HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
As you reflect and revel this beautiful holiday season, we humbly suggest that a tour of Connecticut’s historical homes is a fine way to celebrate our architectural heritage. There are a number of historical home tours going on throughout December and beyond. One of our personal favorites is a tour of Connecticut’s newly historical homes built by the famed ‘Harvard Five’ during the 1950s.
(Also check out the event listings below or visit our blog to see a few more ideas.)
PAST PRESENT(S) – THE HARVARD FIVE
In the 1950s, the hotbed of American Modernist home design was in New Canaan, Connecticut. It was here where the Harvard Five plied their trade, the results of which are among the most striking examples of modernist home design on the continent.
These architects-Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson and Eliot Noyes-were descendants of the Bauhaus through Marcel Breuer’s teachings at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Their works are marked by their bold lines and prolific use of glass, as well as a resolute devotion to the natural surroundings.
The architects experimented on their own homes, and you can see the results to the left. (Sadly, John Johansen’s house was demolished, pictured is his Warner House now on the market). Yearly tours, organized by the local architectural community, allowed the public to explore and understand these new designs and technologies. Interest in the Moderns waned at the turn of this century, putting the survival of these monuments of Modern architecture into question. It took the demolition of a house designed by Paul Rudolf in 2007, and the opening of the Philip Johnson Glass House, to renew public interest.
A survey of New Canaan’s almost 100 Modern houses from the 1940s through the 1970s was completed in July of this year. These houses are now being documented and, in the case of the Landis Gores House (2nd image from top) and the Philip Johnson Glass House (4th image from top), have been added to the National Register of Historic Places to help with their preservation.
Visit the Modern Homes Survey website for more information.
EVENTS
New Canaan Moderns: A Driving Tour
Take an informative driving tour of New Canaan’s fantastic modern houses! Beginning in downtown New Canaan, Connecticut, you will learn the background of the Harvard Five architectural movement that began here in the 1940′s. Important town buildings and their histories that were part of the modern movement will be included in the discussion. From there, a driving tour throughout the town will begin. While highlighting some of the most beautiful roads in picturesque New Canaan, you will view twelve examples of modern architecture by the Harvard Five and other important architects of the period.
Location: In front of The Gramophone Shop at 99 Main Street, New Canaan, CT.
Date/Time: Tour dates and departure times to be coordinated with Jack Trifero. The driving tour will last approximately an hour and fifteen minutes.
Admission: $60 per person, with a maximum of four people. (A one-on-one experience is $120.)
Phone: 203.216.8774
Two local holiday tours running this weekend…
The Connecticut Yankee Christmas Dinner Tours at the Mark Twain House
The Mark Twain House & Museum has joined The Kitchen at Billings Forge to present a new holiday tradition, The Connecticut Yankee Holiday Dinner Tour. The two-hour, reservations-only package includes a savory buffet dinner in The Mark Twain Museum Center’s café followed by a Christmas-themed tour of Samuel Clemens’ historic residence. After dinner, guests will tour Mark Twain’s house, decked out in Victorian Christmas splendor. Interactive features, including caroling in the Clemens’ drawing room around the piano and a reading of Twain’s Christmas letter to his daughter, will play a large part of this seasonal tour, not normally available to the public.
Location:The Mark Twain House, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105
Date/time: December 19th, 2009, 5:00 p.m.
Admission: $50 for adults and $35 for children 12 and under
Phone: 860-280-3128
Gillette Castle Holiday Tours
Gillette Castle in East Haddam will be “adorned in its holiday finery” for special tours complete with live musical performances. Evening tours are scheduled for the first three Friday evenings in December from 4-8 pm. Daytime tours are scheduled for the first three Saturdays and Sundays as well as December 28-30 from 10-4. A free day of children’s programs takes place on December 28 from 10-4.
Please visit their website for more details.
Location: Gillette Castle in East Haddam, CT
Date/Time: December 18th, 2009, 4:00pm-8:00p.m.
And continuing through the holiday season:
Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity
This survey is MoMA’s first major exhibition since 1938 on the subject of this famous and influential school of avant-garde art. Founded in 1919 and shut down by the Nazis in 1933, the Bauhaus brought together artists, architects, and designers in an extraordinary conversation about the nature of art in the age of technology. Aiming to rethink the very form of modern life, the Bauhaus became the site of a dazzling array of experiments in the visual arts that have profoundly shaped our visual world today. The exhibition gathers over four hundred works that reflect the broad range of the school’s productions, including industrial design, furniture, architecture, graphics, photography, textiles, ceramics, theater design, painting, and sculpture, many of which have never before been exhibited in the United States.
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019
Date/Time: Now to January 25, 2010
…’ The thinking about form and detail is all part of the same process: the design. I am as much interested in the smallest detail as in the whole structure.” – Marcel Breuer
A bientôt,
Karin
Tags: American Modernist home design, Architectural Heritage, Architectural Preservation, Architecture, Bauhaus, Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, Connecticut Historical Homes, Eliot Noyes, Gillette Castle Holiday Tour, Happy Holidays, Harvard School of Design, Historical Preservation, John Johansen, Karin Patriquin, Landis Gores, Marcel Breuer, MOMA, Museum of Modren Art, Philip Johnson, The Connecticut Yankee Christmas Dinner, The Harvard Five, The Mark Twain House
