"Architecture means....."

Architecture is what we work towards making everyday at adaptdesign. Today I would like to consider the big picture of what is architecture?  Below are a series of architecture quotes that offer a opinions of what architects do?

"Architecture is not a goal...Architecture is for life and pleasure and work and for people. The picture frame, not the picture."  William Wurster

William Wurster’s quote is one of my favorites because it gets to the heart of what architecture is: People and the relationships that shaping places for them to live have on them.   It is a quote that is specific, yet it allows you to dream, explore and listen to a client to shape for them a home or office that supports what they do. We could go into the details but let’s consider a few of other quotes as examples of the profession.  Think about them as you visit buildings, or design a building. How can thinking in the big picture help you understand the assembly of the details.

“Architecture is the marriage of place and occasion.”  Aldo van Eyck

“Architecture has always been as much about the event that takes place in a space as about the space itself.” Bernard Tschumi

“The house does not frame the view: it projects the beholder into it. “ Harwell Hamilton Harris

“Architecture at its best deals with the nature of people, the nature of places — whether they are in the natural world or people’s homes or places where they work. And it deals with the nature of materials, which is really fascinating.” Peter Bohlin

“By the use of raw materials and starting from conditions more or less utilitarian, you have established certain relationships which have aroused my emotions. This is architecture.”  Le Corbusier

“Architecture is a continuing dialogue between generations which creates an environment across time.”  Vincent Scully

 

Please submit your favorite quote of what a definition of architecture is below.  We would enjoy hearing what your favorite definitions are.

The House for to Craftspeople

 

Architecture in New England is - thanks to pioneers of the modern architecture- more than the traditional colonial and historic house types. Last Spring I was lucky enough to visit a wonderful modern house by New Hampshire architect David Campbell (1908-1963).



Soaring roof line of main house (author photo)

 

The house, still in private hands, was designed (1949) for and constructed with help by Edwin and Mary Scheier, pottery artists and teachers at the University of New Hampshire.  Using the slope of the site and orienting the form to best advantage or our climate; transformed this small site into a dynamic experience of grounded planar forms and soaring shed roofs that intersect at the studio to become a butterfly roof.

The house melds seamlessly into its surroundings where driveway leads a visitor to the front door protected by the garage and discovered by a simple linear overhead elements that leads to a foyer and a series of stepped platforms that rise up to the living room, with angled roof and glass wall revealing an overlook upon a landscaped hillside and small stream. The Living and dining space are divided by a sculptural fireplace- suggestive of Breuer’s well know fireplaces. Beyond the dining area is the kitchen and a door that leads to a screen porch under the shed roof with a forward angled wall gesturing to the landscape below.

 

                                            View From Road (author photo)

 While living space occupy the top floor, the foyer level takes one to the studio room and garage or down to the ground floor holds the bedroom areas that open onto a terrace with in place Scheier pottery pieces- an integration of architecture and art. The materials are simple vertical siding, metal glass windows and a clever use of scale and low budget detailing suggesting the depth of Campbell’s knowledge of contemporary architecture.

Campbell's output has been compared to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. While some of his central New Hampshire homes that were open during a League of New Hampshire Craftsman celebration may exhibit and passing Wrightian interest; another stronger influence appears to my eye.   Both this house has a sister house in Henniker New Hampshire called the Peter Dooley house (1950) have a strong link in style to Marcel Breuer. I visited this other home in 2005 and was impressed with the same thoughtful use of materials and form that created this modern house with a practical bent. This makes sense as Campbell studied at Harvard in the late thirties when Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and Breuer were both teaching and working together in Lincoln Massachusetts and surrounding Boston area towns.

Period photo of Dooley house (NH state Preservation blog)

 

Campbell was the director of the New Hampshire Craftsman Guild from 1938-1962 and played an important role in attracting and bringing crafts people like the Scheier’ s to New Hampshire to live and work. Campbell left in the early Sixties to design the new home of and direct the American Crafts Council in New York City. Much is yet to be discovered about this unique architect and his houses tucked away in the back roads and town of New Hampshire, perhaps beyond.

So be aware as you drive around the back roads of New Hampshire, you might discover the unexpected and learn some valuable lessons about modern design for the New England Climate. I know I am always looking for interesting houses to visit. Please share your favorites?

Holiday Read

Over the Holiday Break I read the latest by Howard Mansfield titled Dwelling in Possibility: searching for the soul of shelter.  This book is a series of informal inquiries on the subject of shelter. He writes about both the lighthearted, with a discussion on house hunting, and the serious, with a discussion on war and the destruction of home. The majority of the book is a lively tome on how living and shelter have changed and what philosophy and common sense can teach us about recovering the art of dwelling. While house hunting stops to consider this question: “We have shelter from the rain and snow, but our houses aren’t sheltering our souls.”  Is this a common idea not spoken about?

 Is this idea of the inspiring home and being ordinary an untapped important idea as we consider how best to design and live in our places of dwelling? He quotes the southern architect Samuel Mockbee as an example of a definition of this older idea of dwelling. ” Everyone rich or poor, serves a shelter for the poor.” Should our homes inspire us or at least be a place we want to be?  Think of characteristics of where you live versus places you like in magazines or from visiting others homes. Do you think we should expect more from the houses we buy?  Mansfield writes, “If the house is diminished, then we are diminished.” Do you think this is true? Do our houses express who we are or do we become expressions our homes?

An interesting sub theme is this ideas of complete versus incomplete.  He tells some stories on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Zimmerman house and concludes by asking is a complete house a good house or does a home need to be incomplete?  He steps it up a scale when he talks about the debates that occur in his town zoning meetings over the way the town looks, should it be formal or left informal?  These stories reflect a difference in scale around a level of involvement as to how much time we care to spend concerning ourselves with how things look.

 Mansfield then presents us with short introductions to three philosophers who have three differing ideas of home or dwelling.  One looked for the meaning of words, one for silence and the other for dreaming. This discussion leads you to uncover what definition works for your version of house. The questions you might consider:  Why does dwelling as a word reflects a deeper meaning for describing a house or at least a place of gathering for life?  One might conclude that we use our words as uniformity or casualness, as the sameness of our homes today?

Consider this last idea, of uniformity or variety. What do houses have to be? What is an ordinary house? Is it traditional or is it modern?  Why does our built environment feel so banal or nondescript? Why do older houses hold our interest for the way you look? Consider as you read this book how ideas and built forms are various and different like how a summer house used to be from you primary residence. Think of the vernacular building of our rural past, like sheds or saunas that we now can purchase as ready-made kits. Does the convenience of everyone having the same trump the individuality for how each area of a state or region might have differed from the other?

In exchanging individual expression of our personality have we lost interest in the distinctness of our built landscape? The only thing that would have made the book more interesting would be able to sit across from the author and argue or discuss the idea within – the book can help you begin your own.