solidity of materials, but

rather from a coordinated visual language, intelligent use of technology, careful grouping of

buildings near open spaces that acknowledged the possibility of future change, and a recognized

constructive purpose.

90Stein, “Neighborhood Communities As the Basis of Democracy.”

91
Clarence Stein, “Education and the Evolving City,” The American School and University (1945):
52.

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 In several projects, the manner in which the community center articulated its functions

determined its desirability. In June 1945, the Architectural Record praised a project in Berea, Ohio,

designed by J. Byers Hays, Wilber Watson and Associates for its modest scale and dignity. The

300-foot-long, single-story structure (Fig. 4.47) was organized in a windmill pattern, with a long

axis connecting two buildings (one a community building and the other a child care center), each

with projecting wings that housed noisy activities such as children’s play rooms, an active game

room, and club rooms. With the two building so “carefully combined” that the project was

considered a success in providing for both the young and old.92

In contrast, George Howe and Louis I. Kahn’s community building (Fig. 4.48) at Pine Ford

Acres, a 450-family FWA project in Middletown, Pennsylvania, was considered largely

unsuccessful. “More of a child care center augmented by a neighborhood auditorium than a

community building in the true sense of the word,” the one-story, gable-ended structure featured an

office, health center, clinic and second-floor meeting room; all next to a smaller maintenance

building. By 1946, about four years after it been constructed, the Harrisburg Housing Authority

admitted that the tenants were disinterested in using the facility. In response, Howe and Kahn

decided the community center was too small for the community and that with additional social

spaces “both young and old would enter into the spirit of community participation with increased

zest.”93 They drew up plans (Fig. 4.49) to convert the existing buildings into administration and

maintenance and add a new “rough playhouse” for movies and indoor athletic activities, a nursery

and a storage building with adjoining parking. The most successful community buildings, it seems,

were those that equally provided for the needs of both children and adults, and that could be

flexible when the community’s needs required it.

92 “Community Facilities, Berea, Ohio,” Architectural Record 97, no. 6 (June 1945): 87.
93
“Two Wartime Community Centers,” Architectural Forum 84 (January 1946): 110.

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 Like recreational buildings, commercial facilities posed new planning challenges for

architects. By the middle of 1942, few shopping centers had been constructed as part of the

defense- and war-housing program despite the clear need for them in isolated communities, which

became even more isolated as tire shortages and gas rationing decreased mobility. Thus, the FPHA,

with funding from the Lanham Community Facilities Act, began to construct these facilities to

provide minimum services to war workers and their families. In October 1942, Architectural

Record noted that these shopping centers wouldn’t “look like Fifth Avenue, and the new stores

won’t sell Fifth Avenue merchandise… but they do represent the newest obligation of the architect

to the war effort… and take him into almost uncharted seas, for the planning problems are new and

the materials restrictions will tax his ingenuity.”94 As part of FPHA policy, the buildings were to be

planned with the utmost efficiency of materials, cost, personnel and space. Shopping centers were

meant to be convenient to pedestrian access and located close to community centers, when

possible, but never located at the periphery. The FPHA offered diagrammatic plans (Fig. 4.50) for

shopping centers, however, it made clear that its main priority was to provide maximum flexibility

of structure and plan under one roof, to meet changing needs during and after the war. However,

the FPHA acknowledged that space was subject to some variation due to regional differences in

buying habits, the distance traveled by shoppers, and merchandising policies.

Architect Pietro Belluschi’s shopping center (Fig. 4.51) in Vancouver, Washington was one

of the first federally financed facilities to reach the construction phase in the fall of 1942.95

Originally meant to include shopping facilities, a 1,000-seat theater, bowling alley, beer parlor and

other structures for 4,500 families, the plans eventually succumbed to the essential-services policy

and came to, as Architectural Record put it, exemplify the “paring-down process characteristic of

94 “Shopping Facilities in Wartime,” Architectural Record 92, no. 4 (October 1942): 63.
95
At the time, Belluschi was working for AE Doyle and Associate.

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the new program.”96 The design—which featured pine-board cladding and continuous covered

walkways— was notable for separating automobile and pedestrian traffic, creating an internal

pedestrian green, as well as leaving room so that the facilities could be expanded later. The

architects also studied the retail spaces in great detail, but found that individual lessees had their

own ideas about how the spaces should be arranged, leading Belluschi to have to make changes

after the building was under construction. “So,” he concluded, “it appears that unless the needs are

well established, the designer should favor a plan that is simple and flexible.”97

At Channel Heights, Richard Neutra also designed a simple, flexible commercial building.

The 9,000 square-foot supermarket (Figs. 4.52-4.53) for the FPHA project was largely open plan,

with a continuous glazed storefront and clerestory windows meant to provide copious amounts of

daylight. A visually striking, angled cantilever, covered with wood siding, protected the storefront,

which used bold signage to announce its presence. Somewhat unusually, however, the building was

located at the periphery of the project (Fig. 4.31), far from the other community buildings and

directly on a major road, violating the “park living” concept of the development, which called for a

complete separation of pedestrians and traffic. Although this fact received little attention in the

architectural press, Stein noted it in his review of wartime community facilities, writing that “the

Community Stores are some distance off in another direction, because ‘they,’ the authorities at San

Francisco, still suffer from the delusion that outsiders shop as they pass by a neighborhood

shopping center.”98 In other words, the government wanted to attract more business to the market

by locating it on the project perimeter. To Stein, however, this detracted from the design and was a

disservice, and danger, to tenants.

96
“Community Facility for 4,5000 Families,” Architectural Record 92, no. 4 (October 1942): 66.
97 Ibid.
98
Stein, “Spacious Community Centers.”

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 In fact, designers and planners were becoming increasingly interested in studying how

people shopped. Industrialization and rapidly expanding cities had spurred the growth of Main

Streets across the United States, but as automobiles began to increase congestion in the twentieth

century, shopping centers began to decentralize, moving to outlying districts. As Architectural

Record noted in June 1940, the small shopping center where families could “park-and-shop” were

multiplying, prompting new thinking on the problems of traffic, parking, circulation, expansion

and adaptability. 99 Yet, war communities required on-site amenities, and the rubber and gas

shortages meant workers were bound, more than ever, to their neighborhoods. Thus, designers

began to re-evaluate what a pedestrian-centered shopping center might look like. Industrial

designer, and Architectural Forum editor George Nelson, believed the answer was to reimagine the

average Main Street. 100 Instead of blighted city centers, with ill-planned parking lots and obsolete

buildings, Nelson promoted the idea of closing and landscaping Main Street (Figs. 4.54-4.55) and

moving new parking lots to the periphery, all surrounded by a greenbelt that limits over-expansion.

Some buildings are new, but many are preserved or remodeled, and all are outfitted with

continuous arcades that protect shoppers from bad weather and encourage window shopping.

By September 1944, Nelson was able to proclaim “‘Grass on Main Street’ becomes a

reality,” after his idea was brought to fruition by architects Whitney Smith—the designer of the

unbuilt experimental Plynuminum House in 1942—and Earl Gibberson at the 3,000-unit Linda

Vista housing project in San Diego.101 In their design, the irregularly-grouped retail buildings

(Figs. 4.56-4.57) enclosed a central landscaped area, and parking was relegated to the perimeter.

The FPHA-built shopping center was an much-needed amenity for tenants, who had previously

99
“Community Shopping Centers,” Architectural Record 87, no. 6 (June 1940): 99.
100 George Nelson, “Your Children Could Romp Here While You Shop…,” Revere Copper and
Brass (New York: Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?), 7.
101
“‘Grass on Main Street’ Becomes Reality,” Architectural Forum 81, no. 3 (September 1944):
81.

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been walking two miles into San Diego to shop. Utilizing a modular structural system, Smith and

Gibberson aimed for maximum flexibility in building size and storefront arrangement. Materials

and signage were uniform throughout, but retail tenants were able to customize their storefronts to

their individual merchandising needs (Figs. 4.58-4.59). For the community, however, this was

meant to be one-stop shopping as well as a new recreational space within the modernized “village

green.” Self-contained and inward looking, the designers tried to create a calm and safe atmosphere

(Fig. 4.60) with its wide sidewalks, trellised overhangs, and landscaping by Harold Dankworth that

included olive, acacia and eucalyptus trees. A year after it opened, customers expressed enthusiasm

for the design, but the merchants were still skeptical. “A number still cling to the idea that show

windows should face passing traffic… [but] all of the storekeepers agree that the center draws

customers from surrounding neighborhoods, despite limited advertising opportunities.” 102 When it

was published in Better Homes and Gardens in January 1945, Smith framed the shopping center as

a salve for the post-war world, noting that “America needs peace not only in the wide world but on

Main Street too.”103 Tomorrow’s Main Street, Smith insisted, “needs order and stability… [which]

people react to, and their lives are richer for it.” Architects were increasingly becoming planners,

but also, as these projects show, students of human behavior, community attitudes, local conditions

and technological advancements, hoping to apply them to the peacetime world.

Conclusion

By 1946, the Architectural Forum declared that it “looks as though community centers will

become an essential element of the national building pattern.”104 During the war, unprecedented

worker migration and technological transformations changed the country’s living habits,

102
“‘Grass on Main Street’ Becomes Reality,” 93.
103 Whitney R. Smith, “No Cars on Main Street,” Better Home and Gardens 23, no. 5 (January
1945): 20.
104
“Two Wartime Community Centers,” 107.

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precipitating new trends such as smaller houses and, in some areas of the country, less racially and

culturally homogenized neighborhoods. War also, clearly, had an effect on the manner in which the

country educated and cared for its children, and the way that people socialized, gathered and

shopped. As the idea of communal living reached Americans across the country, so too did

awareness of the types of buildings that could house these activities, and the political implications

that went along with them. “A Community Center is a provocative idea,” wrote Lawrence B.

Perkins, for Revere Copper & Brass. “Mainly, because it is based on that sound tenet, Democracy.

Already we share highways together, we share the golf course, the parks, the public conveyances.

Now, with the war, we share a common job and a common objective.”105

Although some believed that little had been learned from wartime housing, Stein, for one,

argued that the experience of building complete towns had “given us an invaluable experience in

the development of community centers.” 106 In particular, he pointed out, the experimentally built

defense- and wartime buildings had demonstrated the value of impermanence. In this concept,

Stein saw an historical parallel: “I have heard that when the Russian architects were criticized for

the barrenness of their early architecture they answered that these buildings were not permanent—

they did not yet know what forms of structure will be required to house the activities of the

future.”107 In fact, in the late 1920s, Russian architects briefly experimented with designs for

collective living that reflected their socialist ideology. Like American, war-built community

centers, Russian communal houses consolidated a variety of recreational and educational facilities

in one building and aimed to introduce residents, through highly functional spaces, to a new way of

life. This comparison, was, of course, verboten for Americans to voice out loud. In a letter to his

105
Lawrence B. Perkins, “After Total War Can Come Total Living,” Revere Copper and Brass
(New York: Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?), 10-11.
106 Clarence Stein, “The Theatre in Revolution,” Theatre Arts Magazine (April 24, 1945); Box 5,

CSP, CUL.
107
Stein, “The Theatre in Revolution.”

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wife, Stein admitted that “there is probably a good deal we are going to learn from the Russians

during this war, but we are not going to tell Congress about it.”108 Nevertheless, the comments

illustrate the expectation of continuous change, and experimentation, in the future, as well as the

ability of community buildings to shape public thought and feeling.

Many believed that the architecture of the future would be a less permanent thing than in

the past, but others were convinced that these buildings could act as permanent war memorials.

The movement for “living war memorials” gained traction during the war as way to build

monuments that the living could use. As Paul McNutt, head of the War Manpower Commission

and Federal Security Administrator said in January 1944: “When this war is over, hundreds of

towns in cities will create War Memorials… for these memorials, let us not erect Victory arches,

shafts or sculptured monuments. Let us instead build schools, hospitals, playgrounds, recreation

centers—which will serve the life of the whole community.”109 The answer to modern war, it

seems, was modern community buildings—such as the one proposed (Fig. 4.61) by modernist John

Dinwiddie—once again mobilizing the population by creating a sense of community, and, at the

same time paying tribute to the memory of the fallen. While some, like MoMA’s Philip Johnson

and AIA War Memorials Committee chairman Paul P. Cret opposed this view, others like Harvard

dean and professor of architecture Joseph Hudnut lauded the humanism embodied in the proposals,

which he believed offered “service to the spirit.”110 The incorporation of the memorial concept into

the community building only underlined the type’s inherent flexibility, and its ability to, as the

Russians put it, “house the activities of the future.”

108
Clarence Stein, The Writings of Clarence S. Stein: Architect of the Planned Community
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 427-28.
109 John Dinwiddie, “A Monument the Living Can Use,” Revere Copper and Brass (New York:

Revere Copper and Brass, 1943?), 6.

110
Joseph Hudnut quoted in James Dahir, ed., Community Centers as Living War Memorials (New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1946), 20.

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 EPILOGUE

Despite the efforts to remove Lanham Act architecture at home, reports of American

housing efforts reached an international audience in the post-war years. This occurred primarily

through the agency of the U.S. Office of War Information and the Museum of Modern Art, which

collaborated on an international exhibition titled “American Housing in War and Peace” and

“America Builds,” both shown in 1944. Britain, in particular, was receptive to the example of

American wartime housing, and viewed prefabrication as an especially intriguing in the context of

their need to build millions of homes after the war. In August 1944 the Architectural Review wrote:

The Americans have given us an indication of the way in which it might be carried
out. They show us that prefabricated houses, if they are properly sited and related to
a communal pattern, can make worthy and beautiful homes. They show us how new
housing estates and townships can be built in such a way that they are satisfactory
in themselves and do not strangle the older centres to which they are attached.1

Similarly, British architect Hugh Casson’s 1946 book Homes by the Million called it “the story of a

great achievement…that must rank as one of the great technical feats of this century” and pointed

out that the American experience showed that standardization did not have to be monotonous, that

mass production did not mean poor quality, and that public housing need not be lifeless or sterile in

design. 2 Other cities such as Stockholm, Istanbul, Paris, Copenhagen, Zurich and Johannesburg

also saw exhibitions and architectural journal features that included American war housing,

spreading an image of the United States as a cultural leader and technological innovator that

successfully housed millions within just a few years.3 Anxious to achieve such accomplishments in

1
“U.S. Wartime Housing,” Architectural Review 96 (August 1944): 30.
2 Notably, Casson did admit that his book did not include the many setbacks and disappointments
faced by the American program, both because of the size of the book and because, in his view,
“their effect upon the final result has been unimportant.” Hugh Casson, Homes by the Million
(Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1946), 3.
3
Some examples include William H. Conrad, “Community Centers in United States War Housing
Projects,” Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 22 (February 1945): 33-34 and
“Plan of the Community Centre for the Three Neighborhoods of Willow Run,” South African
Architectural Record 29 (January 1944): 9-10.

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their own countries, many governments looked eagerly to the American wartime housing as a

workable model for healthy, low-cost living.

At home, the end results of of the war housing program were more mixed. In terms of

regional planning, decentralization on the basis of defense remained a rallying cry for many

housing advocates in the postwar era. Indeed, the subject became even more fraught as the fears of

sporadic coastal bombing were replaced by fears of the atomic bomb, which had the ability to

eradicate entire cities. Reflecting upon the destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Americans came

to see themselves, more than ever, as targets.4 As there was no known military defense against the

atomic bomb, planners agreed that space was the best measure of protection and thus advocated for

continued dispersal in industry and housing. In a 1948 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,

Tracy B. Augur, formerly of the TVA, insisted that the advent of the long-range bombing plane, the

guided missile and the atomic bomb had transformed the United States—once difficult to reach—

into an inviting target. Like Clarence Stein before him, Augur argued for the creation of dispersed,

small efficient cities that could be a boon to peacetime as well as the cheapest form of defense

against modernized warfare. These small cities, he wrote, were “much more attuned to the needs of

modern living, modern commerce and modern industry and far less inviting as potential targets.”5

Augur saw the planning problem of the form and size of cities as a national concern, which should

not be subject to the whims of individual private builders.

4 See Peter Galison, “War Against the Center” Grey Room no 4 (Summer 2001): 5-33. Galison
discusses how, during the Cold War, Americans were trained to see themselves as targets. The
government asked American cities to identify critical plants and analyze vulnerabilities to nuclear
attack, leading to major transformations in infrastructure, highways and factory building. American
cities began to look like the same bomb planning and bomb evaluating process that Americans had
created on enemy maps of Germany during World War II. This “obsession with protection in
space,” as Galison calls it, led to dispersion and validated deurbanization as a national policy.
5
Tracy B. Augur, “The Dispersal of Cities as a Defense Measure,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 4,
no. 5 (May 1948): 132.

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 In 1948, Edward Weinfeld, the president of the National Public Housing Conference wrote

to Stein asking for his advice and collaboration in laying out guidelines for a new era of “defense”

planning, in which “the urgent planning problem… is not redevelopment, but new development in

outlying areas.”6 Geopolitical threats—heightened with the detonation of the first Russian bomb in

the summer of 1949, and solidified with the beginning of the Korean War in June 1950—provided

the opportunity for Stein to rekindle his argument; that is, to scatter communities. By 1951, Stein

had helped form a successor to the RPAA: the Regional Development Council of America.7 Along

with Lewis Mumford, Catherine Bauer, Albert Mayer and others the group advocated for

dispersing plants and workers to moderate-sized communities—developed by local, not federal

government—surrounded by open areas. They called for the creation of a Defense Communities

Agency, which would help the nation to avoid repeating the mistakes of both world wars, when the

emergency was treated as if it was a passing one, and not a long-term problem. “Military experts

recognize that the only sound defense against any type of aerial attack is space,” the group

explained. “We must diminish the size and importance and concentration of any single target so

that it would not be worth the expenditure of an atom bomb.”8 Worried that the public was being

lulled into the belief that underground bomb shelters, drills and post-attack evacuation measures

were sufficient protection, they argued that decentralization policies would increase security, raise

production, and if war didn’t come, leave the country with more efficient industrial plants and a

healthier population. Indeed, they estimated that every year people were housed in hundreds of

low-density towns, it would be the “equivalent of saving a great metropolis of three million people

6
Edward Weinfeld to Clarence Stein, November 1, 1948; Box 8, Clarence Stein papers, #3600.
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
7 From 1933-48 the RPAA had been largely dormant except for the film, “The City,” which was

work of members of the Association. At first this was due to the practical success of members,
however, eventually the members became geographical dispersed and death took a toll, including
Edith Elmer Wood and Henry Wright.
8
Regional Development Council of America, Inc. “Decentralization and Productive Defense,”
February 6, 1951; Box 7, CSP, CUL.

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from total destruction.” The nuclear emergency, like the bombing threat of World War II, provided

“an opportunity for bringing into existence sounder practices in urban building,” in which the

decentralized, self-sufficient garden city could transform a “war-ridden age” into the “ultimate

blessing.”9

Missing from the debates regarding postwar defense housing was any discussion of site

planning, an arguably obsolete consideration in the atomic age. However, some organizations did

conduct postmortems on the site planning policies of wartime housing. In 1946, the NHA declared

that wartime practices had not resulted in any “progress toward solving the problems involved in

building placement.” 10 Indeed, as the war progressed, restrictions on materials and space

allowances increasingly hampered experimentation. This resulted in a number of grim, temporary

projects, few of which made it into architectural magazines. What the earlier projects show,

however, is that during the defense build-up and the early years of the war, site planning principles

developed a social rather than physical organization. Although practitioners still relied on

topography, utilities and house design to organize a site, the fourth dimension—of the people who

would live in the houses and in the community—increasingly came to dominate the discussion of

site and landscape planning.

Of course, many of the advancements in prefabrication and materials also did not persist

beyond the end of the war. The backlash against prefabrication and new materials exemplified a

distrust of the quick, cheap methods used during the war and a perceived lack of humanistic

appeal. Prefabrication was quickly revealed to be not cheap at all. In a 1944 article in

Transatlantic, Bauer explained that there was “no evidence that housing which arrived in factory-

made sections was any cheaper than housing put up by traditional methods… facing this fact will

9Ibid.
10
National Housing Agency, “National Housing Bulletin 5: Housing Practices—War and
Prewar,” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946); Series 2, Box 80, Charles
Forrest Palmer papers, Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University.

!219
help us get down to work, moreover, and leave the dreams to desperate writers of advertising

copy.”11 Mumford acknowledged that “war housing has also done away with the illusion that there

is some peculiar magic in prefabricated construction,” but he still saw potential in its ability to

transfer attention from the concept of housing as mere shelter to that of housing as community

building.”12 These assessments were likely true, but statistics compiled in the post-war period show

that public construction (of both prefabricated and traditional construction) was, at the beginning of

the war, significantly cheaper than its private counterparts (Fig. E.1). Still, the possibilities of

prefabrication were deeply hampered by the troubled post-war economy as well as the revised

mortgage-lending practices put into effect in 1948.13 From a conservative viewpoint, this happy

occurrence revived the concept of the single-family home, built by the private sector and

individualized with “false effects” if so desired.

Some, like Harvard’s Hudnut, also took issue with the dominance of new materials like

plywood and homasote. In 1945 he explained that these new materials offered interesting aesthetic

qualities, but in fact had little to say. “We are too ready to mistake novelty for progress and

progress for art,” he wrote. “I tell my students that there were noble buildings before the invention

of plywood. They listen indulgently but they do not believe me.” 14 Hudnut found many elements

common to war housing—exterior overhangs, stressed skin and flexible walls—visually pleasing,

but emotionally vacant. Nevertheless, some still saw promise in plywood. Near the end of the war,

Pencil Points proclaimed the great future of the material with its article, “Plywood’s Future Has

Just Begun,” in which the material, particularly of the molded variety, was described as a critical

11 Catherine Bauer, “Toward Postwar Housing in the US,” Transatlantic 16 (December 1944):
35-44.
12
Lewis Mumford, “The Skyline: War and Peace,” New Yorker 18 (May 23, 1942): 56.
13 Peter Reed, “Enlisting Modernism,” in World War II and the American Dream: How Wartime

Building Changed a Nation, ed. Donald Albrecht (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), 20.
14
Joseph Hudnut, “The Post-Modern House,” Architectural Record 97 (May 1945): 70.

!220
resource for interior architecture in the postwar house.15 Revolving circular storage spaces, curved

stairways with molded plywood tubing, and curved movable walls were offered as possibilities.

Additionally, in her popular book If You Want to Build a House, Elizabeth Mock noted how these

curved shapes could give expressive form to the house, affecting the character of walls, roofs and

openings, suggesting that molded plywood could help fashion an individual and distinctive

dwelling.16 All of these visualizations presumed that the strengthened connections between design

and industry would prevail into the postwar years, with plywood (but seemingly not homasote) as

one of the central totems of production.

Many of the design features of wartime community schools, such as flexible plans and the

use of light, modern materials, persisted into the post-war period, and so too did the concept of the

“community school,” which had been widely disseminated through the war housing program. The

1950s and 1960s brought unprecedented demand for new schools as birthrates rose dramatically.

The new modern schools constructed during this period were largely affordable, functional

structures—with lightweight construction, flexible plans, and high degree of indoor/outdoor

permeability—that embraced new and evolving educational approaches. As R. Thomas Hille has

pointed out, this embrace of modernism and utilitarianism in post-war school design was most

likely due to the sheer scale of the production problem, the need to erect the schools quickly to

meet needs, as well as the public’s general acceptance of the style. 17 However, as a reaction against

the idea of separate, single-use schools, the community school movement stood against powerful

forces of bureaucratization and centralization during the remainder of the twentieth century.18

15 Lawrence Ottinger, “Plywood’s Future Has Just Begun,” Pencil Points 25 (May 1944): 84.
16
Elizabeth B. Kassler (formerly Mock), If You Want to Build a House (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1946), 49.
17 R. Thomas Hille, Modern Schools: A Century of Design for Education (Hoboken, NJ: John

Wiley and Sons, 2011), 91.

18
John S. Rogers, “Community Schools: Lessons From the Past and Present,” report to Charles S.
Mott Foundation (1998), 3.

!221
Much of the community schooling movement, according to the American Educator, “was blended

into a wider community education effort that included community-based educational programs

operating outside schools.” 19 Community schools continued to receive state funding, and even

federal support through the Community Schools Act of 1974, but were then defunded, and

refunded again, in later years. As a reform movement, interest in community schools ebbed and

flowed, yet there is little evidence that the community school, as a building type that was

physically and socially incorporated into a neighborhood, ever garnered the same kind of rapt

attention from the architectural community as it did during the war.

Similarly, federally-financed nursery schools lost favor after World War II, but the idea

periodically reemerges in the public discourse. In 2015, Betsy Stevenson, a member of the White

House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote that sixty percent of today’s households do not have a

stay-at-home parent and that child care in three out of five states is more costly than tuition and

fees at four-year public universities.20 Public nursery schools, she argued, not only benefited

parents by expanding maternal employment, but also increased children’s educational attainment,

labor force participation, and earnings as adults. Although contemporary public child care centers

would likely fall under a slew of modern heath and safety guidelines, it is not unreasonable to

suggest that even those buildings constructed during World War II could offer ideas with regard to

economy, flexibility and community feeling.

In contrast to both community schools and nursery schools, post-war commercial centers

fully absorbed the lessons of the war. World War II commercial centers prioritized the pedestrian

for reasons including economy and community morale, and restricted the activity of shopping to

19 Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, Michael Joahnek, John Puckett, “The Enduring Appeal of Community
Schools,” American Educator (Summer 2009): 24.
20
Betsey Stevenson, “An ‘Experiment’ in Universal Child Care in the United States: Lessons from
the Lanham Act,” The White House Blog, January 22, 2015, accessed November 2, 2016: https://
www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/22/experiment-universal-child-care-united-states-lessons-
lanham-act.

!222
the neighborhood unit. In terms of planning, post-war shopping malls became more regional,

reflecting the powerful processes of decentralization and the rhetoric of atomic dispersal, but they

continued to focus inward and on the need of pedestrian consumers and retailers alike with lightly-

built structures that could easily shift according to merchandising requirements. 21 For several years

the landscaped Main Street model prevailed, but the mid-1950s shopping centers became opaque to

the outside world as Main Street shifted indoors.

The country’s experience with the Lanham Act illustrates the complexities of building

housing in democracy and, more importantly, how the democratic process withstood the challenges

presented by a major national crisis. Ultimately, the history of the war housing program reveals a

large-scale give and take among competing actors, and a series of deliberations, negotiations and

compromises that were in fact largely effective at stimulating industry, mobilizing workers

(breaking down economic and social barriers along the way), organizing and planning

communities, and finally, designing and building housing. It shows, in a few words, a functioning

democracy.

21
David Smiley discusses how post-war regional shopping centers were considered a possible
refuge for citizens after an atomic attack and thus had to be considered within the larger dialogue
of dispersal. See Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925-1956
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 188.

!223
 Figure 1.1: Chart showing that publicly
financed units were initially mostly com-
posed of permanent units, but over the
course of the war became increasingly
temporary. (Statistics cited from United
States Department of Labor, Handbook
of Labor Statistics: 1947 Edition (Wash-
ington DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1947), 192 (Table I-2))

Figure 1.2: Chart showing how FHA

mortgages created a burst of new build-
ing. However, as materials became
scarce, even private building decreased
in the later war years. (Statistics cited
from United States Bureau of the Cen-
sus. Historical Statistics of the United
States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1975), 641)

224
Figure 1.3: Charles Forrest Palmer, Coor- Figure 1.4: View of the Techwood Homes in Atlanta, GA, built 1935.
dinator of the Division of Defense Housing (Library of Congress, HABS No. GA-2257, prepared 1993)
Coordination, 1940. (“People,” Architec-
tural Forum 73 (August 1940): 4)

Figure 1.5: Congressman Fritz G. Lanham. (Briscoe

Center for American History Digial Collections,
University of Texas at Austin)

225
Figure 1.6: Production flow chart from November 1940 show the distribution of funds
in to various housing agencies. (Architectural Forum 73 (November 1940): 443)

Figure 1.7: Government-issued organization chart of housing agencies, May 1941.

(Entry 21, Box 1; RG 207, NACP)

226
Figure 1.8: John M. Carmody, Administrator of the Figure 1.9: Nathan Straus, Jr., Adminsitrator of the United
Federal Works Agency. (Architectural Forum 73 States Housing Authority. (Architectural Forum 78 (January
(November 1940): 14) 1943): 72)

Figure 1.10: Catherine Bauer Wurster. (College of Environmental Design,

University of California, Berkeley: http://ced.berkeley.edu/about-ced/college-
history/)

227
 Figure 1.11: National Plan Service trade
catalogue for the “Nickols” home, which was
designed to meet the requirements of FHA’s
Title VI. (“The Smaller Home: Easier to
Build and Own,” published 1942, accessed
via the APT Hertiage Library: https://archive.
org/details/TheSmallerHomeEasierToBuild-
AndOwn)

Figure 1.12: Clark Foreman, Director of the Division of Figure 1.13: Colonel Lawrence West-
Defense Housing within the Federal Works Agency. (“Govern- brook, Director of the Mutual Home
ment Housers Meet,” Architectural Forum 75 (July 1941): 8) Ownership Division within the Fedearl
Works Agency. (Architectural Forum 73
(November 1940): 14)
228
Figure 1.14: Senator Harry Truman chairs a 1942 meeting of the Truman Committee.
(“Voices of World War II: Experiences From the Front and Home,” Miller Nichols Li-
brary, University of Missouri, Kansas City. Image retrieved from: https://library.umkc.
edu/spec-col/ww2/dday/truman-committee.htm)

Figure 1.15: Dormitory in Vallejo, CA designed by Vernon DeMars. (“Dormitories in

Transition,” Architect and Engineer 152 (February 1943): 17)

229
Figure 1.16: View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA.
(UCB Environmental Design Archives website, accessed 20 May 2016: http://
oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb9f59p29h/?order=9&brand=oac4)

Figure 1.17: View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA. (“The
Prefabricated House,” Architectural Forum 77 (December 1942): 60)

230
Figure 1.18: Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Cloverleaf Housing Project in Pittsfield,
MA, unbuilt. (FLLW FDN # 4203.002, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scotts-
dale, AZ, retrieved from: http://architecture.about.com/od/franklloydwright/ig/Gug-
genheim-Exhibition/Cloverleaf-Quadruple-Housing.htm)

Figure 1.19: Chart outlining the organization of the new National Housing Agency.
(“Housing Gets A One-Map Top,” Architectural Forum 76 (March 1942): 142)

231
 Figure 1.20: John B. Blandford, Jr., new head of the Na-
tional Housing Agency. (“Housing Gets A One-Map Top,”
Architectural Forum 76 (March 1942): 141)

Figure 1.21: Graphic depiction of the types of housing to be built. (“Blandford’s Housing Pro-
gram,” Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): 34)

Figure 1.22: Herbert Emmerich, the head of the Fedearl Pub-

lic Housing Authority, within the National Housing Agency.
(“Blandford’s Man,” Architectural Forum 76 (April 1942): 198)

232
Figures 1.23-1.24: View (above) and site plan (below) of the war community in Marin City, CA. (Architectural
Forum 79 (December 1943): 68-69)

233
 Figures 1.25-1.26: Typical two-story dormitoriy unit (above) and
site plan with dormitory buildings (left) by architect Paul Nelson.
(“FPHA: Duration Dormitories for Industiral Workers,” Architec-
tural Record 92 (July 1942): 44-45)

Figures 1.27-1.28: Rendering of dormitoriy unit (above) and site

plan (right) by firm Saarinen & Swanson. (“FPHA: Duration
Dormitories for Industiral Workers,” Architectural Record 92 (July
1942): 47)

234
Figure 1.29-1.30: Rendering of dormitories in landscape (top) and basic plan of 100-person dormitory unit (bot-
tom) by architect Frederick L. Ackerman. (“Duration Dormitories: Notes on the Technical Problem,” Architectural
Record 92 (August 1942): 32, 34)

235
Figures 1.31-1.33: View of dormitoriy group in Sausalito, CA (top); diagram
showing how the buildings could flexibly adapt to the terrain (middle); and
community building floor plan (bottom) showing the variety of amenities.
(“Dormitories in Transition,” Architect and Engineer 152 (February 1943):
14, 19)

236
Figure 1.34: Chart showing the value of new construction during the war years. As
Blandford suggested in December 1943, war housing had indeed met its home stretch
and would taper off in 1944 and 1945. (United States Bureau of the Census. Historical
Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1975), 618-619)

237
 Figure 1.35: View of factory in Southbridge, MA converted to housing during World
War II. (“Popular Program,” Architectural Forum 79 (December 1943): 47)

Figure 1.36: Diagram showing the potential uses of temporary war housing. (Architectural Forum 82 (January
1945): 8)

238
Figure 1.37: Advertisement for a Currier Figure 1.38: Site plan of Audubon Village in Camden, NJ, designed
House. (Architectural Forum 75 (December by Oscar Stonorov and Joseph N. Hettel. (“Government Housing in a
1941): 422) Hurry,” Architectural Forum 74 (May1941): 341)

Figure 1.39: View of the Sojurner Truth project shortly after completion, Fe-
burary 1942. (Library of Congress)

239
 Figure 1.40: Image of the riot that ensued when black residents tried to move
into the Sojurner Truth project in Detroit, Michigan. (“Detroiters in Riot on
Negro Project,” New York Times, 1 March 1942, p. 40)

Figures 1.41-1.42: Image stills from the movie “Homes for Defense,” which was produced by the Office for Emer-
gency Management. It compares slum conditions (left) to that of modern defense housing (right). (Film accessed
from Archive.org)

240
Figure 1.43: Image of the gallery illustrating the bad living conditions that confronted industrial workers in the
“Wartime Housing” exhibit at MoMA. (“In the Housing Picture...” Architectural Record 91 (May 1942): 64)

Figure 1.44: Image of the brighter gallery showing modern housing and modern site plans in the “Wartime Housing”
exhibit at MoMA. (“In the Housing Picture...” Architectural Record 91 (May 1942): 66)

241
Figure 1.45: Image of NHA Administrator John B. Bland-
ford, Jr. (left), National Committee on the Housing Emer-
gency Chairman Dorothy Rosenman, and MoMA president
John Hay Whitney at the “Wartime Housing” exhibit. (“In
the Housing Picture...” Architectural Record 91 (May
1942): 66)

Figure 1.46: Cartoon by Alan Dunn discussing

prefabrication. (Architectural Record 94 (November
1943): 7)

242
 Figure 2.1: Plan of Yorkship Village in Camden, NJ, by Electus D. Litchfield, 1918. (Paradise
Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City, 864)

Figure 2.2: Plan of Seaside Village in Bridgeport, CT, by Arthur

A. Shurtleff, 1918. (Paradise Planned, 899)

Figure 2.3: Partial plan of Radburn, NJ, by

Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, 1929. (Para-
dise Planned, 276)

243
 Figure 2.4: “Residential Park Project” by Robert
Alexander. August 4, 1935. (The Village Green:
Cultural Landscape Report)

Figure 2.5: Thousand Gardens site plan scheme, April 1938. (Box 17, CSP, CUL)

244
Figure 2.6: Thousand Gardens site plan scheme, July 15, 1938. (The Village Green)

Figure 2.7: Baldwin Hills Village final site plan. (“Baldwin Hills Village,” Pencil Points 25 (September 1944): 49)

245
 Figure 2.8: Baldwin Hills Village plan detail showing
garage courts and service driveways. (“Baldwin Hills
Village,” Pencil Points 25 (September 1944): 48)

Figure 2.9: Aerial photo of Baldwin Hills Village,

circa 1941. (The Village Green)

Figure 2.10: Aerial photo of Baldwin

Hills Village, circa 1960. (“Baldwin
Hills Village-Deisgn or Accident,”
Arts and Architecture 81 (October
1964): 21)

246
 Figure 2.11: Indian Head site plan by Clarence Stein. (“Prefabricators Put on a
Show,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 188)

Figure 2.12: Illustration of interregional migration in the United States from 1940-1945. (Henry S. Shyrock,
Jr. “Wartime Shifts of the Civilian Population,” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July 1947):
273)

247
Figure 2.13: Illustration of percent change in civilian population by county from April 1940 to Novem-
ber 1943. (Henry S. Shyrock, Jr. “Wartime Shifts of the Civilian Population,” The Milbank Memorial
Fund Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July 1947): 274)

Figure 2.14: Government pamphlet illustrating “Defense Town.” (United States Office of
Emergency Management, Homes for Defense: A Statement of Function (Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1941), 18-19)

248
Figure 2.15: View from the roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, January 1941. (Alan Taylor, “World
War II: Conflict Spreads Across the Globe,” The Atlantic website, accessed January 22, 2016: http://
www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/world-war-ii-conflict-spreads-around-the-globe/100107/)

Figure 2.16: Depiction of the “regional city,”by Clarence Stein. (“City Patterns Past and Future,”
Pencil Points 23 (June 1942): 53)

249
Figure 2.17: Percival Goodman’s depiction of “Defense Town” and “Peace Town.” (“Defense-
Time Planning for Peace-Time Use,” Architectural Record 88, no. 5 (November 1940): 95)

250
Figure 2.18: Site plan of Ohio View Acres, in Stowe Figure 2.19: Photo of model of Ohio View Acres. (Box 2,
Township, PA. (Architectural Forum 77 (July 1942): CSP, CUL)
83)

Figure 2.20: View of Ohio View Acres from afar.

(Box 2, CSP, CUL)

Figure 2.21: Rendering of Ohio View Acres.

(Box 2, CSP, CUL)

251
 Figure 2.22: Detail of the Griswold planting plan, dated June 18, 1941. (Box 40, CSP,
CUL)

Figure 2.23: Site plan for Shalercrest in Shaler Township, PA, dated June 30, 1941. (Box 40, CSP, CUL)

252
Figure 2.24: Model of Clairton, PA. (Box 2, CSP, CUL)

Figure 2.25: Rendering of Clairton, PA, dated September 1941. (Box 2, CSP, CUL)

253
Figure 2.26: Map showing the Pittsburgh defense Figure 2.27: Model and site plan of Aluminum City Terrace.
housing projects. (Kirsitin Szylvian Bailey, “De- (“Defense Houses at New Kensington,” Architectural Forum
fense Housing in Greater Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh 75 (October 1941): 218)
History (1990): 18)

Figures 2.28-2.29: Model and site plan of Monongahela Heights by Edward Durell Stone. (“Planning War Housing,”
Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 268-69)

254
Figure 2.30: Poster by the Office of Emergency Man- Figure 2.31: Poster by the Office of Defense Transpor-
agement, 1942. (Design for Victory, 35) tation, U.S. Office of War Information, 1943. (Design
for Victory, 35)

255
Figure 2.32: Sample site plan. (Albert Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site Plans?” Pencil Points
23, no. 5 (May 1942): 247)

Figure 2.33: Sample site plan. (Albert Mayer, “What’s the Matter with Our Site Plans?” Pencil Points
23, no. 5 (May 1942): 247)

256
 Figure 2.34: Aerial view of Avion Village.
Grand Prairie, TX. (Thomas S. Hines,
Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern
Architecture, 195)

Figure 2.35: Partial site plan of Avion

Village. (“Lone Star Community,” The Ar-
chitect Newspaper (May 8, 2015), accessed
January 22, 2016: http://www.archpaper.
com/news/articles.asp?id=8013#.VnQyF-
bSi2Id

Figures 2.36-2.37: Plan and aerial photo of Channel Heights.

(Thomas S. Hines, Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern
Architecture, 196)

257
Figure 2.38: Site plan of Center Line, MI, by Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Figure 2.39: Diagram of family types versus
(Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 229) shelter needs. (“Mixed Rental Neighbor-
hood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79
(October 1943): 80)

Figure 2.40: Site plan of the Washington, DC project.(“Mixed Rental Neighbor-

hood, Washington,” Architectural Forum 79 (October 1943): 82)

258
Figure 2.41: Model of the Washington, DC project. (“Mixed Rental Neighborhood, Washington,” Architectural
Forum 79 (October 1943): 82)

Figure 2.42: “Before” plan of the temporary war housing Figure 2.43: “After” plan of the temporary war hous-
community in San Francisco. (“Converted War Housing, ing community in San Francisco. (“Converted War
San Francisco,” Architectural Forum 79 (October 1943): Housing, San Francisco,” Architectural Forum 79
69) (October 1943): 70)

259
Figure 2.44: Site plan for a small rural development in Boston. (“Small Rural Development, Boston, Mass.,” Archi-
tectural Forum 80 (April 1944): 76)

Figure 2.45: Planned Neighborhood of 194X. (“Desert Housing

Project, Tuscon, Ariz.,” Architectural Forum 80 (April 1944): 85)

260
 Figures 2.46-2.48: Site plans for Willow Run
by Mayer and Whittlessey (top left), Skid-
more, Owning and Merrill (top right) and
Kahn and Stonorov (left). (“Town of Willow
Run: Civic Center and Proposed Neighbor-
hood Units,” Architectural Forum 78 (March
1943): 42, 47, 52)

261
Figure 2.49: Pennyback Woods site plan, dated July 30, 1941. (Drawing L0, Project 115: Pennyback,
Oversize office drawings (series D), LKC, AAUP)

Figure 2.50: Pennyback Woods landscape site plan, dated July 30, 1941. (Drawing L1, Project 115: Pen-
nyback, Oversize office drawings (series D), LKC, AAUP)

262
Figures 2.51-2.53: Pennyback planting site plans, showing Building type “B” (top left), building type “C” and “D”
(top right), and building type “E” (bottom), dated July 30, 1941. Drawing L1. 1941-07-30. (Drawing L1, Project
115: Pennyback, Oversize office drawings (series D), LKC, AAUP)

263
 Figure 2.54: Site plan of Carver
Court in Coatesville, PA, dated
October 28, 1942. (Drawing A0,
Project 110: Carver Court, Over-
size office drawings (series D),
LKC, AAUP)

Figure 2.55: Detail of a partial

site plan showing landscape,
dated October 28, 1942. (Draw-
ing A1, Project 110: Carver
Court, Oversize office drawings
(series D), LKC, AAUP)

Figure 2.56: Plan of the Pine

Ford Acres administration and
maintenance building, dated
November 11, 1942. (Drawing
“Architectural and Landscape
block site plan,” Project 120:
Pine Ford/Middletown, Oversize
office drawings (series D),LKC,
AAUP)

264
 Figure 2.57: Chabot Terrace site plan. (“Public and Commercial Structures,
Chabot Terrace,” Pencil Points 25 (October 1944): 79)

Figure 2.58-2.59: Landscape site plan for Chabot Terrace. (Marc Treib, Thomas Church Landscape Architect, 114)

265
Figure 2.60: Vallejo dorms landscape plan. (Marc Treib, Dorothee Imbert, Garrett Eckbo, 146)

266
Figure 3.1: View of the Carquinez Heights housing project in Vallejo, CA. (UCB Environmen-
tal Design Archives website, accessed 23 November 2014: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/
hb9f59p29h/?order=9)

Figure 3.2: Map showing de- Figure 3.3: View of houses at Roosevelt Terrace.
fense housing projects in Vallejo. (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplment,” California
(Housing Authority of the City of Arts and Architecture (June 1943):46)
Vallejo, Your War Job, Your Com-
munity, Your Home (1945))
267
Figure 3.4: View of Federal Terrace. (“Vallejo Figure 3.5: View the Hillside Dormitories, designed by Vernon
War Housing Case History,” California Arts and DeMars. Architect and Engineer 152, no 2 (Feburary 1943): 17)
Architecture 59 (December 1942): 24)

Figure 3.6: Site plan of Carquinez Heights. (“Carquinez Heights,” California Arts and Architecture 57 (November
1941): 35)

268
 Figure 3.7: Federal Works Agency Defense Housing Projects working drawings. (Folder: CAL-
4086 Carquinez, V. 16, Wurster Collection, UCB)

Figure 3.8: View of the plywood prefabricated houses. Figure 3.9: Plans of both types of prefabri-
(“Vallejo’s Prefabricated Houses,” Architect and Engi- cated houses. (Architectural Forum (October
neer 149, no. 2 (May 1942): 30) 1941): 226)

269
Figure 3.10: Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion Deployment Unit,
1940. (“Building for Defense,” in Architectural Forum 74
(June 1941): 425)

Figures 3.11-3.12: Proposal (left and above) for the “V House,” by

Joseph Allen Stein. (“A Wartime Approach to Prefabrication,” Architec-
tural Forum 77 July 1942): 78)

270
Figure 3.13: Eero Saarinen, “Demountable House,” constructed for the U.S. Gypsum Company, 1940. (Shanken,
194X: Architecture, Planning and Consumer Culture on the Homefront, 109)

Figure 3.14-3.15: Charts by

architect Samuel Paul, meant to
demonstrate the importance of the
designer in prefabrication. (Samuel
Paul, “Prefabrication Pattern,” The
New Pencil Points 24 (April 1943):
56-57)

271
 Figure 3.16: Indian Head site plan
by Clarence Stein. (“Prefabrica-
tors Put on a Show,” Architectural
Forum 75 (September 1941): 188)

Figure 3.17-3.18: Assembly for prefabrication at Carquinez Heights. (“Defense Houses at Vallejo, Calif.,” Architec-
tural Forum 75 (October 1941): 226)

272
Figure 3.19: U.S. Naval blimp hangar has glued- Figure 3.20: Assembly Line Factory Production of the Gunnison
laminated timber arches with a clear span which Housing Corporation, ca. 1937. (Hounshell, From the American
rise 153 feet and provide a 237 foot unobstructed System to Mass Production, 1800-1932, 312)
opening. (Talbot Hamlin, “The Architecture of
the Future,” Pencil Points 24 (April 1943): 66)

Figure 3.21: Richard Neutra, Plywood Model House, 1936.

(Hines, Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture,
130)

Figure 3.22: Douglas Fir advertisement for the

House of Plywood, 1939. (Shanken, JSAH,
416)

273
Figure 3.23: Plywood plane flying over Long Island Figure 3.24: Homasote walls and partitions being erected.
(New York Times, September 24, 1941, 10) It was reported that the ready-cut pieces could be erected
in 15 to 20 minutes per house. Special screws made it
possible to demount just as easily. (“Prefabircation: The
Homasote House,” Interiors 102 (May 1943): 42)

Figure 3.25: View showing the redwood on sides of houses. (“Carquinez Heights,”
California Arts and Architecture 59 (June 1942))

274
Figure 3.26: Diagram showing the Vallejo Housing Authority’s suggestions
for arranging a typical living room. (Vallejo Housing Authority, Your Home,
no. 2 (ca. 1943))

Figure 3.27: Prize-winning interior design for war housing by John E.

Maier. (“Prize-Winning Interiors for War Houses,” Architectural Forum 76
(May 1942): 12)

275
Figure 3.28: Dan Cooper’s PATKO furniture line. (Architectural
Forum 77 (July 1942): 4)

Figure 3.29: Sketch of Dan Cooper’s PATKO expand-

ing house. (“Interiors to Come,” Interiors 102 (January
1943): 33)

276
 Figure 3.30: Images of
Calvert Coggeshall’s Plyline
furniture. (“Designed for the
People’s Housing,” Interiors
101 (July 1942): 30)

Figure 3.31: Everett Brown’s

Flexi-Unit furniture. (“Toward
the People’s Housing Furniture a
La Carte,” Interiors 102 (Septem-
ber 1942): 40)

277
 Figure 3.32-3.33 (top and left): Axono-
metric drawings showing the interiors of
Richard Neutra Channel Heights housing
project. (“Interiors - CAL. 4108,” Cali-
fornia Arts and Architecture 60 (February
1943): 28)

Figure 3.34: Chair from Channel Heights housing

project, 1941-42. (Living in a Modern Way: California
Design 1930-1965, 124)

278
Figure 3.35: Site plan of the Carquinez Heights experimental houses. (Box 211, WWC,
EDA)

Figure 3.36: Axonometric view of the site plan. (“A New Approach to Large Scale Hous-
ing,” California Arts and Architecture 59 (April 1942): 27)

279
Figure 3.37:View of the experimental two-story frame house at Carquinez Heights
(“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June
1943): 48)

Figure 3.38: Experimental two-story frame house plan. (“Vallejo

Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts and Architecture
60 (June 1943): 48)
280
Figure 3.39: Interior view of the living room and kitchen in the experimental two-story
frame houses. ((UCB Environmental Design Archives website, accessed 23 November
2014: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb9f59p29h/?order=9)

Figure 3.40: Axonometric view of the experimental two-story

frame house. (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” Califor-
nia Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 48)

281
Figure 3.41: View of the experimental frame bent houses at Carquinez Heights (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supple-
ment,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 49)

Figure 3.42: Axonometric view of the experimental frame-bent Figure 3.43: Experimental frame-bent house
house. (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts plan. (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supple-
and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 49) ment,” California Arts and Architecture 60
(June 1943): 49)

282
Figure 3.44: View of the experimental masonry house at Carquinez Heights. (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supple-
ment,” California Arts and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 50)

Figure 3.45: Axonometric view of the experimental masonry

house (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,” California Arts
and Architecture 60 (June 1943): 50)

Figure 3.46: Experimental masonry house plan.

(“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplement,”
California Arts and Architecture 60 (June
1943): 50)

283
Figure 3.47: View of the Windsor Locks housing project, designed by Hugh Stubbins. (“Wind-
sor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 328)

Figure 3.48: Windsor Locks site plan. (“Windsor Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942):
328)

284
Figures 3.49-3.50: Windsor Locks three-bedroom house (top) and plan (bottom).(“Windsor
Locks,” Architectural Forum 76 (May 1942): 329)

285
Figure 3.51: Mechanical unit in the Windsor Locks houses (Clipping from
the Springfield Republican, Hugh Stubbins Collection, Harvard University)

Figure 3.52: Elevation of the mechincal unit, which included kitchen and
bathroom fixtures, hotwater and heating equipment. (“Houses at Windsor
Locks, Conn.,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 2115)

286
Figure 3.53: Bethlehem, PA housing project, designed by Antonin Raymond. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,”
Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 237)

Figure 3.54: Aerial view of the project. (“Working with USHA,” Pencil Points 42
(November 1941): 690)

287
Figure 3.55-3.56: Type D and E elevations at Bethlehem, PA. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural
Forum 75 (October 1941): 237)

288
Figures 3.57-3.58: Type D (top) and E (bottom) plans at Bethlehem, PA. (“Defense Houses at
Bethlehem, PA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 236-7)

289
Figure 3.59: Type F plan. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,” Architec-
tural Forum 75 (October 1941): 238)

Figure 3.60: Type F section. (“Defense Houses at Bethlehem, PA,”

Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 238)

290
 Figure 3.61: Site plan of experimental housing
project Alexandria, VA, designed by Kastner
and Hibben. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria,
VA,” Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941):
235)

Figures 3.62-3.63: Type B views of exteiror and cut-away structure. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,” Architec-
tural Forum 75 (October 1941): 234)

Figure 3.64: Type

B plan. (“Defense
Houses at Alexan-
dria, VA,” Archi-
tectural Forum 75
(October 1941):
234)

291
Figure 3.65: Rendering of the Type C house.(“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,” Architectural Forum 75
(October 1941): 235)

Figure 3.66: Plan of the Type C house. (“Defense Houses at Alexandria, VA,”
Architectural Forum 75 (October 1941): 235)

292
Figure 3.67: View of Chabot Terrace (“Vallejo Housing Authority Supplment,” California Arts and Architecture 60
(June 1943): 34)

293
Figures 3.68-3.69: Wurster’s “Flexible” House for Happier Living, exterior rendering and plan. (Revere Copper and
Brass, 1943?)

Figures 3.70-3.71: Wurster’s proposal for “flexible space” for the “New House of 194X,” showing options for flex-
ible living. (“Flexible Space,” Architectural Forum 77 (September 1942): 141)

294
Figure 3.72: Proposed alterations to Carquinez Heights. (Living in a Modern Way: California Design 1930-1965, 45)

Figure 3.73: Proposed alterations to Carquinez Heights. (Flat file 528, WWC, EDA)

295
Figure 3.74: Fabric house for the “New House of 194X.” (“Fabric House,” Architectural Forum 77 (Sep-
tember 1942): 87)

296
Figure 4.1: Clarence Perry’s neighborhood unit of 1929.
(New York Regional Survey, v. 7 (1929) retrieved from
Wikipedia)
Figure 4.2: 1943 sketch of school-based neighborhood
units by N.L. Englehardt, Jr. (Architectural Forum 79
(October 1943): 90)

Figure 4.3: Richard Neutra’s

theoretical “ring school,” 1925.
(Barbara Lamprecht, “The Obso-
lescence of Optimism?: Neutra
and Axlender’s U.S. Embassy,
Karachi, Pakistan,” blog post
on Lamprecht ArchiTEX-
Tual: https://barbaralamprecht.
com/2012/06/23/the-obsoles-
cence-of-optimism-neutra-and-
alexanders-u-s-embassy-karachi-
pakistan/)

297
Figure 4.4: Richard Neutra’s Corona Avenue School, 1935. ( https://
en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Corona_School)

Figures 4.5-4.6: Exterior view and site plan of the Crow Island School designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen with
Perkins Wheeler and Will, and built in Winnetka, Illinois in 1939-40. (Architectural Forum 75 (August 1941): 79,
83)

298
Figure 4.7: Site plan for the housing project at Centerline, Michigan. The area highlighted in
black is the school and community center. (Pencil Points 23 (November 1942): 56)

Figure 4.8: Centerline school and community

center. (Pencil Points 23 (November 1942): 57)

299
Figure 4.9: View of the Centerline elementary school wing. (Pencil Points 23 (No-
vember 1942): 56)

Figures 4.10-4.11: Plan and exterior view of the Centerline

kindergarten. (Pencil Points 23 (November 1942): 60)

300
Figures 4.12-4.13: Exterior and interior view of the Centerline community room/auditorium/gymnasium. (Pencil
Points 23 (November 1942): 60)

Figure 4.14: Aerial view of Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California, designed
by Franklin & Kump, 1940. (“Advanced California School Meets Limited Budget,”
Architectural Record 89 (June 1941): 82)

Figure 4.15: Section of a typical classroom showing the independent classroom

structural unit and the connecting corridor. (“The School Plant Re-examined,” Pen-
cil Points 24 (September 1943): 48)

301
Figure 4.16: View of the Carquinez Heights school in Vallejo, California, designed by Franklin &
Kump. (“War Needs Community Facilities,” Architectural Record 91 (May 1942): 48-49)

Figure 4.17: Sketch showing how the prefabricated school units could be
adapted to other purposes such as administrative offices. (“Manufactured, Pre-
fabricated, Classroom-Office-Kindergarten Units,” Pencil Points 24 (September
1943): 57)

302
 Figure 4.18: Diagram showing the flexibility offered by standardized units, as
opposed to units with built-in furniture. (“Manufactured, Prefabricated, Class-
room-Office-Kindergarten Units,” Pencil Points 24 (September 1943): 58)

Figure 4.19: Rendering of a house design by Wurster, Bernadi and Kump that grew
out of school prefabrication design. (“Prefabrication for Flexible Planning,” Architec-
tural Record (August 1945): 97)

303
Figure 4.20: Photograph
and plan of the Victory Park
School in Compton, CA, de-
signed by Adrian Wilson and
Theodore Criley, Jr. (“Vic-
tory Park Housing,” Archi-
tectural Record 97 (January
1945): 66)

Figures 4.21-4.22: Site plan and rendering (left) and interior view (right) of the permanent Norwayne schools de-
signed by August O’Dell and Hewlett & Luckenbach in SOM-designed communities in Wayne, Michigan.
(“Two Schools Designed for Community Use,” Architectural Record 95 (March 1944): 92, 94)

304
 Figure 4.23: View of three model
of the Rugen School, in Glenview,
Illinois, designed by Perkins,
Wheeler and Will. The image was
meant to show the various stages
through which the school was ex-
pected to grow. (“Rugen School,”
Pencil Points 24 (September 1943):
36)

Figure 4.24: Interior view of the Rugen School in Glenview, Illinois, designed by Perkins,
Wheeler and Will. (Pencil Points) 24 (September 1943): 42)

305
 Figures 4.25-4.26: Parkview
Elementary School (top) in
Newport News, Virginia and
Elementary School (bottom)
in Childersberg, Alabama.
(“Lessons from the Lanham
Act,” The American School
and University (1944): 51)

Figure 4.27: Cover of Serge Chermayeff’s pamphlet on

nursery schools for Revere Copper & Brass. (Revere
Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 1)

306
Figure 4.28: Diagram showing how the standardized structural module could be combined in different arrangements
for a variety of nursery school space requirements. (Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 12-13)

Figures 4.29-4.30: Winning design for a community nursery by Jane Dorsey (left) and the second prize by John
Thiele (left). (“Rorimer Medal Competition,” Pencil Points 23 (February 1942): 68, 69)

307
 Figure 4.31: Site plan and model of Channel
Heights in San Pedro, California, designed by
Richard Neutra. (“Channel Heights Housing
Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 66)

Figures 4.32-4.33: Nursery school plan (connected to community building at left) and view from the glass-enclosed
teacher office. (“Channel Heights Housing Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 72, 73)

308
 Figure 4.34: Exterior view of the
Channel Heights nursery school.
In the background is the attached
community center. (“Channel
Heights Housing Project,” Archi-
tectural Forum (March 1944): 72)

Figure 4.35: View of the McLean Houses, built in Washing-

ton, D.C. and designed by Kenneth Franzheim. (“Washing-
ton Housing,” Architectural Forum 80 (January 1944): 60)

Figures 4.36-4.37: Exterior view and plan (above) of the prefabri-

cated nursery school built at McLean Gardens in Washington DC
and designed by Holden, McLaughlin and Associates. (“Prefabri-
cated Schools,” Architectural Forum 80 (March 1944): 63)

309
 Figure 4.38: Radial plan for the nursery school at the Swan Island Ship-
yard, designed by Wolff & Phillips (“Designed for 24-Hour Child Care,”
Architectural Record 95 (March 1944): 85)

Figure 4.39: View of the interior playground at the Swan Island Shipyard nursery school (Kaiser Company
and Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, An Experiment in Services for Employees: Child Service Centers (Port-
land, Or: Kaiser Co., Portland Yard, 1945))
310
Figures 4.40-4.41: Exterior view (top) of the Swan Island nursery school showing its relation to the shipyard, and an
interior view (bottom), showing the large amount of glazing allowing views towards the shipyard. (“Designed for
24-Hour Child Care,” Architectural Record 95 (March 1944): 85, 87)

311
Figure 4.42: Chart showing the FPHA space requirements for community
facilities. (Entry 26, Box 8; RG 207, NACP)

312
Figures 4.43-4.44: Bellmawr Homes exterior view (top) and site plan (bottom), locate din
Camden, NJ and designed by Mayer, Whittlesey and Hettel. (“Housing Project, Bellmawr,
NJ,” Architectural Forum 78 (January 1943): 74, 75)

313
Figures 4.45-4.46: View of the Bellmawr Homes community center (above) and
site plan (below). (“Housing Project, Bellmawr, NJ,” Architectural Forum 78
(January 1943): 74, 75)

314
 Figure 4.47: View of the community center at Berea,
Ohio designed by J. Byers Hays, Wilber Watson and
Associates. (“Community Facilities,” Architectural
Record 97 (June 1945): 89)

Figure 4.48: View of the community center at

Pine Ford Acres in Middletown, Pennsylvania
by George Howe and Louis I. Kahn. (“Two
Wartime Community Centers,” Architectural
Forum 84 (January 1946): 111)

Figure 4.49: View of Howe and Kahn’s proposed expan-

sion to the community center. (“Two Wartime Community
Centers,” Architectural Forum 84 (January 1946): 110)

315
Figure 4.50: FPHA shopping Figure 4.51: Plan of the shopping center for a project in Vancouver, Washington,
center standards (“Shopping designed by AE Doyle and Associates. (“Commercial Facilities for 4,500 Fami-
Centers for War Workers,” Ar- lies,” Architectural Record 92 (October 1942): 66)
chitectural Record 92 (October
1942): 69)

Figures 4.52-4.53: Channel Heights supermarket, photo (left) and plan and section (right), designed by
Richard Neutra. (“Channel Heights Housing Project,” Architectural Forum (March 1944): 74)

316
Figures 4.54-4.55: Cover (left) and rendering (right) of a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly Main Street, and reimag-
ined surrounding areas. (Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1943): 1, 7)

Figures 4.56-4.57: Sketch (left) and photograph (right) of the

Linda Vista shopping center in San Diego, CA, designed by
Smith and Gibberson. (“Grass on Main Street Becomes a Real-
ity,” Architectural Forum 81 (September 1944): 84, 86-87)

317
Figures 4.58-4.59: View of two different types of storefront configurations at Linda Vista. (“Grass on Main
Street Becomes a Reality,” Architectural Forum 81 (September 1944): 88-89)

Figure 4.60: View of a covered walkway at the Linda Vista shopping center. (“Grass on Main Street Becomes a
Reality,” Architectural Forum 81 (September 1944): 90-91)

318
Figure 4.61: Design by John Dinwiddie for a Church-Community-House for the post-war period. (“A Monument the
Living Can Use,” Revere Copper and Brass (ca. 1944): 4)

319
 APPENDIX

Federal agencies concerned with housing during World War II

BEFORE THE 1942 REORGANIZATION

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

Federal Works Agency (FWA) Administered a number of public 1939-1949
construction, building maintenance and (In 1942, its housing
public works relief functions. Housing function was
divisions run by the FWA included the transferred to the
Division of Defense Housing (DDH) NHA)
and the Mutual Home Ownership
Division (MHOD).
United States Housing Lent money to states or communities 1937-1949
Authority (USHA) for low-cost large-scale housing (In 1939, it became
construction. part of the FWA, and
in 1942 became the
FPHA)
Public Buildings Construct, maintain, operate and protect 1939-1949
Administration (PBA) federal buildings. (In 1949 its role was
taken over by the
General Services
Administration)

DIVISION OF DEFENSE HOUSING COORDINATION

Division of Defense Housing Determine and measure the need for 1940-1942
Coordination (DDHC) defense housing and create building (In 1942, it was
standards. absorbed by the
NHA)

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Farm Security Administration Completed and operated rural 1937-1942
(FSA) community projects, some of which (In 1942, the housing
were begun by the Resettlement program was
Administration and other prior transferred to NHA)
agencies. It created non-farm public
housing and defense housing.

!320
FEDERAL LOAN AGENCY
Federal Home Loan Bank Encouraged and assisted private capital 1932-1990
Board (FHLBB) in making available long-term home- (In 1939, it was made
mortgage credit. It administered: part of Federal Loan
• Federal Home Loan Bank Agency)
System
• Federal Savings and Loan
System (FSLS)
• Federal Savings and Loan
Insurance Corp. (FSLIC)
• Home Owners’ Loan
Corporation (HOLC)
Federal Housing Insured private financial institutions 1934-present
Administration (FHA) against loss on mortgage loans, (In 1939, it was made
including both single-family homes and part of Federal Loan
large-scale housing projects. Agency; 1942
absorbed into the
NHA)

INDEPENDENT AGENCIES/DEPARTMENTS
Reconstruction Finance Made loans to aid in establishing a 1932-1957
Corporation (RFC) normal market, essentially to boost the
country’s confidence.
Tennessee Valley Authority Regional planning and economic 1933-present
(TVA) development agency tasked with
modernizing the Tennessee Valley.
Defense Homes Corporation Financed housing for war industry 1940-1942
(DHC) workers. Only operated in areas where (In 1942 operations
private industry was not doing enough. were transferred to
the FHA, and the
assets liquidated in
1945)
War & Navy Departments These departments built much of their War Dept: 1789-1947
own defense housing, often located on Navy Dept: 1798-
bases. Much of this was meant for present
servicemen and thus was not always (In 1947, the War
considered under the scope of the Dept. was merged
Lanham Act. with the Navy Dept.)

!321
AFTER THE 1942 REORGANIZATION

NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY (NHA)

Federal Public Housing This arm of the NHA was responsible 1942-1947
Authority (FPHA) for building housing with public money. (In 1947, became part
of the Housing and
Home Finance
Agency, which in
1965 became the U.S.
Department of
Housing and Urban
Development (HUD))
Federal Housing As before, the FHA guaranteed or 1934-present
Administration (FHA) insured mortgages placed by banks and (In 1939, it was made
lending institutions. part of Federal Loan
Agency; 1942
absorbed into the
NHA)
Federal Home Loan Bank Provided reserve credit for member 1942-1947
Administration (FHLBA) institutions engaged in home mortgage (In 1947, superseded
lending. by the Home Loan
Bank Board in the
Housing and Home
Finance Agency)

!322
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