Modernist architecture may be among the more divisive, debated and controversial architectural styles throughout history. But love it or hate it, few can contest its contributions to fundamentally shifting the way humans engage with the built environment.
From Frank Lloyd Wright to Le Corbusier and Rudolph Schindler to Richard Neutra, modernist architects believed in designing spaces that blurred the lines between indoors and outdoors, tapped into primal instincts and desires and eased the stresses of modern life––in a sense, providing architectural therapy.
Because of this, many believe modernist architecture presented an early model of what designing for human health and joy could look like. The open floor plans, connection to nature and emphasis on natural light are just a few of the design principles that perhaps draw so many people to this architectural style. That certainly was the case for George Smart, the founder and CEO of US Modernist, a nonprofit organization that’s all about preserving modernist architecture and the stories behind it.
As George tells it, he noticed a visceral change in himself whenever he would set foot in a modernist building. And he believes part of that ‘feel good’ experience came from the air of optimism that characterized the midcentury.
“Modernism, which really started to take off after World War II, was also very much about optimism,” he said. “The future was going to be great. We were going to have this wonderful experience over the next 20 years. There wasn’t the cynicism you often get in today’s culture. Everything was going to be bright. And you get that same kind of feeling inside a modernist house.”
Today, George is like a walking encyclopedia for all things related to modernism, but that wasn’t always the case. Before creating US Modernist, he didn’t really know what modernist architecture was. But he knew he was drawn to it. So much so, it prompted a trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Fallingwater house, which then inspired George to build a modernist house for himself and his wife.
As he began researching modernist architecture in North Carolina for inspiration, he discovered a rather famous home that, to his surprise, had been destroyed. That catalyzed George to take action.
“One of the modernist houses I found was the Catalano House, which was built in 1954, and I was just shocked to find out that it had been destroyed in 2001,” he said. “It was one of North Carolina’s most famous houses. From there I started to make a list of other houses both existing and destroyed.”
That list grew into a site about Triangle modernist houses, which soon expanded to North Carolina modernist houses and then to US modernist houses. George’s goal with documenting these houses was twofold: one was to highlight the talented architects behind these gems and the other was to help prevent other modernist architecture from meeting the same fate as the Catalano House.
“These are essentially livable works of art,” he said. “The goal is primarily to document the houses because you can’t save something if you don’t know where it is and why it’s important. And while there are a lot of famous houses around America by well-known architects, there are also a lot of great houses by unknown architects. We do the best we can to find out information about those houses and include them in our online archive.”
The US Modernist archive contains a massive database of modernist architects from across the country as well as an extensive magazine library that houses nearly 5 million pages of architecture magazines dating back to the late 1800s. Though George may not have known the magnitude of what he was building at the time, that digital archive has become one of the most indispensable aspects of US Modernist. Not only has it evolved into a living history of the American built environment and society, it’s also frequently used by architects and homeowners working on restoration projects or those wanting to replicate specific designs from that era.
When George started NC Modernist, it was simply to document the state’s inventory of modernist architecture and celebrate the architects and designers past and present contributing to the movement. As it turns out, North Carolina is a hotbed for modernist architecture.
“This all came about because NC State in 1948 had a pretty dull architecture and engineering program,” he said. “So, they hired a hotshot dean, an all-in modernist out of Oklahoma to come to Raleigh and put new energy in what was going to be called the School of Design.”
That hotshot dean was Henry Leveke Kamphoefner. As the founding dean of the School of Design, he wasted no time raising the school to national prominence. His first order of business was firing what he called “incompetent deadwood” and recruiting more than 30 top-ranked professionals including former Saarinen associate George Matsumoto, Matthew Nowicki and Eduardo Catalano, to name a few. He also attracted notable visitors including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Kamphoefner had a significant influence on the development of modernism in North Carolina. In fact, the state now has the third highest concentration of modernist homes in the country, according to George. And a big part of NC Modernist’s work is to recognize some of the talented architects who tend to fly under the radar. One way they do that is through their annual George Matsumoto Prize.
“It’s a way of perpetuating what has been a legacy of modernism into the future,” George said. “ There is so much talent out there and architects who are yearning to get recognized.”
Thanks to the work of NC and US Modernist, architects across the country who don’t tend to appear in the headlines are getting some much-deserved exposure––not just through the awards, but through the experiential tours of modernist architecture George and his team orchestrate. And while these do certainly bring attention to the architects, perhaps more important is the firsthand experience of the joy and feeling of well-being these thoughtfully designed habitats elicit.
Being in the space allows visitors to understand how the connection to nature, natural light, expansion and contraction, and simplicity appeal to human primordial instincts. And that experience is perhaps one of the most powerful forms of education and ultimately preservation––which is exactly what George is after.
One architect featured on the tour was Arielle Schecter, one of North Carolina’s most sought-after modernist architects. Her focus as an architect, as she puts it, is tied to climate, climate, climate, client, daylight, aesthetics, and net zero. One look at her modernist work, and it’s evident each of these rings true. And to Arielle, these are also part and parcel of modernist architecture.
“I have always loved modernism,” she said. “It’s just something in the DNA. I always gravitated to modern art and modern architecture. It’s open. It connects to the outdoors. It just resonates and always has.”
In the home featured on the tour––the Lerner-Campbell house––the connection to the outdoors was front and center, but in unexpected ways.
“To me, it’s all about daylight,” Arielle said. “Everything comes back to daylight and the importance of it for people. Everybody responds to it. Every animal, or at least most animals, responds to it. It’s about giving them the right kind of daylight and climate-appropriate daylight. For instance, I live in the deep south and our summers are becoming hotter and hotter so, it’s critical that I minimize the west-facing glass and lower the east-facing glass. I focus on south light, which everyone responds to in a good way. It moves around the house and you can feel the light change, but you can also control solar heat gain with overhangs.”
In addition to natural light and thermal comfort, Arielle also believes modern architecture can also contribute to human joy and well-being because of its openness.
“Modern architecture is not cluttered with a bunch of hallways and little cut-up spaces,” she said. “It’s very open. I really believe that that contributes to a person’s well-being. I think that affects your point of view. You become more open. It just gives you that open-to-possibility optimism––to feel this kind of openness around you. I truly believe it.”
That correlation between modernism and optimism is not just an abstract notion. While part of this was driven by the post-war optimism that defined that era, modernist architecture was based on innovation, utopia, and reimagining how people live, work, and interact. And from a design perspective, modern architecture actually keys into several biophilic design principles that signal optimism and hopefulness to our primitive brains.
One of these principles is “prospect”, which is an unrestricted view over a distance for surveillance and planning. And when that view includes things like healthy plant or flower growth, it signals the availability of resources and optimism about the future. The other is “refuge”, or having places for withdrawal or retreat––places that offer a sense of protection. When these two are combined––such as a drop ceiling paired with floor-to-ceiling glass and an expansive view of the outdoors––the health benefits compound. And Arielle taps into this very idea.
“People crave a feeling of openness,” she said. “Now that being said, as a caveat, people do like spatial variety. I’m a big believer in that. An open house doesn’t mean you can’t have a cozy place to curl into when you need to escape the world. Spatial variety is important as a person has different feelings and moods that may occur.”
In conscientiously designing for human joy and well-being, Arielle simultaneously designs for planetary health. Though, like many architects, she doesn’t necessarily pursue green certifications like LEED on her projects, she very much follows many of the requirements and guides outlined in those standards. In fact, she says she often goes beyond those standards.
She does this through seemingly simple things like proper orientation, but also through building science––optimizing the building envelope to reduce vapor transmission and thermal bridging. Arielle also considers the surrounding wildlife when designing her homes.
“I’m already designing net zero and trying to meet LEED recommendations. And I’m already encouraging my clients to do things beyond all that, like including wildlife habitat on their projects,” she said. “One thing I really believe in is using bird-safe glass. One billion, beautiful migrating songbirds are dying every year in our country by hitting glass. The bird-safe glass I like has this frit in it and it prevents about 80% of bird strikes. The animals need us too, and we must address that in providing microhabitats for them on our projects, which only adds to the beauty for people too.”
At the Lerner-Campbell house, many of these green-building practices were implemented, but Arielle also used a few other modernist principles to evoke human joy. She aimed to incorporate light from at least two sides if not three, created spatial and emotional variety, and utilized a practice commonly seen in Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs––contraction and expansion. That’s the idea of lowering the height of the entry before expanding into a more open area.
“Frank Lloyd Wright used to say, try to make your arrival ceilings lower to human scale so that people don’t feel dwarfed by a high ceiling when they first enter,” Arielle said. “That’s what we have in this house. Then you transition further into their living/dining/kitchen, which has that internal drama the client wanted.”
Each of the modernist homes on the tour delivered on that same feel-good experience, but each in their own way whether it was by blurring the lines between the indoors and outdoors, an emphasis on daylight, the use of natural materials, open floor plans, or the use of the aforementioned principles of prospect and refuge.
“The first house is a winner of the George Matsumoto Prize,” George said. “It was designed by Studio Becker Xu in Chicago.”
Appropriately named the “Dogtrot House,” it was designed to pay homage to the dogtrot-style homes that were once very prevalent throughout the Southeastern US. The dogtrot, which in this case is a 100-foot-long breezeway that runs through the center of the home, lends itself to natural ventilation for most parts of the year and emphasizes a strong connection to nature. The use of daylighting, and materials like earthen tiles, southern yellow pine and concrete also provide a grounding effect––which is felt almost the instant you set foot inside the home. Windows were also thoughtfully placed to provide sightlines to the natural surroundings from almost anywhere in the house.
“Modernist 3” was designed by Alicia Hylton-Daniel, a former paralegal turned interior designer and eventually a licensed general contractor. In Modernist 3, located in the historic Walltown neighborhood of Durham, Alicia was sensitive to the surrounding existing homes, designing a single-story A-frame volume at the front that progresses to a two-story, modern volume midway through the back. The home features an open floor plan with cozy nooks to tuck away, lots of natural light and a white oak floating staircase that serves as a metaphor to the treehouse feel of the second floor.
The Pace House, designed by Erin Sterling Lewis, may appear sleek and simple, but wandering through this home, you’re met with so many delightfully subtle surprises that undoubtedly required a lot of thought and planning. From the curved walls that soften the space, to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor that make you feel like you’re among the treetops, this home beckons you to keep exploring it.
The Morris House, designed by architect Rebecca Necessary, was built on a steep and narrow lot. To accommodate the typography, Rebecca stacked two wooden volumes that thoughtfully overlapped while carving away from one another. One prominent architectural and experiential feature on the interior is the open central stair, which was designed to give the family a light-filled daily ritual of movement between the bedrooms on the upper level and the living spaces on the main floor. The striking exterior is a mix of horizontal and vertical shiplap wood siding treated with black pine tar, which has long been used in Nordic nations to naturally preserve wood that’s exposed to harsh conditions. It also has deep roots in North Carolina when, in the early 1700s, it became a key export for the state, which is what led to the “tar heels” nickname.
The final stop was at another design by Erin Sterling Lewis. This one looked like it could’ve been plucked straight out of Palm Springs, but it was right at home in this neighborhood of 1950s and 60s ranch-style homes––and that was very intentional. Erin and the homeowners wanted to be sensitive to the aesthetic of the surrounding neighborhood and pay homage to the ranch-style home that was previously on the lot. The result was a modern twist on the classic midcentury modern design.
To paraphrase John Keats, “Nothing ever becomes real till experienced…” And through these tours, George has given hundreds, if not thousands, of people the felt experience of optimism and joy that resides within much of the modernist architecture.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
