Mid-Continent Modern

The striking images in the book Mid-Continent Modern depict a selection of distinctive buildings from the heartland of the North American continent. The book’s title was inspired by architect/educator A. Richard Williams who used the expression “mid-continent” to describe landscapes and living spaces around the “…Midwest prairie. The Great Lakes…the center of the freshwater world.”¹ Mid-Continent Modern is characterized by its formal simplicity, functional pragmatism, unaffected dignity, and thoughtful detailing. It is an architecture that is modern in character yet embedded sensitively into the natural world and in dialogue with the regional building vernacular. These ideas are well represented through the work of four architects teaching and practicing in Central Illinois in the mid-twentieth century.

To fully appreciate the contributions of Jack Sherman Baker, John Gordon Replinger, A. Richard Williams, and Robert Louis Amico, to the built environment, it is necessary to consider them in the cultural and regional context in which they practiced and taught. All four architects were raised in the Midwest, where they were keenly aware of the prairie landscape of Central Illinois, its vast vistas, and the prismatic forms of houses, barns, and granaries that punctuate the horizon. Their formal education in the Department of Architecture at the University of Illinois was steeped in the Beaux Arts principles of space, hierarchy, and classical ordering systems. Department founder Nathan Ricker combined this traditional architectural education with rigorous technical courses in the applied sciences.

Although the Modern Movement in Europe began in the initial decades of the twentieth century, its full impact in the United States would not be realized until after World War II. That is when American architects began to discard the historical and stylistic constraints of Neo-Classicism for the progressive aspirations of Modernism. The twin forces of the International Style and the Bauhaus gradually replaced the calcified remnants of Beaux Arts Education in architectural programs throughout the US. Within this evolving postwar context, Baker, Replinger, Williams, and Amico soon began teaching together at the University of Illinois. Although their teaching methods reflected their individual pedagogic goals, they were collegial faculty members who also collaborated together on early design commissions. Their evolving architectural methodologies emanated from the lessons of both the Prairie School and the Modern Movement and their enduring passions for material elegance, technical perfection, and fine proportions.

Mid-Continent Modern highlights these timeless qualities through contemporary images of the built works created by these four talented architects who taught and practiced at Urbana-Champaign for over forty years. While their work varies in scope and scale, my colleague and collaborator Paul Armstrong has identified three themes that, by and large, characterize the projects:

1. the use of courtyards and precincts that anchor and define the built environment within the vast landscape.
2. the refinement of detail that is integral to the building’s concept.
3. the use of light, space, and transparency to transform the daily rituals of life into meaningful spiritual experiences.

Collectively, their architecture constitutes a patient search for an authentic voice that could be passed from one generation to another through endless transformations and adaptations of modern paradigms with local cultures and building traditions.

Jack S. Baker, FAIA

Jack Sherman Baker (1920–2013) was born in Champaign, Illinois, to Clyde and Jane (Walker) Baker. Jack graduated with honors from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture in 1943, receiving a certificate from New York’s Beaux Arts Institute of Design during his last year of undergraduate study. He then worked as an aeronautical engineer and designer for Boeing Aircraft (1943–1944) and as a topographical engineer for the Allied Forces in Italy with the US Army Engineers (1944–1945). After the war, Jack returned to the University of Illinois to work toward his master’s degree in architecture (1949). He joined the University of Illinois’s School of Architecture in 1950, where he taught advanced undergraduate and graduate design courses for forty years. Jack maintained a private architectural practice while teaching full time at the University of Illinois. His interest in merging architecture with the other arts is evident in his transformation of a former wagon shop into his tri-level living space, where performance, art, and architecture melded together. In this space Baker hosted seminars, dance and theater performances, poetry readings, exhibitions, and receptions. Over the course of his career, Jack earned numerous professional awards, honors, and accolades. In 1977 he was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and in 2007 he received the School’s Illinois Medal.

• Baker Studio & Residence, Champaign, Illinois, 1958–63.

A. Richard Williams, FAIA

A. Richard “Dick” Williams (1914–2016) was born in Evanston, Illinois. Dick graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1936, then went on to complete a Masters of Architecture degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1939). After college, Dick became a US Navy officer and served on a minesweeper in the Pacific during WWII. In 1946, he returned to Illinois to serve on its architecture faculty and maintain a private architectural practice. He served as the director of the Graduate program from 1959–1970, overseeing a curriculum of international repute. He left full-time teaching in 1970 to craft a new lifestyle, dividing his time between residences (and practices) in Champaign, Illinois, Tucson, Arizona, and St. Ignace, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He served as a visiting professor of architecture at Illinois and at the University of Arizona from 1988–2016. Dick received numerous awards and accolades during his seventy-seven-year career as a teacher and architect. In 1971, he was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2007, he received the School’s Illinois Medal and in 2013 he was recognized by the Design Futures Council with its 2013 Most Admired Educator Award. He is the author of two books: The Urban Stage (1981) and Archipelago (2009).

• Pallathucheril Residence, Champaign, Illinois, 1963.

John G. Replinger

John Gordon Replinger (1923–2006) was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Roy and Dorothy (Thornstrom) Replinger. He studied civil engineering at the University of Illinois 1941–1943, but left college to enlist in the US Army Air Corps. As first pilot of a B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber, he flew 28 combat missions from England with the 8th Air Force. After the war, he returned to the University of Illinois and in 1949 received a BS in Architecture, was awarded the Bronze Tablet, the AIA School Medal, and the Allerton American Traveling Scholarship. In 1952, after two years of internship practice, he returned to the University of Illinois and he received a Masters degree in Architecture. He taught at the university for the next thirty-three years. Replinger also served as a Professor of Housing Research and Development until his retirement in 1985. Concurrent with his career as an educator, John maintained a private architectural practice. He designed over forty houses and many house additions and re-modelings, mainly in Champaign-Urbana and rural Illinois, but also in Michigan, California, and Florida.

• Hemingway-Warren Residence, Urbana, Illinois, 1964.

Robert “Bob” Louis Amico

Robert “Bob” Louis Amico (1938–2022) was born to Rocco and Eleanor D’Amico and raised on the Northwest side of Chicago, graduating from Lane Technical High School. Bob had an early interest and talent in art and design, which became the foundation for his subsequent experience as an artist, designer, architect, consultant, academic, and principal in his own firm. He was a first-generation college student and alumnus of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Early in his career, he practiced with prominent design firms in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and C.F. Murphy Associates in Chicago, Illinois. Bob served as a member of the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for twelve years (1966–1978). He then served eleven years as Chair of the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, then as a tenured full professor teaching advanced design studios, for a total of thirty-two years. After retirement from higher education in 2010, he embarked on the last phase of his career as AMICO, LLC Art and Design. Bob initiated and participated in numerous volunteer community activities as a true servant leader. He supported as a volunteer and board member with numerous nonprofit organizations in the arts and mental health.

• St. Matthew Catholic Church, Champaign. Illinois, 1978.

Jeffery “Jeff” Scott Poss

Jeffery “Jeff” Scott Poss (1956–) was born in Flossmoor, Illinois, to Richard and Audrey (Scholefield) Poss. He attended the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois from 1974 to 1980, in Champaign-Urbana and at the Unite Pedagogue d’Architecture in Versailles, France (1977–78). In 1981, while working at Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago, his competition entry was awarded the Lloyd Warren Traveling Fellowship. In the years following, he practiced with Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates in Hamden, Connecticut, and Tai Soo Kim Partners in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1989 he returned to Urbana-Champaign to begin teaching and practicing architecture. Studio teaching focused on the development of concept, materials, and detail into architectural design, for which he received the AIA Education Honors Award. In 2014 he founded the detail+FABRICATION (d+F) Program Area in the school, serving as chair of d+F from 2014 through 2016. Jeff served as the Interim Director of the school from 2017 until 2019. Since 1989, Jeff has designed award-winning proposals for residences, memorials, pavilions, and deployables. His commission and competition work has been published in numerous books, journals, and magazines. In 2010 he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. He is the co-author of Space, Movement, and Light (1997), and the author of Spaces of Serenity (2015).

• Meditation Hut III “Victor,” Champaign, Illinois, 2010.