Saw this today on PrairieMod, and thought it was worth sharing here:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... 1109385563
Enjoy.
Off Topic But Worth A Look
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Wrightgeek
- Posts: 1548
- Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:21 pm
- Location: Westerville, Ohio
The definition of "cantilevered" seems at risk, doesn't it.
Wish there was a site plan. I'd like to know how the two structures relate to each other. In the movie, I don't recall seeing house and garage separately
-- but my memory for such things is highly fallible. Or maybe they just weren't shown ?
SDR
Wish there was a site plan. I'd like to know how the two structures relate to each other. In the movie, I don't recall seeing house and garage separately
-- but my memory for such things is highly fallible. Or maybe they just weren't shown ?
SDR
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Wrightgeek
- Posts: 1548
- Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:21 pm
- Location: Westerville, Ohio
peterm-
That is a great question and a great insight into one of the most significant differences between the Usonians of FLW and MCM homes. While I love both, one can often be a fishbowl, whereas the other has a sense of shelter, warmth and discovery, and at the same time engages its surroundings.
Thanks for helping me to have a revelation today.
That is a great question and a great insight into one of the most significant differences between the Usonians of FLW and MCM homes. While I love both, one can often be a fishbowl, whereas the other has a sense of shelter, warmth and discovery, and at the same time engages its surroundings.
Thanks for helping me to have a revelation today.
Last edited by Wrightgeek on Thu May 28, 2009 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Good questions. I have been known to opine that someone, in the first century of architecture's rebirth, had to explore this sort of heroic tectonic
minimalism -- just as painting needed its abstract expressionists, and music its ditto -- but of course there is the question of this architecture's inhability
[the word, surprisingly, means the opposite of one's expectation, and is thus even more appropriate ?).
That Mies, and his followers, had to wait until half the century had passed before this work could be built at residential scale, is another matter, perhaps ?
SDR
minimalism -- just as painting needed its abstract expressionists, and music its ditto -- but of course there is the question of this architecture's inhability
[the word, surprisingly, means the opposite of one's expectation, and is thus even more appropriate ?).
That Mies, and his followers, had to wait until half the century had passed before this work could be built at residential scale, is another matter, perhaps ?
SDR
Despite their simplicity and clarity, Miesian houses have a bold presence on the landscape due to their almost alien perfection and uncomprimising boxy geometry. I suspect the perception on the interior is the opposite...because of their total transparency and scant visual anchoring elements, the Miesian architecture melts away and all the occupant is left with is the surrounding environment with little sense of shelter.
Philip Johnson humanized his Glass House by firmly anchoring it to the landscape with the on grade brick floor mat and the cylindrical brick service core.
Other interesting comparisons to a Miesian glass box would be the organic glass structures: Lloyd Wright's Wayfarers Chapel, and Fay Jones' Thorncrown Chapel. Both are almost entirely glass, yet both provide a sense of shelter, rootedness, and mystery.
Philip Johnson humanized his Glass House by firmly anchoring it to the landscape with the on grade brick floor mat and the cylindrical brick service core.
Other interesting comparisons to a Miesian glass box would be the organic glass structures: Lloyd Wright's Wayfarers Chapel, and Fay Jones' Thorncrown Chapel. Both are almost entirely glass, yet both provide a sense of shelter, rootedness, and mystery.
It's a bit of comfort to see some wood-clad ceilings, here -- though that apparently isn't universal throughout the structure(s). Organic architect
Laurie Virr reports that, following an early use of wood ceilings, he has reverted to plaster -- because the wood reflects light in a disadvantageous
way.
SDR
Laurie Virr reports that, following an early use of wood ceilings, he has reverted to plaster -- because the wood reflects light in a disadvantageous
way.
SDR
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Roderick Grant
- Posts: 11815
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:48 am
SDR, that the house in "Ferris" did not look exactly like this one is not surprising; what would be surprising is if Hollywood made a movie entirely at one site. The interiors might have been done at one house, exteriors at another, such as was the case with Ennis in "House On Haunted Hill" and "Female." It would be fun to make a movie that takes place in a single neighborhood in which a character leaves his house (Coonley), walks next door to his neighbor's house (Barnsdall) then down the street to another neighbor (Fallingwater), all set in the same suburb, Levittown. An inside joke for the lot of us.
There are some very interesting discussions around Mies and Wright's interpretation of modern architecture. There are even more about the failure of Mies' interpretation. Coincidentally, I am reading a text on exactly this subject for an exam on Tuesday as part of my architectual degree.
The advent of modern architecture (in condensed form) seems to have failed on the premise of universality and the perception of people as ants and buildings as machines. Although initially favoured over Wright's theories and seen as the pinacle of the age of Science and Reason -- the solution to all of life's problems! -- the modern buildings and cities built expected a formulaic response to work in all circumstances, instead they created completely inhabitable, mechanistic environments (beautiful ones, in many cases, however). The collosal failure of Pruitt-Ingoe (look it up) was the death of the entire modern architecture movement (organic and usonian included, in favour of suburbia) for a good 20 years until we saw the re-birth of Wright and others in the 1990's.
On this premise (although speculating, and getting back to the point), I tend to agree with DRN that the architecture melts away and there is less surprise than in Wright's buildings. Wright's philosophy centred on and responded to the individual, to the site, so there is always something to see or find or experience as a different individual entering the space. We each have a different experience as a result. Miesian buildings, on the other hand, are formulaic and based on science & math. After you've solved the equation, there is your answer. Nothing more. For what they have in clean-lined good looks, for me, they lack in substance.
[Note: I've packaged 100 years of architectural history into 2 paragraphs. I am clearly skipping pieces of the argument. I also happen to like Miesian buildings, but find they have much less substance than Wright.]
The advent of modern architecture (in condensed form) seems to have failed on the premise of universality and the perception of people as ants and buildings as machines. Although initially favoured over Wright's theories and seen as the pinacle of the age of Science and Reason -- the solution to all of life's problems! -- the modern buildings and cities built expected a formulaic response to work in all circumstances, instead they created completely inhabitable, mechanistic environments (beautiful ones, in many cases, however). The collosal failure of Pruitt-Ingoe (look it up) was the death of the entire modern architecture movement (organic and usonian included, in favour of suburbia) for a good 20 years until we saw the re-birth of Wright and others in the 1990's.
On this premise (although speculating, and getting back to the point), I tend to agree with DRN that the architecture melts away and there is less surprise than in Wright's buildings. Wright's philosophy centred on and responded to the individual, to the site, so there is always something to see or find or experience as a different individual entering the space. We each have a different experience as a result. Miesian buildings, on the other hand, are formulaic and based on science & math. After you've solved the equation, there is your answer. Nothing more. For what they have in clean-lined good looks, for me, they lack in substance.
[Note: I've packaged 100 years of architectural history into 2 paragraphs. I am clearly skipping pieces of the argument. I also happen to like Miesian buildings, but find they have much less substance than Wright.]
Morgan
If you're doing an exam, be sure to spell it Pruitt-Igoe. Congratulations on your studies.
I have felt that a little too much is made of that one example --- perhaps because the intentional destruction of a physically sound building, well short
of its expected life-cycle, is such a dramatic and unusual event (or was before that time, anyway). I am surprised to hear that the whole of modern
architecture was set back by that one decision, although it clearly marked a change in the understanding of effective public housing design.
The meaning and significance of some historic events seems to grow ever greater with the passage of time, I think -- just as it does with greater distance.
SDR
I have felt that a little too much is made of that one example --- perhaps because the intentional destruction of a physically sound building, well short
of its expected life-cycle, is such a dramatic and unusual event (or was before that time, anyway). I am surprised to hear that the whole of modern
architecture was set back by that one decision, although it clearly marked a change in the understanding of effective public housing design.
The meaning and significance of some historic events seems to grow ever greater with the passage of time, I think -- just as it does with greater distance.
SDR
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Roderick Grant
- Posts: 11815
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:48 am
The sole gift of Yamasaki's Pruitt-Igoe (LBJ's principal accomplishment in his "War on Poverty") was a series of scenes of its implosion used in the film "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1982. P-I had a rough go from the beginning; architects were belittling it before it was built. But as SDR suggests, its failure had more to do with the model for public housing than the demise of modern architecture. The Portland Building by Michael Graves sounded the death knell of the Miesian Mode, even though Graves' post-modernism wasn't a smash hit, either. More proof that one model cannot be a template for all architectural solutions is in the residential buildings Corbu designed at Chandigarh, which completely ignored Indian culture and climate (temperatures topped 140 F inside the units), and Neimeyer's designs for Brazilia, which similarly paid little heed to the realities of living in the Amazon jungle.