| Abstract: | For architect Oskar G. Stonorov (1905–70) and labour leader Walter P. Reuther (1907–70) unions were not simply instruments for collective bargaining. They were also agents for transforming established social practices that denied the working class access to decent housing, parks and art; discriminated against African Americans; and destroyed the natural environment. Architecture and site planning were key to this transformation as they addressed concerns of social justice and environmental quality. Stonorov and Reuther shared an aesthetic agenda as well – to expose workers to the emancipating beauty of modern design – as they believed well-designed housing contributed to both their personal lives and productivity at work. From 1941 until their deaths in 1970 they devised plans for workers' housing and town planning, sculpture, urban renewal and environmentally sensitive site planning. They sought to involve workers in the design process, mark union territory on former elite-owned properties, give control of housing production to organized labour and advance workers' educational opportunities. This article examines their architectural endeavours as part of a labour narrative and as an index of the turbulent social and political changes taking place from the inter-war years to 1970. |
