Whitie Ford

On a recent trip to, big surprise, The Gropius House we drove past the Ford House which is nearby. Ford House was built by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in 1938-39 for Katharine and James Ford under an arrangement with the benefactor of the Gropius House itself, Mrs. James Storrow. Gropius and Breuer designed the house for the then Associate Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard and his wife Katherine. The couple would later write a watershed book on moderns, Classic Modern Homes of the Thirties: 64 Designs by Neutra, Gropius, Breuer, Stone and Others (Modern House in America).

The House had always been, so we thought, wood sided and unpainted. On previous visits it was indeed sided with what appeared to be untreated or lightly stained cedar or redwood siding (Gropius used Redwood in his house so this isn't that much of a stretch). This week, a the house was white! White like the Gropius and Breuer Houses nearby. To say we were shocked is an understatement. Was the current owner defacing the historic structure?

Upon speaking to folks at The Gropius House itself our fears were not at all allayed. They seemed to be slightly perturbed as well.

Well fear not. As you can see in this picture from the North Carolina State University Collection, which appears to have been taken some time in the 1950's or '60's, the house has been white before.

Picture of Ford House from c1950

This leaves the Bogner House across the cul-de-sac as the only natural wood structure on the street. Not a bad thing.

$100 Johnson

If you are like us you love modern. You think that Philip Johnson was a brilliant theoretical architect (and not a bad non-theoretical one too). You want to walk around his compound taking pictures until your poor digital camera starts to emit sad sounds and begins to smoke.

Take Heart.

The Philip Johnson Glass House and The National Trust for Historic Preservation have created a program for modernsist wackos like us. For a donation of $100 you get, according to the folks at The Glass House;

For a $100 per person donation, you get behind the scenes access to the Glass House, Painting Gallery, Sculpture Gallery, Studio Library, Da Monsta and photography privileges. Also receive the Glass House visitor guide, 20% shop discount, donor recognition on our website

Sounds like a great way to see the house surrounded by like-minded folks while helping support the project and the property.

For more information contact the Glass House Visitor Center at 203.594.9884 ext 0

New Look Old Look

Recently you might have noticed that we briefly changed templates (look) here at EmbraceModern and then we changed back.

We did change templates and then after we posted a few things, saw that the stylesheets embedded in the new template where wreaking havoc with our pictures. That's why we went back to the old look.

We are working on a new EmbraceModern, we just have our web design plates full at the moment with other projects.

SP

Scorched Earth by Olympic Torch

It seems that, like the Communist Chinese government before them, that the government of the city of Chicago and its Olympic bid committee are practicing the same scorched earth policy when it comes to “site Prep”.

The Recent Past Preservation Network and The Gropius in Chicago Coalition report that “site prep” has begun at the site of the Walter Gropius designed/influenced Michael Reese Hospital complex. It seems that demolition contracts have already been awarded and that the grounds have been stripped of their Sasaki and Collins designed landscaping.

It would seem that, like the little badge “Flexfuel” on a Chevy Suburban, the Chicago Olympic Committee’s assurances that this would be a “Green” Olympics is just there to gain acceptance of the project by a greater number of the people of Chicago.

In our opinion the only “Green” way to proceed is the adaptive reuse of the complex. It is a little disconcerting to hear that even if Chicago is not awarded the games that the land may be sold off to developers. Maybe Chicago could have a line of phalluses like the on-hold Chicago Spire along the lakeshore? Is Michael Reese doomed because it is low and surrounded by, until the recent stripping, green park-like grounds? It could be that we have entered an era where public architecture is about a city standing up on its feet, thumping its chest and declaring to the world, “Oh yeah! You want soma dis!?”.

Mid century modernism doesn’t do that. That is not what the movement was/is about. That’s why we all need to defend it and save examples of it where ever we can.

Saturday Near The Park With Frank

Today we had the opportunity, daughter away at camp, to go to New York and see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit at The newly expanded and renovated Guggenheim Museum.  FLW was sort of our entry point into modern architechure and we were fans of him before we'd ever heard of Eliot Noyes et al.

To be able to see his drawings and sketches in one of his most iconic structures was an amazing experience.

To some modernists Wright's seemingly endless need for ornamentation makes it possible to dismiss him as a modern architect. Indeed Philip Johnson, who Wright ofetn referred to as "Little Philip" once famously referred to him as "the greatest architect of the 19th century. However the way Wright defined space, the melding of inside and out along with his belief that form does indeed follow function makes him, one of the people who made modernism possible.

You can see, interestingly enough to us anyway, direct correlation between Wright's Solar Hemicyle House (Jacob's House II) and Johnson's Glass House. When I looked at the drawings for Jacobs you can clearly see a house with a lot of glass and a circular brick area housing "private" areas that protrudes through the roof.  Sound familiar? Wright's house was built in 1944 and Johnson began schematic diagrams for the Glass House in 1945.

You can see many such connections throughout the exhibit. To help us understand how Wright's designs worked, The Guggenheim has added animations and models, six done by SITU Studios on New York, and they are fantastic. We plan on going at least one more time you should too.

www.guggenheim.org

Now, some random pictures of the museum taken today. Did FLW like circles? You decide.