When a small group of Modern architects began practicing in Spokane in the late 1940s, they changed more than the city’s skyline. They ushered in a period of creativity the likes of which this region had never before seen. Trained by Walter Gropius, schooled in Europe, and wooed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Spokane’s mid-century “form-givers”—Ken Brooks, Moritz Kundig, Royal McClure, Bill Trogdon, and Bruce Walker—challenged deeply held notions of design, receiving national recognition for their efforts. Yet few today know that, from 1948 to 1973, their creative output rivaled that of anyone’s in the Pacific Northwest—including Portland and Seattle. To better understand the influence these men had both on succeeding generations of Spokane architects and on the field of architecture itself, this exhibit will tell the story of the city’s Modern legacy through one-on-one interviews, vintage photography and original drawings, magazines and printed brochures, models and life-sized mockups, and selected furnishings and decorative arts.
