The home tour is this (gulp) Saturday, and we've been getting ready. Spent about six hours on Sunday upgrading downstairs switches and plugs (swank, baby, swank) and hanging art, mostly upstairs (the piece above is by our friend, Jennifer Balkan). The bride worked on the yard (she's bagged over 50 bags of leaves; it's become an obsession). I did a little touchup painting this early evening. We'll have some last minute tidying up to do on Friday and early Saturday morning before the show, but we're pretty much there!
There was an article about the tour in last weekend's paper, which is good advertising for the tour this weekend and modernism in general, but several statements in the article rankled my delicate cockles.
The article focuses on one of the houses on the tour, a fabulous modern rehab of a 1950s ranch. A couple sentences are particularly irritating.
"Travis Young...came up with a modern yet livable home..."
What's that? Modern yet livable? Did someone really write that?
I know, I know: Most people assume Modern is not livable because (1) it has a lot of windows and (2) there's not a nasty pile of magazines and cat vomit sitting the middle of the living room. That statement contradicts itself because the whole premise of Modern is livability and adjusting design and building norms to reflect the living styles of the day. Sigh...
Here's another one:
"Young sees the home as modern in its approach without foregoing the warmth of wood, brick and views of greenery."
O jeez, where to begin, where to begin... I sure hope Mr. Young didn't say that (and I'm almost sure he didn't; he doesn't seem like that sort of chap...). Being Modern doesn't mean you forego wood and brick (see "honesty in materials" in countless Modern manifestos), but the "views of greenery" comment made me spit up coffee onto my cold, gray floors. Modern means you can't even have a view of greenery outside your windows? No one told me that. Where's the Agent Orange!!!!!!
Wished the American-Statesman had a real architectural writer...
That's insane! I own a Roland Roessner designed home (1968) and both living rooms have walls of glass that look out into the beautiful woods and "greenery" behind the house. That's gonna be a real chore to rip all of it out! -Shine
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