John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Bacon's (architecture, Northeastern Univ.; Le Corbusier in America) study of architect John McAndrew (1904–78) offers a detailed account of the art library at Vassar, "the first modern interior of an academic building on an American campus." It's also a case study in how European modernism came to be known in the United States and how American modernist architecture grew out of European influences and American architects and building types (skyscrapers, industrial buildings). Part of the Harvard modernists from his student days at the university, McAndrew designed Vassar's art library interior while an instructor at the college and just before he became curator of architecture and industrial art at the Museum of Modern Art, where he also played a role in designing interior features of the 1939 museum building. Through his work as educator, curator, architect, and author, McAndrew interpreted European modernism for an American audience, helping to write the story of American modernist architecture, as Bacon's well-researched and well-written text brings to light.