Architecture as Model and Standard: Modern Liberalism and Tenement House Reform in New York City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This paper explores the role of architecture as a catalyst for housing policy through analysis of the Tenement House Exhibition held in New York City in 1900. Organized by the progressive Charity Organization Society, this exhibition exposes the terms in which Americans addressed the problem of urban housing at the turn of the twentieth century. According to its organizers, a professionalized state apparatus, including a regulated rental market, would reform the sanitation problems endemic to the tenement typology while allowing it to continue as a profitable entity. This approach to housing reform reflects the “modern” liberal philosophy of the progressive movement and was intended to preserve the existing social and economic order. The paper explores the role of architecture in this reform movement, as both a model and a standard.