Lustrons as Vernacular Art Deco: "A Heap of Cheerful Living in this New Idea of Home"

By Kjirsten K.J. Blander

The early 20th century was filled with a certainty that Everyman -the vernacular man - could truly control his own destiny through growth and industry. This belief was expressed in architecture, materials, and design in a movement called Art Deco. What would be better, then, than to marry this certainty in the goodness of industrialization and the fascination with the machinemade with the housing shortage after World War II? Enter the Lustron Home: A New Standard for Living.

LEADING TO THE LUSTRON
The designers, artists, and architects of the early 20th century did not know the label "Art Deco;" instead, they simply created things that were "modern." World War I had ended, and resources previously diverted to the war effort were now available. New uses for old materials were found, aluminum was used in furniture and jewelry, and new materials were invented, such as Bakelite and other synthetics. Combining these new materials with new "modern" interpretations of existing styles, and the addition of exotic or geometric motifs, created this new style eventually called Art Deco.

The majority of the non-design community was first exposed to this new, modern design by the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industrials Modernes in Paris. Although the United States did not participate in the event, its impact was felt nonetheless when 400 objects from the exhibition toured the United States after the exhibition closed. At the time, Americans were still buying furnishings in the Arts and Crafts style - itself a reaction to the original industrial revolution. Department stores such as Macy's, Marshall Field's, and Wanamaker's began to promote this new design idiom by showing "modern" items in window displays and in model homes within their stores; museums mounted shows highlighting "The Modern." The post-war prosperity and people's desire to begin shedding their old, pre-war lives made this new, modern philosophy very appealing. It sold, and it was wildly popular through the Roaring Twenties - a time when not just the furniture was changing.

Social change was significant in the early 20th century. Although America's housing shortage has been a chronic one, it came to the fore with the great migration of workers who moved to industrial cities to work during the War. First identified as a social problem with the New England textile factories, housing for industrial workers and lower- to middle-income families again became a problem with America's entry into World War I when it was "sharply raised on a national scale." The emerging field of social work began to identify the importance of minimal standards of light, air, and space on anti-social behavior. Town planners and architects succeeded in prodding governments to undertake housing in some of the major shipbuilding cities. "The total number of housing units built by ... two federal agencies was not impressive, and the abrupt end of the war laid both agencies open to the murderous fire of the vested interests." Government-sponsored housing had arrived, architects began to focus on social reality rather than "esthetic abstractions," and social welfare was focused on housing.

An American example of this "modern" direction in design and social interest was the 1933-4 Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago. Its statement of purpose was to Ğattempt to demonstrate ... the nature and significance of scientific discoveries, the methods of achieving them, and the changes which their application has wrought in the industry and in living conditions." In the thick of the Great Depression, the Century of Progress demonstrated what technological wonders awaited fair-goers once the Depression ended. "Life, the Exposition proclaimed, would be smooth and easy, and the technology to make it so would be accessible to everyone." The "`hypnotizing promise of more and more things tomorrow, advanced by America's `machine technologies and rising standard of living' was a source of optimism for even the poorest Americans." The automobile was featured at the fair with the introduction of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Car No. 3; the Big Three automotive manufacturers sponsored buildings to demonstrate the glories of the assembly line and the necessity for personal transportation. That the official guide book of the fair would choose to highlight the color, style, and construction of the buildings of the fair is a testament to the burgeoning importance of modern industrial design and an understanding of the importance of a building's context.

A popular feature of A Century of Progress was the Homes of Tomorrow exhibit within the Home and Industrial Group area. The Homes of Tomorrow illustrated the "blend of modern technology and furnishings in affordable and prefabricated housing." "Many homes were commissioned and built especially for this particular area. Various companies tried their hand at creating aesthetically pleasing homes that also had some unique features that combined modern technology and futuristic design. Some were constructed of unconventional materials and guaranteed fireproof while others were more traditional yet had modern appliances and features built into the home interior design." Eight of the eleven houses were prefabricated. Homes of Tomorrow featured such innovations as:

• Picture windows (the Florida TropicalHouse) ;
• Dishwasher, electric garage door opener, central air conditioner, passive solar heat, and an airplane hangar next to the garage since everyone must own an airplane in the future (House of Tomorrow);
• Steel framing studs hung with Rostone, a synthetic stone siding (the Rostone House); - Prefabricated concrete slabs riveted to steel girders (the Good Housekeeping StranSteel House); and
• Frameless corrugated steel exterior panels with baked porcelain enamel sheets, drywall, and wall-hung cabinets rather than moveable cupboards (the Armco-Ferro House).

In addition to being the predominant design motif of the 1933-4 Chicago Century of Progress Exhibition, Art Deco was the predominant design motif at the 1936 Texas Centennial Celebration, the 1937 Paris Exposition des Arts et Techniques, the 1939 New York World's Fair, and the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. It was a style that appealed to the masses, and not necessarily so much to art critics.

The stage was set. "Modern," Art Deco, became an accepted design idiom, postWorld War II materials had become accepted (although would never upstage traditional wood construction as the preferred building material), mass-produced mail-order houses had begun to change American attitudes toward prefabrication, the Depression was over, and the future looked bright. Then came the Second World War and most everything was put on hold except for the vast numbers of servicemen who were shipping out - some newly minted husbands, some exchanging promises of matrimony when they returned. Either way, when they returned, they got busy making babies, trying to find a roof for their heads and a garage for their car, and living the American dream.

LUSTRON LEDGER
By the time Carl Strandlund went to Washington in early August 1946, a number of important social and technological elements were already in place. These elements included:

• The housing shortage was an acknowledged problem;
• The public was more accepting of nontraditional building materials;
• The automotive industry proved the capabilities of mass-production assembly-line technology;
• Steel homes had been introduced at the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress (the Armco-Ferro House and the Good Housekeeping Stran-Steel House);
• Prefabricated homes composed approximately 5% of the national home-building industry so were not unfamiliar;
• The government had already dabbled in the house building business; and
• Owning one's own home had become an essential element of what it meant to be an "American."

Carl Strandlund was not unknown to manufacturing or to the government. Prior to joining the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Products Company, he had implemented unit assembly methods at Oliver Farm Equipment and increased their profitability by over a million dollars. He had improved tank tread design and was recognized by the government for that change. He also held over 150 patents. Strandlund joined Chicago Vit in 1942. Chicago Vit produced steel enamelware for household appliances and architectural panels for diners and gas stations. Strandlund went to Washington DC not to build houses but for money; he was a gas station man in need of more steel. Strandlund went to DC seeking a release of steel heretofore controlled by the government due to war needs. Washington was not interested in more gas stations - it needed houses. The idea of a prefabricated metal home had intrigued Strandlund and the idea of implementing the ideas in his head must have been exciting for him. Strandlund returned to Chicago to have a home designed and working drawings completed quickly. A return trip to Washington on August 10, 1946, with drawings in hand, was more successful. In a meeting with Harold Denton at the National Housing Administration, Strandlund met a kindred spirit: they were both interested in housing issues and both knew "that the time was right for a well-designed industrial house." By late September, Strandlund met with the head of the National Housing Administration, Wilson Wyatt, the man with the key to the government's till for housing innovations. Wyatt soon visited the Lustron "Esquire" model home in Hinsdale, Illinois and was a believer. The government was about to get back into the house building business.

At last, the Lustron is all about the "modern" modern materials, modern design, modern machines, and modern mass production. The Lustron House is nothing but modern. Its materials were used in an unconventional manner. The designs are extraordinarily efficient for such a compact space, approximately 1, 000 square feet. The design of the never-built "1950 Model" is even a more modern design because it took into account the entire building process from factory through carrying the bride over the threshold. The "1950 Model" was to reduce the number of individual parts shipped to the job site, included more unit-production at the factory (assembling parts into components), and reduced overall weight and complexity without sacrificing efficiently, square footage, or cost. The features of the Lustron are modern because they were modern and novel. The combination dishwasher/clothes washer, passthrough in the dining room, window placement specifically chosen to enhance cross-ventilation, the volume of built-in storage, and ceiling radiant heat were innovative.

Art Deco features clean, simple lines: geometry and simplicity; and a machine-like look. The Lustron, in all of its incarnations, was an extremely efficient design; there was nothing extraneous included in the floor plan, but what was included was either necessary or an innovation. Using the Westchester Deluxe two-bedroom plan, the most popular model, for our tour, it is easy to see how "modern" was built in to the home.

Upon approaching the home, our visitor is struck by the geometry and simplicity of the home's exterior. The 2' x 2' exterior porcelain enameled steel panels give the exterior a nice rhythm that speeds the eye across the facade. It is sleek and clean with just enough decoration to make it seem "homey." The use of industrial material, porcelain enameled steel on a steel frame, on a nonindustrial structure - a house - is thoroughly modern. The gasket between the panels is a newly-patented permanent plastic sealing strip. Such an innovative and futuristic building material could only work on an Art Deco structure. The color is smooth and uniform, as it is baked into the wall panels, and is one of a choice of four colors: maize yellow, dove gray, surf blue, or desert tan. On stepping inside, our guest notices the interior walls are metal also, in a selection of light gray, blue, yellow, or pink. Howard Ketchum, a leading industrial colorist, selected all the colors for Lustron Houses, our hostess will inform our guest.

The 14' x 16' living room seems all the larger because of its practically gigantic picture window that protrudes slightly, and the mirrored built-in bookshelf/display area. The living room opens on to the 9'x 10' dining room thereby visually increasing the space for Living with a capital L. From the dining room, our hostess easily serves her guest a cocktail through the passthrough built into the china cupboard that separates the dining room from the kitchen and provides more storage and a convenient electrical outlet.

The kitchen is Mrs. Consumer's model of modern efficiency fitted with a Lustronmanufactured sink, steel cabinets, exhaust fan, an optional garbage disposal unit, and a combination dishwasher/clothes washer.

Although a refrigerator and a stove are not included, the Lustron Corporation thoughtfully left sufficient floor space for standard-sized models. The spacious utility room (7 1/2' x 8'), beyond the kitchen, houses the automatic oil heating unit to heat the home. The hostess continues the tour of her new home by returning to the living room for a quick sip of her martini before heading to the private areas of the house.

A spacious closet, conveniently placed next to the bathroom, allows the hostess to store her handtowels near where they are used. The bathroom, at 5' x 10', includes a larger than average combination tub/shower, medicine cabinet, lighting fixture, commode and sink, and all the plumbing is copper! There is even a window above the bathtub so our hostess can more easily apply her war paint before doing battle at the local department store.

A second closet, between the two bedrooms, is home to our hostess, linens, again conveniently located near where they are used.

Moving to the smaller bedroom - saving the master bedroom for last - our hostess points out that the two windows allow for crossventilation and the radiant heat in the ceiling keeps her little sleepers nice and toasty.

At 10 1/2' x 14', there is plenty of room for the family and the built-in closet stores the flotsam and jetsam of childhood out of sight. Moving to the last room of the home, what our hostess considers her favorite room for its built-in glory, our tour ends in the master bedroom. The 12' x 12' space is enlarged by the extraordinary amount of built-in storage space. Note the built-in vanity surrounded by closets, cupboards, and cubbyholes, she crows, look at the windows - the one in front is practically a picture window! Who wouldn't want to live in such a welldesigned, well-thought out, thoroughly modern home? And the maintenance is next to nothing: just an occasional spray with the garden hose! Now, back to the living room for more cocktails.

Original owners had very few complaints about their Lustron homes. Contemporary owners, however, find the once-sufficient electrical outlets too few, that some of the exterior fasteners have rusted, locating craftspeople with sufficient knowledge of the material impossible, and the windows altogether thermally inefficient but finding suitable replacement windows has become a Lustron owner's holy grail.

At the Columbus, Ohio, factory, Strandlund employed many assembly line workers who had formerly worked in the automotive industry. They already understood assemblyline unit production and transitioned easily to making house parts rather than car parts. Again, the assembly line was nothing new, but it was used in a novel way, thereby making it modern.

Strandlund's hope of producing 30,000 homes per year never materialized for many reasons. If it had, the Lustron Corporation could have helped meet the housing need of the time by providing cost-effective, efficient, and low-maintenance homes for the new families formed after World War II and the subsequent Baby Boom.

LUSTRON LOSES
The Lustron Corporation never attained true volume production and never realized economies of scale. Nor did any of the other unconventional housing companies of the time, save for Bill Levitt and Joseph Eichler - the merchant builders. Significant differences between Lustron-type companies (single homes, innovative materials, etc.) and the merchant builder's approach include the merchant-builder's use of:

• More conventional materials (wood frame, more traditional facades) ;
• Fewer innovative features (Levitt's radiant heat in the floor) ;
• Economies of scale;
• Established manufacturing methods; and - The promotion of a lifestyle in a community rather than a stand-alone house.

Many analyses of the Lustron Corporation's rise and subsequent failure have been written. An abbreviated history of Lustron's business failure taken from The Lustron House includes the following:

• The parent company, Chicago Vitreous, was not a homebuilder. Their business was to produce small commercial buildings that were purchased directly by corporations, and Chicago Vit could not match supply with the demand for homes.
• The extensive (more than $30 million) Reconstruction Finance Company government loans funded virtually the entire Lustron experiment. The RFC expected short-term payback and Lustron was not able to meet the brief terms of the loans. Government had already attempted becoming part of the housing business and failed during World War I, and the "murderous fire of the vested interests" brought down Lustron's positionwith the government.
• The scale of the Columbus, Ohio, plant was "too big for an emerging industry that was yet to be proven. Much of the money that Lustron spent on [equipment] was based on eventual high-growth sales and production that failed to materialize. The purchase of the huge hydraulic press for forming slightly longer bathtubs was a monumental error." The Lustron bathtub was one and one-half inches longer than the industry standard. The colossal, custom built-one-process die used to make the Lustron bathtub could have been used to produce tubs for the industry at large if they were a conventional size; subsequently, Lustron lost an opportunity for a secondary income.
• Lustron expected its builders to purchase the homes outright. Housing is traditionally purchased through finance programs that last over decades; Lustron needed immediate cash flow.
• The association of the company with several high-placed but ill-chosen men damaged the business reputation of Lustron when the public became aware of them. There was the $10,000 Lustron paid Senator Joe McCarthy - of Communist witch-hunting fame - for an article, and former U.S. Representative Sunny Sundstrom seemed to have sought revenge for being fired from Lustron by using his friends in Congress to start more and more investigations on the RFC loans.
• The company seemed to attract incredibly critical press that soured an originally enthusiastic public on the company and its product. The main gist of these articles often rightly pointed out business shortcomings of the Lustron Corporation; however, given the political climate of the times - the government rife with back-door dealings and quid pro quo - one must wonder at the impetus for all this critical press.
• "The Factory Built House is Here, But Not the Answer to the $33 Million Question: How to Get It to Market?" Architectural Forum, May, 1949.
• "Bathtub Blues," Time, July 4, 1949, asked "how long would the RFC pour millions into Lustron?"
• An article in the October 10, 1949 issue of Newsweek, "reminded readers that the company had already received $37,500,000 from the government and was asking for more. By that time, Newsweek saw the whole project as a gamble, especially since the Lustron plant was closed for inventory "and was faced by a new problem of consumer financing. Noting that the dealers had to pay cash for Lustron units, the magazine hoped that 'the financing problem might be worked out,' but the tone of the article was decidedly negative."
• "What's Stalling Lustron?" Business Week, October 29, 1949. This article stated that Lustron was "up to its neck in trouble" and suggested the company would survive if a change in management were made - something for which Sunny Sundstrom and his cronies in Congress were pushing.
• "Lustron - The House That Lots of Jack Built." Saturday Evening Post, November 5, 1949, implied the project was a "boondoggle."
• "Wonderland Revisited." Forbes, November 15, 1949. Quoting from Alice in Wonderland, the author counterpoints the Lustron story with selected nonsense.
• "Government Sponsored HOUSING FAILURE!" Stag Magazine, December, 1949.

LUSTRON LINGERS ON
What a wonderful adventure the Lustron Corporation was: a good idea, the right timing, a quality product, and a profound failure all at once. Strandlund probably could have realized his dream had he solved manufacturing issues, had more start-up money, and did not have to contend with his enemies in Washington. Nonetheless, the Lustron House is an astonishing example of late Art Deco for the masses: modern materials, modern design, and modern methods. Lustron allowed nearly 3,000 average families to own reasonably prices homes - to take part in the American dream - by joining together industrialization, pre fabrication, and lots and lots of porcelain enameled steel. What could be more Art Deco than that?

NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE LUSTRON'S HISTORY IS EXPLORED ON VIDEO
The one-hour documentary, "Lustron - The House America's Been Waiting For," tells the story of Chicago inventor Carl Strandlund and his crusade to revolutionize homebuilding by mass-producing steel houses - 100 each day - on an assembly line. "Lustron-The House America's Been Waiting For" is available on home video. This 60 minute VHS (NTSC) video is $19.95 plus $5 shipping and handling. On high quality DVD format with deleted scenes and more for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. (Michigan residents pay 6% sales tax)

Call 1-800-825-4568 for your copy. (9-5 Eastern Mon-Fri) or visit www.lustron.org

Copyright © 2000 Detroit Area Art Deco Society. All rights reserved.