Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster (May 11, 1905 – November 21, 1964) was an American
public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, de ...
advocate and educator of
city planners and
urban planner
An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning.
An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, tow ...
s. A leading member of the "housers," a group of planners who advocated affordable housing for low-income families, she dramatically changed
social housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, d ...
practice and law in the United States. Wurster's influential book ''Modern Housing'' was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1934 and is regarded as a classic in the field.
Early life
On May 11, 1905, Catherine Krouse Bauer was born in
Elizabeth,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
to Alberta Krouse Bauer, a self-educated
homemaker
Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...
, and
Jacob Bauer. Her father, a state
highway engineer, was an early advocate of superhighways and implemented the first
cloverleaf interchange
A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left (in right-hand traffic; reverse directions in left-driving regions), vehicles first continue as one road passes over or under the ...
s in America while serving as New Jersey's Chief Highway Engineer.
Bauer's younger sister was
Elizabeth Bauer Mock, a curator and Director of the Department of Architecture and Design at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
(MoMA) and her brother was Jacob Louis Bauer, Jr., an engineer.
Bauer completed her secondary education at the Vail-Deane School in her hometown. She first attended
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
, spent one year as an architecture student at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
, then transferred back to
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
from which she received her undergraduate degree in 1926.
In 1926-1927, Bauer spent time in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, where she befriended
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...
,
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
, and
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia may refer to:
People
*Sylvia (given name)
* Sylvia (singer), American country music and country pop singer and songwriter
*Sylvia Robinson, American singer, record producer, and record label executive
* Sylvia Vrethammar, Swedish singer cre ...
. Inspired by the city planning vision advanced by French architect
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
, Bauer published an article on his worker's apartments in suburban Paris.
Professional career
Returning to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1927, Bauer worked at a number of publishing houses, eventually collaborating with American urban critic
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...
beginning in the late 1920s.
It was at his urging that she became involved with the architects of change in post-
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, among them
Ernst May
Ernst May (27 July 1886 – 11 September 1970) was a List of German architects, German architect and :German urban planners, city planner.
May successfully applied urban design techniques to the city of Frankfurt am Main during the Weimar R ...
,
André Lurçat
André Lurçat (August 27, 1894 – July 11, 1970) was a French modernist architect, landscape architect, furniture designer, city planner, and founding member of CIAM. He was active in the rebuilding in French cities after World War II. He was th ...
, and
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
. Convinced that good social housing could produce good social architecture, and moved by the visible ravages of
the Depression, she became a passionate leader in the fight for housing for the poor
and in 1934 accepted an appointment by the
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutua ...
(AFL) to become Executive Director of the new
Labor Housing Conference based in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
. Her book ''Modern Housing'' (1934) described the housing achievements Bauer had observed in Europe and lessons for the United States capturing attention of New Deal policy-makers who wanted to boost the economy through housing construction. In 1936 she was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
to study housing in Europe and the USSR.
Bauer was the primary author of the
Housing Act of 1937 and advised five
presidents on housing and urban planning strategies. Following the passage of the
Housing Act of 1937, she was named the Director of Information and Research for the newly formed
United States Housing Authority
The United States Housing Authority, or USHA, was a federal agency created during 1937 within the United States Department of the Interior by the Housing Act of 1937 as part of the New Deal.
It was designed to lend money to the states or com ...
, a federal agency of the Department of the Interior under the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
. She served as consultant and adviser to national, state, and local housing and planning agencies during the 1930s-1960s including the
Federal Housing Administration, the
Housing and Home Finance Agency
The Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) was responsible for the principal housing programs of the United States from 1947 to 1965. It was superseded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and preceded by the National Housing ...
, and the California Housing and Planning Association. Bauer was instrumental in the creation of the influential documentary film ''
The City,'' which was included in the 1939 New York World's Fair.
In 1940, Bauer accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
's School of Social Welfare. During the 1940s-1950s she lectured and led seminars at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
,
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
,
Mills College
Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it w ...
, and
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
, and in 1950 joined the department of architecture at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
. After her marriage to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
area architect
William Wurster, whom she met while teaching at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
in 1940, both withstood accusations of disloyalty by the
Tenney Committee during the
Red Scare
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
of the 1950s. Bauer Wurster contributed to the establishment of University of California, Berkeley's
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design, also known as the Berkeley CED, or simply CED, is one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is located in Bauer Wurster Hall on the southeast corner of the mai ...
and was also involved in founding the progressive architectural research group
Telesis Telesis (from the Greek τέλεσις /telesis/) or "planned progress" was a concept and neologism coined by the United States, American sociologist Lester Frank Ward (often referred to as the "father of American sociology"), in the late 19th cen ...
.
She died in a fall during a solo hike on
Mount Tamalpais
Mount Tamalpais (; ; Miwok: ''Támal Pájiṣ''), known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mou ...
,
Marin County
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, on November 21, 1964.
Legacy
A bust of Catherine Bauer Wurster is located in the Environmental Design Library at UC Berkeley. An
Oscar Stonorov
Oscar Gregory Stonorov (December 2, 1905 – May 9, 1970) was a modernist architect and architectural writer, historian and archivist who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1929. His first name is often spelled "Oskar".
Early life
St ...
bust of Wurster adorns the
Robert C. Weaver Federal Building
The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building is a 10-story office building in Washington, D.C., owned by the federal government of the United States. Completed in 1968, it serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Housing and Urban ...
's Main (South) lobby in Washington DC. The
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design, also known as the Berkeley CED, or simply CED, is one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is located in Bauer Wurster Hall on the southeast corner of the mai ...
's Catherine Bauer Wurster Award for Social Practice was established to recognize alumni who have made significant contributions in their professions.
The building that houses the College of Environmental Design at Berkeley was renamed the Bauer Wurster Building in 2020 to clarify that it was named in honor of both William Wurster and Catherine Bauer Wurster.
Bibliography
*
*
References
Further reading
*Oberlander, Peter and Newbrun, Eva. ''Houser: The Life and Work of Catherine Bauer.'' Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press, 1999.
*De Jong, Judith K. “Houser: The Life and Work of Catherine Bauer, 1905-1964, by H. Peter Oberlander and Eva Newbrun.” ''Land Forum'', no. 13 (January 1, 2002): 29–30.
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bvh&AN=461614&site=ehost-live.
*Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Henry Russell Hitchcock, and Catherine Bauer Wurster. ''Modern Architecture in England''. New York: The Museum of modern art, 1937.
*“Obituary.” ''Journal of Housing'' 21, no. 11 (January 1, 1964): 570–71.
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bvh&AN=178873&site=ehost-live.
External links
*
Guide to the Catherine Bauer Wurster Papersat
The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bauer Wurster, Catherine
1905 births
1964 deaths
American architecture writers
Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning alumni
Vassar College alumni
Harvard University faculty
Public housing in the United States
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration personnel
American urban planners
Women urban planners
20th-century American writers
California women architects