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TOWARD A MODERN CIVIC MONUMENTALITY:
BY
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MARCOS AMADO PETROLI
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COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE
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Chicago, Illinois
May 2021
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© Copyright by
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Marcos Amado Petroli
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2021
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was only possible due to the Ciência sem Fronteiras [Science Without
Borders] Scholarship Program, a Brazilian four-year research funding organized by the
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico [National Council for
Scientific and Technological Development]. This experience abroad was administered by
the Latin American Scholarship Program of American Universities (LASPAU), a nonprofit
organization affiliated with Harvard University that aims to strengthen higher education in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
Almost all of the images, figures, and documents in this dissertation were retrieved
from several architectural archives. In particular, from: the Canadian Centre for
Architecture (Montreal, Canada); The Gateway Arch National Park (St. Louis, MO); the
Special Collections at the North Carolina State University Libraries (Raleigh, NC); and the
Young Research Library at the University of California (Los Angeles, CA). Part of this
research was already (or is about to be) published in the form of scholarly articles, such
as “Modern Venatio and the Case of Dorton Arena in Raleigh, NC (1949-52),” at the 16th
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International Docomomo Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 2020; “The Dome and the Anti-Dome:
Two Faces of Civic Monumentality in the Classical Tradition,” at the 73rd SAH Annual
International Conference in Seattle, WA, 2020; and “Frontón Recoletos (Madrid, 1935)
and Kimbell Museum of Art (Fort Worth/ TE, 1972): a Structural Metaphor towards a New
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Monumentality,” presented at IASS 2017: Interfaces - Architecture. Engineering. Science.
Hamburg, Germany.
I am thankful to the contribution provided by the members of this PhD Committee,
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starting with both of my advisors, Prof. Carlos Eduardo Comas, Emeritus at the
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, who contributed to much
of the development, theory, and criticism presented in this work Prof; and Prof.
Michelangelo Sabatino, Director of the PhD Program and former Dean of the College of
Architecture, who contributed to the foundations of this research. I am also thankful to
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................. iii
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. xx
CHAPTER
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1.1 Presenting the Topic ................................................................. 1
1.2 The Opportunity for a Historiographic Revision ........................
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1.3 Case Studies (1947–55) ........................................................... 19
1.4 Aims, Organization, and Contribution of this Dissertation ........ 25
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5. THE DORTON ARENA (1949) ................................................................. 165
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7. THE U.S. EMBASSY IN KARACHI (1955) ................................................. 270
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1.1 Section of the Municipal Asphalt Plant in New York (also commonly called
the “Cathedral of Asphalt),” by Ely J. Kahn and Robert A. Jacobs, 1944.
Apud: Elizabeth Mock (1944), 98 .............................................................. . 1
1.2 View of a wide covered space for an exhibition hall (unbuilt), by Anatole
de Baudot, Paris, March 1, 1914. Photo © Ministère de la Culture -
Médiathèque du Patrimoine, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais (image RMN-GP). ........ 5
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1.4 “The Arch of the Rising Sun,” Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco,
CA, c. 1916. Apud: Lois Craig (1984), 226; and National Memorial Arch,
by architect Paul Philippe Cret, 1917. Source: Valley Forge National
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Historical Park .............................................................................................. 6
1.5 The New Bauhaus American School of Design at the Marshall Field
Mansion, Chicago, IL. Photo by Herbert Matter (c.1937). Source: IIT
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Institute of Design. ...................................................................................... 12
1.8 Travel and Transport Building, by Bennet, Holabird, and Burnham, 1930-1933,
Image (1931). Source: Ryerson & Burnham Archives, The Art Institute of
Chicago. ........................................................................................................ 19
1.9 Perspective of the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933, by Paul P. Cret. Source:
Paul Philippe Cret Collection, Architectural Archives, University of
Pennsylvania (local ID #: aaup.062.355). ................................................... 19
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1.12 St. Louis Lambert International Airport, M. Yamasaki and Anton Tedesko,
1953-56. Source: Missouri History Museum; available at the St. Louis Lambert
International Airport collection .......................................................................... 23
1.13 Model of the U.S. Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan, by Richard Neutra and
Christopher Alexander, 1955-59. Source: Richard and Dion Archives,
Collection 1179, Young Research Library, UCLA ......................................... 24
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2.3 Monument to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, by Mies van der
Rohe, Berlin, built in 1926. Photo: Arthur Koestler. Source: public
domain. ........................................................................................................ 33
2.4
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“Head: Study for a Monument,” by Pablo Picasso, 1929, commissioned in
1918 to create a sculpted monument for the French writer Guillaume
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Apollinaire (1880–1918). Credit: © 2020 Estate of Pablo
Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy
Baltimore Museum of Art: The Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Trustee Corporation
Fund (BMA 1966.41) .................................................................................. 35
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2.5 Sketch of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, highlighting the version built by
Michelangelo Buonarroti, and a partial view of the Colosseum (on the
right). Source: apud Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 172. ....... 42
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2.9 James Perry Wilson, Rendering of the Nebraska State Capitol, 1925,
Permission: Peter A Juley & Son Collection, Photograph Archives,
Smithsonian American Art Museum ............................................................ 55
2.12 Buenos Aires Auditorium, by Eduardo Catalano, R. Nery, R.O. Greco, F.E.
Lanús, F. Degiorgi, and A. González Gandolfi, 1947 (unbuilt). Source:
Revista de Arquitectura, Sociedad Central de Arquitectos (July, 1948) .... 58
3.1 Project for the United Nations Headquarters, by Matthew Nowicki, New
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York, 1947. Rendering by Hugh Ferris. Source: United Nations Archives,
Serge Wolff Collection (5896-00066) ....................................................... 62
3.2 The Ford Rotunda, the “Show Place of the Automotive Industry,” by
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Albert Khan, 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago (relocated to Dearborn, MI, in
1934). Dome designed by Buckminster Fuller in 1952. Source: The Ford
Motor Company Museum ............................................................................. 67
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3.3 Perisphere, by Wallace Harrison and J. Andre Fouilhoux (1879–1945),
with the 200-foot model of “Democracity,” a space planned to house
the government, by Henry Dreyfuss (1904–72) New York World’s Fair,
1939, shown in a drawing and photo published in Popular Mechanics
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3.6 Aircraft hangar, by Pier Luigi Nervi in Orvieto, Italy, 1935. Photo © Mario
Carrieri. ......................................................................................................... 78
3.7 Universidade do Brasil, by Lucio Costa and team, Rio, 1936. Source:
Lúcio Costa, Registro de uma Vivência (São Paulo: Empresa das Artes,
1997), 184.................................................................................................. 82
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3.8 Final of the Fountain Spectacle "The Spirit of George Washington."
Designed by Jean labatut. New York World's Fair, I939-40, selected by
Giedion in his text « The Need for a New Monumentality," in Paul Zucker,
ed., New Architecture and City Planning (New York: Philosophical Library,
1944), 563.................................................................................................. 91
3.9 Proposal for the United Nations Headquarters design (Scheme 32), by
Oscar Niemeyer, “meeting the requirements of the program,” being an
“expression of technical and contemporary art,” and “emphasizing forms
and contrasts” (statement of the proposal by the architect), 1947.
Credit: Hester Diamond. Source: MoMA archives. ........................................ 97
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3.11 The opening of the 32nd Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New
York, September 20, 1977. Source: United Nations Archives, featured
by the Vietnam News Agency ..................................................................... 100
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3.12 Walter Gropius’ rendering of the Tallahassee Civic Center Complex,
1956. Source: Tallahassee Democrat (November 13, 1956). Courtesy:
Tallahassee Historical Society ...................................................................... 106
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4.1 American Progress, lithograph by George A. Crofutt, 1873, after John
Gast`s painting of 1872. The allegorical white and blond Columbia
dispenses federal largesse as she conjures up railway and telegraph lines
in the wake of fleeing Indians and wild animals, advancing settlers.
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Source: Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, California .... 109
4.2 Tangier Shrine, 1966, Corvette Delivery (photo dated from October 15,
1965). Source: Public Domain, H&H Corvette Newsletter.......................... 114
4.3 St. Louis riverfront in 1840, with riverboats lining the landing. The scene
is at Front Street looking north from Walnut Street. Source: Missouri
History Museum ........................................................................................... 119
4.4 Plan 8009, a major north-south axis parallel to the Mississippi River and
a minor axis linking the river to the Old Courthouse. Source: Gateway
Arch National Park Archives......................................................................... 121
4.5 Drawing of an arch on the St. Louis riverfront, by Geneva Abbott, a high
school senior. Retrieved from the Red and Black magazine (1933).
Source: Missouri Historical Society Collections ............................................ 122
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4.7 Entry #67, by Edward Stone Associates. The also proposal featured a
dome (The Jefferson Memorial Center): Source: Gateway Arch National
Park Archives ............................................................................................... 128
4.8 Entry #107, by Harry and John Weese, which included a tower,
platforms, and many parts of the program solved through rectangular
buildings in a courtyard scheme. Source: Gateway Arch National Park
Archives ....................................................................................................... 129
4.9 Entry #144, first proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. File 1. Source:
Gateway Arch National Park Archives. Unit No. 104, NPS Catalog NO.
9017, Box 28, Folder 51 ............................................................................. 132
4.10 Entry #144, first proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. File 2. Source:
Gateway Arch National Park Archives. Unit No. 104, NPS Catalog NO.
9017, Box 28, Folder 51 ............................................................................. 132
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4.11 Final proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. File 1. Source: Gateway Arch
National Park Archives. Unit No. 104, NPS Catalog NO. 9017, Box 28,
Folder 52 ..................................................................................................... 133
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4.12 Final proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. File 2. Note that, for the
second round, the program was reduced. Source: Gateway Arch National
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Park Archives, Unit No. 104, NPS Catalog NO. 9017, Box 28, Folder 52 ... 133
4.13 First proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. The design had multiple
centralities, articulated by orthogonal bars. Source: Scheme developed
by the author ............................................................................................... 134
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4.14 Final proposal by Eero Saarinen and Team. The composition changed to
an axial distribution of buildings, and the Arch was not totally centralized
with the Old Courthouse. Source: Scheme developed by the author .......... 134
4.18 Early sketches by Eero for the JNEM competition, testing the position of
the Arch. Source: Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library. Apud
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen; Donald Albrecht; et al, op.cit, 2011 ........................... 139
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4.19 Vegetation disposed on an abstract orthogonal grid, flat plan. Seen from
the sides, the Gateway Arch would look like an obelisk. Although not
specified, the trees seem to be pines, tall Evergreen specimens, and not
exactly the ones currently on the site. Perspective by Dan Kiley. Source:
B. Moore, 2010, p. 29 ................................................................................. 141
4.20 Eero Saarinen testing the form of the Gateway Arch. On the wall, there
are schemes and diagrams of structural stresses: a bridge, a parabolic
arch; historical arches, and an Egyptian-like obelisk, supposedly from
Washington D.C. Source: Yale University Archives, Eero Saarinen
Collection ..................................................................................................... 144
4.21 The "Gateway Arch,” by Eero Saarinen and Hannskarl Bandel, St.
Louis/MO, 1947-65. Photo: Reynold Ferguson/Post-Dispatch ................... 148
4.22 Capsule cars in which passengers will ride to the top of the Gateway
Arch. The cars are swiveled like those in a Ferris wheel, so that
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passengers remain upright despite the changes in direction. Source: St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, July 24, 1965 ........................................................... 151
4.23 Sculptural and Mural Courts, Entry #144, first proposal by Eero Saarinen
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and Team. File 1. Source: Gateway Arch National Park Archives. Unit No.
104, NPS Catalog NO. 9017, Box 28, Folder 51 ......................................... 155
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4.24 The “Topping Day,” October 28, 1965. Photo: Arthur L. Witman, Post-
Dispatch. Source: Missouri Historical Society Collections ........................... 156
4.27 Thirty-nine blocks of buildings were demolished to make way for the
Gateway Arch. Photo: Unknown, taken on April 9, 1941. Source:
Gateway Arch Park Service ......................................................................... 164
5.1 Late Roman Republic. 1st century BC. Feast in honor of Julius Caesar in
the Roman circus. Gladiators fighting a bull. Chromolithography, La
Civilización (The Civilization), 1881. Source: Universal History Archive ..... 165
5.2 North Carolina State Fair, October 12th, 1960. Pictured inside of Dorton
Arena. From the N&O negative collection, State Archives of North
Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Photo copyrighted by the Raleigh News and
Observer ...................................................................................................... 174
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5.3 Floor plan of the American National Exhibition in Moscow. In the middle
of the dome, above and below, the three exhibition halls formed by the
umbrellas. Left of that, forming a semicircle, the Welton Becket Pavilion.
George Nelson asked Charles Eames to join the exhibition project in
November 1958. In their following correspondence and at later
meetings, the two discussed the installation of the Buckminster Fuller
Dome. Source: George Nelson Foundation................................................... 177
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5.5 Burlesque show at the Fair. Source: State Archives of North Carolina
Raleigh (NO_51_10_45) ............................................................................ 188
5.6 Elevated view of the NCSF midway from the Grandstand. Dorton Arena
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and the Starts Shows truck are in the background. Source: ©North
Carolina State Fair Office, North Carolina Digital Collections ...................... 189
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5.7 Children being shown a donkey or mule at the NCSF (undated). Source:
©North Carolina State Fair Office, North Carolina Digital Collections .......... 190
5.8 North Carolina State Fairgrounds Matthew Nowicki Drawings and Other
Material, 1944- 2011 (MC00190) held by Special Collections Research
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5.10 Matthew Nowicki, North Carolina State Fairgrounds, Raleigh, NC, United
States, c. 1949. Roof studies for the grandstand. Courtesy: NCSU
Libraries ....................................................................................................... 194
5.11 United Nations Board of Design and consultants, New York, 1947. From
Left: Sven Markelius (Sweden), Le Corbusier (France), Vladimir
Bodiansky (France), Liang Ssu-ch'eng (China), Wallace K. Harrison
(United States), Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil), Gyle Soilleux (Australia), Nikolai
Bassov (U.S.S.R.), Max Abramowitz (United States), Ernest Cormier
(Canada), Ernest Weissmann (Yugoslavia), and Matthew Nowicki
(Poland). April 18, 1947. Source: United Nations Archives ........................ 196
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5.12 “The Big Show of the World,” promoted by the Sells Brothers. Scenes of
the Roman Corso reproduced, Cincinnati and New York, Strobridge Litho
Co., c.1895. Image: © the Strobridge Litho. Co. Source: U.S. Library of
Congress ..................................................................................................... 199
5.14 North Carolina Livestock Judging Pavilion Plan, First Proposal “Round
Pavilion,” by Matthew Nowicki, c. 1949; and the North Carolina Livestock
Judging Pavilion Plan, Second Proposal “Paraboleum,” by Matthew
Nowicki, c. 1950. Source: Archival collections at NCSU Libraries,
Matthew Nowicki Drawings and Other Material, 1944-2011 ....................... 206
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(NCSU) Libraries, Collection “Matthew Nowicki Drawings and Other
Material, 1944–2011” ................................................................................ 207
5.19 Normal Bel Geddes and R. Buckminster Fuller, The Dodger Dome, Atlantic
Yards, c. 1955. Source: Frank Tinsley, “A Dome Grown in Brooklyn,”
Modern Mechanix (Jul 1956) ...................................................................... 213
5.20 Possible partis for solving a large span roof using monumental arches.
Source: Developed by the author ............................................................... 215
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6.2 Boeing advertisement, 1958. Photo: apud Vanessa R. Schwartz Jet Age
Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2020) ............................................................................................... 223
6.3 TWA Flight Center, by Eero Saarinen, architect; Ammann & Whitney,
structural engineering firm. New York, 1955–62. Photo: © Cameron
Blaylock ....................................................................................................... 224
6.4 Sunday Excursion Tour Bus, visit to the new St Louis Lambert Airport Air
Field, Saint Louis MO, 1956. Source: St Louis Vintage Photographs .......... 226
6.6 Charles Lindbergh and the "Spirit of St. Louis" during a brief stop at
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Lambert Field on May 11, 1927, on his record-setting flight from San
Diego to New York. Photo: Missouri Historical Society Collections .............. 228
6.8 The Lambert Terminal was completed in 1933 and was used until
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construction of the present terminal was completed in 1956. Photo: The
Missouri History Museum Collections .......................................................... 233
6.10 Advertisement for the Lone Star Cement Corportation, 1943. Source:
The New Pencil Points (June 1943), apud Alastair Gordon, op. cit.,
2014, p. 136. Drawing: Chester B. Price ..................................................... 237
6.11 Trans World Airline’s Family Travel brochure, "I thought it would be hard
to take the children so far!... (until another mother told me about
TWA)," Saturday Evening Post (1950). Source: Duke University Libraries
Digital Collection ......................................................................................... 241
6.13 Interior of an aircraft in 1968 featured on the The Boston Globe. Source:
Christopher Muther, “What Happened to the Glamour of Air Travel?”
(September 6, 2014) ................................................................................. 244
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6.14 Section, schema, and main floor plan, Lambert Airport. Source: Michigan
State Historic Preservation Office, the Michigan State Archives, and the
Michigan History Foundation. ...................................................................... 246
6.16 Union Station, St. Louis, MO. Postmarked April 15, 1906. Source:
Missouri History Museum ............................................................................. 251
6.17 Sketch of the Lambert Airport, Minoru Yamasaki, early 1950s. Source:
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, the Michigan State Archives
and the Michigan History Foundation. ........................................................ 251
6.18 St. Louis Abbey, by St. Louis Abbey (or the Priory Chapel), by Gyo
Obata of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) with Pier Luigi Nervi,
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consultant, St, Louis, MO, 1962. Photo: Courtesy St. Louis Abbey ........... 253
6.19 First thin-shell unit under construction (c. 1953), St. Louis Lambert
International Airport, by Minoru Yamasaki and Anton Tedesko, St. Louis,
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1951-1956. Photo: Courtesy of The Missouri History Museum ................. 255
6.20 Lambert Airport Terminal Construction Progress. Photograph by Henry T.
(Mac) Mizuki, July 15, 1954; and the Lambert Airport Terminal under
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construction. Photograph by Henry T. (Mac) Mizuki, April 2, 1954. Mac
Mizuki Photography Studio Collection, Missouri History Museum ............... 257
6.23 Harry Bertoia Screen at St. Louis Lambert Airport circa 1958.
Advertisement for Pittsburgh Glass Company (PPG), Time Magazine, Vol.
LXXI No. 4 (January 27, 1958) .................................................................. 266
6.24 1959 Print Ad, Samsonite Silhouette, Jet-Age Luggag. Source: Relic
Paper, originally developed by the Shwayder Brothers Inc, Denver,
Colorado. .................................................................................................... 269
7.1 Electric tram, camels, trucks, and carriages, existing side by side in the
traffic of Karachi, Pakistan, c. 1950. Courtesy: Archive 150 .................... 270
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7.2 Proposal for the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, by Rapson & van der
Meulen, 1951. Source: Ralph Rapson and Associates Inc. .......................... 277
7.3 U.S. Embassy, by José Luis Sert, 1955-59, Baghdad, Iraq. Image: Collegi
d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC); and the U.S. Embassy, by Paul
Rudolph, and Seelye, Stevenson & Knecht (eng.), Amman, Jordan, 1954.
Image: Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation .................................................. 277
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7.6 President Dwight D. Eisenhower paying homage at the resting place of
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Karachi, August 12, 1958.
Courtesy: Archive 150 ............................................................................... 286
7.7
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The US Embassy in Karachi, site plan, c.1956. Source: Richard and Dion
Archives, Collection 1179, Young Research Library, UCLA ........................ 289
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7.8 The US Embassy in Karachi, ground floor, c.1956. Source: Richard and
Dion Archives, Collection 1179, Young Research Library, UCLA ................ 289
7.9 View of the Embassy Park, U.S. Embassy in Karachi, undated. The
Embassy also has a front garden, a rear garden, and a reflective pool.
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7.10 Model of the U.S. Embassy in Karachi. Detail of the pool, the restaurant
under pilotis, and the vault touching the water. Note the mashrabiya
underneath the vault. Source: Young Research Library, UCLA ................... 294
7.11 The Doric, firm character of the north facade, emphasized by golden
louvers, counterposing the slenderness and delicacy of the thin-shells on
the right. Photo: Lucien Herve. Source: Richard and Dion Archives,
Collection 1179, Young Research Library, UCLA. ....................................... 297
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8.1 The Metropolitan Opera House, by Wallace K. Harrison and Max
Abramovitz, New York, 1955–66. Building under construction in 1964.
Source: Metropolitan Opera Archives ......................................................... 304
8.2 Sketch from “Monumentality,” in Paul Zucker, ed., New Architecture and
City Planning, 582 ...................................................................................... 306
8.3 Palazzo dei Congressi, by Louis I. Kahn, Venice, Italy, 1968–72. Source:
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada ................................. 310
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Louis Kahn, c.1967. Source: Kimbell Art Museum Collection,
Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania ..................................... 315
8.8 Hopkins Center for the Arts, by Wallace K. Harrison, Dartmouth, New
Hampshire, 1957–62. Source: Hopkins Center for the Arts Archive .......... 321
8.9 Shoji Sadao (left), with Buckminster Fuller (center) at the Center for
Spirituality & Sustainability at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.
(SIUE). Picture from 1972. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville ......... 324
8.10 King Cole Market, by Archibald Quincy Jones, Whittier, 1950. Photo:
Julius Shulman Job No. 1333, August 19, 1952, apud Cory Buckner, A.
Quincy Jones (New York: Phaidon, 2007), 173 ......................................... 328
8.12 U.S. Pavilion in Osaka, D. Brody, Engs. David Geiger and Horst Berger,
1967-70. Source: Architectural Review, 1970 .......................................... 334
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8.13 The Washington D.C. Metro System, H. Weese; Eng. De Leuw Cather &
Co; G. Bunshaft as consultant, 1966-72. Source: Metrorail, CFA box 74
Folder, Oct 67 to Sept 68 NA .................................................................... 337
8.14 The Washington, D.C. Metro rail transit system, by Harry Weese. Source:
Harry Weese Collection, Department of Architecture & Design, Art
Institute of Chicago. ................................................................................... 340
9.1 Banquet des Dames dans la salle du spectacle des Tuileries (1835), by
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79). Source: Musée Carnavalet .. 342
10.1 The Municipal Asphalt Plant in New York, (also commonly called the
“Cathedral of Asphalt),” by Ely J. Kahn and Robert A. Jacobs, 1944.
Photograph by Bill Cunningham. Source: New York Historical Society,
Museum & Library ....................................................................................... 359
10.2 Shortly after Severud opened his office in New York, 1928, Eivind G.
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Elstad and Max Krueger joined him, and the firm became Severud-Elstad-
Krueger Associates. Since then, they collaborated with many architects,
most notably Eero Saarinen, and iconic buildings such as the Seagram
building (1955–57), by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Courtesy:
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Severud Associates Consulting Engineers P.C. (photo undated) ................ 368
10.3 Construction of the The University of Bagdad, 1967. From left to right:
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Louis McMillen (TAC); Umberto Varnini (TAC Engineer), Walter Gropius
(TAC), and Hisham Munir (Local architect). Source: John c. Harkness,
The Walter Gropius Archive: 1945–1969, vol. 4, “The Work of the
Architects Collaborative” (London: Garland Publ., 1991), 237 .................. 372
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviation Definition
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GSA General Services Administration
IASS International Association for Shells and Spatial Structures
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MESP Ministry of Education and Health
MoMA Museum of Modern Art in New York
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NACU Association of Cement Users
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ABSTRACT
American civic buildings, which serve both to answer the practical and functional demands
inherent to the very genesis of civic architecture. This research demonstrates how a
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also being discussed. In doing so, they moved away from a Bauhaus-German doctrine that
arched forms, of high structural engineering, were linked to both modern and academic
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aspects, and more precisely, French roots, this research addresses three main issues: (i)
the mistrust of the new monumentality, which was often mystified and associated with
totalitarian regimes; (ii) the analysis of this production through pioneering case studies in
postwar arched structures; and (iii) the relationship between academic tradition and
this research concludes that the construction of this civic monumentality in the United
States was not only a rational response to special programs and an opposition to the
universal character of modern buildings, but also the result of an immigration of more
inclusive ideas, which, reacting with the local tradition and heritage of the Beaux-Arts
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ABSTRACT IN PORTUGUESE
americanos pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial, as quais servem tanto para responder a demandas
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monumentalidade. Ao fazer isso, eles se afastaram de uma doutrina Bauhaus-alemã que
e acadêmicas, e mais precisamente, latinas, esta pesquisa debruça-se sobre três questões
principais: (i) a desconfiança da nova monumentalidade, a qual foi muitas vezes mistificada
e associada a regimes totalitários; (ii) a análise desta produção através de estudos de caso
fim, essa pesquisa conclui que a construção desta monumentalidade cívica nos Estados
Unidos não foi somente uma resposta racional ao programa e uma oposição ao caráter
universal dos edifícios modernos, mas também resultado de uma imigração de ideias mais
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1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
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Figure 1.1. Section of the Municipal Asphalt Plant in New York (also commonly called the “Cathedral
of Asphalt,” by Ely J. Kahn and Robert A. Jacobs, 1944. Apud: Elizabeth Mock (1944), 98.
1.1 Presenting the Topic
architecture in the United States, arguing that the rhetoric behind these forms was directly
related to previous theories of variety and characterization already present and discussed
in the academic tradition. Arches, vaults, and domes, which in the past commonly
characterized a set of different monumental buildings within the Western culture, were
recycled once again to the language of modern architecture, but stripped of their
2
ornaments and more often than not, presented as pure engineering feats. New
expanded modern architecture's vocabulary and syntax, being facilitated by the academic
concern with giving buildings a distinctive physiognomy, revealing their purposes, and thus
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in the academic tradition, from the Greek interpretation of the term, meaning “a mark or
figure traced on stone, metal, paper, or any other material with a chisel, burin, brush, or
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any other instrument.” 3 Character also derived from the term “appropriateness,” the
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concept of “the easy performance of a function or purpose,”4 itself a derivation of the
Vitruvian notion of “propriety:” “that perfection of style which comes when a work is
purpose), usage (i.e., adjective characterization), or nature (i.e., rational response to the
site and landscape).5 It was only after the eighteenth-century that the idea of character
came to be understood more abstractly, departing from early notions of the term that
1
For an investigation on the theory of character in modern architecture,” see: Carlos E. D. Comas,
“Precisões Brasileiras: Sobre um Estado Passado da Arquitetura e Urbanismo Modernos a partir dos
Projetos e Obras de Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, MMM Roberto, Affonso Reidy, Jorge Moreira &
Cia., 1936–45,” PhD diss., (PROPAR-UFRGS, 2002).
2
Harry Francis Mallgrave(ed.), Architectural Theory: Volume I, An Anthology from Vitruvius to
1870 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006).
3
Quatremère de Quincy, “Le Dictionnaire Historique d‟Architecture” (1832), apud Harry F.
Mallgrave, Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1871, 103.
4
Idem, 218.
5
Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus, The Ten Books on Architecture, translated by Morris Hicky Morgan
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 15–16.
3
involved the concept of decorum.6 Widely explored by the École des Beaux-Arts and the
dependent on the close relationship of the general aspect of a building and its purpose,
Arches, vaults, and domes, are powerful forms that can communicate a particular
advanced technology; compositionally, the arch and the sphere subordinate other figures,
often evoke monuments of the past. Utilitarian buildings, and palaces, because of their
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communicative and structural requirements, might not demand the imposition force of
arcuated forms; but this is not the case for representative buildings such as civic
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institutions and religious monuments.8 Arches, vaults, and domes, could be very well used
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to bring the appropriate character that these buildings require.
Being a subcategory of public space, a civic space is relatively accessible, but not
entirely unguarded. According to the scholar Charles T. Goodsell (1932–), civic spaces are
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not “built for mundane purposes, but reserved for special activities, requiring a
particularized character that cannot be treated casually.”9 They require a certain solemn
6
Harry F. Mallgrave, Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1871, 190-220. For
Mallgrave, character is a quality that depends on some kind of intelligibility, which in turn depends
on the existence of some kind of symbols that arouse recognizable association. In addition, the
notion of character includes an emotional reaction, related to the way which buildings arouse, the
direct psychological effect (pleasure or displeasure) of certain types of lines and volumes that
have definite shape and quality.
7
Talbot Hamlin, Forms and Functions of Twentieth Century Architecture: The Elements of Building,
vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 217.
8
This argument derives from the theory of the French theorist Quatremère de Quincy (1755–
1849). Accordingly, there were three forms of structures: forms of convenience, linked to
purposes and character; forms of structure, linked to the firmness of the whole; and expressive
forms, linked to aesthetics.
9
Charles T. Goodsell, The Social Meaning of Civic Space (University Press of Kansas, 1988), 11–
12. According to Goodsell, there are four crucial characteristics of civic space: control,
accessibility, purpose, and enclosure.
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