The Salt Lake City Second Century Plan Like many American cities during the postwar Baby Boom, Salt Lake City experienced serious growing pains in the 1950s and 60s. As families got larger and larger, the American Dream picked up from its urban roots and moved out to the suburbs, aided by the availability of newly constructed tract housing with big green lawns and a car parked in every driveway. As Salt Lakers abandoned downtown apartments and dense bungalows for greener pastures, the shopping, entertainment and eventually offices followed them into the periphery, leaving a central business district that was becoming less and less viable as a commercial center for the Intermountain West. By 1962, the situation was getting dire and — recognizing a drastic change was needed — downtown business leaders formed a group to study the issue of sprawl and come up with actionable solutions to help bring people (and their money) back into the heart of Salt Lake City. They called themselves Downtown Planning Association Inc. and were led by Jim Hogle (real estate developer and zoo benefactor), Wendell B. Mendenhall (head of LDS Church Building Department), John Krier (Intermountain Theaters and Salt Lake Chamber) and Stanford P. Darger (businessman and Salt Lake Chamber). The board of directors included recognizable names like Henry Dinwoody (furniture mogul), George Eccles (First Security Bank and philanthropist), J. Bracken Lee (former governor, then mayor) and David O. McKay (president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). While this illustrious group representing the major downtown interests undoubtedly understood the issues as well as anyone, they needed partners who could get the plan on paper and excite the populace about funding large public works projects to propel Salt Lake City into a new era of prosperity. That is where the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects came in. AIA Utah members ended up donating over $100,000 (over $1 million in 2024 currency) worth of professional time to help brainstorm and envision ideas for a rejuvenated downtown, and they ended up getting twin billing on what became the Second Century Plan when the report was published on Sept. 19, 1962. Dean Gustavson, FAIA, led the design effort as the chairman of the Development Plan Committee (DPC). A native Salt Laker, Gustavson was a World War II pilot before studying architecture at UC-Berkeley and returning to Utah to start Gustavson Associates. Gustavson’s mastery of modernist design is still evident in the Merrill Engineering Building at the University of Utah, among many other masterworks. Donald Panushka, FAIA, served as vice chair for the DPC. Panushka attended MIT after serving in the army during World War II, then ended up in Utah in 1953, starting his own firm. Panushka was one of Roger Bailey’s early faculty members at the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Utah. Richard Stringham, AIA, who was a member of the first graduating architecture class at the University of Utah in 1952, was the secretary for the DPC. He started Carpenter Stringham Architects in 1956, which went on to design the George S. Eccles Building at Utah State University, the Fletcher Physics Building at the University of Utah and the North Visitor Center on Temple Square. The DPC was rounded out by a who’s who of modernist masters, entering the primes of their careers in the early 1960s, BY JOHN EWANOWSKI, AIA 20 REFLEXION
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