Modernism Endangered

Robert A. M. Stern, an architect whose chameleon-like sense of style has brought him his own share of criticism, wrote a defense of Edward Durell Stone’s most controversial work, Two Columbus Circle. It is a building best referred to by its address, since its days as the Huntington Hartford gallery are long past, its more recent days as a home for a New York City cultural affairs department are also ended, and it now sits unoccupied and surrounded in chain link and bums, in the shadow of the nearly complete monolithic AOL Time Warner Center. Plans were released in the last several months to turn the bones of the building–but not its distinctive windowless shell–into a new home for the Museum of Arts and Design. So no one seems quite sure what to call it.

No one has ever seemed quite sure what to call it stylistically. Stone began his professional life as an International Style Modernist, as Stern points out in his brief essay, which is published on the homepage of Preserve & Protect. Stone’s design with Philip Goodwin for the Museum of Modern Art’s main building on 53rd St. is being preserved as part of a huge renovation project. But that building is a landmark, and happens to be owned by MoMA, an early proponent and usually staunch defender of Modernism.

Stone’s other work, including Two Columbus Circle with its cartoonish Venetian "lollipops," in Ada Louise Huxtable’s description, and its blank façade framed in portholes–this work is less well defended, and even, often, attacked. It is hard to deny that Two Columbus Circle is a unique building. One would imagine that this is reason enough for its preservation, but the design for the new Museum of Arts and Design, by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture gives the building a new façade of glass. It is probably a more functional building the way Cloepfil envisions it. It may even be a better building. But it is not Stone’s building.

Cloepfil's design goes before the City Planning Commission on June 18th, 2003, in a hearing open to the public.

Two Columbus Circle, however, is squarely in the spotlight. Every New Yorker knows it. Every visitor who has taken a cab from Lincoln Center (another work of Modern architecture in danger of being lost) back to his hotel in Times Square can recognize it. Every conventioneer who went to an auto show at the old New York Coliseum knows it. But what about Stone’s other work? Who sees the Conger Goodyear House in Old Westbury, a suburb on Long Island? Only the neighbors, who look over its once-rural grounds from the windows of their McMansions. Robert Ivy, the editor in chief of Architectural Record, tells the story of the Conger Goodyear House in a recent editorial:

On Long Island, a coalition of forces has apparently saved the Conger Goodyear House, a 1938 gem by Edward Durell Stone for Goodyear, the first president of the Museum of Modern Art. In that more fortunate case, the World Monuments Fund, which had listed the Old Westbury, Long Island, house among its 2002 list of the "100 Most Endangered Sites," pulled together a funding group including the Barnett Newman Foundation, which purchased the house; the Monument Fund’s own capital, which will finance necessary repair work; and the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities of Cold Spring Harbor, which will hold title to the property until a permanent buyer can be found. International, national, and local resources–all three–were required.

In the summer of 2002, the World Monuments Fund opened the Conger Goodyear House to RECORD. In this feature, spectacular and fascinating three-dimensional walk-throughs allow anyone interested in the house can take a look around. In addition, in excerpts from his own writings, Edward Durell Stone discusses how the house came to be, and how its design took shape
 

In 1938, Stone designed a house for the then President of the Museum of Modern Art, A. Conger Goodyear. It showed signs of departure from the established norm of the International Style. Broad overhanging eaves sheltered floor-to-ceiling glazing from the summer sun--a practical necessity that Wright had recognized for over thirty years, Stone points out.

The overhanging roof line, which he refers to as the "hat" or "lid," is now one of his aesthetic priorities. Today, Stone thinks of the International Style as essentially an impoverished approach to architecture, one of transitory appearance whose synthetic austerity was never really compatible with the American image of home. "It was too cold, arid and sparse" he says, "and amenities which might have grace and charm were forsworn."

"It is my effort to seek what I call the inevitable, which I hope is distinct from the obvious. I believe, with some pride, that our buildings are well-planned and have an element of inevitability. I try to find an architecture that is hopefully timeless, free of the mannerisms of the moment. Architecture should follow a grander and more ageless pattern, and it can and should be approached simply.

I try to search for the most direct, honest solution to a given problem. If an architect conscientiously takes into account the circumstances that are unique to each building, then careful analysis should result in an original architectural solution. I am afraid that we architects are too fond of saying that no two problems are the same, and yet we follow the same design pattern we have previously developed.

"Style has been overemphasized: there are books devoted to architecture that do not show plans explaining the basic conception. In the search for novelty, sensational effect and modish styling, the result seems contrived rather than a natural object of beauty. There is a temptation for architects to seize upon transitory styles and deny their own creative heritage. Architecture is not millinery. Fashions pass by, buildings remain to become grim reminders of transient enthusiasms.

"It is encouraging that so many of our significant thinkers have pointed out the unfortunate environment we have created for our people, and are proposing corrective programs. When such programs are inaugurated, architects can begin to fulfill their destiny. We will not be wasting our effort creating precious prototypes in the midst of chaos, but adding brilliant buildings in a well-ordered plan for the country as a whole."
 

"While working on the Museum of Modern Art, I became friendly with A. Conger Goodyear who asked me to design a house on Long Island for him. That he was a wise man was amply demonstrated when he asked for only two master bedrooms; all of his neighbors were saddled with forty-room relies of a former era-and no household help. He became the envy of the community.

"The site, a barren hilltop, demanded the low horizontal lines of a one-story house. Mr. Goodyear had a fine collection of modern paintings, and I decided to have a gallery serve as a "spinal column" from which all the rooms, with an expansive view to the south, opened, I employed glass walls from floor to ceiling, the ceilings continuing beyond the walls to form wide sheltering eaves. As the house faces south, the eaves were adjusted in depth so that the glass areas were shaded during the summer months, and when the sun was low during the winter months, its welcoming rays penetrated the house through the glass walls.

"The overhanging eaves were a departure from the international style, which placed the glass on the surface of the building unprotected from the sun, and I adopted this principle in all subsequent buildings. Of course, other solutions of sun control are applied to higher buildings. Not only is the overhanging eave an important practical consideration, but I find it aesthetically mandatory on a house with a flat roof, satisfying visually the desire for certain aspects of the pitched roof so long associated with residential architecture.

"This house also represented an effort to solve the approach by automobile. The entrance was provided through a portico overlooking a walled garden so that automobiles and services were removed from the house proper, thus giving both sides of the house an attractive outlook.

"Mr. Goodyear had, through a long period, collected excellent paintings, china, glass and period furniture which we combined with modern furniture. It all looked beautiful together for well-designed things are harmonious regardless of their epoch. I had heeded Mr. Luce's admonishment about simple arithmetic--not only did I meet Mr. Goodyear's budget, but there was twenty-five dollars left over.
 

"We must give up the idea that we are English country squires and plan our houses compactly. Our countryside is being used up by these millions of little boxes. We should be inspired by the Mediterranean countries which have, as you know, compact villages, towns with houses built wall to wall and privacy obtained by cloistered walled gardens, courtyards and atriums. And in planning compactly this way we will save the open countryside. . . .

"Another current fad in these individual dwellings, which I decry, is the so-called ranch house. This rage for informality in American life, I believe, is a lame excuse for laziness. It's obviously easier to feed the children hamburgers in the back yard in the manner of ranch hands from a chuck wagon than it is to have them sit at a table where they might conceivably acquire some dignity, manners and grace."

In describing this atrium house he said, "When I did houses in the past, I used to have the living and dining and kitchen areas related to each other with the bedrooms in a wing along a gallery or a long hallway.

"In recent years certain distaff publications have 'sold' the idea that the front door should provide access to the bedroom, kitchen and living room and this has inevitably meant some sort of pat plan. It has negated our wistfulness over the open plan.

"The idea of a great open space through the house is an appealing one to me. A more spacious plan does away with all hallways, the bane of my existence.

"If you will notice the Paterno plan . . . you enter a nice atrium with the living room on one side. This house is done on a 15-sq-ft module-each square terminating in a top-lighted well with a hanging garden. All windows are floor to ceiling, and sliding.

The jambs have sliding shoji screens-either translucent or opaque; thus there is no need for curtains. The kitchen side of the house opens into a garden room-an all weather outdoor area. That, in turn, is connected with a billiard room, servant's room and garage. There is a paved granite forecourt. The house is not a major piece of construction-just an orderly simple framing arrangement.

"An architect should be a humanitarian before he is an architect. He must not put his client in an arbitrary strait jacket. A home generally represents a man's life savings. The architect should single out those requirements of the client which are unique to him and must be met in a building. If the requirements and prejudices of each individual client are met, the architect should end up with a new solution rather than a preconceived idea.

"The exterior of the Paterno house is gray wood shingle with white trim and white trellises--a bow to tradition, and compatible with the nearby countryside as are the fieldstone retaining walls. Floors are of white marble, in deference to Mr. Paterno and the Italian tradition."