In the 1950s, the world became fascinated by creativity. World War II was over, and scientists wanted to understand subtler things about human psychology, our relationships, and our left brains. Leading them was a group at UC Berkeley called the Institute of Personality and Social Research, or IPAR, which was devoted to scientifically studying highly successful creative people, from writers to explorers.
But IPAR’s most fascinating study dealt with architects, which the institute’s scientists were particularly intrigued by. In an intensive study in 1958, IPAR recruited names like Richard Neutra, Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, and Philip Johnson to understand how architects thought, acted, and created. Over 22 hours of testing, the scientists studied the personalities, neuroses, and inner conflicts of architects who are, even today, among the most famous on earth. IPAR also asked these designers to do something controversial: rank themselves, and each other, on a scale. What resulted was an incredibly intimate, at times uncomfortable, portrait of a group of now-legendary architects…
