A Letter to the Mayor

The following letter was sent to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper last week following presentations by the Planning department regarding proposed zoning code changes. I reproduce it here in response to interest expressed by local architects, builders, Realtors and property owners. The proposed changes follow a nationwide drift to reduce property entitlements. The trend is to make redevelopment of private property more difficult, more restrictive, and less creative. (See "Malibu Dreaming" post, March 31, 2009.) I apologize to readers outside of Denver who may find this discussion of zoning rules a bit arcane, but be aware it could happen in your neighborhood.

I do believe the final draft of the new zoning changes will be less Draconian than the current proposal. How much better is difficult to predict. To keep abreast of the massive code revisions (hundreds of pages) visit www.denvergov.org/planning. You can also find contact information for the mayor, council members, and the Planning department at this site.

2 July 2009

The Honorable John Hickenlooper
Office of the Mayor
City and County Building
1437 Bannock, Room 350
Denver, CO 80202

Re: New Zoning Code

John Hickenlooper:

I have attended several meetings and workshops conducted by the department of Community Planning and Development regarding the new zoning code. The Planning department emphasizes that the new code is “a work in progress.” Work has progressed for some time with each rendition of the proposed code introducing additional troubling concepts and details. Since the shape of the code is now becoming quite specific, I feel it is time to register deep concerns regarding negative architectural and economic impacts the new code will have.

The proposed code is lengthy and complex, covering, as it must, very different neighborhoods and conditions. The observations in this letter are limited mainly to the S-SU-B and E-SU-D designations and specifically as they apply to the University Hills neighborhood. These are limited examples. Please be aware that other parts of the proposed code are similarly flawed.

S-SU-B

S-SU-B is a residential district. The blocks of University Hills north and east of Eisenhower Park fall under this new category. Spokespeople from Planning assert that the current R1 zoning (single family detached) would remain intact and thus “preserve current entitlements.” In fact, as written, S-SU-B would change current entitlements by significantly reducing the allowable size of future development. This will negatively impact property values and, by extension, the future tax base of the City and County of Denver.

Lots in this neighborhood vary considerably by orientation and shape. There is no typical lot, but a common size is 60’ x 155’ (approximately 9300 square feet) as illustrated below. Prior to February 2003 one could develop 50% of such a lot, including garage, porches, and any covered areas:

1 Zoning Restrictions Before 2003


This entitlement allowed for several features of proven value in the marketplace: a three-car garage (albeit with a “tandem” space on this narrow lot), the option of a single-story plan, and room for outdoor covered spaces.

These possibilities significantly changed with “Quick Wins II” in 2003. Those changes, currently in effect, limited developable area to 37.5 per cent of a lot:

2 Current Zoning

On the example 9300 square foot lot with similar garage and porch allowances, the main floor living area is reduced to 2300 square feet. The possibility of a single-story plan is sharply curtailed and two-story plans become more likely. Of course, smaller lots (of which there are many in the neighborhood) have less buildable area. Current zoning restrictions also sharply curtail the size of second floors, development in the rear one-third of a lot, and the bulk of structures. Nevertheless, the University Hills neighborhood has seen a renaissance of new housing in recent years under these restrictions.

The proposed zoning reduces the developable area again. The new maximum is a miserly thirty percent. In print, this is an abstract number. On actual lots the effects are Draconian:

3 Proposed zoning with 30% maximum lot coverage.

To yield 1900 square feet of living area one would be required to forgo a third garage space and reduce the amount of covered porches or patios. Single-story plans or main floor master suites become more difficult. Remember, the illustrated example is a relatively large lot by urban standards; even so we encounter difficulties meeting the demands of market-oriented housing. Imagine how problematic this becomes with smaller parcels. Big segments of the market would be jeopardized by these conditions: growing families who require more bedrooms and additional car shelter, older or physically challenged people who don’t want to climb stairs, and the affluent market that simply demands more space.

Property owners already experience negative impacts from previous zoning changes. The proposed zoning exacerbates the situation by shrinking allowable development. The following graphic illustrates the diminishing returns:

4 The Incredible Shrinking House

There are many other detrimental restrictions in the proposed zoning. Note in the above illustration how the allowable driveway shrinks to a ridiculously small area. The proposed rules would make servicing two-car garages impossible.

Also worrisome are the proposed height and setback changes. Current rules allow for a two-story house that could offer the style, amenities, and architectural volume to make it competitive in the broad marketplace. The proposed zoning drastically reduces width, overall height, and floor-to-ceiling allowances. Two story homes would lose 4’ to 9’ in height (depending on lot width). Single story homes would lose 10’ to 15’ in allowable height. Increased side yard setbacks further reduce the street presence of new construction. Houses already limited by Quick Wins II are further diminished in size and curb appeal.

5 Proposed zoning eliminates shaded area on a two-story house.

6 One story homes would fall under additional height restrictions.


The Planning department makes a point of claiming that architectural style is not affected by these changes. However, the restrictions channel design into squat structures with low-pitched roofs and low plate heights. Furthermore, even more severe limits on flat-roofed structures and single-story plans make modern or inventive styles impossible as shown in the two examples below:

7 Flat roof structures are singled out; the red-shaded areas would not be permitted.

8 Innovative architecture is problematic under the proposed limits; shaded areas not allowed.

E-SU-D

A second University Hills district, described as “urban edge”, falls to the south of Eisenhower Park. This E-SU-D designation is distinguished by square blocks with alleys. Otherwise, it is similar to the rest of University Hills in appearance and variety. Yet some of the restrictions here are even more severe. Rear setbacks are now proposed at 50% to 60% of the lot depth and allowable driveway features (such as circular drives) are mathematically eliminated. If the intent is to preserve the morphology of the neighborhood, the restrictions do not accomplish this. For example, an actual existing older home of 1500 square feet would be impossible to reproduce under the proposed rules. Square footage, width, and architectural offsets would all be in violation. Approximately 200 square feet would be lost in the following example:

9 An older existing home not allowed under the new rules.

Calibration

The response by Planning to these criticisms in public meetings has been that the restrictions are in flux and will be “calibrated” based on neighborhood input. My concerns are more fundamental than calibrating numbers. A catch phrase from Planning describes the zoning revisions as “form based” design. This means, by my understanding, that for every designated district the shape, size, offsets, and massing are predetermined by a matrix of dimensions. At the same time, we are told that these prescriptions do not regulate architectural style. The contradiction in the last two sentences should be apparent. Architectural style is not limited to frivolous details applied to predetermined shapes. Architecture is precisely a result of form.

Summary

This letter has focused on a limited portion of a lengthy document. I want to emphasize, again, that there are numerous examples throughout the proposed code where architecture and development possibilities are limited more like a covenant-controlled community than a vibrant urban center. Section 3.3.2, to cite one final example, gets into issues of architectural “articulation.” It describes (in detail) “horizontal articulation elements,” the “base, middle, cap” of a building, and even the dimensions of eave projections. There are whole swaths of architectural styles compromised by such picayune micromanagement.

The proposed zoning moves in the direction of freeze-drying our neighborhoods, as if they are already the best that they can be. This only stifles new ideas and discourages monetary investment. It will put Denver at a competitive disadvantage for tax dollars. It will limit the number and diversity of people attracted to our redeveloping neighborhoods. Most detrimental to current residents is the damper it places on existing lots and the possibilities of enjoying the full potential of our property.

As an architect, I would like to see every aspect of the built environment in perfect harmony, well proportioned and beautiful. But this works best when it happens organically and with variety. By allowing great latitude in the system, mistakes may happen and things may not always look the way we want them to. However, in balance, maximizing creative freedom also invites exciting innovations that just may point the way to a better life for everybody.

The proposed zoning code heads in the wrong direction. I trust that the mayor’s office will closely examine these impending policy changes. If you or a member of your staff would like to discuss these ideas or other aspects of the code in more detail I am available anytime.

Sincerely,

Michael Knorr

Hospitality

I subscribe to a lot of architecture magazines. Some are aimed at a professional architects, others are general audience magazines. Surprisingly, one of the best architecture periodicals is not specifically about architecture. Hospitality Design, published monthly by Nielsen Business Media, New York, is primarily for hotel executives, marketing directors, and interior designers who need to be aware of what is going on in the hospitality industry.

Hospitality Design reports on hotels, casinos, spas, resorts, and restaurants of all sorts. Of course, architecture is a big part of this. Even when restaurants are built within existing structures (as in a casino, for example) many of them are so large that they take on an architectonic scale with all the accompanying concerns of structure and design. Hospitality Design devotes a lot less ink to technical analysis than do professional architectural journals. There is little architectural jargon but plenty of lush photography. Featured projects investigate corners of the architectural world that most people don’t see except on vacation. Even though the projects are retail or commercial, many of the photographs provide inspiration for custom homes and private offices. After all, spas and hotel rooms require the same fixtures and furnishings as a home. The materials and products in Hospitality Design would be of interest to anyone who appreciates design. Even the advertisements highlight things you do not see anywhere else. I look forward to every issue, always heavy with pictures and short on words.

The ideas in Hospitality Design run the gamut of price and style. What makes the hospitality industry interesting, and, by extension, provides rich material for this magazine, is the fact that things change fast in restaurants and hotels. Las Vegas is a good example. A restaurant in a resort hotel has a shelf life of three to five years. After that it is old news and must be remodeled and rebranded. Everything needs to be fresh for a fickle audience. New restaurants must offer innovative environments that haven’t been seen anywhere else. This aims to pique our interest and draw us in. Word of mouth – the buzz – is the best form of advertising. In the hospitality industry, good design is good business. Design matters here in a down-to-business analytical way. In one sense this is refreshing because usually we’re reduced to abstract concepts to justify good design. Hotels, restaurants, nightclubs are stage sets for the customers they serve. People go to these places to feel important or glamorous or to experience some specific emotional resonance. The hospitality industry has always understood this intuitively. My favorite examples of this understanding are the works of Morris Lapidus. He is famous for some of the great Miami Beach hotels of the 1950s, among them Fountainbleu and Eden Roc. Dismissed as kitsch by serious architecture critics when they were built, they have since been revisited as brilliant examples of postmodern delight with a clear understanding of the theatricality that people craved – at least in their fantasy vacation spots.

To accomplish all of this theatricality the budgets for these venues are astonishing. I am always amazed that after spending many millions of dollars on a new restaurant the owners can still make it up in profits. And have enough money to do it all over again when time comes to remodel. Of course, they are not all successful. My father, who knew many restaurateurs, often told me the restaurant business was the riskiest around. I never aspired to be part of it. But we can all enjoy the lively design forays that the hospitality industry makes as evidenced in the pages of Hospitality Design.

Some of these places are very elegant and serious.

Others are whimsical, like this nightclub in New York.

The bubbly glass spheres and LED light display are Bruce Goff on steroids and a big budget.

McMansions

“McMansion” is one of the glib slang words I would like to see retired. Not only is it overused, it is wrongly used to the point that it has lost any meaning.

Someone clever coined the word at least a decade ago. When first introduced it was apt and funny. McMansion does not appear in my American Heritage dictionary. But if it did, the definition (as originally intended) would be something like this:

McMansion (mik man’shen) n. 1. A large mass-produced house meant to imitate the stately features of expensive custom homes. 2. A pretentious tract house. 3. A house built from stock plans that ineptly mimics custom home details.

This was worth a chuckle because it poked fun at our ready acceptance of mass-produced schlock by linking bad architecture to the most recognized icon of mass-produced food. In both instances, we know it is not good for us, but we gobble it up anyway. Probably for the same reasons: we perceive it as a good deal and it satisfies our hunger for something meaty. It takes a higher level of awareness to recognize the empty calories in one and the bankrupt esthetics in the other.

We have long ago departed from that definition, applying the word in ways that have left it devoid of meaning. It is like the phrase “luxury apartment”. That is applied to rental units of every size and quality. I have seen the words on large banners affixed to the balconies of the most ordinary apartment buildings. It seems that running water and fresh paint are sufficient amenities to qualify an apartment as luxurious.

Likewise, McMansion is devalued by overuse and misapplication. I have heard it used to describe any of the following structures:

a) Large houses we simply do not like (maybe we are feuding with the owners)
b) Any house bigger than its immediate neighbors
c) Homes bigger than a prescribed square footage deemed acceptable for the number of people living in it (a moving target depending on the notions of the people
setting the standards)
d) Beautiful homes that legitimately are mansions but hated because they are larger than we can afford

Used in these ways McMansion has moved from a witty gibe about architecture to a dismissive insult that is so broad there is no room for debate. Do you still beat your wife? Is your house still too big? There is no thought behind the remark and no acceptable response. McMansion has absorbed all the venal qualities of jealousy, social engineering, and avarice without retaining the redeeming quality of humor.

This is not just a rant about grammar. Words have consequences. The McMansion jeer is used in public meetings to sway politicians and set policy. It comes up all the time in zoning discussions. There is an ongoing debate in many cities over what constitutes appropriate infill projects or replacement housing. In Denver some older neighborhoods are battlegrounds over this issue. Andrew Hyatt, a real estate appraiser and broker, countered in the North Denver Tribune that “these McMansions… help create a better neighborhood and local economy. Scraping an old, functionally obsolete bungalow is truly not the nightmare down zoning critics would have you believe.” His article goes on to describe how new, larger homes provide choices and value to buyers and how older homes are often inadequate with their head-ducking basements, inefficient furnaces, crumbling foundations, and substandard plumbing and wiring.

I wish Mr. Hyatt had not accepted McMansions as a broad description of infill development. But he is correct in defending head on the phenomenon of new development in existing neighborhoods. In the community he was describing, some people find new development a positive evolution and others want it anywhere but in their own backyards. There are legitimate differences of opinion based on adequacy of infrastructure, solar access, and density. That is where the debate should turn, not on the style of the houses. Nevertheless, opponents of change have latched onto the McMansion phrase as a substitute for rigorous exchange and clear thinking.

Perhaps the real problem is simply that some (many?) houses truly are ugly. This can happen anywhere, but it is most obvious (and becomes most contentious) with infill projects that loom above more diminutive and quainter old homes. It’s a sad fact that a lot of things we don’t like do get built. But so do a lot of good things. If everything had to look like what is around it, how would great architecture ever emerge? By definition, no radical advance in architecture, from the Renaissance to the modern movement, ever came about by architects trying to match their surroundings. I get nervous when I hear phrases like “form based zoning” and “neighborhoods of stability” used to control architectural design. Often the McMansion word is used to “objectively” back up such ideas. But at what point does change move from good to bad? Was Manhattan a better place in pre-skyscraper days? Say, 1880? Or maybe skyscrapers were good until about 1970, but became bad when they simply got too big? Has New York changed for the better since 1970 or is it a worse place to live? We could debate such questions for a long time. I don’t know when we should freeze-dry a neighborhood or a town and say, “That’s it. That’s the best this place will ever be.” I do not feel qualified to make that pronouncement. When in doubt I will argue for the maximum latitude in personal expression, not the least. Let the McMansions – whatever they are – coexist with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes the rough edges are what make a city vibrant and exciting.

As an architect, I would like to see every aspect of the built environment in perfect harmony, well proportioned and beautiful. But this works best when it happens organically and with variety. By allowing great latitude in the system, mistakes may happen and things may not always look the way we want them to. Nevertheless, maximizing creative freedom also invites exciting innovations that just may point the way to a better life for everybody. On the other hand, when architecture and development are micro-managed you do not have real places, you have Disneyland. A nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Let's retire the word McMansion and have real discussions about architecture, development, and the future of our cities.

[Closing note: I don’t deny McMansions exist; I just don’t think the term should be misapplied and I don’t believe esthetics can or should be legislated by zoning. I had intended to include pictures in this blog entry as examples of my definition of McMansions. These come from what I call my Architectural Horror File -- a collection of houses with goofball proportions, misshapen details, a cacophony of materials. But they are soft targets. There are too many houses (some of them, sadly, in my own neighborhood) that are seriously flawed. I hope that they were designed without professional assistance. I’d hate to think that my colleagues are that thick.

It’s easy to be a critic, hard to be creative. Who knows what forces produced these horrors? Maybe the builder didn’t follow the plans. Maybe the architect had a bout of temporary insanity. Maybe the owners purposefully demanded some of the bizarre details. So, for now, I refrain. Besides, people actually live in some of these houses. At some point, they chose to conspicuously exhibit their bad taste. I just don’t have the heart to publicly shame them. It’s just too easy. Too easy.

So this is posted without pictures.]

Colorado Homes & Lifestyles

A residential project by Michael Knorr & Associates is featured in the current issue of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles (June/July 2009, pages 58-65) as an “Urban Nest”. The publication is available on newsstands and in bookstores such as the Tattered Cover and Barnes & Noble for $4.95. Our original clients built the house a decade ago. Under their ownership the interiors were elegantly monochromatic; the furnishings emphasized modern classics from the 1920s through the 50s. The project was previously published in the home section of the Rocky Mountain News (June 6, 1999) and was on the March 2002 cover of Builder/Architect magazine. The current owners, Dave Hurt and Scott Coors, purchased the property two years ago. They have completely redecorated the home using the talents of Jim Herring of HW Home. Warmer colors and tactile materials were introduced throughout the house. Texture and warmth provide a welcoming atmosphere. In my opinion, the house looks great in both incarnations. Here's a two page spread from the current magazine article, followed by a few images from earlier years. From tbe June/July 2009 issue of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles.

The project appeared on the cover of Builder/Architect in 2002.

A Corbusier-designed chaise as furnished by the original owners. The windows are by Hope, the same manufacturer specified by Frank Lloyd Wright for his Fallingwater masterpiece.

One of my favorite rooms is the library. The woodwork wraps the room with perfect craftsmanship.

The kitchen with a classic Eero Saarinen-designed table and chairs from the 1950s.

The Women

The Women is an historical novel by T. C. Boyle (Penguin Group, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-670-02041-6) about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Specifically it is about the romantic life of the famous architect. The Women reads like the plot of a soap opera. But, then, that is pretty much the way any biography of Frank Lloyd Wright reads. He led such a (deliberately?) dramatic life that any recounting elicits incredulity. Since so many biographers consistently report the same facts, we can conclude that the famous architect did indeed lead a life of over-scaled events, despite the fact that his architectural work stresses human-scaled spaces. He imbued his architecture with tranquility; meanwhile his personal life was a whirl of chaos and tension. My favorite biographical recounting is Finis Farr’s 1961 work, published just two years after Wright’s passing. I read that when I was very young so it may have left more of an impression than it deserves. A more recent (and more lascivious) version of Wright’s scandalous life is The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman (2007). A factual potboiler and a fascinating read. A favorite photo of Wright’s Taliesin given to me by Molly Lantz.
Possibly by photographer/inventor Ed Farber (1981).

Back to The Women. Boyle bases his book on well-documented events making his work very nearly a straight biography rather than a novelized tale. However, conversations, emotions, and motivations are necessarily conjecture, forcing it into the novel category. The reader can, however, take the bones of the story as historical record. The sordid facts are all true, documented in newspapers and magazines of the day and recounted by many people who knew Wright and lived through the events with him.

The literary device that makes The Women interesting is presenting the story backwards. Boyle reveals events in reverse chronological order, covering, in turn, the four most important women in Wright’s life. The author starts with his last wife, Oligivanna Milanoff, the daughter of a Montenegrin Supreme Court justice and student of Gurdjieff. He then moves to wife number two, Miram Noel, a morphine-addled esthete. Next Boyle covers the murdered mistress and wife of a former client, Mamah Cheney. Finally we meet Catherine, the first Mrs. Wright and mother to six of his children. A fifth woman, Wright’s mother Anna, could easily have been a major player in this tale. She had a tremendous influence on his personal and professional life. Boyle chose to limit his tale to Wright’s paramours. He does not ignore Anna, but relegates her to a minor role.

The reverse trajectory of the story makes a good tale because events that seem inexplicable or improbable when first exposed gradually make sense as the history behind them is revealed. Like real life, things that first seem bizarre often make sense when all the facts are discovered. Why is Miram Noel so erratic and vengeful? The behavior is explained by her spoiled life and troubled relationship to drugs, as we learn many pages later. How did Wright’s home, Taliesin, become a sophisticated expression of his unique style? It evolved as he rebuilt the place several times for reasons that are integral to his life story; each version of Taliesin became more refined and a clearer expression of Wright’s architectural principles.

All of this is luridly entertaining. The characters are crazy and exotic though Wright ultimately comes off as an arrogant egotist. (A term more pejorative than egoist, as pointed out by Ayn Rand many years ago when she was mislead by a dictionary. (!) A topic for another day.) Peripheral characters include celebrities, disciples, newspaper reporters, and local rubes. Wright never hesitates to turn all of them to his egotistical advantage. He allows spectacular personal events to orbit around him, apparently craving attention in order to amplify his larger-than-life persona. Few biographers would dispute the evidence of this. Many who knew him remarked on the uncomfortable opposition of his life to his life’s work. His buildings are friendly invitations to comfort and ease. His personality was self-exalted over the talents, needs, and considerations of others. An oft-quoted testament of Wright’s is that he preferred “honest arrogance” to “hypocritical humility.” It’s hard to argue with that amusing quip, except as it tends to excuse outrageously inconsiderate behavior. The warm interior of Taliesin. (From Taliesin web site.)

But this blog is less interested in Wright’s personality than his architecture. We really have to come to The Women with some knowledge of Wright’s accomplishments as an innovator and form giver or we wouldn’t be interested in his biography in the first place. In truth, he stands alone as the titan of twentieth century American architecture. He is not the only great architect this country has produced, of course. But his achievements came first in so many categories that he has to be placed at the top of the list. European-Americans contributed significant works to modern architecture. Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra cannot be ignored, but they freely admitted the early influence Wright had on their work even before emigrating to the United States. Locally grown architects, such as John Lautner and Bruce Goff, also made significant contributions, but they came later in the century after Wright had already staked his territory in the modern world. They also acknowledged the influence Wright had on their work. Taliesin emerges from its Wisconsin hillside. (From Taliesin web site.)

Unfortunately, The Women contains only hints of Wright’s architectural achievements. Descriptions of his buildings are sparse. That’s unfortunate since Boyle does have a gift for descriptive phrase. At one point he compares Taliesin (Wright’s rural Wisconsin home) to a Druid castle, its stone battlements anchoring it to the native hills. Most critics see the Japanese influence on Taliesin. The Druid analogy is unique, but I saw it in that light three years ago. I was driving down State Road 23 in Wisconsin on a drizzly spring day. Rounding a corner on the lonely road, Taliesin emerged from the misty hillside like an extension of the sandstone rock outcroppings in the region. It was Brigadoon… not quite real.
Southeastern Wisconsin.

“The house was beautiful… “ Miram Noel muses in The Women. “There was an aura of peace about the place… the simple transparent beauty of the place had a calming effect beyond all thought…”

Taliesin is as much a character as any of the women in The Women. Taliesin was Wright’s true love as well as the vortex of his story. Fires, multiple murders, legal theatrics, tabloid exploitations. All of this swirled around and through Taliesin.
Taliesin is often compared to the architecture of rural Japan.

Read The Women as an enjoyable summer novel. Read elsewhere for a serious understanding of Wright’s architectural work.

The Eyes of the Skin

One of the recurring themes in this blog is the idea that architecture is more than the outside of a building. It is a common misconception that architects take care of what we see from the street and interior designers take care of the rest. Nothing could be more wrong. When this happens, it is the result of an architect’s abdication of his true realm: creating spaces. Interior designers will collaborate on the final resolution of those spaces with colors, textures, and furnishings. However, if the architect has not provided worthwhile spaces from the beginning then everyone else from the interior designer to the lighting consultant is left putting band-aids on an injury.

Perhaps the idea that architecture is only the outside of buildings comes from its representation as exterior photographs in magazines and books. These flat simulacra are mere shadows of architecture. They are not the real thing. Yet we commonly judge buildings by pictures without considering the total experience of architecture. Architecture is more that the exterior elements. It is the interior space; it is sounds reverberating through a building; it is the olfactory environment of aromas; it is feeling the warmth of the sun absorbed and radiated by stone and mortar.

Juhani Pallasmaa explores this idea that architecture is more than the appearance of exterior shapes, in his book The Eyes of the Skin (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0470015799). The small publication (80 pages), which has circulated since 1996, is little known outside the architectural profession. Pallasmaa argues that western culture relies too heavily on one sense, vision. The dominance of vision has led to our evaluating architecture only by how it looks – and usually only how it looks in a two-dimensional photographic record of a building’s exterior. That is how things get published in architectural journals: by the seductive quality of the photographs. Pallasmaa claims “buildings have turned into image products detached from existential depth and sincerity.”

In reality, we “see” with much more than our eyes. In an old masonry structure, we feel the damp atmosphere, smell the mustiness of age, and know the texture of rough stones under our feet. We do not need to use our eyes to understand these things about the architecture.

We also cannot detach architecture from its environment. The sounds and scents of nature contribute to the feelings we have about the buildings we insert into specific sites. The mood of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto is different from the atmosphere surrounding an Italian villa. Neither can be detached from its surroundings. The surroundings establish the character of the architecture.

The muscular movement of negotiating steps, the feel of ambient sunlight on a wooden porch, the temperature of filtered light through a carved screen. These ways of experiencing architecture have nothing to do with vision. This is experiencing architecture with the eyes of the skin.

Pallasmaa also makes a case for the use of natural building materials, discusses the

significance of shadows (see also the excellent book In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki),

and relates architecture to the shape and scale of the human body. The table of contents for The Eyes of the Skin provides intriguing clues to Pallassmaa’s s unique approach to architecture: The Shape of Touch. Spaces of Scent. Oral versus Visual Space. Acoustic Intimacy.

The Eyes of the Skin reminds us that architecture is – or ought to be – a multi-sensory experience.

A Religious Experience on Interstate 80

I was driving across Nebraska on Interstate 80 with my sister, Sue. We were chatting about nothing in particular when I caught a glimpse of something interesting on a far hill. It looked like a glass chapel. Like something architect Fay Jones might have designed. But he doesn’t have any works in Nebraska, does he?

I took the next exit and backtracked across the Nebraska prairie on rough gravel roads. My sister looked a bit alarmed by my manic search; though I’m sure she’s used to my architectural pilgrimages by now. Sure enough: past dusty farms and grain-stocked silos at the end of a dead-end road was a Fay Jones-designed chapel. It was worth the detour, since spiritual apparitions are rare in Nebraska.
Fay Jones (1921-2004) produced a significant body of work. A student of Frank Lloyd Wright, he started designing private residences in stone and wood that stretched Wright’s prairie style to its organic limit. I was aware of his work from magazines as a teenager and later, in architecture school, had the opportunity to hear his lectures at the University of Oklahoma. His approach to architecture was both intellectual and passionate.

His early work could easily be mistaken for that of Frank Lloyd Wright, but at some point, it changed. It grew into something less derivative and more transcendental. He started designing chapels for meditation. Places of great beauty that blended with their surroundings by abstracting the structure of nature into something manmade. Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas was the first, followed by Cooper Chapel, Bella Vista, Arkansas, and Leonard Community Chapel, Fort Worth, Texas. All of them are ethereal structures that almost aren’t there at all, so permeable and immaterial are they. The Nebraska apparition my sister and I came upon is the Holy Family Shrine –Fay Jones’ last ecclesiastical design. The entrance is a pedestrian tunnel carved through an earth berm seeded with prairie grass. This tunnel leads to a world apart. A watercourse meanders through a wildflower garden leading to a stone wall, visually anchoring the chapel structure to the earth. The stone wall frames thick wooden doors to the chapel proper. Once inside, space expands beyond transparent walls to the horizon. The watercourse continues through the front wall of the chapel and runs under the pews. You can hear the sound of moving water beneath your feet, dissolving the distinction between indoors and out. The structure seems to trace tree branches against the sky on all four sides. Architecture becomes a sensory experience engaging light, sound, touch, and even the smell of the prairie earth. There is also a sense of spiritual engagement. The web site for the chapel says the “idea was to create a place off interstate 80 for travelers… not only... of the road, but of a spiritual voyage on earth.” The Holy Family Shrine is Catholic in orientation. However, it is a privately run non-profit receiving no funding from the Archdiocese. It is intended “as a place of rest and solitude for people of all faiths….”

The official web site does not mention Fay Jones as architect, an omission akin to leaving the name of an author off the cover of a book. The on-site visitor center does mention Mr. Jones, though one has to search hard to find his name amidst the extensive exhibits. The Holy Family Shrine is located at Gretna, Nebraska about halfway between Omaha and Lincoln. Call 402.332.4565 for hours.