Born in Canada in 1911, Reginald R. Isaacs began working in architectural offices at age 14, later coming under the influence of "Beaux-Arts diplomes" at the University of Minnesota and Harvard and subsequently under that of Walter Gropius at Harvard University. He later studied sociology and planning at the University of Chicago under Louis Wirth and Rexford Guy Tugwell.
Isaacs served on the staffs of city planning commissions in Minneapolis, Syracuse, and Chicago, and in the federal government in the National Youth Agency, Public Housing Authority, and Housing and Home Finance Agency. His architectural practice in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and other cities included the design of housing, colleges, and hospitals. He was director of planning and development for Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, 1945-1953, where Walter Gropius, planner Walter Blucher, and sociologist Louis Wirth collaborated with him as consultants. He was a United Nations expert on regional planning in South America, and a planning consultant for the Ford Foundation, the U.S. State Department, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Recommended by Walter Gropius, Isaacs served as the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning at Harvard University from 1953-1978. He was also Chairman of the Graduate School of Design's Departments of City and Regional Planning as well as Landscape Architecture. Throughout his career he lectured at universities throughout the United States and in almost every country of Central and South America and in the Caribbean.
In 1962 Isaacs and Gropius began their collaboration on
The papers of of architect, instructor, writer, and city planner Reginald R. Isaacs (1911-1986) measure 22.54 linear feet and date from 1842 to 1991 with the bulk of the material dating from 1883 to 1985. The collection includes Isaacs's personal and professional papers, as well as extensive research material he collected and created for his two volume two-volume biography of Bauhaus architect, Walter Gropius:
Series 1 to 12 contain contain biographical, legal, and financial material; personal and professional correspondence; project and subject files; writings and publications; teaching files; works of art; scrapbooks; printed material; and photographs relating to Isaacs' personal and professional career.
Series 13 forms the bulk of the collection and pertains specifically to the writing and publication of Isaacs' biography of Gropius. It contains research material, correspondence (much of it with Gropius), drafts of the manuscript, publication correspondence, photographs and illustrations, and printed material. Some of the research material, including some of the photographs and illustrations that were used in the biography, appear to have been original documents of Walter Gropius, while large portions of the material are photocopies of the originals, many of them in German.
The collection is arranged into fourteen series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Henry Isaacs, son of Reginald Isaacs, in January 1991. An additional 1.0 linear foot was donated by Merry White, daughter of Reginald Isaacs, in 1997.
This collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the
Reginald R. Isaacs papers, circa 1842-1991, bulk 1928-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The collection was processed by Kym Wheeler in 1994 with funding provided in part by a grant from The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. The finding aid was revised by Stephanie Ashley in 2001 prior to conversion to EAD. Glass plate negatives were re-housed in 2015 with a grant provided by the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund. The finding aid was further updated in 2015 by Kimberley Henze.
This series contains biographical material about Isaacs such as biographical sketches, educational records, and obituaries. The award found here is a citation from the Society of American Registered Architects from 1942. Isaacs's wedding announcement, an employee identification card from Chicago, Illinois, and an enlistment card for "C" Company of the 3rd Regiment of the New York Guard can be found in the folder housing miscellaneous material.
Oversized 1972 award in Box 22, Folder 1.
This series contains the last will and testament for Reginald and Charlotte Isaacs and includes related correspondence and drafts of the documents.
This series contains cancelled checks for art related purchases and donations by Reginald and Charlotte Isaacs. Signatures that can be found here include those of Herbert Bayer, William Hunt, Fernand Leger, Jackson Pollock, Reba Stewart, and Jack Shadbolt.
This series contains personal and professional correspondence of Reginald R. Isaacs, with copies of his replies.
The series is organized into two subseries.
Correspondents from 1936 to 1940 include Frank Lloyd Wright and the Chicago Planning Commission. Records from these years also include performance appraisals from the Federal Security Agency's National Youth Administration.
1941 to 1945 correspondents include Marcel Breuer on the purchase of a Fernand Leger painting; Walter Blucher on the Michael Reese Hospital project; Hubert H. Humphrey; Mies van der Rohe; the Federal Works Agency's United States Housing Authority; and the National Housing Agency regarding notification of personnel action.
1946 to 1950 correspondence concerns the Michael Reese Hospital project; Rexford G. Tugwell; the University of Chicago regarding enrolling for a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology; and activities as a panel speaker for the Citizens' Housing and Planning Council of Detroit.
Correspondents from 1951 to 1955 include Hubert H. Humphrey, Leon Eugene Arnal, Jose Luis Sert, Rafael Pico, Earl H. Reed, Chester Nagel, Edward Everett Horton's (autograph), Christian Herter, Leverett Saltonstall, Nathan M. Pusey (President of Harvard University on Urban Renewal project), Peter Nash, Walter H. Blucher, and Lewis Mumford. The records also contain correspondence with Adlai Stevenson on nominating Ferd Kramer for an award; and letters of congratulations on appointment as the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Chairman of the Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture Department of Harvard University.
Correspondents from 1956 to 1960 include William F. Buckley, Jr., on Dr. von Mises', Jose Luis Sert, Lewis Mumford, Edwin S. Burdell, President of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Lewis Mumford, Jasper D. Ward (Architect of General Electric Company) on the project "Research for Living," Rexford G. Tugwell, Leverett Saltonstall, Hubert H. Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, Paul Douglas on Senator John Sparkman's bill S. 1230, Candido Oliveras (Chairman of the Puerto Rico Planning Board on the Southern Metropolitan Area Project), Fernando Belaunde Terry, and Richard M. Bennett.
1961 to 1965 correspondents include John A. Holabird on an urban design project, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Fernando Belaunde Terry, and Francois C. Vigier.
1966 to 1970 correspondents include Lewis Mumford, Walter F. Bogner, and Abraham A. Ribicoff.
Correspondents from 1966 to 1970 include Everett McKinley Dirksen, Ralph M. Paiewonsky (Governor of the Virgin Islands), Hubert H. Humphrey, Jorge Ricardo Riba (Director of Instituto de Vivienda y Urbanismo in Panama), and Luis A. Ferre (Governor of Puerto Rico).
Correspondents from 1971 to 1975 include Fernando Belaunde Terry, and Frank O. Gehry which includes the publication Children and the City, by Olga Adams.
1976-1980 correspondents include William Saltzman, Newton S. Friedman, Arete Publishing Company, Inc. on manuscripts for an encyclopedia, and The Free Press on biographies for the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects.
1981-1985 correspondents include Jeffrey Potter on Jackson Pollock, Kazuhiko Satani of the Satani Gallery in Tokyo, Ati (Beate) Gropius Johansen, Norma Farber, Fernando Belaunde Terry, William W. Nash, Jr., Newton S. Friedman, Leone Blooston, Bruno Zevi, Robert Rosenthal, Chester Nagel, Howard Henry, Harry Seidler, and Ferd Kramer.
1986 correspondence includes sympathy cards to Charlotte Aldes Isaacs.
Subjects covered by the correspondence found in this subseries include the publication of various works by Isaacs, Isaacs' work as a consultant, various exhibitions, conferences, and lectures, and sales of Isaacs' artwork. There are also files relating to Isaacs' collection of paintings by Jackson Pollock and Emil Singer which document Isaacs' dontaion of Pollock paintings to the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and his sale of Singer etchings in the United States. In addition to correspondence, files may contain writings, teaching material, and printed matter.
Files are arranged alphabetically by name or subject.
Regarding the Michael Reese Hospital project, Gropius as Architectural Consultant, 1945-1953, and collaboration on the biography.
Emil Singer
Emil Singer
Writings by Vigier.
These files concern Isaacs' involvement in various projects, including his work as a planning and landscape consultant with Hideo Saski and Chester Nagel at Springfield College, and elsewhere. Correspondence and other records relating to reports written by Isaacs can also be found here.
This series is arranged chronologically by date of project.
Includes photographs of Arnal.
Includes correspondence with Harland Gibson and Gustavo W. Jacobsthal.
Oversized plats in OV 23.
This small series contains writings and photographs concerning Katherine McNamara's retirement, and clippings and printed material concerning Horatio Alger.
This series includes writings by Isaacs other than the biography of Walter Gropius, which is documented in Series 13.
The series is organized into three subseries.
This subseries contains many of Isaacs's lectures and articles in draft or photocopy form.
Files are arranged in chronological order.
Oversized photograph in Box 22, Folder 2.
This subseries contains biographical entries for the following individuals: Patrick Abercrombie; Franz Adickes; Josef Albers; Alfred Arndt; Otto Bartning; Herbert Bayer; Walter Curt Behrendt; Peter Behrens; Hendrik Petrus Berlage; Max Bill; Otto Eduard Leopold Von Bismarck; Serge Ivan Chermayeff; Wells Wintemute Coates; Arthur Coleman Comey; James Bryant Conant; Lucio Costa; Jack Cotton; John Dewey; Thomas Stearns Eliot; Friedrich Engels; Lyonel Feininger; Johann Gottlieb Fichte; Philip Sargeant Florence; Fountains and Waterfeatures; Edwin Maxwell Fry; Patrick Geddes; Frederick Gibberd; Sigfried Giedion; David Gilly; Friedrich Gilly; Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe; Ise Frank Gropius; Manon Gropius; Martin Carl Philipp Gropius; Walther Gropius; George Grosz; Knut Hamsun; Gustav Hassenpflug; Werner Hebebrand; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Fritz Hesse; Moses Hess; Theodor Heuss; Ludwig Hilberseimer; Paul Hindemith; William Graham Holford; Sutemi Horiguchi; Ebenezer Howard; Joseph Fairman Hudnut; Aldous Leonard Huxley; Julian Sorrell Huxley; Reginald Roderic Isaacs; Wassily Kandinsky; Immanuel Kant; Oskar Kokoschka; Ferdinand Lassalle; Le Corbusier; Karl Liebknecht; Adolf Loos; Wassili Luckhardt; Rosa Luxemburg; Fritz Mackenson; Gerhard Marcks; Sven Gottfrid Markelius; Sir John Leslie Martin; Karl Marx; Ernst May; Erich Mendelsohn; Adolf Meyer; Hannes Meyer; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley; Lewis Mumford; Hermann Muthesius; Friedrich Naumann; Ernst Neufert; Richard Joseph Neutra; Friedrich Nietzsche; Karl Ernst Osthaus; Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud; Hans Poelzig; John Craven Pritchard; Walther Rathenau; Sir Herbert Read; James M. Richards; Henry Hobson Richardson; Philip Rosenthal; Bertrand Arthur William Russell; Hans Bernhard Scharoun; Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller; Karl Friedrich Schinkel; Gottfired Semper; Jose Luis Sert; Morton Phillip Shand; Thomas Sharp; Georg Simmel; Adolf Sommerfeld; Mart Stam; Gordon Stephenson; Igor Stravinsky; Louis Henri Sullivan; Bruno Taut; Leo Tolstoy (Count Lev Nikolayevich); Ferdinand Tonnies; Sir Raymond Unwin; Henri Van De Velde; Wilhelm Von Humboldt; Martin Wagner; Richard Wagner; Max Weber; Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel; Wilhalm I (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig); Wilhalm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert); Louis Wirth; and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The entries are arranged alphabetically.
This subseries contains published copies of other published writings by Isaacs. The material generally focuses on the fields of planning and architecture, and the works and teachings of Walter Gropius. Some of the writings have been translated into Spanish and German.
Publications are arranged chronologically by publication date. Often, two or more publications are filed in one folder.
Teaching files include material for the courses Isaacs taught at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in the Departments of City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture, and include his miscellaneous faculty committee files. These files also contain documentation of the courses Isaacs taught while a guest lecturer at the University of Puerto Rico for the Graduate Program in Planning, 1969-1970. Files found in this series may contain course outlines, lecture and discussion notes, reading lists, and course projects.
This series includes a sketch in colored pencil by Max Bill; a pen and ink bookplate by Hans Maria Wingler; a water color poster by Gary M. Tierney announcing Isaacs's lecture "Walter Gropius and the City;" a caricature of Isaacs sculling by an unidentified artist; and two pen and ink sketches of Walter Gropius by Christian Hofer that were previously filmed on Reel 2331, Frames 488 to 491.
This series contains two scrapbooks. The first includes correspondence and printed material regarding Isaacs's appointment as the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning. The second contains obituaries and eulogies for Walter Gropius.
This series includes exhibition catalogs and announcements, including a 1936 catalog for the
Photographs of Isaacs and his family include images of his wife, Charlotte Aldes Isaacs. Photographs of friends and associates include photos of Newton S. Friedman, the Cambridge Skating Club, Karl Carstens, and Hans Maria Wingler.
Glass plate negatives have been digitized.
Oversized portrait of Isaacs in Box 22, Folder 3.
This series documents the research for, and the writing and publication of, Isaacs' two volume biography of Bauhaus architect, Walter Gropius, through research material collected and organized by Isaacs during the course of his work on the biography.
The series is organized into seven subseries according to material type. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
This subseries contains questionnaires for a survey that were distributed by Isaacs and returned to him by former students of Gropius at the Bauhaus and at Harvard University. In addition to the survey responses, there are also charts which summarize the data contained therein.
Bauhaus Graduates, Chart of Responses
This subseries contains general research and bibliographic files compiled and organized by Isaacs for his work on the biography. The files contain correspondence, notes, writings, printed materials, and a few photographs. Many of the documents were created and/or authored by Walter Gropius and Ise Gropius. Large portions of these files are photocopies, although some originals can also be found; many are in German. Following is a list of the major subjects and names found in these files.
Files are arranged alphabetical by name or subject heading.
Includes Alcher-School, Inge, 1957, 1959.
About building proposals.
Includes clippings about Arup, Ove, 1966.
Includes correspondence between Reyner Banham and Ise Gropius about Bauhaus; and Alfred J. Barr, Jr., 1938.
Includes Fred Bassetti, 1947-1948.
Includes correspondence with Alvar Aalto, Alfred Barr, Donald C. Dunham, Heinrich Engel, Carola W. Giedion, Fritz Hesse, Herbert Hubner, Jane Fiske McCullough, William Wurster, notes and writings about the Bauhaus by Isaacs and others, and clippings.
Includes correspondence with Peter Hahn, Hans and Heidi Wingler, Christian Wolsdorff, exhibition announcements and clippings.
Includes correspondence with Ise Gropius, writings by and about Herbert Bayer.
About the Hochschule fur Gestaltung also known as the "Ulm Bauhaus."
One BBR plat and one BBR map housed in OV 23.
Includes memos, contract drafts, brochures, and clippings about office organization.
About the Gropius Archive and exhibition.
About Institute of Design, Congres Internationaux D'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) includes correspondence with Ivan Chermayeff, Jose Luis Sert, and Konrad Wachsmann.
Includes Clarenbach, Dietrich, 1968, about the monument to those killed in the Kapp Putsch - Denkmal Fur der Marzgefallen, Weimar.
Includes Gropius' report as Advisor to Clay on the reconstruction of Germany.
Includes correspondence with Jose Luis Sert and Isaacs.
Includes correspondence with Fred Forbat, Sigfried Giedion, Julian Huxley, Le Corbusier, Stamo Papadaki, Jose Luis Sert, Helena and Szymon Syrkus, and Jaqueline Tywhitt, a copy of
About Monico Piccadilly Circus, London.
Includes correspondence with Josef Albers and Herbert Bayer.
Includes Isaacs' correspondence with Christian Schadlich, and Hans Scharoun.
Includes Docker re: "The Ring," 1951-1965.
Includes Dorner, Alexander, 1947.
Includes Ebert, Wills re. the Berlin School, 1957, 1968.
Includes Eliot, T.S., 1940-1958 - Ise's correspondence with Eliot and Thorton Wilder.
Includes Feininger, Lyonel, 1959, 1968 - essay "Address on the Artist."
Includes Florence, Philip Sargent correspondence with Jack C. Pritchard, 1936-1937, 1966; Forberg, Sarina Elisabeth, 1975.
Concerns proposed planning procedure for Frankfutam-Main to be the Capitol of West Germany; two plats relating to Am Lindenbaum Development competition housed in OV 23.
About furniture designed by Gropius including correspondence with Ise Gropius and Hans Wingler, and photographs and appraisals of furniture.
Includes biographical material, notes, and excerpts from her correspondence.
Includes biographical material, genealogy material, and notes and writings by and about Gropius.
Material about the Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Regional Planning, and the Graduate School of Design including correspondence with Walter Bogner, John T. Boyd, Jr., Joseph B. Conant, Richard Filipowski, Henry A. Frost, Henry Hubbard, Joseph Hudnut, Charles Killam, Henry A. Kissinger, Warren P. Laird, Bremer Pond, Jerzy Solton, and Jaqueline Tyrwhitt.
About the Graduate School of Design and Visual Arts.
Includes Hebebrand, Werner, 1951, 1956, 1963.
Includes excerpts of letters between Gropius and Hildebrandt translated by Ise Gropius; correspondence with Isaacs and Rainer Hildebrandt; and photographs of Hildebrandt, and her works of art.
Includes correspondence with Charles A. Coolidge, John M. Gaus, Henry James, Charles D. Maginnis, Elbert Peets, Leverett Saltonstall, Henry R. Shepley, regarding the arrival of Walter and Ise Gropius to Harvard University, and the Department of City and Regional Planning.
Includes correspondence with Charles Eames, Sigfried Giedion, Nathaniel H. Owings, Walter Paepcke, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Includes Itten, Johannes, 1964-1965.
About Walter and Ise Gropius' travels.
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Architectural Competition, St. Louis, Missouri
Includes correspondence with Herbert Ferber, Dimitri Hadzi, and Robert Motherwell.
Includes Kapp Putsch memorial commission, 1968 with photograph of Emauel Dion.
Includes Klee, Paul, 1921, 1926; and Klee, Felix Paul, 1966, 1967.
Includes correspondence with Lucio Costa and Jose Luis Sert.
Includes correspondence with Farkas Molnar, Maxwell Fry, Sigfried Giedion, and Erich Mendelsohn.
Information about the Park Lane Building Commission, Piccadilly Circus project and the Pioneer Health Center, correspondence with Ronald Coleman, Jack Cotton, Richard Llewelyn Davies, Sir William Holford, and Jack Pritchard.
Includes Maginnis, Charles, 1951-1952.
Includes Ise Gropius' translations of letters between Walter and Alma.
Plat housed in OV 23.
Includes correspondence with Wells Coates, Jane Drew, Sir William Holford, and Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, meeting minutes and membership information.
About the formation of the "New Bauhaus," the Institute of Design, includes correspondence with Alexander Archipenko, Sewell Avery, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Richard Neutra, Walter Paepcke, and Xanti Schawinsky.
Includes Mumford, Lewis, 1940, 1946.
Includes National Broadcasting Co., Inc., 1957 about Gropius' appearance on NBC's "Wisdom Series, Conversation with Walter Gropius."
Includes Neutra, Richard, 1951, 1968.
About the United Nations building site and the Mundt-Nixon Bill.
Includes Gropius' correspondence and statements regarding prefabrication, 1946-1963.
Includes Read, Sir Herbert, 1938, 1954-1968.
About the Gold Albert Medal.
Includes Schlemmer, Tut, 1965, about Oskar Schlemmer; and Schmidt, Kurt, 1968.
Stout - Syrkus, Helena and Szymon
About the design and construction of UNESCO's headquarters in Paris including correspondence with Max Bill, Marcel Breuer, Wells Coates, Lucio Costa, Sigfried Giedion, Le Corbusier, Sven Markelius, Nervi, Ernesto Rogers, Eero Sarrinen, Jose Luis Sert, Zehrfuss, reports, and meeting minutes.
Includes Walden Pond Reservation, undated.
Includes Ise Gropius' correspondence with Wilder, Thornton, 1958.
Includes Writings, 1967, 1969, undated; and Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1925, 1940.
Includes Wurster, William, 1950-1953; and Zevi, Bruno, 1952, 1963-1965.
This subseries includes drafts of the two volume German edition,
These include the handwritten notes by Ise Gropius and Reginald Isaacs regarding the book drafts.
This subseries includes correspondence for the English and German editions of the biography with the Gerbruder Mann Verlag, Franziska P. Hosken, The M.I.T. Press, and the New York Graphic Society Ltd.
This subseries contains the photographs and illustrations used in the published version of the biography
Some of the prints found here were taken by amateur photographers and belonged to Walter and Ise Gropius and others while most were taken by professionals. Isaacs' sons, Mark and Henry, also produced many images to aid in their fathers' research of Walter Gropius' building designs.
The following Gropius family members, and other significant individuals, are depicted in photographs found throughout the subseries and particularly at the beginning:
The photographs and illustrations are arranged in rough chronological order according to the biography. An overview of the contents of each folder is provided in the container listing. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Two glass plate negatives housed in MGP 2.
17: Boxehrens, Peter; Boxehrens and daughter, Petra; Karl Ernst Osthaus' house; Lehmann Department Store, Cologne, interiors designed with Behrens; Gropius and his Aunt Wiene, Chislehurst, England
One glass plate negative housed in MGP 4.
122: University of Baghdad, master plan with TAC
140: Portraits of Walter Gropius and others including Ise Gropius, C.I.A.M. meeting Bridgewater, and Gropius in Havana, Cuba
(3 glass plate negatives housed in MGP 1)
One lantern slide housed in MGP 2.
Glass Plate Negatives
Glass Plate Negatives and Lantern Slide
Glass Plate Negative
The printed material Isaacs collected as research material for the Gropius biography totals 2 linear feet. The items are mostly newspaper, journal, and magazine clippings, but there are a few bound volumes including
The folder of miscellaneous exhibition catalogs and announcements concerns the exhibitions "de stijl," at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1961 and
This unprocessed addition from 1997 includes correspondence, manuscript drafts, notes, copy prints and negatives, and publishing information pertaining to Isaacs' biography of Walter Gropius.