JULY 2007 » book review

Designing a Century

Key Houses of the Twentieth Century: Plans, Sections and Elevations
by Colin Davies
W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY; 2006
240 pp; 150 color & 450 b&w illus.; with CD-ROM; $45
ISBN 978-0-393-73205-4

Reviewed by Lynne Lavelle

One day in September of 1935, Frank Lloyd Wright received notice that his client, Edgar J. Kaufmann, would be at his Taliesin office within hours to view long-overdue sketches for a residence in Bear Run, PA. Accustomed to designing everything in his head, Wright sat down at his drawing board and committed to paper, for the first time, a composite plan, a section and an elevation for Fallingwater. Kaufman was delighted. While both men remained committed to Wright's vision – a house that would improve on its picturesque site – what followed would test the relationship between the architect and his client to its limits. The technical difficulties of perching the house above a waterfall caused the project to run hugely over budget and, for many years after its completion, Kaufman regularly called engineers to the house to assess its groaning and sagging, which he refused to alleviate by propping its cantilevers up on columns.

Today, Fallingwater is considered a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture and, by many, Wright's finest moment. And in Colin Davies' Key Houses of the Twentieth Century: Plans, Sections and Elevations, it finds itself in worthy company. From the design that became the blueprint for English suburbia to responses to global warming, Key Houses examines those that struck the biggest chord, from the floor plans up. While some are famous – Charles Moore's Moore House (1962), Greene & Greene's Gamble House (1908) and Philip Johnson's Johnson House (1949), amongst others – the chronological arrangement gives equal footing to lesser-known works, and selects no favorites.

According to Key Houses, the century belonged to Modernism. The works of Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier feature prominently, and they are cited as influences on other architects. But while examples of Modernism outnumber Classicism, inclusion is based on ambition rather than style. All 106 entries create what Davies describes as "the art of daily life," pushing the boundaries of where a house can be situated, how it can be laid out, and of what it can be constructed.

As Wright and Kaufman understood at Fallingwater, the site is an integral part of this art, and Key Houses recognizes several examples where nature had a profound influence. Adalberto Libera and Curzio Malapartes' fortress-like Casa Malaparte (1936-1940) occupies a rocky promontory on the Isle of Capri, which played no small part in its being chosen as the backdrop for Jean-Luc Goddard's 1963 film "Le Mepris." The house itself is described as "little more than a bare box," but readers can judge for themselves from the floor plans and elevations – the evolution of which is described in detail. Similarly, Mies van der Rohe's Tugendaht House (1930) in Brno, Czech Republic, uses straight glass walls to incorporate the surrounding trees in its open-plan design.

Often, traditional notions of comfort and circulation take a back seat to the expression of the house as art. Tugendaht's proximity to nature came at a price – it lacked seclusion or privacy, and there were no walls on which to hang pictures, leading one critic to sneer, "There is more to life than just looking at onyx walls and veneers of precious woods." At the other extreme, the six barely connected objects that comprise Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House are almost unrecognizable as a house, resembling instead a Modernist still-life painting or a toy village.

Davies disputes the opinion that the onset of Modernism was linear or foretold by gradually more progressive designs. Certainly, the proximity of these examples, each consistently different from the next, proves that it was not a watershed. And a series of false starts, examined as "key" rather than practical or desirable, provide clues as to why Classical and vernacular building continued unabated in the United States and abroad. Only two examples of the hexagonal, pre-fabricated Wichita House (1947) were ever completed, one of which can be seen, fully restored, in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, MI. But it is admitted to the canon as a symbol of post-war redundancy and economic depression, when the making of something – anything – at a factory during peacetime was encouraged.

Key Houses casts its spotlight wide and while doing so, examines each structure, style and architect with a critical eye and the benefit of hindsight. While Davies is quick to applaud outstanding achievements, houses that were too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, those that were caught in a never-ending cycle of repairs and those that were simply uninhabitable are presented as such, with regard to neither fame nor accepted opinion. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, whose contribution to the century is honored with seven entries, is not beyond reproach. While Wright's Ennis House is recognized as a prime example of his depth and vision, this does not excuse, according to Davies, "its overscaled and curiously undomestic character – more like a hotel or an embassy that a private house".

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