Carl W. Condit (1914–1997)

Abstract

Memorial CARL W. CONDIT (1914-1997) SHARON IRISH Carl Condit’s bailiwick was urban technology, the noisy, gritty, smelly interactions of transportation, water supply, and sewage dis­ posal with city planning and building. His fascination with and knowledge about railroads, highways, canals, rivers, and buildings were evident in the twelve books and well over fifty articles that Carl wrote during his fifty-year career. The bibliography of his writings runs to seven pages, not including book reviews and letters to edi­ tors.1 His broad interests and skillful writing, lively teaching and thor­ ough research drew many people to him—in print, in correspon­ dence, in classes, in his office.2 When Carl Condit received a degree in mechanical and civil engi­ neering (Purdue University, 1936) and then obtained graduate de­ grees in English literature (University ofCincinnati, 1939 and 1941), his rare abilities allowed him to span many disciplines. In 1944 Carl joined the building squad of the engineering department ofthe New York Central Railroad, where he “really learned about building. A railroad covers every kind of building, from toolsheds to in­ terlocking towers to enormous, complicated terminal buildings. At the time, the work also included water tanks, water-supply systems, coal docks and buildings peculiar to railroads, roundhouses and ’ ’3 so on. . . . Dr. Irish is visiting assistant professor of art and design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She thanks Debra Mancoff, and Isabel, Rick, and Ken Con­ dit for their help with this tribute. ’A chronological bibliography of Condit’s publications from 1946 to 1988, com­ piled by Debra Mancoff, appeared in Technology and Culture 30 (April 1989): 25865 . 2See Sharon Irish, “Essays in Honor of Carl Condit,” and Melvin Kranzberg, “A Tribute to Carl W. Condit,” Technology and Culture 30 (April 1989): 249-54, 255-57. 3Debra Mancoff, “An Urbanized Kind of Fellow: An Interview with Carl Condit,” Arts and Sciences (1982). Permission to quote from or reprint this memorial may be obtained only from the author. 1026 Carl W. Condit (1914-1997) 1027 Northwestern University, located in Evanston just north of Chi­ cago, offered Carl a teaching job in English in 1945, allowing him to return to a city that had drawn him since boyhood.4 His roles at Northwestern University, his professional home for most of his ca­ reer, reflected his varied interests: assistant to full professor of En­ glish and general studies, to professor of English, history, art history, and urban affairs. His own research and writing provided substance for his courses on urban form and building technologies. Condit retired from active teaching in 1982. After studying the history of science with Marshall Clagett and Robert Stauffer at Wisconsin as a postdoctoral fellow in 1951-52, Carl started the history of science program at Northwestern in the fall of 1952. Of the history and philosophy of science course that he taught for 24 years, he wrote in 1988: “It is the course I miss above all, my last connection with intellectual history.”5 Outside the classroom, he was active in the History of Science Society for 35 years, serving on its business council for at least three (195356 .)6 His first book, The Rise of the Skyscraper, appeared in 1952 and re­ ceived favorable attention from Lewis Mumford in The New Yorker as a book “that has long needed doing.”7 Mumford had been an early mentor-in-print; Carl recalled reading The Brown Decades in 1937.8 Carl’s first book was followed by The Chicago School ofArchitecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 18751925 (1964, with later editions and translations), an ambitious re­ working ofhis 1952 volume. It remains a much-used classic in Ameri­ can architectural history. The Chicago Schoolclearly identified leading designers in Chicago and the varied challenges they faced after the 1871 Chicago fire. Many of the buildings built in the aftermath of the fire that Carl championed in his book were by 1964 dilapidated and/or threatened. Demolishing the urban center at the same time that people were being warehoused in new high-rises gave force to a preservation movement that fought mightily for saving buildings and stories from the past...