The house at night

While Kathryn Merlino was here we had our first dinner party in the house! Pizza and wine, but hey, it was a hot meal that we heated up in the oven.

I also had a chance to put in some more light bulbs and take a shot of the house from the outside lit up.

Reed and Kathryn and the kids are in the studio downstairs. In this photo the left corner of the house is missing: I would have to stand in the middle of Sheridan Road to get the whole thing.

The Ranch House

On my day of checking 15 coffee table books out of the Wilmette Public Library,  I checked out The Ranch House by Alan Hess. I read a fair amount of it tonight, amazed to see at every turn the houses that populate mile after mile of the Chicagoland suburbs I live in. Gutnayer designed many modern ranch houses in this area and did development projects throughout his career.

The architectural historian who came to look at his work described him as evolving from the avant garde to 'builder vernacular'. After reading this book, I don't see that so much as a derogatory characterization as much as a transformation that affected many architects throughout the country in the 40s and 50s. New technology was employed to make these houses easy to build and affordable, and modules were used to speed construction and preparation of building materials. Hess' book is from 2004, so I am not sure how much the dialogue in architectural history has changed since then, but I have checked out some more recent books to read more about them.

One thing I was looking for in 'The Ranch House' was the ways in which the homes had been remodeled and whether they maintained their historical pedigree, such as it might have been. Many of the ranch houses in this book (mostly examples in California with interior shots) had been remodeled by their owners, with sensitive additions made or simplifications done on the interior.  We are just starting to look at schemes with our architects and I was feeling some remorse about losing some of the interior characteristics of the house. But the more I look at our plans, the more I feel that we will be enhancing the character of the original house. And for many reasons, both budgetary and aesthetic, the outside of the house will not change significantly at all.

More rocket houses on stilts

Here is a the Villa Dall'Ava by the Office of Metropolitain Architecture: OMA. From the front, lots of connections to our house. No pool in our project though...

The home that gets referenced the most frequently is Le Corbusier's Villa Savoie when people see the house from the outside.

I took out a bunch of books from the library, really anything I could carry out on modernism and ranch houses and found these two projects:

The Cates House, by Julian and Barbara Neski

(from weekend utopia by alastair gordon)

And the Eagle House, 1992, by Dirk Alten

(from Modern House by John Welsh)

The architectural term used for the 'stilts' (which comes from Gutnayer's loving description of his own house as a rocket ranch on stilts) is pilotis. I was looking for ribbon windows and pilotis in my search for houses with a similar character to ours. Some have spiral stairs in the plan, and most have roof gardens or roof spaces. I like the delicate railing on the Eagle House quite a bit, and it has a delicate metal stair in front that was added after this sequence with the shutters was taken. The Eagle house was built on top of a villa's garage, so it is supposed to feel like it dropped down on an unlikely base. I find it interesting that the houses have such light ground floor volumes: my instinct is to make the base of our house all the way around darker to accent the light color and significant volume of the top.

I am also getting a book of the work of Marcel Breuer. His houses have a lot of the modernist ranch to them and I look forward to seeing more than I can find on the web.

Gutnayer visits more modernist beauties

Photo of Philip Johnson's Glass House

Under Construction. Id like to learn more about this (subfloor?) construction.

No photos of Gutnayer with Johnson. Perhaps he went and saw this without his knowledge?

We'll never know...

It is worth reading this POV, which I found looking for a reference image for this house. It articulates clearly the dilemmas we face with updating our house. Do we keep the kitchen enclosed? Add a green roof to the roof garden? Open up the space and create better access to the windows (which now are divided by a wall and a bookcase)? We feel if we keep the spirit of our 'rocket ranch house on stilts' alive, we are preserving the house. The exterior will not change much at all. The architect's plan is to clarify the architect's original spatial organization and keep it very apparent in the re-design. But we will be moving elements around and simplifying the palette, which the architect seemed to have built with a combination of materials left over from other jobs. Preservation benefits will likely not be ours since we plan to update and improve the house based on its original design.

Name that project:
this project seems as if it was photographed at the same time as the glass house. 
Is it another building on the same site? Anyone know what it is?
(update 12/02/09: I am pretty sure this is Johnson's other project
in New Canaan, CT, where his Glass House is: it is called the Wiley Speculative House.)

our architects

We did end up finally choosing a wonderful architecture firm: Wilkinson-Blender. We found them on the web via the Chicago AIA sites awards categories. They have done some really wonderful projects and a number of green roofs, which was one of our high priorities at the start of this project. It is still a priority, but the triage repair on this poor house may mean that the true green roof is in phase 2 or 3 of our renovation. Check out their portfolio!

the 40s

So Gutnayer's materials are being sorted for various archives. I love these photos of him visiting significant buildings of the time. I am a bit embarrassed to note that this is the first time I have paid close attention to the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe. I have of course looked at their drawings as part of my teaching, but always looked at their work out of context, both historically and physically. Now that we are in the midwest and can look at these projects firsthand, I am learning so much. 'The Goot', as he was affectionately called by his students at UIC, visited the FLW projects in October of 1947. The Johnson project photos are not labeled, so I am not sure that I have the right buildings, but see what you think...

Frank Lloyd Wright and ? name those architects

I think this is a photo of a critique that Gutnayer arranged with Frank Lloyd Wright out at Taliesen. It is mentioned in one of the student newsletters that he kept from his period at UIC.

This photograph is labeled in polish as the Willitt House and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Gutnayer is on the left.

Name that...crypt?

From the leaves on the ground I think this is probably from the same October trip out to visit Taliesen. Anyone know?

labeled: Masselinck chief architect for FLW at Taliesen

Gutnayer in front of Taliesen

Alright, I have to get back to work. Next post will be the Johnson house and a mystery building...perhaps the other structure at the Johnson House? Will need some ID help on that one!

Keeping the Torch of Architecture Burning

Gutnayer drew christmas cards in ink on vellum and printed them as blueprints every year to send out as Christmas cards. The house figures in each one, as do the kids, Alice, and their activities that year. They are whimsical and so rich with great drawings. He has a symbol of the house as a torch that re-occurs in cards over multiple years.

I have been looking at a lot more of his projects and have started trying to identify them in Google Maps. I am building a public map that you can search for, I think. He did a high rise in Chicago and one in Evanston, and designs for two major highrises on in the 4200 block of Marine Drive that you can see from Lakeshore Drive. Given the volume of drawings in the house for these, I am quite sure they are built, but the Marine Drive project may not be his, I cannot tell yet. I need to go look at it and compare it to the drawings. His buildings seem to consistently have four bays in the front and exterior columns with volume underneath. Our house is consistent with that expression. The other interesting project he worked on was the transitioning of Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building into Roosevelt University in the 1970s. Kathryn and I went to look at this building the other day, and it appears he did a lot of design of infill classrooms, lockers, mechanical, etc. He also designed a small workshop theatre and some other spaces. Now that I have seen the building and understand its significance I cannot wait to go back and look at the drawings. (Me in the studio:"why is this Louis Sullivan photograph in the studio? and why is it in a roosevelt university interior rendering? where is roosevelt anyway?") Obviously my education in Chicago architecture is just beginning. But Kathryn and I got a lot under our belt in a few short hours: the Mies apartment buildings at 860 Lakeshore (just steps from the American Girl Store!), Mies' Crown Hall at IIT, the Auditorium Building, and the Robie house. And those are the ones we got inside, not to mention the many we drove by while kids listened to storytapes in the back seat.

So, the torch of architecture. Gutnayer had a lot of passion for art and design, and he kept it very alive in his work and his personal life. I love the symbolism of the torch. It reminds to be a bit more attentive to keeping energy and excitement active in my own life and work. He lived so fully. We should all aspire to that.

Illinois Heritage

So today the historic preservation architect came and visited the house. He knew all about the names and dates of the fixtures, the plywood, and so many things. It seems unlikely that we will preserve as much as necessary to receive the landmark property tax freeze, but it was very interesting to learn things about our house from him. And, there is the opportunity for dialog: houses form the 50s are a little harder to nail down in terms of preservation constraints than the late 19th century farmhouse. So we will see...

He identified this lamp, which we have been holding onto, because, why? well, it seemed too sort of big and odd to get rid of. And sure enough: it is (marked on the bottom) as a Laurel lamp designed by Frederick Weinberg. Google these things and some run in the 2-3K range. Wow! Another beautiful thing he identified is the plywood called 'driftwood' on the ceiling of our sun porch, which does look like driftwood, and is an early type of specialized textured ply.

Technology

J. Marion used state of the art technology in his home. We hope that continues to bode well as we start to peel away the layers of materials to get down to the structural elements. A couple of our favorite elements are his stereo, which had built in speakers in the sideboard in the dining room:

Those who know Reed and remember his speaker system in our old house will understand that this made total sense to us. I will post pictures of the stereo, which is a big box with the turntable inside. It came with construction drawings which I found in the living room storage along with a series of articles about building bomb shelters.

There are two giant dimmers like this one:

 

They feel wonderful to operate. You can sense the scale by comparing them to the lowly standard wall switches just to the left. This is a serious piece of lighting equipment.

This OSB composition board has caught the eyes of the architects. I love it. They have said that is a pretty early application of this material. It is the wall material in the kids bedrooms.

On Saturday the Illinois Historic Preservation architect comes out to talk to us about what we would need to replace/restore/retain if we were to apply for Landmark status and benefits (a ten year property tax freeze!) We are looking forward to meeting him. We will be holding our breath about the replacement of the blown aluminum windows (the 40 feet of them on the front facade in particular) which is a big ticket item already and could get much bigger if we are required to keep everything quite close to the original. We'll see...

Slow Going

We are in the process of choosing an architect, working through the choice between two different firms. One is a design/build firm and the other would likely come with a construction manager as part of the process. It is a slow process being thorough about making a balanced choice. They are both great options and it is really hard to choose which way to go. It feels a bit like looking at two big, expensive wrapped gifts and trying to pick one.

So, in the interim, Ive been working on getting J.Marion's papers into safer, drier, warmer places than our house, and it looks like we will have some success. I have found lots of his houses around to drive by,and buildings too. As the dispersal of the images become imminent, we are figuring out what we might like to keep ourselves.

The same questions will come up regarding interior details. Here are some good ones that we hope we can keep, and some that will surely go, but give us a sense of J. Marion and Alice's funky style.

The master bedroom. Lamps and built in headboard with blanket storage and closet on the rear side.

 

master bath tile.

second bath tile and velvet stripe wallpaper.
J. Marion specified some awesome wallpapers in his projects.
Silver foil sunsets in one kitchen, huge musical notes in another kitchen.

the circular stair.

Even beautiful with white carpet and plastic tread.