Paul Kidder - Minoru Yamasaki and the Fragility of Architecture

Few figures in the American arts have stories richer in irony than does architect Minoru Yamasaki. While his twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center are internationally iconic, few who know the icon recognize its architects name or know much about his portfolio of more than 200 buildings. One is tempted to call him Americas most famous forgotten architect. He was classed in the top tier of his profession in the 1950s and 60s, as he carried modernism in novel directions, yet today he is best known not for buildings that stand but for two projects that were destroyed under tragic circumstances: the twin towers and the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. This book undertakes a reinterpretation of Yamasakis significance that combines architectural history with the study of his intersection with defining moments of American history and culture. The story of the loss and vulnerability of Yamasakis legacy illustrates the fragility of all architecture in the face of natural and historical forces, yet in Yamasakis view, fragility is also a positive quality in architecture: the source of its refinement, beauty, and humanity. We learn something essential about architecture when we explore this tension of strength and fragility.

In the course of interpreting Yamasakis architecture through the wide lens of the book we see the mid-century role of Detroit as an industrial power and architectural mecca; we follow a debate over public housing that entailed the creation and eventual destruction of many thousands of units; we examine competing attempts to embody democratic ideals in architecture and to represent those ideals in foreign lands; we ponder the consequences of anti-Japanese prejudice and the masculism of the architectural profession; we see Yamasakis style criticized for its arid minimalism yet equally for its delicacy and charm; we observe Yamasaki making a great name for himself in the Arab world but his twin towers ultimately destroyed by Islamic militants. As this curious tale of ironies unfolds, it invites reflection on the core of modern architectures search for meaning and on the creative possibilities its legacy continues to offer.

Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color illustrations of Yamasakis buildings, this book will be of interest to students, academics and professionals in a range of disciplines, including architectural history, architectural theory, architectural preservation, and urban design and planning.

Paul Kidder, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University, where he has taught courses on the history of philosophy, existentialism, philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of art and architecture, and ethics in urban affairs. He is the author of Gadamer for Architects (2012), published by Routledge.

First published 2022

by Routledge

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2022 Paul Kidder

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kidder, Paul, author.

Title: Minoru Yamasaki and the fragility of architecture / Paul Kidder.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021005120 (print) | LCCN 2021005121 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780367625276 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367629526

(paperback) | ISBN 9781003111566 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Yamasaki, Minoru, 19121986Criticism and

interpretation. | Art and societyUnited StatesHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC NA737.Y3 K53 2021 (print) | LCC NA737.Y3 (ebook) |

DDC 720.92dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005120

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005121

ISBN: 978-0-367-62527-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-62952-6 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-11156-6 (ebk)

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by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To the memory of Rev. Perry Eugene Kidder, an ardent enthusiast for this project, who served as pastor to the community of John Cochran Garden Apartments in St. Louis before moving his family to Seattle just in time for the 1962 Worlds Fair.

In 2010, archivist Tawny Ryan Nelb, examining materials rescued from the shuttered offices of Yamasaki Associates, puzzled over the lack of scholarly writing on the firms founder, Minoru Yamasaki. It was not simply that there were no comprehensive studies of the architect in print, but that one would expect, she said, that there would be five or six books on the subject. This was the situation when I began my research for this project, but since then there have appeared John Gallaghers Yamasaki in Detroit, which shares the fruits of decades of covering the architects work for the Detroit Free Press, and architectural historian Dale Allen Gyures Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World, a meticulously researched and thoroughly comprehensive account of the architects career and its critical reception. Yamasaki has also been featured in Michigan Modern: An Architectural Legacy, by Brian Conway and James Haefner. The present study, then, as it explores questions of the significance of Yamasakis work and the value of its examination, is offered as an interpretive complement to these works and an endorsement of their labors.

Professor Gyure is to be thanked, first of all, not only for his researches but for the assistance that he personally provided to mine. Thanks go, too, for the invaluable help of Keith Brown and Henry Guthhard, whose dedication was a constant source of inspiration. Grant Hildebrand, Jon Haro, Gyo Obata, and Harold Tsuchya are also among those to whom I am in debt for their generous sharing of their personal knowledge of Yamasaki and his work. Appreciation in this connection must go in memoriam to William Bain, Jr., and Leslie Robertson. On the topic of preservation of Yamasakis works I gained insights from Theodore Prudon and John Savo. The project began as a Lonergan Workshop paper at the gracious invitation of Fred and Sue Lawrence. For support throughout the project, both financial and moral, I thank my colleagues at Seattle Universitys College of Arts and Sciences, particularly Dean David Powers and Philosophy Department Chair Maria Carl.

Work in archives yields gratitude to many archivists, including, at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University, Elizabeth Clemens and William Lefevre; at the Archives of Michigan, Mark Harvey, Jessica Miller, Kris Rzepczynski, and Annakathryn Welch; at the Library of Congress, Ryan Brubacher, Courtney Matthews, and Elizabeth Terry Rose; and at the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections, Rebecca Baker, John Bolcer, and Kelly Daviduke.