THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM October 1940

Design Decade 1930-1940 Special Issue

Architectural Forum [Editors]: DESIGN DECADE 1930-1940 [Special issue of THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM]. Philadelphia: Time, Inc., Volume 73, No. 4, October 1940. A nearly fine original magazine with wire spiral binding. Cover top edge uniformly sunned and very mild edgewear. The spiral binding is in unusually good condition and does not bind any pages when opened. An unusually nice copy thus.

Here is Volume 73, No. 4, October 1940 -- the legendary Design Decade 1930-1940 special issue designed by Will Burtin. This special 104-page special section of the Architectural Forum is devoted to a review of the 1930s as the era of the "Machine Age" showing a "substantial accomplishment in relating machine inspired design to a machine inspired way of life."

630 black and white images were carefully assembled by Art Director Burtin to tell the visual story of American Design from 1930 to 1940. The effect is stunning to say the least. Many designers were commissioned to produce projects specifically for the Design Decade issue, including R. Buckminster Fuller, Raymond Loewy, Isamu Noguchi, Edward Durell Stone, Schweiker and Elting, J. Gordon Carr, Harwell Hamilton Harris and others.

Art Director Burtin divided this issue into the following sections with a magnificent single-page photomontage to introduce each section:

• Introduction
• Work
• Recreation
• Home
• Health
• Trade
• Education
• Transportation & Communication

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: "The story, of ÒDESIGN DECADE" is the story of the machine, the story of what has happened to the machine, to the objects and to the environment it produces. For countless generations men made things with their hands or with tools that were ingenious extensions of their hands. For countless generations, too, a few men made machines, but they generally ended up as toys in the court of some bored potentate or as implements of war: there were enough slaves or serfs to do the work. This story is concerned only with the machine since it first became a significant factor in production. And because it is largely an American story, it follows that this land of extremes has produced the worst as well as the best manifestations of the contemporary design approach. Finally, the critical observer must conclude that the decade just closed, nearly two hundred years after the Industrial Revolution, has for the first time shown a substantial accomplishment in relating machine inspired design to a machine inspired way of life."

Designers, architects, manufacturers, artists and photographers include: Margaret Bourke-White (Burke-White), William Van Alen (Allen), George Howe & William Lescaze, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ely Jacques Kahn, Carl Preis, Harold Van Doren, Albert Kahn, Henry Dreyfuss, Brooks Stevens, Raymond Loewy, Egmont Arens, Robert Heller, Paul Schweikher, Theodore Lamb, Winston Etling, John Gordon Rideout, Herbert Rosengren, Roland Wank, TVA, J. Gordon Carr, 1939 New York World's Fair, Ray Patten, Walter Drowin Teague, Paul Bry, Lurelle Guild, George Switzer, Alden B. Dow, William Muschenheim, William Wilson Wurster, Merry Hull, Robert Geissmann, Isamu Noguchi, Ben Schlanger, Louis Abramson, Winold Reiss, Peter Muller-Munk, Ernest Hagerstrom, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Jan Ruhtenberg, Clarence Mayhew, Robert Trask Cox, Richard Neutra, Edward Durell Stone, Dan Cooper, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Donald Deskey, Gardner A. Dailey, George Fred Keck, John Yeon, Henry Wright, James Eppenstein, Lee Simonson, Russel Wright, Russell Barnett Aitken, Morris B. Sanders, Kenneth Day, Tommi Parzinger, Marguerita Mergentime, Walter Von Nessen, Waylande Gregory, Royal Metal Manufacturing Company, Ben Nash, John Vassos, The Bartos Company, Rilbert Rohde, Heywood-Wakefield, T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Artek, Bruno Mathsson, Ann Franke, Dorothy Liebes, Antonin Raymond, Wharton Esherick, Joseph Platt, Laurits Christian Eichner, Teresa Kilham, Samuel Marx, William Pahlmann, Robert Gruen, John Funk, Walter Bogner, Frederick Kiesler, Leo Jiranek, Stansilav V'Soske, Joseph Allen Stein, George Sakier, Alsonso Iannelli, William Hamby, George Nelson, Louis Werner, John Mills, Richard Garrison, Buckminster Fuller, Gustav Jensen, Oscar Stonorov, Albert Kastner, Frederick Ackerman, George Fred Pelham, Frederick Backus, Vahan Hagopian, John Holabird & John Root, John Dinwiddie, Steuben Glass Company, Morris Ketchum, Victor Gruenbaum, Ira Schwam, Eleanor LeMaire, Hans Foy, Orrefors Glass Company, Richard Bennett and many others. There are also an excellent assortment of vintage trade advertisments that espouse the depression moderne streamline aesthetic quite nicely. You have been warned.

This is truly one of the finest original documents of 1930s American Design in the Industrial and Architectural Arts. My highest recommendation.

Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.

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