Catherine Bauer and six riddles of modernism

Abstract

In her most striking contributions to the debates on public housing in America, Catherine Bauer posed riddles. Yet if her place in the canonic history of the Modern Movement in Britain and America remains enigmatic it is because Bauer's conceptualisations of the riddle of identity and desire - so crucial to her writing and initiatives - are recorded only in her intimate correspondence with cultural critic Lewis Mumford, which are as yet unpublished. This essay draws attention to Bauer's use of riddles to pose difficult questions about the absence of social housing in America, a riddle about public-private provision and appropriate action and housing's place in the history of architecture. The paper argues that Catherine Bauer belongs to the modernist canon for her breadth of engagement: for pursuing the moral, philosophical, formal, economic and political implications of modern housing in America.