The term "mid-century modernism" often evokes images of swank Miami hotels and Palm Springs vacation homes. In Baltimore City and its suburbs, the design legacy of the baby boom era may not be so glamorous, but it is far from insignificant. While the modernist vision of design and architecture sometimes took the form of controversial—and often detrimental—movements toward slum clearance and urban renewal, there is also a gentler brand of modernism that still permeates our daily lives.

Baltimore (one of the stops in French modernist Le Corbusier's celebrated lecture tour of 1935) and its northern suburbs claim their fair share of significant designs by stars of the modern movement. Frank Lloyd Wright led the pack with his 1940s Usonian house on Cross Country Boulevard. Percival Goodman, America's preeminent synagogue designer, created the sanctuary at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, directly across from Park Heights Avenue's Temple Oheb Shalom, the only synagogue built by Walter Gropius. Mies van der Rohe designed the glass tower that is One Charles Center, now on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Highfield House on Charles Street (twins of this elegant apartment block were built just outside Montreal). Hooper House II near Lake Roland is recognized as one of the best residential works by Marcel Breuer, the Bauhaus trained architect and designer of the iconic Wassily Chair.

While these big-name architects were transient shooting stars in the city's firmament, Pietro Belluschi's long-time involvement here included consultancies for Mondawmin Mall and Goucher College. Belluschi was known for his ability to synthesize the International Style with regional sensitivity. At the Church of the Redeemer on Charles Street and at Goucher's Dorsey Center, Belluschi blended traditional fieldstone and wood to echo the massing and texture of neighboring structures. Belluschi's regional style, initially forged in the Pacific Northwest, was not unlike that of Finland's Alvar Aalto: It offered a site-specific design, which was well suited to the stream valleys and pastoral landscape north of Baltimore. Such unostentatious, everyday modernism fast took root in this city's burgeoning suburbs and was tied to middle class aspirations for self-governance and casual comfort. It centered on the detached single-family home.

While the suburbs of Washington, D.C., offer fine modernist tract housing, Baltimore homebuilders' mass-produced work is, for the most part, pedestrian and stodgy. Baltimore's custom-designed modernist homes, on the other hand, surpass those of the nation's capital in quantity and stylistic diversity. (They range from glass box to woodsy cabin.) Early examples include developer James Rouse's home, designed by Alexander Smith Cochran, and the recently sold Pikesville home that Percival Goodman designed in close cooperation with owner-artist Amalie Rothschild. Even the limited-budget projects were works of art complete with ingenious built-in cabinetry (including tool sheds supporting airy carports), flagstone patios and grounds suited to the local landscape. These child-friendly and hospitable residences garnered well-deserved media attention.

The second example of baby boom modernism was the ubiquitous elementary school at the heart of each subdivision. While the inner city contained multistory, factory-like schools, new, richer residential districts showcased single-level structures with crisp canopies for drop-offs and vast playgrounds. Northwood Elementary in Loch Raven is a notable hybrid of these urban and suburban types.

Efficient and well-built Hampton Elementary was designed by architects Smith and Veale, part of an adventurous—and undeservedly forgotten—pool of local proponents of modernism.

Religious sponsorship of modernism was a fascinating trend in post-war Baltimore, giving rise to impressive synagogue/school complexes that rivaled one another in stylistic originality. The Archdiocese of Baltimore funded outstanding educational buildings, while Catholic Charities-sponsored hospitals, such as the St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, combined design elegance with state-of-the-art services.  

After 1965, the baby boom and "Populuxe" era were superseded by a period of intense political, social and racial unrest. Although the new era produced a few memorable landmarks—Peterson and Brickbauer's Sun-Life Building and John Johansen's Mechanic Theater—the schools and libraries built around 1970, quasi-windowless and topped by heavy cornices, lacked civility and elegance.

Commercial examples of everyday modernism, such as drive-in banks, have been the most vulnerable to the vagaries of time. A particularly unfortunate story is the drastic transformation of Hutzler's spectacular Towson department store. Budget crises, crime and blight led the Enoch Pratt library system to close several modernist branches.

Few buildings are immune to the threat of adverse transformation or demolition. Fortunately, the tear-down epidemic, so widespread in places like New Canaan, Connecticut, and even Montgomery County, Maryland, has yet to reach Baltimore. McMansions may not replace the gracious modernist homes nestled in wooded lots here (as they have in Montgomery County), but clearly it is time to stop taking Baltimore's recent past for granted and launch a comprehensive effort to document and preserve this heritage.