AVIGAIL SACHSUniversity of California, Berkeley

This article contributes to the current discussion of design as research by examining the ideologi-cal basis for the enthusiastic pursuit of scientific research in architecture in the postwar period.The concept of ‘‘research’’ was steeped in theory and ideology, but the research itself was shapedby the research economy—its policies and its institutions. Three very different case studies illus-trate this phenomenon and demonstrate the importance of considering the research economy asa factor shaping the direction of architectural research.

The Postwar Legacy of Architectural Research

Research, Idea, and Reality

How does design research contribute to architec-ture in theory and in practice? In September 2007,the

Journal of Architectural Education

(

JAE

) pub-lished an issue devoted to exploring that question:

Architectural Design as Research, Scholarship, andInquiry

This collection of articles seeks to definea mode of scholarship and inquiry that is special toarchitecture—and one that is not adequatelydescribed in terms of ‘‘the scientific method.’’ Theeditors, Dodds and Erdman, reject the ‘‘relativelynarrow’’ understanding of the architect’s role thatis reflected in an ‘‘instrumental’’ approach toarchitectural research.This approach, they observe,‘‘still commands much of the discourse, curriculum,research agendas, and funding initiatives at manyarchitecture programs in both North America andabroad.’’

And they specifically cite the articles inthe first issue of the

JAE

as instances of this narrowattitude (see Figure 1).This article offers a different reading of thefirst issue of the

JAE

. Based on an examinationof post–World War II archival material—at theAmerican Institute of Architects (AIA) and theschools of architecture at Michigan and Berkeley—I conclude that the term research was used in thepostwar period much as we might use the term‘‘theory’’ today.The argument for scientificresearch in that period was in fact part of a widerargument about the nature of modern architec-tural practice and the future of the architecturalprofession in the United States.The ideal, inWilliam W. Wurster’s phrase, was to ‘‘broaden thebase of the profession’’

by creating knowledgesolidly based in science—that is, objective,impartial, and rigorous.This knowledge, whendisseminated and shared by members of the pro-fession, would form a solid foundation for creativeand even individualistic design processes.Reginald Issacs, who taught landscape archi-tecture at Harvard, clearly stated this point of view:I do not believe that landscape architecture, cityplanning or architecture can call themselvesprofessions unless there is a rapid increase frompractically zero in the number of scholars inthese professions

. . .

Only through originalresearch will there be a systematic andconsistent contribution to knowledge in our professions.

There are few self-made scientistsin any field.The chance accomplishments of individual discovery is far too hit-and-miss toassure needed improvement of our professions.I hope to see half of the present faculty of theGraduate School of Design replaced byscholars—not by practitioners such as myself.

Why then do we so often identify this work asnarrow and practical? Part of the reason has to dowith the fundamental changes that have takenplace since the 1950s in the broader field of thephilosophy of science.The postwar concept of scholarly research was firmly rooted in contempo-rary ideologies relating to scientific management,behaviorism, technological progress, and basicresearch. With the dismantling of ‘‘big science,’’especially in the social sciences, many of theunderlying beliefs were discarded or openlyattacked, leaving only a residue of methods thattoday seem alien and narrow.Another reason—and this is the topic of thisarticle—is that the idea of an architecture based onresearch—like any other human idea—was neverrealized in its entirety.The

idea of research

wasnever associated with a definite definition of research. But in order to create the necessaryinstitutions to channel the new profusion of research resources that flowed through the postwarmilitary-industrial complex, the nebulous termresearch had to be defined and molded into fund-able projects. Architects adopted research methodsoriginally developed in engineering, psychology,sociology, and other fields to lend credibility totheir work. Architectural research came to bedefined in terms of product development, buildingsystems design, environment-behavior studies,and so forth.The case studies described in thisarticle—theresearchprogramsattheAIAandattheUniversities of California (Berkeley) and Michigan(Ann Arbor)—are but three of many examplesselected to illustrate the extensive range of mean-ings that the ideal notion of research took on in thepostwar years.

SACHS Journal of Architectural Education,pp. 53–64

2009 ACSA

This process of institutionalization and itsconsequences has special relevance for us today. Asthe September 2007 issue clearly illustrates, we aretoday once again in the process of defining andrefining the

idea

of architectural research.Today’sconcept is very different from the postwar defini-tion and in many ways is constituted in oppositionto it. We also no longer work in the researcheconomy of the postwar years, with its particularpolicies and funding opportunities. But in makingour ideas of research a reality, and institutionalizingthem in schools and firms, we operate within theresearch economy of today. As in the 1950s, thisresearch economy will impose its particular meth-odological and ethical choices. By examining thedilemmas and choices of our predecessors, we canbetter recognize and understand some of theproblems we will have to address as well.

‘‘An Architecture Based on Research’’

When Turpin Bannister, the editor of the first issueof the

JAE

—and like-minded colleagues, archi-tects, and educators throughout the UnitedStates—called for the inclusion of

research

inarchitectural practice, they were not arguing,necessarily, for the ‘‘scientification’’ of the designprocess.They did not conflate research with designbut rather distinguished it as a systematic explo-ration to yield generalizations that could be used byarchitects in a range of contexts (see Figures 2 and3).The products of research, they argued, wouldplace architectural practice on a shared and

proven

basis from which a truly modern architecture couldemerge. Walter A.Taylor, director of the Depart-ment of Education and Research (E&R) at the AIA,wrote in the

JAE

, no. 1:Research, therefore, can supply the practitionerwith a fundamental approach to his problem,and can either replace or confirm the intuitiveand rule-of thumb process that so besets ustoday. Research cannot reduce design toa formula, for design by its very nature is thefinal creative integration. Research could givethe designer new resources that mightconceivably sharpen and stimulate creativeintegration to a new height of clarity andeffectiveness. We do not know positively, of course, because we have never had anarchitecture based on research, but it would beexciting to attempt it.

The proponents of an architecture based onresearch conceived of research as a collectiveproject, and they did not expect every architectto undertake research on his/her own. Instead,they advocated that the profession as a wholeshould pool resources to amass new and sys-tematic knowledge and disseminate it widely.Theschools of architecture were specifically chargedwith training future researchers who wouldundertake research for the entire profession.Thisambitious vision bears all the hallmarks a mod-ernist project: it was based on the positivistassumption that the knowledge produced inresearch was objective and widely applicable andtherefore superior to knowledge derived fromother pursuits. Robert McLaughlin, Dean atPrinceton University in the 1950s, summed upthis position well:It is not enough for the architect to attack eachproblem as an artist. He needs to have theknowledge of scientists, and no single architectcan have that.The world of knowledgeunderlying architecture is too vast for theindividual to encompass. How does theprofession meet this problem? The method of science is the method of research: research forprinciples of architecture that, onceencompassed, become the basis for rationaldesign decisions.

1. The first issue of the

JAE

, published in 1947, was devoted to researchin architecture and advocated the introduction of the ‘‘scientific method’’into professional practice. (Courtesy Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.)2. The Texan Architect, William W. Caudill, was a founding partner of thefirmCRSandstronglysupported‘‘research’’inthefirmandatTAMU.Hedidnot, however, conflate research with design but rather saw them as distinctand complementary professional practices. (Courtesy of the CRS Center,TAMU.)

The Postwar Legacy of Architectural Research

As Magali Sarfatti Larson argues, professionsare social entities whose power can fluctuate: pro-fessions can both gain and lose their autonomy.

This means that professionals can make conscious(and unconscious) attempts to direct this process.In the postwar years, American architects wereacutely aware of a professional crisis.The GreatDepression and the wartime economy, when mostconstruction all but ceased, had done more thandeprive architects of work. Organized in smallprivate offices, most architects were ill prepared tocontract with public agencies.Workingon New Dealand defense projects, architects found themselvescollaborating more than before (work was divviedso that more architects would be paid) as well asengaging in new types of building assignments,particularly housing and community planning.Although the postwar building boom alleviated thearchitects’ most pressing problem—findingwork—it was clear that it would not reverse thenew social and economic conditions of practice.Many advocates of research, moreover, were com-mitted, ideologically and politically, to the contin-ued involvement of architects in public work.Thecall for a research-based architecture was clearlyconnected to a call for a new (research-based)

architect

and a reprofessionalization of the pro-fession.Subscribing to research, however nebulositydefined, was the most expedient way to placearchitecture firmly within the American cultureof professionalism.

Science, broadly defined,has always played a crucial role in the Americanprofessions’ struggles over power, since—unliketheir counterparts in Europe—American profes-sions could not rely on guild traditions as a sourceof authority.

And now military victory, the productin part of the American technological superiority,served to consolidate and intensify a widespreadAmerican consensus in which scientific investiga-tion was seen as crucial for further progress anda better societal order.This consensus was the basisfor wide-spread investment in research throughoutwhat Oliver Zunz has called an ‘‘institutional matrixof inquiry’’ that linked scientists in research uni-versities, institutes of technology, corporate labo-ratories, and private and public foundations.

Often, it was enough to describe something asresearch to be able to command resources. Archi-tecture schools, moreover, especially those locatedin the growing research universities, had to conformto some degree to the restructuring in their parentinstitutions.Advocating a research-based profession wasalso a way to make a statement about the impor-tance of housing as a topic for the profession.Housing, conceived as both a social and a technicalproblem, was a topic of research and fact finding asearly as the late nineteenth century, and the con-nection between good housing and scientific (orquasiscientific) knowledge was further consoli-dated in the twentieth century. Architects had notignored this development: as early as 1927, the

Architectural Record

advised its readers to adopt‘‘the research method of science—observation,hypothesis, education, experimental verification.’’

Housing, however, remained on the periphery of the profession’s interest, and only a few (albeitprominent) academic programs included the topicin their curriculum.The Depression and especiallythe New Deal forced architects to reframe theirrelation to the problem. Emphasizing research asa general field of inquiry over the more specific

housing

research was a way to further appropriateand ‘‘gentrify’’ the problem and place it squarelywithin architecture.This focus on the social and communityaspects of housing also reconnected architects withthe postwar scientific disciplines of city andregional planning and landscape architecture.Similarly, the emphasis on the technical aspects of housing as a topic for research in architectureaffirmed a connection between the architects andthe building industry—the amalgamation of pro-ducers of materials, building systems, and prefab-ricated components. Research, particularly thedevelopment of new materials and systems, playeda key role in advances in the building industry fromthe early twentieth century, and several of the moreprogressive industrialists were quick to establishresearch units dedicated to the development of new and more efficient building materials andsystems.

Many individual architects wereinvolved in this development as both employeesand entrepreneurs. In 1933, for example, theaforementioned Robert McLaughlin establisheda company named American Houses, Inc., whichbecame one of the leading prefabricators in theUnited States.

Finally, for many of the proponents of anarchitecture based on research (and its corollary,collaborative practice), research was a way to

3. The Texan Architect, William W. Caudill, was a founding partner of thefirm CRS and strongly supported research in the firm and at TAMU. He didnot, however, conflate research with design but rather saw them asdistinct and complementary professional practices. (Courtesy of the CRSCenter, TAMU.)

SACHS