modern

From the library

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:56:00 +0000

I just finished enjoying the book Earth Architecture by Ronald Rael, (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), which has wonderful photographs and tells you just about everything there is to know about rammed earth as a building material. I was completely surprised by the modern, sophisticated, clean-lined design that this ancient material lends itself so nicely to. Many images show walls that are as straight and smooth as concrete but have the beautiful sedimentary layered look of sandstone, or the wall of a canyon.

I'd love to keep the book, but it's due today at the library (which orders LOTS of terrific architecture books, and pretty much gets anything we ask it to!). – GF

A brick of another color makes all the difference

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:06:00 +0000

I am not a fan of bricks at all, mostly – I think – because they're so, well . . . RED! Red with the white mortar? Nah, not for me. I am sure you could point me to dozens of examples of architectural innovation using bricks, and I would agree that the design might be terrific, but if it's traditional old red bricks, I might give it a nix.

This house in downtown Philadelphia, designed by Qb is clad with gray bricks that look like gunmetal, and I'm crazy about how the material looks. Slightly textured by the individual bricks, it's earthier than metal cladding – and no visible mortar! I really like the roof terrace and parapet. Altogether, a really nice small city house. – GF
(via Contemporist)

More from the Jens Risom fan club

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:06:00 +0000

Our friend and neighbor, Jens Risom, is in the news again today for the roll-out of his newest line of furniture at the Ralph Pucci Gallery in NYC.

New York Times reporter Joyce Wadler accurately picks up on a facet of Risom's personality toward the end of the story when he asks her at the gallery opening to imagine his upholstered bench occupied by "a nice-looking girl and guy" because "you have to look at it from a nice, sexy point of view."

More on Jens from Dwell, Risom.org, Knoll. – GF

Love story : Architecture's partnerships

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:28:00 +0000

An essay by Alexandra Lang called "Love and Architecture" caught my eye this morning. I missed it when it appeared on Design Observer last November, but was happy to catch reference to it on her blog, A Bit Late, which I like a lot. Do check it out.

Having grown up in a household with parent who were professionals in the advertising / graphic design / illustration field, and who sometimes collaborated on projects, I've always been interested in the dynamic (and also longed for that kind of partnership – this blog and a brochure here and there are as close to that life+work partnership as it seems we'll get).

Lang is is a journalist and architectural historian living in Brooklyn. A teacher of architecture criticism at the School of Visual Arts, she's also seems to be a (Eero) Saarinen scholar, having contributed essays to Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future (Yale University Press, 2006), the catalog accompanying the MCNY exhibition, and her manuscript, "There's No Place Like Work," includes chapters on Saarinen's designs for CBS, Deere & Co. and IBM. – GF

Combination of old and new again in Switzerland

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:21:00 +0000

Scheitlin&Syfrig Architekten and Stefan Zwicky Architekten collaborated on the conversion of a former riding arena, integrating it into the existing Credit Suisse Communications Center. Seen on Daily Tonic by wonderful Artchitonic – GF
photos by Walter Mair

Turn me on . . . and off . . . and on again!

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:02:00 +0000

I have a serious problem with light switches: the virtually unchanged dopey design (with the exception of less frequently used rocker-types), their generally poorly considered placement, imposed building code requirements . . . all combine to make their awkward presence scream out when I walk into some spaces.

However, if presented with these sensuous, sculptural, tactilely attractive switchplates, I think I'd indulge in the typical 2-year-old's favorite activity of delightedly switching the lights on and off and on and off and on and off.

The Silicon Switches are designed by Ross McBride's Tokyo studio, Normal. McBride, originally trained as a graphic designer, moved to Japan in 1985, and in the late '90s became interested in product and furniture design. Unfortunately, for now at least, Silicon Switches are only available in Japan through Max Ray Co., Ltd. – GF

Micheels House Debacle Leads to Something Good: A New Survey of Modern Houses in Westport and Weston

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:44:00 +0000

A few years ago there was a huge fuss in Westport when a landowner bought and attempted to tear down the Micheels House, designed by Paul Rudolph. Unfortunately the guy succeeded (I wrote about it a lot of my other blog, here, before we started this one). But fortunately two of the people who worked hard to preserve the house were awakened to the reality that Westport and its neighbor the the north, Weston, were as much a part of mid-century modernism as New Canaan (and Pound Ridge, for that matter).

Michael Glynn, an architect who works out of New York City, and Morley Boyd, a preservationist in Westport, began to do what Gina and I did in Pound Ridge -- drive up and down the roads looking for modern houses. I received an email from Glynn yesterday that I think was originally a press release. I'm going to quote it at length:

It was clear to Boyd and Glynn that the first step in preserving other important Modern buildings was to find them before the developers did -- in other words, do a survey. Three years later, starting this past autumn, they went on "safari" in search of houses in Westport and Weston built from the early 1930's through the 1970's. They decided that the boundary should include Weston since its wooded landscape seemed to be a ripe locale for their prey.

Joining in the search was Kim Elstein, a modern furniture authority who owns a gallery in Westport. Giddy with success, but also alarmed, they bagged more houses than they imagined existed. Some were remarkable finds: for instance, an International Style house of 1934 by Barry Byrne and a large villa by Ely Jacques Kahn, as well as first-rate work by lesser-known architects. A big Moderne style house that could have popped out of a '30's Nick and Nora Charles movie, turned out to have been designed by an obscure architect, Erard Matthiessen. Research revealed that Matthiessen was to go on to a career in environmental conservation, and that he happened to have a famous son, the author Peter Matthiessen. Victor Lundy, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra, Keck and Keck are some other architects represented. The team also located a house designed by Antonin Raymond in 1941. The owner was unaware of the provenance of his house, he been planning to demolish most of it to build a spec house.

Boyd, Glynn and Elstein have hung an exhibit which opened at the Westport Historical Society on January 24th. (and will remain until May 1st). The exhibit features photos (taken by Glynn) and texts about the buildings based on collaborative research. Also included are photos of the destruction of the Micheels house taken by Chris Mottalini, a New York photographer.

Boyd, Glynn and Elstein hope to raise money to do a more extensive search. Their wish is that eventually all the buildings can be placed on a web site (similar to what was accomplished in New Canaan). New Canaan has been billed as the epicenter of Modern
houses, but based on this survey, it would appear that New Canaan is not unique.

SAMPLING OF HOUSES IN EXHIBITION:

Westport. International Style house by Barry Byrne, 1934 (for sale
and endangered)

Weston. Richard Neutra, 1954. Occupied by original owner.

Green's Farms (Westport). Lt. Col. Florimond Duke residence,
1937. Erard Matthiessen, architect (father of writer Peter
Matthiessen)

Weston. Morris Greenwald residence. Mies van der Rohe, 1955-56

Westport. First Unitarian Church of Fairfield County, Victor Lundy,
architect. 1960

Weston. Trinkaus residence, Allan Gelbin, architect. 1964

Weston. Paul Rand residence, Ann Binkley Rand, architect, 1951

Westport. Koizim Residence, 1968. Charles Moore and William
Turnbull, MLTW

Westport. R. P. Ettinger Residence, Ely Jacques Kahn (Kahn and
Jacobs) 1940-41

Weston. Joseph Salerno residence, 1949, Joseph Salerno, architect.

Michael Glynn supplied the photos here. I don't know which houses they are, but I'll ask.

I'm also fairly certain that the architect of the Paul Rand house wasn't Ann Binkley Rand but Ann's brother, Leroy Binkley. He designed Gina's mother's house in Pound Ridge (from afar -- he was based in Chicago) and Tod Bryant, a historic preservation consultant in Norwalk is working on a landmark application for a Binkley house, in Norwalk as well. - ta

More 'Kindling Architecture'

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:34:00 +0000

Some more fuel for the firewood posts I've been issuing as of late, this is an interesting addition to a house in Estonia that seeks not to blend in with the existing structure, but to call attention to its difference. I'll bet many birds, wasps and other creatures will find it an inviting dwelling, too. Via Freshome – GF

Wright, Stone, Breuer, Johnson, All On Long Island

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:05:00 +0000

You'd don't have to look hard to find a community nowadays in which at least a few folks want it to be known that their town or county has a lot of modern houses and that therefore they "played [an important role] in the broader development of Modernism and Post-Modernism in the US." Modern houses are all the rage, as a friend told us a few weeks ago, and everybody wants to participate.

The quote in the first paragraph is from the website of the Heckscher Museum of Art, in Huntington, on Long Island, which has mounted an exhibition called "Arcadia/Suburbia: Architecture on Long Island, 1930-2010."

I saw it mentioned in the Times Real Estate section, which had this to say about star modernists on Long Island:

In 1937, on a relatively small lot in Great Neck Estates, Frank Lloyd Wright used cypress, brick and red tile on the Rebhuhn house. In 1938 in Old Westbury, Edward Durell Stone, the architect of the first Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, built the Goodyear House, a weekend retreat with curving walls, a flat roofline and large expanses of glass. In 1951 in Lloyd Neck, Marcel Breuer created the Hanson House, using a butterfly roof and fieldstone. And in 1956 in Lloyd Harbor, Philip Johnson built the Leonhardt House, its glassed-in public living areas seeming almost open to Long Island Sound.

Since driving from northern Westchester across the Throgs Neck Bridge and out to Huntington on the Long Island Expressway is a punishment I don't deserve, I'm unlikely to go. But if I lived out there, I'd definitely take a look.

Here's the Heckscher website's exhibition page, and here are some photos (I tried to grab one to use here, but it saved as a QuickTime file, hence no illustration).

What will be the next community with enthusiastic historians of modernism who want us all to know about the great and heretofore uncatalogued modern houses in their town? Someone emailed me today with a bunch of great stuff and I'll try to write about it tomorrow. -- ta

Could this be . . . YOU?

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:24:00 +0000

An old friend who lives in L.A., among many hipsters I would think, sent me this wry link. Thanks, Jonathan! – GF

Ancient + Modern = Lovely Home

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:09:00 +0000

This fourteenth century house somewhere, I would imagine by the looks of it, in the Lower Engadin region of Switzerland, has been modernized in a "clean and friendly spirit" (quoting from the Côté Maison article where I found it). Cosy, modern, warm and bright – so inviting! – GF

Vitra Design Museum – another desitnation for "SOMEday..."

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:29:00 +0000

Seen on Architecture Lab, the newest addition to Vitra Museum's campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany, (VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron, top photo) prompted me to visit the museum's website, which then immediately bumped up the museum's position on my "SOMEday, I will visit this place" list (it is a very, very long list . . . ).

From Vitra's website, "The inception of the Vitra Design Museum dates back to the early 1980s. With the aim of documenting the history of the Vitra company, Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum began collecting the furniture of designers who had influenced the company's development, such as Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Alvar Aalto, and Jean Prouvé. As the collection grew, so did the desire for an architectural venue in which the objects could be displayed. . . Today, the Vitra Design Museum is internationally active as a cultural institution that has made a major contribution to the research and popular dissemination of design. The Museum presents a broad spectrum of topics on design and culture, with a special emphasis on furniture and interior design. Its activities encompass the production of exhibitions, workshops, publications, and museum products, and the maintenance of an extensive collection, an archive, and a research library."

I've also always wanted to go to Vitra's "summer camp": 7–10-day design workshops held at Boisbuchet, at a country estate in the southwest of France. Add that to the list! – GF

Village Creek, Norwalk: Connecticut's First Historic District of Modern Houses

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:22:00 +0000

We learned some good news while we were driving through the Village Creek neighborhood of Norwalk on Monday. The neighborhood, which consists of 67 houses situated on 37 rocky acres between two tidal inlets, has been named to the Connecticut Register of Historic Places. It's the first historic district in the state whose historic importance lies at least partially in the fact that the buildings are typically modern, an interesting "first" in a state that also includes New Canaan and its 90 or so modern houses.

But Village Creek is also significant because at a time when housing discrimination against blacks and Jews was common, it was developed specifically as a place of racial and religious tolerance. A friend of ours, Tod Bryant, is a historic preservation consultant who prepared the application to the state and national register of historic places (the National Register application will be considered in March). Here's how he described the social goals of Village Creek:

In spite of this climate of discrimination, there were some, often returning veterans, who believed that everyone should have the right to live wherever they chose to live. Roger Willcox, along with his parents, sisters and sisters’ husbands felt strongly that racial and religious discrimination was simply wrong. When they decided to buy land to build a community, they also decided that the community should be a cooperative based on the Rochdale Principles of equality and nondiscrimination. In their 1949 prospectus, the original members of the community stated, “But above all else we wanted a different type of community with a completely democratic character – no discrimination because of race, color, creed or politics.” By including this sentence in their description of their ideal community; they turned the prevailing sentiment of segregation and exclusivity on its head. This principled stance made them heroes to some and enemies to others, but it also made them pioneers in the movement for equal rights. Village Creek’s announcement that it would be a fully-integrated community was an unusual moral stance and it had consequences. The FHA office in Hartford, Connecticut, refused to guarantee loans to Village Creek. Most banks simply refused to finance homes in the development without government loan guarantees, so the majority of the houses built during the first five years were built by the lot owners without mortgages. Conventional mortgage loan financing gradually became available when one of the residents found a sympathetic banker.

Local response to the new community was enthusiastic at first, but it soon cooled and realtors refused to show homes in the subdivision to white families. This situation caused the VCHOA to establish a Real Estate Committee which would show and sell houses.

Considering those origins, it was an interesting coincidence that we drove through the neighborhood on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It was cold in mid-afternoon and the bright sun was low and sharp. Three residents were strolling along one of the roads -- there are no sidewalks -- and since we were driving very slowly in an area that does not get a lot of traffic, we thought it would be considerate if we stopped and told them that we were essentially tourists who came to look at the houses. They were very polite and told us that the application for listing on the state register had just been approved. We said we were glad to hear it, and we drove off.

I liked the neighborhood. The original hope for mid-century modern houses was that they would be relatively inexpensive, modest, efficient and beautiful places to live for the masses. Village Creek is not exactly that but it comes close. It's very clearly a neighborhood that people live in, rather than a collection of mid-century modern showpieces that people shine up for tours.

Here's what Tod wrote about the architecture of Village Creek:

Village Creek embodies both the spirit and substance of the Modern movement in post-World War II America. The spirit is embodied in the progressive ideas included in its governance and its substance is embodied in the design of it buildings. The VCHOA Architectural Control Committee (ACC) required that new homes be built in the Contemporary style which it defined as, “… we interpret “contemporary design” to stress; low pitched or flat roofs, horizontal rather than vertical lines and a leaning toward large glass areas.” The ACC has been successful in its efforts and Village Creek still possesses the look and feel of a forward-looking progressive development. These design requirements made Village Creek a leader in the Modern movement that was growing in the United States. It was being developed at about the same time that Phillip Johnson was building his Glass House in the neighboring town of New Canaan, Mies Van Der Rohe was completing the Farnsworth House in Illinois and the Case Study houses were being built in California by Richard Neutra, Charles and Rae Eames and others.

We took a couple of quick photos from the car of houses that happened to be easy to see from the road. The first was designed by an architect named Sidney Katz of Architects Associated in 1950; the other was built in 1957 and is lived in by the original owners. Here's a map showing Village Creek. (Split Rock Road, Dock Road and Outer Road) If you go there, please respect the residents' privacy. - ta

Taking the old woodpile to an entirely new level

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:08:00 +0000

I have mentioned stacked wood or kindling in a couple of posts recently, but this takes the cake! Wonderfully clever and beautifully conceived design for a studio by Piet Hein Eek for friend, client and musician Hans Liberg. Seen on Trendir modern house designs and Gismodo. Photos from Thomas Mayer Archive. – GF

Modern Neighborhoods

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Coincidentally while I was working on a post just now about Village Creek, a mid-century modern neighborhood in Norwalk that (or so we were told) was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Gina found a post on Build Blog, with photos of and details about five mid-century modern communities around the country, and a list of six others (nothing about Usonia, in Westchester County, though).

Build Blog highlights Hollin Hills, in Virginia; Arapahoe Acres, in Colorado; Hilltop, in Washington; Six Moon Hill, in Massachusetts; and Krisana Park and Lynwood, in Colorado.

Here's the post. (I helped myself to the photo, which Build Blog says is from the University of Washington Libraries.) - ta

Like being in 2 perfect places at once

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:29:00 +0000

This may not be the absolute best execution of a fabulous idea, but I'd happily accept it! Combining two of the best things you can do after skiing or otherwise experiencing a winter's day: a hot soak in the bath, and sitting by the fire. Brilliant!

Also in the same house is more stacked-firewood-as-interior-design-element, harking back to this earlier post. Seen in the current Côté Est Dec. '09 – Mar. '10 issue (story: Le design atteint des sommets) – GF

Modern living for the birds

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Seen on Fast Company, this is what I've been waiting for: a great-looking chicken coop (really . . . no joke.).

Designed by Andreas Stavropolous, about which Dwell writes: Andreas lives in Berkeley and is a registered landscape architect in the state of California. He is the founder of XS LAND and teaches at Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. He is also the co-founder of ChickenCribs.com, home of the modern, self-assembly urban coop. He is interested in involving the mobile studio in grassroots design efforts and continuing to experiment with small scale dwelling and working units. He can be contacted at andreas@xs-land.com – GF

Minimalist mountain chapel

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:23:00 +0000

Built in 2008 as a private memorial, this honest, lovely little 'bergkapelle' on a lower alp near Andelsbuch, Austria, is made from timber from the site, and the stones for the foundation were brought from further up the alp. Architectural firm: cukrowicz-nachbaur Photos: Andreas Cukrowicz, Hanspeter Schiess – GF

"Excuse me, may I just squeeze in here?"

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:55:00 +0000

Seen on DigsDigs, this little gem is so teeny, and spirited. A perfect pied-a-terre or home for 2. I love the separate studio and roof garden. – GF

Our Modern Town

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:36:00 +0000

I'm about done with the first part of the long-awaited (by me) inventory of modern houses in Pound Ridge, and what I've documented is something that we've suspected for a while: Pound Ridge has a remarkable concentration of modern houses. Our town of just 4,800 people has at least 57 modern houses (New Canaan, with 20,000 people, has 91).

My methodology was this: I drove around town and looked at all the houses; if I thought it fit my notion of "modern," I put it on the list; then at work, where we subscribe to a data base with all property records from Westchester County, I took a few minutes at the end of the day and looked up the owners, the date the houses were built and renovated, the square footage, and when it was last sold.

I have no real definition of "modern," except that I know it when I see it (I realize I'll need to refine this a bit). Big contemporary houses didn't make the list (although houses by Vuko Tashkovich probably deserve their own category). Most of the houses are from the 1950s, but I don't consider date of construction to be definitive -- one of the houses on my list was finished earlier this year. Many if not most are exceedingly modest and I like them because they hearken back to the idea, prevalent after World War II, that modern houses would be democratic houses, places for regular people to live rationally and cheaply, rather than showplaces. The road with the most modern houses happens to be Eastwoods Road, where Gina grew up -- there are 13 that I know of (11 visible from the road and two down long driveways), including houses by Edward Larabee Barnes, Leroy Binkley and Bimel Kehm, and there may be others hidden in the woods.

There are a number of houses on my list that I need to show Gina, to see if she concurs with my judgment that they're indeed modern. One in particular is giving me trouble: a big rectangular brick house with a flat roof and casement windows that was built in 1937. It's not a Colonial, not a salt box, not a ranch. If Gina and I agree that it's a pre-War modern, it means that our pre-War modern, built in 1939, is not the first modern house in Pound Ridge, a claim we have been making for years.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the list. In a number of places -- New Canaan, for example, and the Vilage Creek neighborhood of Norwalk -- people are working to create districts that qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. I can't imagine having the time to put together a National Register application and I have no clue whether Pound Ridge's houses would even qualify. Except for the three architects I mentioned above, and the archtects of our house and our next door neighbors (Moore & Htchins), I have virtually no information about architects who worked in Pound Ridge. Tracking down that information would be a project in itself.

What happens now? What we really need is someone with actual architectural expertise to identify and compile details like those used in New Canaan's inventory. But our list is a good start. -- ta

Happy Birthday, home!

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:01:00 +0000

As modern houses go, ours is hardly of the category that John Johansen, one of the Harvard Five, called "high modern." And it's certainly not International Style, like Edward Durrell Stone's classic Mandel House, over in Bedford Hills (and built six years before ours). When Christian Bjone, a historian of modern architecture, visited us a few years ago, he gave the house the once-over and called it an evolutionary dead end, explaining that in the early days of modernism, architects would try various styles and techniques, and if clients did not materialize, those styles and techniques were dropped (he actually liked the house and managed to say this in a way that did not sound disparaging). Given that it was built in 1939, I'm not even sure if you could call our house "mid-century modern" -- I'm more comfortable calling it pre-War modern, a category that just occured to me now.

Because 2009 is the 70th anniversary of when the house was built, and because 2009 is about to end, Gina asked me to gather what I know about the house, the architect, and the original owner, and write something for our blog. She has assembled photographs that show the house as it was when it was built and as it is now.

The house was designed by Moore & Hutchins, a New York City firm founded in 1937 by John C.B. Moore and Robert S. Hutchins. Their client was an attorney and law professor named Bertram F. Willcox. Moore and Willcox were friends. The house was designed for weekends in the mild months, spring and fall, and Moore and Hutchins designed another house next door, as a weekend place for Moore and his wife. Because of the friendship, and because Moore's own house was nearby, we've always assumed that Moore was responsible for most of the design, although in truth we know next to nothing of how Moore and Hutchins worked together, and both the Willcox house and the Moore house could have been complete collaborations.

Moore was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1897, and died in Needham, Massachusetts, in 1993 (modernism promotes longevity, Johansen, himself in his 90s, once joked). He graduated from Harvard and got an architecture degree in 1927 from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The Lost Generation and all the modern writers and painters in its circle were flourishing in Paris then (and the Bauhaus school was flourishing in Germany), and it's easy to imagine that a young architect studying there would be influenced by it all.

By the early 1930s Moore was back in America. He helped design a house for the Homes of Tomorrow Exposition at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, an exposition that "demonstrated modern home convenience and creative practical new building materials and techniques." The house Moore worked on was called the Design for Living Home and is shown in the left column of this webpage. A few years later he helped design the Home Building Center at the 1939 World's Fair. He was appointed to the faculty of Columbia's architecture school in 1936 and taught there until 1944. John C. B. Moore, An Architect, 96 – June 25, 1993

(Because it's our guess that Moore designed our house, I've spent more time looking up information about him than about his partner, Robert S. Hutchins, but here's Hutchins's obituary, from the New York Times. Robert S. Hutchins, An Architect, 83, Of Public Buildings – January 1, 1991
)
We're lucky in that many of the buildings deigned by Moore & Hutchins were photographed by the Gottscho-Schleisner photography team – Samuel H. Gottscho and William H. Schleisner – and that the Gottscho-Schleisner collection of 29,000 photos is housed in the Library of Congress and can be found online.

The collection includes dozens of photographs of our house, the house next door, taken in 1940 and 1941, and two houses that Moore & Hutchins designed on Long Island, and scores of photos of the firm's other work, particularly Goucher College, in Towson, Maryland. In 1938, Moore & Hutchins won an international competition to design Goucher's campus. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Here's what the state of Maryland's national register website says about it:

The Towson property was purchased in 1921 and a "by invitation" architectural competition, approved by the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, was held in 1938 for design of the overall campus plan and the library. The entrant list reads as a "who's who" of the architectural world with representatives from the new Modern movement as well as architects with more traditional design philosophies. The winner of the competition, Moore and Hutchins, went on to design more than nine buildings on the campus and played an active role in the master planning for future campus development until about 1956. Their building designs, while modern in philosophy, take cues from the indigenous materials of the area and the vernacular architecture of Maryland. It is to their credit that the buildings designed by Moore and Hutchins remain in use with their original functions and maintain a high level of integrity. As a result, Goucher College is significant for reflecting the architectural merit of the overall campus.

Moore & Hutchins also designed buildings at Princeton, St. Lawrence University, SUNY Binghamton, and Columbia; Fox Lane High School in Bedford (where our daughter is a student and which was completely renovated two years ago) and Highland School and East Hills School, both in Roslyn on Long Island. They also designed an expansion of the New Canaan Library, and the village hall and the firehouse in Garden City, Long Island, the latter of which, to my eye was clearly based on the design of our house.

Our house was 1,865 square feet when built and cost about $8,000. Like Goucher College, the design was "modern in philosophy, [and took] cues from the indigenous materials of the area and the vernacular architecture." It had three small bedrooms – one on the first floor and two upstairs – a screened-in porch on the south end of the first floor, and a partially-covered deck, reachable by an exterior staircase in the front of the house, on the second floor. The outside of the house combined vertical and horizontal clapboard made of red cedar. The living room was dominated by a fireplace made of massive stone slabs and a fieldstone hearth and chimney. The house was barely insulated and had a small heating system in a room on the first floor.

It was innovative enough to be listed, in 1940, in a small, spiral-bound guide to modern architecture in the northeast, published by the Museum of Modern Art.

Willcox didn't own the house for very long. The next owners (I've never bothered to look up their names) removed the first-floor porch and expanded the living room in its place, relocated the exterior stairs and the living room window, dynamited a cellar (the stone is still piled on our property) and put the heating system down there, and expanded the first floor about eight feet to the west, over the new cellar. In notes that I made several years ago, I wrote that the new owners worked with Moore & Hutchins on the changes, but I have no idea now what the source of that information was.

In 1949, Gina's mother and father, Helen and Gene Federico, were living in New Canaan, renting Marcel Breuer's house with Helen's sister Muriel and her husband, Joe Hinerfeld. They were looking to buy land to build on or houses to buy, and to move out of the city. Using the MOMA guide, they looked at the Willcox house. The Hinerfelds decided to buy it; the Federicos bought five acres through the woods and built their own modern house on it.

We moved into the house in the spring of 2000, a couple of years after Joe Hinerfeld died. We added a master bedroom on the second floor and, under it, a play room/family room on the first floor, an addition of about 700 square feet. We converted the original master bedroom, on the first floor, into a mud room and put in a new front door. We also put in a new kitchen, with glass doors that lead to a new deck on the west side of the house, and took down a wall to make the kitchen and dining area one room. In 2009 we replaced the second floor deck and enlarged it slightly. Not including the decks, the house is now about 2,800 square feet, or 1,000 square feet more than the original.

It is not a perfect house but it's a good one. The master bedroom, which Gina designed, is beautifully proportioned and never fails to lower my blood pressure when I enter it. In cold weather, the fireplace makes the living room, dining room and kitchen warm and inviting. In good weather we open the glass doors (also Gina's idea) and the four west-facing double-hung windows, to let the outside in, and the deck outside the kitchen and on the second floor become additional rooms, where we eat, read, nap.

After Joe Hinerfeld died, in 1998, we weren't sure if we wanted to keep the house or sell it. We consulted a local real estate agent, a woman whose ex-husband himself was an architect with a modernist bent. She told us how much she thought we could sell it for, and then she told us that it was without doubt a tear-down. Whoever bought it, she said, would replace it, probably with a faux-Colonial. Needless to say, we're glad we didn't let it go. – TA

Photos
Top: 1940 – 1941 Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, Library of Congress
Bottom: 2005 – 2009 Gina Federico

More cool architecture to rent

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:28:00 +0000

In the same vein as my previous post, this building in the old town of Zug, Switzerland, whose architectural history dates back to the 15th century, has recently been renovated creating 3 distinctly functioning spaces to rent for a gathering or banquet, or for short-term occupancy. Part of the Rough Luxe family of hotels, Vorstadt 14 is where "modern quality complements real history, tradition meets with avant-garde".
"Originally a private residence, the building has been given a new identity which, under the name "Vorstadt 14" combines temporary home style living with vibrant culture. The three units FACE, BRAIN and SOUL, for individual let, all offer an exclusive environment for art and design.

Apart from all the usual advantages you would expect of a modern art/design gallery, our FACE room provides functional and contemporary infrastructure and is ideal for banquets, cocktail parties and other social events.

On the other hand, the business suite, BRAIN – which can be rented for several days or weeks – provides the amenities and comfort of a hotel. If required BRAIN can be combined with a short-term lease of the FACE facility, should you plan a meeting or a banquet.

Finally, the penthouse, SOUL – to be let privately – will also be available for public access on special occasions."

Seen on wonderful Plastolux. – GF

Architecture you can try on for a week or so

ginafed@gmail.com (Gina Federico) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:13:00 +0000

For a long time now, it's been possible to rent a historic building for a vacation or a specific event in the UK through The Landmark Trust, which aims to preserve the buildings by putting the rental proceeds toward their upkeep. They hope to promote enjoyment of historic buildings by enabling as many people as possible to experience living in them for a short time.

The people who created Living Architecture felt similarly, and that creative, Modern-influenced architecture in Great Britain was either experienced in a transitional, passing-through sort of way, or was privately owned by only a very few, inaccessible to the public.

They say about themselves: "The inspiration for Living Architecture came from a desire for people to be able to experience what it is like to live, eat and sleep in a space designed by an outstanding architectural practice.

Living Architecture has asked a series of established and emerging world-class architects to build houses around the UK. The houses will be available to rent for holidays by the general public"
The houses all seem to still be under construction, but you can follow their progress at Living Architecture's blog. Houses are expected to be available for holiday rentals in the spring of 2010. – GF

A Fire House That Stands Out in a Dreary Streetscape

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:41:00 +0000

This isn't a modern house, it's a modern fire house, and I include it here for no better reason than I like it, I knew I was going to be passing it yesterday so I brought a camera with me, and there's a description of it in Frank Sanchis's book, American Architecture, Westchester County, New York:

The cubistic forms of the 1950s appear in Mount Kisco's Independent Fire Company .... The Mount Kisco building, designed in 1955 by Howard Battin, combines steel framing and brick bearing walls for its structure, but is faced on the street elevation with stucco, smoothly finished and scored in square blocks. The simple, rectanglar block of the main mass of the flat-roofed building is relieved by the extension of a square block that overhangs the entrance to the office part of the structure, on the right-hand side of the elevation. The thinness of the flat roof edges extended beyond the face of the walls is another feature evocative of the fifties.

The fire house is at 322 Lexington Avenue, maybe a mile from downtown Mount Kisco, and in a part of town that's far from beautiful, which is why I've always liked it. As you're driving along the dreary village street, it's a surprise -- sharp, almost shiny, different and at least interesting enough to bring a smile.

Battin, who the Times described in his 1976 obituary as "a leading Westchester architect," designed the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. -- ta

Malcolm Wells, Clarified

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Andersen + Gina Federico) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Malcolm Wells's son wrote to me late last night and said that the house pictured in the post just below this was Wells's own house, on Cape Cod, "and not a house in New Canaan."

I certainly didn't mean to give the impression that the house in the picture was in New Canaan, and if because of sloppy writing I did give that impression, my apologies. -- ta