THE NEW PENCIL POINTS January – June 1943
Six-Volume Bound Set
Three Brazilian Houses by Bernard Rudofsky; Furniture by Arne Kartworld, Chicago School of Design, Gilbert Rohde and the Paul Bry Shop; Brazilian Architecture by Oscar Niemeyer, Marcelo & Mitlon Roberto, Correa Lima, Alvaro Vital Brazil and Adhemar Marinho and Carlos Porto; Stores by Edward D. Stone and Ladislav Rado; Postwar Planning by Serge Chermayeff; Chicago Plans: A Comprehensive Presentation Prepared by Chicago Plan Commission; Marcel Breuer; Prefabrication Special Issue: "The Packaged Building System" by Konrad Wachsmann & Walter Gropius; Houses by Richard Neutra, George Fred Keck, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Milliken & Bevin, Gardner A. Dailey, Eleanor Pepper & George W. Kosmak, Chester E. Nagel House in Austin, TX; / Patios by Philip Johnson, Josef Frank, William Wilson Wurster, and Oiva Kallio; more
Kenneth Reid [Editor]: THE NEW PENCIL POINTS. East Stroudsburg, PA: Reinhold Publishing Company [Volume 24, Numbers 1 – 6] January – June 1943. Original editions. Institutional binding with printed spine. Slim quartos. Side stitched printed wrappers. 528 pp. Covers, illustrated articles and advertisments all present. Rear covers missing. Cover designs, layout and typography by Bernard Rudofsky. Non-circulating Public Library bound edition with minimal, yet expected, marks, stamps and institutional wear. A nice reference copy with all advertising matter included.
[6] 8.75 x 11.75 original magazines with 528 pages of vintage American architectural content, including covers and advertisements. "Pencil Points," the forerunner of "Progressive Architecture" embraced the streamline moderne aesthetic in the arts.
Contents include
- Xanti Schawinsky illustration from his Faces Of War series!
- House in Austin, TX, Chester E. Nagel, Architect [12 pages with 22 black and white illustrations]. " . . . It is excellent indeed that Pencil Points gave you so much space (12 pages). But, you deserve it because . . . it is really a lovely design," -- Walter Gropius, March 31, 1943.
- Planning for Housing: NAHO-CHC Conference, reported by William Lescaze
- Materials for Tomorrow
- Today We Produce to Destroy, But Tomorrow We produce to Build by Charles M. A. Stine
- Chemistry by F. J. Van Antwerpen
- The New World of Plastics by Raymond L. Dickey
- Concrete by Carl Zeigler
- After the War . . . Wood by Roderic Olzendam
- Furniture, A Symposium: 4 illustrated pages including work by Arne Kartworld, Chicago School of Design, Gilbert Rohde and the Paul Bry Shop.
- Brazilian Architecture: Living and Building Below the Equator; material collected by Philip L. Goodwin on his recent trip sponsored jointly by MoMA and the AIA [11 pages with 25 black and white illustrations including work by Oscar Niemeyer, Marcelo and Mitlon Roberto, Correa Lima, Alvaro Vital Brazil and Adhemar Marinho and Carlos Porto]
- Store Front Competition Prizewinners include Seymour R. Joseph, George Larson, George Storz, Maynard Lyndon, William H. Scheick, Donald E. Olsen, Alvin Fingado, L. J. Israel, Ralph Rapson, David Runnels, Jedd S. Reisner, J. Stanley Sharp, W. R. Smith, R. W. Dickinson, J. C. Harkness, J. M. Johansen, Donald Barthelme
- Jury in Action: 5 men judged the store front competition [Morris Ketchum, Frederick Bigger, Samuel E. Lunden, Mies van der Rohe and William Lescaze]
- Store Fronts of Tomorrow
- Premiated Designs
- Store Design Practice by Joseph Douglas Weiss
- Stores Today by Williams and Harrel: includes work by Jose A. fernandez, Ernst Payer, Emilio Levy, Paul Bry, Samuel Glaser and Ladislav L. Rado [1 page with 3 black and white illustrations], Barmache and Paladini
- Chicago Plans
- Chicago has prepared a human, livable scheme for rebuilding one of the great cities of the world. The comprehensive presentation was prepared jointly by the Chicago Plan Commission and the Editors of New Pencil Points [30 well illustrated pages]
- The Architecture of the Future -- Part 1 -- Postwar Design: Architecture of Democracy: First of a Series of Four Articles by Talbot F. Hamlin; The Architecture of the Future: Part 2 -- Techniques, Materials and Design: Second of a series; The Architecture of the Future: Part 3 -- Architectural Practice After the War.
- Prefabrication in Practice
- Prefabrication System for Architects: Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius produce The Packaged Building System, which enables architects to design as they please, on a modular basis by Herman Herrey [12 well-illustrated pages]
- Cities While You Wait: "Housing" in the Oregon-Washington area, where prefabrication and conventional construction vie by Walter Gordon
- Prefabrication Pattern: Matern, Graff and Paul, Architects, have developed a rational organization for prefabrication which can benefit other architects by Samuel Paul
- Six Houses
- Houses by Richard J. Neutra [Palos Verdes, CA; 10 pages with 16 black and white illustrations, photos by Julius Shulman], George Fred Keck [Lake Forest, IL; 6 pages with 17 black and white illustrations], Harwell Hamilton Harris [La Jolla, CA; 6 pages with 21 black and white illustrations], Milliken and Bevin [West Texas; 4 pages with 13 black and white illustrations of the The Wallace E. Pratt House], Gardner A. Dailey [Marin County; 10 pages with 21 black and white illustrations], Eleanor Pepper and George W. Kosmak [3 pages with 7 black and white illustrations]
- Barrett Specification Roofs full-page advertisment presents New York City Architect George Nelson’s bold prediction for Department Store roofs after the War.
- They Never Spoke Latin by Douglas Haskell, part of material now being collected for a book on American building habits
- Notes on Patios: 4 pages with 15 black and white illustrations including work by Philip Johnson, H. H. Harris and Carl Anderson, Josef Frank, William Wilson Wurster, Bernard Rudofsky and Oiva Kallio
- Three Patio Houses by Bernard Rudofsky, Architect [18 pages with 66 black and white illustrations of the Joao Arnstein House, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Virgilio Frontini House, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and the Henrique Hollenstein House, Itapecirica, Brazil]
- Selected Details: Work of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, Architects [2 illustrated pages of a Cantilevered Stairway]; Leon Barmache and Vinicio Paladini, Designers; Edward D. Stone, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Henry R. Shepley; Ernst Payer, Architect [4 illustrated pages]; Details of Interiors designed for merchandising including work by Edward D. Stone [1 page with 1 black and white illustration] and Eleanor Lemaire
- Morris Clinic: Medical Building in Austin, TX by Jessen, Millhouse, Jessen and Kuhlman, Architects
- Humboldt Hospital: War Hospital in Humboldt, TN by Dent and Aydelott. Architects
- Discussions on Urbanism: Reports on seminars now being held at the School of Architecture, Columbia University on problems confronting city planners
- Action on Employment: Correpondence proposing a program for retraining and placing architects in war production
- How Much Insulation? Technical article by Don Graf
- Cities Should be Places to Live In by Harry S. Churchill, AIA
- Discussions on Urbanism
- Architects Today: First installment of results of the New Pencil Points survey on the architect today
- Code of Ethics: Ethical guide, adopted by Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers and the Pennsylvania Association of Architects, for business relations with the public and among members of both professions
- Postwar Planning: 4 Viewpoints on Architecture and Planning by Arthur C. Holden, Serge Chermayeff, Major General Philip B. Fleming and Sir Ernest Simon
- The Architect in the War Program: The California Chapter has been markedly successful in helping architects to get war jobs by Samuel Lunden
- On Architecture and Architects: An address delivered at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts by Bernard Rudofsky
- Public Housing in the Northeastern United States: Criticism by Michael Rosenauer
- Editorials by Kenneth Reid
- Letters from Readers: Replies to Last Month's Pros and Cons; Reaction to content and format, and an open letter to Congress on the subject of funds for the National resources Planning Board
- Products Progress: New products of interest to the profession
- News: Not all Architecture, strictly speaking, but affecting architects
- Competitions: Announcements and Results
- Books, Periodicals: Reviews by Henry G. Churchill and others
- Manufacturers' Literature
- Reviews: Including a Selected Bibliography on City Planning by Maurice Rotival; an Annotated Bibliography of Planning Literature by Margaret Greenough King, book reviews by Konrad Whitman and others
- General Advertising: an excellent assortment of vintage trade advertisments
”Chester [Emil] Nagel (American, 1911- 2007 ) was among the first architects to bring the International Style to Texas. Born in Fredericksburg in 1911, he studied architecture at the University of Texas, graduating in 1934. From 1935 to 1938 he worked as an architect for the National Parks Service, helping to design facilities for Bastrop and Palo Duro state parks.
"In 1939 Nagel received a scholarship to study at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he came in contact with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. After receiving his Master's degree from Harvard in 1940 he returned to Austin and, inspired by Gropius' ideas, designed one of the first International Style structures in the state, a house for himself and his wife on Churchill Drive.
During the war years, Nagel was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers in Bastrop, and from 1943 to 1945 he worked as a test engineer on the new Convair B-36 bomber in Ft. Worth. After the war he returned to Austin and collaborated with Dan J. Driscoll on the Barton Springs Bathhouse (1945). In 1946 he was called back to Harvard to be Gropius' assistant and later became an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Design. He gave up his teaching position in 1951 to join The Architect's Collaborative (TAC) and from 1951 to 1953 he headed the TAC offices in Washington. Nagel's designs, many of which were collaborative ventures with Gropius, included the Valley House in Lexington, Massachusetts (1940), the Overholt Thoracic Clinic in Boston (1955), and the American Embassy in Athens (1956). In 1958 he opened his own practice in Massachusetts and during the course of the next decade designed a series of projects in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands as well as several buildings for the Harvard medical and dental schools."
Quoted from Christopher Long, n.d., from the Alexander Architectural Archive, The University of Texas at Austin.
The Wallace E. Pratt House, also known as Ship On The Desert was the residence of Wallace Pratt in what is now Guadalupe Mountains National Park in far western Texas.
Pratt, a petroleum geologist for the Humble Oil & Refining Company, had previously built the Wallace Pratt Lodge in McKittrick Canyon a couple of miles to the north in the Guadalupe Mountains. Finding the cabin site to be remote and prone to being cut off by flooding, Pratt started construction of a new, modern residence on the east slope of the mountains. Work on the residence started in 1941. The house was designed by Long Island architect Newton Bevin, who lived for a time at the site with his wife, and built by contractor Ed Birdsall. Work was stopped by World War II, but resumed in 1945 and was completed the same year. In contrast to Pratt's rustic canyon cabin, the house, which Pratt named the Ship On The Desert, is an International Style house with horizontal lines and extensive glazing.
Only 16 feet (4.9 m) wide and 110 feet (34 m) long, the house provides broad views to the east over the plains and the west to the mountains. The majority of the house is on a single level, with a "captain's bridge" over the dining room giving access to a rooftop terrace. A detached garage contained a guest bedroom. Apart from glass, the predominant material was local limestone in several shades.
Pratt and his wife, Iris, lived at the Ship On The Desert until 1963, when Pratt's health dictated a move to Tucson, Arizona.[3] The house was donated to the new park along with 5,632 acres (2,279 ha) of lands in the northern part of the proposed park by the Pratts between 1959 and 1961. It was used as a residence for National Park Service employees, and has been determined to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is occasionally open for tours sponsored by the National Park Service.
The house was featured on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2018 list of most-endangered historic locations.
The first issue of the legendary architecture journal Pencil Points appeared in 1920 as "a journal for the drafting room." Born out of The Architectural Review, and merged with Progressive Architecture in 1943, Pencil Points became the leading voice in architectural and graphic design when modernism flourished, introducing key players from America and Europe. It also established the agenda in architectural theory: multi volume pieces by John Harbeson, Talbot Hamlin, Hugh Ferriss, and others dealt with major issues that are still relevant today-architectural education and practice, small-house design and portable housing, city planning, and the influence (or not) of modernism. Items like George Nelson's series of reports from Europe in the early 1930s, H. Van Buren Magonigle's diatribes against modernism, and a glossary of Ecole des Beaux-Arts terms sit side-by-side with the best architectural drawings and photographs of the 20th century.
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