The work featured in
Five Architects was originally developed in a series of meetings held by the Committee of Architects for the Study of the Environment (CASE) at the
Museum of Modern Art. The director of MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design,
Arthur Drexler, invited a group of architects to present photographs of recent built projects to a panel of critics. Another meeting followed in 1971. Drexler edited a volume of work by five of these architects, published in 1972 by Wittenborn & Company and reprinted by
Oxford University Press in 1975.
Five Architects featured a preface by Drexler and critical essays by
Colin Rowe and
Kenneth Frampton. Later editions included a postscript by
Philip Johnson. The name "Whites" was used to refer to the group in the architectural press by 1973.
Michael Graves later stated that he did not know who originally coined "the Whites," but
Philip Johnson was the first to refer to the group as "the New York Five." "The Whites" describes the frequent use of white paint in the built works of the New York Five, as well as the white cardboard models they frequently presented. It also alludes to the group's affinity with the work of
Le Corbusier, such as the white exterior surfaces of
Villa Savoye. This affinity would later be used by some critics to suggest that the work of the New York Five was uncritical of
modernism, or that their work was an unimaginative copy of Le Corbusier. ==Response and legacy==