Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This article contributes to the current discussion of design as research by examining the ideologi-
cal basis for the enthusiastic pursuit of scientific research in architecture in the postwar period.
The concept of ‘‘research’’ was steeped in theory and ideology, but the research itself was shaped
by the research economy—its policies and its institutions. Three very different case studies illus-
trate this phenomenon and demonstrate the importance of considering the research economy as
a factor shaping the direction of architectural research.
Research, Idea, and Reality profession in the United States. The ideal, in scholarly research was firmly rooted in contempo-
How does design research contribute to architec- William W. Wurster’s phrase, was to ‘‘broaden the rary ideologies relating to scientific management,
ture in theory and in practice? In September 2007, base of the profession’’3 by creating knowledge behaviorism, technological progress, and basic
the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) pub- solidly based in science—that is, objective, research. With the dismantling of ‘‘big science,’’
lished an issue devoted to exploring that question: impartial, and rigorous. This knowledge, when especially in the social sciences, many of the
Architectural Design as Research, Scholarship, and disseminated and shared by members of the pro- underlying beliefs were discarded or openly
Inquiry.1 This collection of articles seeks to define fession, would form a solid foundation for creative attacked, leaving only a residue of methods that
a mode of scholarship and inquiry that is special to and even individualistic design processes. today seem alien and narrow.
architecture—and one that is not adequately Reginald Issacs, who taught landscape archi- Another reason—and this is the topic of this
described in terms of ‘‘the scientific method.’’ The tecture at Harvard, clearly stated this point of view: article—is that the idea of an architecture based on
editors, Dodds and Erdman, reject the ‘‘relatively research—like any other human idea—was never
narrow’’ understanding of the architect’s role that I do not believe that landscape architecture, city realized in its entirety. The idea of research was
is reflected in an ‘‘instrumental’’ approach to planning or architecture can call themselves never associated with a definite definition of
architectural research. This approach, they observe, professions unless there is a rapid increase from research. But in order to create the necessary
‘‘still commands much of the discourse, curriculum, practically zero in the number of scholars in institutions to channel the new profusion of
research agendas, and funding initiatives at many these professions. . .. Only through original research resources that flowed through the postwar
architecture programs in both North America and research will there be a systematic and military-industrial complex, the nebulous term
abroad.’’2 And they specifically cite the articles in consistent contribution to knowledge in our research had to be defined and molded into fund-
the first issue of the JAE as instances of this narrow professions. There are few self-made scientists able projects. Architects adopted research methods
attitude (see Figure 1). in any field. The chance accomplishments of originally developed in engineering, psychology,
This article offers a different reading of the individual discovery is far too hit-and-miss to sociology, and other fields to lend credibility to
first issue of the JAE. Based on an examination assure needed improvement of our professions. their work. Architectural research came to be
of post–World War II archival material—at the I hope to see half of the present faculty of the defined in terms of product development, building
American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Graduate School of Design replaced by systems design, environment-behavior studies,
schools of architecture at Michigan and Berkeley— scholars—not by practitioners such as myself.4 and so forth. The case studies described in this
I conclude that the term research was used in the article—the research programs at the AIA and at the
postwar period much as we might use the term Why then do we so often identify this work as Universities of California (Berkeley) and Michigan
‘‘theory’’ today. The argument for scientific narrow and practical? Part of the reason has to do (Ann Arbor)—are but three of many examples
research in that period was in fact part of a wider with the fundamental changes that have taken selected to illustrate the extensive range of mean-
argument about the nature of modern architec- place since the 1950s in the broader field of the ings that the ideal notion of research took on in the
tural practice and the future of the architectural philosophy of science. The postwar concept of postwar years.
55 SACHS
signify their preference for adaptive pragmatic applied research, prevailed, becoming a powerful housing research. Much of the postwar discourse
experiments over radical avant-garde innovation- part of Federal research policy and setting priorities on research in architecture pertains to this ideo-
s14—in other words, a resistance to formalism. As for many researchers.18 This political and economic logical and pragmatic problem, but reaching a def-
the proponents of research in architecture often climate was the first to shape the argument for inition that would be both broad and precise proved
made clear, they were worried that American architectural research. In this research economy, as difficult then as it is now.
architecture would fall back into the prewar pattern there were both theoretical and practical values in In order to define architectural research as
of eclecticism. They also feared that the codification defining architectural research that could be cate- basic research, it was first necessary to distinguish
and academization of European Modernism in the gorized as basic research and that was distinct from it from technical and fact-finding inquiries. The
United States would lead to an eclectic rather than
4. The Sky Lab and the Wind Lab at the TEES at the TAMU had an Architecture Division directed by Caudill in the 1950s. One of the projects undertaken
creative interpretation of International Style archi- in this division was a research studio in which the students tested their models of a classroom and documented the results of their ‘‘experiments.’’
tecture. In their view, eclecticism was a character- (Source: McCutchan, Gordon, and William W. Caudill, Research Report Number 32: An Experiment in Architectural Education through Research [College
istic of an individual artistic approach to Station, TX: TEES, The Texas A&M. College System, 1951] Courtesy of Roland Chatham (photographer) and CRS Center, TAMU.)
57 SACHS
6. A drawing comparing the building industry with the manufacturing of
cars. Published in 1933, this drawing anticipated the central preoccupation
of people in the building industry in the postwar period. (Source: Bemis,
Albert Farwell, and John E. Burchard, The Evolving House. [Cambridge,
MA: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1933].
p. 31. Courtesy of MIT Press.)
59 SACHS
not look as if they had been made in a factory. With
the market uninterested in the E&R project and the
AIA unable to provide full financial support, the goal
of creating a central research agency within the pro-
fession was stalled and never realized in its entirety.
61 SACHS
Government of India. The faculty at Berkeley also purview of the profession, and on the other, the direction and initiated by Charles W. Attwood, an
initiated the first graduate program based on discipline is organized by the priorities of academic alumnus and the president of Unistrut Inc., a com-
research rather than design. A 1956 draft proposal life at least as much as by professional require- pany specializing in building systems. Attwood
for the program was explicit: ‘‘The graduate pro- ments. This outside dependency has exacerbated asked Larson to research the application of the
gram and the research activity will be very closely the distinction between research and design as Unistrut modular housing system in the construc-
related although not synonymous. Graduate separate intellectual processes and contributes to tion of school buildings, a market he (like Caudill)
students and faculty in all options will be encour- the larger concern about the gap between the wanted to penetrate. Larson explained: ‘‘The object
aged to participate in research connected with their architecture schools and the profession.The original in research has been the development of a stan-
main effort.’’40 plan for the CED called for inter- and intraprofes- dardized system of low-cost schoolhouse con-
The architectural research program at Berkeley sional collaboration that would counterbalance struction offering a high degree of durability,
in the 1960s, thriving in the climate of continued such divisions, but as with the profession as flexibility, expansibility, demountability and reusabil-
investment in research, contributed widely to the a whole, such collaboration has proved to be easier ity.’’43 Thus, the project was in reality a hybrid
discussion of architecture. As an institution, it fared to project than to accomplish. between a design project and a more generalized
far better than its AIA counterpart, but this conti- research project, though it was completed on the
nuity came with a price. As the research program The Architectural Research Laboratory university campus. The products of this project—
developed, so did a discipline of architecture that is at Michigan construction drawing and specifications—were
separate from the profession. On the one hand, The architectural research program at the University published as research,44 and the building itself
many sources of academic funding lie outside the of Michigan, unlike the programs at the AIA and
Berkeley, was rooted in prewar housing research 12. The Unistrut building system featured on the cover of a Unistrat
11. The Unistrut building system on the cover of the University of undertaken in the department. Michigan began Products Company brochure. (Source: C. Theodore Larson Papers 1930–
Michigan Research News. C. Theodore Larson Papers 1930–1985 [bulk 1985 [bulk 1951–1974], Bentley Historical Library, University of
1951–1974], Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.)
offering courses on housing during the Great
Michigan.)
Depression when it established the Home Planners
Institutes to help Michigan citizens build affordable
housing. During the war years, the school collabo-
rated with the Engineering department to conduct
two projects sponsored by the National Housing
Agency and implemented through the Office of
Production, Research and Development of the War
Production Board. After the war ended, Dean Wells
Bennet appointed C. Theodore Larson as a faculty
member charged with overseeing and directing
research initiatives in the department. At the same
time, the architecture faculty updated the school’s
bylaws to reflect the importance of research.41 In
1949, the department went further and established
the Michigan Architectural Research Laboratory
(ARL) so as to provide individual research projects
with central organization including clerical and
accounting services. 42
The ARL was one of the centers that attracted
projects originating in the building industry.
A notable example was the Unistrut School
Construction research completed under Larson’s
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26. Expanded Program. The AIA Archives Box 199S, Washington, DC, 34. AIA. The American Institute of Architects Research Survey ronmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley. Records of
p. 12. (Washington, DC: American Institute of Architects, 1973), p. 1. the College of Environmental Design, Office of the Dean William W.
27. AIA, Committee on the Structure of the Institute, ‘‘Foreword Con- 35. Letter to Mr. Walter Campbell, Chairman, AIA Research Committee, Wurster Collection, Berkeley, CA.
cerning Facts of Report of the Committee on the Structure of the Insti- dated February 26, 1959. Records of the College of Environmental 41. College of Architecture and Design Memorandum (The Research
tute,’’ The AIA Bulletin (January 1946), p. 1–2. Design. Office of the Dean William W. Wurster Collection, Environmental Laboratory). A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture 1 Urban Plan-
28. The Plan of Research for the American Institute of Architects (Sep- Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley, CA. ning (University of Michigan), Records 1878–1999, Bentley Historical
tember 8, 1959). The AIA Archives, Box 410S, Washington, DC, p. 4–5. 36. Geiger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
29. Memorandum Re: Organization and Functioning of Department of Universities Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 42. The Architectural Research Laboratory and its Future Development.
Education and Research, AIA. The AIA Archives Box 442S, Washington, 1993). Ibid.
DC, p. 1 (February 1, 1947). 37. Only one architecture faculty member went on record with outright 43. Research Project: Unistrut School Construction Project M811. C.
30. Letter to Mr. Walter A. Taylor, Director, Department of Education and opposition, but many of the practicing architects in the Bay Area raised Theodore Larson Papers, 1930–1985 (bulk 1951–1974), Bentley Histor-
Research, AIA from William W. Caudill, p. 1. their voices. Minutes of Faculty Meeting 10 February 8:15 AM, Cork ical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
31. Avigail Sachs, ‘‘Marketing through Research: William Caudill and Room. Records of the College of Environmental Design, Dept. of Archi- 44. Nancy Ruth, Bartlett, More than a Handsome Box: Education in
Caudill Rowlett Scott (CRS),’’ Journal of Architecture 14, no. 1 (2009): tecture Faculty Minutes 1957–1981 Collection, Environmental Design Architecture at the University of Michigan 1876-1986 (Ann Arbor, Uni-
737–52; Paolo, Tombesi, ‘‘Capital Gains and Architectural Losses: The Archives, University of California, Berkeley, CA. versity of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1995),
Transformative Journey of Caudill Rowlett Scott (1948–1994),’’ The 38. Policy Statement on Architectural Research for the Department of pp. 81–83.
Journal of Architecture 11, no. 2 (2006): 145–68; Research as a Com- Architecture of the University of California, January 1959. Records of the 45. Report for October 1957. A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture
petitive Positioning Strategy: A Case Study of CRS, 85th Annual Confer- College of Environmental Design, Office of the Dean William W. Wurster 1 Urban Planning (University of Michigan), Records 1878–1999, Bentley
ence Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Collection, Environmental Design Archives University of California, Ber- Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
March 15–18, 1997. keley, CA, p. 7. 46. Letter to the Members of the ACSA Research and Graduate
32. Stephen Kieran, ‘‘Research in Design: Planning Doing Monitoring 39. Memo to: Faculty, Department of Architecture, From: Sami Hassid, Studies Committee: Professors Gourley, Hanson, Nichols and
Learning,’’ JAE 61, no. 1 (2007): 27–31. Chairman, Research Committee, Ezra Ehrenkrantz, Research Coordinator, Wurster dated December 18, 1950. Records of the College of
33. CRS Memorandum to Tom Bullock and William Pena from William W. Subject: Yearly Report to Faculty, dated May 20, 1960. Ibid. Environmental Design. Office of the Dean William W. Wurster
Caudill, dated October 9, 1959 Re: Research Program. Caudill Papers, CRS 40. The Graduate Program in Architecture A Report to the Faculty of the Collection, Environmental Design Archives University of California,
Archives, CRS Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. College of Architecture by the Graduate Program Committee, p. Envi- Berkeley, CA.