MY Architecture

  is an architecture, interiors and planning firm in Philadelphia with deep expertise in urban mixed-use / multifamily / commercial / cultural projects.  

[myarchitectphil]

While on the topic of Adolf Loos and his often unusual buildings, I am reminded of another untypical, early work of his, from 1904, a gut renovation of an 1820's villa in Montreux, Switzerland. It contains the ultimate bathroom to die for! If anyone one out there would like such a room in their own dwelling, we would be happy to oblige! On the other hand, the Villa Karma was recently for sale, for an undisclosed sum, for those for whom price is no object.

[myarchitectphil]

The early modern architect Adolf Loos, who famously wrote “Ornament is a Crime,” also had a romantic streak, not unlike Carlo Mollino (see last week). In 1930 Adolf Loos completed two buildings: the (famous, urban) Müller House in Prague and the (not famous, rural) Landhaus Khuner (Khuner Villa) in Payerbach, Austria – two designs that could not be more different in appearance. While the Müller House is defined by an austere white cubic aesthetic, the Landhaus Khuner, is rustic, with log-and-stone construction sheltered under a pitched roof. The Müller House is hailed as a masterpiece of early modern architecture, while concerning the Landhaus Khuner, in contrast, there has developed only a sort of hush. We need to re-examine the Landhaus Khuner in order to embrace a broader understanding of what really constitutes architecture for today. You can visit, because today the house is a restaurant (and the colors are original).

[myarchitectphil]

Our pool house is not for sale, but you have a chance to buy Villa K2, Carlo Mollino’s modernist masterpiece on Italy’s Lake Maggiore, for a mere $2.2 Million!

The floating 1950s retreat retains many of the legendary Italian designer’s original interiors and custom furnishings (like the coat hooks in the last photo). Mollino, who became famous for blending surrealism, engineering, and sensual Italian modernism into his work, designed the property to feel almost suspended in nature. Built in 1953 in the village of Agra in Lombardy, the current owner’s great-grandfather, Luigi Cattaneo, commissioned midcentury Italian architect Carlo Mollino to design the stone-and-timber home as a holiday retreat. In addition to being an architect, Mollino was also a bon vivant, playboy, skier, interior designer, furniture designer and photographer of risqué Polaroids. (Not too risqué example at the end.) One of his best-known buildings is Turin’s Teatro Regio, with voluptuous red interiors, of which he oversaw the rebuilding in the late 1960s and early ’70s, decades after a fire destroyed the original theater.

[myarchitectphil]

Nature, light and architecture. More of our pool pavilion for a suburban Philadelphia location.

[myarchitectphil]

Filtered light is the best! Our pool pavilion in suburban Philadelphia compared to the apartment complex clubhouse we shared two weeks ago: both at home in their natural setting, the filtering of light reminding one of the dappled light that reaches the ground under the tree canopy. Soothing and life affirming.

[myarchitectphil]

Home Sweet Home - Spring has sprung!

[myarchitectphil]

"RUSTIC AND LIVED-IN":

Check out the MY Architecture spring newsletter:

[myarchitectphil]

Skylights, yes! A conservatory is a tremendous addtion to a home at any scale, from a grouping of potted plants on a large window sill to a traditional skylit sunroom. Here is a current MY Architecture project for a conservatory addition that is a contempory interpretation of two sources of inspiration (the last two photos): a Victorian green house, in this case the Fernery at Morris Arboretum outside Philadelphia, and a traditional Japanese wooden bath.

[myarchitectphil]

What is the connection between daylight and shopping? That, too, has ancient origins. Trajan's Markets in Rome of approximately 110 CE are considered to be the first multi-level shopping mall, though the upper levels could also have been offices (not unlike a contemporary indoor mall). The maze of a an Islamic Bazaar can only be lit from above. Jumping forward to the 19th century, the invention of the department store required new buildings with appropriate grandeur, to celebrate the glories of shopping. So immediately skylit central courts were created, starting in Paris, as shown here in a contemporary photo of the court at Printemps. Of course, here in Philadelphia we have Wannamakers, now unfortunately devoid of shoppers. The Fremont Street experience in Las Vegas, brings the street literally inside a suitably spectacular enclosure with a suitably Vegas light show. And now in Chengdu, PRC, the tradition of the enclosed shopping paradise continues in what is currently the world's largest building!

[myarchitectphil]

The atrium traces its history back to the Roman domus, the upper class townhouse. The atrium was the open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides. In the middle of the atrium was the impluvium, a shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch rainwater from the roof. Paradoxically for us, the term in Latin came from atr, black, or dark. The atrium was a dark space. In the domus as in the Pantheon, the contrasting image of the sun moving across the relatively dark interior in the course of a day is a sort of sundial, keeping the movement of the heavens and the passage of time top of mind. What follows are some of my favorite mid 20th century atriums, all of which avoid cliched responses:

1. The House of Menander, Pompeii, 2. The Pantheon in an 18th C. painting, 3. The Guggenheim, FLlW, 4.The Ford Foundation, Roche and Dinkeloo, 5. Exeter library, Kahn, 6. The Thompson Center, Murphy Jahn, before its current evisceration by Google

[myarchitectphil]

Skylights again... In our own work we jump at the chance to accept the sun into a building to support the goals of the owner. At 3737 Chestnut, a 25 story apartment building on land owned by the Epsicopal Cathedral of Philadelphia supported renovations to the historic building, added up-to-date support facililites, and will continue to support the mission of the church far into the future. A linear atrium creates a light filled zone that keeps the apartment building from touching the historic building, lets light into the stained glass windows on the south side of the church, provides needed handicapped access and links all of the disparate parts of church functions into one luminous, spiritually uplifting zone.

[myarchitectphil]

Skylights and clerestories have been as important in modern architecture as that of the past of course, and not just in religious buildings. Every one of Frank Loyd Wright's buildings utilized light as a powerful aesthetic and emotive factor. Yet another of my favorite architecture pairs are the buildings Wright designed for Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr., the president of Johnson Wax, in Racine, Wisconson, not far north of Chicago. The Johnson Wax offices and research tower utilized miles of glass tubing to create a glowing translucent enclosure that peaks out through the lilypad concrete columns and curving brick forms. (Wright designed the offoice furniture, too.) Then Mr Johnson's home, Wingspread, spirals out from the spectacular domed living room, ringed by clerestories, which Wright called a "wigwam." A marvelous pair of buildings that seem almost to be in perpetual motion, bathed in light.

[myarchitectphil]

Another week, another favorite pair showing the spectacular use of light in architecture. Everybody likes Gothic, not so many the Baroque, yet in and around Turin in the north of Italy at the end of the 17th century and continuing into the 18th, a group of architects built sacred structures that made light an almost physical presence, bridging the gap between the divine and the secular, showing us the power of faith. Here is the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, recently restored after a devstating fire, designed by Guarino Guarini and opened in 1694, and the Sanctuary at Valinotto, designed by Bernardo Vittone and finished in 1738.

1. Holy Shroud 2. Valinotto 3. Holy Shroud 4. Valinotto 5. Holy Shroud 6. Valinotto 7. Holy Shroud 8. Valinotto 9. Holy Shroud

[myarchitectphil]

For your weekend pleasure - more on light and architecture. Another favorite pairing, the greatest examples of stained glass in the world. Not cathedrals, but chapels. The Ste. Chapelle in Paris, completed 1248 and King's College Chapel at Cambridge, completed nearly three centuries later, in 1515. Both closely associated with royal patronage, Louis IX (St. Louis) in France, and Henry VI through Henry VIII in England. Both chapels are surrounded by walls of glass, more completely than in any cathedral. Glorious, spiritually profound, rooms of the light of the heavens, the Holy Spirit.

1. Ste. Chapelle 2. King's College Chapel 3. Ste. Chapelle 4. King's College Chapel 5. Ste. Chapelle 6. King's College Chapel.

[myarchitectphil]

SKYLIGHTS AND CLERESTORIES! Great architecture is all about the interaction of light and space. My two favorite buildings in the world are an unusual pair: both the Mercer Museum in Doylestown (1904) and Sir John Soane's house in London (1813) are masterful demonstrations of what is possible with light. Henry Mercer was an amateur, John Soane the leading architect of England at the beginning of the 19th century. Both created magical experiences which carry one outside of one's quotidien existence. Check out the attached photos which show how the proliferation of skylights and carefully sized and placed windows interact with interior space. And then there is color, like in Mrs. Soane's yellow leather sofa!

Pictures: 1. Mercer main hall 2. Soane gallery 3. Mercer roofscape 4. Mercer attic 5. Mercer walkway 6. Soane breakfast room 7. Soane roof scape 8. Mrs. Soane's sofa.

[myarchitectphil]

IDEAL CITIES - yes! - Here is a link to a comprehensive article on the "Fuggerei", the world's oldest social housing project, where rent is still $1.00 a year. Founded 500 years ago in Augsburg, Germany, by Jakob Fugger, one of the wealthiest men to have ever lived. Let's do this again! https://www.messynessychic.com/2021/02/23/rent-is-still-1-a-year-at-the-worlds-oldest-and-most-beautiful-social-housing-project/?utm_source=news.messynessy.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=unsung-heroes&_bhlid=f8a158b19fef8504a9981f14b02813080ec04a23

[myarchitectphil]

Exciting news this week - it was announced across the Internet that recent excavations in the town of Fano, Italy, have uncovered the remains of the only building that the Roman architect and author Vitruvius claimed to have built and described in his treatise. People have been looking for this building at least since the Renaissance. The last news like this was forty years ago when Lothar Haselberger found the drawing for creating the curvature, or entasis, of a classical column on the walls of the temple of Apollo at Didyma, a version of which was included and referred to in Vitruvius's treatise but lost in the middle ages. As Faulkner said, "the past is not dead, it is not even past!"

Best article: https://italyastheromansdid.it/2024/06/29/fano-fanum-fortunae/

Illustrations: 1. Leonardo's Vitruvian man with my overlay, emphasizing the modularity of traditional construction, 2. overview of the excavations, 3. the telltale corner column, 4. Morgan's reconstruction from Vitruvius's decription, 5. aerial view of Fano, 6. map showing the basilica in the lower right corner, 7. an imaginary 19th century bust of Vitruvius.