The United States air force academy: A case study of rhetoric and reality in the making of modernism

This case study of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, construction of which was begun in 1954, analyzes the myths and realities of architectural modernism. The process of the project's realization has been reconstructed using archival documents from the Air Force Academy Construction Agency, the United States Air Force Academy, and the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), in addition to Congressional proceedings and mass media accounts. That process included the initial decisions involving the location of the facility in Colorado, the choice of SOM as the architectural firm, the firm's decision to use an International Style modernist vocabulary to realize the project, and their attempts to convince Congress, the military establishment and the public to subsidize and endorse their design. The resulting history is diachronic, complex and often contradictory, grounded in the specifics of political, cultural and geographic realities, replacing the synchronic narrative posited by SOM and their advocates. An analysis of the project leads to a rethinking of modernism itself. Debates within the architectural community over such matters as regionalism and monumentality vie with public perceptions and expectations to create a rich tapestry of meanings, as the successes and failures of the Academy design are presented within a framework of Cold War culture. Contrary to the technological teleology of “international” modernism, the Academy's actual production was grounded in a bureaucratic and political process whose outcome was not predetermined. Rather, the Academy's conception and meanings developed with the project itself. Included in those meanings were the interweaving of myths and metaphors of flight and American West with those of modernism. SOM's experiences with World's Fairs expositions and museum exhibitions provided them with both the rhetoric and the marketing experience to present their design within such a context. The firm's experiences also underscored the importance of the photographic image in conveying and transmitting the arguments upon which the project's success depended for its political as much as cultural success.