squalling over the squall

About 10ish last night, a heck of a squall line squalled through the area. Hail, sudden straight-line winds, horizontal rain. After the excitement passed, I wandered about in the back yard in the dark to see if there was any damage (I've been leery of the neighbors' dying pecan tree hanging over our house...), and sure enough, a giant limb was resting on the roof with several large-size limb bits scattered about the ground and on the fence. After running upstairs to check for damage (and not finding any), I was good morning'd with the above. 

After crawling up a ladder, I found a fist sized hole knocked into the roof. The entire weight of the branch is resting on that tree-fist. The neighbor speculated about where to cut the limb to bring it down, but with his electric line underneath and the promise of more damage to our house, methinks a professional is in order.

It's amazing there wasn't more damage. Windows could have been knocked out (I don't think it will be easy to replace the solid panes in our house...), gutters down, more holes, structural damage. But there are more branches up there, waiting for us...

Our home wasn't the only one affected...

dancing with architecture: Bartlesville, Oklahoma (with a side of Dewey)

I found myself at a water meeting in Tulsa last week (expect a post soon on Tulsa...), so after we finished the meeting around noon, I hightailed it an hour north to Bartlesville to tour Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower and to street gawk at some Bruce Goffs in the area.

Price Tower was built between 1952 and 1956, although the design harkens from the late 1920s when Wright originally designed the building for New York City. When Harald Price approached Wright about building a new office building for his pipeline lining company, he expected a low-rise. Instead, he walked out of Wright's office with a skyscraper that Wright dubbed "the tree that escaped the forest".

'Tree' is an appropriate word for the building. This scraper is anchored with a deep taproot foundation, has cantilevered branches (the floors), and has leaves (the green patina'd cooper louvres).  Since a tree looks different from every angle, so does the building, according to Wright.

The building was originally multi-use: businesses on the first floor, offices on the north side, and residences on the south side. Mr. Price occupied the uppermost floor with an office, ample patios, and commanding views.

The place now hosts the Price Tower Arts Center (which currently has a show of Bruff Goff artwork salvaged from one of his buildings), a restaurant/bar, and a hotel (it was unclear what the office space side of the structure is used for...). I partook of the one-hour tour (and was the only attendee!). Sadly, no indoor photos allowed during the tour...

Entry foyer

This used to be the newspaper/cigar shop.

The residential side of the building is marked by vertical louvres

The office side of the building is marked by horizontal louvres. The "patios" (to the right in this photo) actually hold the stairs.

This performance center was designed by Taliesen Architects.

Water-supply humor...

Bruce Goff is a prominent modernist architect that practiced in Oklahoma (more on Goff in an upcoming Tulsa post). After being forced to resign from the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s for being gay, Bruce Goff moved into one of the units at the Price Tower to practice architecture in Bartlesville; therefore, several inventive (some would say wacky) Goff structures exist in the area.

The Redeemer Lutheran Church Educational Building:

Just down the street from the church are two houses designed by Goff. The Harold Jones House

and the Russell Collins House:

A short drive away is the J.R. Alright House:

and the Motsenbacker House:

Goff also designed the Play Tower at Sooner Park (newly restored!):

If you look closely, you can see Price tower in the distance...

And then a wee bit up the road in Dewey is the rather amazing C.A. Comer House:

Thanks to Mid Century Modern's post on Goff in Bartlesville for the tips! After learning that Goff had an office in Bartlesville, I Googled him to see what he was available in the area, and that uber helpful post (with addresses) popped up.

I hope to get back this way soon to stay in the hotel and check out some other Goffs in the area (and to bring the bride, who was bummed I saw this all without her).

building a reproduction of Schindler's Lovell Beach House side table

Last October, a curious thing happened: An original (circa 1922) side table from R.M. Schindler's Lovell Beach House appeared on Ebay. It was far too expensive to tempt temptation, not to mention that it looked like it had re-entered the atmosphere and didn't have papers. But the seller included a great collection of photos of the table from different perspectives. "Hmmmm...." I hmmmed, "That looks buildable."

So I called my friends at Coulbury Design about building a reproduction (if you recall, they also built us a stunning reproduction of Eileen Gray's de Stijl table). Here's the Schindler before sealing:

Wow! I really like how they improvised and put a darker piece of wood in the center to bring out that plane. The 1922 original was made of redwood, but we chose oak for ours (better to match the wood in our house). It goes off to the finisher before it comes home. We'll need to find a good place for it.

introducing.... The R.M. Schindler List

Schindler and his dog Prince, in front of the Kings Road House. A friend left Prince with Schindler to dogsit and then never came back to retrieve him.

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know of my unhealthy man-crush on R.M. Schindler ("It's kinda funny that you are in love with a dead architect," observes the bride from time to time.). I have the house to thank for that.

Before we built, and between the architectural episodes required to design our house, I decided to try to understand architects and Modern architecture better. There were the early infatuations with Le Corbusier (a good rebound relationship), Frank Lloyd Wright (impeccably behaved during the first date; chewing with his mouth open and spitting on the second), and Richard Neutra (a sloppy and unsatisfying one-night stand), but then there was Schindler. Schindler was the real take-him-home-to-show-mama deal.

There's much to like and admire about Schindler. He was truly brilliant and truly ahead of his time. He was also a truly likable guy. Unlike his cohorts, particularly Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra who sought to destroy Schindler for influencing them (and largely succeeded during their lifetimes), Schindler realized architecture was an ongoing dialog and there was no shame in acknowledging the dialog. You didn't reduce your stature by acknowledging your past and contemporary influences; you simply acknowledged reality and continued on with your work. Although Schindler had every right to hate Wright (and to a certain degree did), Schindler continued to acknowledge Wright's brilliance and goals for America throughout his career. It's how an adult behaves.

And then there's his architecture. Daring, sculptural, Modern, and decades ahead of its time. During the 1920s onward, Schindler was a true innovator that provided an undercurrent of influence to Modernism that went unacknowledged until recently. Schindler was disappointed at his general lack of recognition during his lifetime, but at the same time he knew that history would catch up to his work. And so it has. 

I've read a great deal about Schindler and noticed a number of discrepancies that have drifted into the literature. Because of my limited memory (and my predilection for taking notes on damn near everything), I decided to create a new "blog" (a list of facts, really) dedicated to Schindler. The R.M. Schindler List will be a living site intended to act as a reference more than anything, although after I reach a research critical mass, I may blog about what I find (I have a few ideas already...). My intent is to read (and reread) everything I can get my hands on related to Schindler (turns out there's more than I thought) and pull out the relevant bits (by my eyes) to acknowledge on the site.

The site still has a long way to go (so much to still read...), but it's reached a sharable point. 

Enjoy!

gettin' decked

In our master landscaping plan, we have space for a deck/stage in the back yard. I reached out to a couple deck builders to get this done; however, they were not amenable to building anything more than a standard suburban deck.

I didn't think we were asking for too much...

In short, we want a platform deck with Hardie-covered sides such that they evoke the fascia on the house. Nobody wanted to mess with those sides ("You don't want to do that..."). I put the project on the back burner.

Last week at Lowe's I flipped through a Black and Decker project book to see what they had about sheds (stay tuned...) and decided to look at deck instructions. Lo and behold they had plans for a platform deck at just (about) the size we want. I made a mental note about the framing, but frowned at the use of concrete deck blocks instead of piers. I then spent the afternoon doing this and that in the back yard and saw how small our deck/stage is going to be (maybe we don't really need piers...) and the fact that there's pea gravel where we're going to install it (it'll be easy to level those suckers). "Well shucks," I thought to myself. "Maybe deck blocks are the way to go!" And if I don't have to dig holes, why not do it myself!

Weekend project, I know you now.

modern maven: Otto Wagner

Part Wagner in a multi-part series!

Who: Otto Wagner 

What: Protomodernist architect

When: b. 1841 d. 1918

Where: Austria

Why: Visionary drawings of the cities of the future

Wagner was instrumental in the protohistory of Modernism, establishing some of the key concepts, creating a bridge between historicism and Modernism, and inspiring several key Modern architects, including R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra. In the mid-1890s, he was part of the Judendstil movement, the Austrian-German interpretation of Art Nouveau (Judendstil means 'young style' in German). In 1896, he published Modern Architecture, which expressed his ideas about architecture, including the honest use of new materials and new forms to reflect a changing society. He adhered to form following function and built several austere structures, mainly apartment buildings, in Vienna. although his rhetoric expressed stronger ideas than his buildings. He joined the 'Vienna Secession' in 1896. Between 1894 and 1913, he taught architecture at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, inspiring a generation of architects, including Josef Hoffman, R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra.

Majolikahaus (1898-1899)

Kirche am Steinhof (1903-1907)

Austrian Postal Saving Bank (1904-1906)

Austrian Postal Saving Bank (1904-1906)

Austrian Postal Saving Bank (1904-1906)

Neustiftgasse (1909-1912)

Villa Wagner (1912-1913)

The Worst. Shutters. Ever.

And there they are, my friends, there they are.

I first saw them about six months ago as I drove southbound on Interstate 35 making the transition from Farm to Market 2222 to I-35's endless gridlock. I retched a wee bit at first glance, but not enough to interfere with my texting. Several times since then, I've seen 'em and made a mental note to get over there and take a photo. And this past Sunday was that day. I had my camera (and my long-term memory) as I wandered over to see and listen to Honk! in east Austin. The sun was perfectly placed; the sky was blue...

My oh my, what a sight! I've written about shutters before, but these are the Mona Lisas of misplaced window protectors (They also allow me to avoid the awkwardness of posting a neighbor's shutters and running into them at a garage sale: "Martha says you told the world you don't like our shutters.").

How awesome are these shutters?

First, they are inoperable (of course). And even if they were operable, they wouldn't even come close to protecting the vast expanse of glass between them. This is how Garcia Lopez de Cardenas felt when he first saw the gaping maw of the Grand Canyon. How could this be possible?

And then, in a harrowing yet strangely beautiful coup de grace, we notice the length of these babies. It brings tears of joy and sorrow--tears of bitter and sweet--tears of sweet and sour chicken--to my eyes as I peck this post out like a one-legged chicken on blue meth. The lengths carry these beauties from mere architectural incompetence into the vast wasteland of unintentional neoDadaism. I pray that there's video somewhere of the installation. Even better, a recording of the design discussion that led to this landmark.

Sadly, this hotel complex appears ripe for a sale and scrape. Go see it before it's too late.

Art is never forever.