Heaven in 3 and half rooms

Pope-Leighey House, Fairfax, Virginia.

In Fall of 2009 I went on a trip to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland with some friends. While I was out there I took the opportunity to visit both Falling Water and Kentuck Knob. They are about an hour away and part of the same tour system. While Falling Water may well be Frank Lloyd Wright’s most well known home, neither should be missed. Kentuck Knob is a great example of how a Usonian Home could be modified to suit the needs of a much wealthier client than the original target market. Furthermore, the house is built on a hexagon base unit which stands in full contrast to the rectangle used as the base for Falling Water.

Pope-Leighey House Bedroom, Fairfax, Virginia.

When I returend to Northern Virignia I had the pleasure of touring a third Wright home, the Pope-Leighey House, a more traditional Usonian Home. While less well known, this house holds its own in any architectural arena. Compared to Kentuck Knob and Falling Water, this middle class home feels more garden folly than full time residence, but it is a great example of an early compact Modern compact home which manages to fit in the creature comforts in the smallest of spaces.

Pope-Leighey House Living Room, Fairfax, Virginia.

Which leads me to the general feeling I had about all three residences: how small and cave-like they felt. All of the spaces are characterized by tight control of light, generally short ceiling, and a lack of extraneous space. All three houses function in a completely different domestic paradigm than today’s residential housing stock. Wright’s signature styles of compression and release and geometric efficiency of space stood in sharp contrast to the contemporary residential style of orthographic expansion and redundancy. This is all part of the drama of his architecture. Falling Water, which has a total of 5,330 square feet (2885 square foot interior; 2445 square foot terraces) and a guest house of 1,700 square feet, is comparable to many of the McMansions of recent years with their 3,500 Square feet of interior space; but yet they somehow feel larger and grander. Even the minuscule solar decathlon houses which are often criticized for being free standing one bedroom apartments feel palatial compared to Wright’s 1200 square foot two bedroom, 1 bath, with office Pope-Leighey House.

Falling Water Guest House and Walkway, Mill Run, Pennsylvania.

All of that said, there is a comfort to be found in these small quarters. Everything feels more appropriate and human scaled and so well designed that additional space would be an unwelcome excess. Furthermore, these houses, unlike our modern bog-box storage units, are designed with a bare modicum of storage locations. The house is on display, not your collectibles. That is not to say these houses are austere, far from it, nor are they filled with a Rococo style of ornament. They walk a fine line between monk’s cell and IKEA showroom.

Kentuck Knob Entry Forecourt, Chalk Hill, Pennsylvania.

Balti-less

This morning I went to a client consultation in Baltimore. While there we wandered for a bit around the Fell’s point district in addition to the neighborhood where the client’s property is (near John’s Hopkins Medical Center). I have to say, that my opinion of “Charm City” is not necessarily a good one.

This is my third trip to Baltimore, and while tourist areas like the Inner Harbor are clean and well maintained, I have a hard time liking them and the city as a whole. The clean-ness feels forced, especially in comparison to the rest of the city, which feels like the bastard child of Philadelphia and DC. The streets are wide like in DC, but there is very little green buffer between the buildings, the sidewalk and the street, like in Philadelphia. The neighborhoods and streets seem to quickly merge from one indistinct area to another, and while doing so they don’t really seem to retain any sort of character, unlike the distinct neighborhoods of DC. In Baltimore everything just feels grimy. This is not to say that the Fell’s point district wasn’t lovely. It just seems to not quite be lovely enough for such a posh neighborhood.

In addition, the Preservation movement and gentrification have come late to Baltimore. There are large parts of the city that seem destined to crumble in on themselves, and with the near housing collapse I have to wonder if these areas will ever get a revitalization boost. That is not to say that there isn’t architectural wonders to be found here, because there are. But they will need a good deal more rehabilitation than most areas of DC. This is not helped by the general lower standard of living in Baltimore than DC and the relatively poor mass transit system.

Maybe I just haven’t been in the right part of town.

Winchester

The Masonic Temple Building in Old Town Winchester, VA

I took a day trip up to Old Town Winchester, VA on Saturday. Winchester is what I would call a village, but i guess in Virginia’s terms it s a city. Old Town has a 3 block long area that is closed off as a pedestrian mall, which seems like it is the tourist focus for the whole city. The oldest buildings there probably date to the middle of the 19th century, with many of them having unfortunate 1950’s ground floor storefront renovations. But if you look to the second story you’ll be surprised by some of the wonderful architectural details.

The thing that I found as completely odd was that we arrived around 3 on Saturday of Labor Day weekend and most of the stores and restaurants were closed. In addition, there was a large number of vacant storefronts. There was quite a few people walking up and down the strip, but with only a handful of boutiques and two open restaurants there was a general feeling of disappointment. The strangest part about this was that as we drove away from downtown we started finding more and more open stores and restaurants.