2024-05-08T16:27:55-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/48450742/the-uses-of-daylight Places Journal 2012-05-14T15:45:00-04:00 >2012-05-20T23:36:28-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/1y/1yv4wdwcc3s52pbr.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>For retailers, daylight offered one additional advantage the advertisements did not mention: the implication of moral virtue. Large department stores were described as cesspools of fraud, filth, poor working conditions, child labor, anti-competitiveness, potential press censorship (because of their advertising clout), disease, drunkenness, savagery, prostitution, suicide and darkness. A well-lit interior, it was said, could do much to counter such negative associations.</p></em><br /><br /><p> Earlier this year on Places, Keith Eggener assessed the career of the now forgotten early 20th-century <a href="http://places.designobserver.com/feature/louis-curtiss-and-the-politics-of-architectural-reputation/29428/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kansas City architect Louis Curtiss</a>, and argued that Curtiss's obscurity has less to do with intrinsic merit than with the politics of professional reputation. In a new article examining&nbsp;the Boley Building &mdash; a department store which featured one of the first glass curtain walls in America &mdash; he makes good on his claim that Curtiss's legacy deserves new attention.</p>