Sunday, June 02, 2019
Not beautiful, not homes
BBC website has one of those tiresome features in praise of modern "architecture". Supposedly these are Ten Beautiful Homes. In fact none of them are beautiful and none of them are homes.
Six of them are basically aquariums. Rectangular frames filled with glass. The other four are weird wiggly things resembling clamshells or fish. So these ten "homes" are aquariums and the contents of aquariums.
Prominent Canadian architect Arthur Erickson designed this west coast Modernist house on an incredibly steep site in West Vancouver, alongside long-time collaborator Geoffrey Massey. Building on the difficult, rugged cliff face was completed in 1963 with a design of hovering horizontal beams and glass which enclosed the major living areas, as a multi-storey structure descending the slope in four levels, from the carport to the rocky bluff over the Pacific. Each area opened onto a roof terrace over the floor below, to achieve maximum access to the stunning views. The late Erickson wrote that: “The Graham house launched my reputation as the architect you went to when you had an impossible site.” Despite its prestige, sadly the Graham house was demolished in 2007.Sadly? Obviously it couldn't hold water. More to the point, it couldn't hold people. It was vacant for many years before it was demolished. Ordinary gable-roofed houses built in 1963 are still serving as homes because they were DESIGNED TO BE USED AS HOMES. People enjoyed living in them, so people maintained them. = = = = = Later remembered that I had accidentally illustrated the point just a couple weeks ago, in an entirely different context!
Labels: Patient things
¶ 2:17 AM
