The 2021 Modern Holiday Gift Guide will inspire your next getaway with midcentury travel and leisure-themed gift ideas.

In celebration of its 70th anniversary, Farnsworth House, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will be renamed the Edith Farnsworth House, in recognition of the multi-talented woman who commissioned the Building from architect Mies van der Rohe.

Bidding is now open for be:cause modern, the auction for Modernism. We had a blast last year and can not wait to share the amazing items in this year's lineup, including one-of-a-kind pieces of art, drawings, books, modern experiences, and home stays generously donated by our friends, colleagues and members.

When Docomomo US was created over 25 years ago, we set out to build a network of like-minded individuals to offer leadership, knowledge, and enthusiasm for the modern movement, which was little and little appreciated. We could not have envisioned the remarkable change in public attitude toward modernism we see today. That enthusiasm is due in large part to our long-standing members' dedication, interest and support in advancing the understanding of modern architecture and design.

Jennifer Baughn's new book, Buildings of Mississippi, is the first volume in the newly redesigned Buildings of the United States series. With a more reader-friendly guidebook format and color illustrations throughout, Buildings of Mississippi is also the most substantive, up-to-date history of the state’s built environment. Crafted specifically for the Docomomo US audience, the following excerpt highlights the state's modern travel and leisure resources of the midcentury and recent past.

The sign beckons you, the building interests you, and the office welcomes you, but the room itself defines most of your motel lodging experience. It is here that the traveler sheds the stress of the road, seeking relaxation and slumber. The success, or lack thereof, of this effort determines the enjoyment of your stay.

Modeled after roadside parks, safety rest areas (SRAs) were constructed as part of the Interstate Highway System to provide minimal comfort amenities for the traveling public. Early in their developmental history, however, design aesthetics moved in the tradition of roadside architecture that defined American highways in previous decades. Thus safety rest area sites emerged as unique and colorful expressions of regional flavor and modern architectural design.

Before neon signs with trendy sayings were popping up in hipster mac n’ cheese bars, before old motels were being revamped into $300/night luxury experiences, before ruin porn proliferated on Instagram, there was the Society for Commercial Archeology (SCA). As “America’s Roadside Heritage Advocate,” SCA is thrilled to participate in Docomomo’s “Travel & Leisure” annual theme. What follows are three articles: an introduction to SCA and roadside architecture by Jeremy Ebersole, Joanna Dowling’s 2008 study of Interstate rest areas, and Lyle Miller’s 2020 look at the evolution of motel rooms. "Drive" with us into this exploration of the bewildering, evocative, and always fascinating world of commercial archeology.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s there was an efflorescence of ski resorts across the USA. In Vermont the pastime was in its heyday with 81 ski areas operating in 1966. Not the least of which were the Sugarbush, Glen Ellen, and Mad River Glen resorts in the Mad River Valley. Nestled between the two ranges of the Green Mountains, it was a groovy place to ski and be seen. Young professionals and hip suburbanites were drawn to the area for its low-key charms and great skiing. It was this atmosphere that drew a group of adventurous young graduates of the Yale School of Architecture to the area to try their hand at design, building and developing weekend houses for the ski set.

The town of Norwich, Vermont has a deep and rich developmental history dating back to the mid-18th century. As the town grew over the next century, its residents built houses in the Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival styles. There was little new construction in Norwich during the period of population loss in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as a result there are few examples of Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, or bungalow-style buildings in the town. Between 1944 and 1974, however, development began again, and low-slung homes of the style now known as Midcentury Modern were built on the hillsides in Norwich.

The Gutterson Fieldhouse at the University of Vermont. St. Mark Catholic Parish on North Avenue. The Given Medical Building of the UVM College of Medicine. The NBT Bank on Bank Street. The Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Rice Memorial High School. What do all these greater Burlington buildings from the 1940s, '50s and '60s have in common? All of them — and hundreds more around Vermont — were designed by one architect: Ruth Reynolds Freeman.

Think of Vermont, and what comes to mind? Most likely a decidedly nostalgic vision of quaint villages, white churches with tall steeples, picturesque farmsteads with red barns and cows grazing in green fields, and covered bridges crossing meandering rivers. This is all true, but it’s not the complete story. Believe it or not, the 20th century did happen in Vermont and left its own unique imprint on our built environment.

Was it to be a missing person’s report, or more of a personal ad? Middle-aged female architect ISO a goddess she recollects from her youth: about seven feet tall; long, flowing locks; triumphant pose. Last seen: Battle Creek, Michigan, sometime in the late 1980s, in the food-court of a mall. I see now that it’s starting to read a bit like an episode of Stranger Things, but pour yourself a bowl of corn flakes and settle in.

Hot Spring’s downtown core and Park Avenue (Highway 70) approach road hosts several elegant modernist hotels sprinkled throughout an urban fabric typically touted for its historic Bathhouse Row, Arlington Hotel, and assortment of prewar buildings dating back to the 1880s, tightly hemmed into a picturesque valley of the Ouachita Mountains. This group of hotels, some undervalued and threatened, represent the final phase of the dynamic, almost century-long trajectory of the Arkansas settlement which was once considered a top resort destination in the United States.

The former Ministry of Education and Health Building in Rio de Janeiro, also known as Gustavo Capanema Palace, one of the earliest modern public buildings in all of the Americas and a highly significant site in the global history of Modernism, could be auctioned off by the Brazilian Government. 

In her definitive biography of Walter Gropius, Fiona MacCarthy posed the question about the last years of Gropius’s life: “Why was it that the Bauhaus and its history continued to be his great preoccupation and why did he cling to the little group of friends—Bayer and Breuer and Schawinsky—who had been with him at the Bauhaus, and who sometimes treated him with singular disloyalty, for the rest of his long life?” To answer this question, one need simply look to the Wellfleet community they shared and the unforgettable times spent together on Cape Cod beginning in the mid-1940s. The following is an excerpt from Breuer’s Bohemia: The Architect, His Circle, and Midcentury Houses in New England by James Crump, forthcoming from Monacelli Press on September 14. 

Docomomo US is excited to share that be:cause modern, the auction for modernism, will return again this November. In anticipation of the event, we are seeking special donation items such as signed drawings and books, paintings, woodcuts and lithographs, unique and vintage tabletop items, exclusive tour experiences and modern home stays.

On June 25, 2021, the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, voted unanimously in support of the James R. Thompson Center nomination to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. 

During the mid-20th century, the Green Book helped Black Americans to travel by letting them know which hotels, motels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses it would be safe for them to frequent. Here we highlight some of the modern resources that made their way into the Green Book.

Get a sneak peek of some of the tours that will take place this October for Docomomo US Tour Day. This year's theme is "travel and leisure."