Katherine Morrow Ford

Abstract

Katherine Morrow Ford, architectural critic for House & Garden magazine, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and coauthor of several architectural books and domestic advice manuals, remains one of the most instrumental female critics who promoted both modern architecture and modern architects in mid-twentieth-century writing alongside other well-known architectural critics such as Esther McCoy and Elizabeth Gordon. This chapter critically analyzes Ford’s work and contributions to the field of modern architecture. Like other female architectural critics of the twentieth century, she occupied a strategic position in the art world, navigating the male-centric world of architecture and design while taking a decidedly “feminine” approach by blending domestic advice column prose with architectural criticism found in professional journals. Her unique approach was not regional but focused on the all-encompassing heading of American modernism that included East, West, and Midwest designers and targeted a female audience of homemakers. She was concerned with mediating the world of high modernist design for the American public in a relatable way. Her career also speaks to the larger disciplinary questions of gendered roles and the ability of women to achieve success while operating and negotiating the socially constructed views of mid-century America.