Playboy glamorized modern architecture and made it palatable to a wide audience.

Playboy gets lip service as a leader in the sexual revolution, a vanguard publisher of emerging talent in fiction and interviews, and of course, a historic showcase for sexy ladies. While the publication has since lost its centerfolds, it is now being celebrated for its role in architecture and design – establishing both of those fields as firmly within the Playboy’s domain. Now on display at the Elmhurst Art Museum, “Playboy Architecture: 1953-1979” presents photos, films, architectural models and archival issues that illustrate how the ruling designs of the era fueledPlayboy’s masculine fantasy, and the other way around.

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What initially drew you to researching the architectural aspects of the famed men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine?

Over 10 years or so I kept noticing that modern architects and designers from the 50s, 60s and 70s were featured in Playboy. In the archives of the Eames years ago, for example, I found correspondence between Charles Eames and Playboy about a photo shoot for the magazine in which practically all the most remarkable mid-century designers participated (George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, etc.). Then working on Antfarm, I realized they were in Playboytoo. At first I thought it was a curiosity but then I started to wonder, who else is in Playboy? Because of course Playboy is famous for their great interviews with writers, philosophers, politicians, activists… but nobody seem to have realized that architecture was so important forPlayboy. And that it had been the case since the beginning of the magazine in 1953. From the very first issues on, they published features on Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe.Playboy glamorized modern architecture and made it palatable to a wide audience.

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How does today's architectural discourse reflect Playboy’s influence from the 1953-1970s era?

Playboy was perhaps the first life-style magazine with modern design at the center of everything. The magazine designed a new identity for men which included what to wear, what to listen to, what to drink, and what to read, but also what to live in: the furniture and the interior. Like a women’s magazine, it is absolutely filled with detailed advice and offers the reader a chance to rebuild themselves. Even the sexual imagination can be reshaped. The magazine offered the opportunity to use design to redesign yourself. If you look at architecture and design magazines today they are simply variations of Playboy. The only thing missing is the naked women, and it is important to realize that Playboy’s features on architecture, especially its extended series of Playboy Pads, were more popular with the readers than the Playmates, as if the spaces for seduction were actually more erotic than the woman supposedly being seduced.

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Hugh Hefner at work.
Hugh Hefner at work. © Elmhurst Art Museum.

Elmhurst Art Museum presents the U.S. debut of Playboy Architecture,1953-1979, featuring an extensive collection of photographs, films, architectural models and more from Playboy magazine’s inception in 1953 through the 1970s. Curated by Professor Beatriz Colomina and Pep Aviles in collaboration with the Ph.D. program of the School of Architecture and the Media and Modernity program at Princeton University, the exhibition showcases how architecture and design played a role in creating the Playboy fantasy as well as how Playboy magazine came to influence the world of architecture and design.

Staged in the Mies van der Rohe-designed McCormick House at Elmhurst Art Museum, the exhibition will feature detailed models of archetypal design projects such as the Playboy Townhouse and “Big Bunny,” the largest and most luxurious private aircraft in existence, designed for Hugh Hefner by Elmhurst resident Daniel Czubak. The exhibition is divided into sections devoted to themes explored in the magazine’s articles and images such as Playboy pads (including bedrooms and closets), cities, vehicles, music and the art of seduction. An archive of Playboy magazine issues from the period is also included.

Unique to this U.S. presentation, never-before- exhibited memorabilia from the personal collection of 1976 Playboy Bunny of the Year, Chicagoan Candace Jordan will be part of the exhibition, including her Bunny of the Year full costume, the pageant program and her trophy.

Elmhurst Art Museum’s presentation of Playboy Architecture 1953-1979 was designed by Amunátegui Valdés Architects (Santiago, Chile). The exhibition was previously displayed in the Netherlands at Bureau Europa (Maastricht) in 2012. The U.S. debut of Playboy Architecture, 1953-1979 is made possible by Gigi and James Owens.

A robust roster of public programs will be presented over the summer, including talks by the exhibition’s curator Beatriz Colomina (Princeton), author of Domesticity at War and Manifesto Architecture: The Ghost of Mies; Professor Elizabeth Fraterrigo (Loyola), author of Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in America; and Candace Jordan, Chicago Tribune columnist and 1976 Playboy Bunny of the Year, among others.