Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s
The story of modern architecture in St. Louis is complex and often contradictory. Beginning in the 1930s, internationally known architects such as Eric Mendelsohn, Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki — alongside important regional and national figures like Harris Armstrong, Charles Fleming, Joseph Murphy and Gyo Obata — created iconic structures that embodied new ideas about form and, in many cases, democratic social organization. Yet the period also was marked by racial segregation and by large-scale demolitions throughout the urban core. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s.” With nearly 300 architectural drawings, models, photographs, films, digital maps and artworks, “Design Agendas” is the first major exhibition to examine how interlocking civic, cultural and racial histories, as well as conflicting ideological aims, reshaped the city. “I lived in Pruitt-Ig...
The story of modern architecture in St. Louis is complex and often contradictory.
Beginning in the 1930s, internationally known architects such as Eric Mendelsohn, Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki — alongside important regional and national figures like Harris Armstrong, Charles Fleming, Joseph Murphy and Gyo Obata — created iconic structures that embodied new ideas about form and, in many cases, democratic social organization. Yet the period also was marked by racial segregation and by large-scale demolitions throughout the urban core.
This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s.” With nearly 300 architectural drawings, models, photographs, films, digital maps and artworks, “Design Agendas” is the first major exhibition to examine how interlocking civic, cultural and racial histories, as well as conflicting ideological aims, reshaped the city.
“I lived in Pruitt-Ig...
