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Description: American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture
Many people and institutions contributed to this book over the long period of its development. My greatest debt is to Wellesley College, which generously supported my research activities and granted the sabbatical leaves that enabled me to travel, to work in many far-flung libraries and archival collections, and to experience firsthand the wonderful buildings discussed in this study. I am also deeply grateful to the Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Women at Brandeis University …
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00012.002
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Acknowledgments
Many people and institutions contributed to this book over the long period of its development. My greatest debt is to Wellesley College, which generously supported my research activities and granted the sabbatical leaves that enabled me to travel, to work in many far-flung libraries and archival collections, and to experience firsthand the wonderful buildings discussed in this study. I am also deeply grateful to the Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Women at Brandeis University for its support; to the University of Louisville, where I held the Frederic Lindley Morgan Professorship in Architectural Design in 2001; to the Wolfsonian–Florida International University in Miami Beach, which awarded me a research fellowship in 2003; to the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; and to the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, where in 2004–5, I participated in a year-long research seminar, directed by Professors Lizabeth Cohen and Margaret Crawford, on the “Culture and Politics of the Built Environment.” My project was greatly enriched by the insights and critiques offered by my Warren Center colleagues during our weekly seminar meetings, as well as in the many lively conversations of our research group, which included, in addition to the leaders named above, Daniel Abramson, Eric Avila, Paul Groth, Jane Kamensky, Paula Lupkin, Martha McNamara, Anne Whiston Spirn, and Ellen Stroud.
As a visiting professor associated with the Modern Interiors Research Centre in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at Kingston University in England, I have benefited greatly from the opportunity to learn from the many international scholars and design practitioners who attend its annual conferences on the history of design. I am particularly grateful to Professor Penny Sparke for inviting me to join the Centre, and to Pat Kirkham, Anne Massey, Brenda Martin, and Trevor Keeble for their collegiality and hospitality during visits to London.
Many other colleagues, librarians, and friends graciously shared their expertise and time as I visited and studied the many buildings discussed in this book. I want to thank especially Beth Harris for her generosity in opening her Palm Springs home to me; I am also grateful to the Palm Springs Art Museum for inviting me to lecture on Neutra, and for organizing a tour of Neutra’s Grace Miller House in conjunction with my visit. Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow generously invited me to view their beautifully restored home, and they were kind enough to share their extensive knowledge of Palm Springs Modern architecture. On many occasions the librarians in the Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA offered valuable assistance with my research in the Richard and Dion Neutra Collection, and I am very grateful for their help. To the visionary photographer Julius Shulman, whose images of Southern California inspired so many of my ideas about modern architecture, I owe a particular debt of gratitude, both for taking the time to answer my questions and for sharing his firsthand experience with me.
Archivists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Getty Research Institute’s Architecture and Design Collection, the General Motors Technical Center, Yale University Library Department of Special Collections (and Laura Tatum, archivist of the Eero Saarinen Papers, in particular), and at the Wolfsonian-FIU (where the librarian, Frank Luca, proved to be such an invaluable colleague during my fellowship period) were all kind enough to share their knowledge of their collections with me. An earlier version of my chapter on Lapidus’s Miami Beach hotels appeared in the Wolfsonian’s Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts in 2005; I want to thank the editor, Leslie Sternlieb, for her many excellent suggestions. Finally, during my stay in Miami Beach I was lucky enough to have the good advice and companionship of John Stuart, Marianne Lamonaca, Sarah Schleuning, Jon Mogul, and Allan Shulman, all of whom not only enriched my work but made it a great deal more fun to do.
While conducting site visits I was fortunate to have many knowledgeable and generous guides. Stuart Shuster, coordinator of academic programs at the General Motors Technical Center, was kind enough to spend a day showing me around the complex and sharing his deep knowledge of the project and its history. Belmont Freeman took me on a behind-the-scenes tour at the Four Seasons Restaurant that proved to be invaluable. At Temple Beth Sholom I was welcomed by Harvey Friedrich, executive director of the Beth Sholom Congregation. Lengthy interviews with former congregation members Estelle Falik, Shirley Bornstein, and Laura Bricker offered a valuable perspective; I want to thank these women for their help, and acknowledge the generosity of Professor Nancy Cott in putting me in touch with them.
My research on the history of Beth Sholom was enriched by my correspondence with historians Joseph Siry and Emily Cooperman, both of whom shared important insights and generously made documents and photographs gleaned from their own scholarship available to me; my thinking about the history of synagogue architecture in the United States was greatly expanded by a session that Professor Siry chaired on the topic at the annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians in 2008. Last but not least, I want to offer my thanks to Margo Stipe, the archivist of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation at Taliesin, for once again working with me to track down drawings and photographs.
Many of the ideas explored in this book were presented in lectures and research seminars where I always benefited from the comments and critiques of colleagues, students, and members of the public. For their kind invitations, I am grateful to the Wolfsonian-FIU, to the School of Architecture at the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm, to James Cuno and Joseph Rosa of the Art Institute of Chicago, and to Professor Greig Crysler of the School of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, where I served as the Arcus Endowment lecturer in 2006; I also want to thank my colleagues at the Bard Graduate Center, the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, the School of Architecture at Syracuse University, the Architecture Program at Rhode Island School of Design, and the Growth and Structure of Cities Program at Bryn Mawr College for giving me the opportunity to present my work to their students.
The introduction to this book was read at various stages by Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Patricia Berman, and Sandy Isenstadt, all of whom helped to improve it by offering both hard critiques and words of encouragement. Over the years, many others took the time to discuss—often repeatedly and at great length—the complex and elusive notion of American glamour with me: these friends include Jeffrey and Cheryl Katz, Martin Brody and Katharine Park, Val Fraser and Tim Butler, Virginia and Keith Carabine, Elizabeth Cromley, Ginna Donovan, Gail Fenske, Kathleen Harleman, Hilde Heynen, Sylvia Lavin, and Nancy Stieber, and my wonderful Wellesley colleagues Patricia Berman, Judith Black, Margaret Carroll, Martha McNamara, Meredith Martin, James O’Gorman, John Rhodes, and Salem Mekuria. I want especially to acknowledge the support and loyalty of Jeanne Hablanian and Brooke Henderson of the Art Library at Wellesley College, the kindness of Lisa Priest in the Art Department office, and the enduring commitment of Maggie DeVries and Marci Hahn-Fabris of Wellesley’s Visual Resources Collection; without their hard work this book would not have been completed.
Along the way, I have been encouraged and aided by the patient dedication and unfailing commitment to this project of Michelle Komie, my editor at Yale University Press, as well as by her deep knowledge of architectural history. I could not hope for a steadier and more generous companion on this journey. To Michelle Wofsey, who did the photo research, and to Heidi Downey, who edited the manuscript, I am also very thankful.
Finally, I want to pay tribute to the contributions of the two women who, with good humor and great energy, have formed the bookends of my life: to my mother, Winifred Herman Friedman, who through her own example demonstrated that glamour could be both highly entertaining and an effective tool for engaging with the world; and to my partner, Lena Sorensen, who has given more of her time and attention to this topic—and to trying to understand the tastes and lifestyles of celebrities, shoppers, and wannabes—than she could ever have predicted. I can only hope that our “field work” at the watering holes and in the native habitats of these glamorous subjects has offered some small compensation for all she has endured over the years.
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