Day four of our Hiatus. How are you holding up?

Today it's a look at an issue of Architectural Record from 1965. Why? Because you get a sense of the absolute crushing uniformity of the styles of the time, as well as a chance to see how they fared today.

There’s a big piece on Saarinen’s CBS building, Black Rock, with its uncompromising sobriety and presence.

I like the composition of this shot, but I don’t think the point of city streets is to provide a visual analogue for Manicheanism.

The decline of this style began when they started putting towers on big bases, often for parking ramps,because it made an absolute bunker that killed the streets life.

Today:

I don’t think it’s still wired for Muzak. Wiki:

The National is a 52-story, 191 m (627 ft) skyscraper in the Main Street district of downtown Dallas, Texas, adjacent to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Akard Station. It is the tenth tallest building in the city. In January 2010 the building was closed due to low occupancy rates.

Luxury housing now.

One of my least favorite design decisions of the era: the flare on the top. Yes, at least it was different, but there was something a bit too futuristic about it.

If you’re wondering what it looks like now, well, it’s gone.

In St. Louis, a perfect parking-ramp bunker example:

Now it’s worse:

Gimcrack ersatz historicism.

Tampa, Florida. We’re almost at rock bottom with the International Style:

The top does have some personality, but it’s not a good building.

As they say, an absolute unit. The scale of this thing is just massive.

And there are three of them.

Taken together, I don’t mind them. They’re just brutes.

The interiors are more humane and interesting. Here’s a nice little office. Wouldn’t you like your secretary to have this?

Wouldn’t you like to enter and exit through this very modern door, with the latest ideas in handles?

Wouldn’t you like to empty your bowels in this bright and lively bathroom?

Maybe not.

This brought back bad memories:

For whatever reason, I never liked being in a place that had these. I associate them with locker rooms and feeling out of place and not enjoying the communal nature of things at all. But that was childhood, not now.

I still don’t like them.

Dabba-da music for a stinky world! It’s man-pleasing aerosol aromas:

Now, where is he? We see at the start there’s the 485 building in the background. That’s the old CBS Building on Madison.

If you pull back and see where the building is . . . it’s possible he's in the Bankers Trust building. We also see this logo . . .

Which I think could be “Bankers Trust.” On the other hand, who cares

I mean, I would, if I had his office today. But that's a limited number of people.

The Great Indoors:

Same pitch: manly yes, but you’ll like it too.

New approach: let’s drop in on Debbie Reynolds and see where Debbie Reynolds drops one:

NATURAL, she says, as the pressurized can sprays the chemicals

It’s odd that SC Johnson was pitching this when they already had Glade: Perhaps they thought the sales boost from the NEW would compensate for cannibalizing the old.

We conclude with this week's Hiatal Contest:

A 1924 newspaper contest that went on forever.

Bidslaveomimah, obviously.