1945 Creativity and Crisis: Chicago Architecture and Design of the World War II Era [signed]

With essays by John Zukowsky, Martha Thorne, Carissa Kowalski, Marta Wojcik, Lori Hanna Boyer, and Kay Manning One of the most important years in modern history, 1945 marked the end of a conflict that united many western democracies and some communist adversaries in a struggle for survival against the Axis powers led by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Although the sociopolitical impact of World War II is the subject of numerous books, films, lectures, and television shows, the contribution to the war effort by visual arts professionals-artists, architects, and industrial designers-has been barely touched upon. This publication outlines the work of several practitioners, many of whom worked in and around the Chicago area, during and immediately after the war. Architects Bruce Goff, Bertrand Goldberg, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and L. Morgan Yost, and designers Henry P. Glass and Richard Ten Eyck are featured, showcasing a vast range of ideas on prefabricated structures, cost- and material-efficient housing, and functional design objects. Presented to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, this catalogue elucidates that architects and designers put their creativity to work in the war effort, and, at the war's end, helped rebuild respective environments into a new society.