Architectural Forum, 1932-64 A Time Inc. Experiment in American Architecture and Journalism BY ...

325 Pages·2015·10.08 MB·English

Architectural Forum, 1932-64
A Time Inc. Experiment in American Architecture and Journalism
BY
SARAH M. DRELLER
B.A., Florida State University, 1994
M.Arch.Hist., University of Virginia, 1999
THESIS
Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015
Chicago, Illinois
Defense Committee:
Robert Bruegmann, Co-Chair and Co-Advisor
Peter Bacon Hales, Co-Chair and Co-Advisor
Esra Akcan
Penelope Dean, Architecture
Robin Schuldenfrei, The Courtauld Institute
© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
This dissertation is dedicated to

my father, Dr. Gerry Dreller (1939-2002), who started
encouraging me to be “the second Dr. Dreller”
when I was 14 years old

and

my mother, Aletta E. Dreller, who was absolutely instrumental
in making both of our Ph.D.s possible.

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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First I would like to thank Robert Bruegmann for chairing
my committee and guiding me toward the completion of this
project. Bob gave me a lot of honest feedback about my
dissertation over the years. It was just what I needed, and I am
grateful – honored, really – that someone of his stature would
invest so much energy in me and in my work. I have thanked him
privately more times that I can remember, and am happy to
finally give him the public recognition he so deserves. I would
also like to especially thank my readers, Esra Akcan, Penelope
Dean and Robin Schuldenfrei, for their patience and kind advice
as I negotiated the ups and downs of this process.
Some words are necessary here about the one member of my
committee who will not read my dissertation in its completed
form, my late co-chair/co-advisor, Peter Bacon Hales. Peter was
such an unusual person, a gifted writer and an engaged mentor; I
hardly know what to say now that would do justice to his memory
and his service to me. Reflecting back over the nine years I
worked with him, I think what I appreciated most was his natural
penchant for modeling how to be an articulate and thoughtful
scholar. He did this most often by paraphrasing my best ideas
back to me in language that demonstrated how complex and elegant
those ideas could be – language that shared some of his vision
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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued)

of my more accomplished future self. This was his special
mixture of critique and praise and faith, and anyone who knew
Peter will recognize it as wholly organic to his layered way of
looking at the world. Of course the phrasing reflected his
unique voice so I didn’t actually use what he sent in the
dissertation itself. He didn’t expect me to and I don’t think
that was the point anyway. I think, instead, that Peter was
trying to empower my imagination, for this particular project
and also in a cosmic sense, so that I would be bolder when I was
available for boldness and have stores of enthusiasm to help
push through the inevitable doubt. That I managed to finish
still reasonably lucid testifies to the value of his pedagogy
and to the generous spirit that animated all his interactions
with me. I always knew the attention he gave me could have
easily been directed elsewhere. I hope he knew how much I
appreciated that.
I would like to recognize the Department of Art History and
the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Chicago
for supporting me and my research over the years. I would also
like to express my very deep gratitude to Keith Kewley, a close
family friend, who subsidized the cost of childcare so that I
could have long stretches of delicious uninterrupted time to
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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued)

think and write. My mind and my work would have been much more
scattered without Keith’s unconditional help.
I had the very great fortune to interview some wonderfully
open and giving people for this research. John Morris Dixon, who
started his journalism career as an editor at Time Inc.’s Forum,
deserves special thanks here. John devoted an enormous amount of
his time and intellectual energy to answering my seemingly
unending questions. His earnest participation made my work
better. I would also like to recognize Hicks Stone, Jayne
Merkel, Ann Wilson, Mildred Schmertz, Andy Shanken and Kirk
Hazlett, all of whom were patient, honest and gracious.
I also had the pleasure of working with dedicated
archivists who deserve to know how much they contributed to my
project. In particular I would like to warmly thank Janet Parks
at Columbia’s Avery Library Curator of Drawings and Archives,
who planted the idea of a Forum dissertation in my head as she
described her archive’s collections and then helped me navigate
Columbia’s “visiting scholar” program when I was preparing to
stay in New York. Likewise, I absolutely must recognize Bill
Hooper, Time Inc. Archivist, for making his company’s resources
so available to me and for engaging with me with so much good
humor. I am also indebted to Mary Buchanan at the Audit Bureau
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued)

of Circulations/Alliance for Audited Media, Nancy Hadley at the
American Institute of Architects and Sara Stiberg at
Northwestern University Library’s Art and Architecture
Collection for their solicitous professionalism.
My confidence and spirits would have suffered without the
support of a core group of colleagues and friends. In
particular, thank you to Dale Gyure for being an early and loyal
believer in me and in this project. I would also like to
acknowledge my classmates, Mirela Tanta, Catherine Burdick,
Sarita Heer and Margot Berrill, for serving as emotional and
intellectual sounding boards when they had their own equally
exhausting projects to attend. And I am very grateful to my
department’s Director of Graduate Studies, Nina Dubin, and the
Department Assistant, Susanne Uslenghi, for doing everything in
their power to help me succeed, especially in this last
complicated year.
The intense and isolating nature of this work can make
maintaining family connections difficult, so I would like to
extend a heartfelt thank you to my family and my husband’s
family for being so understanding over the years. Some specific
contributions deserve recognition here. First, I would like to

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued)

acknowledge Sid Glaser and Kendra Frassetto for letting me stay
with them in New York City so that I could actually afford to do
a substantive amount of research there. I am also especially
grateful to Laurie Kerr for making introductions that eventually
led to important interviews and to Chris Ellicott for
enthusiastically taking on childcare responsibilities as I
slogged my way through the second and third draft revisions. And
a huge thank you to my mother, Aletta E. Dreller, for her
tremendous faith in me and for the countless ways she
demonstrated it over the years.
Finally, there is no possible way I could have imagined
undertaking this project – much less actually finishing it –
without the encouragement of my husband, Clark Christensen. His
contribution defies words, a significant feat considering I’ve
managed to find nearly 100,000 words for my dissertation so far,
but I can definitely say it adds up to more than I can ever
repay. Thank you, Clark, for all the big and small sacrifices
you’ve made. Thank you, Clark, for all the confidence you gave
me freely when I didn’t have enough of my own. Thank you.

SMD

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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION........................................... 1
A. Forum in Context, Part I: Architectural
Journalism........................................ 3
B. Forum in Context, Part II: Luce and Time Inc. .... 23
C. Organization of the Study......................... 32
D. Seeing Beyond the “Look”.......................... 35

II. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME INC.’S ARCHITECTURAL FORUM..... 37
A. 1932: Time Inc. Acquires Forum.................... 37
B. 1932-1941: The Early Years of Time Inc.’s “new
Forum”............................................ 47
C. 1942-1952: The Confused Middle Years.............. 60
D. 1953-1964: The Demise of Time Inc.’s Forum........ 72
E. Forum After 1964.................................. 84

III. “ARCHITECTURAL” AND “FORUM” REDEFINED.................. 86
A. Key Concepts
1. Fortune and the Irresponsible Architect...... 86
2. Prospectus for a “New Forum”................. 92
3. Interpreting Luce’s Ideas.................... 99
B. Key Concepts as Developed In and Through Forum
1. Reconceiving Forum’s Physicality: Two Early
Changes...................................... 102
2. Reconceiving Forum’s Content: Three Early
Changes...................................... 109
3. Completing the “New Forum” Transformation.... 115
4. Three Later Variations on the Forum Editorial
Formula...................................... 122
5. The Last Five Years: Old and New............. 133

IV. FORUM’S PUBLIC RELATIONS CHARACTER..................... 145
A. Key Concept: Big Public Relations for a Small
Community......................................... 145
B. Key Concept as Developed In and Through Forum
1. At the Beginning: Cross-Marketing............ 156
2. Overt Cross-Publishing: The Life Houses
Example of 1938.............................. 158
3. Mature Cross-Publishing: Postwar Time Cover
Stories...................................... 166
C. The Vanishing “Gentlemen’s Agreement” ............ 181
D. Public Relations in Action........................ 193
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)

CHAPTER PAGE

V. ADVANCING AN AMERICAN AGENDA........................... 198
A. Key Concept: Luce’s American Agenda............... 198
B. Key Concept Developed In and Through Forum
1. Forum’s American Geography................... 205
2. The First Decades: the Modern American Home
Mortgage..................................... 210
3. Forum and the “The American Century”......... 219
4. Postwar Forum, Part I: “The American Century”
Turned Outward............................... 224
5. Postwar Forum, Part II: “The American Century”
and Democracy................................ 231
6. The American Agenda as Justification, 1958
(and 1964)................................... 242

VI: ON FORUM’S AUDIENCE: SUCCESSES AND FAILURES............ 245
A. Architectural Journalism in the Age of Audited
Circulation Reporting............................. 245
B. What Forum’s Circulation Was – and Was Not........ 249
C. Why Forum’s Circulation Really Mattered........... 266

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................. 291

VITA .................................................. 308

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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller
LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Ideal Target Audience: Vertical vs. Horizontal
Professional Architecture Magazines............... 7

2. Cover, The Brickbuilder (January 1894)............ 12

3. Table of Contents, The Architectural Forum
(January 1917).................................... 15

4. First Building Money section, Architectural
Forum (April 1933): 327........................... 41

5. Representative International Section covers:
France, The Architectural Forum (April 1993): 291
and Czechoslovakia, The Architectural Forum (March
1934): 201........................................ 43

6. Covers, first two-volume set, The Architectural
Forum (January 1928).............................. 49

7. Cover, single volume, The Architectural Forum
(October 1932).................................... 49

8. Representative original (not library-bound) issue
with redesigned cover, spiral comb binding and
Building Money announcement banding. The
Architectural Forum, (February 1936)
Courtesy of Time Inc.............................. 50

9. Architectural Forum, Annotated Total Paid
Circulation, 1925-64.............................. 58

10. Typography change associated with Architectural
Forum/House & Home split: last issue with “forum”
Title (August 1950) and first issue with
“Building” title (September 1950)................. 70

11. Representative Time covers: Richard Neutra, Time
(15 August 1949) and Eero Saarinen, Time (2 July
1956)............................................. 78

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© 2015 Sarah M. Dreller