ORAL HISTORY OF D.

CODER TAYLOR

Interviewed by Betty J. Blum

Compiled under the auspices of the

Chicago Architects Oral History Project
The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings
Department of Architecture
The Art Institute of Chicago
Copyright © 1989
Revised Edition Copyright © 2005
The Art Institute of Chicago
This manuscript is hereby made available to the public for research purposes only. All
literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publication, are reserved to the
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries of The Art Institute of Chicago. No part of this manuscript
may be quoted for publication without the written permission of The Art Institute of
Chicago.

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface iv

Revised Preface vi

Outline of Topics vii

Oral History 1

Selected References 154

Curriculum Vitae 155

Index of Names and Buildings 156

iii
 PREFACE

On June 4, 5, and 6, 1985, I met with Coder Taylor in his home in Glenview, Illinois, to
record his memoirs. Taylor's work has been, for the most part, residential in both single-
family and multiple-unit housing. Beginning in 1945 when he was awarded a prize for his
house design in the Chicago Tribune Chicagoland Prize Homes Competition, and continuing
throughout his career, Taylor has actively sought solutions to the problem of creating the
"American Dream." His memoirs recount an affiliation with the architectural firm of
Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor that pioneered the mutual home ownership
concept as well as with one of the firms that collaborated with Mies van der Rohe on the
landmark building 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Taylor's forthright presentation
sheds light on little known, and in some cases misunderstood, facets of our local
architectural and social history.

Our sessions were recorded on five 90-minute cassettes, which have been transcribed and
checked with the transcript for accuracy. When Coder Taylor reviewed the transcription, he
added and clarified information that has greatly improved the accuracy and depth of the
final version of this interview. Our editor, Robert V. Sharp, has minimally edited the
transcript to maintain the flow, spirit, and tone of Taylor's original intent. A hard-copy
version of this transcript is available for study in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The
Art Institute of Chicago.

Despite the fact that this was a personally difficult time for Coder Taylor because of the
recent death of his wife, he graciously welcomed an opportunity to record his recollections
and did so cooperatively and with candor. Furthermore, he made available for my use his
personal scrapbooks, which contain a wealth of material about his career. For all this, I wish
to thank him, as will future architectural historians in years to come. Selected references that
I found helpful in my preparation for the oral history are attached.

D. Coder Taylor's oral history was funded by the Fellows Foundation of the American
Institute of Architects. We are grateful for their support and encouragement in this
important program. Special thanks go to our transcribers Kai Enenbach and Angela Licup

iv
for their care in transcribing and to Robert V. Sharp for his thoughtful editing, which gave
shape to the final version of this document.

Betty J. Blum
June 1986

v
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION

Since 1994, when the previous preface was written, advances in electronic transmission of
data have moved at breakneck speed. With the ubiquity of the Internet, awareness and
demand for copies of oral histories in the Chicago Architects Oral History Project collection
have vastly increased. These factors, as well as the Ryerson and Burnham Library's
commitment to scholarly research, have compelled us to make these documents readily
accessible on the World Wide Web. A complete electronic version of each oral history is now
available on the Chicago Architects Oral History Project's section of The Art Institute of
Chicago website, http://www.artic.edu/aic, and, as before, a bound version is available for
study at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago.

In preparing an electronic version of this document, we have reformatted it for publication,

reviewed and updated with minor copy-editing, and, where applicable, we have expanded
the biographical profile and added pertinent bibliographic references. Lastly, the text has
been reindexed and the CAOHP Master Index updated accordingly. All of the electronic
conversion and reformatting is the handiwork of my valued colleague, Annemarie van
Roessel, whose technical skills, intelligence, and discerning judgment have shaped the
breadth and depth of the CAOHP's presence on the Internet. This endeavor would be
greatly diminished without her seamless leadership in these matters. Publication of this oral
history in web-accessible form was made possible by the generous support of The Vernon
and Marcia Wagner Access Fund at The Art Institute of Chicago; The James & Catherine
Haveman Foundation; The Reva and David Logan Family Fund of the Community
Foundation for the National Capital Region; and Daniel Logan and The Reva and David
Logan Foundation. Finally, to the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of
Chicago and its generous and supportive director, Jack P. Brown, we extend our deepest
gratitude for facilitating this endeavor.

Betty J. Blum
February 2005

vi
 OUTLINE OF TOPICS

Early Influences on Choosing a Career in Architecture 1

Education and Training at Carnegie Tech 5
Awareness of the Bauhaus 8
The Century of Progress International Exhibition, 1933-1934 17
Student Life 20
The Business of Architecture 23
First Job with R. Harold Zook 29
Saint Charles (Illinois) Civic Center/Municipal Building 33
Service During World War II 41
Experience with Prefabrication 46
Chicago Tribune Small Homes Competition 50
The Suburbs Expand 54
Winning the Tribune Competition 60
How Small Homes Competition Drawings Came to the Art Institute of Chicago 68
Joining Holsman, Holsman, and Klekamp 70
Principle of Mutual Ownership 71
Community Development Trust 72
Development of Innovative Construction Methods 76
Difficulties with Labor Unions 78
First Large Postwar Project 88
Collaboration between Holsman Firm and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 91
Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor Faces Bankruptcy 102
Resigning from Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor 104
Taylor's Family Home 109
The American Institute of Architects, Program Chairman, Chicago Chapter 113
Partnership with L. Morgan Yost 121
Housing Project for the Military 124
More About the American Institute of Architects 136
Practice as Coder Taylor and Associates 143
Word on Glenview Appearance Commission 145

vii
 D. Coder Taylor

Blum: Today is June 4, 1985, and I'm with D. Coder Taylor at his home in Glenview,
Illinois. Mr. Taylor, why did you decide to become an architect?

Taylor: My father was in construction. He was supervisor of bridges and buildings for
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Cumberland, Maryland. In that capacity, he
was responsible for all the structures, the tunnels, the bridges, and the buildings
of the railroad, in that division. I would go on trips with him—I'd enjoy watching
him in his work. My mother tells stories of me even playing with blocks when I
was a tender age. She would put them out and I would build things. That, I don't
remember.

Blum: Did she encourage that like Frank Lloyd Wright's mother?

Taylor: She probably did. It related also to her family. Her father, my grandfather, was in
much the same capacity as my father, except in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My uncle
was an architect in Chicago, R. Harold Zook. As I grew older, I learned a little
more of architecture and I was fascinated by what my uncle was doing. I started
to draw myself, but I obviously wasn't under the drawing table, as Eero Saarinen
was, but I had the influence of my uncle, mother, father, grandfather, and even
my aunt who was an art teacher in high school.

Blum: Did you ever observe your father at work, actually constructing or supervising
construction?

Taylor: Indeed, so he would take me on trips on the railroad. We'd leave in the morning
and come back home in the evening. The division was several hundred miles, so
we were able to travel that in a day. We'd go to see a certain bridge or a certain
building. Of course, I was seriously interested.

1
Blum: You watched a bridge actually being erected?

Taylor: Indeed so, and buildings. They weren't building many stations at that
time—most of them had been built—so there was a great deal of additions,
remodeling, and whatnot. Bridges in this area were being washed out
occasionally. This was in the 1920s. A spring storm would wash a section of a
branch line, particularly along the Potomac River, the south branch of the
Potomac River. I was very fascinated because in those times Dad would be away
for a month at a time. They would start building at one end of the rail line, the
branch line, along the Potomac, and build these trestle bridges until they were
completed, maybe ten of them. It was an active existence and a very fascinating
one.

Blum: As a youngster in school, is that when you started demonstrating an interest?

Taylor: I think I demonstrated interest there. This particular high school in Maryland
had little in the curriculum that would have furthered my interest in architecture.
They had a course in mechanical drawing. I was not too fascinated with
mechanical drawing, and yet I would go out and make sketches of buildings. My
brother built a house, and I recall that I went there and made a little sketch of his
building and was proud of it.

Blum: Was this while you were in school in Maryland?

Taylor: Yes, I was in high school.

Blum: You made a sketch of his house?

Taylor: Yes, I had nothing to do with the architecture, the design of it. It really wasn't
great architecture as I know it now, but it was construction. I was interested in it.

Blum: You were born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You went to school in Maryland.

2
Taylor: My grandparents lived in Fort Wayne, and I was born there, but my family lived
in Maryland. I went through the third year of high school in Cumberland,
Maryland, the western part of Maryland. It is a very historical town. It was
where George Washington stopped building the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
when he found that he couldn't go through the Allegheny Mountains to the west.
The thought was to have a canal from Chesapeake Bay to Ohio. Cumberland is
where it terminated. It's still a very interesting historic thing—the Chesapeake
and Ohio canal. The environment of this whole town, and it was an historic little
town, was very impressive to me. It had very old churches, it had a lot of old
buildings that would now be historical landmarks and probably are.

Blum: Was it the age of the buildings?

Taylor: Of course, the age had an influence. I was interested in history, but the design
was the principal interest. I remember one Episcopal church that is on a hill, a
steep rise, which made it very prominent. It was the Gothic architecture that
impressed me. I haven't seen it in fifty years or more, but it was an impressive bit
of architecture to me at that time.

Blum: If you were interested in architecture at such an early age, were you in any way
aware of the 1922 competition? I realize that's going to make you about nine
years old, maybe that's a little too early.

Taylor: I wasn't aware at that time. When I later came to Chicago and started to work for
my uncle, I was told that he had entered the competition. He was trying to
broaden my horizons a bit. I remember one of the things that he did was to give
me the book of the Tribune competition drawings, the renderings. His was one of
them, not a winner, but one of the entries.

Blum: You became aware of it after the fact, years later when you came to Chicago.

Taylor: I did.

3
Blum: What did you think then as you looked through those competition drawings,
knowing by that time, of course, that a very Gothic building had been built?

Taylor: Having been through college by that time, and having had the Beaux Arts
treatment, which I think still has a lot of merit, the building looked very
interesting. I was impressed by Raymond Hood's building, but was similarly
impressed by Eliel Saarinen's second prize. Saarinen's was obviously a modern
building and most people believe that he should have won the competition. First
of all, I guess, Saarinen wasn't native and that became a problem, beyond even
the design.

Blum: His design was not the most modern.

Taylor: It wasn't the most modern, but I think it was the most acceptable at that time, of a
contemporary building. The far advanced ones—Walter Gropius, I think, had an
entry, and a lot of others, a lot of foreign people, some Dutch and so on—these
entries didn't have quite the charm that went with the feeling of people at that
time, in the 1920s. This is diagnosis after the fact, but I think that was no doubt
true and is true now, the acceptance of unusual building designs.

Blum: Had you been on the jury what would you have selected?

Taylor: I can't say what I would have done. Probably selected my uncle. Not really.

Blum: In 1930, of course, we endured the depression. What were you doing at that
time?

Taylor: I finished high school in 1930. However, my father was transferred to the
Pittsburgh area of the railroad in 1929. His transfer was for a specific reason—to
supervise building what is known as a turntable, for turning locomotives. When
the engines would come to Pittsburgh and they would have to go back to
Cumberland, for instance, they would go on this 120-foot turntable where the
engine would be turned around to the opposite direction. Now, as you know, it
can be placed back to the end of the train and the electronic devices control the

4
 engine, which can be any place on the train. But, at that time, they had to pull the
train. I went to school for my last year in Dormont, which is a suburb of
Pittsburgh, and I entered Carnegie Tech after that.

Blum: Your father was responsible for designing and building this turntable?

Taylor: Not quite. I can't classify him as a design engineer. He was a construction
engineer.

Blum: Did you have some years at University of Washington, Seattle?

Taylor: In 1933. I was there for a term, where I took courses in art and dramatics.

Blum: Had you then decided on architecture, and if so were you gearing your courses
in that direction?

Taylor: I'd started in the fall of 1930 at Carnegie Tech in the Department of Architecture.
We had a large class. Included in that class was Jim Speyer, who is a curator at
the Art Institute now, and some others, quite a number of others.

Blum: Were any of your classmates architects who now practice in Chicago? Jim Speyer
is here. But doesn’t practice as an architect.

Taylor: None that I know of. I think Jim didn't have a large practice in architecture. I
believe that he taught at Illinois Tech. His practice didn't extend far—but I'm
sure he designed some homes. Beyond that, I don't know of anything that he did.
I'm not trying to limit what he may have done.

Blum: What was your training like at Carnegie? Its title is the Carnegie Institute of
Technology—by that am I correct to assume that it was heavily weighted in
engineering?

Taylor: I would say perhaps so. On the other hand, the Fine Arts building housed the
architectural, sculptural, music, painting, and dramatics departments, and Tech

5
 at that time was considered high in architecture. All of the fine arts were in one
large building. Actually, the institute was dominated perhaps by engineers of all
types. However, the arts building and the various things that they taught were
strong. The dramatics department was very strong, and so were the music and
architecture departments. When we in the Architectural department were doing
our projects, we were competing against Yale, University of Illinois, Columbia,
Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and many western schools, all of them under
the Beaux Arts vehicle.

Blum: When you think back about your days at Carnegie, are there any professors that
come to mind as being perhaps especially influential as far as you're concerned?

Taylor: I believe Carnegie had as good a staff as any in the country. We were awarded
our mentions and medals the same as all the eastern schools and the western
schools. The head of design was a French architect. Most of the schools were
importing French architects at that time for design. His name was Camille
Grapin. He had won one of the Beaux Arts Grand Prix type of competitions in
France, and he was held in high esteem. Carnegie brought him in, and he
impressed us too. He veered a little from the strict Beaux Arts design and he
would get into a little modern, but he didn't care for it. He was of strong classical
influence.

Blum: What was the type of modern that he got into?

Taylor: Veering away from the total symmetry, getting into asymmetrical things.

Blum: Did this strike you as being Bauhaus influenced? That was at that time
considered radical-modernism, wasn't it?

Taylor: No doubt.

Blum: Is that the type of influence that his work suggested?

6
Taylor: No, he didn't embrace very much of the Bauhaus. Some of our students did and
some of the professors did. I remember one competition where almost
everything was Bauhaus, as we knew it, and as we were able to glean it from
publications.

Blum: Was that part of the program? The problem presented for which you were to
design a solution?

Taylor: The solution was left pretty much to the designer. I think that was good, it gave
him a free hand. In later schools the influence of the master, so to speak, that was
comparable to Grapin though he was obviously not similar to Mies, but the
influence of one man became so prominent in some of these schools that I think it
limited the design abilities of the students. But at Carnegie it wasn't. Speaking of
a designer who was in school at the same time I was, and he won quite a number
of Beaux Arts prizes, there was Eero Saarinen.

Blum: He was at Carnegie?

Taylor: No, he was at Yale. However, we were competing under the BAID design
programs. All of us got a program on a certain date, released simultaneously,
let's say in the East and the Midwest, although the universities of Washington
and California did get into some of it, but mostly in was in the East and the
Midwest. We would all design to that specific program, whether we'd be in
Pittsburgh, or at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, or any of them. All of the
solutions—all the drawings—they were big drawings, and were called stretches,
made on a large board. 40 x 60 inches I think is the size. You would have five
weeks to complete the presentation. I think the process was very interesting. You
had the first day, 24 hours, as I recall it, it might have been even less, but I think
it was 24 hours, to come up with what was called an esquisse, which meant you'd
develop a concept solution in very sketchy form. Of course, the trick was to make
it so sketchy that you had no bind. But if you didn't carry through in
development the next five or six weeks as stipulated, and in accordance with this
very preliminary esquisse, it would be declared non concours, and would be
eliminated from the competition. It was a very interesting thing. Of course, like

7
 all kids, we were trying to make such a rough sketch that the jury couldn't ever
compare the final with the preliminary esquisse. It was great training. I think
there were a lot better draftsmen and better architects in that period, in solid
imagination.

Blum: Because of the training?

Taylor: Indeed so.

Taylor: Now we get back to the depression. I was in school from 1930 to 1935. The reason
I went to University of Washington is that I couldn't afford to go back in 1933, so
I hitchhiked across the country and got a job in Washington state. Then came the
summer and I decided to go to the University of Washington at Seattle. It had a
good architectural school and I also wanted to do a little dramatics to get some
training in being able to sell a job. By that time, I had found that practice in
architecture was selling, as well as designing. And another thing I have to admit,
I couldn't pass English at Carnegie Tech. Why? The English department was
based upon the perfection of grammar, not the thought or written, but grammar.
If you had a split participle, or a split infinitive, or whatever it was—I've even
forgotten the terms, it was all a technical thing, regardless of what you said or
how you said it—you would fail. When I went to the University of Washington,
it was just the reverse. I was in a school that emphasized creative writing and I
came out with an A. I think that prevails in universities today.

Blum: Do you think perhaps there's a parallel between what you just said about English
and what was about to happen? I'm not sure it had happened at that time
yet—what was about to happen in architecture?

Taylor: I wasn't aware of it at that time. Looking back at it, obviously it was.

Blum: Perhaps I'm thinking not of the kind of training that Mies proposed at IIT but
more of the kind of Bauhaus philosophy that manifested itself in, say, the
Institute of Design in Chicago, which is a much more free and open and
explorative approach.

8
Taylor: Yes. I think at the Bauhaus a lot depended on the individual. Gropius was
different than Mies, he wasn't quite as rigid. Neutra was quite different. They all
were involved in that period.

Blum: When you were at Carnegie were you aware of the work of the Bauhaus? It had
just closed in 1933.

Taylor: I was aware of it, we were all aware of it.

Blum: Students and faculty?

Taylor: I think we were so young that we weren't able to comprehend really what it
meant, or at least I wasn't.

Blum: How did you learn about it?

Taylor: I was fortunate enough to have a part-time job at the Fine Arts library, which
was just for the students of the Arts, and was located in the arts school building. I
worked from six to nine, three evenings a week. It wasn't well used, and was a
reference library. Students would come in and they'd pull a reference book or
magazine, and the librarian, which I was, or assistant librarian, didn't have to get
it for them, they knew what they wanted and they found it. It gave me an extra
amount of time to look at documents of all kinds, the American Architect, which
was a leading magazine, and to see some of the European magazines that were in
the library. I think it was probably a real break to have that opportunity.

Blum: Did the Bauhaus work have coverage in the American magazines?

Taylor: To a limited degree. I haven't looked at them—now, recently I mean—to see how
much they did. To answer the question, it was a certain percentage, but it was a
low percentage, obviously. They were featuring what was popular in America in
those days.

9
Blum: In the American magazines?

Taylor: The American Architect, Architecture, Pencil Points, later Progressive Architecture,
and locally The Western Architect.

Blum: How did they compare or contrast with the European journals?

Taylor: They portrayed a different design philosophy. They were influenced by the Art
Deco period which is certainly different than the Bauhaus, and most of the
published work related to it. I remember that I was fortunate enough to get to
New York during my college, probably 1934-1935, and I went to my room in the
YMCA after a hard day of sketching. The Empire State building had just gone
up, and Riverside Church which is a Gothic building was there, the Chrysler
building was built in those days. I was-influenced by the buildings I saw,
obviously. First of all the magnitude of them and then, of course, secondly the
design. I was enthralled with the city. Pittsburgh wasn't a bad city itself; it had
some interesting buildings too.

Blum: What was one of the impressive buildings for you at that time in Pittsburgh?

Taylor: In Pittsburgh it was the Gulf building. It was a newer building. I remember, I
think, in probably my junior year, one of my classmates and I decided to spend
our summer in designing a tall building on our own—the design of a tall
building. We had not during the school year had the opportunity. There was no
academic credit, but we were both very interested in architecture.

Blum: Was skyscraper a word that was used a lot?

Taylor: Skyscraper type. And, of course, I was influenced a great deal, by the new Gulf
building that had just been completed. It was a pyramid top type building.
Actually the fenestration is not too different from the new ATT building by
Philip Johnson in New York, when you really compare the lines. It's the second
time around.

10
Blum: When you speak about the skyscraper type of building, what did that mean at
that time?

Taylor: They were probably 25-35 stories, something of that nature, except for the
Empire State, Chrysler, etc.

Blum: Did the use of the building have a part in its meaning?

Taylor: One of the things, I think... There were some buildings that were strictly
functional, they were square, others got into a pyramid top type of design, and
with setbacks and various other distinctive elements of design. I think by that
time, of course, I don't think it started there, but I think certainly some
corporations wanted their buildings to have a strong corporate image. It's much
the same as Sears wanting a strong corporate image in Chicago, ten years ago.

Blum: Then you're really speaking about the skyscraper as a commercial structure and
not a residential building.

Taylor: Oh, no. However, there were few tall apartment buildings in those days,
although some were built, maybe up to 15 or 20 stories.

Blum: Was the Gulf building decorated in any way?

Taylor: It was an Art Deco type of design. They would have some bright colors and
perhaps some sculpture, I just don't recall it now.

Blum: Was that considered modern? Was that modern?

Taylor: It was considered very modern. I think getting back to that type—Rockefeller
Center. They had sculptures by Lee Lawrie, who was quite an interesting
sculptor in those days. Hildreth Meier was an important painter. Rockefeller
Center, I believe, remains an important example of what was modern in the
1930s.

11
Blum: And that's really Art Deco,

Taylor: Art Deco gave the architect freedom from the classical influence.

Blum: So that at the same time the International style, the Bauhaus type, as it's come to
be called, and Art Deco were both considered modern. One more radical than the
other, but they were quite different.

Taylor: Indeed so. Yes they were, very different from each other. The influence of the
Bauhaus had not come over to this country in any great magnitude. There were
probably isolated buildings here and there.

Blum: Were you aware of the 1932 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that
presented the Bauhaus material?

Taylor: Yes, I recall it. I'm not certain that I was there at that time, but I believe I was
there after that. I was certainly aware of its impact.

Blum: Did you pay any attention to what it was attracting the attention of the American
public?

Taylor: Indeed. I can't recall my detailed reaction, and I'm not sure that it was an
impressive reaction, because of what I had been exposed to at school. It was
bound by a much more conservative approach.

Blum: Are you talking about the Bauhaus?

Taylor: I was interested as a person who was grasping for knowledge, and was
interested in whatever was going on—the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

Blum: Among the student body, were there students who were more radical in their
approach? In other words, did they see themselves as proponents of a more
modern style, even though they were being trained in the Beaux Arts system?

12
Taylor: Certainly they did. I think that's one of the things that made Eero Saarinen so
prominent at that time as a student. I think that the Bauhaus had a little stronger
influence at Yale than at Carnegie Tech.

Blum: In what way?

Taylor: In the Bauhaus design. It was more acceptable to the faculty and to the design
critics. I don't know whether you are aware of how architecture was taught in
those days. The student would have the design problems as I say, and he would
work on them for five weeks. Most of the work was done the last two or three
weeks, but that was because of the nature of young people. They didn't want to
get down to it. You would have a critic, a professor, who would come to your
table every day and comment on your design. It was a very interesting thing. The
"crits" were good people, I remember. Some of them were dashing in their design
and others were much more conservative in their design approach. The
professors influenced the students. I remember one came to my table one time. I
was trying to do something contemporary, and he said, "That won't go over, put
it away." He was a conservative one. Others would encourage it.

Blum: I was going to ask did you ever get encouraged to...?

Taylor: Indeed so. There were critics that you liked and critics that you didn't like. It's
like many things in architecture—some buildings are more accepted than others.

Blum: Do you remember any that you especially liked or disliked?

Taylor: I remember one, his name was Raymond Fisher. He died probably in the 1950s,
and there was Bob Schmertz. I think Bob's daughter is an editor on Architectural
Record now, and, of course, Camille Grapin, the Frenchman. Whenever you had
the Frenchman as your critic, you had a good problem. He would only work on
the interesting solutions. I supposed that I liked him because he spent a lot of
time with me.

Blum: Interesting, but also in the more traditional style?

13
Taylor: Yes and no. He would sometimes even criticize, not necessarily agree with the
design, but would criticize contemporary things. I would be very interested to
know what Jim Speyer’s comment about these people would be.

Blum: I haven't spoken with him about this time in his career yet but I plan to.

Taylor: It will be very interesting.

Blum: That will be interesting to see how you responded to the same group of
instructors as he.

Taylor: Right. I'd be very interested to know. They were good in my opinion.

Blum: It strikes me now that the International Style was considered quite radical among
schools in the early 1930s. I wonder if it was just looked at as a radical
architectural style or whether it had a social reason that was also embedded in
the visual features.

Taylor: In my opinion, it didn't really. I don't think the students, certainly my colleagues,
were thinking too much in social veins. We were all trying to stay in school to
begin with, during a very serious depression. There were only a few of the
students who really were financially set enough to have no problem. A lot of us
had difficulties staying in school. Our concern was our own social status. We
were concerned with the aesthetic design, certainly that's my interpretation of it.

Blum: That, in fact, may have been lost in the transatlantic journey of the Bauhaus or
International Style.

Taylor: You know, Betty, looking back over it, it was quite a trying time. I remember
before I went to school one of my high school teachers, when I discussed with
her my aspiration to go to Carnegie Tech, she said, "Well, it's hard to get in and
it's harder to stay." I found it was very difficult to stay, not in design courses, but
all of the others factors that included other academic subjects, which were

14
 apparently structured for engineers, and then, of course, my personal economic
matters.

Blum: You mean paying your tuition bills and other expenses?

Taylor: That, plus also having to take a geometry course as an architect that was
intended for engineers. Even an English course was difficult for me.

Blum: How heavily weighted was your training in engineering?

Taylor: We got, I think, a sufficiently thorough training. We would have one year in the
various types of structural engineering—timber, concrete, steel, general types,
combinations, etc., and mechanical and electrical engineering. It was not all
pretty pictures, although we went in for the colorful and attractive renderings
since usually the best renderings and presentations were awarded the design
prizes. I think most of us were much more interested in that part than in the
languages, and the other liberal arts courses that were required for general
education.

Blum: Were you?

Taylor: That's what I got all of my best marks on, the pretty pictures. However, it was a
broad education. I think the one thing that was missed was the business aspect of
architecture, and areas that architects must address if they are to be successful.

Blum: Wouldn't it have been unusual for that to have been presented to
undergraduates?

Taylor: Possibly so. Though I still believe that whether it was Carnegie Tech or any of the
other schools, it should have been approached. On the other-hand, one of the
interesting classes was when Henry Hornbostel would lecture to us. He designed
the Carnegie Tech campus, and he was a very successful architect and an
architect with a great flair for telling stories of dealings with clients and
colleagues. He was a fascinating person. He would come to Tech, and this was in

15
 Andrew Carnegie's will that Hornbostel would design the school, but he would
have to teach "professional practice" to student architects at least the minimal
number of hours each week, I've forgotten what number it was. He would come
to Tech several times a month and talk to us for a few hours. That gave us
interesting incidents and facts about professional practice as we may eventually
find it to be.

Blum: Was he the dean of the school?

Taylor: No, he was a practicing architect in New York, and was very well known. I think
his son Caleb was a friend of Richard Bennett's, for instance.

Blum: He was his partner for a while.

Taylor: Was he?

Blum: Yes. So the connection with Henry Hornbostel was your introduction perhaps, or
one of the connections, not a main connection, to the real world of architecture?

Taylor: Indeed so.

Blum: Is that the kind of material that he presented when he spoke to students?

Taylor: Very much. This was the only school he talked to, it was his baby you know. The
campus plan and the buildings were his design.

Blum: Did he speak about the business aspect of being an architect?

Taylor: Indeed so. He talked about selection and building committees. I remember one
time he was talking about one of the bridges in New York that he was
commissioned to design. I believe that it was the "Hell Gate" bridge. He was
appearing before the bridge board, and they were going to make the selection of
the design. Someone brought up, "Well, Mr. Hornbostel, all of that structure up
there will be a roosting place for pigeons, Hornbostel, with all the confidence in

16
 the world, and he told the story, said, "But pigeons don't fly that high." The
board bought it. Well, of course, they do, and later they decorated the bridge.
This was some of the fun that a professional has. I think the course was called
Professional Ethics or something similar.

Blum: It sounds like he was very clever in addition to being a good architect.

Taylor: A terrifically clever man, and a very humorous man. We all thought he was
wonderful. I happened to be the youngest man in the class, or youngest kid in
the class I would say. I think back over what the older students, and so many
were older in the class because they couldn't get jobs any place, and they had
never completed their education and here was an opportunity to do so. They
were working night and day to stay in the school. It was a much older class than
you'll find now. Very excellent draftsmen, some of them.

Blum: Do you think that tended to make people more conservative or more accepting of
the ongoing changes?

Taylor: Probably, they were less flexible in design.

Blum: In 1933 and 1934 Chicago had a landmark exhibition and that was the Century of
Progress. Were you aware of it?

Taylor: I visited here and, of course, attended the fair. I stayed with my uncle and aunt in
Hinsdale. I went to the fair many times, painting watercolors of all of the
buildings. I don't know where they got to but they're all obviously not around,
probably destroyed. I was so impressed by that fair that I just couldn't leave it.

Blum: What was it that impressed you?

Taylor: The contemporary part of it and the color. I think it was Joseph Urban, a stage
designer from New York, who designed the colors.

17
Blum: Am I mistaken that one year there was color and the following year it was all
white?

Taylor: I don't recall that. In any event, I was there for the colors.

Blum: Obviously you were impressed by the color.

Taylor: Very definitely.

Blum: This was at a time when you were in school.

Taylor: I was in school.

Blum: You must have been here during the summer.

Taylor: Yes, it was during the summer.

Blum: Do you remember any specific building or exhibition that really impressed you?

Taylor: Fred Keck had a building there which was a modern residential building.
Buckminster Fuller had a building that was a residential building, and, I
remember, some of the other commercial buildings—the General Motors
building I remember. I would almost have to refer to an illustrated book before I
could mention other specific building. If I had a reference, I could look at them
and say, "Well, gee, I remember that building and it was a very impressive
building." The whole layout was an impressive display of contemporary
architecture.

Blum: Do you think that having had that experience and going back to complete your
studies made a difference?

Taylor: It did to me.

Blum: In what way?

18
Taylor: In design. We had very interesting design problems in my junior and senior year
that didn't start until after the freshman and sophomore years—they were called
equisses. The programs came from BAID, New York. Everyone was doing them in
this chain of architectural schools.

Blum: This was a quick sketch you referred to earlier?

Taylor: A quick sketch that was, I think, a 12- to 24-hour design sketch. I loved to draw,
so some of the less interested students would say, "Well, will you do mine?" We
had a set rate, an A was $4, a B was $3, a C was $2, and just a scheme was $1. I
did fairly well on them. I'd turn these sketches out in a couple of hours or less. It
was profitable, and I enjoyed the effort.

Blum: Like getting someone to write your dissertation.

Taylor: That's exactly what it was. I was crazy to draw. We were doing a great deal of
pastel work in those days. From the pastel stick, you'd grind it into very fine
powder, then with a piece of fine sponge or cotton you would wash the lough or
charcoal paper, which had a rough texture—a very fascinating process! I enjoyed
doing it very much. Then they came less from the elevations and more to
perspectives. The perspective, of course, would sell the project. The rest of the
fellows submitted elevations in design, and you'd have a perspective, and
usually you got the better grade.

Blum: Was this part of what the Beaux Arts training was all about, perspective and
shading?

Taylor: Well, more or less, the rendering of a project was a very important part of the
Beaux Arts Institute of Design system.

Blum: I mean drawing, and I use that for lack of a more sophisticated term.

19
Taylor: To learn more about the Beaux Arts, you should look at the Beaux Arts bulletins
in the Ryerson Library. They were issued once a month, and they reproduced the
imaginative drawings. I believe project rendering has had nearly the importance,
or certainly didn't in the 1950s and 1960s, that it had at that time in the 1930s.

Blum: Did you take any awards while you were in school in the Beaux Arts Institute.

Taylor: Oh, sure. Several as a junior in Class B and as a senior in Class A. Also I was
elected as one of two, I think, or three, I've forgotten, to the Tau Sigma Delta,
which was the honorary fraternity for the arts. There was no Phi Beta Kappa in
the arts. Tau Sigma Delta was the Phi Beta of the arts for architecture, sculpture,
and painting.

Blum: What was the Scarab? Was that a fraternity?

Taylor: Scarab was called a professional fraternity. Alpha Rho Chi was a similar
professional fraternity. I belonged to Scarab, but I was also selected for Alpha
Rho Chi. I received a little gold key as identification. In it the representative for
painting—I remember these names, I don't remember my neighbors next
door—her name was Madeline Vautrinaut and she was quite a gifted artist. She
also happened to be campus queen, and was quite a beautiful gal.

Blum: No wonder you remember her.

Taylor: I was president of Tau Sigma Delta, and she was secretary so we had a lot of
meetings. I was really honored. I think more than anything else I did in college
was to get that honor at the end of my junior year.

Blum: What was the function of the Scarab?

Taylor: It wasn't a social type fraternity with a house in which you live. It was called a
professional fraternity, for architectural students only.

Blum: What did it do?

20
Taylor: The members held periodic meetings and discussed various architectural
subjects. I don't recall any monumental thing which developed from the
meetings, but it was enjoyable to get together with fellow students with similar
interests.

Blum: Was it an honor to be elected to membership or could anyone join?

Taylor: No. You had to be selected by the members. However, it was not similar to Tau
Sigma Delta where selection was made by faculty members who were also
members of Tau Sigma Delta from past years, and many of the professors had
been members.

[Tape 2]

Taylor: Tau Sigma Delta included architecture, painting, sculpture, but did not include
music.

Blum: So it included more disciplines than just architecture?

Taylor: Indeed so, that was the breadth of it. It was a fine arts honorary.

Blum: Do you remember when you were in school, how did you spend your leisure
time?

Taylor: Well, when I could spare the time, I went to the theatre with my classmates. I
remember Irene Dunne was quite a favorite gal. "When Smoke Gets In Your
Eyes" was one of the favorites songs. The movies were big. However, I had a lot
of extracurricular work that I was involved in, the library job, and I also had a
short-order cooking job from twelve midnight to four in the morning. Another
money-maker, I bought candy bars at the A and P sore for three for a dime, and
sold them for a nickle each and I made a dollar or two a day. A dollar or two in
those days was meaningful. Those activities took much of my spare time—and
there wasn't much of that!

21
Blum: You were entrepreneurial even then.

Taylor: It was good experience, but I don't know what others really did, though I do
remember that those who could afford it played poker.

Blum: Was jazz very popular at that time?

Taylor: Sure. The drafting room was full of radios. Of course, there was no television. If
you didn't have your radio along your drafting board you couldn't draft, it was
difficult to draw.

Blum: When students got together did they drink?

Taylor: It was 3.2 percent beer, I believe, and some alcoholic mixes. I believe Prohibition
was repealed in 1933, or about that time.

Blum: Prior to Prohibition, wouldn't that have been something they really wanted to
do?

Taylor: I am sure that it was from stories that I heard. In my time, there was a little
speakeasy around the corner that was frequented.

Blum: Was that popular among students?

Taylor: It was done when affordable.

Blum: And then afterwards, of course, it was acceptable.

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: After, you say, Prohibition was over in 1933?

22
Taylor: Yes. I remember a little "black and tan club" in Seattle that we used to go to. The
bathtub gin thing is true you know. You'd get the straight alcohol, and with a kit
of small bottles of various flavors, you could make applejack or gin or scotch
whiskey out of the alcohol, by just putting this flavoring in it, and we did. I
remember sleeping off a couple of binges. It wasn't comparable to the real stuff,
but most of us didn't know the difference, and probably didn't care.

Blum: Were drugs a problem on your campus at that time?

Taylor: No, not that I was aware of. Alcohol was, but drugs weren’t.

Blum: But movies and jazz...

Taylor: Movies and jazz and a certain amount of sex.

Blum: Do you think now as you look back at your training that you had at Carnegie in
the Beaux Arts system, was that adequate preparation for the career you
subsequently had?

Taylor: For me it was, perhaps for others it might have not been. For me, I think I'm still
satisfied with my education, though earlier I mentioned some deficiencies

Blum: You did offer one comment a little earlier about the lack of training in terms of
the business of architecture.

Taylor: That's true and I think even now the universities expect that to be gotten in the
offices, to which I don't agree totally. In my particular case, I started with my
uncle, and it was the only job I could get. Other people in my class envied me,
though my job paid me $5 a week, and I lived with my uncle and aunt in
Hinsdale. It soon was apparent to me in his office that the place was not being
run in a businesslike manner. It was not a large office, and I became chief
draftsman the second day I was there—the draftsman of the whole force. There
was a gal secretary, my uncle and myself, that was the office. This wasn't the
only small office in Chicago. In the Skidmore and Owings office there were three

23
 or four people. In any event, it soon became apparent to me that my uncle was
not business oriented. He would not prepare contracts properly. Somehow or
other I had a feel for it. I liked design, but I also liked to see it make a profit and
be worthwhile in doing it. I took over that phase and handled a great deal of it,
along with everything else I was doing—designing, drafting, specifications, cost
estimating, etc. Thinking back, I lacked qualification for many of the things I
undertook.

Blum: At any time did you ever consider giving up architecture to go into business?

Taylor: Never. In later years I used the architectural training for running a business per
se, for developing, being my own developer. Why should I design for a
developer, for him to be owner and to profit considerably better than the
architect? And I did that. Then I got into consulting which, was a much different
thing, larger projects, and with more challenges.

Blum: You raised a question just a minute ago with your comment "why should you
design for a developer?" In the early years wasn't being your own developer
frowned on by the AIA?

Taylor: Yes, it was, though my interpretation of the AIA code of ethics did not prohibit
what I did.

Blum: In later years I'm sure people saw the merit of doing just that, but in the early
years wasn't that a practice that was considered a conflict of interest by the AIA?

Taylor: Oh, yes, they were very strong on that. However, the AIA concept was different
than developing for yourself. Frankly, I didn't get into developing until after the
war.

Blum: When it was becoming much more prevalent.

24
Taylor: Enough mortgage money became available to develop good projects. But, we
were working almost up to the time I went into the service on a hand-to-mouth
basis. Loans for investment projects were tough to obtain.

Blum: That idea leads me to ask you what, when you graduated, your view was of your
role as an architect?

Taylor: When I graduated, as you said, as a trained architect, of course, I thought I was a
trained architect, but I obviously wasn't, as it later came out to me. I was a
graduate architect, a graduate from an architectural school, not an architect even.

Blum: Out of that training you must have formed some ideas of what the role of your
profession was all about.

Taylor: As I imagined it—and I'd gone to a number of architectural offices in Pittsburgh

just to observe—it was drawing: making renderings, preliminary drawings, and
working drawings. The buildings were rather simple in those days; you didn't
have the complexities that you do now of HVAC, electronic devices, complicated
structures, etc. The structures were relatively simple. That's what I thought I
would be doing, just that. I loved to draw all phases of development.

Blum: I think what comes to mind, in perhaps broad terms, are architects that approach
the profession differently. I think of someone like Daniel Burnham, to take an
example, who approached it in almost an imperialistic way to say that he knew
what the city or the people must have and he did it. Perhaps the opposite end of
the pole would be someone like Sullivan who thought he was sensitive to the
people's needs and then followed that.

Taylor: Yes, I understand what it is. It was difference in personality.

Blum: I wonder where you fall in that kind of spectrum, how you sense your own role.

25
Taylor: I always felt that aesthetic design was a very important part, but I also felt that
the building and its components must function satisfactorily, and it should be
economically and financially sound.

Blum: Are the client's wishes, whether they're sophisticated in design or not, something
that makes a difference to you?

Taylor: It makes a difference in the ultimate, though you have to compromise once in
awhile. I think really, in spite of what everyone says, even the masters
compromise at times, perhaps not as much as others, but they are forced to
compromise. I could mention a compromise of Mies that he obviously didn't
want. He was one who felt that he couldn't compromise anything. I still feel, and
I included it on the back of my brochure, what I really felt about architecture:
"The contemporary architecture of any period is affected by a society, religion,
geography, economy, and materials. These should be, and are, the criteria for
good architectural design today and tomorrow." It is affected by all of those
items, particularly, the economy of the period.

Blum: To be more specific, am I correct to assume from what you read, you see your
role as the architect as the synthesizer of all of these factors?

Taylor: Indeed. The client can't do it. He depends upon the architect to do it. I think
clients have been let down by architects by not taking as strong a role as they
should.

Blum: Was this your idea at the time? What you just read, of course, reflects the
experience of years of practice.

Taylor: Don't quote me, I didn't write that, but I thought it was appropriate for the way I
felt. I have always believed that architecture should have quality in materials,
structure, construction, and design to age with grace. Unfortunately, so many
buildings, particularly in residential work, were never designed with the thought
that they would be around to look probably a little older, but just as elegant as
when they were built. The selection of materials, the way they were handled, and

26
 the proper structure. Like Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings, a lot of them, the
cantilevers sagged like an old person walking down the street. That wasn't a
concern of Mr. Wright's.

Blum: Did you have sense of that early on? That you wanted your buildings to weather
well and look good over a period of time?

Taylor: I felt so, yes. I believed it to be a very important part. It starts out right in the
concept, it's not in what kind of paint you use necessarily, but in the concept of
the design and detailing of the design. It's a comprehensive thing.

Blum: You said earlier that you know of an instance where Mies compromised and you
said it in a way as if to say, "Well, Mies was the last person to do such a thing."
What was that all about?

Taylor: I think people who know Mies would say that too. What it was was that there
were three firms involved in 860-880 Lake Shore Drive—Mies, PACE Associates,
and Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor. In order to build the project,
Herbert Greenwald, the developer, had to have financing. The financing entity, I
think, was a New York insurance firm. They had a reviewing architect, and he
probably was not much of an architect but was their critic, and worked on their
staff. He reviewed the drawings and indicated that he would have nothing to do
with Mies' partitions, that only went seven feet high. They separated the
bedrooms by a seven foot high screen wall and the kitchen and all the rest of the
rooms. I'm not sure that the kitchen was included, but certainly all the rooms
were screened rooms. The insurance company said, "No way, if you want this
loan these partitions must run to the ceiling and doors to separate the spaces."
They were only eight foot ceilings so it wasn't very much but a foot and a half
probably. Mies said "No". I think it was Charles Genther who said, "Well, of
course, we will extend them to the ceiling, " and they were run to the ceiling.
Mies was fuming, but he didn't quit the job.

Blum: Did Mies feel that he needed the seven foot partitions for his design?

27
Taylor: He was an idealist, yes.

Blum: He was forced to compromise if he wanted to finance the project?

Taylor: Yes. A lot of us were forced to compromise from time to time if we wanted to
continue a job.

Blum: So in answer to a question some time ago, who decides? It was the client then?

Taylor: It was the client in that case.

Blum: The client didn't decide on the overall project but did in certain features.

Taylor: Oh, no, but that was a detail.

Blum: Was that because there were certain fire ordinances or codes?

Taylor: No, the codes had nothing to do with it.

Blum: It was just taste?

Taylor: No, it was strictly this person's opinion that you need privacy, and I think as
everyone would probably agree, it's nice to have bedrooms that you can close off
totally at certain times.

Blum: Of course, but that was the day of open planning and things of that type.

Taylor: That's right and that's what Mies felt, but that isn't what the insurance company
felt they could lend money for.

Blum: It says a lot about the impact of others on architecture doesn't it?

Taylor: Oh, there is an impact on things, certainly.

28
Blum: You came to Chicago to work for your uncle... Let's see, you graduated in 1935.

Taylor: Graduated on a Friday in June of 1935. I started to work from him on Monday
the following week.

Blum: Was that your first trip to Chicago?

Taylor: Oh, no, I had visited my uncle quite a number of times and was always inspired
by the visits.

Blum: Do you recall the first time you came to Chicago?

Taylor: Not specifically, but I was probably ten or twelve years old.

Blum: Do you recall in a general way how the city struck you?

Taylor: Well, I'd never seen an elevated railway to begin with, so that was different. My
uncle's office was in the Marquette building and I was impressed by that
particular building. It's since been designated an architectural treasure. I was
impressed by the canyon of LaSalle Street. They were not tall buildings, but the
Monadnock building and in 1930 I believe the Field building was completed. The
canyon of LaSalle Street hasn't changed much in the south part because the
Board of Trade was there at that time. I was impressed by all of that part of
Chicago.

Blum: What building did you especially like?

Taylor: I believe that I liked the Board of Trade, and also the new Field building. I wasn't
really turned on by the Monadnock building, because I wasn't aware of what it
meant, or the Rookery, or Sullivan's Stock Exchange. However, I was impressed
by the Art Institute.

Blum: That was just out of a Beaux Art drawing.

29
Taylor: Certainly, and there were a number of buildings of that nature.

Blum: Did you have any preconceived ideas of what Chicago was like before you came,
or had you just not given it that much thought?

Taylor: One advantage that my dad's position had, though it wasn't a big position, was
that I had free transportation on railroads at certain times. Fortunately, I had
traveled around a little. I'd get a pass and I'd get some cheese, bread, bananas—I
never ate in the dining car since it was expensive. Traveling by train, going
across the country, was fun as a kid and I did it relatively early. My parents took
me, I think it was in the very early 1920s, on a trip to Seattle. It was on a private
train, not for my dad, but for the association that he belonged to. It was a very
fascinating adventure, and the trip was very impressive to me architecturally
because I saw Seattle and the ocean. They also had some good buildings there.

Blum: So you were pretty cosmopolitan in your experience?

Taylor: I had at least the visions of it, not the depth of it, just as any child would be
impressed by something in which he was interested.

Blum: The excitement of traveling by rail must have been quite wonderful.

Taylor: Very exciting, it really was. I would still like to take a trip across the country by
train before they vanish. After flying across the country so many times, it would
be a different experience. I haven't really done it, but perhaps I will yet. It could
be fun.

Blum: When you came to Chicago, how did you happen to get the job with your uncle?

Taylor: I think he thought I was his protege. Also, there wasn't another job in the country
that I could get.

Blum: In 1935?

30
Taylor: 1935. Oh, you can't believe the scarcity of opportunity, it was unbelievable.
Everyone thought I was the luckiest person in the class to get a job with an
architect. As it panned out, it was fortunate. So many of my class didn't stay in
architecture; they couldn't get work in architecture, so they'd start working for a
building materials company, lumber dealer, or so many other things, any kind of
a job, and they never got back to the profession. By the time they were making
$25 a week, or $200 a month or anything of that nature, it was regrettable that
they had passed the apprentice period of what an architect would pay to have
them in the office.

Blum: Would you explain that a little bit more?

Taylor: Well, I'm sure looking back over it, and, of course, I experienced it later with
graduates, they have the will, the desire, the determination but they don't have
any experience. You've got to be an apprentice. Of course, Frank Lloyd Wright
always talked about his apprentices, no one ever would say it today, it would be
a nasty word to say.

Blum: Was this time period that you talk about, was this something that was required
by the licensing board?

Taylor: It was. It wasn't required that you have a degree. So when I came into my uncle’s
office one of the first things, and he was a good counsel, my uncle said, "The first
thing you want to do its think about your license." I started to bone, I took a
refresher course, they do that today, a refresher course on engineering
particularly. There was an engineer called Needham who was a very good
teacher and he taught the engineering aspects.

Blum: Where did you take this?

Taylor: I don't recall whether or not the AIA, at that time sponsored it, but the tutoring
was available. I think that an architectural professor and others started a course
because it was a way of making extra money. I took the course, it didn't get into
planning very much, it was principally for engineering. As I recall, the

31
 requirement for licensing was a degree in architecture and at least one year of
training in an office or four years of training without the degree. I had the
degree, so one year was sufficient. I think the exam came in January and I had
started to work in June. There wasn't 12 months in between, so we forged just a
little bit and said that I had done some summer work for three years with my
uncle. I took the exam.

Blum: You had not worked for him for the time you claimed?

Taylor: Not in the true sense of what the requirement meant.

Blum: Did you do any summer or night work for any other office?

Taylor: No.

Blum: So this was really your first practical experience?

Taylor: Indeed so. And again Betty, the times then—these architects didn't have enough
work to do themselves you know. They'd have architects come out from the
downtown area of Pittsburgh to Carnegie, which is in Chenley Park. These poor
people would have patches on their knees, and their suits were a little
bedraggled. They would come out and one of the honorariums for talking for an
hour before a class in practical experience was a lunch, believe it or not. It was an
appalling situation.

Blum: And you as students looked at these practicing architects with patches in their
trousers and you still wished to continue?

Taylor: Betty, I guess we were all greatly enchanted by the profession!

Blum: Did that even strike you?

Taylor: Oh, yes, we were concerned about our futures.

32
Blum: The reality of it did strike you.

Taylor: Oh, yes, we were concerned, of course, but we were not deterred by it. It was a
passion and it's been a passion to me ever since.

Blum: What type of work did your uncle have? What type of work did he do?

Taylor: He did residences and he did the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge. He did
whatever job he could get, this included residential. We did some factories, a
little printing building in Hinsdale and some WPA projects at that time. It was
any architectural project that you could obtain. You need a specialty? What's the
job? The answers were always "Of course, we have had experience!"

Blum: How did the arrangement between you and your uncle work out? How did you
work together? He obviously was the senior partner.

Taylor: Obviously. I wasn't a partner at the outset. He would give me things to do and I
would do them as fast and as rapidly as I could. He would be critical, he was a
good teacher, and he was a good professional.

Blum: What did your responsibilities include?

Taylor: Being the other draftsman, besides my uncle, who drew too. He could hardly
wait to get into the office to draw. He just loved drawing and so did I.

Blum: Who had to go out and watch the workmen do what the drawing said they had
to do?

Taylor: Both of us did. For instance, that municipal building in St. Charles, I made every
drawing on that project. I made every inspection on that project. I was out there
two or three times a week. I influenced the design considerably.

Blum: In your scrapbook I saw a drawing that your uncle did.

33
Taylor: He made the preliminary drawing, a proposed elevation. That was as far as he
went. I went ahead with the final design, and all drawings for construction.

Blum: What was actually built?

Taylor: There it is—photograph and rendering.

Blum: What was the process by which you went from his design to your design when
in fact yours was actually the one that was built?

Taylor: It wasn't quite that simple you know. It was mine plus his input that perfected
the design. Since he was the senior architect, for all intents and purposes, he was
the architect though I was registered and did much of the design. It's just like any
office you know, the name credited isn't always the person who is the most
influential on the project.

Blum: What was the process of collaboration?

Taylor: Our tables were three feet apart; he saw what I was doing, so he would
comment. If I wouldn't do it right, in his opinion, or he didn't like what I was
doing, he would comment. We'd discuss it and the thing would come out.

Blum: I was thinking more about the specifics of the St. Charles Civic Center project.

Taylor: You saw the initial design. It was of lannon stone and so on. I think actually the
client probably wasn't too impressed by it. I don't recall that particular thing, but
obviously it was changed to a much more Art Deco type of design than it was at
the outset. I think my influence was involved in that. I made the final rendering
on it, the perspective, and made every working drawing, except the structural.
There was a structural engineer down the hall who made the structural
engineering drawing. I guess we had a mechanical engineer who brought in
some design that we incorporated on the architectural drawings. That's the way
it was, every bit of work. I handled the bidding, I handled all of the
supervision—I would go running out to St. Charles two or three days a week,

34
 three mostly. I went down to Georgia to select the Georgia marble. It was
something. I checked shop drawings. I remember one thing in particular, the top
of building is not a spire but a pointed top, and that's lighted from below. It is
made of tempered glass that was a new material at that time. It could take nail
pellets and not shatter. It was a tempered glass that was just on the market. I
remember that H. H. Robertson Company made the structural frame that held
the glass, manufactured it from the drawings. The original drawings had a much
less slope. It's rather sharp as built. When I corrected the shop drawings, I made
the error of keeping the slope that was shown in the drawing that the
manufacturer had made for their purchaser. When my uncle saw it, he was
furious, and so was I. I was distressed. It had not been what we had intended. I
think you can see the difference as shown in the rendering and photographs of
the structure. But, no one else in the world knew it, so it was like a lot of things.
What they don't know won't hurt them.

Blum: Just for the purposes of our transcript, this particular Civic Center in St. Charles
was published in the Architectural Record in March 1941.

Taylor: It was the greatest thrill I'd had to that date. My name was on it, along with my
uncle's.

Blum: Yes, your name was on it, and something else also interesting is mentioned that
this is unusual in several respects and I'm reading from the Record right now,
"This building was planned for an individual who then donated it to St. Charles
at the time of its dedication." Who was your client. Who was your client?

Taylor: The client was Edward Baker, for the design, who was a millionaire as a result of
inheriting quite a lot of money from "Bet-a-million Gates".

Blum: Who was that?

Taylor: "Bet-a-million Gates", I think, cornered some market in the Board of Trade or
Stock Exchange, I'm not sure if it was silver or some other market, and he made
millions in so doing. The other client was Baker's nephew and niece, Delora

35
 Norris and Lester Norris. I believe it was Les Norris who owned the land along
the Fox River. He donated the land and Ed Baker donated the building. Our
budget was $100,000 for the building. He wanted marble, Georgia marble, and
that's not Vermont marble which is relatively soft, Georgia marble is a hard
marble. He'd built a bank in St. Charles of pink Georgia. My uncle, or I, either
one, wanted pink Georgia marble. So I went down to Georgia and got this white
Georgia marble. I stayed there for a couple of days and saw how to get the
proper finish. It was a rough finish, done with a hammer. Baker was quite
determined, and this is the way he wanted to handle the building design. He
didn't know anything about city halls. I'm not sure we knew a great deal about
city halls either. But he didn't want to consult with the mayor or any of the
people in the city offices. He wanted to build a building and donate it to them
after it was completed. We had to do a little research, just what do you have in a
city hall? What he wanted was the municipal offices in the building, but with a
wing to the side for an industrial museum. It has become an historical museum
for the area.

Blum: On this drawing it is identified as an industrial museum.

Taylor: That's what it was intended to be. However, it wasn't really industry, it was
principally historical, and that's what it is today. He was very pleased with it,
and very proud of it.

Blum: The village was no doubt delighted to receive it.

Taylor: Oh, they were, obviously. He didn't care for the mayor, he didn't care for any of
the councilmen, the staff didn't matter anyway, the city collector and all this. He
didn't give them the opportunity to comment. We designed it without
conferences with anybody, and we supervised the construction.

Blum: Were you present when he came in and hired the office? Did he do it through
you or with you?

Taylor: No, my uncle got the commission. He was a good salesman.

36
Blum: What was the first job you brought into the office?

Taylor: I don't remember. I didn't bring a great number in, I didn't have the contacts. I
think I brought in a few little residential additions. Zook was pretty well known,
I was not. I contributed a lot, but not many jobs.

Blum: What was one of the most important things that you learned from him?

Taylor: I think the care in design. What I learned as a result of inadequacies, was that
you must run the office in a business manner, even make it work, even be able to
get good jobs. If you can't accomplish it, if you can't do it, it's like getting a
homeopathic doctor to make a great surgery: you don't do it, he doesn't have the
background, you don't have the staff, you don't have the implementation to
accomplish. When I had my own practice I developed an excellent staff and the
capabilities of doing important projects. The St. Charles project was one of the
big ones for the Zook office. I remember we were on a 6 percent fee, we let
separate contracts, we got $6,000 total fee for doing it. I think it did run about
$110,000 or something near. Would Baker pay us an extra percentage for that
additional $10,000, an additional $600? No. And, I had to write the letter
requesting that he consider adding to the $6,000 fee.

Blum: What letter? Telling him that it was over budget?

Taylor: The letter asking to reconsider our fee. He wasn't as concerned about the budget
as paying us extra for services. We hoped we'd get a little extra money, but he
wasn't as concerned. Even when I was a partner in Zook and Taylor, my draw
was $50 a week and Zook's draw was $50 a week, this was in 1940. We didn't
have a great deal after that left to share. It was not a highly profitable business,
but I learned a great deal. It was learn by an omission or a deficiency rather than
saying you have to run a business too I suppose. I think the other thing that I
learned is that detailed specifications are a little more important than
generalities, you've got to have detail in them in order to get what you want to
accomplished. That's technical and I think when I had my practice there were

37
 very few architectural firms around the country who had any more complete and
more accurate drawings than we did and any better documentation for
constructing the building. That was our prime objective.

Blum: Who were some of the immediate competitors for the work that Harold Zook's
office would seek?

Taylor: I don't recall their names.

Blum: He was based in Hinsdale?

Taylor: No, in Chicago in the Marquette building. He came to the office everyday.

Blum: I see. He was really looking for Chicago and suburban work?

Taylor: In those days he felt that he had to have an office in Chicago. I think perhaps he
did.

Blum: Is that because he wished to be part of the Chicago architectural community or is

it because it was necessary for business purposes?

Taylor: No, for business purposes, it was necessary. I don't think there was an
architectural community very much in those day, per se, not the way it is today.
The AIA was a little stiff, he belonged to the AIA but it was not the organization
it became later, and is today. Llewellyn is one of the names that I remember, and
I think that was a father-son arrangement. Harford Field was another, I think he
had his office in Hinsdale. Zookie had strong emotions about his competitors. He
would call them engineers, not architects. He admired people that he had
studied under, such as Howard Van Doren Shaw. Remember that name?

Blum: Of course.

Taylor: One of the great architects around in those days. Zook had studied under
Howard Van Doren Shaw. When we would make full size moldings for

38
 buildings, he said, "This is the way you do it. This is the way Shaw would have
done it." We had such books as Dwight James Baum, who was a very well
known architect in the East in traditional design, things of that nature. My uncle
was selective, always the concerned, imaginative designer. I'm so distressed
because apparently all of the drawings that he did have been lost.

Blum: It's a pity for all of us. It's a pity for Chicago architectural history.

Taylor: I think it is. He was influential. We had more people come in to the office trying
to sell. I think it was said at one time there was more work in our office than any
other office. Well, that could or could not have been. There weren't any big
offices. Holabird and Root was not a big office, and yet it was probably the most
prestigious one at that time.

Blum: You were in Zook’s office from 1935 to 1940?

Taylor: No, to the first part of 1942, when I went into the naval service.

Blum: But you were a partner from 1940 to 1942?

Taylor: From 1940 on, yes. 1940 to 1942.

Blum: You were there for seven years of which you were a partner two years.

Taylor: I thought he was very generous to give me a partnership in five years.

Blum: During that time, I wonder if it affected your practice or you personally? During
that time Mies came to IIT in 1938 and Moholy came to the Institute of Design in
1937. Did that cause any ripples or any stir among those of you who were
practicing in Chicago?

Taylor: Since IIT had been Armour Institute of Technology, and Zook had graduated
from Armour, he didn't really take kind-heartedly to the International Style. Of
course, he felt that IIT had gone to hell. I didn't have that strong a feeling. We

39
 weren't doing anything that related to the International Style of any consequence.
We did a couple of modern houses, yes. They weren't International Style type
like Gropius would have done, or Mies did, for Dr. Farnsworth.

Blum: Was this a prevalent attitude, Mr. Zook's attitude, among some architects?

Taylor: I think a major number of architects were doing, I don't want to say Beaux Arts,
but more or less non-International Style. There certainly aren't very many
buildings that I'm aware of designed during that period that were greatly
influenced by the International Style.

Blum: I meant their attitude about Mies coming here and sort of feeling that really was
not an improvement.

Taylor: Well, Zook felt that and I'm sure that a lot of others did, but I can't say for
certain.

Blum: Did you ever discuss this with other architects?

Taylor: Oh, sure.

Blum: What was your opinion?

Taylor: I thought it was refreshing, though I didn't embrace all of the theory and all of
the thoughts that Mies had. I thought it was a refreshing thing for architecture,
though. Still I didn't embrace all of his doctrine.

Blum: In years later you subsequently had an opportunity not only to meet Mies but to
work with him.

Taylor: Yes, not as much as some of my partners did, Holsman and some others.

Blum: When did you first meet Mies?

40
Taylor: I came back from the service in 1945, it must have been 1946 or 1947.

Blum: What were the circumstances?

Taylor: I don't recall the first time, though I remember a project that Holsman, Holsman,
Klekamp and Taylor were doing on the South Side called Parkway Gardens. It
was a black community, and the project was of mutual ownership. I think I have
slides of it, the dedication. I took a picture of Mies, he came to the dedication.
This design was as far from Mies as anything could be. I remember him saying,
"That it is a very interesting job." It obviously was not the skeleton type that he
did. The first project that we were involved in with him was Promontory
Apartments on the South Side, 59th Street and South Shore Drive.

Blum: That was in the 1940s?

Taylor: Yes, the late 1940s.

[Tape 3]

Blum: Mr. Taylor in 1942 you went into military service.

Taylor: Correct. Originally, I wanted to get into the Civil Engineering Corps because I
felt that that was the logical place for me with an architectural background and
with a little engineering. The navy told me "There's no place for you or anyone
else now." The Civil Engineering Corps slots were not open. A friend of mine,
associated with the navy said, "Well, why don't you just get into the navy. Once
you're on the payroll, in essence, you can begin maneuvering." I went in as an
Ensign and was assigned to a ship in the South Pacific, in New Zealand. I went to
San Francisco to wait for a ship to New Zealand and waited there six weeks
before I got transportation. I went over to New Zealand on the Matsonia, which
was a luxury liner. I met my ship in Auckland. About the second week there, I
went to the captain of the ship who was an old Annapolis man and said I would
like to transfer to the Civil Engineering Corps. He said, "Ensign, I've spent six
months trying to get an ensign here and now you want to transfer." He tore up

41
 the transfer request papers right in front of me. In any event, I went through the
invasion of Guadalcanal and a few other of the interesting places in the South
Pacific invasions and so on. Finally, the ship came back to the U.S. in January of
1943. We went into dry dock in San Diego for repairs. The captain came to me
and said, "Mr. Taylor, " then it was formal navy, you know, "Mr.", "Sir", "aye-aye,
sir" and all the rest. He said, "If you will remodel my quarters, the bridge, " the
bridge of the ship, "I'll give you your transfer." I got right to a board some place, I
don't remember where the board was, it might have been on the bed spring or
something. In any event, I gave him a design that he liked and he passed my
transfer. I got a response rather quickly out of Washington, "Your commission is
changed from Line Officer to Civil Engineering Corps Officer." The real reason
was that the Sea Bees—the Navy Sea Bees who were the constructors—had been
developed in the interim from the first time I applied. There were no orders on
what my next duty would be. I had to stay with the ship. The ship completed,
after about six weeks, the dry dock construction, and then we go through the
Panama Canal to the East Coast, to Norfolk, Virginia. There I was finally
detached because my orders awaited me there for further training. I go for a six-
week training and then I go south to Nicaragua. I was in charge of building an
air base there, so I had a little added responsibility. It was a sea plane base
actually and had to bring the planes in from the bay. The base was in Corinto,
which is the place that's in the political eye occasionally now because it's one of
the best West Coast ports of Nicaragua, and was an active place. The planes flew
from Corinto, Nicaragua, to the Galapagos Islands and then to Salinas, Ecuador,
a triangular course. The objective was to watch and guard the approach of any
submarines to the Panama Canal. There was a fear that Japanese submarines
would be there. The tour of duty was for a year or so.

Blum: But you had your opportunity to use some of your architectural training.

Taylor: Construction. It was interesting that the Sea Bees had their own command, that
is, you were quartered on the station and you had a high ranking naval officer
who was the Base Commander. In the Sea Bees, the Civil Engineer Officer was in
command of his own people. I had two hundred men under me at that time, and
we employed four hundred natives.

42
Blum: Were they the workers on the construction?

Taylor: The workers for that project. The native workers started at eight cents an hour,
and when they became proficient they got twelve cents an hour. That's low, but it
almost upset the Nicaraguan economy it was so high. It brought inflation. It was
a very interesting tour of duty.

Blum: Had you had any experience with construction prior to your experience in the
navy?

Taylor: In architecture, sure, observing the construction of our designs. I watched the
construction of most of the jobs that I designed, such as the St. Charles Civic
Center building and the first phase of the Wheaton County building, the DuPage
County Courthouse.

Blum: We didn't talk much about that in the context of your partnership with Harold
Zook, was that a competition?

Taylor: The DuPage County Courthouse was a competition.

Blum: Was it an invited competition?

Taylor: Yes, by the County Board of Supervisors. I think there were half a dozen or eight
architects, principally those who lived in DuPage County. Zook qualified
because he lived in DuPage County, but his office was in Chicago. That pertained
to others of the group. Zook and I were both very fond, and I'm still very fond, of
Lannon stone, which is a Wisconsin limestone in irregular form. Wright used it a
lot. We didn't always use it in the same way that Frank Wright did. It is a
beautiful building material. I think the real reason we won the competition was
because that's what we showed in the presentation rendering instead of other
masonry or brick.

Blum: What was it about the material that was so attractive?

43
Taylor: It's a warm material that has a little less rigidity and a little more charm, I think.
It is a facing material as is brick, and though brick has come a long way we all
know, I just liked the stone better. It's more expensive. An interesting little thing,
I was supervising that job as well as having made all of the drawings. I went to
the project one day, and they were starting to lay the stone. It didn't look proper
in the way they were laying it, the order of the stone. It is desirable to get
horizontal ledges and lay proper sizes in combination with other sizes and so on.
The mason who was laying it was not doing a good job. There were a couple of
other masons on the scaffold, too, but they were laying it all right. I went to the
contractor's superintendent and said, "That isn't being done right." He called the
man down from the scaffold, this man was a burly fellow, and I didn't know
until later he happened to be the union boss, he said, "What is the matter with
the stone?" in his own tongue. I said, "It's just not being laid right." Here I was a
young kid. He said, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said, "Take it
down and rebuild it." He said, "I'm going to see you in the alley. I'm not going to
take that down." He never saw me in the alley—he could have knocked
everything out of me, you know. My first encounter with the union!

Blum: Did he redo his work?

Taylor: He removed and reset the stone. At completion, the stonework of the building
was very nice. The unfortunate thing, like a lot of things, the next County Board
decided on a different direction for the courthouse. This little isolated first wing,
first step, is still an isolated first wing, first step. I think really it's the best of the
various buildings there. Now the courthouse complex has become a hodge-
podge, with every other architect coming in and wanting to do his thing and
being able to sell it. There's not a great deal of continuity of design.

Blum: Does look like it came out like Columbus, Indiana, with many architects?

Taylor: Not really. The Columbus projects are considerably more harmonious, though
designed by numerous architects,

44
Blum: It doesn't work.

Taylor: It's unfortunate, the first unit is a good building, built at a time when we didn't
have such amenities as air conditioning.

Blum: That was one of the jobs you mentioned as giving you experience in construction
and obviously serving you well when you were in the navy.

Taylor: Indeed so. I feel that the navy certainly advanced my education. I wasn't fond of
navy procedures, I learned the politics of the navy, of which there's a great deal,
and the waste of the military, and factors like that that are educational, and
directional. I had good commands in places where I was the commanding officer
of quite a number of people, the last one was over 1,000. I never saw that kind of
leadership potential after the war because I never had an office of 1,000 people.

Blum: You went in as an ensign and came out as what?

Taylor: My latest rank was lieutenant commander and it went from ensign to lieutenant
commander pretty fast. I had a couple promotions on merit.

Blum: Did you have any other opportunities to use your architectural background?

Taylor: Every once in a while I had an interesting opportunity, but they were limited.
The objective in most of the cases was to build something fast that was a shelter.

Blum: I see what you brought to that experience but were there things going on in
construction or with material, that you saw at that time had possibilities for you
after you left the navy, after the war was over? Were you aware of any of those
things at that time?

Taylor: Well, such things as the metal Quonset hut was a usable structure, and with
variations. Many were used after the war. In fact, I believe that they are still
available.

45
Blum: It occurred to you that that had possibilities in civilian life?

Taylor: Certainly, and it did. Metal structures were just being developed at that time.
They did fit into some projects when you wanted a warehouse type of structure,
where the aesthetics were less important than how it was planned.

Blum: Did you have any experience, or where you aware of any prefabrication methods
or site assembled procedures that were being used?

Taylor: Oh, sure. These were all interesting. There were some wooden types of prefabs,
too. Of course, there were other structures, such as bridge structures and so on of
both steel and wood that were developed for military use, but which had civilian
use later.

Blum: Did you think that it would carry over into the new?

Taylor: I think people were feeling, and I was feeling particularly, that prefab was
arriving to a point of being important in the development of buildings later,
certainly components, if not whole structures, you know. It proved to be true.

Blum: What do you mean by components?

Taylor: Components are parts or sections, which were built away from the site, brought
to the site, and assembled. Whole buildings, or half buildings of housing are
brought to the building site fully assembled except for certain components.
During the period that we did work for the air force, we designed a building,
Carl Koch was the instigator. Carl Koch was a New England architect practicing
in Massachusetts. He did the prototype. When we were called to utilize it, we
had all of the site planning to do and modifications to the prototype in order to
make it suitable for the climate and other conditions. We did as many as a
thousand of them at one time.

Blum: Had you had any experience whatsoever with this kind of thing while you
practiced with Mr. Zook?

46
Taylor: No, we didn't go into prefabbing. To be quite frank, even today prefabbing
doesn't dominate the housing market. The old stiff hammer, nails, and carpenter-
built buildings prevail in the tract-housing market. Most houses being built
today probably still have components such as trusses and even some wall
systems. Total prefab has limited use except for trailer-type houses and that sort
of thing.

Blum: After the war there was such a housing crisis that it seems that prefabricated
buildings would have been a reasonable solution. Why didn't it happen?

Taylor: It hasn't happened, it didn't happen then nor has it gone far in the market,
although there are some well-known, successful companies, National Homes,
Wausau Homes in Wisconsin, and so on, that have built quite a number. The
Department of Housing and Urban Development a few years ago initiated an
expensive program called "Break Through" where they wanted to develop prefab
housing. The government invited anyone, more than just those of the housing
industry, and the aircraft industry, who felt that this was an opportunity. They
got into this program and they were using instead of the normal materials, wood
and light steel, they were beginning to use plastics and various other things
preformed and precast. Concrete in panels and cast brick into panels. There
were, I think, about a half dozen large projects of that nature around the country
promoted by HUD. I was on a Committee of the National Academy of Science,
Building Research Advisory Board, that made journeys to most of these sites to
see what was going on. There were so many deficiencies we found of materials
that wouldn't last—fine today but next week it might not be acceptable. They
would deteriorate rapidly, expansion/contraction wasn't taken into account, the
fire hazard was very great, so many unsuitable components that didn't make it
an acceptable solution.

Blum: What year was this? Is this right after the war?

Taylor: It was about the period of John Kennedy, I guess, after Kennedy's inauguration. I
can't recall the exact period. I remember when I was in a large meeting where all

47
 HUD officials came to meet with the board of which I was a member. They were
so enthusiastic, but most of them were aircraft people. They had designed and
built the multiple aircraft, and they were saying such things, "we will not even
use the stud, the two-by-four wood stud, without making laboratory tests to go
through its capabilities again." A lot of us who were in the industry thought,
"here are some people who are going to have some problems. If for no other
reason, there aren't enough laboratories to test all of these materials that have
been accepted and improved over the years by just evolution." They were going
to have real problems. I got up and said, "You can't start that, you've got to have
some background, perhaps you want to go from there, but don't say that you
have to go back to Genesis, to the start of the industry. It isn't that way. You've
got union problems and codes to consider." They replied, "Well, we've gotten the
unions all straightened out, they're with us." I said, "Well, okay, try it if you want
to. The government is a trial and error." But, as I would go with the members of
the NAS-NRC to these various plants, one of the things that we would ask, and I
asked particularly, "what are your costs in doing this?" They had great
organizations, Leavitt, for instance, one of the biggest house builders in the East,
had a plant in Ohio. At this plant, they would start a house with the same line
procedures as the automobiles had been built in Detroit. They'd start a house
which was on a cycle. Every eight minutes it would move and someone else
would come into it on the eight-minute cycle. This man or men had to complete
the work that was supposed to be done in that period. They looked good. After
the demonstration, I said, "What about your costs on this?" "Well, " the plant
manager said, "we pay these people." I think about that time it was $3.50 or $4.00
an hour. I said, "Alright, what is your burden?" Meaning, what is your overhead,
what do you have to multiply that by to get your true cost including profit? He
said four to five times the basic way was. I went out to the car after we'd had this
meeting, and I said to my colleagues, "If I had stock in this company I would sell
it in the morning. They're not going to make it."

Blum: In Leavitt?

Taylor: Yes, in Leavitt. This plant went down the drain in six months. The whole thing
wasn't just simplifying. They couldn't do it at an equal cost or even a minor

48
 addition over what the normal carpenters can go out in the field and start from
scratch and do it, and perhaps do a better job. In prefabs they had to build the
structure stronger, because they had to be transported, and there's a lot of stress
in transporting over highways, that once they're on a foundation they don't
require. Then the anchorage to a foundation and a lot of that in added cost.

Blum: What was it that Leavitt did when he did succeed?

Taylor: Leavitt, when he built all of the projects on the East Coast, Levittown and so on,
he was using conventional methods. This was after a period, and he was well
known nationally. He was invited by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to enter this competition, as were people like Northrop, aviation
people, and Boise Cascade, manufacturers of materials and of big construction. I
don't know whether U.S. Gypsum ever got into it. The government wanted to get
the new thoughts, the new mass production people of the country into it. Some
have survived in a limited way. The companies are still not a good investment
for investors.

Blum: Prefab?

Taylor: Yes. The best successes that they've had in prefab have been these mobile-home
types, which have a life of only a few years.

Blum: I suppose that’s the ultimate prefab.

Taylor: It's not, because its life is relatively short for dwellings. I would say their life is
eight or ten years.

Blum: Have you ever had an opportunity to go into any of the Lustron houses?

Taylor: Yes. I was in them when they were being built shortly after World War II. I think
they were reasonably well engineered. Have you been in them?

Blum: I thought they were wonderful for a small, easy-to-care for, compact house.

49
Taylor: I think they served that purpose well. There are still a lot of them around. I don't
know just what kind of metal deterioration they've had.

Blum: The one I saw was almost none at all. In terms of deterioration I would say that it
was the additions that had been added onto the original house that I would
consider an aesthetic deterioration. In terms of maintenance the occupant said it
was absolutely maintenance free, very easy to care for, and very economical.

Taylor: In theory it should have been a good house. The wall panels are of ceramic on
steel, which always gives a hazard. If the coating is damaged, the steel will begin
to rust. That was my concern. But, the theory worked. They were small enough
so that the expansion/contraction between the panels would work, and they
were well caulked. I just hadn't followed it, but I'm glad to hear that they are still
satisfactory.

Blum: I suppose now looking back at these houses that are now thirty and forty years
old, I think the thing that strikes me is that everyone over the years has
individualized their own home. Maybe in some ways this is the resistance.

Taylor: I think it is, but I think that's of lesser importance. A major consideration was
economics. They weren't cheap houses, they were expensive houses. I think that
was one of the major reasons that held the distribution down.

Blum: When you came out of the navy you obviously were not taken with the idea of
going into any facet of prefabrication because I know that you entered a
competition, the Chicago Tribune competition. This competition attracted an
enormous amount of attention from architects such as yourself, architects around
the country and from overseas as well.

Taylor: It was international.

Blum: How did this competition come to your attention?

50
Taylor: Well, I'd been the navy for three years and I was on the East Coast with public
works duty. Somehow or other I read in the newspaper about this competition. I
wrote in to get the program because I was going to be out of the service in a few
weeks. There had been another house competition about a year before, and one
of the department stores in Rhode Island, this was an odd thing, had brochures
of the results. The brochure had a lot of contemporary houses in it. I was
intrigued by the designs, and I was intrigued by the renderings, because they
had been rendered by an artist named Kautzky, Ted Kautzky. I was always
fascinated by renderings, and I liked to do them. I thought they were the way to
sell architecture to the normal person who talks blueprints, and he really doesn't
know that that's only a print of an original drawing. Most of the people can't
interpret them anyway. Rendering, a perspective rendering is the way to sell a
job. I got out of the navy, my wife was west in Dakota with her father and
mother, expecting our first child. I stopped in Pittsburgh to see my parents. I
happened to have a drawing board there because most of my gear was in
Pittsburgh at that time. That was my storage area while I was in the service. I
made some sketch drawings. The first night in Pittsburgh I got a call that my
wife had our first baby. What could I do? I think I stayed up all night to get out
the competition drawing. The next morning I said, "I've got to leave. My wife
will be in trouble, and I'll be in trouble with my father-in-law." He was a little
upset because I wasn't there anyway. So, we had a car, I took off for Dakota and I
said, "Dad, would you mail this in?" I gave him the address and he mailed it in.
That's how I became involved.

Blum: In the Tribune competition?

Taylor: Yes. I forgot all about it when I got to Chicago. I didn't have a place to live, so I
went to the old Evanston Hotel and took a room. I was there for a month because
I couldn't find a place in the Chicago area to live. It was before I had my wife
with me. I went to see her first and admired the baby of course, and so on. Then I
got a call, I got out in the middle of October and I think about the end of
November I heard from the Tribune. I was a winner in the competition—won one
of the prizes.

51
Blum: Why did you come back to Chicago?

Taylor: The reason for it was that my wife and I both wanted to live in California. She
had duty in California, and was in the naval hospital when I met her, in San
Diego. San Diego was a wonderful place, not crowded. It was a sailor's town, and
when the war tuned down it was a good town to live in. However, housing in
California was terrible. I went to Los Angeles because I felt the opportunities
were there, and to get a job with an architect who had some housing work. I said
to an architect, "I know housing design," and he hired me. I started to make some
renderings and drawings, and he said, "Fine, I like what you're doing." My
problem was that I was moving from room to room. You could spend three days
in a room, that was it, and you were out. You just couldn't find a permanent
place to live. Unbelievable these days!

Blum: In 1945, at the close of the war.

Taylor: I was there for a few weeks and would spend the weekends looking around for a
house or an apartment, for a place to live. There weren't any apartments
available. A lot of small houses were being built, but slowly. I went into a real
estate office on a Sunday afternoon and there was an old fellow who looked a
little like Andrew Jackson. I asked him about houses. "Well, son,"—you know I
was quite a lot younger—he said, "Son, there aren't very many houses." I said,
"Well, what is the problem? Don't people live in houses?" He said, "Well, here's
the problem, look at this map." He showed me a map on the wall and it showed
the coast of California up and down, north and south of L.A. Then he pointed me
to the rest of the country. He said, "Eighty percent of women in this country
would like to live in California, that's your problem." I didn't disagree because I'd
found the houses were unavailable. Just at that time, I get a call from my old
colleague, Ben Klekamp, in Chicago. He said that their firm was expanding and
they needed a young man. I knew him and he knew that I was a designer and
could produce. So, I said, "My problem is that I can't get a place to live here." He
said, "Well, let me check." He called me back and he said, "Mr. Holsman has an
apartment that he rents on the South Side that he built about ten years before. As
soon as that's available, you can buy that. You can put a nominal amount down

52
 and then pay it as you want to. We'd rather have you than the apartment." It was
an offer of a partnership. This was an offer I couldn't refuse, obviously. I called
my wife and she's in trouble, she doesn't want to go to Chicago. She'd been to the
University of Chicago. After that little incident was over I started driving and
drove in about two days from L.A. to Chicago. One time I picked up a hitchhiker
who did some of the driving. I went to sleep before I gave it to him to drive. The
car almost went off the road. It was quite a period, that transitional period.
Enough said?

Blum: Then you came to Chicago because you had a job and more importantly a place
to live?

Taylor: Right, exactly that.

Blum: Was that the time of the Tribune competition, when you were notified that you
had won?

Taylor: I was notified after I got back, yes, from the L.A. adventure. I wasn't there too
long, I was only in California for three to four weeks. I think it was December
that they notified me, it might have been January. A thousand dollars in those
days was something.

Blum: Did you have any thought of how our communities would build up after the
war—knowing there was a housing crisis—you had experienced it yourself—and
here you were submitting a drawing for a small house to be built?

Taylor: I didn't know the direction. I knew that there were developers per se in the area
who built groups of houses, but not large groups of houses necessarily—ten,
twelve, twenty—some up to one hundred. Even before the war that was
occurring. Some of them were in Wilmette and the North Shore, Connecticut
Village, a number of places that a developer by the name of Bleitz built. We
designed a couple of those types of houses for some of the developers.

Blum: Who was "we"?

53
Taylor: Zook and Taylor had.

Blum: You designed for Bleitz?

Taylor: Yes. We designed one in the mid or late 1930s that was the "House of the Month"
for McCall's, I think. Irvin Bleitz was his name. The problem was that this was in
the late 1930s, and he was just coming back from bankruptcy during the
depression, he didn't want to go very big. He was a little wary of speculation.
There were other developers around Chicago who built—some on the South Side
and Southwest Side. The communities were expanding.

Blum: Suburban communities or Chicago?

Taylor: Very much suburban communities.

Blum: Did this in some way set your expectations?

Taylor: I thought the market was there at that time. I knew an architect must have a
market for his wares, even though it is not the complete building it's the design
for a complete building. It's all a part of the picture.

Blum: There were polls that were taken at that time in some of the popular homes
magazines where the readers were asked where they would like to live, and in
what kind of house, and what features they wished the house to include? I think
in one instance it was 54 percent or 60 percent of the respondents who said that
they wanted a new house in the suburbs.

Taylor: There was no question that that was the direction. Chicago had been an
apartment town in the 1920s, more or less. There were quite a number of single-
family areas earlier. Later, in the 1920s the expansion had been in multi-family
housing flats in Chicago. That's the reason why people were fleeing to a
suburban type of living, which was principally single family.

54
Blum: What were some of the other factors that created the situation that in fact we
know developed then? I mean we can look back and see how all of the suburbs
just sort of mushroomed at that time at the expense of the city.

Taylor: Sure. Well, I think even then there was enough adverse things going on in
Chicago that made people look to the suburbs.

Blum: Such as what?

Taylor: Crime was starting to develop in certain areas, the taxes were high, there was a
little pollution developing and, of course, the privacy of apartments is much less
than single-family housing. I think those were the principal reasons although I
might have overlooked some.

Blum: The city did experience change.

Taylor: Indeed so.

Blum: There were critics at that time, Serge Chermayeff was one of them, and he was in
Chicago at that time. He made several statements that he felt that people really
wanted to live in urban centers but they were forced out into the outlying areas.
Because of that, our cities were paying the price for what he called the new
romanticism out in the suburbs on what had been early agricultural land that
again was being sacrificed.

Taylor: I think that's certainly true. It was romantic to get out. I think even that house we
looked at yesterday incorporated a little romance in its design.

Blum: For the benefit of those listening who weren't with us yesterday, we went to see
the house built from Mr. Taylor's design that had won a prize in the Chicago
Tribune competition. The house is in Highland Park. Looking at the design and
just leafing through some of the others, yours looks very much influenced by
California styles.

55
Taylor: No question about it, it was.

Blum: Is that what you mean by...?

Taylor: Open living. Open living in Chicago had not been very prevalent, for the obvious
reason that Chicago doesn't have the weather that California, Florida, or other
warm places have. On the other hand, in the design of this house I felt that there
was an opportunity. The restrictions were very difficult. It was a thirty-foot wide
lot with a certain small number of square feet of development. I felt that to have
an outdoor living area that would be somewhat protected, and also give a view
from the inside to the outside area, and would have a great deal of privacy,
would have some merit. That's what my design was. Fortunately, someone else
agreed.

Blum: There were some changes made between your rendering and the actual house we
went through?

Taylor: There were a few changes made. Some of the usual changes that are made. The
design which won was shown in Lannon stone, which would have made a very
charming house.

Blum: Would that have made it more expensive?

Taylor: It would have been more expensive, so the builder resorted to common brick.
Through the years, common brick has started to deteriorate a bit. It is not as
hard-burned as it should have been, so it's being painted. Painting of common
brick was done long before that, for other reasons, aesthetic reasons. It shouldn't
have been done on this job. Also, there were some changes by addition of the fru-
fru which is sold in the hardware stores to embellish a garden, that I think most
architects would not get enthusiastic about. Other than that there was no
attention to good decorating, the house was about as planned.

Blum: What gave you the idea to design a house for outdoor/indoor living in Chicago
when Chicago's climate is not as gentle as California's?

56
Taylor: I thought that bringing a little California to Chicago would be all right. The
picture made it indicate that it would be all right, the rendering rather. I just
didn't want to do another box and this took it out of the box class. Even the
introduction of the outdoor living area more or less dictated the design of the
front part of the house. The entry in the dining and the living room had to be less
than a square. It had to be part of a trapezoid or some other form.

Blum: Did this incorporate other features other than indoor-outdoor living, which in
your case was a reflection of your wish to bring California to Chicago? Did it
incorporate some of the other new features that were prevalent after the war but
not necessarily before?

Taylor: There was one, of course, the studio-type living room with the exposed roof
structure is there. It was done some before the war but it was not very prevalent.
I always liked it. This comes somewhat from a feeling for Wright, though the
house has no Wrightian characteristics as you look at it. Going from a low area to
a high area is something that you don't get when you have an eight-foot ceiling
throughout the whole house. This I wanted to do. The back of the garage
becomes a playroom where you can open even the garage to it on the outside. It
gives you another room on the exterior that is beyond whatever the square
footage requirement and limitation were. I don't recall what it was. It was a very
low square-foot area for living. The whole idea of the competition, as my
understanding was, was for urban houses—it wasn't made for suburban
necessarily, principally urban houses. There are a lot of thirty-foot lots in
Chicago that aren't in the suburban areas. They developed into forty, fifty, sixty,
eighty, one hundred. The thirty-foot lot was the first group. The task was how to
develop an attractive single-family house on a thirty-foot lot.

[Tape 4]

Blum: You were talking about the idea of the competition. There were actually three
sections, one was a very small square footage on a small lot; another was more

57
 generous square footage on a little more generous lot; and then a little larger.
Why did you chose to enter the smallest section of the competition?

Taylor: I chose the smallest one I guess because I could do it faster. Under the pressures
of a new family, I had to do it quickly if I were going to do it at all. Beyond that I
felt that there was a challenge.

Blum: You think you would have had more freedom and fewer restrictions to have
designed for the larger?

Taylor: I think so. I think without question it would have been easier to design, to have
made something that was really attractive. We had been designing houses. There
were never any houses Zook and Taylor designed for a thirty-foot lot.

Blum: So this was a new challenge for you?

Taylor: Sure it was.

Blum: And it was a need in Chicago too?

Taylor: It was a need, certainly.

Blum: Do you know what this house cost to build? Was that a factor?

Taylor: It always is a factor with any development house. These houses were developed
by experienced developers, speculators in a sense. They would build a house to
sell, and after it was completed they would sell it. They don't want to put more
money in than necessary, in view of what they think the market will be. They
don't want to make it cheap necessarily, but they don't put in more money than
they think they can get out of it with a profit.

Blum: Do you think that's why the Lannon stone was eliminated in favor of common
brick?

58
Taylor: No question of it. Lannon stone is considerably more costly. Why was it included
in the first place? It makes a much better picture aesthetically and a better and
more interesting house. I just liked to draw it too, I guess.

Blum: Other than material, were there any substantive changes that took place between
the actual house and the drawing?

Taylor: Not of any consequence. Maybe the bathroom. I noticed yesterday that the
bathroom arrangement was just reversed. That had no design effect you know.
You can put a chair on one side of the room or you can put in on the other side of
the room, it doesn't affect the design.

Blum: How did you feel yesterday going into a house that you had dealt with only on
paper, at a time in your life obviously when you were paying attention, but it
was not the top priority in your life, and years later to see it in the flesh?

Taylor: It was not a priority particularly because the Tribune contracted with me to make
the drawings, which I made at home at night, after working hours. I really didn't
have the time to supervise it and I wasn't even asked to supervise it. There were
some changes made that I wish had not been made. I think I had some of the
timber elements a little larger for aesthetics and structure. Of course, I think we
all agree that people's taste on decoration varies a great deal. I think the use of
the space could have been considerably better, furniture arrangement, types and
so on.

Blum: I think what I was really asking you was how did you feel to see a
materialization of something that began as an idea?

Taylor: I think that can apply to almost any building that an architect designs. The one
reason I guess that I got into architecture was to do that. That was always the
thrill. I guess other professions have similar thrills. I imagine that when a doctor
sews up a patient after taking out his appendix he feel pretty good about it.
When an artist completes a work of art, I am sure that he does too. That was part
of the value of being an architect.

59
Blum: The reward?

Taylor: Yes. To win an award was, of course, an honor.

Blum: There was a ceremony that was published in one of the issues of the Chicago
Tribune. What was that like?

Taylor: I don't recall, Betty, really what it was. I recall the ceremony and I know I was
there. I think a picture was in the paper on it but I don't remember what it was.

Blum: Did you know other competitors who won or did not?

Taylor: I knew some of them, several of them.

Blum: It was reported in the paper that ten of the designs were actually constructed in a
neighborhood in Chicago. Those homes were opened as model homes for a
period of, I think, thirty days. Those homes drew an enormous crowd, indicating
the interest and the need in housing and those particular houses. Afterwards,
many of the drawings were exhibited at the Art Institute and again interest was
so high in the subject that the Art Institute exhibition drew enormous crowds.
What did that say to you?

Taylor: I think it obviously indicated that after the war people were ready to build. They
were ready to move, if they had to build, move to a different area. The family
became very strong to get into a different environment than they had been into
before. They used to have material shows with tremendous attendance, various
types of home shows at that time and within the next several years. They were
interesting shows because the exhibitors were really showing their wares, the
new developments that had come out. There was an interim of five years there to
develop things and a lot of them did. They were thinking if not actually making
prototypes of things. The timing was right, the market was there. Architects were
very interested. I know I was.

60
Blum: I looked at the list of jurors and nine of the jury were builders and architects. In
looking over the list I'm struck by the fact that, with the exception of one
architect whose name I recognize and whose work I'm somewhat familiar with, I
would guess that most of the others were more traditional and conservative in
their taste. Yet, in this competition so many of the designs that were picked as
winners were the new one-story ranch or split-level house. They were very open
in their plan; they looked more contemporary than many of the others. How do
you account for that?

Taylor: I think the people that would enter this competition or did enter the competition
were younger people, maybe similar to me. It was an opportunity to vent some
of their thoughts, an opportunity that they had not had prior to the war. There
are a number of architects here, all of whom I know quite well.

Blum: Are there architects who are avant-garde in their thinking whom I'm simply not
aware of?

Taylor: Not particularly. As I remember there were comments by some of the builders,
they thought my design was a little more interesting than some of the others. I
think they were all looking for new ideas. Of this group there are four architects,
possibly five, and the rest of them are builders.

Blum: Philip Maher is…?

Taylor: Philip Maher was there, Andrew Rebori, and Paul Gerhardt, the city
architect—actually, he was president of the AIA Chicago chapter at that time.
Irvin Bleitz was a builder in Wilmette, Joseph Merrion was a home builder on the
South Side, and president of the Chicago Metropolitan Home Builders. I was
very pleased. My goodness, it says here, "attracted an attendance of more than
90,000 people at the Art Institute."

Blum: Interest was very high.

Taylor: It apparently was.

61
Blum: Were these builders the ones that actually went and consequently constructed
the homes?

Taylor: No, they weren't. Clark was not one of the jurors.

Blum: He was the construction firm afterward?

Taylor: He was the builder. I think the Tribune tried to get exposure in the construction
of the houses perhaps by going through the Chicago Metropolitan Home
Builders Association. They asked for volunteers, as I recall this was the process.
Not all of the jurors were interested in building the winning houses. They had
their own developments. Mine was an isolated one. It was a single house instead
of being in a group. I don't know why. I don't even recall who the builder was.

Blum: That's a little confusing because the newspaper said there were going to be eight
or more homes constructed in this one section in Chicago near Francisco and
Pratt. I've found, as I told you, several of them. Also, in the book that was
published based on the competition, one home was built in Palatine, another in
Lombard. Many of them were built in this section I mentioned which is called
Deer Park. Another was built in Highland Park that I have not located. They
were built in several places, and some only the single house such as yours.

Taylor: In that subdivision I don't remember the houses around mine, Betty, as we
looked at it yesterday. The builder was doing something. This house, though it's
not disharmonious, it stands out as being different from the other ones that were
built there at the same time. He was building, and he just felt he wanted to try
something new. I presume that was his reason.

Blum: Are you suggesting one builder built many of the houses on the street?

Taylor: I'm sure he did. There were a lot of empty lots, I imagine, for a while but builders
very seldom build one house. They will build several.

62
Blum: How do you look back on that experience in the scope of your career?

Taylor: I think I was very fortunate. It was impressive and I was pleased by it. I got some
publicity out of it. If there's anything an architect needs, it's enough publicity to
get work. That helped. With a new baby, a new job and other expenses, $1,000
would be a $10,000 prize today, probably.

Blum: Were you actually notified that your home was being built?

Taylor: I knew it was going to be built because the Tribune asked me to make the
drawings for it.

Blum: Did you know where? You seemed to know where the home was located.

Taylor: I was told where it was being built, but I didn't follow its building. I guess they
only asked ten people to make plans. The plans cost the Tribune, I think, almost
as much as the prize. I don't know what my charges to the Tribune was for mine
but I would say offhand between $600 and $1,200.

Blum: You made the rendering, sent it to the Tribune, and what are we looking at
today? Is this yours?

Taylor: You're looking at a rendering that was made by a professional renderer from
New York who is deceased now. At the time, he was considered to be one of the
top renderers in the country. As a matter of fact, most of the others, and I think
there were six artists who did renderings, all of them were well-known. Floyd
Yewell was a well-known renderer in the East, George Rudolph was a well-
known renderer also. Kautzky, I think, made the best renderings, certainly the
ones that I liked the best. There were a half dozen of the renderings that he did.
The Tribune put the thing over very well in their handling.

Blum: Did the Tribune hire the renderer?

Taylor: Yes.

63
Blum: You didn't specify who you wanted as your renderer?

Taylor: No, indeed not.

Blum: You just submitted your drawing.

Taylor: The rendering of my particular house was probably made directly from the
perspective that I laid out. My perspective as submitted was a pen and ink
drawing.

Blum: Do you have that?

Taylor: I don't have it, no. I had it around for a while, I don't know what happened to it.
It was only a reproduction. If I had known forty years later there would be an
exhibition, I would have been more careful to preserve it.

Blum: The process was you made a pen and ink rendering, sent it to the Tribune, what
followed?

Taylor: This description indicates what the specific design problem was: "A dwelling of
not over 1,100 square feet floor area, suitable for a site thirty feet wide, 150 feet
deep, and adequate for a family of three: father, mother and son, age six." That's
all it was, 1,100 square feet, which is small. For the presentation, the size of a
board is given, and I think it twenty by thirty, as I remember, it might have been
larger. On the board is a perspective rendering of the design of the house, the
floor plan and the site plan of the lot, a small roof plan, a cross section, and then
a list of basic materials. This is the normal thing, and I think the Tribune was like
that. From that they judge. No color was permitted in the submission.

Blum: This is what you sent to them?

Taylor: This was the total submission, except each designer presents his own design.
Then the judgment is held. The jury puts ribbons on some, no ribbons on others,

64
 and those who receive the ribbons win. Then it's up to the Tribune. What did they
do it for? It was good copy and an interesting project for their newspaper. They
had to prepare, and the way they decided to prepare for their readership was to
have the renderings made into color for publishing them in their rotogravure
section. It was a very colorful page. They had each of the houses done by a
different renderer. I think Kautzky did four or five of them, and each of the other
renderers about the same number. A couple of months later they put it forth in
the Tribune as a feature. I think it was a very successful one for them.

Blum: If I'm not mistaken, several houses ran in the Sunday section.

Taylor: On the same page for several Sundays.

Blum: Then there was, of course, an explanation and little biographies of the winners.
When were you asked to do working drawings then?

Taylor: After that I think the announcement came from the Tribune that they were going
to construct some of the houses. Maybe it was advertised at the outset, I don't
recall. They got into the development and the Tribune thought the logical thing
would be that the design architect should make the working drawings, which
was logical. I was contacted by Boyd Hill, the Tribune architect, and asked to
make the working drawings. I was probably told the fee that they would pay me
and I said, "Fine." Then I did it, and I turned over the tracings to them. They took
it from there, and chose the builder. I don't know whether they subsidized the
building or not, they might or might not have.

Blum: Did you know anyone on the jury?

Taylor: I knew them subsequently; I didn't know them at the time. I knew of John Merrill
because Merrill was involved in the Federal Housing Administration at that
time. He later became a partner in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. I knew Irv
Bleitz, too. As a matter of fact, Irv Bleitz, after the Tribune competition, invited
me to visit his home. He was out of the depression big by that time and was
doing pretty well. He said, "Would you like to come with me as my chief

65
 designer and chief architect?" I said, "Well, Mr. Bleitz, would I ever have an
opportunity to be part of the firm?" He said, "No, my son is young, and he's
going to go into the firm. I'm not going to divide it." I said, "Mr. Bleitz, I'm sorry,
I'll let you know, but as of this moment I want to be an independent architect."
That's the way it was.

Blum: Did you know Andrew Rebori?

Taylor: Sure. However, I can't say that I knew him well. I knew him to identify him. I
went to a number of parties that the Architects' Club had, and Andy used to go.
He liked the relaxing liquid that the rest of us did, and he imbibed freely. Rebori
was quite a designer, an interesting designer, and he designed some very
interesting buildings. He had such engineering talent that all he did was to
visually design a beam. If it spanned thirty feet, he just made a thirty-inch deep
beam. It was hardly true engineering, but most of the time it wouldn't collapse.
He was a character.

Blum: How do you remember him?

Taylor: As being an unusual person who talked quite well. Younger people, like myself,
listened to him, laughed at him, laughed with him. As I recall him he was quite a
jovial guy. He had some great sayings that I can't quote now. He did some good
buildings around Chicago, including a chapel at Loyola University at their
Uptown campus, or whatever it is called, around North Sheridan Road. Rather a
nice chapel, late Art Deco, and good architecture of the period. He also designed
a small apartment building on North State Parkway. Edgar Miller did some
sculpture for this project.

Blum: Did you know Philip Maher?

Taylor: I knew Phil Maher. I knew him late in his career. He was a good Art Deco
designer, the architect of the 1930s. The last time I was in contact with him was
when the Stuarts, I think they were Quaker Oats people, wanted to donate a
Historical Society building in Kenilworth. The building would also have the

66
 Village offices. Kenilworth, being a small village about a mile square, with only
three or four thousand people, didn't need a great amount of village
administrative space: a village manager, a police department, and a place to pay
water bills and so on. The Kenilworth Historical Society wanted a historical
museum for display of memorabilia and artifacts. I think it's been called the
Stuart Museum. Phil, at that time, had no staff. He was a little infirm, but still an
architect with ideas. He designed a building that was really of the 1920s. He
contacted me and asked if I would come down to the Tavern Club and have
lunch with him. I said, "Fine." Phil said, "I'd like you to do the working drawings
for this building." He had some preliminary sketches and I said, "Fine, I'll look at
it." After we'd gotten together, I said "would you mind making a few little
changes because frankly, I think, the roof system, the floor system, the HVAC
system—that's heating, ventilating, air conditioning system—were 1929, and
here this must have been in the 1960s, I guess. Even the design was of the same
vintage, exterior. I was Coder Taylor Associates then, but Morgan Yost got
involved some way.

Blum: This is after your partnership?

Taylor: After our partnership had dissolved. So I had one of my staff architects make a
sketch of a proposed exterior. I showed it to Phil and proposed some other
changes. He said, "Nothing doing, no changes." I knew I was going to be more or
less across the street from the building. Also, I knew the building, as Phil wanted
it, would have a lot of problems in construction—leaks and systems not working,
and so on. I didn't want to be a party to it, which is just as well, since I didn't care
for its aesthetic design anyway. I would have enjoyed the opportunity had he
been flexible to reasonable changes, but he wasn't, so that was the end of that. I
didn't want to compromise on it. It was too close to home.

Blum: This is today the Kenilworth Historical Society building?

Taylor: Yes. I think it's called the Stuart Memorial building. It's a nice 1929 building. I
would say that, and Phil's dead. He's probably turning over his grave right now.
He did some good things some years ago.

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Blum: After that competition and all the notoriety it gave you, did that sort of launch
your career again in Chicago after the war?

Taylor: It certainly did. It helped considerably.

Blum: You then took the offer to join Holsman, Holsman and Klekamp?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: You joined their office in 1945?

Taylor: Late 1945, I think it was November or December.

Blum: Wasn't that about the same time as this competition?

Taylor: The competition submission time was a little earlier than that, maybe it ended
about that time. I really don't know recall. I had to get mine in for the reason I
mentioned, a family. Maybe it did extend beyond, I don't remember.

Blum: One thing before we go on to Holsman, Holsman and Klekamp: how did you
come into possession of many of the drawings from the Tribune competition that
you subsequently gave to the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute?

Taylor: As I recall it, the Tribune gave these drawings to the University of Illinois at Navy
Pier. The head of that was Professor Harold MacEldowney, who I knew quite
well. Also, his secretary I got to know, I guess, through architectural affairs. She
just happened to call me one day and say, "These drawings are here—would you
care for yours?" I said, "Sure, I certainly would." Kautzky did it, and mine was an
original Kautzky. It's almost like an original of any good artist. I went down the
next day, I think, to get it, and there were a number of other renderings there. I
asked, "What are you going to do with these?" She said, "Oh, probably throw
them out." I said, "Well, not now—would you mind if I have them?" She said,

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 "No, fine, take them." I took everything. Not all of them were there, and I have no
idea what happened to the rest of them.

Blum: I think you gave the Art Institute all the drawings that you received from them; I
think we have nine or ten.

Taylor: Yes, I gave all I had to the Art Institute.

Blum: Those were the only ones that survived or do you think perhaps she had
distributed others before she had called you?

Taylor: It's hard to tell. I talked to some of the other competitors and they had never
gotten theirs. Through the years, I talked to Ed Burch, and he didn't have his. I
talked also to Ray Garbe, and I don't think Ray had his.

Blum: He had the working drawings. He did not have the rendering.

Taylor: Did I have the rendering of his? Maybe I did.

Blum: Yes, it was in that batch, that's how we happened to have it.

Taylor: Ok, I did have it.

Blum: Garbe has subsequently given them to us, the working drawings on several linen
sheets.

Taylor: The one that I really would liked to have had and didn't have was the design of
architect Arthur Myhrum. I thought it was a very interesting house.

Blum: I don't believe that was in the batch.

Taylor: I saw Myhrum's widow one time and I asked her, and she didn't know where it
was. I guess, it's lost. These things have a way of getting lost. I was glad that I

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 rescued some of them, which I stored in the lower level of our office building in
Kenilworth.

Blum: How did you decide to offer them to the Art Institute?

Taylor: At the time that I decided to retire, or at least sell the business and take things
easier, I had a basement full of things that I thought would be of interest to the
Art Institute. John Zukowsky had asked if I had anything architectural, so this
was just some of them. He came out and looked through the clutter of drawings
and said, "Fine."

Blum: We're fortunate that you salvaged them, saved them, and subsequently gave
them to us because we're now using them as part of an exhibition, as you know.

Taylor: That's great. I'm glad to hear it.

Blum: When you went with Holsman, Holsman and Klekamp, you knew Mr. Klekamp
prior to...?

Taylor: I knew all of them quite well. I didn't know the senior Holsman as well as I came
to know him later. They were all in offices on the same floor, the top floor of the
Marquette building in Chicago before the war.

Blum: As your office was when you were with Mr. Zook?

Taylor: Right, before the war. They remained there during the war and were there when
I came back from the service.

Blum: There was Henry K. Holsman, the father?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: Were there three sons or two?

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Taylor: There were three sons, and two sons were in architecture with their father—twin
sons, almost identical, John and William—and Ben Klekamp, whom I had known
very well before the war.

Blum: How did this office work in the sense of responsibility in that there were already
four principals and you were going to be the fifth?

Taylor: When I came to the office, my first position was under Klekamp, who was in
charge of design and construction, more in construction and contracts than in
design. John was principally the designer at that time. Bill was the business
manager; Henry K., Sr., was more or less the emeritus man, but he was quite
influential. He was at the office every day and read his correspondence. He
wasn't really as influential in detail as he was in philosophy of what they were
attempting to do. Later as we became larger, Klekamp took on contracts and
specifications, and I took on design and production of working drawings, and
specifications, when I had to. John was in promotion and in running the trusts. It
was an interesting organization, they brought in quite a number of other people
to assist in the business aspects of the trust, the Community Development Trust,
which was set up by Henry K.

Blum: This is a concept that he had promoted as early as the 1920s?

Taylor: That's correct, as mutual ownership, which paralleled the cooperative.

Blum: Please explain what that was all about.

Taylor: Mutual ownership was a derivative of the old cooperative, in which people
would own apartments in large-scale projects. But they never owned the
apartment per se; it was always tied in with all others in the building. During the
1920s a lot of these co-ops all along Lake Shore Drive went sour. The owners
would lose apartments and buildings. The condition would result in a building
that half of the people had defaulted on and moved out of. The remaining half
either had to pay the absentee costs of financing, and the buildings were all
highly mortgaged, and maintenance, or move out themselves. There were a lot of

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 vacant buildings of that kind. Mutual ownership got involved and what they had
was not titled in the sense of a specific apartment. Mutual owners had interest in
a trust that was set up and it owned the building. Not too dissimilar from the
land trust where there's no name. It's just a trust with beneficiaries. Everyone in
the venture became a beneficiary—they would put their money in and be
beneficiaries of the trust. They did not own a specific apartment. There was an
interest, almost a stock interest in the trust. It was safer because if a person
couldn't keep up payments, it wasn't his apartment he was leaving, he was
leaving an apartment that could be rented to someone else. This would keep the
building from failing. It became a legally strong instrument.

Blum: The owner wasn't an owner, he was a stockholder in a corporation?

Taylor: In a sense he was. Mutual ownership was not ownership of a specific apartment
bricks and mortar. The present name for it, of course, is condominium. However,
that's a different thing again, where you actually own the parcel that you buy,
that you pay money for, where you didn't in mutual ownership. It has worked
fairly successfully because we've been in a period that it could work
successfully—no serious depression.

Blum: Isn't this community development trust concept...?

Taylor: It was the concept of Henry K. Holsman.

Blum: Yes, isn't that equivalent to co-ops as opposed to condominiums or is it different

from co-ops?

Taylor: It's different from each of them because of the trust ownership. I think there's a
document here that indicates the difference. It was a different thing, and
supposedly safer for the owner. Also the other phase of' it was that the people
themselves are developing the thing. The entity of development was the
Community Development Trust, which theoretically was a not-for-profit entity.
Co-operatives were developed by developers and sold. Condominiums are

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 developed by developers and sold. Mutual ownership was developed by the
people, the people who were to live in it, by a trust which they managed.

Blum: "People" meaning the people who occupied the building?

Taylor: Right. That was quite a difference. It became a concept that was dragged down
eventually, but had it worked it would have been a great development, and
apartments were a lot less costly. There was no profit in it, which could have
been up to 30 percent and 40 percent, had it been developed any other way.

Blum: What was the benefit for the Holsmans being in such an arrangement? Certainly
they got paid.

Taylor: They were paid, they had their salaries, but they were reasonable. A stockholder
corporation does the same thing, their officers are paid. That's what this was.
Henry K., his two sons and Ben Klekamp all had a strong feeling of the need for
this type of service to the community. Frankly, I was probably never quite as
enthusiastic about the whole concept as they were. I felt here we're doing
something beneficial for someone, for people. They felt it very stongly. They
were proud of it. I remember the Holsman sons were relatively quiet, they
weren't boisterous. Bill would talk to meetings and then he'd walk out. People,
during the early parts of this period, the late 1940s, would think he was almost a
messiah walking around. It was a very interesting concept. We were getting
publicity all over the country. As a matter of fact, England had even sent a
housing group over to see how we did it. It was very interesting until the
problem surfaced.

Blum: Do I understand some of the literature correctly, they were called garden
apartments?

Taylor: Garden apartments, most of them, but some of them were not garden
apartments.

Blum: Most of the buildings were three or four stories?

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Taylor: They'd go up to five. Lunt Lake is nine.

Blum: According to this list, the buildings prior to the war from 1922 to 1927 were as
small as twelve units and as large as sixty units.

Taylor: Most of them are on the South Side of Chicago.

Blum: After the war they got quite a bit larger. They ran anywhere from seventy-two
units up to 694 units. That was practically a whole community that was
developed with that many units. When such a project was proposed, as I
understand the literature, and please correct me, people put down a down
payment on what they wanted. They didn't buy a unit, they bought stock. Is that
what you're saying?

Taylor: They bought a document of beneficiary. They were a beneficiary of a trust that
held title to that specific development or project.

Blum: They bought that say for $2,000 per interest?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: Was anything built at that time?

Taylor: No.

Blum: The money had to be gathered from the people on promise, or prior to any
construction, and then with that money they needed what percentage to then go
out and get financing to begin construction?

Taylor: I don't remember exactly, but it was usually between 50 percent and 65 percent.

Blum: Do I understand it?

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Taylor: You're almost correct, but let's go back just a little bit. The parent entity was the
Community Development Trust. Each project had its own trust. Under this
parent was Winchester Hood Trust, and various other ones. Lunt Lake Trust and
so on, each development had their own name. These were all the ones after the
war, they were all individual trusts. I'm not sure that they were all under the
Community Development Trust. The idea of home ownership was all of a trust
nature. Community Development Trust was the parent entity I'm talking about,
of which Holsman, Sr., was the Executive Director and Executive Secretary. Then
there was a project such as Winchester Hood's the first phase, second and third
phases of extension A, extension B, and extension C. In the beginning the parent
trust would finance up to the point of assembly of people. Required are
brochures, publicity, cost of collecting money, etc. The advance money was given
by the Community Development Trust as a loan to the new individual trust.

[Tape 5]

Blum: The individual trust was then funded by people who wished to occupy space in
that particular project?

Taylor: Correct, and when it got to the point that money is in, and a satisfactory number
of people committed, in relation to the size of the project that it could be financed
by a lender, perhaps needed would be approximately 60 percent of the total units
to be funded by a prospective owner, then the mortgagee would say, "Well, we'll
go ahead with financing." Then construction could start.

Blum: Who were the usual mortgagees? Was Clement ever a mortgagee?

Taylor: Yes. They were not the mortgagee. Federal Housing Administration was for
Parkway Gardens, that was one. Most of the others were not under the Federal.
Western and Southern Insurance Company of Cincinnati was one of the major
independent lenders. I think Promontory probably had a New York insurance
company as lender.

Blum: So these were privately financed?

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Taylor: Yes. I don't recall any other than Parkway Gardens that were financed by Federal
Housing. FHA was very strict. We had so many innovative construction
processes that FHA found it difficult to accept. There was one of the things that
the trust fostered—innovative ways of building, less costly ways of building,
quicker ways of constructing. All of these things had an important impact on the
whole development. In dealing with the government, anything out of line was
verboten, you don't discuss it. We weren't going to compromise, we wanted
these houses built. I spent almost six months, everyday—well, every other day,
perhaps—at the Federal Housing Administration office going through these
plans and trying to sell them on different types of construction. These were
innovative things and they were good things. Of course, when this gets around,
such publications as Architectural Forum became interested. They wanted to have
a complete publication on the unusual components of construction, which they
did.

Blum: In the January 1950 issue there was quite a section devoted to, what they called,
"Pioneering Construction Ideas of Holsman and Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor."

Taylor: I believe that was the title.

Blum: What were some of these innovative ideas?

Taylor: To start out: instead of having a story, that is the distance between one floor and
the next floor, of nine or ten feet, which was normal, we design a floor system
that would permit the structural parts, beams, and slabs, to be exposed in the
rooms. That would cut out eight inches of height. Our story heights were, instead
of nine to ten feet, eight feet and three inches. In cutting down story height we
cut down cubage, and this didn't effect the aesthetics at all. Most people like the
appearance, and we obtained the same effect as if we had an eight-foot ceiling. In
five stories we reduced the height by over three. As a result, the building cost to
enclose is a significant percentage less. Another thing that was developed was
the structural wall. It was still built of brick, but it permitted eight- and nine-
story buildings to be built with eight-inch thick walls. They were reinforced and

76
 the cavity filled with concrete. The system was called row-lock. The bricks were
laid in a row-lock fashion, which means the face of the bricks, not the normal
two-inch, but the three and three-quarters inches showing. A void results in the
wall, and the header course of eight inches extends through the full thickness of
the wall. This sounds probably a little over technical, but that's the way it was
constructed. The resulting void receives a reinforcing rod to develop a reinforced
masonry concrete wall, filled with concrete grout. It becomes a very strong
structural wall. When we were constructing a project in Chicago, it was
necessary to have it approved. We had to have it approved by the city building
department in order to utilize the design. We did a number of projects in
Chicago.

Blum: Were these construction methods patented? Who developed them?

Taylor: We developed them in the office. I designed some, John and Ben did a lot, and
H.K. was a very inventive person. For the most part, they were not patented, but
they could have been, most were tested before they were used.

Blum: Were these ideas the idea of one person or were they collaborative efforts?

Taylor: Everything was collaborative, efforts of the entire organization, working in

harmony. There were no "prima donnas" in the firm.

Blum: They were all for the purpose of cutting down on construction costs?

Taylor: Yes, for the most part, but some were construction time savers, while saving
costs. That's the reason these projects were being built for 10 percent to 20
percent less than other housing projects were costing for the same areas.

Blum: Did the office get a patent? How did you identify it as yours?

Taylor: We patented some of the components, some of the systems, the floor systems
specifically. I'm not sure that the wall was patentable, but the system of heating
was. This was something that was very interesting, just the heating. We used hot

77
 water heat, radiant, one of the first in the whole country to use this method. It's
not used very much anymore. Where we had these steel beams exposed in the
rooms they became radiation elements. By putting only a 3/8-inch tubing, now
this is very thin, a little larger than a pencil, that had water going through them,
three feet on center and warming the ceiling in one, the floor in another
apartment. Every apartment had its own thermostat to control the temperature.
There was a factor of what it did to the other apartment, but since 70 percent of
the heat came down, and 30 percent up, that was a controllable factor. That was
another one of the innovations. There were quite a number, for instance the
steps, the stairs to apartments. Since you only have an eight-foot four-inch story
height you had one less step than if you'd had the typical story height. We had
precast concrete steps that were placed on a steel pan—less costly. We developed
wardrobe doors that are still used by some developers, they've advanced a little
perhaps. They were sliding doors. We developed the extrusion that they slide on,
and have a pipe edge that was specially made for it. We became involved in all of
these components. It was very, very interesting. The plasterers got to the point
where they were trying to control what they did and it affected the cost. They
would work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, then Saturday, at time and a half,
Sunday at double time and take off Monday and Tuesday. It was a squeeze of the
industry.

Blum: This was the union?

Taylor: The union was doing it. They called it the Chicago Plastering Institute, but it was
the union.

Blum: How were you able to deal with that?

Taylor: We dealt with it in a couple of ways. U.S. Gypsum was looking for new ways of
using their product, and they came out with a prefabricated board which was
called drywall. Drywall in itself, using wood studs was not fireproof, and using
metal studs was prohibitive in cost because of the labor factor. We developed a
system in the U.S. Gypsum factory. They would make two-inch partitions,
prefab. We just had to put them in a ledger across the floor and at the ceiling, in a

78
 track. It took about half the labor that other partitions would take, and it was less
costly. However, even that was expensive, so we developed a plant, owned a
plant, that made precast concrete blocks by machine. You see those concrete
blocks in the wall outside the window?

Blum: Yes.

Taylor: They were made on a machine and we used those as partitions and in walls,
they're hollow block. They came out at less cost than the plaster wall would be. I
think the amusing thing of this, really Betty, is a happening at one of the home
shows. Audrey and I went to the show because we were concerned with being a
suburbanite too. I was living in one of the buildings, we designed in Evanston
with 132 apartments, and I was one of the managing trustees of that trust. We
shared these jobs. You had to have some connection in order to make the things
work. I was the managing trustee but everyone thought I was the janitor.
Anytime the mutual owners would have a job or problem, I would be called,
Christmas, holidays, and every other time. I became a little tired after three years
of that. We bought this property and built here [722 Redwood Lane, Glenview,
Illinois]. During that period I went to one of those home shows and the
Plastering Institute had a big contest featured. By that time, I was beginning to
like contests a little more. It was to write an essay completing this sentence: "I
like plastering in my home because..." Have you heard that?

Blum: No.

Taylor: In fifty words or less you have to complete it. Audrey said to me, "You know a
lot about plaster, you've been trying to get rid of the stuff." She grabbed a couple
of entry blanks and we went home. During the week, I gave it a little thought,
and wrote an essay, fifty words. I sent it in and a couple of months later a fellow,
Byron Dalton, called me. He called me by my first name, and I had never heard
of him before. "Coder, you've got a very good essay." I said, "An essay?" He said,
"Yes, in the Plastering Institute contest." I said, "Gee, that's interesting isn't it?"
He said, "Do you know there's a $3,000 first prize?" I said, "Yes, I remember
now." He said, "I'd like to have dinner with you." I said, "Fine." He took me to the

79
 LaSalle Hotel and his assistant was there. He said, "We're having a little trouble
in Chicago. They want to write a new code making plaster a little less necessary."
The code was written then where you couldn't do a thing without plaster. If you
wanted to put up wood paneling, you had to have plaster behind it. It was just
really closed. Someone had gotten the word—enough architects had complained
and the owners and everyone else—so they were going to write the new code on
plaster requirements, among other things. He said, "Would you represent the
Plastering Institute?" They'd go to these hearings and talk about it. By that time,
I'd gotten a little rep, not much, but a little. I said, "Byron, I don't really feel that I
have the qualifications to do it. Why don't you get John Merrill? John knows his
way around and he would make a good person for it." Well, of course, they
couldn't get John Merrill. He would have done well if he had done it. He
probably wouldn't do it anymore than I wanted to do it. Because of excessive
costs, we were trying to get rid of the darn stuff in buildings, and substitute less
costly materials.

Blum: You didn't explain your prior problems?

Taylor: I didn't explain it. He knew of it. He was aware. In any event, I said no. He said,
"Well, okay, we'll look at your thing again." As I walked out, I said to myself,
"Well, I just lost the first prize." About a month or two later he called, and said,
"Well, we finally decided that you won the first prize." I didn't have to do
anything for it. He said, "When do you want it? Do you want it this year or next
year, for taxes?" I said, "What I'm making now it really doesn't matter. You can
do it either way." It came out in the front page of the Tribune, "Architect Wins
First Prize," in this contest. I walked into the office the next morning, which was
on East Erie at that time I think. My partners wanted to throw me off the
top—we were on about the eighth floor. There was genuine consternation! Ben
Klekamp said, "Here we're trying to get rid of plaster and you write a thing 'I like
to get plastered because…'" He was a little more humorous than the Holsmans
were about it. That was an interesting little thing. Here we were trying to get rid
of this darn stuff, substitute something that was less costly, and they give me
$3,000 for a fifty-word essay extolling its use. It was very interesting.

80
Blum: For singing the praises of plaster. Were you singing the praises of the plasterers'
union?

Taylor: It meant that. No, it was the material. It was the result, not the union per se.
Plaster is still good—it's still good today—but the abuse was so bad, that was the
thing.

Blum: Did the Holsman organization in fact deal with the problems of the Plasterers
Union by simply using another product?

Taylor: That's the only way you could deal with it. You couldn't fight them any other
way, substitution was the only way of doing it.

Blum: Were there other unions in Chicago that were difficult?

Taylor: The lathers were bad, the plumbers were bad. The plumbers and the heating
people, the pipe trades is what we called them. The pipe trades were getting
together and they would decide who got what job. They still do that in Chicago
you know, spread the jobs around, which minimizes competition.

Blum: What do you mean "who gets what?"

Taylor: They get together in a group and say, "Well, you got the last job, now it is so-and-
so's turn." They all put in figures, bids, for the construction, and they're all
higher. The low bid will be the fellow who was supposed to have his turn.

Blum: They had decided who should do the job and structure the bidding accordingly?

Taylor: A few years ago, the road builders were doing that in Chicago and several of the
culprits were put in prison for it. It's restraint of trade.

Blum: It certainly doesn't sound like free enterprise.

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Taylor: It doesn't sound like anything other than Chicago, but it's done in New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and all the rest of the major cities. It varies, there are highs
and there are lows of what companies are doing it.

Blum: I've heard that Chicago has been called the most unionized city in the country;
do you think that's true?

Taylor: It's one of the most, yes. I think it is. It's very difficult to deal without having
some affiliation with the union.

Blum: How did the Holsman organization go about explaining these innovative
techniques which were developed because of cost cutting, or more economical
measures of construction.

Taylor: Yes, more economical.

Blum: How were they defended with the financing bodies?

Taylor: We were fortunate to be able to sell, and John did a very good job of that, and
H.K., too, he had prestige. Certain insurance companies, such as Western and
Southern in Cincinnati, were eager to be involved in something new.

Blum: Western and Southern financed which projects?

Taylor: They financed most of the Winchester Hood's phases, I think. They financed
Sherman Garden Apartments in Evanston.

Blum: Who did the Parkway Gardens?

Taylor: That was FHA. Lunt Lake, which is an important project that PACE Associates
did with us. It was financed by a New York outfit we were able to convince that
the innovations had merit.

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Blum: Was it different dealing with the FHA than dealing with private insurance
companies?

Taylor: Indeed, it was a very different thing.

Blum: Did the FHA seek to impose restrictions on design?

Taylor: Well, just like any government entity, it was restrictive. I think the real secret of
getting it approved was to try to familiarize the staff, who were not familiar with
innovative methods, that the merit of the design or the merit of the item was in
effect a cost-saving device. They couldn't argue about that point, but it took a
long time to convince them.

Blum: What about aesthetics?

Taylor: They weren't too concerned about aesthetics, although we were. That didn't pose
a problem. The problem that was posed was principally the innovative
construction differences. I made a lot of renderings, and they were good
renderings. They could sell them and the buildings weren't that bad in aesthetic
appearance. They were considerably better than a lot of buildings that were
being built at that time in many ways.

Blum: Mr. Taylor, how do you remember Henry Holsman, the older man?

Taylor: I had a great reverence for Mr. Holsman. I recall when I was even taking the time
to research whether or not I should come back from California to the firm. I went
to the library in Los Angeles and looked up his listing in Who's Who and at the
time. I was so impressed by how distinguished a person that Mr. Holsman was
that this was one of the reasons that I wanted to get back with him. He wasn't a
great architect alone, but he had done some very interesting things. His listing in
Who's Who had indicated that he had invented an automobile. There was a
Holsman automobile, and quite a number of other things that I can't recall at this
moment. I was impressed by the gentleman. When I got back he was a warm
person to me, and we struck up quite a relationship, the young architect, the new

83
 kid, and the old distinguished architect who was a Fellow of the AIA and had
been president of the Chicago chapter many years ago and so on. I was very fond
of him and I think that he had a regard for my youth and eagerness to do
something. It was very pleasant.

Blum: You express quite an admiration for him. Was there any such relationship as an
adoption of a protégé or anything of this sort?

Taylor: There was a great deal of admiration, but I don't think there was anything about
being a protégé, although perhaps it could be considered that. He was not in
detail design as my work was; our day-to-day contact was not very close. The
professional relationship was very friendly.

Blum: How do you remember his sons? I presume his sons were your contemporaries?

Taylor: They are probably five years or more older than I am. They were warm people. I
think John was warmest to me and yet his identical twin brother was very
congenial. I think John was perhaps a little better designer than Bill ever was. I
think that's the way they saw themselves. They were patient. One of the
problems was that they were too slow in getting to developments, although they
were intellectual people and I enjoyed being with them. I learned a great deal.

Blum: And Mr. Klekamp?

Taylor: Ben was a long-time friend of mine. He was the architect right next to Zook and
Taylor, as an adjoining office almost. There was a door right between us. He was
not a good designer particularly, but he was a good engineer, as Zook used to
call him. He had no engineering license any more than I did, which were both
under a grandfather's clause. I think his academic education was limited. He was
probably my closest friend, even when I was with Zook. He would come in and
ask my opinions of design of his projects and I did things for him. His son was a
concert pianist, and I would go to his concerts. It was a very nice relationship.
When I was finally in the military service, Ben had me to dinner at times when I
was in the few weeks that I would be around Chicago during the war. We'd get

84
 together. The relationship was good. He respected my professional talents and
abilities that he didn't possess. That's the reason he asked me to come back to
Chicago, and he was the instigator in my coming with the firm.

Blum: How large was the firm when you joined it in 1945?

Taylor: I'd say thirty people.

Blum: When you left the firm in 1952?

Taylor: About sixty to seventy-five people, it was quite a firm. It was more than just
architecture, it was the Trust, and there was selling and so on. An important
entity.

Blum: Their work was published, how did that happened? Did the firm make an effort
to get their work published?

Taylor: I guess like a lot of things happen, people get the word and the interest, and the
publishers of newspapers, magazines, other people who publish say, "Well, this
must be copy that we need for the publication." There was no publicity
department in the firm per se. Partners had a way of handling it when it came in,
but not in the sense that some firms do have publicity departments that do
nothing but that.

Blum: Was that true in the late 1940s?

Taylor: With other architectural firms?

Blum: Yes, with any architectural firm in Chicago?

Taylor: Indeed so. Perkins and Will hired people who had been with Better Homes and
Gardens not knowing anything about architecture, but what they might have
read. Ben Graves was one who went with them. I'm sure that SOM and Holabird

85
 and Root and the rest of them did a certain amount of promotion for publicity.
They might not have had a publicity department per se, but they had staff.

Blum: The press really came to you, is that what you're saying?

Taylor: Yes it did. I remember how the article for the Architectural Forum in January of
1960 originated. We received a letter from Perry Prentice, who was the publisher.
I think there's a copy of the letter some place that was directed to me, which it
shouldn't have been. It should have been directed to Henry K., Sr. He said that
this British team had seen all new projects in the United States and the most
impressive thing that they saw in the United States was Lunt Lake apartments.
Perry wanted to publish it. He had never heard of us. I usually got the Forum
because I liked to read about architecture. We didn't make any advance to why it
was published. A few days later he came from New York, and I was given the
job of chauffeuring him around and showing him the projects. That's the way
that one came out. The Christian Science Monitor had an article on a lot of things,
just on the basis of mouth-to-mouth conversation I guess. Rather than recitation
of accomplishments. I think a lot of things develop that way. We had
considerable material to give them or show them, the brochures and so on, and
we got terrific publicity. The idea was new and housing was necessary, and it
was probably the great shortage of housing that required them to do something
about it.

Blum: It seems that the Holsman firm had a unique approach to large-scale housing.
Who were their competitors for such a market among the architectural firms?

Taylor: There were no architectural firms that I'm aware of who were doing this kind of
thing the way that we were.

Blum: Even without the financing feature?

Taylor: There were probably some other firms designing housing. I don't recall there
being very many. Certainly the larger firms were not doing housing. There were
some that were doing public works and public housing.

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Blum: By "public works" do you mean slum clearance?

Taylor: Yes, slum clearance and that kind of thing. We did some ourselves as part of
teams. We had almost a market of our own. It was an unusual situation, a very
unusual situation. There were no firms that I'm aware of in this area that were
doing the research and development that we were doing. This all came from the
Holsmans. It was their inspiration, their will, their desire to do something
beneficial. It was an ideal type of philosophy, trying to do something for the
community and the shortage of housing.

Blum: Obviously the approach came from Henry K. Holsman. Did you ever discuss this
philosophy with him?

Taylor: Certainly, we had long discussions.

Blum: Where it came from, how it evolved?

Taylor: I doubt if I can remember. He did it, of course, in the 1920s. The projects started
small, but he did larger ones. They were all rather close to the University of
Chicago area, where he lived at that time. I don't know the detail of the origin
except that it was his concept and it was a variation of the cooperative. There
were numerous cooperatives around Chicago, along Lake Shore Drive, South
Shore Drive and so on. However, this was a different concept. The co-ops had
gotten such a bad reputation during the depression that no one wanted to do a
cooperative after the war, as such. There were probably a few of them built—the
real surge didn't come until the concept was invented for the condominium type
of ownership.

Blum: Is the state of the cooperative type of ownership prior to the depression the
reason for the shift in organization of this concept, after the war, in the 1940s,
when they began constructing?

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Taylor: I believe so. I believe that the co-ops had such a stigma and they couldn't get
financing. Financiers wouldn't get involved. When mutual ownership came
along, it was an acceptable thing to financing agencies. We all know, anyone who
is in construction, you can't do any kind of a project without construction funds.
The financier or lender will own 80 percent of the project when it finishes.

Blum: There was an address that Henry K. Holsman's gave at the cornerstone ceremony
for Parkway Garden Homes. This was the first large postwar project of 694 units.
You said this was a project for black residents.

Taylor: That's correct.

Blum: What was the attitude of the day, and specifically the attitude of the firm,
towards integrated housing?

Taylor: The term integration didn't come up, but obviously it was the consideration. For
instance, on this particular project that we're talking about, we had a staff
member, Bryant Hammond, who was a highly respected black in the
community. He came in as practically a vice-president to help nurture this
project in Washington. I would go to Washington with him. I remember one time
we went to Washington to meet with one of the high officials in FHA, and we
could get the doors opened because at that time we weren't talking about
integration. We were talking a little more about helping the blacks you know.
Integration is blending blacks and whites, I guess, and I think that term is a little
more recent than at that period. One of the top people at FHA came over to
me—I was relatively young, I guess I was thirty-two or thirty-five—and he said,
"You know Mr. Taylor, Bryant Hammond is certainly an exceptional
representative for your firm, " and he was. He was highly respected by our firm,
in Washington, and in the black community. I think the fact that we hired him to
assist in the project was an innovation.

Blum: To do what? To present the project to the FHA?

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Taylor: To present the project, and to assist in the political aspects of the projects, to
accomplish it. When something gets political, it's not a sure thing, because of the
various stresses from all sides, and there are always several sides.

Blum: Were there pressures at that time to produce a project and to integrate it?

Taylor: Yes. Not quite as much as later, this was principally a black project in a black
area.

Blum: This was FHA financed?

Taylor: This was FHA. At that time I think the government wanted and needed
something in a black area, something for the blacks that was good. I think
integration came later as a social thing, although there were probably a lot of
integrated housing at that time, but not large projects. However, this project
never was called black

Blum: Why was it black then?

Taylor: It was in a highly black area of the South Side, but white people were in it, so
there was a certain amount of integration. It was never done for black people
alone. We never thought of it as that. We thought of it as a community that
would probably be inhabited by mostly black people, because of, the location
and the backing and so on. It was on 63rd Street and South Parkway, I think.

Blum: Was that pretty much an area in which blacks lived at the time?

Taylor: Indeed so—it was a high black population. It was south of the University of
Chicago and a little west, which was all black in that area.

Blum: Was the FHA, by law, committed to loaning money to projects only if they were
integrated? Was that true at the time?

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Taylor: At that time I'm not sure if that was true. I think it was the policy of the
administration at that time, which was the Truman administration, to develop
things for black people. Whether or not the law was that firm I don't know, or
whether it came after.

Blum: Let me restate my question. Could they loan money on projects that were
restrictive in anyway?

Taylor: That was probably true. Whether or not it was the law or the policy I don't know.
The law is one thing and the policy is another. Certainly after, everything that
had government money in it had to be integrated.

Blum: Except that how they executed this responsibility, in fact, affected what really
happened in our neighborhoods.

Taylor: Certainly. The timing I am not certain of at all. But, as I say, the policy of an
administration sometimes advances a law. The present administration, as you
know, are doing things that are ahead of the law and that will be eventually
tested in court. I'm sure that the policy was an integration policy. Later, I know
the FHA and all government financing on all projects had to be of an integrated
nature. I just don't know when it became mandatory.

Blum: I wondered if that was also true at this time, in 1946. The cornerstone ceremony
was in 1950.

Taylor: The project started about 1946 or 1947. It took a long while to get this project
going. The problems of the types of construction and so on slowed it down, as
well as the land acquisition, which was several blocks of land.

Blum: You mean the acceptance for the financing bodies?

Taylor: The acceptance of it, yes. FHA projects notoriously were not fast movers, this
was under what was known as a Section 608 Program. It was a good program
that was developed by FHA to try to foster housing throughout the country.

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 However, there were a lot of abuses of it, and there were a lot of pretty bad
projects that eventually ended up in court. The basis of the program was good,
one of the best of the housing programs the government has ever had.

Blum: You know, perhaps the best-known of the Holsman projects in this time when
you were associated with them are the two projects designed by Mies van der
Rohe: one, the Promontory and the other, the 860-880 project. How did it come
about that the Promontory project was one of collaboration between Mies's
office, the Holsman office and PACE Associates?

Taylor: Herbert Greenwald was the developer of both of them, and he was a very smart
developer. As a matter of fact, Herb taught the Great Books course at the
University of Chicago in his off time. He was an intellectual, but he also was
motivated to do something different. He was young, he felt he wanted to do
something architectural that would stand out, so he thought that Mies would be
desirable. We had known him before he ever knew Mies. He felt Mies's name
was becoming a little more prominent at that time, so he retained him for
Promontory, which was the first one. He thought he would like to see Mies
design and build a tall building, which he had never done, even though he had
made a number of drawings for projects that were not built. Mies didn't have an
office that was capable of performing a complete service so he associated with
PACE Associates. Genther and, I think, perhaps another one or two in the PACE
organization had studied with Mies and knew the philosophy and the way Mies
wanted to perform. Because Greenwald knew us and knew the Holsman plan of
mutual ownership, he wanted to include that feature, and develop the project
under mutual ownership. We were involved for that, but we were involved, too,
because we were doing a lot of innovative things in construction, and we added
some innovative features to Mies's design. It was principally the mutual
ownership concept and the ability to put projects together that got the three firms
operating jointly as partners in the developments.

Blum: Had PACE been associated with Mies prior to Promontory?

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Taylor: I'm not sure that they ever did any work prior to those projects with Mies. PACE
was relatively a new organization at that time.

Blum: It was really Herb Greenwald's attraction to the Holsman method of financing
that brought your organization into this?

Taylor: Right, that was principally it. We were the sole architect for Sherman Garden
Apartments, which was a Greenwald development. I think that preceded the first
phase of those developments, certainly the acquisition of land in Evanston
preceded Promontory. We were the architects for Sherman, but Herb wanted a
new image. The Sherman Gardens was a forward design building, but not of the
image that he believed Mies could give him.

[Tape 6]

Blum: Mr. Taylor, is it so that Herb Greenwald worked in the Holsman office for
awhile? It seems to me I read that somewhere. He worked as an administrative
assistant in 1945.

Taylor: I think for a very short time.

Blum: Were you there at the time?

Taylor: Yes, I believe that I was there, although I might not have been by a few months.
It might have been early 1945, but I recall that he was there for a short time at the
time I was in the organization.

Blum: What was his reason for working in the Holsman office?

Taylor: I think he wanted to become familiar with how to put together mutual
ownership housing projects. He was interested, and of course, the concept of
mutual ownership went way back, beyond that, to the 1920s. Herb was an
intellectual person and young enough to want to learn of these things.

92
Blum: You say it was to familiarize himself with that method of financing?

Taylor: Yes, but also to learn about developing projects, which he later did.

Blum: Do you know how Herb Greenwald met Mies or decided to use Mies as his
architect for the Promontory?

Taylor: No. I'm not familiar in detail as to how. I think it was principally that he had read
of Mies, and he was well read. He conceivably knew someone who was at Illinois
Tech at that time, but I really can't say how their meeting occurred. However, he
did come to the conclusion that he wanted something to be designed by Mies.
Mies at that time had nothing in the multi-family, multi-story building. There
was nothing that he had done except renderings of proposed but unbuilt
structures.

Blum: He had done some buildings on campus by that time.

Taylor: But they weren't tall buildings; they were all relatively low, one- and two-story
buildings.

Blum: So Mies designed the Promontory?

Taylor: He designed the Promontory. Actually there were architects and engineers of
PACE Associates who did the detailed design, and they did the working
drawings, and took the bids. Frank Kornacker was the structural engineer.
Structure became an important part because Mies wanted exposed concrete, and
there hadn't been many exposed concrete jobs around this area or any area at
that time. It was known as architectural concrete. I think that was the title given
to it. All the reinforced concrete columns and beams were exposed, even where
they were flush with the wall. This was an interesting aspect of the design. It
indicated the basic structure of the building. Some loft buildings had been
constructed with exposed structure, but no apartment buildings.

93
Blum: I understand from what's been published about the project that Mies designed
the Promontory in two materials; one in concrete, one steel and glass.

Taylor: I believe that was correct, yes.

Blum: How was it that the concrete version was the one that everyone decided on?

Taylor: As I recall, concrete was less costly. Steel, at that time, was more expensive,
although there might have been other factors that I might not be aware of.

Blum: How did these three offices mesh in their collaboration?

Taylor: They meshed very well. PACE was represented by Charles Genther, Mies by
himself, although he had some people with him, but he had a minor office at that
time.

Blum: Who were the people?

Taylor: I don't recall the Mies people at that time. John Holsman represented our firm. I
think they all respected each other, and it was an harmonious association. Each
of the members had his tasks defined and I think each of them performed well.

Blum: How long did the project take to execute?

Taylor: I don't recall how long, but probably from beginning to end it was a couple of
years. First is the period of acquisition of land, then the period of preliminary
design, the development of drawings, the bidding, and the construction. For that
type of a building I would say in the neighborhood of twenty-four months.

Blum: Frank Kornacker is mentioned in so many important Chicago projects.

Taylor: He was an important person. Frank was a Hungarian, as I remember, and

probably one of the foremost engineers around Chicago. He would do
innovative structural things. Perhaps the architects would come up with, "Well,

94
 Frank, can we do it this way?" He'd say, "Well, of course, we can do it this way."
Another engineer might have said, "Aw, it's too expensive," or, "It can't be done
structurally." Frank was a very forward-thinking engineer. He wasn't, I would
say, a great businessman. I enjoyed working with Frank and he worked on a lot
of our projects, as well as with Mies and PACE Associates.

Blum: How large an office did Kornacker have?

Taylor: It varied, that was one of the problems, and it's still a problem of architects and
engineers. When you get a large job you hire and when the job is completed you
fire, which is an unfortunate thing. You have little continuity. I think he
developed most when he obtained a section of the tollway to design the
engineering, and he expanded his office considerably. I think that was the thing
that he took a real licking on financially. That is one of the problems and it's still
a problem of the large firms. The expansion to do work at hand, and then upon
completion, the necessity to deflate.

Blum: You mean that their work is cyclical?

Taylor: Indeed, architecture has been that since the beginning of time I guess. One of the
ways that I kept it under control was to turn down some jobs that would not be
good for us. I mean, as far as doing them or their inspirational value, and
whether or not they're going to mean anything to the firm long range.

Blum: Isn't that hard to do?

Taylor: I guess it's always difficult to turn down a project that you've worked hard for,
and then when it comes you can't do it. I think it's a discipline that few architects
observe, but it's a very important one when you can and do.

Blum: In the construction of the Promontory, were there any problems that occurred?

Taylor: I don't recall any specific ones, except for the quality of the work. Skip Genther
might know a few more, but I don't recall any particular one.

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Blum: What worked best in the building? What aspect of that project do you think
worked best from your point of view, which was from, I suppose, the Holsman
firm's point of view?

Taylor: I think I'd have to look at the whole thing as being a project that was being done
by collaborators. I think it was a good project and still is a good project. I think
the planning was reasonably good for the period. The site is as good as you can
do on an interior lot, as I remember it to be. I haven't reviewed the plan recently.
I think generally the architectural concept well done.

Blum: Who arranged the siting for South Shore Drive?

Taylor: There wasn't much flexibility, it was a relatively small lot that had to be built on,
much the same as many city lots. Mies probably did the layout, governed by side
and rear yard requirements. All of these factors entered into it. You just can't
plan as you would like, you have to observe the restrictive codes. I think he
probably did, but PACE obviously reviewed whether or not it complied. That
wasn't a big problem, siting specifically. There was no flexibility. Comparing it to
other projects where the site is 12-15 acres and there are 35-50 buildings, then
siting becomes an interesting problem. I'm thinking particularly of Parkway
Gardens, which had a lot of buildings, I've forgotten how many, possibly 35. The
siting became as much a problem as the building design.

Blum: You mentioned that architects, Mies perhaps as one example, and Henry
Holsman as another, treated sitings differently.

Taylor: I think they faced different problems. I believe actually Mies in many of his
projects, most of them around Chicago—he did have some in Montreal—had a
little more acreage to work with. Most of the projects and high rises in
Chicago—Promontory, 860-880, some on the north side of Chicago—had limited
acreage, limited land so they couldn't do very much. I think on the other hand
Mies didn't observe, for instance, orientation. His buildings were the same on the
South Side as they were on the North Side and probably the same had they faced

96
 east, west, north or south. On the other hand, I think Holsman and our firm, the
total firm again, had a feeling for orientation, a feeling for spaciousness within an
area, as in Parkway Gardens. It consisted of thirty-five fireproof buildings and
694 units. They were arranged in triangular courts, where you had inner play
areas, inner park areas, and parking areas that were designed for the project
instead of just putting the parking back someplace because it's the only space
left. I think the architect is faced, first of all, with his design problem, but how
does it relate to the area that it's being designed for. When you have larger
flexibility, you can do perhaps a little better job. I think that Holsman had a
feeling for these larger things. For most of the projects that I was involved in and
those that went before, the firm was concerned with play areas and so on. I'm not
sure the Promontory even has a play area, yet they have children. 860-880 doesn't
have a place. It's not a problem in these particular buildings, but you take any of
the public housing buildings and it is a problem when you have a great number
of families.

Blum: Could it be that the Holsmans had projects that had many buildings and Mies
perhaps had one or two on a limited space?

Taylor: This is true. That was the advantage of the Community Development Trust, they
became the developer. Even with Greenwald, all he did was buy a property, a lot
or several, instead of acreage.

Blum: I have almost always heard that Greenwald was the developer, the financier, the
person who made all this possible. You're suggesting that he was just the person
who bought the land?

Taylor: That's what a developer is really, an assembler of land, financing, etc., though he
is not the financier, providing the money.

Blum: Oh. The developer doesn't arrange for financing and see it all through?

Taylor: He does that, sure, financing is a loan from a bank, an insurance company, or
another institution which is loaned through a mortgage.

97
Blum: Did Greenwald do that too?

Taylor: Sure he did. I remember when he used to fly to New York to meet with the
insurance companies. Some of us would fly with him sometimes, to make a
stronger presentation. As a matter of fact, he was killed flying to New York for a
meeting. He was the developer. The Community Development Trust, of which
Henry Holsman was the head, was the developer in multi-projects. The
Community Development Trust was a mother and then there were a lot of small
offspring, but the offspring could still be large, like 694 units was a large project.
You take any of the others, I've forgotten what Lunt Lake was, eighty or ninety
units or so.

Blum: Lunt Lake was eight-eight.

Taylor: I came close. Winchester Hood, I don't recall what it was.

Blum: 164.

Taylor: There was more flexibility in design. What was it? Community Development
Trusts were able to buy larger parcels of land, therefore utilizing them.
Greenwald, in a sense, was not able to do that. I think one of the larger projects
that Herb did around Chicago was one in Evanston called Sherman Garden
Apartments. That was 132 units, I believe.

Blum: This was the same year as the Promontory?

Taylor: Sherman Gardens was the first one. Herb had hired Holsman, Holsman and
Klekamp—as it was in that day, and Taylor added later—to do this project in
Evanston. Just the acquisition of the land took, I think, a year. It comprised
perhaps ten parcels of land. A very interesting aspect in Evanston, the churches
were strong in Evanston and they had such things as disclaimer clauses in the
titles. It said, "If liquor is sold, consumed, or served on the property, it would
revert back to the original owner." I think it was called a reverter clause. One of

98
 the problems, of course, in acquisition, was running down the heirs and getting
waivers, before the insurance company would finance it. It became quite a task. I
think that Herb, after that project, wanted a little different image and he went to
Mies for the initial design at Promontory.

Blum: Am I correct to assume after what you've said that Herb Greenwald was in fact
the developer of some of the Holsman projects, specifically Sherman Gardens in
Evanston?

Taylor: Yes. Sherman Gardens itself was not under the Community Development Trust.
Sherman Garden Apartment Trust, which Herb was the developer of, was a
separate trust. I was one of the managing trustees of that trust for a number of
years.

Blum: Right after that Greenwald continued with the Holsman firm but also brought
Mies in as the designer, is that true?

Taylor: Right, and PACE too. Actually, he kept the Holsman firm principally for the
expertise of the Community Development Trust—the theory. It was good. In
essence Herb said, "You three firms work together, and you all have an
obligation to the job."

Blum: I read in one of the articles that Mies was in charge of design, PACE was in
charge of the working drawings, and Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor
was in charge of the mechanical and special needs.

Taylor: That is generally true. Even more than the mechanical aspect, and we had some
good mechanical engineers with us. John, though being an architect and not an
engineer by name, was a good engineer. He had good thoughts, perhaps not in
detail as a lot of mechanicals do, but he was innovative, and his ideas were very
worthwhile. I think the real thing that Holsman contributed was the concept of
mutual ownership. We wrote, I'm sure, all of the documents that related to the
ownership aspect.

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Blum: In the opinion of your firm, was the Promontory a successful collaboration?

Taylor: I believe so. I think the only real problem that I recollect is that Herb got a little
bound financially and we weren't paid on time, according to contract. We wrote
pretty good architectural consulting contracts. That was the only real problem I
think; there was no serious problem with the work. The harmony was great, in
all respects and the firms respected each other. It worked well.

Blum: Did you have any sense at the time that you were working on a really important
building in Chicago?

Taylor: I believe we did. I think 860-880 particularly.

Blum: That certainly, but I was thinking more about the Promontory. It really was the
first one.

Taylor: Yes it was. I think we were aware of it, and I think we were pleased to work with
Mies and pleased to work with PACE. I was personally very pleased to be
involved.

Blum: Based on this first successful collaboration, 860-880 followed. How did that
project take shape?

Taylor: I think it took shape because Greenwald wanted to do it. I think he acquired the
land through Robert Hall McCormick. I've forgotten who McCormick's partner
was at that time. McCormick had development funds, Greenwald probably
needed them and I think they collaborated as developers on the project. I think
Greenwald was the leader; McCormick was never mentioned as such that I'm
aware of. He was mentioned in the press at the time of the press release. Then, of
course, the collaboration of the architects had gone well in Promontory, so it was
just continued. Mies had developed a little more staff at that time. I'll never
forget the model; I don't have any idea where it is, but it was a beautiful model. I
think it cost, at that time, $10,000 or $12,000, which every one thought was
exorbitant, and it was, at that time. However, it was worth it to see the thing. I

100
 remember such things coming up of what will be the expansion/contraction of
the skin. I've forgotten how many stories it is, twenty-five or something?

Blum: I don't think it says how many stories, it does say it's 288 units.

Taylor: I believe each building is twenty-five stories. I could figure it out, but it would
take a little time. The problem, of course, on all exposures, but on the western
exposure particularly, was that you have twenty-five stories of decorative steel,
exposed I-beams, which have a great deal of contraction and expansion from the
sun and the cold. You don't want to have it so cumulative that buckling will
occur in the facing materials. We worked on it for a while and determined that if
you had a separation at each two stories—I believe it was built, or it could be
every story—that it could handle the expansion-contraction. The further
problem, obviously, is that the structural columns, which were all steel too, have
less expansion, the real structural columns. As we are aware, the columns on the
exterior of the building are just decorative, they have no structural function. The
building was held up by perimeter and interior columns that you don't see and
are fireproofed. That became a structural consideration, I remember the
discussion on that. It was finally concluded that this could be done without
problems if constructed this way, and that's the way it was built. There were a
number of other problems. We were designing the mechanical, and we had some
innovative elements in heating and ventilating the building. The problems after
occupancy became larger problems. There were even law suits on it.

Blum: What type of problems?

Taylor: The problem was that the tenants weren't always as warm or cool as they wanted
to be, although there was no air conditioning at that time. I guess I should just
say warm, they weren't warm enough. When you have all glass—and it was not
insulating glass, it was single glazing—the heat loss particularly, and also heat
gain at certain periods was so great with an all glass wall with no other type of
wall, floor to ceiling, you had a great gain and great loss of heat that you had to
take care of. The system, and we made tests at the University of Wisconsin, on
the design, was entirely adequate.

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Blum: The heating system?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: Is that what the tests revealed?

Taylor: The tests were all right. It's like a lot of things, medical particularly, where you
make tests and you think everything is all right, but then you find it isn't all
right, because of installation and use. That was the case here. There were a lot of
lawsuits for that, and other matters. It's nice to have your name on the building,
but I don't need a lawsuit, you know.

Blum: What was the outcome of these lawsuits? Were you insured for this kind of
thing?

Taylor: There was no liability insurance in those days. All architects, as I did when I
practiced alone, have several million dollars of liability insurance to protect
against suits. There was no protection then. The real problem was later when the
Holsman organization had financial problems and went bankrupt. I was away; I
had left them in 1952 after seeing the handwriting that there were going to be
difficulties. I was the only person left solvent to sue, besides Mies and PACE.

Blum: For the 860?

Taylor: For 860-880 and several other projects. At one time my lawyer sent me
bankruptcy forms and I looked at them and said, "Well, I don't want to go
through bankruptcy and have a stigma the rest of my life." I wouldn't sign them
and he said, "All right, we're going to have to defend them." We went through all
of these court cases, which related to not only 860-880, that was one of them, but
a number of the Holsman Community Development Trust buildings.

Blum: Did you then have to settle on each lawsuit?

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Taylor: I did. It cost a lot of money, but I didn't have the stigma of bankruptcy.

Blum: That's pretty heroic.

Taylor: It might seem so now, and it took a lot of courage in those days. It probably cost
me $100,000 over the years of the suits and I probably was making maybe
$25,000 maximum per year. They were spread over such a period that they were
digestible. I had some good attorneys who were able to present the case as it
should have been presented.

Blum: Did you think the lawsuits were justified?

Taylor: Some of them were. Some that related to the Holsman projects. My partners were
a little negligent. Of course, I was never negligent!

Blum: I thought from what you said that they were lawsuits related to problems that
the tenants incurred with the building.

Taylor: That was one of them. The other thing was a lawsuit from the building to the
south of 860-880, it was the Lake Shore Athletic Club or something of similar
name. Their sidewalk settled and they blamed it on construction of 860-880. 860-
880 was built on wood piles foundation, and still is, obviously. They felt that this
was what made their sidewalk fail. It didn't make it fail, but it was an expensive
sidewalk, so they sued for that.

Blum: You think the construction of 860 and 880 was, in fact, the cause of their sinking
sidewalk?

Taylor: There might have been a little influence, I don't know.

Blum: 860 was built in 1948. The Holsman firm declared bankruptcy in 1952 or 1953. In
1952, a lawsuit was brought against the firm claiming misappropriation of funds.

Taylor: Yes, I guess so.

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Blum: This continued in courts for how long?

Taylor: Three or four years.

Blum: By that time you had left the firm?

Taylor: I left the firm, I think, about mid-1952. The reason I left it was that the firm was
getting into financial problems, matters in which I was not involved, nor could I
control.

Blum: With misappropriation of funds?

Taylor: No, with the problem of pursuing the jobs. The Korean War, I think, started in
1951 or about that time. The principal reason that the firm was having problems
was in being the developer, this was responsible for proceeding with the
construction after the assembly of money. That is, the putting together of the
project by the mutual owners, the people who would reside. Materials became
very scarce and financing money became scarce. The economy began to go with
the Korean War. It really put a difficulty on proceedings. Construction
companies were not proceeding on their contracts, they would default. All of
these factors led to perhaps, in certain projects, a shortage of funds. The
Community Development Trust had all of the individual trusts relating to
specific projects.

Blum: This is the master trust?

Taylor: The master trust had created all of the individual trusts. The term
misappropriation is, I think, used a little broader than it should be in this case. It
probably is illegal justification for it, for the use was transferring the funds from
one trust to another in order to proceed, as it was needed. There was no personal
benefit to anyone in the firm or trusts. They were trying to proceed with the
projects. They were being beset with problems, as I've said, the shortage of
materials, contractors, all of these factors that are necessary, including shortage

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 of financing. All the necessary elements to do the job, the same thing happens at
any time that you have a war, it's disruptive. Later it was called
misappropriation because there was no way in the future, in the immediate
future certainly, that you could replace the funds, to put it back in the specific
trust that it had been assigned to.

Blum: There was no way to do that?

Taylor: There was no way to do it because the time element began to dissolve the funds
and the running of the business, and completing of projects was at excess costs.

Blum: This transfer of funds between trusts, was this something that was done
routinely as the need occurred in preceding years? Was there then time and
obviously new money was coming in to replace the transferred funds? Was this a
practice that was routinely followed?

Taylor: I'm not sure that it was routinely followed. The years before were good years,
let's say, no unusual disruptions. Now we're in lean years, and you do things in
lean years that you don't do otherwise. I don't think the need was there to
transfer funds prior to that time.

Blum: Is that what worried you enough to leave?

Taylor: Yes, I felt that Bill Holsman, who was handling financing, was not very prudent
in what he was doing. I can't say that if I were in his position I would have done
anything differently. For me, not being in that position, and being the last man
on the totem pole, and not having enough influence to do anything about it,
had… I had influence, but I'm not sure that I would have been able to. It just
appeared to me that my future was in jeopardy, particularly I guess, because
again not only the future as far as profession was concerned, but we hadn't made
any dispersement to our personal accounts, salary, expenses, for several months.
I was on a lean budget and I felt I just couldn't go on.

Blum: Was Mies paid?

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Taylor: Mies wasn't involved in that matter. That was after 860-880. This is two, three,
four years after.

Blum: But apparently you stood to make good on the debts of 860-880, so it had to
somehow all be tied in.

Taylor: The lawsuits came up later. They came after 1952. The 860-660 building was
complete, the lawsuits came up, as they do three or four years after the
happening, you know the lag in courts. By that time Holsman had gone down
the drain, Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor had ceased to operate as a
firm.

Blum: They declared bankruptcy,

Taylor: I think six or eight months later, or maybe a little longer.

Blum: There is an article in the Chicago Tribune that you brought to my attention that's
dated January 20, 1956. It says that they became bankrupt in October 1953, but
declared it at a late date in 1952. It also goes on to say, it doesn't say
misappropriation of funds, let me just read this one paragraph: "The trust went
bankrupt on December 31, 1952. It had only $190 left on deposit. Evidence
showed that $246,651 of the advance payments had been expended on fees for
the architectural firm." The whole article talks about the father and son being
convicted of fraud. This doesn't talk about misappropriation of funds unless they
say paying the architectural firm two hundred-and-some-odd thousand dollars is
misappropriation of funds.

Taylor: I don't remember how that story goes.

Blum: This doesn't even use the word misappropriation.

Taylor: It was based upon a transfer of the funds from one into another account.
Although, really, I think that based upon that article, it could have been

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 defended satisfactorily. The staff and the principal architects had to be paid and
they were paid in advance of construction. There were no funds and no funding
from insurance lenders to complete. That became the problem. Had the funding,
meaning the mortgage money, been available, projects could have probably gone
ahead. This procedure had been followed in all other projects, and there was no
need to take funds from one of the trusts and transfer to the other, which was
done.

Blum: In your opinion was that the indiscretion, the transfer of funds between
accounts?

Taylor: Had the Holsmans been able to keep funds separate, I think the projects probably
could have been completed. Because the equities in them were substantial. The
way the thing was structured permitted the mother trust or the head trust,
Community Development, to do the preliminary funding necessary to perform
architectural-engineering work. You'd really have to examine all of the evidence
to be able to make that as a factual statement, but that's my recollection.

Blum: Do you think the court's judgment was fair to convict Bill Holsman as well as
Henry, although his sentence was suspended probably because of his age? Do
you think that was a fair judgment in this instance?

Taylor: I think really it was not justified, in that the individuals who were convicted
benefited in no way personally by this. Everything that was done, and the
expenditures were all made, in the interest of the mutual owners. It's pretty
obvious to anyone that in building a project you've got much preliminary and
costly work before you ever complete it, and before you get anything you've got
to have financing. The funds were made to pay the promotion and architectural
bills. In other defunct projects very frequently the architect is not paid, not that
he doesn't deserve it, not that he hasn't expended his time and effort and should
be paid, but the developer normally doesn't pay him and so the architect takes
the loss. In this case the architect was paid, quite properly so. In order to do that
the trust was forced to transfer funds from one trust to another. I hadn't read that
particular facet of the article, but knowing what happened, I have that opinion.

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Blum: They're probably just saying the same thing in another way.

Taylor: I think so. The architects were paid and the job didn't go ahead. Since the
architects, from the court's point of view, were the developers and everything
else, they weren't the professional alone. Henry Holsman was head, and Bill
Holsman was second in command of the executive committee of the master trust.

Blum: They were called managing trustees?

Taylor: Managing trustees, yes.

Blum: They had the responsibility of a liability as well, is that correct?

Taylor: There was always enough disclaimers in these documents not to have the
liability. The court found, in this case, that they were fudiciarily responsible. That
was the court's opinion.

Blum: Was that the court's opinion or was that actually in the Community
Development Trust as part of the guidelines?

Taylor: No, it wasn't set up that way, but they became personally responsible, like a bank
office. The directors are not supposed to be personally responsible except for any
stock investment that they own, at least they try to do it that way. I think there's
some bank officials who will be prosecuted for lack of proper control, lack of
responsibility. Normally a director is not responsible for the action. This happens
in corporations all the time.

Blum: This was obviously covered in a much fuller way that I've found in the press.

Taylor: No doubt. I think we've minimized the problems perhaps, and minimized what
really occurred. Really I was impressed, and this was not personal idealism
really, by the dedication of the Holsmans and Klekamp to endeavoring to
improve the housing situation for moderate-income families.

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Blum: Which was the original attraction for you.

Taylor: Yes, it was.

Blum: Do you think this case was covered fairly in the press?

Taylor: The press doesn't always tell everything and I don't think it really was properly
reported. Had a true article been written covering all of the aspects of it, I think
they would have come out considerably better. Why would the press try to
vindicate the people who had been convicted? The press isn't like that.

Blum: Perhaps they could have brought out some of the same things that you have just
talked about.

Taylor: They could have, but they didn't.

[Tape 7]

Blum: In early 1952, as you said, you resigned from Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and
Taylor.

Taylor: Correct.

Blum: I know that about that time your own home was published in Better Homes and
Gardens in August 1953. Did you use any of the innovative ideas that you
brought or had developed in the Holsman organization? Did you bring any of
those ideas to the construction of your own home?

Taylor: Quite a few. I think one of the most predominant ones was the floor and roof
construction. We had developed a roof system of metal boxes that were filled
with concrete after they had been erected, and after a precast concrete slab
system had been placed, which was supported by the beams. The beams were
about three feet on center and the slabs were about three inches thick. In my

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 house, I had these beams, in the living room particularly, they were sloping and
what's known as a bent beam to give a little more interest to it. Throughout the
house this roof was of that construction. It had been developed for apartment
buildings, in order to save height of stories in a structure. Since we were in the
business, I had the components manufactured for my house, and they were paid
for at the going price. They were certainly not free. The other things were, most
of the walls, outside of some accent walls, were of concrete masonry, concrete
block that had been made on a machine which had recently been developed by
our firm to make concrete blocks. The concrete blocks were 4" x 16", not the
conventional 8" x 16" blocks. I laid them in a straight fashion that I felt had some
appeal. There was another consideration in that these blocks varied in
manufacture so that some had more texture, they had varied colors, some less,
some were warmer, cooler and so on. I tried to get a variegation within the walls
themselves instead of just looking like an old concrete block wall. I then used a
cavity wall, which we used a lot, though in a different basis with the Holsman
projects. The walls were sandwich-type walls throughout the house.

Blum: What do you mean sandwich walls?

Taylor: It is constructed with an outer width and an inner width of masonry block, and
in between is insulation material, so that the thermal transmission factor of the
walls is a very good one. Then I used—of course, Holsman didn't develop
thermo paint, but I used a great deal of it. The heating was another thing, radiant
heat throughout the house. It was very comfortable.

Blum: How did all these things work?

Taylor: They worked fine. It was an interesting house, and it was published in a number
of magazines and newspapers besides Better Homes and Gardens, which titled the
article "A House of Ideas."

Blum: Were these features that the Holsmans held patents on?

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Taylor: I really don't remember what the patents were, but that was certainly no problem
to me. They were patented, I believe, but I didn't pay patent fees, as they had
been waived.

Blum: I notice that the house is also furnished with Charles Eames furniture.

Taylor: That was the contemporary of that time, manufactured by Herman Miller, and
designed by Eames and Saarinen.

Blum: How did it happen that you built a second house on the same property just
several years later?

Taylor: That was in 1957. But going back to the original design in 1951, after we started
the construction, my wife gave me the happy news that we were going to have
three children instead of two. I had to redesign the bedroom wing of this house,
the initial house, by taking the same space and replanning it with three
bedrooms instead of two. I guess it was fortunate that it was a space that could
be modified. It resulted in a very interesting development. One that was quite
uncommon in those days—folding partitions, and pull-out partitions, and
folding doors, and a common area, and so on. It got a great deal of publicity all
over the country.

Blum: This speaks of the new idea that I first started reading about after the war, with
flexibility in the plan.

Taylor: Indeed, this was what it was designed for, flexible and multi-use space. You
could take the whole space and open it up, with only some wing walls exposed.
The children liked it, which, of course, is a rather important consideration.
However, in 1957 we needed more space. So I planned a family room to the
north; it was away from the bedroom area to the south. In digging the excavation
for the new family room, the excavator struck a gas line, an underground gas
line. The backhoe machine broke the line, and the operator wasn't aware of the
damage. He was a young man who probably hoped that nothing had happened,
and dropped the pipe back into the hole, and then he goes to lunch. The pipe

111
hadn't been ruptured to his vision, but there must have been a small hole in it.
With all underground pipes, there's always a very small space around the pipe,
the differences of expansion and other factors. The gas seeped into the house, in
through the garage, where the water heater was located and it seeped into the
rest of the house, and the mixture became explosive in nature, by air and the gas,
it blew up. It was a total loss on the house. I was crushed by it. It happened that I
was at O'Hare airport trying to negotiate an architectural contract with the air
force for a large project at Chanute Air Force base in central Illinois. My secretary
called me and said that my house had just blown up! Of course, I didn't know
what to do except go back to the dining table and tell the negotiators that I
couldn't carry on. I came home quickly and one of my neighbors met me a block
away at the head of Glenview Road and Coronet Road. He said, "Coder, you've
got a problem." I said, "Yes, I have." My first question was, "Anyone killed?"
Fortunately, no one was killed or injured, but there were several interesting
things that happened. The mailman had just delivered the mail, he was walking
down the driveway and the garage door flies over his head. Let me tell you, he
was shocked. It's a little humorous now, but it certainly wasn't to him, or me, at
the time. The crowd had gathered pretty much by time I arrived. My children
and wife were in Wisconsin, otherwise they would have been killed by this. The
house had been a structure that I had so much confidence in that there could be
no serious fire, it was fireproof. Very few houses are fireproof. The roof system
was such that a tornado wouldn't blow it off. The only thing that I didn't even
consider, the only thing that could have demolished it, would have been an
internal explosion. Why would I think there'd ever be an internal explosion? But
that is what happened, so I lost the house. The next day I go into the office and
tell my chief architect, Donald Reinking, "We've got a job to do. We'll take the old
house plans, we'll see what's left, and we'll try to salvage some things." We did
salvage the split fieldstone walls, and some of the other walls, and some of the
roof, but not much. I said, "We'll start over, we'll use as much as we can,
including the foundation." We expanded in various directions and the partis was
probably similar, but the expansion went into something that made a much
better house than the addition would have ever made. It became a much more
livable and better home.

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Blum: Do you or did you have workspace for yourself, a studio, and office in your first
house?

Taylor: In the first house I used part of the utility room, it was a very cramped area, and I
had a drawing board, but there was little else, other than the water heater.

Blum: Were you in the habit of working at home?

Taylor: Yes, I did a little work at home, once in a while. I'd do some work on my own
that wouldn't interfere with the business. I was a partner so I was bound not to
conflict with the work of the firm.

Blum: This was during the 1950s. At that time you were a partner of Morgan Yost’s.
After leaving the Holsman organization, how did you come to a partnership with
Morgan Yost?

Taylor: In 1950, Morgan was president of the Chicago chapter, American Institute of
Architects. He appointed me program chairman. It was a challenging
appointment. I believe we had a budget of $2,000 for the year. I had a good
committee, George Danforth was on it, Christopher Chamales, Charles Blessing
was a planner who went to Detroit later, and a fellow by the name of William
Shinderman, who moved to California later, and several other very interesting,
younger architects. We had grandiose ideas and we put down the names of the
people that we wanted to include in our programs. The AIA normally had good
programs and every month at the Bismarck Hotel in the Walnut Room, we'd fill
the place with the right speakers. Of course, our committee put down Frank
Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Russell Hitchcock, an historian; Eero Saarinen,
Charles Eames, Ralph Walker, who was president of the national AIA, from New
York. We had people of that caliber and several others. It was a terrific year.

Blum: How much of those plans materialized?

Taylor: 90 percent.

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Blum: Did they?

Taylor: They did. I think Frank Lloyd Wright was at our initial meeting.

Blum: How could you do that on that budget?

Taylor: This was by a trick that I think I might have employed later, it just happened.
There was an architect, Sam Marx in Chicago who, as we were aware, was a
friend of Frank's—Mr. Wright, pardon me.

Blum: Did everyone call him Mr. Wright?

Taylor: Everyone called him Mr. Wright. I called Marx, since I did happen to know him,
but not well, and I said, "Sam, we would like to have Mr. Wright come to
Chicago and speak to the architects." He said, "Fine, what's your budget?" I said,
"Well, it's $2,000." He said, "That's a pretty light budget for Mr. Wright and
anyone else." Wright was getting about that for a single appearance.

Blum: Excuse me, $2,000 was your annual budget?

Taylor: That was the total budget for the year. We were embarking on something, you
know, like traveling around the world on $1,000. In any event, he just
discouraged me, he didn't even want to propose it. There was no other solution
but to call Wright himself in Spring Green, Wisconsin. But I didn't get Wright on
the phone, I got one of his assistants, Gene Massalink. I didn't know Massalink,
but I told him our problem and our desire to have Mr. Wright, and he said,
"Well, let me see what I can do." A week later I get a letter from Frank Lloyd
Wright, and I was surprised—it was written to me, D. Coder Taylor, 39 South
State Street, Chicago. He said, "My dear Taylor, I've forgotten the event you
mentioned but Chicago isn't far away. I could combine the visit with some
errands now pressing. So let's not say an event but will be one of your guests on
the occasion you suggest, October 3rd, at the Bismark." This was in 1950, August
21, 1950. The only difficulty after our committee and I looked at that letter was,
what does he mean? He'll be our guest of honor? We don't pack a house for a

114
 guest of honor, you pack it for a person like Wright to say something. Dick
Bennett, I remember, suggested getting a fellow by the name of Arthur Siegel,
who was a photographer. I called Siegel, I believe, but maybe Dick called Siegel
too and we arranged for Siegel to put on a program, a slide program of his
photography. I was responsible for having Wright, but if Wright said, "Hi, it's
good to be back in Chicago," I don't have a program. I met Siegel on the
afternoon of the program and we got everything set up, which was the way we
always did our programs. We didn't just come in at 6:30 or 7:00 and just before
dinner organize the program. We practically ran through a total format of it.
Siegel brought in his projector, slides, screen, and speaker, and we had it all set
up. When the meeting time came, Morgan introduced Siegel. Siegel showed his
stuff, and he had one of Wright's buildings included, which, incidentally, he
commented on very graciously to Mr. Wright. Just back up a little bit, when Mr.
Wright came in, Mrs. Wright, Olgivanna Wright, came in right behind him,
dressed in black as she always dressed. I met him at the door and he asked me if
he could bring a couple of friends, he brought three or four additional people,
and I said, "Fine." The two Wrights sat at the head table and Morgan Yost was
right next to them. Yost had brought an application for membership in the
American Institute of Architects. I think he had pen-in-cheek, no doubt, because
he never presented it to Wright. He didn't have the nerve, and Wright never
became a member of the American Institute of Architects. However, he did get
the prestigious Gold Medal of the AIA.

Blum: More than that, did he have a few words to say?

Taylor: Continuing, Siegel finished his program, and Morgan said, "We'd like to have
our guest of honor say a few words." Wright got up and spoke for, I think, forty
minutes. There were students hanging from the rafters, so to speak, that hadn't
come for dinner. The dinner was a sellout, but there's a balcony, as I recall, and
people were all over the place, standing room only. After the speech was over,
John Root, who was the dean of Chicago architects, happened to be there—he
came over and said, "You know, Coder, that's the best speech I've ever heard
Wright make." Wright really didn't lambaste the architects as he normally did, as

115
 he did when he received the Gold Medal in Houston. He was always lambasting
everyone.

Blum: Do you recall what he spoke about?

Taylor: I don't recall what the speech was, I should have recorded it. Recording wasn't
the thing to do in those days, you never had recorders around. It was a great
speech, and we were so pleased. It sent our committee up to seventh heaven, so
we continued the program that year.

Blum: That was a very successful meeting

Taylor: It was a very successful meeting. I think the most successful meeting the AIA has
had as long as I know. They've gotten away from that kind of showmanship, but
he was inspirational. That is what I think great people can do. There's no other
architect that I know of or knew of at that time who could have been that
magnetizing.

Blum: Were you as successful with your other programs, say, for instance, with Neutra?
Did he come on your budget?

Taylor: He didn't come within the budget. He came by train, he didn't fly. He came with
his wife, who had a cello, and she was good. She would play at various affairs.
Neutra came on Saturday, I believe—maybe it was Sunday. I had to meet him at
the train. The first thing he said was, "Mr. Taylor, I think I'd like to meet the press
and do something for architecture." That's about the way he said it, and he was
sincere. Sure Neutra was a speaker, but frankly, we wanted to build up architects
in Chicago. It was a generous thought. He had the ego that went with it, but it
was a generous thought. I took him over to the Daily News and they interviewed
him. The Tribune didn't have their writers available at that time to interview him.
He came out with a beautiful article. That built up the meeting. I think the
meeting was on Tuesday and he delivered to a full house. By that time, I had
contacted some of our AIA friends, Turpin Bannister, head of the architecture
department at the University of Illinois, to give us time and support. For that

116
day, I took Neutra down to the train—Neutra and Mrs. Neutra. She didn't have
her cello on that trip. They were going to Urbana. The Illinois Central railroad,
I'll never forget it. I met him in the evening after he'd talked with a student group
and, of course, we got the donation from the University of Illinois for part of the
cost. Then I called Illinois Tech—I've forgotten who I contacted there, it may
have been George Danforth. He was on the committee, for goodness sake—sure,
it was George. Of course, Neutra and Mies were friends in Europe, at the
Bauhaus. Neutra was a little freer than Mies in design, a little more imaginative,
but still the same general spirit. They had a lot in common, as Neutra had with
Wright. When Neutra first came to this country, he went and lived with Wright
for a while. The one thing that Neutra wanted to see was the Farnsworth house.
One of the committee members, Shinderman, and I drove out to the Farnsworth
house in Plano, and it was a nasty afternoon. This was, I think, in November or
December. There was snow on the ground and it was snowing. Plano is quite a
distance out. We stopped at the Bruce Goff house [the Ruth Ford house in
Aurora]. The owner of the [Ford] house showed us around and, of course, when
you mentioned Neutra you could practically, at that time, to knowledgeable
people, we could've gotten in any place. She, of course, was a great hostess and
showed us all around Bruce Goff's house. It was a very interesting house. Neutra
had an open mind—he didn't say this is rubbish or anything like that, and it is an
imaginative house. He was very intrigued by it. From there we went to the
Farnsworth house. We'd made the arrangements, and Mrs. Farnsworth met us.
She really, by that time, had gotten a little sour on Mies. She spent a lot of the
time, the two or three hours we were there, telling us of the problems she had
with Mies. We had tea with her, or maybe it was a cocktail, I've forgotten. In any
event, it was an interesting experience. She just really lambasted Mies and then
she'd pick out all of the little details that she felt were not as they should have
been in a perfect house. The house was so much elegance that it's really a regal
design, if that is the proper term. Of course, it's been called, I guess, the
Parthenon of America. It's a very elegant house with steel exposed columns,
painted white or an off-white, with travertine marble decks and floors, and open
planning. Of course, it has absolutely no privacy, but it's a beautiful house. We
talked as we were walking away, and I remember Neutra saying, "You know, I'm

117
 going to write a book and it's going to be on the architect's experiences in very
important buildings," or something to that effect, that's general.

Blum: With the client?

Taylor: The experiences architects have with their clients. I'm sure that a lot of situations
were that way, where they were great buildings and the client was disenchanted
for some minor, stupid reason. I later found that there might have been a little
situation of romance by Edith Farnsworth, which Mies rejected. Of course, for
Dr. Farnsworth, this was nothing minor.

Blum: Perhaps it motivated her wrath?

Taylor: It motivated her some and it wasn't received favorably by Mies. Whether that's
true or not, I don't know.

Blum: What was your opinion of the criticism she offered about the house?

Taylor: They were puny, they didn't matter. Of course, she thought she was being
overcharged and she thought he had not paid enough attention to her budget,
just this kind of factor. I'm not sure that that was quite important as in that
conversation, although it was part of it. I think they were little things that were
technical that every house has, you know. However, I am not certain that she
was up to owning a Mies house with its lack of privacy from both inside and
outside, and it was probably cold in the winter and hot in the summer. However,
it was a great meeting with us.

Blum: You were able to show Neutra this house.

Taylor: Yes, of course. In that week, I became acquainted with this gentleman very well,
and his wife. She's still living, I believe, and she was at that time a very sweet
woman.

Blum: What was he like?

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Taylor: Neutra was warm. He didn't say anything adverse about the Farnsworth house. I
think he tried to calm her down a bit. His comments after, I thought, were very
nice. That was probably one of the most interesting weeks I've spent, because it
was just completely engulfed in Neutra.

Blum: Interesting that that was what he wished to see. Were there other things in
Chicago that he especially wanted to see?

Taylor: He liked to walk on Michigan Avenue and she did, too. I don't recall any specific
buildings, although what he did when I wasn't with him, I don't know. He had
his freedom, I wasn't at his heel at the time, so I really don't know what he might
have done.

Blum: Did he comment on the 860 building that was constructed at that time? It was
constructed, was it not?

Taylor: Yes. I don't remember any comment, but he undoubtedly did. I might have
brought it up to him, but I don't recall it. That same year we had Russell
Hitchcock, and, of course, with his historical books, his comments, and his
criticisms. He was not the crowd captivator that Neutra was. Neutra captivated
the audience, and so did Wright, of course. Hitchcock was not the speaker
Neutra and Wright were. That is true, you know, about a lot of people, they can't
speak on things which can be learned.

Blum: He is, of course, the scholar.

Taylor: A scholar, that's the proper term.

Blum: Did your plans to have a Saarinen—either one—materialize?

Taylor: No. We didn't have them that year. We had a trip over to see both Saarinens, and
I was in charge of that visit.

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Blum: To Cranbrook?

Taylor: To Bloomfield Hills, yes, Cranbrook. I didn't know what it would take to
accomplish, but we chartered an airplane. At that time it was a DC-3, which had
only twenty-two places on it. We had over one hundred people going to
Cranbrook. A lot of them drove, and we had the plane full. We were to meet at a
restaurant, because the plane and the transportation from the airport to
Cranbrook took a long time. We did meet at the restaurant with Eero, and Eliel,
his father. I don't think Pipsan was there, Eero Saarinen's wife. It was a delightful
luncheon. Then we walked to Cranbrook. I have some most interesting slides
that I haven't looked at for quite awhile of the senior Saarinen, of Eliel, walking
with us. My wife was with me. She and I and Eliel stayed pretty much together,
since I was the leader of the expedition. It was just a great day, and we went
through the school and he told numerous stories. Eliel and Wright were friends.
They were not competitors, so to speak, they did a different type of architecture.
Wright had said to him—and Saarinen told us of it—he said, "You know, Mr.
Saarinen, you have a little accent. Does that help you to get commissions that
have such beautiful materials?" Well, Wright was the rugged type, Saarinen was
the elegant type, with polished marbles, fine wrought iron, beautiful brick work,
and carefully designed cut stone work. It was a great trip.

Blum: It sounds like you had a very successful tenure as program chairman.

Taylor: I think it was. At the convention the next year I got more votes as delegate than
anyone else. We used to vote on delegates to the convention. I remember Ceil
Garneau, who was the chapter's Executive Director, said, "How do you get the
most votes in this election?" It was only because of the unusual programs. After
that, I decided I wanted to pursue architecture instead of trying to stage
architects around the country, and I got a little away from the AIA.

Blum: Did you feel you had given enough service?

Taylor: At that time. I came back later, however, and served as director, vice-president,
and president of the Chicago chapter.

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Blum: You brought up your tenure as program chairman because apparently that was
the year you met Morgan Yost?

Taylor: Yes, I became well acquainted with him. That was two years before the problem
at Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor. However, later he invited me out to
his office. I just happened to be talking to him that there was a problem and he
said, "Why don't you come out to Kenilworth and be my partner?" It sounded
like a good idea and it proved to be a good idea for about eight years.

Blum: At that time you had been involved with the Holsmans in large-scale housing.

Taylor: Yes, indeed.

Blum: And Mr. Yost's practice was single-family homes.

Taylor: Pretty much single-family, though there were a few commercial projects.

Blum: Mostly suburban, is that correct?

Taylor: Yes, actually North Shore of Chicago. I think he liked to consider himself a North
Shore architect.

Blum: What appealed to you about that kind of an association?

Taylor: I was quite pleased to receive the invitation, it was a compliment, and also I lived
in Glenview. It seemed somewhat logical. I had admired his office when it was
over near the lake. However, it wasn't near the lake when we came together as
partners. I felt that an architect didn't need a large organization to practice, and
could be more independent, and do the type of work that was more rewarding.

Blum: Was that a reaction to this large organization you had just left?

Taylor: No doubt that it was.

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Blum: And knowing they also had collaborated with other large organizations.

Taylor: I really wanted to be a part of a smaller firm. As I matured later, I came to the
conclusion that in a smaller office, you can control the design, do much of it
yourself, but not all, unless you were a one-man office. I felt that in a smaller
office the quality of the work could be better, and that my input would be more
possible. I still was a design architect, you know, though I was aware of the other
aspects of an architectural practice.

Blum: How large was Morgan Yost's office at the time he invited you to join him?

Taylor: Three persons: Yost, Don Reinking, and me, plus a secretary.

Blum: So you went from a seventy-five-man office to a three-man operation.

Taylor: Yes, and except for the last few months at Holsman, when none of the partners
took salary because of the financial condition, it was probably almost like going
back to the days of Zook. It was meager. The new partnership didn't have a lot of
work. Morgan, I think, had a little independent income that helped him some.

Blum: Did he have a thriving office at the time he invited you to join him in 1952?

Taylor: Not really. He invited me in 1952, and that was the office at the time.

Blum: Was it busy for its size?

Taylor: There was enough work, but I had to bring some in too, as a responsibility of
being partner, as well as to make the office work. Obviously, it was not a great
office when you only have two partners and a draftsman. Don Reinking at that
time was not registered. He was a fine draftsman, as Walter Netsch told you, one
of the best each of us has known.

Blum: Netsch said he could draw like an angel.

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Taylor: I've never compared him to an angel, but not because he wasn't one.

Blum: When you became a partner with Mr. Yost, did you then do single-family
houses?

Taylor: We did a number of them, principally Morgan's commissions.

Blum: On the North Shore?

Taylor: On the North Shore and elsewhere. I remember that we had a house for a Mr.
Spackman in Aurora. He was head of Lion Metal Products in Aurora. We did a
house in Sterling, Illinois, for a fellow by the name of Karl Wentzel. Also, we did
a number of houses, as well as some small commercial and industrial projects.
Morgan also wrote articles for the magazine Plumbing and Heating Business. They
included designs for P and H shops and stores. When I had the time, I'd do
renderings for some of the articles. We worked pretty harmoniously.

Blum: During the time of the war, 1940-1945, Yost functioned, as I'm sure you know, as
editor of several of these more popular home magazines.

Taylor: Yes. He did a good job, and he became well known. The distribution at that time
was good. I don't know what you'd call them, they were smaller magazines, they
weren't quite the Better Homes and Gardens type.

Blum: One was Small Homes Guide.

Taylor: Was it? I've even forgotten what the titles were.

Blum: This is not published any longer. It was the kind of magazine I presume one
would pick up in the grocery store and read on your way out, like Woman's Day
or something.

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Taylor: I think that was really what it was. It had good distribution. Then I brought in
some commercial work. There had been a project for a plater, an electron plater
that I had handled while with Holsman, since that was one of our clients, and we
built an addition to his factory. I had made a big rendering, it was a long one, of
what he could do in the future, when he wanted to expand considerably. It was a
watercolor rendering, and was attractive; we had it framed and put it over his
desk. "After looking at it for another six or eight years or some time like that, I
don't know how long it was, he decided he wanted to build it. Since I did the
rendering and Holsman was in trouble, Yost and Taylor got the job, and
completed it. That's Driscoll and Company.

Blum: Was the design of the building contemporary?

Taylor: Yes. It was of a contemporary design and had a long continuous ribbon of
windows, with a cantilever part curved over a recessed entrance. It made an
impressive building.

Blum: When you were a partner with Mr. Yost you did some large-scale housing for the
military.

Taylor: Yes. This is very interesting of how a job develops. Congress had enacted a law
that mandated that military housing be build. The law had been developed by
Senator Capehart of Indiana, and the law and the implementation became
known as Capehart Housing Act. The housing at most military establishments
was terrible, and it is currently a problem in 1985. However, at that time it was
probably even a greater problem. They were losing service personnel rapidly,
and training of replacements was very costly. The wives wouldn't live in the
places to which they were assigned, and the top military wanted to do something
about it. The military gun-toters, boaters, flyers and so on, were grasping for
what to do. Somehow or another, a planning firm named Evert Kincaid
Associates was called by Great Lakes, this is the navy. Evert was called to talk
about designing a 585-housing-unit project. Obviously, it was a good-sized
project. The Kincaid organization were site planners, and didn't know anything
about architecture—well, very little. They had worked with architects in

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 planning but they were site planners—and there is a difference. The navy needed
planners but mostly buildings. Kincaid happened to know Morgan and called
him. He responded, "Sure, we can do it." Morgan talked to me and we agreed
that we would do the project jointly, so it became Evert Kincaid, and Yost and
Taylor. It soon became apparent to me that the Kincaid firm had a relatively
minor part. As a matter of fact, I even worked it out to 14 percent of the total
construction cost of the job would be concerned with planning. I wasn't trying to
squeeze him out, except to put it in perspective. The responsibility of the balance
of 86 percent being in our hands, we should be the leader in the joint venture,
since it was a joint venture. Frankly, I believe that Kincaid was smart, he said, "I
agree with you. We would be lost in it." We took over the leadership, and since I
had been involved in a lot of large-scale housing, I took over as managing
partner. That was the way the job developed.

Blum: Am I mistaken or did you receive an award for it?

Taylor: Oh, yes, the FHA gave us an Outstanding Project Award.

Blum: FHA gave you an award?

Taylor: It was an FHA insured project. All of the Capehart projects were.

Blum: So it was basically your experience in large-scale housing that you feel made this
work?

Taylor: I believe it was. I don't want to say that there wasn't a great deal of input by
Morgan. Frankly, he worked very diligently on design.

[Tape 8]

Taylor: In order to do a project of that magnitude it takes a considerable number of

people, you can't do it alone. Don Reinking was the project architect, we called
him that—I don't recall if he was registered yet. Morgan did some renderings,
and much of the design. I think I handled the specifications and cost of

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 estimating, overall coordination. All of these parts, when you're doing these kind
of large projects, become complicated.

Blum: As I understand what Mr. Yost did was, he had a concern and an interest in the
interior, how people functioned in these spaces—at least according to the articles
that he wrote in these magazines.

Taylor: That's correct, he did. He was concerned about it.

Blum: It seems to me that, with his interest there and your interest in the large scale, it
was a pretty good marriage.

Taylor: It worked out very successfully. This was probably one of the first of the projects
of Capehart housing, not only locally but in the country. It came out smelling like
a rose. We had all types of housing, we had them for the enlisted men, and all
officers, except the general or the admiral of the base. We got into good site
planning. The houses were good, simple houses, split-levels for the most part.

Blum: Was that fairly new?

Taylor: Morgan had used it, as I think I mentioned, in single family. No, it wasn't a real
new and innovative thing. I think it was relatively new in multiple housing,
where you would have four units in a single building. We had single-family
housing in this project for the colonels, majors, and the other commissioned
officers. Officer housing was a different class, as you know, in the military, and
the areas in which it was located was separated from the enlisted men's housing.

Blum: Did you then carry that expertise in multiple-family housing into civilian
projects?

Taylor: We did, yes. We became very busy, and we were selected for quite a number of
projects in the military from that project. As a matter of fact, I even developed
and owned some, and Morgan did the same. I mean, we were working always
together, but with separate ownership. For example, I developed a duplex

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 townhouse in Wilmette, where I used one of the designs that we had used on one
of the military projects at Chanute Field, Illinois.

Blum: For the military?

Taylor: Yes. Later, in a sales pitch to them, when being interviewed, I would say that "the
firm even designed a house as a prototype for this project of yours."

Blum: You just recycled an old design, or used design.

Taylor: No, not exactly recycled, but tested.

Blum: A tested design?

Taylor: A tested design, that was the thing. We don't go on the market without testing.
Frankly, I think that procedure was developed at Holsman, because on all of the
innovative things that we did, we tested them before using them. We had the
heating system, and some wall systems tested at the University of Wisconsin. I
don't know why we went there, but we had a connection there, and they had the
labs and to do it. We were very concerned about quality control and durability. I
think one of the problems with architecture generally is that architects are
inclined to use new materials and methods that they haven't even thought
through, and design that they haven't given sufficient attention before it becomes
"brick and mortar," whatever it might be, before it's built. Consequently, they
frequently come out pretty bad. The final is the prototype. Automobiles are not
built that way, nor is anything else important in industry.

Blum: Would you say that the majority of your practice was large-scale housing?

Taylor: No. We developed, and Morgan wanted to develop as I did, a little broader
spectrum than just houses. Houses were always fun. As a general statement, I
think that most architects feel that designing a home in which you're not too
limited in budget, and you have a good site, is probably more fun than any other
type of a project, especially if you have a good client as well. After I left Morgan I

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 made it satisfactory in practice and I was probably involved in only three or four
single-family houses, not many more, after our partnership separation.

Blum: One of the things I noticed in a Yost and Taylor brochure was a statement, and I
don't think I'm quoting verbatim, but it was housing for investment. Was that
something you brought to the practice?

Taylor: I believe so, though Morgan was aware of the opportunities in investment.

Blum: How did that work?

Taylor: As we worked it, we did investment housing, for clients, but we also did it for
ourselves. For instance, I built this duplex for myself, we built a six-unit building
on Lake Avenue in Wilmette for both of us in joint ownership.

Blum: You mean you put it up on a speculative basis?

Taylor: I guess you'd call it speculation, it was rental housing.

Blum: You were the developers.

Taylor: We were the developers, that's correct, that's the term. Morgan built one in the
same neighborhood, an eight-unit building.

Blum: This was the brochure that I found that statement in.

Taylor: Yes. We had a smaller brochure prior to this, but this was our second and final
brochure. Morgan did the layout on it, it was nicely put together, though
relatively modest.

Blum: Who were the immediate competitors for the kind of work you did with Morgan
Yost?

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Taylor: I just don't recall. The medium-size architectural firms competed for some of the
projects. I don't remember the smaller ones.

Blum: Well, a firm like SOM would hardly be interested in a single-family house on the
North Shore.

Taylor: Oh, no, but, as this brochure indicates, we were capable of designing much more
than single-family housing on a larger scale.

Blum: Who were your competitors for the single-family dwellings?

Taylor: Herman Lackner was a competitor, I guess. There was also an architect who was
the developer for a client. This procedure was opposed by the AIA, where you
also build as well as design. This architect’s name was Arnold Schnaffer.
However, neither of them were very serious competitors. That was one of the
nice things about it—we had our own style and found clients who liked our
style.

Blum: Did you, with Mr. Yost, ever investigate prefabricated housing?

Taylor: Yes. A couple of prefab and component companies were our clients. Morgan
could sell when he really wanted to. I remember Harnishfeger—no, it wasn't
Harnishfeger, it was someone in South Bend, Indiana, and I can't recall the name.
One Sunday there was an ad in the newspaper that this developer wanted an
architectural draftsman. Morgan went to them and said, "We're architects, we're
familiar with housing,"—I'm capsulizing—"and we can do this." Colpaert was
the name, incidently—Colpaert housing in South Bend was the project. "You
would have the advantage of having someone who knows housing, knows costs,
and who's not on your payroll. We're paid by the work we do when we do it."
He sold Colpaert, and he was retained.

Blum: To do the design?

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Taylor: By Colpaert, yes. They were not only exactly as you would say prefabs, per se,
but they were tract builders. They would acquire large components of a building,
and would have five different designs for several hundred units. We also got into
the true prefab business, and that was for Harnishfeger Corporation in
Milwaukee. They had complete prefabricated houses. There was another
prefaber in a western suburb of Chicago, and I've forgotten what that name was,
but it was a prefab house. At that time, there were so many ways of constructing,
you could have a component building, a lot of the military building became that.
They would assemble off-site certain components of the house, meaning a certain
wall section or all the walls. They would bring them to this site on a truck, set
them up and then continue to finish from there. The completed house was
something else again. General Houses did some of that after the war, and so did
Lustron Corporation, and American Homes, I believe they called themselves.
They had various designs and concepts, none of which were very successful,
either financially or in volume.

Blum: So did you dabble in prefab ventures?

Taylor: We did it, sure. We dabbled in whatever type of design that we had the
opportunity to do.

Blum: What percentage would you say, just a rough guess, of the practice over the eight
years you were in practice with Mr. Yost from 1952-1960, what percentage were
single family?

Taylor: Single family? Since we got into the military housing, and they were large
projects, and it became a great percentage of our work the single family
diminished a great deal. Perhaps even to as few as four, or five houses a year.

Blum: Was the single-family house your personal interest?

Taylor: No. I felt that Morgan was more capable of doing it, and he did a good job. His
interest was there. We separated our interests.

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Blum: In looking at the kinds of projects you were working on at that time, it seems to
me that many of your interests then became very apparent in the joint projects.

Taylor: That's true. When we got into the multiple-housing projects, of course, Morgan
had his input, but that was my field, certainly I felt it to be.

Blum: What do you think was the practice's or the partnership's most successful
project?

Taylor: That's very difficult. We were fortunate enough to do some good projects, and I
would rather say what were the half-dozen most successful. That would be
better.

Blum: Ok. What is your pleasure?

Taylor: Various things, site, type of structure. We did what is known as Unity Center in
North Evanston, a missionary-type denomination. Have you seen it? It is a very
interesting, modern building. We did some industrial buildings, we designed a
large nursery building in Ohio.

Blum: Let me rephrase the question. What project, during the duration of that
partnership, gave you, personally, the most satisfaction?

Taylor: A little difficult.

Blum: What gave you the least satisfaction? Maybe that's another problem.

Taylor: There were probably some, but I just never quite equated it that way. We were
doing a lot of interesting things. I guess in magnitude, perhaps the Great Lakes
project, the navy project, was the most interesting. We had others just as large
elsewhere, but Great Lakes was the first one. It's like your first child you know.
You're asking that old thing of which child do you like the best, and when you
have six, it's a tough question. I think it's about that way. We undoubtedly had
jobs that you don't want to go past, you want to go around the block, meaning

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 that's not a successful one. Off hand I can't recall them, probably because I don't
want to remember the lemons.

Blum: There was something that was published in House and Home in July 1953. Morgan
Yost was the author of the article. The title of the article was "The Architects New
Frontier, The Volume Built House." Was he drawing on experience from the
practice?

Taylor: I think so, sure.

Blum: Would you speak about that?

Taylor: My influence and my association was only a year at that time, so he had to be
drawing principally on something prior to our time together.

Blum: In reading the article it seems to me that he was identifying a new type of client,
that was the builder, the contractor.

Taylor: We recognized that, and I think, that was probably an influence that I had on
him. It became a very important part of the practice, not only to ours, but to the
architectural profession generally.

Blum: It seems to me that after the war the architect's role changed substantially. Am I
reading that correctly?

Taylor: Yes, I think so, so did the homebuilder's, you know. There weren't very many
large, tract-type projects prior to the war.

Blum: There were different types of clients, different types of collaborations, that didn't
exist prior to World War II.

Taylor: That's right. I did a lot of single-family housing with Harold Zook. The housing
multiples projects were few, and there weren't large developments. There was no
Park Forest type.

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Blum: What about the military as a client?

Taylor: I'll tell you, the profession, and architects in general, are fearful of government.

Blum: Why?

Taylor: I don't know. I guess I lived with the brass for 3-1/2 years during the war, not by
choice, but by necessity. I learned to know how they thought, and how they
worked. We never had any problem with them, and they became wonderful
clients for us, and profitable clients

Blum: How did you proceed to deal with them?

Taylor: I flashed my lieutenant commander rank around a little bit, not really, I'm only
kidding. I knew that they needed professional help and they knew it. I remember
one project—do I have enough time to tell you this?

Blum: Yes.

Taylor: This happened at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. We had designed the Great
Lakes project, and it was pretty well along. Everyone in the military, the army,
navy, air force, and marines was talking about it. It was the first one in the whole
Midwestern area. I had gone with my family to Washington to attend an AIA
convention. We registered in the Shoreham Hotel with the family, and we looked
forward to a great week. The children were going to climb the Washington
monument, and we were going to Congress, the Capital, and other things that
kids would want to do, and we did, too, as parents. We were in the hotel, just
registered, probably my jacket was not even off, and I get a call from my
secretary. "Mr. Taylor, I've just received a call from Chanute Air Force Base. They
have a project and they would like to talk to you." I said, "Oh, my goodness, can't
it wait? I just registered, and I am going to be here the whole week. Call them
and have them let it wait until Monday." She called, and the contact there was a
gravily voiced man that I talked to later, he was head of civil engineering at the

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 base. He had a big job, and they had a large staff. She called back and said, "No,
they won't wait, they want to talk to you right away." I got on the phone with
him. I knew his name by that time, it was Hugh Melville. I said, "Well, Mr.
Melville, I am in Washington. I intended to stay here all week. I'm driving back
on Sunday and I will be very pleased to see you on Monday." He said, "You
won't be seeing me, you'll be seeing the general. The general wants to see you at
9:00 Saturday morning." He seemed determined, so I said, "Mr. Melville I'll be
there." We rushed back, and we arrived back to Chicago Thursday night. Those
little kids were disappointed, their mother and I were, too. I get prepared to go
down on Friday afternoon, stay the night, and be in the general's office at 9:00 in
the morning. I walked in at 9:00 a.m., presented myself, and the receptionist took
me in to the general. He was there with one other staff member, a colonel, and
Melville I believe. He said, "Mr. Taylor, I understand you know something about
housing." I said, "Well, we're doing some housing at Great Lakes." He said, "I
know you are. We've been interviewing architects for two or three weeks and we
haven't found anyone who knows anything about housing. What does it cost?" I
gave him a unit cost of what the average was and the limitations. He shot a
couple of other pretty right-to-the-point questions, and I was able to answer
them without hesitation. The meeting lasted for thirty minutes or less and I was
dismissed. This fellow Melville walks out in about two minutes and he said, "Mr.
Taylor, you just got yourself a job." I said, "Well, Mr. Melville, I know how the
military procurement works. They have to talk to three architects, they have to
have a meeting of a committee and discuss it, and all of that." He said, "Are you
sure?" Then he said, "You just met the committee." It was the general.

Blum: That's how the military works?

Taylor: That's how the military works. I wasn't aware of that working of the military, but
we got the job.

Blum: On the other hand, this brings up something else. How did your career, over the
years, impact your family? This was a pointed example of it.

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Taylor: I had a number of other occasions like that when we had a project interfere.
Audrey and I were in Houston for a week, and again I get a phone call. The Air
Force Academy, as far as I was concerned, proved to be one of the most elite
clients I had ever had. I rushed back from the West Coast one time to Chicago for
another project. It affected Audrey's and my vacation. It seemed as though every
time there was a vacation, an important event of this kind seemed to occur. Of
course, it didn't the week before, or the week after. How did it affect the
children? I was very dedicated to architecture. I spent long hours and the fact
that the office was relatively close to home, it took seven minutes to get there, or
five minutes with no lights. I spent a lot of time and accomplished a lot after
hours. On many things, I could do it in half the time that it would take me to
explain to a staff member how to proceed on a particular approach relating to
certain aspects of a project. I did a lot of this type of thing. As far as the children
turning out, they're wonderful. They couldn't be any better—one daughter is
forty, my son is thirty-eight, and my youngest daughter is thirty-four.

Blum: Are any of them architects?

Taylor: No.

Blum: Are any of them interested in architecture?

Taylor: Not particularly. They're interested in design, but not architecture, per se. I think
they saw what dedication is. I think that was good for them, much better than if
I'd been a nine-to-fiver, or a golf player on Thursday and Saturday. Of course,
there are a lot of people who differ from me in opinion, but that's my opinion.
The children were impressed. I think it gave them the sense of dedication that
each of them has for what they're doing. I can only say that their mother was
wonderful in raising them, but that goes without saying. I don't think my long
hours hurt them, and I don't think they were injured in any way by my
dedication. I believe that I didn't go quite as far as Mies, or even Eero Saarinen.
Eero Saarinen, I think, probably killed himself by overworking.

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Blum: But his whole family was involved in that. Eero’s career and their careers, they
were so parallel and intertwined.

Taylor: Indeed. My family appreciated what I accomplished in architecture. The greatest

thing, as far as the family is concerned, was when I was elevated to Fellowship in
the AIA, and it was at the Chicago convention. That's where the award was
made, at Rockefeller Chapel of the University of Chicago, and my whole family
was there.

Blum: When was that?

Taylor: That was 1969, sixteen years ago.

Blum: You were a member of the AIA, especially as an officer, director, president,
during the decade of the 1960s. What is your opinion of the AIA?

Taylor: I think it's an important organization for the profession, but like all organizations
there are weaknesses and there are strengths, but it's a good professional
organization. As a matter of fact, when I first joined the AIA, about 1948, the
reason I did it was because Henry K. Holsman urged me to join. His sons would
not do it, they were renegades. I wasn't quite the renegade, and I was the only
one in the office who belonged to the AIA, except Henry K.

Blum: What did he see as a benefit of being a member of the AIA?

Taylor: First of all, it became a place where he could talk to his colleagues, and he was
respected. At the time I knew him, he was long since out of the AIA, all he had
was FAIA after his name. He wasn't the least active, but he wanted me to be, as
the junior member of the firm. I wanted to be in for him, as well as for myself.

Blum: Did you see the same benefit as he as, say, a forum for the exchange of ideas?

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Taylor: I believe so. It proved to be for me, and it was a broadening of my education.
Other than that, there were great meetings, you'd meet important people, and
you would be inspired by them. Architecture requires great inspiration.

Blum: How would you answer critics who say that the AIA is a worthless organization
because it doesn't uphold standards, it doesn't take a position when problems
occur, it doesn't support architects, when they're in some sort of difficulty where
the AIA feels they can be supportive?

Taylor: Just to put it in about three or four words, they don't know what they're talking
about.

Blum: How so?

Taylor: The AIA, as I've said, has deficiencies. When you have, I don't know how many
they have now, maybe 50,000 members, you can't treat every member as a child.
Their principles are there, and there are a lot of members who don't observe
them, the principles of good design, good professional practice, and so on. Some
members get themselves into problems of their own making, and expect the AIA
to bail them out—even though their actions were obviously wrong. I have a little
disagreement with those people who say you can't ever be critical of an architect.
If an architect is a boob, and he does dumb things that hurt the profession, I will
tell him, and not support him, not go into court and defend him.

Blum: That wasn't the criticism, perhaps I didn't explain it clearly. The criticism was
that they didn't slap wrists, and they didn't support architects whose position
was supportable. They didn't really take a stand either way. That was the
criticism, that they just sort of sat there in the neutral position.

Taylor: I don't know, though I read in the AIA Journal through the years a lot of
reprimands of architects for their breach of ethics.

Blum: Issued by the AIA?

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Taylor: They were issued after a proper hearing and proper presentation, yes. Some have
been thrown out of the organization. I don't know who these people would be
who would say this, or possibly it was an isolated instance.

Blum: So many people have a fuss and then they resign and, of course, they have
comments afterwards.

Taylor: Were they staff members of the office or something?

Blum: Perhaps over the years they had been, but there were also as you suggest, there
were the Holsman sons who wouldn't join.

Taylor: This is right. I was close to it, I knew what happened in the Holsman situation, as
an example. It would be very difficult to take a position in defense of them, I
think, by an organization such as the AIA.

Blum: The AIA defending the Holsmans? I wasn't suggesting that.

Taylor: I doubt if any organization can be perfect in all matters of question, any more
than every judge or jury is correct in decisions.

Blum: I wasn't suggesting that. I was just saying generally, as an organization, how
would you answer criticism of that nature?

Taylor: I think I've answered the way I feel about it. I don't know specifically what the
critical people are talking about. I've seen what the AIA does, they've thrown
people out of the AIA for provable things. Again, I have never had any problem
with the AIA. The ethics never bothered me. You brought up yesterday this thing
of an architect not ever being involved in construction. I never made it a point.
But when a state convention was held in Springfield a number of years ago and I
was asked to be on a panel with Charles Luckman, who was imported from
California for the discussion, I was the one to talk with him, no others. It wasn't a
group, it was Luckman and me. I brought up details of what I was doing in
developing, not as developer, per se, but developing things for my own

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 investment, and working differently than the rigid professional service, as some
people interpreted that AIA canon to be. It was accepted in this convention as
being an innovative thing by an architect who was making the most of his
professional abilities. It developed into what was known as “expanded services”
for architects.

Blum: When was this, what year?

Taylor: It had to be so many years ago. I don't know, it had to be twenty years ago.

Blum: I just wondered if the attitude had changed.

Taylor: I think it's changed a great deal. In any organization you'll find people who are
very rigid, those who are less rigid, and so on. Yes, they all have the well-being
of the profession at heart.

Blum: Was there an establishment in the architectural community?

Taylor: I guess you would say there is an establishment when people get together. When
people get together there are all kinds of people, all kinds of architects. There is
an establishment I guess, if you belonged to the AIA and you were active in it, it
was the establishment group. I guess those who were inactive in the AIA and
those who were not in the AIA at all talk of the establishment, though to benefit
the most from the AIA, an architect must become involved.

Blum: You consider the AIA the heart of the architectural establishment?

Taylor: I do, yes, I really do. I think without the AIA, the profession would become much
weaker, and could not serve the public as well. There is a splinter group called
the American Registered Architects (ARA) and their creed is "Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you." That has nothing to do with the profession,
it's a great maxim, I believe, and I believe it's from the Bible, which is fine. Living
a gentle life, that's fine, and that's the way we should be, but as far as it applies to
the practice of architecture, it is hardly applicable. All you have to have to join is

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 a registration, you've got to be registered as an architect, and "you have to do
unto others as they would do unto you." They have no sensitivity to design. I
hate to say it but the people who have risen as officers in it are average or less,
they're not to be compared in very many ways to the American Institute of
Architects.

Blum: What organization is this?

Taylor: The American Society of Registered Architects. Have you ever heard of them?

Blum: Yes, I have. What other organizations were you a member of that was
architecturally related?

Taylor: I was a member of quite a number of them.

Blum: Were you ever a member of the Chicago Architectural Sketch Club?

Taylor: No, because the Sketch Club heyday was before I came to Chicago, as I
remember. It was in the 1920s or early 1930s.

Blum: You talked about the Architects' Club, what was that?

Taylor: The Architects' Club was a social club. It was different from the AIA, very
different.

Blum: Where did they meet?

Taylor: They met, at the time I was a member, in the Kimball House on Prairie Avenue. I
think actually someone donated the building to the club, which is across from the
Glessner house. They met there years ago.

Blum: Were you a member of the Architects' Club?

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Taylor: Yes. This was years ago, in the late 1930s. Also, I belonged to the Illinois Society
of Architects, which was an Illinois organization. A family, father and son, were
the strength, Herman Palmer was the executive director and Gerald Palmer, the
son, followed his father. They were strong at one time, and I think it's still in
existence, though quite small. I belonged to that at one time, but I don't belong
now.

Blum: That's a statewide organization?

Taylor: Statewide, yes, but I don't know its strength away from Chicago.

Blum: Were you a member of the Cliff Dwellers or the Arts Club?

Taylor: I was a member of the Cliff Dwellers for a while. It was during my period in
Kenilworth. I think Paul McCurry asked me to join and I did. When I was
downtown during the period, I was active in the AIA. I belonged for several
years but seldom went to the club. I belonged to the University Club, the
National Association of Redevelopment Officials, the Illinois Association of
Professions, as a director, the Michigan Society of Architects, and the American
Society of Church Architects.

Blum: Did you find that any of these clubs or organizations was especially useful to you
in a professional way or in a way where you were able to meet people that
subsequently became clients?

Taylor: Some of them, yes. That isn't really the reason I joined them, I joined them to
expand my knowledge, by attending the meetings, and perusing their
documents. The American Society of Church Architecture has a beautiful
monthly magazine. We were doing a few churches and I wanted to know a little
more about them. I think really, though, outside of the American Institute of
Architects, the best organization in which I was involved was the National
Academy of Science in Washington. I was on some major committees there, the
National Research Council, the Building Research Advisory Board of the

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 National Academy. I was joined with a wonderful group of architects and
engineers from all over the U.S.

Blum: What was the purpose of that organization?

Taylor: The purpose was to advise the Federal Housing Administration and the
Department of Housing and Urban Development on problems of doctrine, on
problems of detail, on acceptance of proposed innovations when they needed
more advice than their staff possessed. Here was one of the largest departments
under the president, yet their permanent staff was not sufficiently capable to
make final determinations on various important considerations.

Blum: Who else was on that board with you?

Taylor: Rudyard Jones was from the University of Illinois, he was head of the Small
Homes Council. A man from the University of Texas, and I don't recall his name,
but he was involved in research on housing. And many more, including highly
successful architects and developers.

Blum: Board membership was not limited to Chicago or Illinois?

Taylor: No, it was nationwide, people from the state of Washington, California, New
York, et cetera. There was an engineer or two from New York who were very
well known. To be a member was really a prestigious, as well as a very
rewarding thing. I enjoyed it. There were three or four day meetings at the
National Academy on Constitution Avenue. I developed professionally from it.
However, I'm not sure I ever got a client from it. That wasn't the specific
objective. My objective was to develop professionally, which I believe that I did.

Blum: As you look back over your career, what do you think has been your greatest
opportunity?

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Taylor: That's a tough one too. Probably getting a job in architecture right after I
graduated, of any nature, because a lot of my classmates didn't. Remember, that
was 1938.

Blum: As you pointed out, that was the depression.

Taylor: It was the depression and my uncle's office was small. I didn't work at the type of
things that a lot of students coming out of school would do normally at such
offices as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. These young people would become
proficient at one type of work and would be limited to it. It wasn't like what you
would do in a large office, but rather you did some of everything. I was fortunate
to have an uncle that wanted me to be an architect as much as I wanted to be an
architect.

Blum: In 1960 you left Morgan Yost?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: You were then Coder Taylor and Associates.

Taylor: Right.

Blum: How did you happen to leave Morgan Yost?

Taylor: The way the determination occurred… It was sad for me, I hate to say, and it was
devastating for Morgan because, in a sense, I walked out on him. I hated to do it,
and yet I felt I had to. I was prepared, Morgan wasn't prepared. Morgan had
become engrossed in collecting antique automobiles, and he became increasingly
less interested in being an architect. I was able to take over the building, which I
wanted for my office.

Blum: The building you both shared?

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Taylor: Yes, it was an equal partnership endeavor. I bought Morgan out and I was able
to keep the majority of the staff, practically all of the capable staff.

Blum: As you described it there was only one other person.

Taylor: Oh, no, not at that time.

Blum: Oh, the office had grown?

Taylor: When we started there was only one other person besides Morgan and me, and a
secretary. We had a dozen people by the time that we separated. The people
included Don Reinking, who was an architect, and he could draw like an angel.
And Bob Rasmussen, who had studied at the University of Illinois and then
apprenticed with Wright—we had hired him when we did the Chanute job, and
he was an on-site project inspector. That's at the time he was hired, and then we
brought him into the office. John Paulson was an architect from the University of
Michigan, a wonderful designer, coordinated person, a good architect. Donald
Mitzel was a young architect—I think he was from Illinois. And we had a couple
of secretaries that were just great, together with other people who were
developing.

Blum: They were your associates then?

Taylor: My associates were the registered architects beyond the non-registered and
support staff. The non-architects were not associates. The architects were
associates in title, because I wanted them to have some prestige in the firm. They
were not partners; I owned the business totally. I always tried to be fair with
them and treat them as professionals. As a result, they were extremely loyal.

Blum: What kind of work did you then do?

Taylor: We were very busy. We were commissioned to do a considerable amount of

military work. I think we were doing several large housing projects, and there
was no way that Morgan could take them with him. That wasn't my intention,

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 but he had none of the capability to complete them. We were also doing a lot of
private work. We'd do small industrials, and some large industrials. We had an
industrial client that started with us about that time, maybe even shortly prior to
it, then we had eight additions through the years. We were doing all of Kroch’s
and Brentano's stores, eventually a total of sixteen of them.

Blum: Interiors or exteriors?

Taylor: Interiors, principally, yet they included the exterior of the store as required. Carl
Kroch was a very good client, an excellent client. We did all types of work,
including libraries, public and recreational buildings, et cetera.

Blum: Who were the photographers that you used?

Taylor: We always used Hedrich-Blessing.

Blum: Did you have occasion to use landscape architects as well?

Taylor: Yes.

Blum: Who were they?

[Tape 9]

Taylor: The principal landscape architect was Wallace G. Atkinson, who was a
knowledgeable and sensitive designer. We also retained from time to time Ned
Samuel, also a landscape architect.

Blum: Mr. Taylor, one of the things you brought to my attention was your participation
on Glenview's Appearance Commission. What was that all about?

Taylor: I think we have to go back just a little bit. Glenview had some historical
buildings. They weren't those that should have been on the National Register or
anything of that importance, but they were interesting and attractive buildings.

145
 They were landmarks in the community. There was one at the corner of
Waukegan Road and Glenview Road, the northeast corner, one that was built
probably in the 1880s, 1890s, and not worth preserving, but everyone rather liked
it as a relic of a bygone period. However, it was destroyed, and then replaced by
a very ordinary, commonplace, no-thought building, and that's a proper
description. One evening one of the village trustees called me, and I'd never
known this woman, she said, "What can we do about it?" I said, "You can't do
anything about it." She replied, "What could we have done about it?" I said, "You
couldn't have done anything about it. The builder brought the plans to the
building department for review. The plans complied with the zoning ordinance,
and there are no other restraints you have in the village." She talked to her fellow
trustees and they began to think maybe there's something they could do. They
learned that aesthetics in design by municipal committees has been in difficulty
for years. There had been a lot of restraints and controls attempted. Most failed,
but some were partially successful, but none really successful, totally. But, the
village trustees believed it was worthwhile trying. They sat with the village
attorney, and came up with a thought: maybe we should try to add to the village
ordinance, and have an "appearance" law. They called me about it and I said,
"Fine." I had been on the plan commission of the village, so I knew the trustees.
However, I resigned from the plan commission when I was selected to design the
public library addition, and I couldn't wear both hats. Since I knew the people
and there was a certain amount of mutual respect, I knew their problems and
they thought I had a professional approach. I said, to them, "You've got to
develop a law that has some teeth. You've got to have your parameters
reasonable and fair because you'll get a lot of criticism, and you don't want to
hurt the freedom of good architectural design. You want to enhance it rather
than hurt it." Further, I said, "What you should really do, and you probably won't
do it because it's something that has not been done, as far as I know, but set up a
group of professionals with capabilities to determine satisfactory design. Do not
include, for instance, housewives and others on it who are interested in the
village, but they have no background to judge design.

Blum: Are you suggesting the commission be made up of all architects?

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Taylor: A major number of architects, but include a landscape architect, together with
one community person who has some background and who is concerned with
esthetics, and let this group be the judges. The village board should not be able to
override. There isn't another ordinance that would permit that, this would be one
of a kind. Zoning can be overruled. The zoning commission will pass on
something and the village board must approve it. The planning commission is
the same thing, and other commissions in municipalities. As a result, for political
considerations, good decisions by zoning and planning committees or
commissions are often overruled.

Blum: How was this suggestion received?

Taylor: It was received with mixed emotions. The trustees consulted the village attorney,
"Can we do this legally, or will it be overturned in court?" They finally came out
with a proposed ordinance, and I supported it all along. It was an appearance
code that required public hearings before enactment. At the public hearings a
group of architects, I wouldn't say all of them, but Glenview being a bedroom
community we have quite a number of architects, probably almost fifty, the
sizable group had gotten together to oppose the ordinance. They felt that it
would be detrimental to their freedom of design and that there should be no
ordinance that related to esthetics. Who should pass on their thoughts on design?
It was a very strong group. I was the only architect who publicly supported the
passage. I was called a traitor by some people, and other people as not knowing
what I was talking about, and so on. However, I'd given the matter a lot of
thought.

Blum: Why did you support it?

Taylor: I supported it because I thought that Glenview needed it, and I felt that a plan
could be developed that would be fair, reasonable and could enhance the
community by it use.

Blum: What has been the result of this commission?

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Taylor: I was appointed chairman of the Appearance Commission, and proceeded to put
the commission together. One thing I did was to invite the leader of the
opposition to be a commission member. I was asked by the board of trustees to
recommend who should be on the committee or commission. I was chairman,
there was no question about that, and I was to develop a commission, which is
the way to do it. In addition to the opposition, I recommended a lady landscape
architect, Edith Antognoli, and she was very capable; I suggested Robert
Johnson, who was a leading opponent of the ordinance; Richard Nash, who was
an architect with F.W. Dodge Corporation; and an artist; and Gustave Gunstrum,
who was a landscape contractor, and who was highly respected in the business
community and still very sensitive to design. The trustees took my
recommendations and approved them all. We had a blue ribbon commission.
The first thing that the ordinance called for was an appearance plan. What is an
appearance plan? It could not be like a zoning ordinance, it couldn't be that
formal at all. It had to be a criteria that would relate to the appearance of the site,
building and landscaping, as it related to other buildings near by. The quality of
the design and how it would age would be important. Would it be attractive
permanently or was it going to look bad in a few years, by improper selection
and use of materials, and various factors of this kind. It took us almost a year to
develop the appearance plan. It came out, I thought, very successfully. Everyone
who saw it thought it would be successful. Over the period of the next year or
two there were over four hundred requests for copies of it by communities from
all over the country, and it got publicity nationally in newspapers.

Blum: Have other communities since developed commissions modeled after this one?

Taylor: Other communities have, to an extent. I think the thing that really turned off
most people was the fact that there's appeal of the appearance commission's
decision. That is, if the appearance commission in Glenview turned something
down, the only recourse that applicant has is to go to court, which at that time
would test the legality. This ordinance was passed in 1968, and there's never
been a test in court.

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Blum: Was aesthetics or the guidelines for aesthetics, ever an issue that the AIA
considered?

Taylor: I think they never considered it. They had a report of the Commission's activities
in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects or in the news, I've forgotten
which. The newspapers around Chicago had a number of favorable articles on it.
I think the AIA never took it as a thing they wanted to have an issue to either
support or oppose.

Blum: Over the years what were some of the important issues that architects dealt with?

Taylor: You mean in appearance or what?

Blum: Appearance, yes, and other things.

Taylor: I think the main thing has always been, what is the effect of architecture on a
community and its well being, the well being of the people in relation to their
behavior.

Blum: Did architects actively discuss this kind of thing?

Taylor: I'm sure they have, I don't recall any specifically, but, of course, there have been
discussions. I think all serious architects feel that the profession has a profound
effect on the lives of people. You discuss that, how it effects them
psychologically, how it effects them physiologically and in other ways. Everyone
lives in a home for instance, and they work in an office or an environment that is
affected by architecture.

Blum: What were the issues over the years, say from the 1940s until now that you recall
that concerned architects?

Taylor: Of course, there were local issues, on the development of the lakefront of
Chicago, which was a big thing. We have in Chicago, as you know, the greatest
lakefront of any of the great lakes, and probably one of the greatest waterfronts

149
 in the world. That was one that I was involved in when I was president of the
American Institute of Architects in Chicago.

Blum: The preservation of the lakefront?

Taylor: Yes, the preservation of the lakefront. Another issue at the same time, when I
was president, was the Crosstown Expressway, which was a project that was
programmed and, I believe, even partially funded to use Cicero Avenue corridor
as an expressway like the Edens. Except, that's a north-south, rather than a
diagonal, which the Edens is. It was felt that the highway improvement was
necessary. How it was to be implemented was the thing that we fought as
architects, because of the influence on the environment. I know that the highway
planners wanted to build the highway over a railway in what we of the chapter
called a "Stiltway." This would be over the right of way of the Beltline Railroad,
but would be above it. We would have had another division of the east and the
west community by this tall structure that would be continuous. Traffic could go
under it, sure, but visually you couldn't see over it, except from great distances.
Resulting from the objection of the AIA locally, the planner came up with a
depressed highway, which was concerned with the communities on both sides,
that is, the environment on both sides. They did a great study and then it got into
politics, funding and other things, however it was a good solution. The Daley
administration brought in a nationally known planner. But, like a lot of things
that are good, it was never implemented. In the AIA chapter study we learned of
other similar proposed highways, such as some in San Francisco, L. A., and other
parts of the country where projects were started but never completed. They are
still incomplete, started, but not completed, because of the adverse effect on the
environment, and the impact of people that were strongly opposed to them.
These were interesting issues. The architects, I think, were particularly
responsible to do what they did, save the lake front. McCormick Place was
rebuilt, but, I think, it's a better building, and now it's going to be expanded.
There's no opposition to it. I guess opposition to such runs in cycles. Preservation
is an important thing now; I think it's taken over. However, architects must
remain vigilant to preserve such things as the lakefront, open spaces, lower
densities, etc.

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Blum: Perhaps preservation is more important today than ever.

Taylor: Indeed it is, it has developed, and it's recognized as being an important thing,
but there are still opponents to it, principally those who want to make a profit
and then leave.

Blum: What do you think have been some of the influential buildings in Chicago, either
pre- or postwar?

Taylor: I think such buildings as the Rookery, the Marquette building, and those that
Burnham did. Of course, Sullivan's buildings and there were a number of
others—even the Chicago Tribune building, though it was certainly not modern
when it was built, has been an important building, and the Wrigley building.

Blum: And postwar?

Taylor: Well, of course, the Sears Tower, Hancock, some of the apartment buildings, 1200
Lake Shore, 860-880 Lake Shore, and, of course, Harbor Point and Lake Point are
interesting buildings. Then the controversial ones today, whether or not they will
be controversial in twenty years, who knows. I have a feeling that some of them
will be the State of Illinois building and some other works of the postmodern
rebellion.

Blum: Did you ever have a secret project in mind that you never had an opportunity to
execute?

Taylor: No, not one in my mind that I wasn't able to execute. I think I've been successful
enough in the ones that were undertaken. I think that the chapel in Sedona,
Arizona, would be one that I'd like to have had my name on. It is quite unique
with the setting. I don't know that you can say it harmonizes with the desert, it
stands out obviously. Maybe Wright would have said, "Oh, that's terrible," but I
was impressed by it.

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Blum: As you say, the setting is so marvelous and that's something, of course, that an
architect couldn't create.

Taylor: Indeed not. I remember when I would deliver slide lectures of our projects, when
we were being interviewed. We were fortunate enough for a period, to be
commissioned for at least half of everything for which we were interviewed, and
that was a better batting record that most other architects. We were getting all
types of work, libraries, and whatnot. Having done a project at the U. S. Air
Force Academy in Colorado, I was very impressed by the Garden of the Gods, it
was a Garden of the Gods really, natural stone, various shades and beautiful
God-made monuments. I took some pictures there, and I would end my
presentation of our work by this. Of course, everyone of those interviewing us
were impressed by the beautiful picture of the Garden of the Gods, and I would
say, "We didn't do this, but we were fortunate enough to do a project near it."
That gave a little geographic impression. Nature is still better than we are at the
design of monuments—not necessarily shelter!

Blum: Architects work with the setting, they make the most of the setting.

Taylor: Absolutely, that’s it.

Blum: How would you like best to be remembered?

Taylor: Well, to begin with, not as being a big architect, but an architect of quality, I
think. I think that's it.

Blum: If someone wanted to do more research, to gather more information about you,
where might one go to get more information? Where are your records, where are
your drawings? At the Art Institute we do have some materials, both manuscript
materials as well as drawings, and, of course, we will have the transcript of this
oral history. We'll also have some information about your work in our upcoming
exhibition, "The Postwar American Dream," which will be held at the Graham
Foundation in September of 1985. Where else are your materials located?

152
Taylor: There are some at the Chicago Historical Society.

Blum: Drawings?

Taylor: Drawings and complete documents, including files, specifications and other
elements relating to a project. The Wilmette Historical Society and the Evanston
Historical Society both have work relating to their community.

Blum: What is the nature of the material in Wilmette?

Taylor: In Wilmette there are models of the Village Hall and the Centennial Park
recreation project, renderings of these and other projects, and considerable
documents of the various projects which were done in Wilmette.

Blum: Work you've done in these communities?

Taylor: Yes, that's the reason that it's there, it related to the specific community.

Blum: Hedrich-Blessing would have a file of your work?

Taylor: Unless they've thrown them all out.

Blum: I suppose one could always come to you?

Taylor: As long as I live. I enjoy discussions about the period of over fifty years in which
I have been involved in architecture.

Blum: Mr. Taylor, thank you very much.

Taylor: It's been a pleasure, it's been an honor, and I'm very pleased that you and those
others of your colleagues have deemed me worthy of this. It's been a real lift,
thank you.

153
 SELECTED REFERENCES

"Apartment Houses: River Ledge Garden Apartments." Architectural Record 110 (December
1951):143-144.
"Apartments." Architectural Record 92 (January 1950):69-83, 124.
"Apartments: Suburban Town Houses." Architectural Record 129 (March 1961):203.
"Attractive Roadside Garden Center." Architectural Record 129 (May 1961):188.
The Art Institute of Chicago and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine
Arts. The Postwar American Dream. Chicago, 1985.
"Civic Offices, Museum and Carillon." Architectural Record 89 (March 1941):108-109.
D. Coder Taylor Scrapbooks
"Darl Coder Taylor." Chicago Architects Design. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago and
Rizzoli International, 1982.
Holsman, Henry K. "Economic Architectural and Sociological Aspects of Parkway Garden
Home and Other Projects Sponsored by the Community Development Trust." Address
delivered on 30 September 1950.
"Jackson-Laramie Garden Homes." Promotional brochure.
"Lunt Lake Apartments." Promotional brochure.
"Son, Father, 89, Convicted of Defrauding 124." Chicago Tribune 20 January 1956.
"The Rush-Huron Office Building." Promotional brochure.
"Winchester & Hood Garden Apartments Extension B." Promotional brochure.
"Yost & Taylor Architects and Engineers." 1960. Promotional brochure.

154
 DARL CODER TAYLOR

Born: 18 July 1913, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Died: 15 May 2000, Evanston, Illinois

Education: University of Washington, 1933

Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1935, B.Arch.

Military Service: Civil Engineering Corps, United States Navy, 1942-1945

Experience: Zook and Taylor, 1935-1942

Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor, 1945-1952
Yost and Taylor, 1952-1960
D. Coder Taylor and Associates, 1960+

Awards and
Honors: Fellow, American Institute of Architects, 1969
Merit Award, Family Housing, Great Lakes Naval Training Center
Prize Home #1, Chicagoland Prize Homes Competition, Chicago Tribune,
1945

Service: American Institute of Architects, Chicago Chapter, Program Director,

1950
Glenview Plan Commission 1963-1965
National Academy of Science—National Academy of Engineers,
Washington, D.C., 1963-1969
American Institute of Architects, Chicago Chapter, President, 1967
Fine Arts Committee, Illinois Sesquecentennial Commission, 1967-1968
Glenview Appearance Commission, 1968-1972

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 INDEX OF NAMES AND BUILDINGS

860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Colpaert Realty Subdivision, South Bend,
Chicago, Illinois 27, 91, 97, 100, 102, 103 Indiana 129
1200 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois Community Development Trust 71, 72,
151 75, 97, 99, 104, 107, 108
Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills,
American Homes 130 Michigan 120
Antognoli, Edith 148 Crosstown Expressway (project), Chicago,
Architect’s Club 140-141 Illinois 150
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
29, 61, 68-69 Dalton, Byron 79
AT&T Building, New York City, New Danforth, George 113, 117
York 10 Driscoll and Company (factory), Chicago,
Atkinson, Wallace G. 145 Illinois 111, 124
DuPage County Courthouse, DuPage,
Baker, Edward 35-37 Illinois 43
Bannister, Turpin 116
Baum, Dwight James 39 Eames, Charles 111, 113
Bennett, Richard M. 16, 115 Empire State Building, New York City,
Bleitz, Irvin 53-54, 61, 65-66 New York 10, 11
Blessing, Charles 113 Evanston Historical Society, Evanston,
Boise Cascade 49 Illinois 153
Burch, Ed 69 Evert Kincaid Associates 124-125
Burnham, Daniel Hudson 25, 151
Farnsworth, Edith 40, 117-118
Capehart, Homer E. (Senator) 124 Farnsworth, Edith (house), Plano, Illinois
Capehart Housing 125-126 117, 119
Carnegie, Andrew 16 Field Building, Chicago, Illinois 29
Century of Progress International Field, Harford 38
Exposition, 1933-1934, Chicago, Illinois Fisher, Raymond 13
17 Ford, Ruth and Sam (house), Aurora,
Century of Progress International Illinois 117
Exposition, 1933-1934, General Motors Fuller, R. Buckminster 18
Building, Chicago, Illinois 18
Chamales, Christopher 113 Garbe, Raymond (Ray) 69
Chanute Air Force Base, Chanute, Illinois Garneau, Ceil 120
112, 127, 133, 144 General Houses 130
Chermayeff, Serge 55 Genther, Charles (Skip) 27, 91, 94-95
Chicago Board of Trade Building, Gerhardt, Paul 61
Chicago, Illinois 29 Glessner, John H. (house), Chicago,
Chicago Stock Exchange Building, Illinois 140
Chicago, Illinois 29 Grapin, Camille 6, 13
Chrysler Building, New York City, New Great Lakes Naval Training Center,
York 10, 11 Family Housing, Great Lakes, Illinois
Civic Center (aka Municipal Building), St. 131, 133-134
Charles, Illinois 33-37, 43 Greenwald, Herbert (Herb) 27, 91-93, 97-
100

156
Gropius, Walter 4, 9, 40 Llewellyn, Joseph C. 38
Gulf Building, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Loyola University, Madonna Della Strata
10, 11 Chapel, Chicago, Illinois 66
Gunstrum, Gustave (Gus) 148 Luckman, Charles 138
Lunt Lake Apartments, Chicago, Illinois
Hammond, Bryant 88 74, 82, 86, 98
Harbor Point Apartments, Chicago, Lunt Lake Trust 75
Illinois 151 Lustron House 49-50, 130
Harnishfeger Corporation, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin 130 McCormick, Robert R. 100
Hedrich-Blessing Photographers 145, 153 McCormick Place (second), Chicago,
Hill, Boyd 65 Illinois 150
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 113, 119 McCurry, Paul 141
Holabird and Root 86 MacEldowney, Harold 68
Holsman, Henry K. 40, 52, 70-73, 75, 83, Maher, Philip B. 61, 66-67
86-88, 96-98, 107, 108, 136 Marquette Building, Chicago, Illinois 29,
Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor 38, 70, 151
27, 99, 106, 109 Marx, Samuel (Sam) 114
Holsman, John 71, 73, 84, 94, 99 Masselink, Eugene (Gene) 114
Holsman, William (Bill) 71, 72, 84, 105, Meier, Hildreth 11
107-108 Melville, Hugh 134
Hood, Raymond 4 Merrill, John 65, 80
Hornbostel, Caleb 16 Merrion, Joseph 61
Hornbostel, Henry 15-17 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 7, 9, 27, 28,
39-41, 91-101, 105, 106, 117, 118, 135
Institute of Design, Chicago, Illinois 8, 39 Miller, Edgar 66
Miller, Herman 111
Johnson, Philip 10 Mitzel, Donald 144
Johnson, Robert 148 Moholy-Nagy, László 39
Jones, Rudyard 142 Monadnock Building, Chicago, Illinois 29
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New
Kautzky, Theodore (Ted) 51, 63, 65, 68 York City, New York 12
Keck, George Fred 18 Myrhum, Arthur 69
Kenilworth Historical Society (aka Stuart
Memorial Building), Kenilworth, Illinois Nash, Richard 148
66-67 Netsch, Walter A. 122
Kimball, William W. (house), Chicago, Neutra, Dione (wife of Richard) 117
Illinois 140 Neutra, Richard 9, 113, 116-119
Klekamp, Ben 52, 70, 71, 73, 80, 84 Norris, Delora 35
Koch, Carl 46 Norris, Lester 35-36
Kornacker, Frank 93-95 Northrup Corporation 49
Kroch’s & Brentano’s 145
Krock, Carl 145 PACE Associates 27, 82, 91-96, 99-101
Palmer, Gerald (son of Herman) 141
Lackner, Herman 129 Palmer, Herman 141
Lake Point Tower, Chicago, Illinois 151 Parkway Gardens, Chicago, Illinois 41,
Lake Shore Athletic Club, Chicago, Illinois 75-76, 82, 88, 96, 97
103 Paulson, John 144
Lawrie, Lee 11 Perkins and Will 85
Levittown, New York 48-49 Pickwick Theatre, Park Ridge, Illinois 33

157
Prentice, Perry 86
Promontory Apartments, Chicago, Illinois Walker, Ralph 113
41, 91-95, 97, 99, 100 Wentzel, Carl (house), Sterling, Illinois
123
Rasmussen, Bob 144 Wheaton County Building, Wheaton,
Rebori, Andrew 61, 66 Illinois 43
Reinking, Don 112, 122, 125, 144 Wilmette Historical Society, Wilmette,
Riverside Church, New York City, New Illinois 153
York 10 Winchester Hood Apartments, Chicago,
Robertson, H.H., Company 35 Illinois 98
Rockefeller Center, New York City, New Winchester Hood Trust 75, 82
York 11 Wright, Frank Lloyd 27, 31, 43, 57, 113-
Rookery Building, Chicago, Illinois 29, 115, 119, 120, 144, 151
151 Wright, Olgivanna 115
Root, John Wellborn 115
Rudolph, George Cooper 63 Yewell, Floyd 63
Yost, L. Morgan 67, 113, 115, 121, 123-130,
Saarinen, Eero 7, 111, 113, 119, 120, 135, 132, 143, 144
136
Saarinen, Eliel 4, 119-120 Zook, R. Harold (Zookie) 1-3, 29, 31-40,
Samuel, Ned 145 46, 84-85, 132
Schmertz, Bob 13 Zook and Taylor 37, 54, 58, 84,
Schnaffer, Arnold 129 Zukowsky, John 70
Sears Tower, Chicago, Illinois 11
Shaw, Howard Van Doren 38
Sherman Gardens, Evanston, Illinois 82,
92, 98-99
Shinderman, William 113, 117
Siegel, Arthur 115
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) 23,
65, 85, 129, 143
Speyer, A. James 5, 14-15
Stuart, Robert 66
Sullivan, Louis Henry 25, 151

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin 114

Tavern Club, Chicago, Illinois 67
Taylor, Audrey Larkin (wife of D. Coder)
51-53, 79, 111, 112, 120, 135
Taylor, D. Coder (house), Glenview,
Illinois 79

United States Air Force Academy,

Colorado Springs, Colorado 135, 152
United States Gypsum 49, 78
Unity Center of Christianity, Evanston,
Illinois 131
Urban, Joseph 17

Vautrinaut, Madeline 20

158