UN-AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses:, which were aimed at
middle-income families, but largely remained in the domain
of the wealthy.

Amid the present and growing crises of homelessness, architects are scrambling to come up with a practical solution for housing that's decent and yet doesn't cost a fortune. Alas, if there’s one building type that today's architects are ill-equipped to design, it's affordable housing. Aside from getting in a few years of honest-to-goodness construction experience—which is rare in the profession—very little in an architect’s training enables him to understand what makes for an affordable, easily-constructed building.  

The iconic end of Minoru Yamasaki's Pruitt-Igoe
housing complex, which expoused the Modernist
ideals of "machines for living in". But even
the poor, it turned out, didn't want to live in a machine.

While many factors outside an architect’s control interfere with the production of housing for ordinary incomes--including obsolete zoning ordinances, burdensome and costly building code requirements, anxious lenders, and developers who naturally prefer the fat profit margin of upscale markets--the architect’s share of the problem is rooted in an educational system that encourages unique solutions when obvious ones might do better.  

Many brilliant architects have taken a crack at producing affordable housing over the years. Not the least of them was Frank Lloyd Wright, who in 1937 erected the first of his “Usonian” houses—an attempt to deliver his highly personal brand of architecture in an inexpensive form. Well, okay—not that inexpensive. 

Habitat '67 was architect Moshe Safdie's pioneering attempt
to use repetitive units to reduce housing costs. But as creative
as it was in conception,  its limited repetition didn't
translate into less expense

Le Corbusier and a host of other Modernists brought their affordable-housing ideas to the United States and, unfortunately, some of them got built. Minoru Yamasaki’s ultra-rational Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, celebrated as a shining example of urban renewal when it was constructed in the Fifties, ended its short life as little more than a highrise drug den. Its demolition by dynamite in 1972, a slow-motion image seared into the conscience of many an architect, vividly signaled the failures of Modernism.    

One problem with attempts such as these lies in the architect’s characteristic compulsion to begin from a clean slate. Wright invented what amounted to a whole new construction system for his Usonian houses but, being unfamiliar to contractors, it could hardly have gained rapid acceptance. And in his Broadacre City model town project of the ‘30s, he proposed that each house be placed on a full acre of land, at a time when most Americans were already gravitating toward big cities.

The live-work concept, which originally repurposed disused
industrial buildings for truly affordable housing, was quickly
hijacked by developers and their architects and turned
into high-end lodging for hipsters.

While Wright dallied with such bucolic notions, the International Style Modernists instead seemed convinced that rationalism and technology held the key. In his “Ville Radieuse” project—mercifully unbuilt—Le Corbusier placed a phalanx of numbingly identical living towers on a site that resembled nothing so much as a sheet of graph paper. It was the spiritual ancestor of Pruitt-Igoe, based on the strange idea that equality was somehow linked to mindless anonymity.  

Moshe Safdie’s innovative Habitat housing scheme, built in Montreal in 1967, attempted to stack a standardized concrete housing unit into a sort of multistoried modular sculpture. Alas, the need to design much of the details from scratch once again derailed the project’s practical potential for mass construction.

And on it goes: Last May, 4000 people sent in applications
for this affordable housing complex in Oakland.
It contains 28 units.

Since that time, there have been any number of attempts to provide decent housing at a reasonable cost. Many have been laudable, and some have actually been affordable. Few have been both.

In recent years, one of the most promising forms of affordable housing has been the concept of industrial loft housing (often called live-work), in which obsolete industrial and commercial buildings were adapted to residential use. Artists, musicians, and craftspeople found generous areas of low-cost living space in these buildings, and could pursue their avocations there at the same time.  

As soon as architects eager for show-stopping projects entered the picture, however, the industrial loft became just another trendoid living style. I know—I helped it happen.  The result, I’m sorry to say, is a gentrification so rapid that industrial lofts are now essentially the domain of attorneys, stockbrokers, and techies. 

Once again, the virtual absence of practical training in architecture serves us badly, leaving most architects unable to judge what’s affordable and what isn’t.

KITCHEN PLANNING: No, Bigger Isn't Really Better

A small kitchen that works: This corridor or "Pullman"
arrangement works well for many old homes with lots
of doors. In this case, the kitchen was opened up to the
dining room with an arch that repeated designs found
elsewhere in the house. (Image: Peter Eckert)

Over the years I’ve learned that it’s very difficult to design a great kitchen, but fairly easy to design a good one—in fact, a basic kitchen will usually just about design itself. 

This assertion may have my kitchen designer colleagues whipping out their Dreizack knives, but no matter.

First, on the question of size: Big kitchens aren’t necessarily better. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of palatial, 400-square-foot kitchens that are perfectly awful, with pointlessly convoluted counter shapes and appliances separated by marathon stretches. These kitchens are like old Cadillacs: their size serves merely to impress; it doesn’t make for efficiency. In fact, functionally, a well-designed small kitchen can be in every way equal to a large one except for all those scads of extra storage space.  

The U-shaped kitchen will generally provide the least
interruption of workflow from through traffic, though
at the expense of a somewhat remote, "cul-de-sac" feel.
(Image: housetohome.co.UK)

Regarding appliance locations, the hoary old rule of the “work triangle” remains a useful one. If you draw lines connecting the three major work centers in your kitchen—sink, stove, and refrigerator—the sum of the sides of the resulting triangle should equal at least thirteen feet, yet not exceed twenty-two feet. Ideally, circulation paths should not cross this triangle, though in real life it’s often unavoidable.

There are only four basic kitchen arrangements: U-shaped, Corridor, L-Shaped, and One Wall, and your choice is dictated mainly by the number of doors or other circulation paths that enter the kitchen space. More openings usually mean less uninterrupted counter space, though not necessarily a less usable kitchen. 

Because the U-shaped kitchen is entirely

A compact L-shaped plan modified by adding an island.
This is another go-to arrangement for older homes
with doors interrupting the kitchen.

removed from through traffic, it ensures both the maximum continuous counter space and the least disruption of the cook. One arm of the U can also serve to divide the kitchen from an adjoining room, such as a family room or great room, in place of a solid wall.    

Alas, many older kitchens have multiple doors entering the room, which demands a different arrangement. When the room is long and narrow and has a door at either end, the Corridor (or “Pullman”) kitchen is the ticket. It’s extremely efficient in narrow confines—hence its use on railroad cars--and also simple to plan: the sink goes on the outside wall beneath a window, the range is placed more or less at the center of the counter opposite, and the refrigerator can go on whichever end suits you best.

A one-wall kitchen isn't necessarilya bare-bones affair:
This one is functional, bright, and elegant, while occupying
a scant 30 square feet of floor space. And what a welcome
change to use an actual color instead of white or gray.

If the existing room is interrupted by doors entering on two adjoining walls, an L-shaped kitchen usually fills the bill. In this case, the sink once again goes on an outside wall under a window, and the range takes the approximate center of the counter space on the adjoining side. Depending on space constraints, the refrigerator can be located at the extreme ends of the “L” on either wall, depending both on your preference and the space available.

The humble one-wall kitchen, which is most often found in efficiency apartments, doesn’t really have a work triangle at all, since the work centers are all in a row.  As long as there’s enough counter space between the sink, stove, and refrigerator, this arrangement will serve perfectly well. In fact, it’s ideal for all those single guys who dine on Pop-Tarts over the kitchen sink. 

I LOVE TRASHIN' FASHION

Eichler homes: These now-coveted mid-century marvels
were reviled for forty years.

If I’ve ranted and raved about any architectural subject over the years, it has to be the idea of fashion-driven “modernization”.  With today’s renewed appreciation of Mid-Century Modern—which was reviled for the previous forty years—you’d think that designers would finally get the message that every architectural period has its finer points. We’ve all seen the pattern umpteen times:  After five or so decades of neglect and abuse, older styles are suddenly rediscovered and cooed over by designer types, while more recent styles are patronizingly judged to be in need of "an updated look”—words that instantly set my teeth on edge.

San Francisco restoration specialist Thomas Leach
had to "de-update" this Victorian house, which had
been stripped of ornament and covered with asbestos
shingles by a previous modernizer.
(Image courtesy thomasleach.com)

Architectural styles have always followed a cycle of initial popularity, decline, disgrace, and rediscovery. Victorian homes were held in contempt until well into the 1970s, during which time countless irreplaceable examples were either demolished or just as irrevocably destroyed by being “modernized”.  Today one wouldn’t dream of stripping the ornament from a Victorian house and coating it in stucco, but during the Forties, that’s precisely what many architects and designers urged their clients to do in order to get that “updated look”.  

A 1970s ranch-style house "updated"
with the current uber-fad among
decorators—the sliding barn door.
For popularity, I give it five years, tops.

As ridiculous as this sounds now, we've apparently learned nothing from such mistakes. Regardless of the quality or thought that went into their design, examples of past styles that are currently out of favor—for instance, the over-the-top, woodsy and deck-laden homes of the 1970s—are deemed unworthy of the same appreciation we’d give an Eichler or some other style that’s currently chic. Design elements integral to 70s homes—elaborate wooden decks, lava-rock veneered chimneys, shake roofs, conversation pits, and all the rest—are blithely ripped out or painted over because they don't reflect the current mania for plasticky, frou-frou-laden design.

A basic truth of aesthetics is that the more fashionable something is now, the more unfashionable it will be later—and not very much later, mind you. Yet, driven by the relentless juggernaut of advertising and fashion industry hype, both designers and homeowners continue to buy into the oxymoronic notion that a thirty-year-old house is an embarrassment, while an "original" sixty-year-old house is a prize.  

First, we’re encouraged to remove everything that makes the original house belong to its era; then, a few decades later, we’re supposed to wring our hands in regret and try to put it all back. Why not cut out the middleman, and simply keep your house in its original style?  

Spectacularly original 1970s interior. How long before
they're back in fashion? Answer: Not long.
(Image couresty mymodernmet.com)

I invite any architect, designer, or decorator to cite a single example of a fashion-driven residential makeover done ten or fifteen years ago that can still be considered an improvement in light of changing tastes. On the other hand, I can cite any number of homes that have commanded higher sale prices for having never been sullied by an "update". 

MORE MEANINGLESS YEAR-END STATISTICS

The Cleavers at the dining table, circa 1958:
More Americans now claim to converse in the living room.
Wally, is that true?

Since the end of a decade is a time people like to put out all kinds of dumb statistics, here's my contribution. I've culled these from the barrage of media kits I get every month, many of which feature homeowner surveys of various kinds—statistics on what type of appliances Americans want in their kitchens, what rooms they like to eat in, that sort of thing. They’re put out by manufacturers to sell a product, so naturally they’re biased in one direction or another.  Still, some of the results may surprise you:

Sorry, remodeling this 80s bath will have to wait—
the kitchen is even worse.

•  Contrary to the familiar stereotype of families conversing over dinner, some forty percent of Americans claim—I say claim—that they have most family conversations in the living room. Sort of puts the lie to the Cleavers, doesn’t it?  If this finding is true, it contradicts the current planning trends of either downsizing the living room or omitting it altogether. On the other hand, it may just show that forty percent of Americans are liars.  

•  Americans overwhelmingly agree that if they could afford to remodel just one room in their house, it would be the kitchen.  Fortunately, this fact dovetails nicely with the old real estate maxim that regards kitchens (along with baths) as one of the few types of remodels that return their investment when the house is sold.  

An island can work great, but only if you have tons and tons
of room to accommodate it.

Surprisingly, only 15% of Americans chose the bathroom as the first room they’d remodel.  Still, that was good enough to take second place on the wish list. 

•  Almost half of all homeowners would like an island cooktop in their kitchen.  Apparently, these are the people who’ve never worked at one before. While cooking islands may look great in TV kitchens, they’re patently impractical for real-life cooking.  For one thing, they require both cooking utensils and sloppy ingredients to be needlessly carried across an aisle.  Worse, they’re also tremendous space hogs, gobbling up dozens of precious square feet in useless aisle area.  My advice?  Unless you’ve got both money and space to burn, skip the island kitchen.  

Simply press the button, and twenty pounds of trash
will be turned into twenty pounds of trash.

•  Ostensibly, one in seven Americans pine for a trash compactor--an appliance that essentially turns twenty pounds of trash into twenty pounds of trash.  Actually, with all the recycling going on nowadays, most households should have very little garbage left over to compact. Ah well—chalk one up for the marketing industry.

•  Two out of three Americans want a garbage disposer. No big surprise there. Curiously, though, people in the eastern half of the nation demand batch-feed  models—those in which the stopper has to be installed to turn the machine on—

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

while out west where I am, people overwhelmingly prefer continuous-feed models.  Apparently, we westerners still like to live dangerously.  Interesting, no? 

Oh, never mind. Happy 2020.

TOUCHING ARCHITECTURE: Don't Leave Out The Tactile Dimension

Berlin'e Brandenburg Gate: Go ahead and touch it.
(Architects: Langhans and Schadow, completed 1791)

“Please don’t touch!”  

You won’t see that admonition in great buildings too often, as you usually do in museums and galleries. If architecture really is an art—”frozen music”, as Friedrich von Schelling put it in 1809—then it’s the most engaging and people-friendly art there is.  

The famous knife0edge corner of
I. M. Pei's National Gallery in
Washington D.C:: It's been touched
by a million sticky-fingered kids.

Whereas great works of painting and sculpture are almost invariably off limits, even the greatest works of architecture seldom carry such restrictions. The Brandenburg Gate doesn’t have a sign saying, “Please don’t touch the columns.”  The famously alluring knife-edged corner of I. M. Pei’s addition to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. carries the smudges from a million sticky-fingered kids, yet no one grumbles about it, except maybe the janitors. For the most part, the world’s greatest works of architecture are eminently available for tactile inspection. This is living art in the best sense.

Well, so what?

A whole plethora of textures awaits
visitors to Frank Lloyd Wright's
Fallingwater in Bear Run, Pennsylvania

Touch—the opportunity for tactile exploration of form and texture—is one of the most important yet neglected aspects of architecture. Though you may not be aware of it, when you enter a building for the first time, you don’t just look at it—you feel it. Consciously or not, you judge whether it’s flimsy or substantial, elegant or seedy, real or fake, all by touch. Do the railings wobble and the floors bounce underfoot? Or do things really feel like they’re here to stay?

Touch also provides much of the pleasure and variety in architecture. Among the most brilliant aspects of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work was his studied use of contrast in material textures. For example, his 1936 masterpiece, Fallingwater, is a virtual symphony of stone and stucco, steel and glass. As you move through it—or through any other fine work of architecture—such combinations work subliminal magic on your psyche. You come away tingling without quite knowing why.  

Today's interiors use acres of drywall,
and they feel cheap because they
ARE cheap.

Alas, today it’s the vanilla twins of stucco and drywall, along with the incomparable elegance of vinyl windows, plastic moldings, and pressboard doors, that provide the dominant textures in our homes. Our houses aren’t just built cheap—they feel cheap, too. Even though today’s pumped-up extravaganzas are routinely tarted up with crown moldings and glitzy hardware, these items usually flunk the touch test.  More often than not, they feel cheap, hollow, and flimsy.   

By contrast, textures abound in Carr Jones's
Hermans Residence, Oakland, California, 1928
(Lovely photo by my co-author Doug Keister)

Is there an alternative?  Consider the work of an architect such as Carr Jones, who built lovely, personal homes of brick, clay tile, and wrought iron. Though these are among the most ancient and humble building materials, they impart both rich textures and an incomparable sense of solidity. Thanks to them, every surface in Jones’s houses delights not only the eye, but the hand as well. 

Maybe in today’s wired, net-surfing culture, in which so many of us—including me—sit around diddling plastic keys all day, our appreciation for the genuine and permanent textures of life has slipped a little.

If so, I’m sure we’ll come around again.  I just get that feeling.

THE GRAMMAR OF ARCHITECTURE: Cut The Bull

Calvin Coolidge:
"You Lose."

Unlike the present occupant of the White House, the thirtieth president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, was a man of few words. His terse responses to the press have become legendary.  It’s said that a reporter once breathlessly approached him, saying:  “Mr. President, I bet my friend here I could get you to say three words.”  

Coolidge’s reply:  “You lose.”

Silent Cal’s presidential record may have been less than stellar, but his aversion to bombast remains a lesson to us all, particularly in light of today's events.  And while politicians might be the first to learn from Coolidge’s reticence, designers could take a few hints too.  

Can you guess what Frank Lloyd Wright's central theme
was for the Robie House? (Oak Park, Illinois: 1909)

That’s because architecture is a visual language, and just like a spoken one, it can get cluttered by a lot of extraneous blather. It’s no accident that grammatical terms such as idiom, context and articulation also appear in the language of architecture. Moreover, many of the bromides of good communication—be clear, be concise, make your point and get out—apply to design as well.  

As a great believer in both simple writing and simple design, I humbly offer a few guidelines to help slash architectural bombast:  

Utter incoherence: Designs like this demonstrate
why simplicity is a virtue.

•  Use a strong central theme rather than a number of weak ones.  Just as the title of an essay informs all of the statements to follow, an architectural composition should have a single dominant idea that suffuses the whole.  The theme might lie in the way rooms are organized—in a courtyard, perhaps, or in a cluster—or it might have to do with using a favorite combination of materials, or even a certain style of roof.  Other elements can support or echo the central theme, but they shouldn’t compete with it, since this only dilutes your overall statement.

Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion of 1928.
Now this was a guy who knew when to shut up.

•  Remember that, more often than not, simplicity is a virtue.  The mind tires when it’s forced to wade through a lot of excess information, whether it’s verbal or visual.  A clear, concise, immediately comprehensible design is far better than a conglomeration of elements drawn from hither and yon.  Leave out anything that doesn’t relate to the “argument”.  If you’re feeling tempted to include, say, a whole plethora of moldings in your design, first ask yourself whether they’ll strengthen your statement, or just obfuscate it.

Don't forget that not all architecture is serious:
Spadena House, Beverly Hills, California,
Designer: Harry Oliver, 1921.

•  Know when to shut up.  In 1863, a then-famous orator named Edward Everett gave a florid two-hour dedication speech at a Pennsylvania cemetery.  At the same event, the nation’s president spoke for just a few minutes.  Which speech do we remember? Right—the one we call the Gettysburg Address. And just as a speech loses effectiveness if it goes on and on, a strong design motif can become cloying if it’s endlessly repeated.  If you love round-arched windows, for example, you might use them in one prominent focal area and, if it’s appropriate, repeat them in a few other subsidiary locations--but don’t go wild and make every window in the house round-topped.

•  Finally, don’t forget to include a bit of humor.  There’s enough bad news in the world as it is, so both language and architecture can benefit from the occasional spark of wit.  Recall that even the most pious of architectural monuments, the Gothic cathedrals, were rampant with highly personalized carvings of gargoyles that no doubt gave their creators a few good laughs, and still do the same for us all these centuries later.  

SOME GRAVE OBSERVATIONS

Mausoleum of Big four railroad magnate
Charles Crocker, Mountain View
Cemetery, Oakland, California (c 1888)

Suppose I told you about a marvelous outdoor museum of architecture with full-scale examples of every major building style of the past hundred years? And suppose I told you it’s in a beautiful park-like setting that’s great for picnicking, and that there’s no admission fee, and that thousands of people can be found there every day of the year?

Would it matter to you if just about all of those people were dead? If so, proceed to the Wall Street Journal. Otherwise, read on.

Cemeteries contain some of the most splendid—and overlooked—collections of architecture to be found anywhere. And heaven knows, there are plenty of them around. Every metropolitan area has some venerable and important cemeteries nearby. Near my own home outside San Francisco, for example, is Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery, laid out—as it were—by the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame. Here, a series of hillside mausoleums known as Millionaire’s Row boast the last architectural efforts made on behalf of Charles Crocker of transcontinental railroad fame, F. M. “Borax” Smith, chocolatier Domingo Ghirardelli, and numerous other 19th-century high rollers.  Just down the street is a 1926-vintage columbarium designed by architect Julia Morgan, of Hearst Castle fame.  

Ionic columns grace the miniature Greek temple mausoleum
of the Corby family, Pine Grove Cemetery, Manchester, N.H.
(Image: nutfieldgeneology.com)

The caliber of  structures in this relatively obscure cemetery should give you some inkling of the architectural jewels you’re likely to come across in your own town.  The crypts, monuments, mausoleums, and other structures found in large cemeteries nationwide represent a microcosm of American architectural fashions, including not only the expected Gothic Revival, but also Egyptian and Greek Revival, Romanesque (Richardsonian and otherwise), Victorian, Craftsman, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Modern. Here, cheek by jowl, you’ll find pyramids, obelisks, temples, domes, and cathedrals, as well as a more than a few architectural creations that defy description.  Since the main purpose of all these designs is simply to look impressive, they’re about as close to pure architecture as anything you’re likely to encounter.  

Egyptian Revival—an especially popular style for funerary
architecture—taken to the limit at the West Point Cemetery
mausoleum of civil engineer Egbert Viele, West Point, N.Y.
(c. 1902) (Image: Wikipedia Commons)

Should you decide to take a Sunday drive to your local cemetery/architecture museum, here’s some basic terminology: 

A crypt is a chamber for storing bodies, while a mausoleum is a large tomb containing crypts and entered through a doorway. A vault is an underground tomb, or a tomb tunneled into the side of a hill, though it can also refer to a mausoleum whose decoration is limited to the facade only.  A columbarium is a building containing niches for the display of cremated remains. The last is a fairly recent development in funerary architecture, since the practice of cremation did not gain acceptance in America until the late 19th century.     

Even renowned modernist architect Louis Sullivan
is represented in funerary architecture—here by the
Wainwright tomb in St. Lous's Bellefontaine Cemetery.
(c. 1892)

One highly unusual thing about cemetery structures is that, since their occupants aren’t too concerned about planning for the future, they’re practically never remodeled or modernized. Standing row upon row, sheathed in slabs of marble and granite, they stand essentially as they did on the day they were built.  

And despite the thousands of people who occupy these miniature cities of stone, crowds are not a problem. If you love old buildings but can’t stand the hustle and bustle of the usual tourist traps, this is the place for you. Temporarily, I mean.