The Vernacular Moment

Abstract

Kevin D. Murphy reexamines the introduction of European modern architecture in New England during the late 1920s and 1930s. Emphasizing the importance of regional vernacular forms to the reformulation and popularization of modernism, The Vernacular Moment: Eleanor Raymond, Walter Gropius, and New England Modernism between the Wars also highlights Raymond's pioneering role in this process. A decade before Gropius associated modernism with New England's vernacular building tradition in the choice of materials for his own house in Lincoln, Massachusetts (1938), the design of the Cambridge School of Architecture (1928), to which Raymond contributed, had brought together modernism with both industrial and domestic vernacular idioms. Closely analyzing the architecture and written statements of Gropius and Raymond, the article explores how the architects grounded their modernism in tradition and created well-publicized buildings that served their pedagogic purposes.