Louis Edward Sauer (born 1928) is a Canadian-American architect and design theorist of dual American and Canadian nationality, known for his role in the renewal in Society Hill, Philadelphia and his contributions to low-rise, high-density housing. Sauer worked with housing developers to produce low-rise high-density housing projects throughout the 1960s and 70s.
During his tenure as principal of Louis Sauer Associates, Architects located in Philadelphia (1961–79), his work focused on over 90 residential and urban design commissions in central city urban infill, suburban and rural areas, and new town developments in Reston (Virginia), Columbia (Maryland) and Montreal (Quebec).
Sauer's designs for the David Buten House (Philadelphia) and Pastorius Mews were early templates for the system he developed. The conceptual innovation for most of these housing designs was a or structural and functional module, which was part of a grid.
Sauer's advocacy work with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority on the Morton Urban Renewal Project (MURP) for a low-income minority neighbourhood helped to define his career interest in advocating for improved design and planning for people left out of the market economy and generally neglected by mainstream design professionals. This interest led him to employ the social sciences (especially social-psychology) in his design research and programming in order to better understand the interrelationships between architecture and the occupancy needs of the anticipated users of his sites and buildings.
Personal life Louis Sauer was born to an Italian mother and a German father, both doctors in alternative medicine, with the family living modestly in Oak Park Illinois. Between the ages of ten and eighteen, Sauer would go on to work a variety of part-time jobs: as a window washer, corner newspaper boy, life guard, magazine distributor, shoe salesman, among others. After graduating from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1946, Sauer began as a student in pre-medicine at DePaugh University, but moved out of the sciences to pursue an interest in art and photography. He discovered a passion for architecture and modern design while studying at Moholy-Nagy's 'New Bauhaus' (named the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1952) from 1949 to 1953 in Chicago.
Sauer lives in Tasmania, Australia.
Early years At age 25, Sauer was conscripted into the US Army. Following basic training at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, he became part of the occupying army in Baumholder, Germany serving as a Private First Class in the US Army Corps of Engineers from December 1953 to June 1955. Sauer labelled himself conscientious objector, expressing his willingness to perform any tasks except those involving harm or killing, actions he wanted to avoid. In spite of this, he successfully completed his service and received an honorable discharge.
While travelling in Italy on furlough, he met the Italian architect Gino Valle at his home in Udine, where Valle introduced Sauer to the ideas and work of the American architect Louis Kahn, who practiced in Philadelphia. Sauer returned to the United States in 1955, where he obtained his first architectural employment under Jules Gregory in Lambertville NJ.
He then joined the 1956 summer session of Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in Venice at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura spending a formative period studying under architects such as Giuseppe Samonà, Jacob Bakema and Giancarlo De Carlo. Sauer remained another six months in Venice before returning to America to work for the Philadelphia Planning Department under Edmund Bacon on the Society Hill Redevelopment Plan. He met Louis I Kahn and entered Kahn's Master's Studio for post-graduate architectural studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, graduating in 1959.
After graduation, Sauer would work in a number of Philadelphia architect's offices. In 1961, Sauer and collaborator William Winchel would open their first office Winchel and Sauer, Architects, renaming it to Louis Sauer Associates the following year. Frustrated that his market-developer focused Philadelphia practice isolated him from working with economically disadvantaged social groups, he organized in 1968 a separate architectural and planning office with David Marshall and Steven Kerpen – People's Housing, Inc – in Topanga, California that focused on design and construction for economically and physically disadvantaged social groups. Sauer also taught part-time throughout this period, architecture and urban design at Philadelphia's Drexel Institute of Technology (1960–65) and the University of Pennsylvania (1965–79).
In spite of his contributions to the field of architecture, his discontent with his low fees which amounted to developer profits would eventually lead Sauer to close his Philadelphia office by June 1979. His decision to close his office took many fellow practitioners by surprise, giving up a successful private practice and moving on to a full-time academic career as Head of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.
Sauer felt strongly about the role of education for shaping future practitioners, believing that unless architectural schools learned to teach students how to design for increased building performance and to deal with society on realistic economic terms, society would simply deal architects out of the game.
Later years Between 1989 and 1997, Sauer returned to professional design practice in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as Director of Urban Design at Daniel Arbour and Associates, an urban planning office where fifty urban design master plans were carried out, including large-scale residential on green-field sites, structure plans for the redevelopment of brown-field sites, high-density mixed-use urban infill, and a master plan for structuring public and private sectors for a new town.
Projects Penn's Landing Square, Society Hill, Philadelphia, occupying an entire block and includes 118 homes.'Penns Landing Square,' Toshi-Jutaku: a Monthly Magazine of Urban Housing, Kajima Institute Publishing Co., May 1977, pp 43-45Penns Landing Square, 'Wohnhauser in Philadelphia, USA,' 10 x Wohnen Baumeister 12, Callwey Verlag, Munich, 1976, pp 1072-1075'Urban-suburban: Penns Landing Square,' Housing: High-Rise vs. Low-Rise: Progressive Architecture, Reinhold Publishing Corp., NY, March 1976, pp 48-51'A dynamic new partner,' House Beautiful, The Hearst Corporation, NY, June 1974, pp 74-77'Penns Landing Square', 'Second Street Townhouses,' Low-Rise Housing in America, Process Architecture No. 14, Process Architecture Publishing Co., Tokyo, 1980, pp 38-47, 161 Eight constructed residential and commercial developments in Society Hill Historic District, Philadelphia.'Society Hill, Philadelphia,' Entwurf und Planning: Stadthauser, Paulhans, Peters, ed., Georg D.W. Callwey, Munich, 1979, pp 12, 46-47, 110. Four city blocks of townhouses in Baltimore, which introduced the first market-rate housing in the city's central business district and the Inner Harbour.Sauer, Louis. 'Joining old and new: neighborhood planning and architecture for city revitalization,' Architecture and Behavior Vol. 5. No.4, Kaj Noschis, ed. (Ecole polytechnique federate Lausanne) p 357 372, Dec1989Mary Helen Lorenz. 'Inner Harbor West housing development,' 'Design Process, Problems and Social Science Research,' User Needs Research Practices of Designers, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Boston, 1979, pp 5-8, 24-25, 30-33, 35-44 Waterfront Redevelopment Plan for Baltimore's Fells Point Historic District and the design of its Main Square facing the Inner Harbour. Bois-Franc, a new 8000-dwelling community on 202 hectares in the Saint-Laurent Borough of Montreal, Quebec.Sauer, Louis. 'The public open space urban design framework for Bois-Franc: a new town in Quebec,' Urban Design: Reshaping Our Cities, Anne Vernez Moudon & Wayne Attoe, eds. (College of Architecture & Urban Design, University of Washington: Seattle, p 172-178, 1995Sauer, Louis. 'Creating a Signature Town: the Urban Design of Bois Franc,' Plan Canada, (Canadian Institute of Planners: Arnprior, Ontario) p 22, 27, September 1994 Newmarket, a speciality retail centre and noteworthy contribution to Edmund Bacon's transformation of the Philadelphia Society Hill landscape.'New Crystal Palace: Newmarket,' Progressive Architecture, Reinhold Publishing Corp., April 1976, pp 76-79Andrea 0. Dean. 'Evaluation: futuristic gesture in historic Society Hill,' AIA Journal, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., June 1981, pp 42-49 Spring Pond (Painted Post, NY, 1966–8), 108 units of townhouses and apartments for the Corning Glass Works to promote new development in Corning, New York.David Mackay. 'Spring Pond Apartments, Painted Post, NY,' Wohnungsbau in Wandel von der Addition zur Integration, Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1977, pp 86-89. David Mackay. 'Spring Pond,' Multifamily Housing: From Aggregation to Integration, Thames & Hudson (London) 1977, pp 86-89'Spring Pond Apartments,' USA 71, 1'Architecture d'Aujourd hui #157, Boulogne-Sur-Seine, France, Aug - Sept 1971, pp XL-XLI'Corning, N.Y. Diversity of shapes and layouts in countryside apartments was achieved using repetitive buildings methods,' Architectural Forum, May 1971, pp 34-36Bettye Rose Connell. Behavioral Science research for Decision-making: the Processes of Programming and Evaluation; and, an Evaluative Case Study of Multi-family Housing, (an evaluation of Louis Sauer's design decisions for Painted Post NY), Master of Science Thesis, Graduate School of Cornell University, August 1975 Golf Course Island, 256 townhouses in the new town of Reston, Virginia.Paulhans Peters ed. 'Reston, Virginia, USA,' (Golf Course Island Townhouses), E+P: Hauser in Reihen: Mehrfamilienhauser, Kettenhauser, Hausergruppen, Verlag Geog D. W. Callwey, Munchen, 1973, pp 72-73, 132
"It has been a long time since the architecture of our day has accomplished as much for human liveability... Sauer's splendid design, at relatively moderate prices, should remove the last reasonable objections to the row-house idea. The houses appear wide on the inside, rather than narrow and vertical. And each has an unmistakably individual entrance, not just a kind of apartment door out on the street. I am almost tempted to call the Sauer townhouses a new breakthrough in townhouse design."
Concourse Fountain Plaza at Yeatman's Cove (opened in 1976), a landscape water park with pools, fountains blasting large jets of water, concourse plaza and an apartment building and bridge (across an expressway) connecting Cincinnati's Central Activity District to the Ohio River.'Cincinnatus Concourse and Forum,' Architectural Record, McGraw-Hill Book Co., NY, June 1979, pp 107-112William Morgan. 'Cincinnati's Forum: A model Louisville should emulate,' The Urban Environment, The Courier-Journal, Cincinnati OH, 29 July 1979
"A towering snorkel... like a shower massage on steroids."
Role in Society Hill Sauer is mentioned among other architects, such as Frank Weiss, Romaldo Giurgola, De Roy Mark, John Bower and John Collins, in Saggio's An American Architect as the most important figure behind the building design for the renewal of Society Hill owing to the number of projects completed, the high architectural and urban quality of the buildings, and the originality of his design solutions.