post modern condition?

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This is my addition to Mauro Thon Giudici's category - also satisfying a co-worker's request for images of the current work site. Despite it's publication in the April 1986 issue of Architectural Digest, this small dwelling's appearance is one much debated amongst all who visit during this phase of reconstruction - surely the first that has ever been done to this house. Say what you will about its design, all workers are agreed upon the lack of a touch with reality exhibited by the architects. We're convinced that designers should be forced to live with the results of their labors. This one has an appalling lack of practiical detail concerning the roof. After twenty plus years, there is an unusual amount of rot in the sheathing. Not throughout, but certainly in large areas that should not have had any problems if it had been designed and built correctly the first time.

The wilderness could stand to be cut back some to permit the house to exist.

Comments

[Mauro]

Hi, nice post and nice pictures. It looks like an inspiration from R. Venturi I'm reading his "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture". Time may match for theoretical thinking propagation. Did you find anything on the web about the original prize motivation ?

BTW what did they do wrong in the original fabric ? I suppose, but not sure at all, that the materials are not so usual, at least in small buildings, in your country.

[KMW]

Mauro,

Thanks for stopping by. Not sure what you mean by "Time may match for theoretical thinking propagation." Clarify please. No, I haven't done any research about what the architects intended with this building. It was built for a single man, who is still the owner, and still single as far as we know. I've not even read the Architectural Digest article, other than to skim the pictures. As an occasional photographer of architecture myself, it was pretty interesting to see that the photographs don't reveal any of the details of the house, but give a rather cheery feeling of coolness. There are, some 20 - 25 years after initial construction, still unfinished sections of the dwelling. The photographer managed to cleverly "lie" about these unfinished areas, and make the project appear to be complete as is - far from the case.

As for the design/construction details, the most glaringly wrong was with the roofs. The upper asphalt shingle roof, which can be see as a red roof in the first photo, meets the level surface of the soffit below with no intervening vertical surface at all. In this area of the world, we have some 50 - 60 inches of rain annually, so the roof has to be designed to shed that much water. This roof had no drip edge to keep the water from wicking back uphill and into the soffit below. Another section of flat roof, which can be see in the third photo where a co-worker is at work, had a metal drip edge higher than the surface of the rubber roofing, creating a dam that held several inches of water, with no drain anywhere. Eventually it rotted out the roof at this sagging section above the door.

None of the materials used on this house are out of the ordinary for residential construction here in the US: concrete block, glass block, plywood, clad glass windows, yellow pine trim boards, rubber roofing, asphalt shingles. It's not so much the materials that have been used that are the problem. It's the manner in which they've been combined.

And as I understand your category" PMC," the design of a building that draws from a myriad of sources creates a pastiche of influences. I'm convinced that the structure was designed to be viewed from several hundred feet away. Don't get too close to see the details.

[Mauro]

Hello,
sorry for the "Time may match for theoretical thinking propagation.". I was just suggesting that the time of presentation and maybe project a couple of years before (1986 ?) could match with the ideas Venturi proposed to his publich 10 years before. Ten years BI (Before Internet) are the bare minimum for and idea to travel from the enclave in within which it was made to a larger audience.

As for PMC I need a somewhat larger time to think some better explanation, it will take some time :-D

Bye
Mauro

[KMW]

Mauro,

Thanks for the clarification. I've read the name, but know nothing about Venturi. I'll have to go look him up. As a builder, I'm not very knowledgeable about architects, other than the ones we deal with on a day to day local basis.

Another project I worked on about 1993 - also basically BI - was similarly dominated by squares and grids. It truly was an agglomeration of different parts, with this modern grid of wood and glass attached to the rear of a very traditional looking neo Colonial house from the 20's or 30's. If I get motivated, I might search through old negs to see if I can find a picture of the house. I suspect it might be a great candidate for the PMC category.