“Fellow Travelers”: Progressive Architects in Cold War Los Angeles, 1941–1959

Date of Award

Fall 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Architecture

First Advisor

Buckley, Craig

Abstract

This dissertation tells the story of progressive architects in Los Angeles during the early Cold War, focusing on Gregory Ain and a network of allied professionals whose political activism and associations with leftist causes placed them under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and its state-level counterpart, the California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities (CUAC). Drawing on newly declassified FBI files, congressional records, architectural archives, oral histories, and other media, this dissertation reconstructs the experiences of Ain, Garrett Eckbo, Robert Evans Alexander, Joseph van der Kar, David Hyun, and others within Los Angeles’ political and cultural environment within a larger historical picture that extends beyond Southern California. These architects envisioned architecture as a “social art,” carrying forward the social-democratic traditions of the 1930s and treating it as a vehicle for social reform and civic engagement. Their progressive ambitions unfolded across multiple arenas: wartime international exchanges that connected US architects to counterparts abroad and fostered dialogue on planning and housing (Chapter 1); cooperative housing experiments that addressed the postwar housing crisis and challenged entrenched social and economic hierarchies (Chapter 2); participation in social and political advocacy groups that linked architectural practice to broader struggles for civil rights and social justice (Chapter 3); and the transmission of progressive ideals into pedagogy as a form of political activism (Chapter 4). Cold War pressures for conformity constrained these ambitions, as progressive architects were labeled “subversive” and their architectural agendas were cast as dangerously close to communist ideologies. By situating their work within the political and ideological conflicts of the 1940s and 1950s, this dissertation reframes mid-century modernism as inseparable from the Cold War culture wars. It argues that these “fellow travelers” were not marginal radicals but central figures in a vibrant and resilient network of sympathetic individuals and organizations in mid-century Los Angeles that was systematically targeted by the national security apparatus. Recovering their stories reveals both the fragility and enduring significance of modern architecture’s progressive “project” in shaping a more equitable society.

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