we dream of neoplastic trees

We have a few calls out for landscape architects (with few calls back; hmmm...). Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about what we would like for the hardscape part of the landscape. Given the walls (the privacy wall out front, the art wall inside, the inset wall on the front, and the north wall that extends to the outdoors), I’m thinking walls should be a theme of sorts for the landscape.

The walls described above remind me, however loosely, of the site plan for the brick country house Mies van der Rohe designed in 1924. This design is iconic in architectural circles because the plan, in and of itself, is a work of abstract art. The walls are ”exploded” in the sense they don’t connect to define space. Long walls drift away from the house giving the plan a sense of infinity.

o Mies, you so neoplastic!

Those that know a hell of a lot more than I do suggest that Mies’s brick country house was strongly influenced by the Dutch art movement call de Stijl (pronounced duh stile [which sounds like something Snookie would say…]), which means ”The Style” (and is also referred to as ”neoplasticism”). The de Stiljers, active between 1917 and 1931, liked to reduce reality to abstract representations of (often) unconnected vertical and horizontal lines, rectangles and squares, and primary and non (black, gray, and white) colors. The painter Piet Mondrian (color blocking!) is probably the most famous neoplasticist (who later had a falling out with another founder of de Stijl [Theo van Doesburg] over the use of diagonal lines).

Mondrian. Neoplasticist. "Composition with Yellow" (1930)

Doesburg's version of neoplasticism: "Russian Dancing" (1918)

In 1924 Doesburg went diagonal (Elementarism). Mondrian was not amused. 

The movement included several architects, including Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van't Hoff, and J.J.P. Oud. Rietvold used de Stijl principles to build the famous Rietveld Schröder House between 1923 and 1924 (apparently the only house to employ all of de Stijl principles in structure).

Rietveld Schröder House

 Mies continued to be influenced by neoplasticism, clearly evident at the Barcelona Pavilion.

Paper or neoplastic?

So how does this fit with our house? Again, think of those walls (but let’s forget about that primary color bidness...). I’m thinking of adding more disconnected walls following the grid of the house to define yard space. I’m thinking about a shorter one at the head of the parking spot that doesn’t start exactly at the corner (to keep it conceptually and visually separated from the plane of the drive [and to keep the bride from taking it out when backing out from the carport...]) that extends out from the end of the paved parking spot. Another, even shorter one, could be oriented east-west, lined up with the first story-window in the second story volume.

In the rear of the property, walls could be placed to provide security, privacy, sound isolation, and circulation (pathways and where to go) and define space.

Below is what I’ve come up with (cost considerations cast aside for the moment: Solid walls are expensive!) with a (gentle) deconstruction (with selected house walls). 

Now to find a neoplastic landscape architect!

Bonus blog post! Mondrian’s tenets of neoplasticism

- Coloration must be in the primary colors of red, blue and yellow or the noncolors of black, gray and white.

- Surfaces must rectangular planes or prisms.

- Aesthetic balance must be achieved and this is done through the use of opposition.

- Compositional elements must be straight lines or rectangular areas.

- Symmetry is to be avoided.

- Balance and rhythm are enhanced by relationships of proportion and location.

Bonus deep thought about neoplasticism! 

If the kids down the block form a band heavily influence by the Plasmatics, are they neoPlasmatics?

concept to reality

A little side thing I find fascinating (and frustrating) from the car world is the move from concept to production. I see a lot of concept cars and yelp "OMG, that so hawt!!!" only to see the production version years later and whimper "Yawn." For example, consider the Chevy Volt:

"OMG, that's so hawt!!!"

"Yawn."

Perhaps it's the power of initial suggestion (some studies suggest your first idea is indeed your best), but initial designs seem so much better before the reality of regulation, production, economics, and fear of the dreaded lack-of-visibility criticism from Consumer Reports changes the design. But truth be told, I still drool static electricity when a production version of the Volt hums by. In some ways it's better; in other ways it's not. But you would never guess that the bottom photo started out as the top photo.

I only mention this because the facade of the house has changed subtly as the design has developed from concept to the current realization. Let's revisit:

Concept.

Current realization.

Let me stress (and double stress) that neither design is a yawner (I hesitated to include that auto analogy above lest anyone's feelings get hurt even though we currently have an unofficial don't-ask-don't-tell policy with the architects about this blog...). The current realization is pretty darn close to the concept, so we can't hoot and holler too much. But there are some details we miss from the original concept. 

One thing we miss are the dimensions of the privacy wall in front of the front door. If you recall, the wall disappeared in one realization and then re-appeared, but with different dimensions (a wee bit taller and not as long), after we requested it back. To our eyes, the wall looks better with its original dimensions, echoing the tan inset on the house and the "Usonian wing" of the house. Perhaps the architects are echoing the "International Style" wing of the house as a transition? Don't know.

Something I miss (here is where the bride and I diverge; I'm much more fixated on this stuff than she is) is the regularity of the panels on the tan inset, how they echo the window spacing and are all "full size". The concept has the luxury of not considering frame thickness (it's the thickness of a line!), so perhaps that's the reason the windows no longer line up with the panels. It might  also be a cost issue: Limestone panels cut that long cost more?  Hmmmm and double-hmmmm. The longer panels accent the horizontality better. And I like them horizontals.

The other thing I miss are the larger aspect ratios (length to height) of the windows above the tan inset. They are a wee bit taller in the current realization than they are in the concept (or at least appear to be). The taller height steals some of the horizontality (I've got the horizontals bad; I keep waiting for the architects to force feed me some Pepto Vertical...). This may have been done to line up the windows with the windows over the door. But it makes the facade look a little bug-eyed to me, especially compared with the concept.

Another thing I miss is a subtle thing: The cantilever of the northern wall toward the front. This very well might have been an oversight when the architects put the concept together, but I thought it was a cool detail. Looking at the loading and whatnot, that would not be an easy thing to build, I reckon, perhaps requiring some structural steel. And that all adds cost (darn you, cool stuff!!!). 

And finally, I kinda miss those stickie-outie structural doodads on the ceiling of the carport (if you look closely, they are integrated across the clerestory windows and entry; probably assumed to be metal and, in good Miesian fashion, exposed). Nonetheless, if they are not needed structurally, they do not need to be there (A moment of silence please for the stickie-outie structural doodads...        Thank you.). [I just noticed that the sticky-outie things are on the top side of the roof now, but the western one {the one closer to you} is not over the window but closer to you, probably to support the overhang in that direction.]

One change we like is that the architects stepped out the tan inset for built-in shelves (a place for the electric fan collection?). 

And although aesthetically the house is prolly better without it, we like that there's now a window in the  powder room. Function over form, my friends!

We went ahead and asked the architects about the above stuff (except for the sticky-outie things; we've made peace with the stickie-outie things). We debated whether or not to ask, but thought: What the hey! Rather ask now than regret not asking later, even if we're drooling static electricity.

A little more about them sticky-outie things:

Here they are on the profile view looking south. One is lined up with the windows on the eastern side and one is on the western side, not lined up with the windows. 

I'm guessing that the stickie-outie things are structural because the overhang in the western direction in somewhat large (like 8 feet large). I reckon that the placement of this sticky-outie thing also has something to do with the removal of the cantilevered wall, but perhaps from the structural support out it could be cantilevered (although that appears to be 5 feet--quite a distance!).

And one more thing...

That blade of grass looks out of place! What the!?!?!??!!?

if the glove fits...

Took advantage of daylight savings time to (a) feed the worms and (b) set some flags for the footprint of the house on the lot. Have to say we are diggin’ the print. There’s a lot of yard to love: Public (up-front), guestic (in the middle), and private (in the back) (I made up that word “guestic” to mean semi-private, for the guests. Ha! And in case you are wondering, them worms are doing great! The warm winter has ‘em active [and hungry] early!).

One thing we learned from staking out the first house is that it’s darn hard to get a sense of the size of the rooms from stakes in the dirt. So here’s a tip: Compare the size of the rooms in your plan to the size of the rooms you are currently living in. That puts things into perspective real quick (and how we’ve been assessing room dimensions). Use the staking to get a sense for the size of the outdoor spaces.

The stakes are low at this point (lots of bending over), so don’t worry.

haiku for the book “Gropius” by Gilbert Lupfer and Paul Sigel

up from the Homeland

couldn’t draw worth a do-dang

but dude had vision…

Gropius was one of the original Modern mavens alongside Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Even though he couldn’t draw worth a hoot, he became an architect and worked for the proto-modernist, Peter Behren (many of the early modernists [Le Corbusier and Mies] passed through Behren’s shop).

Gropius was there when Behren designed his most famous structure, the AEG Turbine Factory, in 1910. The Factory used iron and glass to create an open, airy atmosphere for workers and assembly. Despite the structure being held up by iron beams, Behrens still felt the need to “ground” the building with thick and heavy but non-supporting pillars at the corners. Gropius thought this was not “authentic” and that the building had been “aesthetically manipulated”.

Peter Behren's AEG Turbine Factory (1910).

 Note thick chunky corners not 

needed to support the building.

Gropius, along with Adolph Meyer, was able to forge his own path in 1911 with the design of buildings at the Fagus (shoe) Factory, a commission that would last until 1925. With the Fagus Factory, Gropius and Meyer were the first to use structure, reinforced concrete in this case, to liberate the outside walls from structural constraints, either real or imagined. They invented the curtain wall (a non-structural wall of windows) and the glass corner (an architectural jab-in-the-eye of Behren’s unnecessary beefy corners). In 1913, Gropius published an influential article titled “The Development of Industrial Buildings” which included photos of factories and grain elevators in the United States (something that later influenced Le Corbusier and Mendelsohn).

Gropius's response to the same problem (1911): 

Glass corners (and a poke in the eye!).

Gropius continued his experiments in structure-free shells with the design and construction of the Model Factory at the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne in 1914. With this building he perfected the curtain wall and also showed the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio, published in Germany in 1910.

Gropius's Model Factory (1914)

Between 1914 and 1918, World War I put a stop to most construction. While this was unfortunate, it was a time for many architects to pause and think about the big picture and how architecture fit into it. Based on those reflections, Gropius started the Bauhaus in 1919 with the manifesto that "The final product of all artistic endeavor is the building."

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gropius wasn’t political; however, he made a fateful decision in 1920 to design a memorial to honor the workers who lost their lives in the Kapp Putsch, an attempt by right-wing conservatives (proto-Nazis) to overthrow the democratic government. Bauhaus's association with the monument came back to haunt him and Bauhaus later when the National Socialists came back into power in 1933 and destroyed the monument and shut down Bauhaus.

Memorial (1920)

In 1922, the big architectural “contest” was the design for the Chicago Tribune tower. Chicago was world famous for architecture at that time because of the skyscrapers of Louis Sullivan and the Prairie School of Frank Lloyd Wright. Although a somewhat uninspired (but ultimately beautiful) gothic design was ultimately chosen, Gropius’s Modern design introduced him to a broader swath of the United States.

Chicago Tribune proposal (1922)

By 1924, Gropius had embraced “White Modernism” with the Auerbach House in Jena, Germany. He then set forth in 1925 to 1926 designing and building for the new Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, including the houses for the masters (teachers), dormitories for the students, and teaching buildings for the school, all in white.

Bauhaus school buildings in Dessau.

Master's house at the Bauhaus in Dessau. 

Auerbach House.

When the National Socialists took power in January 1933, they required architects to register with the government with the end goal of having architecture defined by the German state. Gropius tried to make the argument to authorities that Modernism was a good fit for Germany because it was guided by rationalism (that is, function over form). However, the Reich Chamber of Culture, under the boot heel of Joseph Goebbels, found its architectural home in Roman revivalism fused with Art Deco (sometimes called “Severe Deco”). With his architectural freedom taken, Gropius moved to England in 1934 with the goal, not realized, of setting up a new Bauhaus. In 1937, Gropius moved to the United States to be a professor of architecture at Harvard, becoming the chair the following year until his retirement in 1952.

Gropius never quite found his mojo again after leaving Germany, but the house he designed and built for himself in 1938 in Massachusetts showed how the International Style aptly conveyed to building techniques (wood frame) in the United States.

The Gropius crib in Massachusetts (1938).

This is another one of those fabulous architect books by Taschen I’m currently addicted to. A great introduction to a great architect with lots of great photos.

Side note: Gropius is also famous for designing an icon of Modern doorware, the lever handle:

That's purdy!

Side-side note: Check out the submission (below) Adolf Loos had for the Chicago Tribune building. Dude was post-Modern before po-Mo was (un)cool!

Loos: Why you so wacky?

color coordinated

One of the items on our todo list is to consider the colors of the house. At present our default is white, aluminum, and raw wood. This is somewhat comical because white is associated with a fear of color, and we are not fearful of color. We painted our previous house light purple, neonish green, bright yellow, titanium white, dark purple, and caution tape orange. With a wee bit of red. And blue. Baby blue. Needless to say the neighbor was not happy with these color choices (which surprised us since her house was painted the color of a circus peanut with bright green trim; fortunately, she eventually learned to accept our colors). But color is hard. And despite the menagerie of colors we used on our previous home, we’re looking for something quieter this time around.

We’re both into cars (me more than she). When a new car comes out that we’re fond of, we’ll debate what the perfect color is for said car. And there tends to be a certain color that makes a certain car pop. It might be red on this car, light blue on that one, and army green on the next one. And you don’t know what the perfect color is until you see it. That color, whatever it is, just seems to work with that car, complementing and amplifying the design.

The same thing is true of houses, which is why architects prefer to choose the colors. To many (most? all?) architects, color is a design choice intimate with architecture. Most, if not all, of the original Modern masters chose the colors of their houses, inside and out. Frank Lloyd Wright even designed clothes for his first wife to complement his architecture (unclear if his later, more spirited, wives allowed him to do this to them…).

One of the surprises we had with first designing a house was this color issue, and it was a constant point of contention with Architect 1.0. Therefore, when we searched for a new architect, we were clear that we wanted colors from the cool side of the spectrum (with a slight opening for orange, light blue, and black) so an architect could turn us away if that was against his design morals or consider the color preferences up front as part of the design work. Unfortunately for the architects, we have strong opinions on color. Fortunately, my bride and I are (mostly) on the same page (if not, that’s why God invented divorce attorneys!).

Why white? Good question. For me, white is calmer and allows other features to step forward. Outside, white focuses attention to volume and turns a building ethereal. Inside, white allows art, furniture, and people to take center stage instead of walls. Painting a blocky building something other than white changes it, by our eyes, from Modern to Contemporary, and we do not like contemporary.

To a certain degree, color depends on context. We like the menagerie of color out at Agave, a burb of beautiful blockiness (see the background photo for the blog). But even there, the houses we gravitate to the most are adorned with cold colors and materials.

White is also historically accurate to the Modern movement. In their glee to remove all ornamentation from their structures, the original Modern mavens removed all color and settled on white. Richard Meier, a Modern revivalist that keeps attending the revival, wrote that “White is the ephemeral emblem of perpetual motion. White is always present but never the same, bright and rolling in the day, silver and effervescent under the full moon of New Year’s Eve. Between the seas of consciousness and earth’s vast materiality lies this ever-changing line of white. White is the light, the medium of understanding and transformative power.”

OK, so maybe he had magic mushrooms in him when he wrote that, but you get the gist. Plus, white is all reflective, something that’s important in a climate with a brutal sun. (And the scientist in me wants to note that white is in fact all colors combined, but I’ll resist. You’re welcome.)

So that brings us to our house today. A couple weeks ago we had what was probably from the architects’ perspective a bizarre conversation. It was about color. If you recall, when we settled on Option B, the house had (ahem) color:

Analogous to finding the right color for a car, we won’t know the right color for the house until we see it. For Option B, it had a tannish color (wood? limestone?) in the front inset and green on one of the defined volumes to the right. When we commented on Option B to the architects, we noted that we were endorsing the design of the volumes, not the colors. Colors would come later. Later is now now.

What we tried to explain to the architects was that while we weren’t opposed to color (we like the limestoney inset), the safe default for us was white (or gray). And we definitely didn’t like the green. And we couldn’t tell them what colors we would like until we saw it (although we like metallic colors, but even that’s not a guarantee).

Based on that discussion and an attempt on my part to further explain our color position via email, Architect 2D send us this realization with the side volume in medium gray:

Architect 2D noted that if we were good in Photoshop, we would be able to investigate other colors. Since I’m vaguely talented in Photoshop, that sounded like a grand idea! Color wheel: Look out!

First off, let's "paint" that privacy wall up front white:

It seems to me that darn thing needs to be white. The tan looks strange and seems to detract from the tan on the inset.

Now, let's focus on the volume to the right. Let's try...

Pink! Pink, it seems, is a no go. My bride even got angry at the thought ("What the hell!" she yipped.) She similarly doesn't like this green:

She seems to be generally anti-Easter. Read into that what you will...

So let's try the old stand-by, white:

Which looks OK (worse things have happened), but we understand why the architects want to add some color over yonder. It's a little nondescript. What if the grey was lighter?

That's a possibility... What about the baby blue we like:

This makes the bride grumble about Easter again (and threaten violence). Another possibility is a color to match the limestone:

Not exactly inspired. How about a deeper orange:

hmmmm.... What about steely blue:

Naw....  How about a deeper, more pleasant shade of orange, as if the orange has been...

burnt! It still seems to be missing something...

By jove, this could be it! 

Good thing we're not Red Raiders...