The Chemical Industry and Modern Architecture

MIT graduate student Jessica Varner has explored how the chemical industry wooed the building and construction industry with new synthetic materials at the turn of the 20th century, resulting in successful, but toxic, material transformations in modern history.

In the process, these companies helped transform modern architecture while also disregarding or actively obscuring the health and environmental risks posed by these materials. While researching the history of these dyes, additives, and foams, her research has revealed how these companies generated research strategies, advertising, and publicity to transform the materials of the “modern interior and exterior”.