america

In the works of design and construction just reviewed, two qualities seem to stand out as tokens of promise. One is the continuing search for new aesthetic expression, in a contemporary idiom. The second is youthfulness. However old these structures may be, they embody a youthful spirit which has always been a prime ingredient in great design.

Ideal

We are justly proud of the genius of a people who could build the complicated multistoried skyscrapers that form the famed skylines of San Francisco, New York and Chi-cago, and the planes that convert a trip across the continent or ocean into a few hours of incongruous luxury. But in terms of true quality and proportion in depth, doesn't our

Bent on mobility, and having the space for it, we have spent our short history in a series of major transitions.

Underlying those changes has always been a sense of urgency.

Our mobility was never peaceful, serene or dignified. but hasty and impelled by a sense of insecurity (Nathaniel Owings, American Aesthetic)

Worldly possessions, from cleansers and cars to homes and office buildings, are expendable. We have arranged things so that we think we must keep producing, consuming and producing again to survive. Our inventiveness has turned upon us to yield a population explosion, an automobile invasion, mass-education gigantism, television-age persuasion and a

nation as part of a mosaic of interlocking geophysical forma-tions, each with its own special utility, then perhaps we can see dimly for the future the re-creation of the American Dream. (Nathaniel Owings, American Aesthetic)

When I first discussed this search for "an American

aesthetic" with my editor, he suggested that "if there is a traditional

American aesthetic it has evolved through commerce, not art." (Nathaniel Owings, American Aesthetic)