The Square House

A previous post mentioned the preponderance of flat-topped hipped roof structures in Kansas. They could be found on farms, in rural towns and urban centers. By the 1930s, property owners hoping to modernize these simple frame buildings sought advice from Kansas State College's Engineering Experiment Station.

Architecture professor Henry Evert Wichers (1898-1963) gathered data pertaining to regional house typologies and then proposed economical solutions aimed at thoughtful modification. Using perspective drawings by Luis Cortés Silva (a Spanish exile and 1932 K-State graduate who later established a career in Bogota, Colombia*), Wichers developed six modernization schemes for what he referred to as the "one-story square house."

Henry Evert Wichers (1923)

Luis A. Cortes Silva (1932)

Wichers cautioned would-be-renovators that the one-story square type was especially difficult to modify. He stressed that such buildings were typically poorly built, provided little illumination and hunkered too close to the ground. The four-room configuration allowed minimal flexibility for storage and water closets and the built-up eaves trough resulted in leaks.

Conservative interventions left the exterior walls intact, increased the fenestration, replaced foundations and chimneys, but  reduced the number of sleeping rooms for the sake of kitchen and bath. More dramatic solutions required lengthening the house towards the rear or sides, adding porches and possibly changing the roof. The square type could thus be reconfigured as a bungalow or as a colonial revival house. 

Wichers also advocated site-specific design:

"We should remember that Kansas is a large state, and within its borders there are considerable variations in rainfall and quality of soil. Kansas has swamp land and extremely dry areas, fertile land and poor land, in all degrees and combinations."(1)

He cautioned the state's farmers against adopting catalog home plans geared towards city dwellers:

"The chief difference between the farmhouse and the city house is that the former is a more independent and self-sufficient unit than the city house. . . The farmhouse must, therefore, be proportionately larger than the city house."(2)

Although his modifications of the square house varied considerably, he encouraged farmers to consider more rambling forms suited to the needs of the family home and business.

*Beatriz García Moreno. Arturo Robledo: La arquitectura como moda de vida. Bogota: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2010, p. 42.

(1-2)H.E. Wichers. "Better Homes for Kansas Farms." Kansas State College Bulletin No. 43.  Engineering Experiment Station. Volume XXVI: Number 5. Manhattan, KS: The College, 1 June 1942.

Images above:  One-Story Square House, plan and photograph from: H.E. Wichers. "Modernizing the Kansas Home." Kansas State College Bulletin No. 32.  Engineering Experiment Station. Volume XVIII: Number 5. Manhattan, KS: The College, 1 June 1934.

Wichers (1923) from the K-State Royal Purple; Cortes (1932) from the K-State Royal Purple. All available through K-State Libraries.

NEW! Rock & Galloway Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive has finalized the processing of the Rock & Galloway Office Records.

The collection includes correspondence, drawings, photographs, presentation boards, models and specifications. Researchers should note that most residential plans were given to individual clients, and the collection subsequently does not provide full insights into the firm's private commissions.

Read more about the collection via the SEAA's Finding Aids by Name.

House of Tomorrow (1957)

Fifty-eight years ago, the New Orleans Home Show focused on the theme  "Operation Home Improvement" (OHI). Staged in the Municipal Auditorium, OHI included a model home designed by Curtis & Davis  (shown above).

Walter J. Rooney, Jr. represented the firm in a related article for The Times-Picayune:

"The display house is erected in a landscaped patio enclosed in a woven bamboo fence and providing the ultimate in outdoor living facilities. To one side of the kitchen is a barbecue terrace, on the other side the children's play terrace, both connected to the kitchen by sliding glass walls, between the dining and living room likes the living terrace. All terraces have flagstone floors and are set in a bower of tropical plants.

"The main entrance to the display is by way of a ramp which rises from the auditorium floor on the exterior of the landscaped court. As one climbs the ramp the various elements come into view: The living room unit hovers lightly a few feet above the garden terrace on slim metal supports which rise through the floor slab to a brightly colored plastic roof above--a tremendous skylight."


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"A backward glance at the building makes the structure and construction readily apparent. Light steel columns and beams frame the building and support the flat planes of floor and roof. The steel panels which form the floor and roof are corrugated to achieve maximum strength with a minimum of material and provide an exciting ceiling finish in all the rooms."(1)

(1)"Architect Describes 'Trip' Through Show's House of Tomorrow." The Times-Picayune 18 May 1957.

Images above: Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Curtis and Davis, architects. House of Tomorrow, Operation Home Improvement, Home Show, Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans, LA. May 1957. Curtis and Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

1958 Airline Highway

In 1958, New Orleans photographer Frank Lotz Miller (1923-1993) shot this series of Airline Highway photographs for architects Curtis and Davis, who renovated the London Lodge Motel and Restaurant. The complex's predecessor structures -- a tourist court assemblage -- had been designed by Patrick M. Allison for Chicago owner Ben London in 1952.

Images above:  Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Airline Highway/London Lodge Motel. 1958. Digital image from black and white negative. Curtis and Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Central City 1970

In 1970, New Orleans architect Edward B. Silverstein (1909-1989) received a commission to alter the old Dryades Market building located at the corner of Dryades (now Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard) and Melpomene Streets. He was already very familiar with the historic property, as he had worked on the building twice before, the first time nearly twenty years prior. In 1951, his office was able to secure copies of the original 1911 drawings by City Engineer William Joseph Hardee and his assistant Maurice Woulfe, which had included the design of a large arcade conjoining the downriver vegetable market to the upriver meat market, as well as substantive provisions for reinforcing the Melpomene Street roadbed since it covered a subterranean canal.

The structure had already undergone massive renovations during the 1930s. In 1931, Sam Stone, Jr. (1869-1933) developed plans to widen Melpomene Street for vehicular traffic and remove the lower portion of the arcade. He replaced portions of the foundation and the trussing system, modernized the plumbing, added refrigeration units and significantly altered the interior stalls.

Silverstein's first alterations to the structure were developed in partnership with Leon Weiss (1882-1952). Weiss and Silverstein modernized the Dryades Street facade  by replacing it with multiple storefronts comprised of plate glass windows unified by a porcelain enamel frieze. In the late 1950s, Silverstein further altered some of the stores by adding modern lighting and sound systems.

Economic decline was affecting the structure when Charles L. Franck took this photograph (above/circa 1970). Silverstein hired the photographer to record existing conditions relevant to the former meat market building, as some of the shop owners leasing storefronts desired additional security features. Silverstein made his last alterations by replacing his earlier plate glass windows with a brick veneer and adding roll-up metal security doors.

Image above: Charles L. Franck, photographer. Project Number 874. Circa 1970. Edward B. Silverstein Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. This image is issued by the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the SEAA. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright.

1950's Saigon

In the mid-1950s, New Orleans architects Curtis & Davis received a commission to design the new U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam. One early conceptual sketch is reproduced above. Affected by heightened political tensions, the project underwent many revisions through the building's completion in 1966. Two years later the embassy building was attacked, and in April 1975, Gerald R. Ford authorized the rooftop evacuation of American personnel. The structure remained standing and was eventually returned to the U.S. government in 1995, but razed in 1998.

The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum retains an architectural model of the structure, as well as the rooftop ladder utilized in the evacuation. Tulane University Libraries' Southeastern Architectural Archive houses the Curtis & Davis office records, which include preliminary sketches and photographic documentation.

The firm's design research process incorporated an extensive series of photographs commissioned from the Saigon-based USIA-USOM Photo Laboratory. These images -- taken December 1955 -- document the buildings associated with different foreign missions:  the existing American Norodom compound, as well as the residences of the British and French governmental officials. The series includes structures associated with Shell Oil Company, its "Compagnie Franco Asiatique de Petroles" headquarters (Boulevards Norodom and Luro) and its employees' apartment complex.

Images above:

Top: Curtis & Davis. Saigon Embassy, conceptual sketch. February 1956.

Center: USIA-USOM Photo Laboratory, Saigon, Vietnam. "Shell oil company office building, corner of Blvd. Norodom and Blvd. Luro, Saigon. Constructed in the early 1930s. Photo taken December 1955."

Bottom:  USIA-USOM Photo Laboratory, Saigon, Vietnam. "The front view of the Shell Oil Company's employees' apartments in Saigon. Photo taken December 1955. Building constructed about 1952-1953."

All from Curtis & Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Utopian Spaces: Call for Papers

“Utopian Spaces of British Literature and Culture, 1890-1945”

18 September 2009

University of Oxford (United Kingdom)

The focus of the conference is on the spatial manifestations, geographies and practices of Utopianism, rather than on Utopianism as a category of millenarian anticipation. Papers are invited which address the various material and imaginary spatial forms of the Utopian impulse. How do certain spaces become associated with particular political or aesthetic visions of modernity? Does the Utopian bear a particular affinity to some spaces, rather than to others? Is the Utopian impulse articulated as a desire for order or anarchy?

Papers are invited on any aspect, historical and/or theoretical, of the conference theme. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• the political, religious, aesthetic nature of Utopian spaces

• the city as a Utopian space

• imaginary, geographical and textual maps

• representations of Utopian spaces in literature and other media (e.g. painting, film, architecture)

• theoretical considerations of Utopian ‘places’ and geographies (Walter Benjamin, de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Guy Debord and others)

• mobility and transport

• racialized Utopian spaces

Send an abstract of no more than 250 words in length, including name, position and institutional affiliation to utopianspaces@ell.ox.ac.uk. Deadline for submission: 30 June 2009. For further information, visit http://www.utopianspaces.org