cover image The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study

The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study

Pierluigi Serraino. Monacelli, $45 (248p) ISBN 978-1-58093-425-1

Serraino (Modernism Rediscovered) creates a detailed, fascinating account of the forgotten moment in 1959 when 40 preeminent modern architects were summoned to the University of California’s Institute of Personality Assessment and Research for a study that attempted to gauge the nature of creativity. The study featured a three-day barrage of psychological tests and interviews, including the arrangement of tiles, conformity studies, and proto-Meyers-Briggs evaluations. The participants were asked to rank one another’s creative prowess before the study; Philip Johnson, A. Quincy Jones, and Eero Saarinen each ranked themselves first. Interview commentary on Richard Neutra noted that “he almost literally thinks of himself as superman.” Not all were consumed by hubris; many were identified as nervous and self-effacing, and almost all were labeled colossal introverts. Serraino notes that the study revealed that it is “much easier to determine the traits of the creative person than... the creative process.” It did identify the subjects’ “fierce escape from the conformism of thought and belief,” their tendency to perceive problems that others did not, and an unfailing quest to not merely solve problems but solve them elegantly. Serraino documents the study’s implementation and results in this highly entertaining look at an unusual event in the history of American architecture. Color illus. [em](June) [/em]