ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1949, the Warner Brothers studio assembled about 250 architects in Los Angeles for a preview screening of its new film, an adaptation of the 1943 Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead. 1 Among those in attendance was Victor Gruen, the Viennese émigré who would become best known as the inventor of the regional shopping center. The architect was appalled by what he believed to be a gross misrepresentation of the work and values of his profession, and he was disgusted by the antisocial, egotistical message of the film and book. Gruen channeled his anger into a devastating review of the film, which was published in the May 1949 issue of Arts and Architecture. 2 The dramatic high point of the film occurs when a jury finds the protagonist, architect Howard Roark, to be not guilty for the crime of destroying a large housing project that failed to conform to his design. According to Gruen, the author knew absolutely nothing of contemporary architecture, which she had, apparently, confused with “contemptuous” architecture. Gruen charged that Rand did not know that the very purpose of the contemporary architect was service to society and to the client; his mission was to fulfill the needs of a community—not to erect monuments to his ego that stood in complete disregard to human needs. Gruen worried that the non-conformist ideology of Rand’s hero would be so deeply attractive to young people that they would overlook the “anti-social, anti-democratic and anti-human message” of the novel. “Nonconformism, as such, is not a laudable quality,” Gruen argued. “Nonconformism is positive only when its basis is ethical. […] True nonconformity is constructive. Roarke’s nonconformity is destructive and anarchistic.” Gruen concluded by finding the author Rand to be guilty of a state of mind which he called “contempt of mankind.” 3
