“In 1931, an oblong, three-storey building clad in shiny aluminium became a sensation at the biennial expo of the Allied Arts and Industries and Architectural League in New York. Designed by Albert Frey, a young Swiss architect newly arrived from Le Corbusier’s atelier, and the American architect A. Lawrence Kocher, the Aluminaire House signalled the future—built of ready-made materials and intended to be affordable for a middle class trying to throw off the shackles of the Great Depression. The next year, it was featured in the historic Modern Architecture: International Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art…”
