The Machine and the Craftsman: The Hope for Technology in Prefabricated American Architecture

Everett E Henderson Jr
University of Florida School of Architecture

Nexus: Handmade to High Tech Southeastern College of Art Conference
Sarasota, Florida/ Ringling College of Art and Design
October 9, 2014

My direction in the presentation of this paper is threefold. These three foci can be studied independently, but I have chosen to weave them together to gain a new perspective. The three perspectives are: The machine and the craftsman is where the artist is able to make a contribution. The hope for technology is the desire to make life easier and more pleasurable with new tools, machines, and technology. Prefabricated American architecture has the ability to be comprised of thoughtful, meaningful, and significant design. These three topics are woven together in order to gain a new insight. Currently, modern prefabricated architecture is re-presented as a new idea as it is being marketed as green technology, efficient use of space, high style, and flexible design. The truth is, is that prefabricated housing is not a new idea. It has been contemplated by many highly-publicized architects and designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Buckminster Fuller for over a century. Prefabricated homes, for example, have been marketed and sold by Sears and Roebuck starting in 1908. The prefabricated homes sold by Sears were not designed by Sears, but the company did streamline the production and delivery of the precut pieces. The construction of the home was similar to a barn raising. While it may at first appear in today’s era of specialization that constructing a home by the average consumer seems daunting, yet to maintain a rural farm in the early 20^th century carpentry and blacksmithing were necessities. The American public did not have the mindset that they could not erect their own shelter yet. The physical appearance and design of the Sears homes is nearly indistinguishable from the conventionally stick-built homes of the period. Prefabrication in the last ten years has been taking on a new life and is being marketed as: Smarter, Faster, Cheaper, Good Design, High Style and Flexible Design. It has been represented as a green way to create new home. The efficient use of space and therefore materials is one of the greenest aspects of prefabricated housing. The silent film One Week featured Buster Keaton as the groom and Sybil Seely as his new bride in 1920. The newlywed couple received a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift. The house can be built, supposedly, in “one week.” The movie recounts Keaton’s struggle to assemble the house. What is missing from the construction process is a craftsman. While the kit-of-parts is complete – expertise, experience, and skill was and is still required to successfully assemble the parts. In 1919, Keaton viewed an industrial documentary named Home Made, which became the inspiration for One Week. One Week was essentially a parody of the film Home Made that was produced by the Ford Motor Co. The movie explained the concept of prefabricated homes, which buyers assembled themselves by following a set of instructions. This sequence of stills are from the 1938 cartoon All’s Fair at the Fair. What is enlightening about the cartoon is not the house that is being produced. The product of the house resembles the prefabricated homes that Sears produced- which looked as if they were produced by hand. What is thought-provoking is the depiction of the machine that produced the homes. The machine that produces the houses was manufactured to make exact copies much like a factory assembly line. The new technology introduces speed to the production of homes while bringing the factory to the site. The new technology does not change the style of each home. The architect Frank Lloyd Wright wrote the article “The Art and Craft of the Machine, for the magazine Brush and Pencil in 1901 where he cautioned that schools had not bound science and art by truly introducing the artist to their tools. He noted that artists were disconnected from their tools and therefore disconnected from their craft. He wished for materials to show their inherent beauty as he exposed concrete, stone, brick, cast concrete block, and the natural grain of wood. He did not design a flexible system, but instead created different Usonian designs. Usonian was Wright’s word for American. The James Mcbean residence in Rochester, Minnesota is a style No. 2 prefabricated Usonian home that was built in 1957. The language of Wright’s earlier non-prefabricated Usonian homes is reflected in the later Marshall Erdman Prefab Houses. The prefabricated homes were designed in 1954 using standard dimension construction materials such as the 4 foot by 8 foot materials. There were three Usonian house types designed by Wright, but only two of the types were put into production and sold. The architect Buckminster Fuller dreamed that new technology was going to solve Americans housing needs as it gave humans an advantage against the elements and minimized drudgery. He approached the housing shortage as a design problem to be solved through engineering. Fuller’s designs were connected to the new technology of the aviation industry as can be seen in the material choices and riveted connection details. Fuller often asked the question “How much does your house weigh?” His question would have been moot if new technology had not produced lightweight and strong materials. The design for Fuller’s Dymaxion house was based on his 1927 plan for a mass-produced house called the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine. The word Dymaxion was created by a marketing wordsmith to help advertise Fullers house design. The three blended words are dynamic, maximum, and tension. Buckminster Fuller designed the “Wichita House,” in 1946 and it was erected near Wichita in Rose Hill, Kansas, in 1948. The Beech Aircraft Company constructed the house to demonstrate affordable, prefabricated housing that would take advantage of World War II surplus materials. The structure was made of aluminum and designed to withstand the elements, including a Kansas tornado. This model was one of only two prototypes ever produced. In 1991 the William Graham family donated it to the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. The architect Walter Gropius transformed the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar Germany into the Bauhaus. The intent of the Bauhaus was to combine art and craft often with industrial applications. His own house in Lincoln, Massachusetts would follow the Bauhaus principles and reflect an International Modernism that showed a desire for maximum efficiency and simplicity. As early as 1923 at the Bauhaus in Germany, Gropius had been working with standardization of building blocks for prefabricated houses. Gropius formed the individual building units with the intent to create variety. Both Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann moved to the US after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus. They both formed the General Panel Corporation (the name reflects not only the name General Motors but also the intent of assembly line production). Wachsmann worked on the connection details and the corporation was subsidized by the US government. Part of the reason for the failure of the system is that “Wachsmann never stopped designing the connection details. Wachsmann was delayed at each stage by this search for the ideal, it took much too long to move from initial concept to the final stage of actual production.” The General Panel Corporation panels were designed to be a kit-of-parts that could be used to make site-specific housing. This interior drawing shows a two-story design using the panel system. This reflects Gropius’ fascination with the Japanese house. It makes sense that Gropius wrote the forward to Heinrich Engel’s 1964 book The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture. The General Panel test house was a single level home. With the exception of the recessed entry, there is little articulation on the surface of the exterior. Charles and Ray Eames opened an office in Venice California where they created films, toys, furniture and architecture. Charles went to Cranbrook and studied under Eero Saarenen and would be friends with Eliel Saarenen. Charles was trained as an architect and Ray was trained as a painter. Charles and Ray designed and built the Case Study House No. 8 in Venice, California in 1948. Case Study House No. 8, was one of roughly two dozen homes built as part of a program that was spearheaded by John Entenza, the publisher of Arts and Architecture magazine. While the house was not technically prefabricated, it did take on much of the language of a prefabricated system through the use of off-the-shelf materials. The direction will now shift from prefabricated housing to making tools to make things. The machine and the craftsman are integral to creating not only the end product but the selection and creation of the tools. These artist’s tools are handmade. The rhythm of the kick-wheel, the shape of the hand tools and the shape of the salt-kiln all contribute to the final product. The tools selected and created have an impact on the final products of bowls, cups, teapots and vases. The selection of tools and the making of tools by the craftsman is of great importance. The artist, artisan, architect or craftsman should be as close to their tools as possible if they wish to control the outcome. When creating pottery on a wheel for example, the hands directly connect to the clay and the simple tools are the hands. These are tools and not machines, but together they often form a mechanized process. The artist often crafts with simple tools in order to have control over the end product. The machine often enters into the crafting of the products as well. While there is much control attempted, many mechanized processes enter into production such as the mining of the clay and the minerals for the glazes. Machines can elevate some of the time-intensive and laborious tasks. The making of tools and selection of tools the by a craftsman is of great importance because the tools selected directly connect with those that use the resulting product… in this case salt-fired cups. One of the directions of this thesis was to express the multiplicity of production, not machine-production but rather craftsman-production. While multiplicity does not automatically translate to artful expression, it is difficult to connect with those that you are producing for without the feedback loop of producing, experiencing, and fine-tuning. While a lip of a drinking cup may, for example, be appealing to the eye, if it dribbles liquid on the user, it quickly becomes a pencil holder and fails at its intended purpose. As I spoke to my parents about my prefabricated housing research, they noted that we lived in a prefabricated house. My father was a welder for R.G. LeTourneau creating large machines. Note the little white houses in the background behind me as I sit in the Ford Falcon in front of house No. 21. I had always assumed that they were constructed of concrete masonry units aka concrete block. After research, I found that they were each created in a single pour of concrete.   My father worked for Robert Gilmore “R.G.” LeTourneau and learned to weld, craft tools, and make machines there. LeTourneau created the largest earth-moving equipment in the world, forestry machines and offshore oilrigs which he created with welding machines and torches as he liked to form them in situ. He also was the first to put large rubber tires on earthmoving equipment instead of the then ubiquitous steel wheels. He worked with Firestone to create the molds for the tires he needed. The 1922 Mountain Mover was designated A Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. This steel-wheeled machine was an early piece of his equipment that reflects LeTourneau’s kit-of-parts which consisted of the welding machine and the torch. There were no rivets used in LeTourneau’s machines. His tools also included not only physical constructions but also correspondence courses in metallurgy as well as learning through his experiences. He built upon his knowledge as he fine-tuned his machines. Most all of his machines were designed for earth-moving and there was always continued experimentation. If a machine did not work as planned, he would put it aside and approach it later when a new task presented itself. The patented Two-Wheel Tractor was named the Tournapull. LeTourneau used the prefix “Touna” to name things in which he had pride. This machine was invented as the prime-mover for other pieces of equipment, some of which had yet to be invented. The Mobile Form for Cast Structures was a house laying machine that he named the Tournalayer. LeTourneau designed and built the Tournalayer as a machine to form houses in a single pour of concrete with the steel reinforcement, electricity and plumbing embedded within the walls. The first two communities were for his employees in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Longview, Texas. Tournalayer No. 2 was handcrafted in the factory and each of the components was hand fitted to work with the other components. The sections are hand-crafted rather than manufactured because each one of these machines was hand-made as essentially a one-off that was fine-tuned with new each iteration of houses. There was a feedback loop of creating, making, and using the homes. LeTourneau’s welders crafted the Tournalayer in order for others to create homes and form communities. The welders were essentially making a tool that made homes in locations that had yet to be decided. There was an efficiency in numbers and creating one-offs with this machine was not a resourceful use of materials. In effect, the Tournalayer was not a house making tool, but a community forming tool. The Tournalayer consists of many parts that cast, deliver, and place the house. The main parts are the Tournapull and the Tournalayer. The Tournalayer consists of a frame, inner and outer molds and a base upon which they sit. The cast concrete house has an integral footer, inner and outer walls, and a roof/ ceiling. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who created cartoons that expressed the idea of completing a simple task in the most complicated way. Most all of his drawings were machines that had many components that created a complex sequence of events. Robert Gilmore earned the nickname “R.G.” at his Peoria, Illinois plant when one of his foremen thought “R.G.” better stood for Rube Goldberg. The Vicksburg community was shaped by the earthmoving equipment and the building structures were created with the Tournalayer. A community laundry, around 100 homes, a grocery store/ post office and a swimming pool were created with the Tournalayer. Many of the craftsmen in the community were men who had lived in homes with no running water, plumbing or telephones. In several instances, this was the first time many lived in homes with these services. The homes also provided heated floors. Modern not only reflects the clean exterior skin of these minimal homes, but modern also reflects the amenities that were within. The members of the community simply called it “LeTourneau.” “LeTourneau” was a place. The community was formed with machines by the LeTourneau employees. There were several Tournalayer Communities. Each had very different site plans as well as building configurations. Two-story Tournalaid houses were constructed in Beer Shiva, Israel and were created on lands that were previously occupied by nomadic people. They were arranged on a rigid grid. The homes survive but have been incorporated into larger structures. French Morocco homes were designed for the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the lower floor is open in the event of rising water. The main living area is on the upper level. These Tournalayer homes are likely part of the Peron 5 year plan and are most likely located in Argentina.  The plan occurred from 1947 to 1951. The base structure that the Tournalayer provided was adapted and supplemented. The homes have larger overhangs of about a foot and a parapet has been added with an inset medallion of the face of the home. The roof has become occupiable through the addition of a set of stairs at the rear of the home. While these houses were likely constructed as low-income housing, the amenities had evolved from the first houses in Vicksburg and Longview. A feedback loop was used by reflecting on the previous houses and apply the new information. Philosophies of premanufactured homes was diverse in the 1950s as different materials and different construction methods were used. Frank Lloyd Wright designed with lineaments and was rooted in the arts and crafts. Site-specific designs were important to Wright. Buckminster Fuller was rooted in engineering, technology and manufacturing. His systems were non-site specific and were derived from aviation technology. Walter Gropius was interested in the arts and crafts and introducing them into manufacturing. He helped create a system that could be applied to different locations to create a site-specific design. Charles and Ray Eames both worked not to produce a mass-produced system, but rather formed a language of ready-made parts. R.G. LeTourneau moved the factory to the construction site with the creation of the Tournalayer. He had a hands-on approach by creating a machine that was used by others to form communities throughout the world. He was intent on providing durable homes with modern amenities for the members in the communities.

R.G. LeTourneau’s 125th Birthday

LeTourneau University celebrated R.G. LeTourneau’s 125^th birthday on November 30, 2013. To celebrate, the University invited students and faculty to “see through the eyes of R.G. LeTourneau.” To see through his eyes, the University sent facsimiles of R.G.’s glasses to those interested so they could be photographed in them and share their perspective on R.G. (click on image to enlarge)

I have been researching R.G. LeTourneau from a different perspective than most. LeTourneau was known for his strong religious convictions as well as his innovative earthmoving machines and there are many writings on his accomplishments regarding these two motivating factors in his life.

My research started when I began researching the prefabricated systems of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller and Walter Gropius. I discovered that I lived in a prefabricated house from around 1967-1971. My father was a welder who worked at the Vicksburg, Mississippi Plant and we lived in one of “the little concrete houses.” I thought they were constructed of concrete masonry units and laid block by block, but my father informed me that they were laid by a machine in a single pour of concrete and the whole community was established very rapidly around 1945 with a machine called the Tournalayer. After much research and visiting the LeTourneau archives in Longview, Texas for three days in 2010, I discovered the many housing systems of LeTourneau.

While researching LeTourneau, I have read his many biographies and autobiographies and have found that the houses, as artifacts, were direct products of his religious and mechanical passions. The houses and communities that R.G. created (directly and indirectly) continue to have affects on future generations of people in positive ways. R.G. was famous for his ‘Rube Goldberg-like” machines and his passion for the word of God.

While R.G. is not well-known for his prefabricated buildings, there is still much to be learned from the systems, houses, and communities for which he created. The all-steel houses and the Tournalayer house system would not bring a great profit, but they do offer much insight into the thinking processes in the mid-1940s.

As LeTourneau wrote about his (new in 1937) all-steel house system, he made the following observations.

“Between heavy grading equipment and houses there is no very definite connection, but the continuing success and the reputation of R. G. LeTourneau, Inc., in the former field is a guarantee of equal reliability in the latter. In house building we work mainly with the same materials and tools as in grading equipment manufacture, employ the same sound structural principles, design as painstakingly, and as intelligently supervise workmanship. Our reputation for leadership, for reliability, for service must be maintained in this new department to support our reputation in the older one.” – R.G. LeTourneau

Tournalaid Town No. 1 (Almost named Tournalayer, Mississippi instead of Glass, Mississippi)

The caption reads:

“Looking north, down on America’s first Toumalaid town. House under tree is occupied by family of John Ginter, then from left on first row: F. Breuleux, R. Jacobson, G. Whitehurst, G. Wallace, Tom Conn, D. Harper, C. Strahan. Next row below, D. Chamblee, W. Gray, C. Young, C. Stampley, W. Holder, H. Gilliand, P. Byrd, Fred Johnson. Houses in distance at right are not yet ready for occupancy.”

The main article in NOW dated September 13, 1946 reads (The grammar has not been corrected):

“Y ES, I know where it is. I’m going right there; climb in and I’ll carry you. It’s getting to be a big town. We’ve been talking about incorporating.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said I knew where Glass is. I should’ve said I knew where Glass was. It isn’t any more. We changed its name. Why? Well, Mister, names are important. Not only in politics and perfumes, like Roosevelt and LaFollette and Witchcraft, but in most everything. Troy Laundry, Main Street, Yellow Cab, First National Bank. Used to be Star, Globe, World were about the best names to tack onto newspapers. Ben Franklin gives the thrift idea. So does Scotchman. Palace for movies-Butternut for bread- First This-or-That Church.

Towns need good names to grow on. Bet you asked a dozen folks how to get to Glass before I came along. Maybe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but give a dog a bad name – Not that Glass was a bad name; clear, easy to say, but hardly a name to set alongside of Vicksburg, Birmingham, Chicago or New York.

We’re not even near Vicksburg for size yet, but you should’ve seen us five years ago. Two churches – white and colored – with services sometimes; a few scattered houses. A railroad waiting room just about big enough to carry the name “Glass”. Fact is, it is still the same size. No stores, no service station, no power plant, no bank, no restaurant-nothing.

No, we didn’t begin to grow as soon as we changed the name. To be honest, we started before that. Fellow came to town and put up a steel works out of odds and ends of steel and lumber. Tar paper sides, flat roof. Put in a few diesel engines to make his own power. Built a shack up on the hill for his family and threw up several more for the families of some of the other boys working with him. It wasn’t until several months after the dedication service that brought about 8,000 folks out from Vicksburg and all around that we changed the name. By then we had a power plant at the factory that supplied juice up on the hill, too, for lighting the homes. We had water. Something like a street, and a growing population.

AFTER a bit that fellow-he’s always fussing with strange contraptions that nobody ever saw before, like an outfit of several rigs to chop down trees, saw ’em to length and take their bark off out in the woods-that fellow began fooling around with a machine for laying houses like eggs. First ones really looked like eggs some, but not much like houses wimmen would want to live in. After time, though, he began laying some real good ones. Roofs were flat, but you could divide ’em up inside like regular homes.

Then his gang brought that egglaying machine up on the hill and began setting down homes. We’ve got about 50 of them already and they’re laying 25 more, they say, in the same lot. No telling how many houses he’s going to set down on the hill. That one machine can set one a day. And as soon as a house is finished one of the steel families moves in.

Know what our population is now on the hill alone, not to mention some of the older families scattered around town? It’s 132, or was a few weeks ago when they took count: 46 adult males, 41 adult females, 25 boys, 30 girls. Five years ago this heap of mine was the only car in the village. Now we got 29: Fords, Chevvy’s Plymouths, Oldsmobiles, a Buick, Packard and Hudson.

The boys put two of those eggs together and made a building for a general

store and service station. They’re talking, too, about a postoffice and a soda fountain. They turned one of those 24′ by 30′ eggs upsidedown and made it into a septic tank. They’re going to put some others two or more together to make bigger houses for large families; maybe set some on top of each other to make two-story homes.

We have a big Sunday School-80 to 100-down at the steel works cafeteria and up in the house on top of the hill that the big fellow’s wife built for their family-she’s moved away now to the newest works over in Texas-they have a Bible Class for the ladies on Thursdays. They call the preacher “chaplain”.

The power plant, with three big generator sets running full time on natural gas, puts out so much electricity that’ you can blaze all the lights in the houses, run all the electric gadgets, while they’re using them big presses and welders and drills and lathes and everything at the works, and the lights never even flicker. We’ve got bus service to town – I mean Vicksburg-seven days a week. Beside the concrete egg houses we have the first frame shacks they built on the hill, some Pullman-type steel houses that come from Georgia, and -till they can find a better place to live-a trailer camp for a few folks.

THEY say at the office-and, Mister, you ought to see that office; nothing in Vicksburg any prettier there’s a waiting list of about 125 families who want to move into egg houses -all working at the steel works. Going to have a playground for the kids. Got a little volunteer fire department on the hill. Children who skin their knees now don’t run home to mama – they chase down to First Aid at the works. Cafeteria is open for hill folks nearly 24 hours a day-whenever the works is running. Building a 55,000- gallon water tank to put alongside the first 16,000-gallon tank. The settling basin by the well holds another 22,000.

We’re almost there, Mister. Road off this highway to the left runs to the big new airport they’re carving out of the hills with them big rigs. They aren’t pretty, but they sure move dirt. They’re slicing several million cubic yards off the hill tops and putting it into the valleys to make two cross strips that’ll land almost any ship made.

This road to the right takes us through our little city direct to the steel works. See those houses on both sides of the road: everyone of ’em was laid like an egg. There’s the hen that did it ain’t she a whopper? She sits for about 18 hours after she gets filled building: ever see anything prettier? They served barbecued beef, ice cream, pop and speeches to all the countryside when it was near ready to move into. There’s the power plant; the works; the cafeteria.

No, sir, this isn’t Glass, Mississippi. This is LeTourneau. Some folks seem to have trouble with that name, but it doesn’t bother us. Probably Minneapolis, Worcester, Philadelphia and San Francisco were hard for outsiders to pronounce when they were getting started. Only thing is, if we had waited a while longer we could have honored the bird that is hatching the future metropolis by naming our town Tournalayer.”