This thesis examines aspects of the work of American writer and social critic, Lewis Mumford, and the domestic buildings of architect William Wurster. It reveals parallels in their careers, particularly evident in an Arts and Crafts influence and the regional emphasis both men combined with an otherwise overtly Modernist outlook. Several chapters are devoted to the background of, and influences on, Mumford???s regionalism and Wurster???s architecture. Mumford, a spiritual descendent of John Ruskin, admired Wurster???s work for its reflection of his own regionalist ideas, which are traced to Arts and Crafts figures Patrick Geddes, William Morris, William Lethaby and Ruskin. These figures are important to this study, firstly because the influence of their philosophical perspective allowed Mumford, almost uniquely, to position himself as a spokesman for both Romanticism and Modernism with equal validity, and secondly because of their influence upon early Californian architects such as Bernard Maybeck, and subsequently upon Wurster and his colleagues. Throughout the thesis, an important architectural distinction is highlighted between regional Modernism and the International Style. This distinction polarised the American architectural community after Mumford published an article in 1947 suggesting that the ???Bay Region Style??? represented a regionally appropriate alternative to the abstract formulas of International Style architecture and nominated Wurster as its most significant representative. Wurster???s regional Modernism was distinct from the bulk of American Modernism because of its regional influences and its indebtedness to vernacular forms, apparent in buildings such as his Gregory Farmhouse. In 1948, Henry-Russel Hitchcock organised a symposium at New York???s Museum of Modern Art to refute Mumford???s article. Its participants acrimoniously rejected a regionalist alternative to the International Style, and architectural historians have suggested that authentic regional development in the Bay Region largely ceased because of such adverse theoretical and academic scrutiny. After examining the influences on Mumford and Wurster, the thesis concludes that twentieth century regional architectural development in the San Francisco Bay Region has influenced subsequent Western domestic architecture. Wurster suggested that architects should employ the regional and vernacular rather than emulate historical styles or follow theoretical models in their buildings and Mumford, upon whose work Critical Regionalism was later founded, is central to any understanding of the importance of the vernacular, regional and historical in modern architecture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/257202 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Castle, Jane, School of Architecture, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Architecture |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Jane Castle, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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