Architectural Hardscape

A bridge over a freeway.

Architecture never exists in a vacuum. Any work of architecture never truly looks great unless the interior design looks great, the landscape architecture is complementary, and the hardscape (developer speak for all hard surfaces: roads, parking lot, lighting, sidewalks) is well designed.
Above is a picture of hardscape in my neighborhood, a bridge over a freeway. This was designed and built as  a unified structure.  It is part of a big freeway expansion project and is repeated many times over the same freeway.  Presumably some time and effort went into the design of these bridges. Yet, it is not a coherent design. 

Q. What is wrong with is picture? 

A. Nothing goes together. 

Contemporary sidewalk lights. More decorative than functional.

The decorative sidewalk lights are designed to shine upward and reflect light off the curved hood down to the sidewalk. Not a bad contemporary design but the light they provide disappears in the surrounding street lights and freeway glare. These little lights provide precious little light. They should be called darks.  

Traditional street lights. 

Perhaps in recognition of the inefficacy of the pedestrian lights, slightly taller street lights are spaced regularly along the bridge. They provide adequate light for cars and pedestrians, but the traditional design of the taller lights has no relationship to the smaller contemporary lights. It is as if the two came from different centuries - the nineteenth and the twenty-first   No one bothered to coordinate the spacing of the tall lights to the smaller ones.  Sometimes they are close together, sometimes far apart. (Nice team effort there.) Furthermore, neither the tall lights nor the short lights have any design relationship to the street lighting in the neighborhoods on either side of the bridge or the more functional freeway lighting elsewhere. Any contextual reference is nonexistent. Doesn't anyone bother to consider these things?
  
What's wrong with this picture?  

A melange of hardscape design features. 

Photos: MJK

Architectural Hardscape the Right Way

Continuing the discussion on architectural hardscape: there are good ways to do it. Sometimes outdoor art is part of the hardscape, making pathways, plazas, gardens and buildings more interesting. There is no better example of art mixing with landscaping and the built environment than the current exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass art at the Denver Botanic Gardens. The accompanying iPhone pictures hardly do justice to the spectacular glass installations. For more on the artist and his work (and much better pictures) click on http://www.chihuly.com. For more information on the Denver exhibit, see link below.

Chihuly

Saturday, June 14, 2014 to Sunday, November 30, 2014

Outdoor

Denver Botanic Gardens presents the Rocky Mountain Region's first outdoor exhibition of artwork by celebrated American artist, Dale Chihuly.

Lantz Architecture Tour

Living room end of Karrer residence by LaVerne Lantz.

The Wright and Like architecture tour in Wisconsin (mentioned in the previous entry) was a huge success in bringing recognition to the architecture of LaVerne Lantz.

About four hundred people toured nine properties: two designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one by Louis Sullivan, a library by Claude & Starck, and five homes designed by LaVerne Lantz. For many, discovering Lantz's work was a revelation. Repeatedly, people made comments like, "I never heard of him, but his work is wonderful," and "I like Lantz's homes as much or even more than Wright's."

This marks Wright in Wisconsin's 19th annual home tour. Many people participate in the tour year after year. This year they traveled from as far afield as Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and, of course, all parts of Wisconsin. For architectural junkies the event provides many opportunities for fellowship and discovery. The conclusion of the three day event was a Sunday brunch with a panel discussion focusing on Lantz. Several original and/or current owners of Lantz-designed homes were in attendance, meeting each other for the first time.  The idea was put forth of starting a Lantz owners club which would continue to make the public aware of the breadth and quality of his work. This type of recognition of Lantz's work occurs for the first time nearly two decades after his passing.

One of the crowd favorites was the Ron and Eileen Karrer house built in 1996. From the tour brochure:

Although this home is clearly among his later projects, Lantz continued to design with the following concepts/features: integration into the existing terrain; a strong horizontal emphasis; broad, overhanging eaves; the use of natural materials; and continuous expanses of glass.  In order to keep costs down, the Karrers were willing to actively participate in the home's construction, which began in 1993. With guidance from Lantz and actual physical assistance from family members, they were able to occupy the cedar, glass, and limestone clad home three years later. 

Molly Lantz, LaVerne's widow, calls the Karrer residence "the treehouse." It is, indeed, a house that seems to float amongst the trees.  Lantz sited the home on a steep ridge (not the Karrer's original location on their forested property) which makes it feel like it is in the treetops. It has an astonishing connection to the natural environment, especially at this time of year with mature oaks and maples in full leaf.

Three interior views of Karrer residence.

Main entry, Karrer residence. 

Photo credits:  George Hall

LaVerne Lantz Architecture on Tour

The Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program is a not-for-profit organization created with the assistance of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the State of Wisconsin Department of Tourism.  Its mission is to promote, protect, and preserve the heritage of Frank Lloyd Wright in his native state of Wisconsin.  One of the major endeavors of the organization is sponsoring  an annual tour of Wright and "like Wright" homes throughout the state. This year the nineteenth   annual event features nine sites in southeastern Wisconsin, five of which were designed by architectural designer LaVerne Lantz.  

First Lantz residence, Delafield, Wisconsin.

Readers of this blog may remember my articles on LaVerne Lantz from April 2009.  I am pleased to say that the inclusion of Lantz's work on this tour is a direct result of those articles.

Second Lantz residence, Delafield, Wisconsin. 

Wurster resdicence by Laverne Lantz. 

Wurster residence.

The work of LaVerne Lantz has never before been featured in any retrospective.  The tour organizers (in particular, George Hall who scouted the sites) are very excited about these inclusions. The self-guided tour, called "Driving Mr. Wright" will be Saturday June 7th.  Two other events are associated with the architectural tour. On Friday, June 6th An Evening of Architecture and Artisans includes a behind-the-scene visit to the Ephraim Pottery studio for demonstrations and Q&A. On Sunday, June 8th a panel discussion, Working with Mr. Lantz: An Architectural Retrospective, will be held in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin. I will be one of the panelists. 

Morey residence by LaVerne Lantz.

For detailed information on all properties on the tour along with a complete schedule of events please link directly to the sponsor's web site: www.wrightinwisconsin.org.

Images: George Hall 

A Late Arrival at the Delano

Phillipe Starck has built an architectural reputation by designing the hippest, coolest hotels around the world. Almost single-handed, he has refocused the attention of hoteliers on venues that are hyper-contemporary yet chic. His designs are youth-oriented; everyone is a rock star upon entering a Phillipe Starck-designed lobby. 

Grand lobby at the Delano, Miami Beach. 

I have stayed at a few Phillipe Starck properties over the years: the Mondrian in Hollywood, the Paramount in Manhatten.  The overriding esthetic is always light-hearted but sophisticated. One venue, the Delano in Miami Beach,  has been open since the late 1990s, but I have never had the opportunity to see it.  Until last week.

Poolside patio. 

Lounge area. 

Extensively reviewed in the architectural journals when it opened, the Delano has been on my to do list for quite a while. I consider it one of Starck's best. Understated and lavish at the same time, it's architectural success resides in its simplicity.  Sheer fabrics form a diaphanous colonnade that stretches from lobby straight through the ground floor to an outdoor pool. You could be in a Greek temple or in a dream. The processional plan is compelling and elegant. The problem with some buildings is that the architecture can be compelling, but, at times, too compelling. Even Starck sometimes throws too much into a good design. The result is visual and mental clutter.  Not so at the Delano. It is elegantly simple, like a clean mathematical solution to a complex problem.

Pool at the Delano.

The Delano is actually a recycled art deco property. The dramatic makeover does not hide its landmark pedigree, but still stands firmly in the present. This high-wire act of balancing between historicism and innovation has turned out to be a successful formula. The Delano attracts a stream of international celebrities. In essence, the Delano is a stage set for stylish occasions, real or imagined.

I was a late arrival at the Delano, but - like all good design - it passes the test of time.

The historic art deco structure. 

Poolside cabanas.

Architectural Images

Occasionally my friend, Lucille, forwards stunning photographs harvested on the Internet. Sometimes they include images of architecture, caught in moments of sublime beauty. Here are a few worth passing along.

Abandoned New York City subway tunnel. 

Dubai.

Castle in Werfen, Austria.

Tambian Lake, Indonesia.

Terra forming the Palm Islands, Dubai.

A house on a rock.

Burma.

Dubai at night.

Manarola, Italy.

Buddhist monks, lantern lighting ceremony.

Morning in Tuscany.

Neuschwanstein Caste, Germany.

St. Stephen Island, Norway.

Cliff side village.

Architectural Sketches

My office was recently awarded a contract for the redesign of a high-rise condominium unit. We will demolish all remnants of the previous floor plan and start from scratch within the demising walls. We could not locate an existing computer aided drafting (CAD) file for the original project, so we are forced to create a new Autocad file from measurements for our "base" drawings. No big deal, except that our client is in a hurry to get started with the design and asked if we could move forward with "freehand sketches on tracing paper."
Freehand sketches! Who does such a thing? The days of hand-drafted architectural sketches are nearly gone. Certainly, we don't dare present an unpolished, manually-drafted sketch to a client. Today we produce crisp, clean, seemingly perfect images using our CAD programs. But something is missing from these perfectly pretty images. (I hesitate to call them drawings. Are electrons arranged on a screen, or reproductions from ink jet printers, really drawings?)

Sketch for a condominium. 

Years ago I went to a museum exhibit in Dallas of Frank Lloyd Wright's hand-drafted plans, elevations, and perspectives. Many of them were rough, colored pencil scrawls where you could see that the image in the architect's mind had directly connected to his moving hand and been impressed upon the paper. These were drawings I had seen reproduced in books many times, but that was nothing like being in the presence of the actual, full-scale drawings. You could smell the paper they were drawn upon. You could see the thick pencil lines, the smudges, the erasures, the overlay of multiple ideas in different colors. You could see the birth of ideas. I felt that I had to touch these drawings and be connected to them. Against all well-known museum rules, I did touch one.  No alarms sounded and I felt a direct link to my architectural patrimony.
Today I pull out my Prismacolors (the same brand of colored pencils used many decades ago by Wright) and begin sketches for our new project. It is a large condo unit, 4000 square feet. Multiple ideas spill out, and the hand moves as rapidly as the mind. No computer modeling is yet as quick as the mind/hand connection.  I have not seen an ap or a program that allows for the uncertainties of the design process as does freehand sketching. The sketchy line holds multiple meanings and suggestions that do not reside in the mathematics of a CAD-generated line.  Don't get me wrong. I embrace the brave new world of electronica. There is much to be said about melding our brains -- as we are doing -- with electrons in a box.  But we are not yet at the point of loving these electrons in the same visceral way we can love a hand-drawn sketch. Perhaps we will be soon. But, for now, human touch, whether from one human to another or from a human intelligence to paper, is a richly deep and unique experience. It may not be irreplaceable, but it is incomparable.