Frederick L. Ackerman (1878–1950) was an architect and housing reformer in the United States. He supported proactive engagement of the federal government to supply quality housing for the working class. He participated in the federal government's earliest housing program with architects Clarence S. Stein and Henry Wright on their projects Sunnyside (1924) and Radburn (1928), and worked for the

New York City Housing Authority The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the U ...

. While he favored traditional architecture and lower income housing, he also designed modernist buildings, luxury apartment buildings and home designs. Ackerman graduated from

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 teach an ...

in 1901 and designed Balch Hall on campus in 1929. He also designed Day Hall, Cornell's main administrative building, in 1947.

First Houses

First Houses First Houses is a public housing project in the East Village, Manhattan, New York City and was one of the first public housing projects in the United States. First Houses were designated a New York City and National Historic Landmark in 1974. T ...

was a project planned as a gut rehab, with every third tenement building torn down to provide extra light and air, but

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Frederick Ackerman and his engineers soon discovered that the 19th century tenements were too fragile to be reconstructed. So they were torn down and First Houses was built from scratch, employing re-used bricks and dozens of workers on relief paid for by the federal government. According to The New York Times on November 21, 1935: "Originally scheduled as a renovation operation, it was turned into practically new construction, with only a few of the old foundation supports being utilized." Ackerman designed the apartment buildings with rear entrances and courtyards to allow more light and air than the existing tenements in the neighborhood. First Houses were designated a

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 ...

and

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1974. They are managed by the

Technical Alliance

Ackerman was an original member of the

Technical Alliance The Technical Alliance was a group of engineers, scientists, and technicians based in New York City, formed towards the end of 1919 by American engineer Howard Scott. The Alliance started an ''Energy Survey of North America'', aimed at documenting t ...

which later became known as the

Technocracy Movement The technocracy movement was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s which favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy and concomitant partisan politics. Historians associate the move ...

after it published its results in the early 1930s of an ''energy survey of North America. Frederick Ackerman was the source of the first modern architectural handbook, ''Architectural Graphic Standards'' (1932), which was intended as a radical manifesto. Basing his practice on the economic critique of "conspicuous consumption" by

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. In his best-known book, ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' ...

(1857-1929), Ackerman was a 'leader of the technocratic movement'. Ackerman directed his employees to develop factual architectural data. The authors of Graphic Standards, Charles Ramsey (1884-1963) and Harold Sleeper (1893-1960), worked at Ackerman's firm. Ackerman was an editor of

Howard Scott Howard Scott (April 1, 1890 – January 1, 1970) was an American engineer and founder of the Technocracy movement. He formed the Technical Alliance and Technocracy Incorporated. Early life Little is known about Scott's background or his early lif ...

's 1933 book ''Introduction To Technocracy'' and a member of the

Technocracy Technocracy is a form of government in which the decision-maker or makers are selected based on their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts wi ...

group called ''Continental Committee on Technocracy''.

Writer on architecture and social commentary

Ackerman wrote extensively on the social problems of his day relating many of those to the basic operating structure of society being out of step with scientific advancements. Some of Ackermans's works include: *''Our Stake in Congestion'' *''How Can We Live in the Sun'', 1930 *''A Communication'', The New Republic, May 3, 1933 *''The New New York of Tomorrow'' (Review)

References

;Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Ackerman, Frederick L. 1878 births 1950 deaths 20th-century American architects Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning alumni