Book to Know: 'Long Island Modernism 1930-1980'
Photographs mix with social history from the architectural highlights of Long Island's suburbanization
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Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City.... More »
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In Caroline Rob Zaleski's book Long Island Modernism 1930-1980 (W. W. Norton, September 2012), the preservationist documents significant modern buildings — many of them residences — designed by 25 architects. The book is part of a larger project in which she surveyed more than 500 buildings by 78 architects for the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities.
The eight-year project (10 in terms of calendar years, but two of those were spent actively working on the preservation of two buildings on Long Island) covers the decades when, as the author describes it, "the majority of the great estates and much of Long Island's farmland were subdivided, making way for a tidal wave of suburbanization." The selected projects, therefore, show highlights from this period, as much of the new architecture at the time was fairly unremarkable, be it houses or public buildings.
In a book launch hosted by the NY/Tri-state chapter of DOCOMOMO, a group focused on the preservation of modern architecture, the author described her book as a social history, such that it goes beyond the merely formal aspects of the buildings. Of course, when dealing with Long Island, social equates with money and connections. The talk was full of interesting anecdotes — one or two recounted in this Ideabook — that included some well-known names and the social circles they occupied.
This Ideabook looks at five of the houses in Zaleski's book, similarly describing their designs and the stories behind them.
The eight-year project (10 in terms of calendar years, but two of those were spent actively working on the preservation of two buildings on Long Island) covers the decades when, as the author describes it, "the majority of the great estates and much of Long Island's farmland were subdivided, making way for a tidal wave of suburbanization." The selected projects, therefore, show highlights from this period, as much of the new architecture at the time was fairly unremarkable, be it houses or public buildings.
In a book launch hosted by the NY/Tri-state chapter of DOCOMOMO, a group focused on the preservation of modern architecture, the author described her book as a social history, such that it goes beyond the merely formal aspects of the buildings. Of course, when dealing with Long Island, social equates with money and connections. The talk was full of interesting anecdotes — one or two recounted in this Ideabook — that included some well-known names and the social circles they occupied.
This Ideabook looks at five of the houses in Zaleski's book, similarly describing their designs and the stories behind them.
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The Leonhart House designed by Philip Johnson graces the cover of the coffee table-size book. The glass box recalls the architect's own house in Connecticut but raised on stilts and reaching toward the water. Given the timeframe that the book covers, not all of the buildings are so high-modern. As will be seen, they are as varied stylistically as are the personalities of the architects and their clients.
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| Rebhuhn House (1937), Frank Lloyd Wright A quick search online for the house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for publisher Ben Rebhuhn would seem to show that the design falls into the architect's Usonian phase. But Zaleski asserts otherwise, describing it as Prairie style, given that it was a fairly conservative design. (It was carried out around the time of Fallingwater, a daring design that put Wright back in the spotlight, but the architect felt he'd have a hard time building a modern house on Long Island.) And it was more expensive than the low-cost Usonian houses at the time. This photo is looking toward the living room from the garden. On the right edge of the photo is a sculpture by Ben's wife, Anne, who was a sculptor but supposedly sewed the red cape that Wright famously wore. |
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The interior of the two-story residence is open and bright. Each room on the ground floor is linked to the exterior via expanses of double doors, and here we see the double-height space of the library and living room beyond.
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The relationship between Wright and the Rebhuhns was interesting, particularly in regard to the conviction of Ben and his nephew for distributing obscene books (early sex-ed books, really).
Wright wrote to a federal judge to dismiss the case, and later visited his client when he served his 18-month prison sentence a couple years after the house was compete. A couple decades later Ben and his nephew established Horizon Press with 16 books by or about Wright.
This last view of the house is looking 180 degrees from the previous photo, showing the library and living room from the main entry.
Wright wrote to a federal judge to dismiss the case, and later visited his client when he served his 18-month prison sentence a couple years after the house was compete. A couple decades later Ben and his nephew established Horizon Press with 16 books by or about Wright.
This last view of the house is looking 180 degrees from the previous photo, showing the library and living room from the main entry.
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| Geller House I (1945), Marcel Breuer Of the four houses by Marcel Breuer included in the book, two of them are for Bertram Geller, who had gone into the family's shoe business after studying city planning. Geller was drawn to Breuer, who was an architect with Walter Gropius, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design at the time. The modern house that Breuer created for Geller's family did not endear them to their Long Island neighbors, but architects and the architectural press praised the house's inventive design; it was named House of the Year by Progressive Architecture. The view of the house's exterior shows the main house, which is made up of two large rectangular volumes. Not visible is a detached guest house that also houses the garage. Across the exteriors, full-height expanses of glass alternate with low ribbon windows. |
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| Over the years Breuer has become as well known for his furniture as for his architecture. He furnished the Geller House with his own designs; seen here are chairs, a sofa and a desk, all with a similar vocabulary of curved wood. As mentioned, the house's exterior features areas with large expanses of glass. They coincide with rooms where light and view are important, such as the living room shown here. Yet the facade is sensitive to the fact that lots of light is not always desired: The top third of the wall uses louvers to cut down on sunlight, and the bottom third uses frosted glass for privacy. |
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| This photo shows the guest house and bedroom with its ribbon windows. The stonework, visible in the previous photo as the wall and fireplace, is here used as a base for the guest house and as a wall extending from it. |
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Geller House II (1969), Marcel Breuer
Two decades later, when Breuer did very little residential work due to larger commissions, he made an exception for the Geller family and a second house near the first one. Breuer's design is dramatically different than his earlier house, opting for a parabolic arch-shaped concrete roof over a square plan of concrete and stucco walls.
Two decades later, when Breuer did very little residential work due to larger commissions, he made an exception for the Geller family and a second house near the first one. Breuer's design is dramatically different than his earlier house, opting for a parabolic arch-shaped concrete roof over a square plan of concrete and stucco walls.
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Compared to the first Geller house, the facades of the concrete house are much more expressive. In a story that Zaleski recounts, Geller asked Breuer for advice on hanging a painting in the living room of the first house, to which the architect responded by commissioning Jackson Pollock to create a painting for a custom wall divider. In that house, art was separate but integrated into it via design. In the second house, the architecture is the work of art, its facade recalling a Mondrian painting framing views of the Atlantic beyond.
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| Mary Griggs and Jackson Burke House (1961), The Architects Collaborative As its name suggests, The Architects Collaborative was an architectural practice where hierarchy was eschewed in favor of camaraderie. Started by six young architects along with their mentor Walter Gropius (known to many as the father of modern architecture), TAC had realized some modern houses in the Boston area before Mary Griggs commissioned them to design her house on Long Island. She was actually a childhood friend of TAC's David Thompson, having grown up in the same neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. Even with TAC's collaborative mission, Thompson appropriately took the lead on the thoroughly modern house. |
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| The Japanese qualities of the house's landscaping are apparent in the previous photo and more so in this view from the south-facing dining room. Gropius actually recommended to Griggs that she visit Japan to study their gardens, having just returned from a lecture tour there. She went, and the trip had a strong influence on the house and on Griggs — she returned to Japan more than 30 times. She was engaged to book designer Jackson Burke around the time of that first trip, so the couple commissioned TAC to add rooms to the house. Shogo Myaida is responsible for the courtyard garden design, which works very well with the design of the house. |
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| The Japanese influence also extended to the artwork that furnished the house. The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is considered one of the best private collections of such art outside Japan. The living room, shown here, features an Edo-period screen that Frank Lloyd Wright had purchased for Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. |
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| Spaeth House (1956), Gordon Chadwick and George Nelson George Nelson is a household name, thanks to his numerous articles and books championing modern design, stamped with his name that sold through Herman Miller showrooms, and to a lesser degree his architectural practice. This last piece is probably "the least significant of his professional pursuits," as Zaleski describes it, so it's no surprise that most of the designs were carried out by his partner Gordon Chadwick. One such project is a house for Otto and Eloise Spaeth, who used some of their fortune (from an aluminum company) to collect art. (They even toured some of it around the U.S. in "The Spaethmobile," a converted school bus.) |
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Chadwick's design for the Spaeths is more akin to the postmodern than the modern, as the previous photo and this one attest.
Rather than a flat-roofed, glass box like others in the book, the architect derived a form that looks vernacular to Long Island, the Shingle Style — yet with some interesting divergences.
The square windows on the shingle-faced gable-end in the previous photo are a case in point. Another is the undulating shingle wall on the other side of the house. These undulations relate to bay windows that project both on the ground floor and in the floor above.
Rather than a flat-roofed, glass box like others in the book, the architect derived a form that looks vernacular to Long Island, the Shingle Style — yet with some interesting divergences.
The square windows on the shingle-faced gable-end in the previous photo are a case in point. Another is the undulating shingle wall on the other side of the house. These undulations relate to bay windows that project both on the ground floor and in the floor above.
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| This view of the dining room shows one such bay window, which overlooks the beach as it affords the table and chairs a little more floor space. |
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| Saltzman House (1969), Richard Meier Today Richard Meier is known for buildings composed of white metal and glass, with the occasional bit of stone. One glance at this house in East Hampton and that characteristic applies. But while the geometrical rigor and play of light on white surfaces may prevail, the earlier house of which this is a part was built primarily of wood and is more budget-minded than the large-scale, international commissions he deals with today. Renny and Ellin Saltzman, a designer and fashion editor, hired Meier after reading some pieces on the architects in the New York Times Magazine. |
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| Interestingly, the land between the beach and the Saltzman House is occupied by Chadwick and Nelson's Spaeth House. Therefore, to capture water views, Meier had to build up. As Meier notes in the book, "You can't see the ocean until you get onto the third floor." The main house, which is connected to the smaller guest house by a bridge, is a complex composition of outdoor spaces and openings. It looks like an abstract composition placed upon the flat grassy site, opening itself up for views and sunlight but also recalling the architecture of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. |
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Zaleski describes the interior as an "indoor promenade architectural — to use the language of Le Corbusier — [it] offers a circuitous route up through the structure to the ultimate destination, the ocean views."
Ideabook published on Nov. 15, 2012.
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