The 1930s and 1940s were the first to see the 2020s.

By Colin W. Sargent

Scorched by two world wars, designers braced for the Apocalypse. Few angels were in the architecture but plenty of angles. Shoot for severe to the point of scary, yet occasionally intimate. 

Orgonon, Rangeley   

“Located at the summit of a hill overlooking Dodge Pond, the Orgone Energy Observatory is an International Style building that was designed by the New York architect James B. Bell and constructed in 1948 for Dr. Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), a controversial psychiatrist who developed the Orgone therapy method,” according to Orgonon’s submission paperwork to the National Register of Historic Places. “It was built by the Rangeley contractor S. A. Collins & Son.”   

Fortune Rock, Seal Harbor  

Here’s a rare residential example: In “Maine Forms of American Architecture (1976), Philip Isaacson wrote that ‘The modern home…made its tentative debut in 1936 from designs prepared by George Howe for Clara Fargo Thomas. The resulting low house of native materials is cantilevered over the waters of Seal Harbor, a choice its architect…shared with [Frank Lloyd] Wright.’”  

Read the full story in the digital magazine above.