JAN 26-2020 CURTAIN CALL
There is a fine line between the built exterior and the finished interior. Where the two meet, creates an interesting Intersection of materiality, a synergy between them. Nowhere is this intersection more apparent and in many instances, glaring in contradiction of materials, than in the modernist residences of the of the early 1940s leading into the 1960s.
Put simply, there is an opposition of materials that is striking, yet not spoken of. My PhD area is in planning, design and construction, I have dedicated a career in appreciation of all things 'modern' yet, as one who has practiced Interior Architecture and taught on the same topic, lecture on the modernist's thinking around the application of fully lined and applied fabric curtains remains void in most historical mid-century learning or dialog.
However, the specification of curtains that unassumingly adorn many of the modernist shrines, that we regard today, deserve attention as they are now as important or more so when one views a modernist residence of the time period. The curtain wall adorned with curtains is by default?
Simply reverting to what was available to fill an exterior curtain wall against a cold winter's night while simultaneously providing privacy almost seems like an afterthought, a band-aid for the forward thinking modernist expressions of their day. Or were curtains a visible honest lack of ingenuity revealed on the architect's part leaving an obvious disconnect? Today, as legacy in application, curtains have become part of modernism as much as the use of glass and exposed I-beams themselves have.
I have often wondered... and yet, as I look back of some of the most iconic statements of modernism, one has to ponder such.
In many instances, still today, little is mentioned or credited to the curtain that adorns the infamous glass curtain walls-
Perhaps it is the curtain that now deserves the last call.
Put simply, there is an opposition of materials that is striking, yet not spoken of. My PhD area is in planning, design and construction, I have dedicated a career in appreciation of all things 'modern' yet, as one who has practiced Interior Architecture and taught on the same topic, lecture on the modernist's thinking around the application of fully lined and applied fabric curtains remains void in most historical mid-century learning or dialog.
However, the specification of curtains that unassumingly adorn many of the modernist shrines, that we regard today, deserve attention as they are now as important or more so when one views a modernist residence of the time period. The curtain wall adorned with curtains is by default?
Simply reverting to what was available to fill an exterior curtain wall against a cold winter's night while simultaneously providing privacy almost seems like an afterthought, a band-aid for the forward thinking modernist expressions of their day. Or were curtains a visible honest lack of ingenuity revealed on the architect's part leaving an obvious disconnect? Today, as legacy in application, curtains have become part of modernism as much as the use of glass and exposed I-beams themselves have.
I have often wondered... and yet, as I look back of some of the most iconic statements of modernism, one has to ponder such.
In many instances, still today, little is mentioned or credited to the curtain that adorns the infamous glass curtain walls-
Perhaps it is the curtain that now deserves the last call.
Farnsworth House, built by Mies van der Rohe for Dr. Edith Farnsworth between 1949 and 1951.
Located on the edge of the Fox River in Plano, Illinois—about an hour-and-a-half from Chicago—the house is a National Historic Landmark that attracts thousands of visitors per year.
https://design.newcity.com/2019/10/23/looking-back-the-farnsworth-house-story/
Located on the edge of the Fox River in Plano, Illinois—about an hour-and-a-half from Chicago—the house is a National Historic Landmark that attracts thousands of visitors per year.
https://design.newcity.com/2019/10/23/looking-back-the-farnsworth-house-story/
Charles and Ray Eames' Case Study #8 House. Two story curtains
The Eames House, built in 1949 in the Pacific Palisades, is considered one of the most important postwar residences in the U.S.
A National Historic Landmark.
Julius Shulman/J. Paul Getty Trust
The Eames House, built in 1949 in the Pacific Palisades, is considered one of the most important postwar residences in the U.S.
A National Historic Landmark.
Julius Shulman/J. Paul Getty Trust
Rockefeller Guest house: The architect's only private residence in NYC Philip Johnson-
The curtains are as as much a prominent facade material statement as is the brick, glass & wood front door.
"Walk through the towering door now, and Midtown falls away. The transition is not abrupt; a visitor is met first with a bank of wooden cupboards, easing newcomers off the street and into the vastness of the house itself. Then, space. The main room provides an unimpeded vista through 100 feet of natural-lit openness, a glass wall, a courtyard and pond, and a small separate structure beyond. The effect — of muted light, of air, of cleanness — is moving."
The New York Times
The curtains are as as much a prominent facade material statement as is the brick, glass & wood front door.
"Walk through the towering door now, and Midtown falls away. The transition is not abrupt; a visitor is met first with a bank of wooden cupboards, easing newcomers off the street and into the vastness of the house itself. Then, space. The main room provides an unimpeded vista through 100 feet of natural-lit openness, a glass wall, a courtyard and pond, and a small separate structure beyond. The effect — of muted light, of air, of cleanness — is moving."
The New York Times
Barcelona Pavilion's curtains were: Red velvet
In 2018, Hunter Douglas collaborated with the Philip Johnson Glass house in Connecticut, to install window treatments- had such existed back in the 1950s it woud have been interesting to see what creative window ingenuity the modernists architects from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to Johnson and Saarinen (The Eameses) case study #8 architect of record Saarinen, would have incorporated to compliment their approach. Fabric, electric opaque glass or concealed shades- Curiosity is why the architects did not push the envelop to create iterations such as pierced concrete walls for light and privacy or innovative solution of their own...budget? timing? We may never know- or perhaps they revered the fabric curtain as it's own modernist expression-and out of reverence-Perhaps it is time we do too.