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Spokane’s Modernist Legacy
The six young architects who arrived in Spokane between 1948 and 1955 left us more than buildings. In fact, the three largest architectural rms in Spokane are essentially branches of the same tree. When Royal McClure left to open a practice in Seattle, his former partner, struck out on his own, eventually forming Adkison, Leigh, Sims, Cuppage – known today as ALSC. Walker & McGough became WMFL, then Integrus. And Northwest Architectural Company (NAC) is the result of the merging of three rms: Tan Brookie Kundig, Trogdon Smith Grossman, and Environmental Concern, Inc.
Mark Dailey, a design principal at Integrus, acknowledges the direct link between Spokane’s form-givers and his rm’s philosophy. “There’s great beauty in Modern architecture,” he says. “There always has been, and there always will be. What you’ll see today – hopefully in our work – is a friendlier Modernism that’s still rooted in the basics of good design: transparency, clarity, function.”
According to Moritz, people have for too long played around with architectural styles in an arbitrary and super cial manner. “Buildings have lost their character,” he says. “As a result, the Modern style, with its simplicity, has become popular again.” It’s a characteristic he sees in his son’s award-winning work. And Tom, for his part, understands the connections. “We’re all products of where we come from,” he says, “and I’m certainly a product of that moment in time. Those guys had a huge in uence on what I do.”
“Those guys” are worth remembering, according to Dailey, if only to help people understand what good design is. “Call it Modern, Mid-Century Modern, whatever,” he says. “I just call it good design. And good design matters.”
Moritz’s career came full circle in 2009 with the completion of an addition to the newer Unitarian Church on West Fort George Wright Drive. Fittingly, it’s a chapel. It’s also his last project, he says. At 85, Kundig has other things on his mind now. With characteristic candor – and without a hint of maudlin sentiment – he believes the end can’t be all that far away. “The world is so outrageously beautiful,” he says, “that it will be hard to leave.”
Tom Adkison,
Like many of McClure & Adkison’s earlier projects, the Stephan Dental Clinic (1950) evokes the clean and pure lines expressed in the work of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. Famous for his aphorism “less is more,” Mies, along with contemporaries Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, was a pioneer of the Modern architecture movement, emphasizing rationalism and functionality over needless ornamentation. Photo courtesy of ALSC Architecture.
The celebration of natural materials
and a connection to the outdoors places Central Washington University’s Wenatchee Higher Education Center (2006) within the realm of Northwest Modernism. “I’ve always called architecture functional art,” says architect Mark Dailey. “It’s the ultimate blending of art, politics, psychology, science...it’s the culmination of all of these. Show me a good designer and I’ll show you a good communicator.” Photo courtesy of Integrus Architecture.
Drawings submitted as part of Kundig’s entry in the 1952 competition to design a residence for Neal Fosseen, who later became mayor of Spokane. The home was never built.