The Seamy Side of 436 West 20th Street
436 West 20th Street has recently added a prominent steel I-beam above its roof ridge and a large skylight on its north slope as shown in this photo taken on September 15th. A visit that day to the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings found no evidence of applications or approvals for these additions to the...Continue reading→
House Rule 9 – Build for Flexibility
While not the first great modern house, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House is without doubt the most influential today. It embodies two especially pertinent ideas that support flexibility. Its standardized industrial components suggest a demountable and reusable kit-of-parts architecture which, sixty years since, is the concept behind today’s explosive proliferation of prefabricated modular and recyclable housing solutions. The Farnsworth House is...Continue reading→
Chelsea Mansion: The Art of Fiction
In February, a Daily News article by Jason Sheftell described 436 West 20th Street as “one of the most perfectly restored homes in Manhattan.” Cracked and displaced bricks and window lintels are now features of its façade, following restoration by its owner, the real estate broker Michael Bolla. ArchiTakes first reported on the building in a March post, “436 West...Continue reading→
House Rule 8 – Use Trees
“Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?” Theodore Roethke asked in his 1953 poem, “The Waking.” Trees have been our natural environment since before we came down from them, and they hold a deeply embedded place in the human psyche. Their generations of leaves are an intuitive metaphor for death and renewal. In...Continue reading→
House Rule 7 – Optimize Natural Light
Johannes Vermeer’s The Music Lesson was painted in the early 1660s. As in most of Vermeer’s thirty-odd paintings, light enters from the left, spreading itself across a rear wall. The situation is modeled on his studio, where a window and wall intersected to create just such a wash of illumination. While light can be visibly suspended...Continue reading→
House Rule 6 – Integrate Furniture
Architect Jørn Utzon’s home, Can Lis, was completed in 1972. Composed of individual structures and courtyards, it stands on a cliff overlooking the sea in Majorca, Spain. A one-room building at its center contains a built-in crescent seat facing the vista through deep openings, with a fireplace on one side.Continue reading→