Scope and Content Note
The collection includes the architectural designs and works of architect, Charles M. Goodman, and his firm, Charles M. Goodman Associates. The collection includes more than 14,400 drawings, 7,200 pages of office files, 9,700 pictures, and 5,600 slides. Dating from 1935 to 2001, these materials represent more than 400 commissions and projects for commercial and residential buildings and housing developments in Washington, D.C., and surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland.
Prior to World War II, Goodman was a leading designer of government buildings, including the Federal Building at the New York World's Fair, United States Post Offices in many locations, and the International Terminal Building at Washington D.C.'s National Airport. In the post-war period he established his role in the Modernist design movement, doing much to define the form of the American house in the 1950s and 1960s. Over 100,000 houses were erected by National Homes according to his designs. His Usonian Hollin Hills housing development in Alexandria, Virginia, done in collaboration with the landscape architect Dan Kiley, is an exemplar of geometric lines and floor-to-ceiling windows used to integrate the interior and exterior into the nature of a wooded hillside. Goodman was at the forefront of experimentation in new building technologies and materials, including prefabricated and precast construction and the use of aluminum. In partnership with National Homes and Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Goodman focused on the potential of prefabricated housing structures as affordable housing for the middle class. A wide range of building types are represented in the Goodman archive, expressive of the post-war building boom in the United States: residential homes, shopping and commercial centers, service stations, showrooms, motels, clubs, embassies, school and university buildings, churches, buildings for the military, planned communities, and memorials. In addition to corporate clients, Goodman's clients also included many notable figures such as: Martin Agronsky, Eric Sevareid, Philip and Katharine Graham, Carlisle H. Humelsine, and Robert Straus. Visual and textual materials document various phases of the design process, through preliminary sketches to working drawings as well as photographs and specifications of built projects. The archive also includes engineering drawings and landscape architecture drawings by other creators.
Goodman was also a consummate architectural renderer who guided a small office that produced thousands of drawings, many of them perspective renderings of the highest quality. Often Goodman's working drawings included screentone (also known as sticky back or Zipatone) to create such polished drafts that they can easily be confused with a final drawing. His drawings were widely published and exerted their own influence on architectural graphic style in the post-war period.
Within the collection there are 5 media-based series: Drawings (DRWG), Office Files (OFFI), Pictures: Photographic Prints and Other Images (PICT), Negatives, Transparencies, Slides, and Microfilm (FILM), and Miscellany (MISC). The Drawings (DRWG) series encompasses original and reproduction drawings in all phases of design including sketches, presentation drawings, and planning drawings as well as architectural drawings, electrical systems drawings, landscape architecture drawings, mechanical systems drawings, plumbing drawings, structural systems drawings, industrial design drawings, and graphic design drawings. The vast majority are sketches and architectural drawings. The Office Files (OFFI) series primarily includes specifications but also encompasses schedules, color schemes, card file indexes of photographers, inventories of materials, and other textual documents. The Pictures: Photographic Prints and Other Images (PICT) series primarily includes photographic prints but also encompasses contact sheets, prints, promotional materials, watercolors, and other visual material. They depict architectural photographs, landscape photographs, aerial photographs, architectural models, design drawings, and people. The Negatives, Transparencies, Slides, and Microfilm (FILM) series includes still film materials in various sizes. All sheet film have a surrogate in the Pictures (PICT) series, while slides and microfilm are served to researchers. The slides have similar content to the Pictures (PICT) series and include more snapshots. The Miscellany (MISC) series includes architectural drafting tools and samples of original housings.
Projects of particular interest include:
- Alcoa House (Project No.: 4 to 6)
- Andrews Air Force Base (Project No.: 13)
- Bancroft Construction Co. (Project No.: 17)
- The Commons (Project No.: 51 to 65)
- Crest Development (Project No.: 71)
- Early works started prior to 1940
- Air Transport Command (ATC) Sites (Project No. 424)
- Federal Office Building (Project No.: 91)
- Homes F.O.B. Mass Produced Cellular Units (Project No.: 282)
- Memorial Auditorium (Project No.: 234)
- New York World's Fair (Project No.: 97)
- United States Post Offices (Project No.: 339 to 350, 425 to 426)
- Washington National Airport (Project No.: 111)
- Forest Edge Elementary School (Project No.: 93)
- Goodman Residence: Additions and Alterations (Project No.: 112)
- Hammond Hill (Project No.: 125)
- Hammond Wood (Project No.: 126)
- Hollin Hills (Project No.: 137 to 204)
- Houston House (Project No.: 208)
- Lumber House of the Year (Project No.: 231)
- National Homes Corporation (Project No.: 241 to 262)
- Reston Village: Hickory Cluster (Project No.: 293)
- River Park (Project No.: 294)
- Rock Creek Palisades (Project No.: 298)
- Sevareid Residence (Project No.: 309 to 310)
- Unitarian Church of Arlington (Project No.: 337)
- Westgate Research Park: General Motors (Project No.: 368)
- Wheatoncrest (Project No.: 411)