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New England's

MODERN HOUSE MUSEUMS

experience a surge of interest.

MARISA ANGELL BROWN

ONCE UPON A TIME, MODERNhouses had the reputationfor being architecture's uglystepchildren. Ignored andabandoned, many were simply

knocked down and replaced by new homes.Not any more. Interest in modern houses

(especially those by celebrated architects) hasreached an all-time high. "Starchitects," such asFrank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid,have brought radical architecture into themainstream. Thus, modern homes, once consid-ered avant-garde, now look quite tame andaccessible.

Natascha Drabbe, founding chair of theIconic Houses Network, which offers an inter-national map and index of modern house muse-ums, sees a spike in growth. Over the past fiveyears, 30 modern house museums have openedor will open soon. That's roughly the samenumber of modern house museums that openedbetween 1990 and 2010—a 20-year span.

Why this surging interest in modernism?David Fixler, principal at EYP Architectureand Engineering and president of the NewEngland chapter of Docomomo, an interna-tional organization devoted to saving modernarchitecture, says that modernist homes "laidthe groundwork" for contemporary architec-ture. Thus, they seem more relevant today thanmany historic homes, which have a decline invisitors. Two demographic groups, as seen inDocomomo's New England membership, arehighly interested in modern homes: soon-to-be

retirees who grew up with modernism, andmillennials who view modern homes ashistorically significant.

"Modern house museums are on theupswing," says Kimberli Meyer, director of theMAK Center for Art and Architecture in LosAngeles. "It wasn't that long ago that it washard to convince preservationists that it wasimportant to preserve modern houses..."

The New Canaan Historical Society is a casein point. An early promoter of modernism,the Society, in 2002, began offering a biennialtour of area modernist houses designed from1940 to 1980 by well-known architects. JanetLindstrom, the society's executive director,says the event has grown so popular, it usuallysells out in advance. The society will conductits next tour in the fall of 2016. Those whocan't wait will find 16 modern New Canaanhomes explored in detail in a brand newbook Midcentury Houses Today, published lastOctober by the Monacelli Press.

The Gropius House in Lincoln, MA, wasamong the first generation of modern housemuseums to open to the public. Walter Gropiusdesigned the house for himself and his fam-ily in 1938—one year after they moved fromGermany. The little white box of a homewas bequeathed in 1979 to the Society ofPreservation of New England Antiquities(now Historic New England), and opened it tothe public in 1985.

At first, the house attracted only about3,000 visitors annually, not surprising since

M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 5 ART NEW ENGLAND 39

...innovative programming creates the type of

RADICAL SALON CULTURE initiated by many

of these homes' original owners..."

post-modern architecture was in vogue. Overthe last 10 years, visitor numbers have beensteadily on the rise with an eight percentincrease over the last six years. The house had7,550 visitors in 2014. Given the small size of thehouse, tours are limited to groups of 10. Evenso, Gropius House, along with the 1907-builtBeauport in Gloucester, MA, leads Historic NewEngland's museums in terms of visitor growth,according to Wendy Hubbard, Gropius Housesite manager.

The Zimmerman House, located in Man-chester, NH, reports a similar rise in visitors.Owned and operated by the nearby CurrierMuseum of Art, the small ranch house wasdesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950 for alocal couple, Isadore J. and Lucille Zimmerman.It is New England's only Wright home opento the public. The Currier offers limited toursand restricts groups to 14 or less, largely dueto the home's size. Even so, visitor numbershave grown 17 percent over the last five years,reaching 4,400 visitors in 2014. Many visitors are

Frank Lloyd Wright pilgrims—some interna-tional—determined to see all the Wright homesand buildings.

The hyped public opening of theGlass House, in 2007, according to KimberliMeyer, proved to be a pivotal moment formodern house museums as it showed that theycan be significant cultural players. The GlassHouse, designed by Philip Johnson for himselfand his partner, David Whitney, is really a cam-pus composed of eight separate buildings builtover a 46-year span, 1949 to 1995, on 49 rollingacres. Between Gropius House and ZimmermanHouse, the Glass House has the most circum-scribed tour schedule, given that it's closedfive months of the year. Still, it attracts 4,000to 13,000 visitors annually and has the highestnumber of international visitors—10 percentof overall attendance in 2014, according toCommunications Director Christa Carr.

It helps that the Glass House is so close toNew York City, where the art-going public caneasily hop a 70-minute commuter train to New

Canaan and be whisked there by a shuttle bus.The curatorial staff creates an ambitious sched-ule of changing events to attract repeat visi-tors—the holy grail of house museums.

Last year, the Glass House commissioneda site-specific installation by international art-ist Fujiko Nakaya that covered the main housein fog for 10 minutes each hour, which playedwith the sense of transparency and spacious-ness that one normally feels standing inside ofJohnson's glass structure. Irene Shum Allen, theGlass House's curator and collections manager,can't reveal what installations are slated for2015, but says that the museum will continue toinvite artists and designers whose work "acti-vates the space" and responds not only to thearchitectural campus, but to the landscape sur-rounding it, leading visitors to experience theplace differently in different seasons.

Drabbe sees this kind of programming asessential to modern house museums' long-termviability. Ticket sales provide an important partof the funding needed to maintain and restore

Opposite left and right: The Frank Lloyd Wright designed Zimmerman House. Courtesy of Currier Museum of Art, 2012. Above: Exterior of Gropius House.The north elevation highlights the center entrance with a glass block portico at sunset. Courtesy of Historic New England.

these homes, many of them constructed withnovel and innovative materials that are difficultand expensive to conserve and repair.

If such initiatives succeed, they may helpsolve serious funding issues. According to a2013 speech by Stephanie Meeks, president ofthe National Trust for Historic Preservation,the average house museum in 2002 took in $8per visitor, yet incurred costs of $40 per visitor.Thus, the trust encourages efforts to find alter-native and innovative uses for historic homesthat can preserve them without necessarilyturning them into house museums.

Meyer says that while this trend ininnovative programming is rising, it alsoblurs the line between modern house museumand art museum. She notes that some pres-ervationists resist this, seeing higher visitornumbers as synonymous with wear and tear.However, for her and many other directors ofmodern house museums, innovative program-ming creates the type of radical salon cultureinitiated by many of these homes' originalowners, who were often important leaders inthe avant-garde.

Of the three, the Gropius House is the mostsurprising as it feels, inside, nothing like itlooks in photographs. It is warm, domesticand lively—a family house enlivened by thehomespun use of different, highly tactile yetsimple materials, including painted clapboard,striated glass block, cork and even fishing nets

(used like primitive curtains on the upstairswindows).

The living room's large plate glass windowis not coolly industrial, but a means of bring-ing the surrounding landscape into the house,signaling a connection and even affection forthe apple orchard and native trees surroundingthe home on its little hill. This is a house thatreaches out towards the landscape, not onlythrough its carefully framed views, but also byits details, such as its two horizontal trellisesreaching from house to landscape that werecovered .by vines planted by Mrs. Gropius.

The Glass House, which Johnson describedas "the diary of an eccentric architect," is dif-ferent in its ambitions, a pure experiment indesign that was carried out over many yearsby an architect who had plenty of land to workwith and also the means to do it. It is beautifuland austere, classical and romantic, contempla-tive and a bit ironic.

Like Gropius, Johnson was deferential to thelandscape, not only framing certain views (or allviews, in the main house, which is almost whol-ly made of glass), but also placing each of theeight structures on the land in such a way thatthey imbue the landscape with drama and con-sequence—just like the sole painting Johnsonkept in the main house, Burial ofPhocion (1648-49) by Nicolas Poussin, in which an abundantovergrowth of trees, shrubs and vines obscuresa small city in the background.

The Zimmerman House strikes the onlynote of ambivalence about nature, which issurprising as Wright is the architect that is con-sidered most tuned into the materials, shapesand rhythms of the natural world. It featuresextensive plate glass windows and otherdetails that collapse the distinction betweeninside and out, yet the overall effect inside isof being enclosed, sheltered and protected asin a primitive lean-to, a feeling that is care-fully constructed by Wright through its peakedroof—its warm cypress roof planks visiblefrom all points inside the house—its mono-chromatic color scheme of brown and maroonand a unique system of decorative woodenoverhangs that course around the home's inte-rior about seven feet off the ground.

Where Gropius House and the Glass Houseput nature on display, the Zimmerman Houseresists, urging us to appreciate the primitivestrength and richness of architecture itself.

Of course, seeing these modern housesrequires effort, as visitors must track themdown. The Iconic Houses Network makes iteasier with maps and addresses on its website,iconichouses.org. Let the pilgrimages begin. •

Marisa Angell Brown is an architecturalhistorian, curator, critic and the president ofGenie Loci.

Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio92 Hawthorne St.Lenox, MAfrelinghuysen. org

The Glass House199 Elm StreetNew Canaan, CTtheglasshouse. org

Gropius House68 Baker Bridge RoadLincoln, MAhistoricnewengland. org

The Guest House at Field Farm554 Sloan RoadWilliamstown, MAthetrustees, org/field-farm

Zimmerman House150 Ash StreetManchester, NHcurrier.org

M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 5 ART NEW ENGLAND 41