7.1 | Pros and Cons of this Two-Fold Approach

While the reports indeed remain a product of their time, they symbolize an important breakthrough in the relationship between modern architects and modern scientists, the applications of regionalism and the applications of modernism, architecture and the city, the city and climate, and people and their environments as comprised of both built and natural elements. The vision created by House Beautiful is not only one of man living in concert with his natural environment, but also one of a city composed of climatically-governed homes; a city perhaps, with the possibility of merging with nature.

With that said, these documents did become the basis for subsequent textbooks on designing with climate, most notably, Victor Olgyay's 1963 book, Design with Climate. Furthermore, the approach of looking at all climatic aspects of a site through diagrams simultaneously established a standard for climate education for architects, a standard by which I was taught only a few years ago. However, with that said, the information did remain heavily within the field of architecture and while this integration was a landmark for responsible design, the material was not disseminated as efficiently along even more effective means such as legislation of construction and development according to climatic guidelines. As a result, adherence to climate-sensitivity remains more of a specialty of design rather than a necessary criterion.

At times the statements in the AIA Bulletin differ from those which evolved in House Beautiful articles. Part of this may be due to how House Beautiful altered their strategy for pitching the information over the span of the project. This notion of developing an 'American aesthetic' which I have been alluding to was actually something which the AIA sought to avoid despite the fact that that it was something House Beautiful readily promoted. In the AIA Bulletin, architects wrote that '[t]he entire series will disclose some cases of almost exact duplication of climate in several limited areas of the country. However, the many variations within a radius of 100 miles will emphasize the necessity of detailed study of each community and each site. We and our clients have lazily assumed that we have four climates, North, South, West and the West Coast...Actually we have at least 100 climates in the United States and each one is different in at least one important respect from very other. This climatological data and its design implications should dispose finally and effectively of the fallacy of an International Style or even of a national style.'26 This statement is so interesting because House Beautiful, over time, increasingly is trying to portray the universality of these design strategies and also how these strategies reflect an American style which is superior.

Additionally, the association of the AIA with House Beautiful meant that planning strategies outside of the relationship between house and immediate landscape were more often than not overlooked. House Beautiful was marketed to the single-family-home-owner and as such there was little interest in the effects of climate on community and town planning, an issue of more relevance only to designers. In the effort to provide design criteria applicable by the AIA, this kind of planning with climate was largely excluded from the AIA Bulletin reports as well, even though it had been one of the reports initial goals.

With these inconsistencies stated, the liberties House Beautiful took in applying climate-sensitivity to an aesthetic sensibility did aim to establish it to the consumer as a fashionable design trend rather than as a boring science. Furthermore, this collaboration resulted in the creation of intensive series in both the magazine and the professional journal, an intensity which may have broken down or become less useful without the other publication to help structure the other. The significance of the AIA's collaboration with House Beautiful was that the magazine represented 'the consumer...[and] [s]erious concern and intensive effort in relation to such really fundamental matters by a non-technical and non-professional publication,' the Bulletin stated in 1949, 'is unusual and commendable.'27 House Beautiful gave a 'voice' to the consumer, enabling him/her to understand the natural processes affecting their home and land. However, it also gave a voice and legitimation to the design professional as more than an interior designer. In return, the AIA legitimated House Beautiful among its magazine competitors.

Furthermore, the House Beautiful articles beautifully mask the scientific collaboration which provided the data for design ideas the magazine published, thus making the notions appealing and exciting to architects and the public. The magazine provided concrete architectural examples of how the science could be applied whereas the AIA Bulletin reports did not. 'To meet the problem of climate control in an orderly and systematic way,' wrote Victor Olgyay in 1963, 'requires a pooling of effort by several sciences. The first step is to define the measure and aim of requirements for comfort. For this, the answer lies in the field of biology. The next is to review the existing climatic conditions, and this depends on the science of meteorology. Finally, for the attainment of a rational solution, the engineering sciences must be drawn upon. With such help, the results may then be synthesized and adapted to architectural expression.' House Beautiful masked this science from those to whom it would have made climate-sensitive design a turn-off.28

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