Meet the real László Tóths: 14 midcentury wonders around Philadelphia, and the architects who created them

Modern European architectural ideas landed in Philadelphia in the middle of the last century, making it a center of modern design. But unlike in the movie The Brutalist, there was no singular architect like László Tóth (Adrien Brody) leading the charge. Instead, the city reflects the vision of multiple architects who helped develop midcentury style.

Here’s a look at some of Philly’s iconic midcentury architecture, and the real-life architects who defined it:

William Lescaze and George Howe were an architectural odd couple. Howe was a Harvard-educated architect who had designed houses for wealthy Philadelphians. He came to Philadelphia in 1913 to work for Frank Furness’ firm. In 1916, he joined a partnership of two Philadelphia architects to form Mellor, Meigs, and Howe.

Lescaze was a Swiss architect who immigrated to the US at age 24, in 1920. By the late 20’s, Howe had been approached by a previous client, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, about their new headquarters. His search for a new partner with Modernist ideas led him to Lescaze.

Lescaze’s European education had exposed him to the new Modernist style of architecture catching hold in Europe, promoted by another Swiss born architect who went by the pseudonym of Le Corbusier and a German architect, Walter Gropius, who led a German design school, the Bauhaus (which gets a shout out in the movie).

In 1929, Howe, 43, and Lescaze, 34, gave the PSFS board a radically modern design for a 36-story skyscraper. Unlike the Art Deco style popular at the time, the building wouldn’t have any applied decoration but would depend exclusively on its bold massing and materials for visual impact — all ideas from European Modernism.

When it was completed at 12th and Market Streets, in 1932, the building probably looked like a spaceship that had landed in the mostly Victorian Center City. It remains, to this day, the most architecturally important building in the city — the first International Style skyscraper in the world.

In another echo of the movie, the architects also designed modern furniture for the building — reminiscent of Bauhaus furniture of the era, very like the tubular steel furniture designed by Tóth for his Philadelphian cousin Atilla’s(Alessandro Nivola) store.

The European Modernists also had a radical social agenda. Architecture was no longer to be the plaything of the rich but should provide for the needs of average people. Architect Oscar Stonorov believed in this principle very strongly.

Born in Germany but educated in other European countries, Stonorov came to Philadelphia in 1929. His education had also exposed him to the ideas of Modernism.

In 1933, Stonorov, along with Alfred Kastner, designed the Carl Mackley Houses near Kensington, a revolutionarily modern group of low-rise housing units for the Philadelphia Hosiery Workers Union. The complex included open space, below grade parking for automobiles, and amenities like a small grocery store and day care facilities, fulfilling many of modern architecture’s goals about caring for the average people of a society.

As the Great Depression gripped America and money dried up in the 1930’s, Howe began working for the Philadelphia Housing Authority, where he met Louis Kahn. Kahn’s family had emigrated from Estonia when he was 5, and like Atilla, his Jewish family Americanized their names.

After receiving an architecture degree at Penn in 1924, Kahn worked around Philadelphia until the Depression hit. Howe and Kahn would work together at PHA for several years and later collaborated with Stonorov. Kahn and Stonorov created a partnership from 1942 to 1947 when Kahn began teaching, ending up at Penn in 1957.

After the war, when The Brutalist begins, many European Modernists came to the United States and the style they had created was now being called the International Style. Some emigres, particularly Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, began designing in a particular form of the style with an almost painfully minimalist steel and glass aesthetic.

Critics often loved it, partially for its novelty, but many people felt it was a cold, soulless form of architecture devoted to corporate America; one that turned its back on the social goals of Modernism. It was not lost on some that both van der Rohe and another architect, Phillip Johnson, had had significant ties to authoritarianism and the Third Reich.

In this world, Louis Kahn began to have doubts about the International Style. In 1950, he again went to Europe and was impressed by the monumental massing and beautiful attention to detail lavished on masonry construction of the Medieval and Renaissance buildings.

In 1954, he and one of his students, Ann Tyng, designed the Trenton Bath house for the Ewing Township’s Jewish Community Center. Like PSFS, it would also look unlike almost anything that was being built — bold masonry, geometric shapes intricately related to each other, with a preoccupation with the effects of natural light on form. It was a radical departure from the cool steel and glass elegance of the Mies van der Rhoe approach and it was also arguably the first Brutalist building in the United States.

Stonorov remained committed to housing. In the postwar drive to provide public housing, planners and architects dusted off prewar Modernist ideas about housing people economically in towers and providing open space on the ground. For PHA, Stonorov designed the Schuylkill Falls Public Housing in 1954.

Other cities tried the same approach, and it proliferated quickly — perhaps too quickly because severe problems like vandalism and dependence on elevators prone to failure began appearing. The cold gray concrete, beloved by the architects for its economy and “honesty” (Brutalism refers to the French term for unfinished or raw) was often despised by the residents forced to live there.

» READ MORE: This 1950s pro-Pennsylvania film has a starring role in ‘The Brutalist’

Kahn would go on to develop his ideas around mass, volume, and the control of natural light. In this region, two examples are the Richards Medical Building at Penn in 1957 and Erdman Dormitories at Bryn Mawr in 1960. These were done in a Brutalist style but it’s a particularly humane form where Kahn mixes materials and masses to eliminate or minimize the impact of unending expanses of plain gray concrete.

Kahn died in 1974 at the age of 73, one of the most influential architects in America.

Lescaze would continue to live and work in New York until his death in 1969 at the age of 73, but PSFS would remain his crowning achievement. Howe built infrequently but headed the architecture department at Yale until his death in 1955 at 69.

Stonorov continued his commitment to housing and socially meaningful architecture. At 64, he died in a 1970 airplane crash flying with Walther Reuther, the pugnacious president of the United Auto Workers, to inspect an education and recreation facility in Black Lake, Mich. he had designed for the union.

Overall, Brutalism has had a mixed history as a style. As shown in the movie, some Brutalist buildings like religious spaces, academic buildings and high-end homes have often fared well and are loved by their owners — other projects, not so much.

In the public eye, the style has become identified with unrelenting cold, gray ugliness, and even authoritarianism. Numerous high rise public housing projects in Philadelphia were demolished, including Stonorov’s East Falls project. Brutalist public schools, like the William Penn High School at Broad and Girard met the same fate. Commercial Brutalist buildings have also faced challenges. While born of Modernism’s desire to help the masses, many felt the buildings represented a contempt for the occupants and the public by unfeeling bureaucracies and corporations.

In addition to Kahn’s Richards Towers and Erdman dormitories mentioned above, some Brutalist buildings around Philadelphia include:

“The Brutalist” is playing in local theaters.

Warren Williams is a retired architect who lectures and leads walking tours focused on Philadelphia architecture.