New AETN Documentary Captures Mid-Century Modern Architecture in Arkansas

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Edward Durell Stone designed the Fine Arts Center at the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. The 1951 building is included in a new documentary on mid-century modern architecture in Arkansas.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Where can you go to find out how postwar America built? To New York’s skyscraper-lined Park Avenue, the toney suburbs of New Canaan, Conn., or the glamorous weekend retreats of Palm Springs?

Mark Wilcken discovered he didn’t have to travel far to find compelling examples of mid-century modern architecture. He didn’t even have to leave the state.

A producer at the Arkansas Educational Television Network in Conway, Wilcken captured his fascination with the building style and the culture that led to it with a 55-minute documentary, Clean Lines, Open Spaces: A View of Mid-Century Modern Architecture.

The film, shot with high-definition technology, will be screened in four cities around the state this month, including one on Oct. 9 at the University of Arkansas Global Campus in downtown Fayetteville. It will premiere on AETN at 9 p.m. Nov. 14.

Production of the film was funded through grants from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Arkansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Growing up in southern California, Wilcken was surrounded by mid-century architecture, but he didn’t like the style then because “it didn’t seem very warm.” After he moved away and was introduced to more traditional architecture, he appreciated modernism more and better understood what made it so different from other styles.

With the existence of “so much bad” architecture, Wilcken wanted to focus on the quality and detail that architects can bring to a design. In his research, he learned about the evolution of modern architecture and where mid-century modernism fit. He learned that it was a blending of the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright with elements from the International Style – but, fitted to American lifestyles and values, it was more organic in form and, typically, much less rigid than the International Style.

Aiming to show examples from across the state, he hopped into an AETN van and “basically just started driving and looking.” He took photos of buildings that he thought fit the period, and they weren’t really hard to find. The construction boom after World War II precipitated an unprecedented surge in building in the 1950s through the early 1960s, though not all of it followed the modern style. “You can see the growth patterns by the style of architecture,” he said.

With a plethora of examples from more than 20 cities, Wilcken had to apply a filter for which structures would make it into the film. He did this after talking with a diverse group of architects, including faculty at the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

In the end, his overwhelming criteria concerned the look: “Is it modern enough?”

Usually, a flat roof was the first feature he considered. He also looked for other details indicative of the period, such as angled supports, a concrete grill facade, diamond-shaped roof patterns, cantilevered concrete overhangs, and metal and glass panels (particularly those colored aqua green or turquoise blue).

The windows of mid-century modern buildings were easy to spot too: invariably metal-framed, plate-glass bought off-the-rack, often sweeping uninterrupted along a building facade. “There’s a certain quality to mid-century designs that are very clean, the lines are very easy.”

Examples in the film include several Fayetteville buildings: the university’s Fine Arts Center and the now-defunct Carlson Terrace housing complex, both designed by Edward Durell Stone;  also the Fulbright Building (built as the Fayetteville Public Library) and the Southwestern Electric Power Company building, both designed by Warren Segraves, a 1953 graduate of the architecture school. Others around the state include the former First Federal Savings and Loan in Fort Smith, design by Bob Laser; the Tower Building in Little Rock; and homes in Huntsville and Fort Smith.

Wilcken interviewed architects, architecture professors, homeowners and a representative of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas. All offered helpful tips and advice for finding people and properties. Architecture school faculty members interviewed were Greg Herman, associate professor; Marlon Blackwell, distinguished professor and head of the architecture department, and Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, professor and associate dean, who served as architectural historical consultant on the film.

Alumni interviewed include Ernie Jacks (B.A. Architecture ’50), Bob Laser (B.A. Architecture ’50), Charley Penix (B.Arch. ’80) and Reese Rowland (B.Arch. ’90). Hicks Stone, son of Edward Durell Stone, also contributed.

Goodstein-Murphree points out that modern architecture represents as much about the human condition as it does about architectural syntax and style: “our technology, the ways we occupy space, ideas of inclusivity and access in community; our notions of dwelling changed so in the 1950s, from the televisions we watched to the automobiles we drove. All of that is imbedded in mid-century modernism as a subset of modern architecture. It’s about us; it’s about ordinary American lives.”

She said people tend to think of architecture with a “capital A, as something extraordinary and removed from their day-to day experience.” They’ll tour centuries-old buildings and ruins in other countries, but not think twice about the “built fabric” in their neighborhood and state.

Although modern architecture blossomed in Europe during the first quarter of the 20^th century, its full impact wasn’t seen in American buildings until after World War II. Mid-century was the time corporations started to build glass-box, curtain-walled skyscrapers and intended those to be great signifiers of their brands and products, she said. These buildings also symbolized America’s postwar resurgence as a global power: “affluent, ascending and victorious.” Those traits manifested in the architecture in many ways, and, moreover, the influence of very visible monuments of modernism at the national scale were seen and understood by an upcoming generation of local architects that included Warren Segraves and Bob Laser.

Contemporary wartime technology also improved the building industry, and served an equally new and different market – soldiers returning from the war and the baby boom families they produced, who made affordable housing a necessity. They rushed to the suburbs, where, even in home interiors, traditional decor gave way to streamlined furnishings, bold, flat colors, and trendy, time-saving appliances, she said.

“In short,” she noted, “the mid-century modern house did away with the excesses of the Victorian house. Modernism really emphasizes form and function, and to a certain degree, utilitarianism. Luxury in the mid-century modern house didn’t necessarily translate into square footage. It translated into a lifestyle; mid-century modernism was all about a style of life as well as a ‘look’ in architecture.”

While making this film over the past year, Wilcken said, the biggest challenge was learning how to capture buildings. In order to make these inanimate objects come alive on film, Wilcken and his director of photography, Gabe Mayhan, searched for the best angles and added movement using a dolly. “It was just knowing how to look at a building and how to find its good side, and where to look for the details. You have to look at each building individually,” he said.

When filming the Fine Arts Center, Wilcken said, he walked around and around the building, trying to find the front. He finally focused on a couple of angles: each side of the north wing, which features a line of windows. He also likes the cantilevered-canopy entrance, with its pillar-lined walkway, that leads to the theater lobby.

The former First Federal Savings and Loan in Fort Smith, designed by Bob Laser and built in 1961, is included in the film.

His favorite building is the First Federal building in Fort Smith, with its turquoise blue panels on the side and diamond-shaped pattern on the roof. He was privileged to interview its architect, Bob Laser. “It was one of those that screamed mid-century modern. You can’t look at it and not know the period of time it came from,” Wilcken said.

Wilcken said he hopes the documentary inspires people to pay attention to their built environment. “It’s something that you interact with every day – you see it, you work in it, you live in it.”

And, when seeking examples of mid-century modern architecture, “you don’t have to go to New York or California,” Wilcken said. “We have some wonderful examples of it here.”

Wilcken’s previous films for AETN include CW150: Remembering the Civil War in Arkansas, on the state sesquicentennial, and Troubled Water, on water resources. His feature on poet Miller Williams, part of the station’s Men and Women of Distinction series, premiered on AETN in January.

Screenings for Clean Lines, Open Spaces will be held from 2-4 p.m. Oct. 2, at the Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library in Jonesboro; at 6 p.m. Oct. 4, at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, following a 5:30 p.m. reception (as the first event in the 2011-12 Architecture and Design Network lecture series); from 2-4 p.m. Oct. 9, at the University of Arkansas Global Campus in Fayetteville; and from 2-4 p.m. Oct. 23, at the Fort Smith Public Library in Forth Smith. Wilcken will be at each of the four screenings. Goodstein-Murphree will join him in Little Rock, Fayetteville and Fort Smith.

For more information and to watch a preview, visit www.aetn.org/midcenturymodern.