Since transformations in architectural style often follow major economic, social, political, or technological upheavals, it is not surprising that the building art in this century has been so marked by change. And certainly few periods in modern history were more marked by a conjunction of sudden changes than the years just following World War II. With America’s industries reinvigorated by the allout military effort and its primacy on the international scene confirmed by victory, peace brought an urgent need for new civilian and commercial construction. For fifteen years there had been an architectural hiatus in the United States, imposed by the Great Depression and protracted by the wartime ban on all non-essential building...
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