Tagged: the simple life

BETTER WURSTER?

Along with San Francisco’s  Bank of America Building and Ghiradelli Square, the Clark Beach House in elevation above and immortalized on PG&E’s heliodon machine left, counts among the most published and recognized of the work from the office of the architect William Wilson Wurster, one time west coast darling, and educational innovator as  Dean at MIT and UC Berkeley’s re-envisioned Environmental Design Department.  Known for his serious understatement and disdain for luxury and over-designing, his work remains largely disregarded today seemingly as a result.  With the One Percent currently under attack, the possibility for a resurgence of  modesty in home design seems better than any time since the Reign of Terror.

Just in time, Dick Peters and Caitlin Lempres Bostrom, have published a portion of the architectural trove of Wurster documents given Peters in 1973.  The Houses of William Wurster: Frames for Living with clear elucidating text, simple architectural plans (yes!) and images–new color and beautiful old black & white–identifies a clear and attractive California point of view embracing outdoor and casual living.  The majority of work done through the depression  from 1924 to 1939 represents vacation style homes with exterior bedroom access and protected courtyards reminiscent of early California adobes and camp layouts.  They show a great love and understanding of sun, fresh air and views, but exclude modern luxuries–like insulation and interior bedroom halls.  The book stretches the slender thread of two other excellent monographs:  R. Thomas Hille’s Inside the Large Small House (1994) and Marc Treib’s An Everyday Modernism (published in conjunction with a SFMOMA exhibit in 1995).

As vulnerable to the elements as to the vicissitudes of personal taste and modern convenience, the most famous and stunning of the residential projects have suffered greatly with time.  The Clark Beach House in Aptos, The Coleman House in Pacific Heights, and the Saxton Pope House in Lafayette are presented here with their more recent re-workings.  Better or worse?  You be the judge.

The original Clark Beach House in Aptos (1937, renovated sometime before 2000)  brings a funky Palladian symmetry and hierarchy to the beach shack.  Barely an enclosure, the shelter embraces the inhabitants while its open wings and lowered ramp welcome the passing of sun and clouds and the shifting of sand and tides.  What’s lost now: unpainted vertical redwood siding, two open sun porches, deck area, 4-square floor plan, exterior stair access to upstairs bedrooms, the characteristic wispy eave line, enormous glazed rolling  doors, a draw bridge to access the sand.  What’s gained:  more enclosed space, privacy, private upper level view decks and a tidal breakwater.

Wurster’s own beach house in Stinson Beach (1962–Wurster, Bernardi, Emmons) is shown here in black and white.   When it burned,  a clone of the Aptos Clark house rose phoenix like but in a corrected form by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects in 2006.  Compare below side views and anthromorphic qualities of the original 4-square Aptos beach house and its elegant Stinson Beach homage.

In our comments Daniel Gregory has offered a correction to the popular reporting of the time.  Regarding the lamentable demise of the Wursters along Stinson Beach, the Wurster designed home destroyed by fire had been preceded by the destruction of Wurster’s own home remodeled beyond recognition.

In 1995 with the assistance of Ryan Associates, General Contractors and demolition crew, the talented craftsman/architect Olle Lundberg helped Larry Ellison achieve one of five dream homes counting others in Woodside, Malibu, Newport, RI, and Rancho Mirage.  The former Coleman House in Pacific Heights, San Francisco (1956) contained  an original courtyard garden by Lawrence Halperin (pictured in black and white) and redesigned by Ron Herman.

According to the architect’s and newspaper descriptions: “To make the spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay even more panoramic the house’s factory-like grid of opaque glass facing the courtyard was turned into a sweeping wall of glass…” while “…the monotony of plate-glass windows has been relieved in the living room with a distinctly syncopated rhythm … and, most particularly, a large trapezoidal panel.”


Arianna Huffington and Gavin Newsom party before the renovated stair at Larry Ellison’s.

William Wurster: “Architecture is not a goal. Architecture is for life and pleasure and work and for people. The picture frame and not the picture.”   When one makes the unfair comparison between Wurster’s work and the expressive functionalism of his close friend, the universally beloved Finn Alvar Aalto,  the restrictions Wurster put on self expression sound severe.  An exception, thanks to the helpful push of his client, might be the unique Saxton Pope House in Lafayette (1940) with its private entry court, an outdoor living space with circular roof opening and fireplace, all enclosed within a corrugated metal surround.

Nestled in suburban Lafayette, it was demolished for the Acalanes Road cloverleaf in 1963.

Thanks and credits to Roger Sturtevant for his exquisite black and white photos, Lundberg Designs, and Turnbull Griffin Haesloop.  Below Wurster’s Aptos plan and Turnbull Griffin Haesloop’s Stinson Beach plans.

THE SIMPLE LIFE: THE ARCHITECT, THE PAINTER AND THE RELIGIOUS FANATIC

Pictured above Charles and Ray Eames gaze at  Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee(1736-1784), believed to be the Second Appearance of Christ in female form.  Below Hannah Cohoon’s gift drawing “Tree of Light, or Blazing Tree” received in a vision in 1845.

Two recent Eames sitings—“EAMES WORDS: The uncommon beauty of common things” at LA’s A + D Gallery and “EAMES: the architect and the painter” in cinema and DVD—focus with devotion on the words, work and work ethic of the 20th century design gods.  Throughout art show and film one hears echoes of the voices of the Shaker religious fanatics of the previous  centuries.

“EAMES WORDS,” part of the So-Cal-wide Pacific Standard Time art jamboree recognizes the Eames contribution to the West Coast way of seeing and thinking.  Designed by Deborah Sussman, former Eames employee, the exhibit is organized entirely with quotes from Charles and Ray’s office.  Their words and philosophy echo the joyfully severe wisdom of the sweet but fanatical Mother Ann Lee and the Shaker Religious Communes of 18th and 19th century America.  When the exhibit is coupled with the simultaneous release of the film “EAMES: the architect and the painter”, the impression is compounded: the Shaker utopia/housewares-workshop and the Eames office/design-workshop (the self-dubbed “Eamery”) share a spare design ethos,  a love of maxims, a serious work ethic, and a charismatic leadership dressed in eccentric garb.

“In the valley of love and delight ” American Shaker villages created furnishing for the New Heaven on Earth:  “Hands to work, hearts to God.”  (Mother Ann Lee).  Their simple and spare furnishings and structures express the ephemeral quality of a spiritual existence: “The hands drop off but the work goes on.”(Eldress Bertha Lindsay).  Notoriously celibate, yet fertile with homilies, the Shakers make clear that our comforts are spiritual, not physical.  “Shakers … go about their duties in cheerful, happy helpful temper, feeling that “Labor is worship and prayer.” (Leonard, Shaker Manifesto 1871).  “This manner of worship to the people of God is not empty, not carnal; but mighty through God, joyful as heaven and solemn as eternity.” (Benjamin Youngs, Testimony-1808-1856).

The Eames found joy in work without faith in the second coming, but instead with faith in design within constraints, that is to say in problem solving.  Like Shaker text, second hand oral history from Eames family and staff delivers wisdom in mottos and maxims–”Charles would say”, “Ray used to say”, “they would love to say”, “there was an expression in the office”–

“Bring joy and vigor to whatever you do.”(Ray)  ‘Take your pleasure seriously.“(Charles) “Life was fun was work was life.”(Sussman)  And from staffer Parke Meek: “You know, … he just kept hammering away…. he made the work sort of a play thing.” 

The Shakers knew how to have fun too.  During the “cleansing gift” sweeping ritual of 1841 “the brethren would roar and howl … and stamp their feet with the word “curse” whenever they came upon an unclean spot.” (Andrews, The Gift to be Simple).  Some like Nathaniel Hawthorne in (“Canterbury Pilgrims,”" The Shaker Bride”) and Adam Gopnick (“The Shining Tree of Life“) identify an obsessive compulsive mania for purity, order, cleanliness and sexual repression at the root of the Shaker joyous sublimation in work and their rigorous enthusiasm for clean lines, functionalism and commerce.  So be it.  The results speak for themselves.

Witness the visionary Shaker invention: the flat broom,  now only $20.

“Simplicity is the embodiment of purity and unity.” ”Beauty rests on utility.” “That is best which works best.” (Shaker maxims).

(Eames maxims):  “Design is the appropriate combination of materials in order to solve a problem.”  “We want to make the best for the most for the least.”  “We don’t do art; we solve problems.”  “Don’t let the blood show.”

Designed in 1942 by the Eames, the molded plywood leg splint, lightweight and inexpensive was  mass-produced for the US Navy during World War II.  (Now on ebay for $645.00, in pristine, un-used condition.)

“EAMES: the architect and the painter” creates an enjoyable  portrait of a society of devoted workers, followers of Ray and definitely Charles. What holds ones interest in the movie are the talking heads, employees and colleagues, characters in their own right, in fond and teary-eyed  reminisces.  Charles was “Very charismatic.” “Very charismatic.” ”And especially very charismatic to women.”(Sussman)  ”I was happy being exploited by a proper master,”  Jeanine Oppewal.  “It was 24/7, 365,” (Sussman) “He was the most important person in my life…. It was a delicious agony, like a temple for me.” (John Neuhart) 

With Shakers and Eames there is a directness in material and function, with ornament, if any, arising as a functional solution or material property.  For the Shaker craftsmen there is emphasis on joinery; for the Eames, on connections.  In the case of the DCM chair, the connections occur where wood meets metal with flexible rubber mounts,  where the human  body meets the molded seat and back, where the interests of office, client and society meet.  “Eventually everything connects—people, ideas, objects, etc. … the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.”  Both had an interest in constraints.

What we are left with as a lesson from Shakers and Eames is a functional elegance stemming from the clarity and joyful humanity of the problem solving seemingly unmuddied by ego or ornament.  That the work is created by charismatic workaholics with righteous egos who dress funny is a different kind of lesson and makes for provocative reading, movies and gallery exhibits.

“God, the master workman, who has made the smallest insect with as much care as the mammoth elephant, sets us the example of good work.  Imitation is the sincerest praise.”  (Shaker Manifesto).

“The extent to which you have a design style is the extent to which you have not solved the problem.”  ”Innovate as a last resort.”  (Eames mottoes).

Thanks to Otts World for the moving photo above of the inverted Shaker chair, in hanging position for thorough sweeping, and thanks to Judy Collins and her Simple Gifts.

Simple Gifts

 

THE SIMPLE LIFE: DOWN IN BEDROCK

Strong forms and materials challenge comfort and simplicity.   Stunningly simple, heavily understated, this granite bench chills in the inhospitable snow of Yosemite Valley.

The bench is a monument to the geology of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains and the gravitational forces that have scraped, scoured and shoved them for 40 million years in Yosemite Valley, in Hetch Hetchy, and as shown here, in the Emigrant Wilderness.  Harsh,  numbing, forbidding, exhilarating, the bench exhibits an elemental design logic, older than history, appropriate to a Sierra winter or home furnishings for Fred Flintstone.

Strong forms and strong materials have their powerful attractions despite their indifference to human comfort.  While comfort and simplicity remain our guiding goals,  architectural design  is not always about comfort, nor is simplicity always so simple.  An elegant goal, achieving simplicity from the myriad of materials and conditions required for modern construction is frequently a challenging and in this case weighty proposition requiring serious tools and strenuous effort.

You can slap a cushion on  a bench, but complexity escalates with building construction and design.  Architecture detailing is inevitably confounded by literal layers and layers of waterproofing and energy conserving requirements creating what has been labeled puffy buildings–buildings with beady-eyed windows and chubby walls pumped up with insulating batts and foam.  When we go inside, we enter controlled environments, physically comfortable, but incredibly complicated, concealing a lot of unattractive, messy and not always healthy materials, isolating us from the natural environment.

Perspective can be useful.  If nothing else, simple, dumb and obvious solutions provide us an invaluable baseline, the Bedrock,  from which we can judge the relative values of the complexities we construct for ourselves.   From the vantage point of a soft cushion one can comfortably admire the icy elegance of a two ton sofa.

Credit and thanks to Hanna Barbera, the Flintstones of Bedrock and the profound efforts of  California Conservation Corps.

KITCHEN WITHOUT GRANITE

In the wake of the dot.com crash this $100,000 kitchen became a $15,000 kitchen.  A strong layout and clients enthusiasm for food and living create a kitchen of warmth and fun without granite.  Personality and enthusiasm for living provide warmth undervalued by real estate appraisals and construction industry research of what the consumers want.