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September-October 2007
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< previous | 1 | 2 | 3 The rising profile of these sites, and the work of preservation groups, can be seen as harbingers of a shifting perspective on modern aesthetics in a part of the country most identified with white-steepled church es, colonial village greens, and fabled redbrick universities (although even Harvard has its share of modern edginess; see “Bricks & Politics”). “The average layperson does not see New England as a hotbed of modernism,” says David Fixler, president of DOCOMOMO/New England, a branch, founded in 1997, of the Paris-based group that advocates for modern architecture. “But in fact, all of the great, internationally recognized leaders of the modern movement did work in New England.” That includes Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius (who taught for years at the Harvard Graduate School of Design after leaving Nazi Germany), as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. But Fix ler is quick to note that modernist architects Edwin Goodell (who designed Field Farm) and Henry Hoover, M.Arch. ’26, built homes in New England that predate Gropius’s arrival. “Many people don’t realize that the seeds of modernism were here before Gropius,” explains Fixler, who lives in a Hoover-designed 1949 home in Weston, Massachusetts. Yet it would be hard to overstate the influence of Gropius and his colleagues Marcel Breuer and Walter Bogner on a slew of younger Harvard-trained architects, including Edward Larrabee Barnes ’38, B.Arch. ’42; Ulrich Franzen, M.Arch. ’48; John Johansen ’39, B.Arch. ’42; Carl Koch ’34, M.Arch. ’37; Eliot Noyes ’32, M.Arch. ’38; I.M. Pei, M.Arch. ’46; and Paul Rudolph, M.Arch. ’47—all of whom went on to design buildings around New England. Now that “modernism,” under the 50-year guideline, also means “historic,” some regional preservation groups have begun to grapple with how to treat the newest additions to the local historic landscape: the modernist homes built from the 1930s through the 1950s. “These houses tend to be isolated in their settings—like the Glass House—and are set pieces in a larger landscape,” notes Sally Zimmerman, preservation specialist at the nonprofit organization Historic New England. “There, the preservation is of a masterwork and the house is treated as an artifact. You don’t destroy it because it is a wonderful art object.” Historic New England archives artifacts and operates three dozen house museums, but one of its most popular destinations is the 1938 home of Gropius himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which attracts visitors from around the world. The organization is now developing a regional reference database showcasing residential works by selected modernist architects. “There is a strong research interest in our collections,” Zimmerman says, “and in our property holdings and in our archives.” The Trustees of Reservations, a stalwart land-conservation group, operates not only Field Farm—the 1948 Bauhaus-era home built by the MIT-trained Goodell, which is complete with many original furnishings, artwork, and a sculpture garden—but also The Folly, designed in 1964 by Ulrich Franzen, which is now open as a museum only. “The whole property is a wonderful teaching tool, especially because we can compare the two buildings in discussions on postwar American architecture,” says the Trustees’ historic-resources manager, Will Garrison. “And because the structures were built specifically for the landscape, and we are a land-conservation organization, we are interested in preserving them together.” The group has also recently taken on a 1950 house in Concord designed by The Architects’ Collaborative (TAC), Gropius’s Cambridge firm, which is currently used as a rental property. Newer grassroots groups such as the Friends of Modern Architecture in Lincoln, Massachusetts, are also educating their fellow residents and drawing attention to preservation issues around modern homes. In addition to the Gropius house, Lincoln has more than 100 private custom-built modern dwellings, and has been a hothouse for architectural development, says FOMA cofounder and president Dana Robbat, A.L.M. ’02, who is writing a book about European modernism and its impact on New England. The group sponsors receptions, private house tours, and panel discussions, such as an event last April on renovating and maintaining a modern house, cosponsored with Historic New England. “Most people don’t like looking at modern homes; they are just not immediately aesthetically pleasing to a lot of people,” Robbat says. “It’s like looking at any piece of modern art. But once you understand what the artist had in mind, you can appreciate the work much more.” Preservation interest centers primarily on one-of-a-kind, commissioned works by well-regarded architects and on some planned modern residential communities, such as the renowned cul-de-sac of flat-roofed, timber-sided homes called Six Moon Hill built by and for TAC architects in Lexington, Massachusetts. “In comparison to many contemporary suburban developments elsewhere, like Levittown, the emphasis was not necessarily on creating the largest possible number of houses, but rather on creating community of a certain scale and character,” says Cambridge architect Mark Mulligan, M.Arch. ’90, adjunct associate professor at the Graduate School of Design. “For me, there is something both more artistic and more civic-oriented [in Six Moon Hill] than the economic model that is suggested by ‘mass housing.’” Any group eager to preserve modern structures still faces the problem Dana Robbat raises: the often dim awareness on the part of homebuyers, developers—or even local historic commissions—of the desirability of distinctive postwar homes. “In Oak Park, Illinois, the preservation perspective is Frank Lloyd Wright,” Mark Mulligan says. “Our focus in New England has been on colonial and federal styles, and nineteenth-century architecture.” DOCOMOMO’s David Fixler agrees. “We’ve had some victories, and some defeats,” he says of trying to save modern buildings. “The importance of New England to modernism is generally underappreciated.” Several years ago the group helped preserve an especially innovative Edwin Goodell house built in 1934 in Weston, Massachusetts, by finding owners who wanted to live in the building rather than tear it down. “If we destroy these houses, then we will have lost an important part of our social and political history as well as our architectural history, and those stories will never be told,” says Boston architect Edwin “Ned” Goodell, M.Arch. ’98, the architect’s grandson. “This particular house is interesting because it marked a departure from the ‘historicist’ work of my grandfather’s early career and it is evidence that there was fledgling interest in new building types before the arrival of Gropius and the Europeans.” The appeal of modern homes is timeless, Fixler says. “Modernism was about encouraging democratic ideas, including the idea that everyone can live well and live on a modest scale,” he explains. “The movement was about breaking down walls and opening up spaces and creating better communal environments, and the houses were meant to have a very light environmental impact on the land. There is something very liberating and uplifting about life in a modern house, and it is something we don’t want to lose track of, especially given the general push toward sustainability.” 1 | 2 | 3 | continued >  
 
 
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