Cutting Through the Suburbs

Collectively representing a transitional period in American suburban life, the work of these artists and architects is part of a moment when conformity and the established order were being called into question on a mass scale as the “counter culture” movement of the sixties resonated with those affected by the faltering economy of the seventies. At a moment of increased income stratification that renders the possibility of sustaining an American middle class far from certain, a look back at critical projects produced during what now looks like its peak may also reveal something about the cultural and economic consequences of the decades in between.