3 History - 4

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City beautiful movement

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It was launched around 1893 chicago exposition. Worlds fairs were not only major sites for mpopular commercial entertainment, tourist attractions, but major landmarks of American architecture. It was heavily identified w/ architectural vision of a man named

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Daniel burnham

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Lotsa peeps were involved in this—artists, architects were involved in this civic patriotism, positive feelings about the city by adorning them w/ statues, fountains, landscape boulevards, stately civic buildings.
• “to make us love our city we must make our city lovely” a different way fo thinking of American city. the idea that the way to produce civic pride isn’t to tout prospects for growth but to adorn it aesthetically, this idea has power in the 1890s. over 2400 improvement societies cropped up American cities designed to use beautiful spaces to promote the welfare n the moral of cities.
around the start of the 20th century American cities saw a bunch of tehse plans n buildings, a new master plan for Washington dc 1901. There was also a new master plan for Sf n Chicago 1909, libraries, museums, opera houses.
Also the redesign of railroad terminals was a big feature of this time period
This is all taking place during the municipal reform, all fall under the rubric of the transformation of urban America during the progressive period
By 19th century appt buildings were fairly common in certain European cities. But American both rural n urban had maintained a longstandn gpreferrence of single family dwellings, there was a particular English heritage that placed very high value on a family unit living within its own architectural space. This heritage from England got stronger in America in the first half of 19th century as the family emerged as the model of middle class respectability. Having a bounded single family home became specifically part of the way you proved you were respectable n middle class. Ther ewer emany models in the city for shared dwellings – dormitories, like working women’s homes that sprouted in places like NY, they were largely either company dormitories or reform ones typically designed to protect n monitor the behavior of women. There were also boarding houses, major presence in American cities already in beg of 19th century n very much so by middle third of this century. Mary rogers came from this world of boarding houses. Peeps live in one house that is designed n built to be occupied by a group of peeps living together. Also something called furnished rooms, you rented not a self contained unit within a building but a couple of rooms, what dist this from a boarding house is that there was no expectation you would eat meals w/ others in the house, much less camaraderie. There were also subdivided houses, houses where multiple families might live together. Another one is hotels, they have a long trd in the us, a blurry line btwn a hotel n appt – hotels n appts could be converted into one another, in Chicago architects often used the words interchangeably. In the second half of the 19th century there was a major innovation in design n use that rep 2 new kinds of residential spaces, the first was the NY tenement

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Tenements

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purpose built housing for the working class that was rendered profitable by the intense concentration of unprecendneted numbers of working class members of NY. It became very profitable to build special housing for poor people
by 1972 600,000 new Yorkers 2/3 of pop occupied tenements
they were about 4 stories tall, n had abouy 4 to 5 dwelling units per floor. They were dark, under ventilated, typically didn’t have running water inside the units
the enw ones were large symmetrical enclosed structures, an appearance of regularity n order, a rational architecture of poverty, not simply an accumulation of design decisions

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Tenement laws

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1867 tenement law required a landowner to provide a bathroom n a fireladder for every 20 tenants.
1879 a new tenemant law prohibited the construction of rooms w/o access to light an air, which led to an innovation in tenement design>dumbbell design, the airshaft is an artifact of that design. 1901 the tenemtn law was modified again, req a toilet in each dwelling. None of these really fit the model for respectable middle class housing within the cultural framework of NY.

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French flats

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• typically 5 or 6 story appt buildings, didn’t have elevators (walk ups) which began to appear in NYC during 1860s. the most famous n elaborate of this first generation of appt buildings was the
Stuyvesant apartments

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Stuyvesant apartments

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built in 1869 on E 18th n 19th street. A 5 story building, it had prominent n respectable tenants, it was built by Richard morris hunt who was the first American to study architecture l’ecole des arts in paris.
It’s no coincidence that 1860s n 50s marked appt building n inventions of dish washers, gas heated irons, vacuums, all these things became more economically viable when large numbers of middle class members could share certain kinds of amentities n tended tor educe the burdens of housekeeping. It was easier to maintain an appt due to its size n access to shared machines
Afterwards there was a shift from these early French flats n a new generation of much grander, more elegant appt houses that began to appear in NY in 1880s, these new bui ldings used much bigger lots. There had been a lull in building in 1870s the big boom of growth of before came to a hault but growth resumed in full force in 1880s in developers turned their attention to economic potential of large scale residential appt building
what did these new appts look lke: the central park appts (aka Spanish flats “navarro flats”) began in 1882, an 8 building complez on 7th avenue that ran the entire block, many of these appts were more than 3,000 sq feet some as big as 7,000 sq feet, org around central courtyards, there were elevators n they were designed originally as cooperative homes that would ultimately be owned by their occupants.

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The Dakota

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. The more famous n enduring ex of these early appt buildings is the
The Dakota
• completed in 1884
The Dakota was part of the beg of the dev of this secton of NY, trend toward great appt buildings, but didn’t immediately take off.
the first of a g eneration of large appt buildings that maintained a plausible claim to elegantce n sophistication

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Ansonia

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(built in 1904)
• On the Westside not farm from the Dakota had 17 stories, n briefly touted as the world’s tallest appt building. It included kitchenless appts for those who used building staff instead of their own servants, appt that prevents you from doing cooking inside because there are hidden servants cooking elsewhere. It attracted the rich n famous including author Dreiser, composer n most important babe ruth.
• increasing homogeneity of these buildings whereas aprt of the threat of the apt building was that it forced people of diff cirucmstane sto occupy the same space the grand NY appt building sof the beg of 20th century weren’t spaces that forced anyone to share spaces w/ social superiors o rinferiors. They were fairly ho mogenous n led to whole districts that were devoted largely to fashionable houses.