”This very fertile period of architecture discourse”
Elizabeth Blasius, in a great essay for MAS Context, on the highs and lows of the Chicago-based architecture magazine Inland Architect:
In 1983, a hundred years to the month since the first issue of Inland Architect had been published, writer and critic Cynthia Davidson was hired as editor. To determine a path forward for this new position, Davidson went to Chicago’s Newberry Library, which had in its collections the bound 1883–1908 iteration of Inland Architect. “I started looking at them,” shares Davidson in a phone interview, “and I said, ‘look at this, it’s just the architects themselves who were writing.’”5 Hired by Harry Weese himself, who fired the previous editor to hire Davidson, Davidson gave Weese the last page of the magazine to write about whatever he wished. Davidson would encourage other architects, of firms both large and small, to write articles, to write about their colleague’s projects, and to collaborate with each other.
During the height of the Modern versus Postmodern debate, Inland Architect played off of the factions. “We had a real exchange going on in the magazine,” says Davidson. Differences of opinions were often printed within the same issue.
“We couldn’t have known it at the time, but Inland Architect occurred during this very fertile period of architectural discourse,” shares Philip Bess, a former contributor, now Professor of Architecture and Department Chair of the Architecture Program at Judson University, in a phone interview.6 Bess, then an architect early in his career, teamed up with fellow architect Howard Decker to write a column called the “Chicago Architecture Police.” Together, their column interrogated buildings, exhibits, and even the critique process at architecture schools. Howard Decker describes Inland Architect as providing an opportunity for younger professionals to engage with architects of an older generation, both in print and in person. Decker, who would later serve as Chief Curator of the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., elaborates in a phone interview, “there was not a lot of precedent for that before the 1980s, and Inland Architect was a part of the vehicle for that.”
It’s cliche to say that you want more thoughtful, longform design writing but is it also a cliche to say you want more thoughtful, longform design writing about design writing? I find stories like this so important for an inside look at how design is discussed — and ultimately, what gets remembered. I wish there was more writing and history about the publications that shaped the discourse. This is what I was trying to do with my piece on Dot Dot Dot that was published in Eye on Design back in 2021 (!).
My only knowledge of Inland Architect, admittedly, is through Davidson, who I had on Scratching the Surface two years ago so it was nice to read this full, hundred year history of the singular publication. Davidson left Inland to start and edit ANY, which she ran for a decade before then started Log. There’s a new book coming next year from Lars Muller Publishers by Zachariah Michielli, Cathelijne Nuijsink, Ashley Schafer, and Aaron Tobey on the history and influence of ANY. You know I’ll be preordering it as soon as it’s available!