St. Louis’ Mid-Century Modern Architecture: The Matter of Materials by Mary Reid Brunstrom

In the immediate post-World War II years, architects and engineers in the St. Louis region produced a significant inventory of what are now characterized as Mid-century modern buildings. Formal experimentation was prompted by the availability of materials such as structural steel, in a climate in which architecture simultaneously led and responded to the era’s search for the expression of postwar confidence and optimism embodied in phenomena in such as air travel. At the same time, architecture helped mediate the anxieties inherent the atomic age. While new materials defined a leading edge of architecture, St. Louis’ signature material brick experienced a flowering in postwar architecture such as in Eric Mendelsohn’s B’nai Amoona synagogue, producing continuity in the fabric and texture of St. Louis’ built environment. Traditional decorative materials, in particular stained glass, which constitutes a major theme of the modernist narrative, were refreshed by the incorporation of more abstracted, dynamic and modern forms used mainly but not exclusively in church architecture.

I have undertaken extensive research in the context of a recently completed catalogue essay for a Fall 2015 exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum on Modern Design, 1935-65. The advent and adoption of new materials for building emerged as a prominent and pervasive theme in this research. For the JNEM symposium, I propose a presentation based on this research. My paper will provide a broad overview of St. Louis’ modernist architecture of the period, a format which could serve as an introduction to the region’s rich inventory of modernist buildings. My talk would encompass typologies in both the public and private domain including public memorials, recreation facilities, public and private housing, transportation, religious architecture, buildings for education, public libraries and hospitals. The talk would focus on buildings in which materials were essential elements in the search for structures that would serve modern goals and uses. I would illustrate my argument with leading examples such as Gyo Obata’s use of thin shell concrete in the Priory Chapel and the McDonnell Planetarium, Murphy and Mackey’s use of expansive plate glass at Washington University’s Olin Library, and the same firm’s pioneering use of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome concept for the design of the Climatron at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Executed with triangular Plexiglass panels hung from an aluminum frame by aluminum wire, the Climatron was hailed by the national AIA as “one of the most important buildings in American architectural history.” I would of course bring in Eero Saarinen’s use of the stainless steel and concrete skin for the Gateway Arch, but unless otherwise indicated, I would not dwell on that because I imagine the material of the Arch will be more than adequately covered over the course of the symposium.

I would also explain the use of prefab buildings for the phenomenon of the housing estate, ranging from modular houses constructed on site by developers to the Lustron house trucked in from the factory in Cleveland, Ohio and assembled on site. In further elaboration of the rich array of materials that characterize building in the region at midcentury, I will briefly touch on innovations such as Cemesto wall panels, a fire-resistant combination cement and asbestos product developed for mass production during World War II and used by Charles Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright and others.

Where materials where sourced, how they were promoted in the architecture and design media, and how they were understood to convey a modern message are threads that I will take up in my paper. I will elucidate the role that certain St. Louis buildings played in the promotion of specific building materials and methods. For example, House and Home promoted tract housing based on modular wall systems developed in St. Louis by Burton Duenke in collaboration with the architect, Ralph Fournier. This approach illuminates a further important theme, namely the way in which materials helped advance architectural goals of the period such as the integration of a building’s interior and exterior.