Classic Spaces: Miller House

Exterior detail of the Eero Saarinen/Alexander Girard/Dan Kiley masterpiece, Miller House, as captured by the late great photographer Balthazar Korab. See my earlier full feature on the Miller House and Garden here.

Spaces: Harry Seidler & Associates: Gissing House: 1972

Recently coming to market in Wahroonga Australia, this 1972 home by Harry Seidler & Associates has been kept in pristine condition, perfectly preserved, with photos that almost appear straight off the pages of a 1972 Interiors magazine.

The Gissing House is that exceptional thing, a distinguished survivor whose authenticity is uncompromised by time, as if, by some miracle, it was kept captive in a time capsule for the past forty years. - Modern House

The home is furnished with an impressive collection of 20th Century design including: Marcel Breuer Wassily Chairs and Warren Platner Lounge Chairs, both for Knoll; Thonet B9 Le Corbusier Chairs; Arne Jacobsen 3107 chairs for Fritz Hansen, surrounding what appears to be a Florence Knoll table; and Van Keppel & Green outdoor loungers. Many of the consoles, desks, and credenzas are wall-mounted, and the black credenza in the dining room also appears to be illuminated, creating an ethereal floating effect.  The Eames Bird on the mantel adds a nice whimsical finishing touch.

ARCHITECT
Architect: Harry Seidler & Associates
PROJECT TEAM
Gissing House
Designed and built: 1969-72
Architect: Harry Seidler & Associates
Design Architect: Harry Seidler
Landscape Architect: Bruce Mackenzie
Engineers: Miller Milston & Ferris Consulting Engineers
Contemporary Photography: © Chris Colls

Read the complete story about the history of this amazing home here.

Via Plastolux.

Spaces: Guido Hager's Apartment: Berlin

Bright flashes of color against an luxurious monochromatic backdrop denote the Berlin home of landscape architect Guido Hager.  From an article by photographer Helenio Barbetta:

"There isn't even one indoor plant in Guido Hager's Berlin apartment. We'd foolishly assumed that in private this landscape architect would have a personal hothouse to look after, in which to cultivate Begonia coccinea, Farn trees, or some other rare domestic species. But he says that although he likes trees "I only like them when ther're outside. I don't feel any need to have them inddors." He comes here to stay for a few days each month, to go to the opera or see an exhibition, or just relax and spend time with friends. And also to see his personal collection of paintings and drawings, which continue to inhabit the apartment when he isn't there.

When he's not in Berlin he's probably living in his main house in Zurich (where he does have a conservatory, but that's another story) and where hi and his two partners firm of Hager Partner AG is located, with a staff of forty people who are currently working on more then 70 projects that range from private gardens to urban parks and public commisions, such as the esplanade fot the Etnographic Museum in Geneva and the tree-filled inner courtyard of the new Bundestag building. Hager's work is involved with Nature, but art collecting is a passion he cultivates in his spare time. He began collecting by chance: "Twelve years ago I happened to go into a gallery in Zurich, saw a painting I liked, and bought it. "Now he owns something like three hundred paintings and drawings, a few photographs, but no videos. "A gallery-owner friend of mine has tried to suggest what I should and shouldn't buy, but I won't listen to him. When I'm investing in art I buy, what I like.

Hager has a predilection for artists who are his own contemporaries, people born in the Fifties and Sixties, and for large canvasses. When he was looking for somewhere to live in Berlin, those "details" of his personal taste were a significant influence on his buying decision. "As my art collecting grew bigger" he says "my first apartment was becoming too small, so I started to look for somewhere else. It had to be in Schoneberg because I wanted to stay in the same area, which has a wonderful vegetable and flower market, but not in one of those lofts of which there are so many here. It was much better to go for a solid bourgeois home, organised in a traditional way with clearly separated living and sleeping areas, and stucco decorations adorning the ceilings".

And that was his perfect solution: an apartment at the fourth floor of an historic building, with three large rooms in a main wing and a "rear part" suitable for converting into two bedrooms and a bathroom. The general condition of the place was very poor and all the wiring needed to be replaced, but he was completely captivated by the walls, which offered plenty of hanging space that would be the perfect setting for the bright colours of his paintings.

Now the walls have been repainted white over a special new plaster finish that brings out the colour tones of the canvasses. The ceilings are also white, as a contrast with the black wood he chose for the floors. In the living area, which faces north, the natural daylight is very beautiful, and is assisted by a system of adjustable spotlights in the fairly challenging task of enhancing the works of art. The apartment also contains a few other light fittings: a Serge Mouille lamp on the dining table and some Akari-rice-paper lamps in corners or on bedside tables. And almost nothing else; just a few pieces of furniture all of sober design, such as the Le Corbusier chaise or the Mies chairs.

It took a year of work to bring the apartment to this point, because before the new surface finishes could be applied the spaces themselves had to be redesigned. The existing kotchen was changed into a bedroom with its own independent entrance, and a new kitchen was created by sacrificing one of the other bedrooms, and everything else was perfect just as it was, including the vista to the outside: "when I look out from my litle balcony" says Hager "I can see the local streets and the trees off in the dostance. It's like going back in time, or looking at a landscape painting by Adolph Menzel." That's why Hager prefers his trees to be outside; the inside is for contemporary art."

Via the modernlove tumblr and thisispaper.

Spaces: Thomas Phifer + Partners: Fishers Island House, New York

An incredible glass pavilion home by Thomas Phifer and Partners.

Just behind the copse stands a delicately transparent pavilion. Its light-filtering trellis—a horizontal tracery of slender aluminum rods extending the roof plane—aligns with the canopy of trees before it. Woven into the landscape, this is an architecture of subtlety, a precisely grounded yet quasi-weightless structure, an ethereal rectangle, planted between two existing woods. Like feathery fronds, the trellis reaches toward the bordering leafy branches, while the pavilion’s interior floor plane—fully visible through the glassy, Miesian shell—continues outward, its surface of ebonized bamboo transformed into an exterior plinth of Indian black granite, a walkway, finely striated with shadows from the diaphanous, metal canopy above.

More than a one-bedroom retreat for a former museum director and his wife, this is also a place of extraordinary 20th century paintings, sculptures, and glassware—much of it conveying a sense of buoyancy or levitation that echoes the pavilion’s lightness. The artwork always figures into view out, even if only peripherally. Conversely, from the gardens, this colorful indoor collection projects a presence outdoors.

In the animated interplay between landscape and art, in the shifting ambiguities between inside and out, the design achieves exceptional balance. An arcing swath of vibrant yellow sedum in the garden resonates with the golden footbridge in a Chinese screen inside; a mossy rock garden projects into the pavilion’s simple volume, while the bedroom nestles into a private apse of garden vegetation. You can look straight through the house without realizing it, but you could also mistake reflections of trees for glimpses through the pavilion. Morphing with the skies, flourishing seasonally, the dialogue evolves, nourishing the owner’s desire to live in the garden—with art.

Complimenting the interior is a choice selection of mid-century modernism, including works by Arne Jacobsen, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, Florence Knoll, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Gehry.

From an article on contermporist, with photos by Scott Frances.

Classic Spaces: Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard, Dan Kiley: Miller House + Garden

"It's that wonderful ability of 3 great designers, to work together, almost at the peak of their careers. You have Saarinen building his most important domestic commission, you have Girard doing probably his most beautiful interiors, and then you have Kiley's gardens which have been regarded as one of the masterpieces of 20th Century landscape architecture."

- R. Craig Miller, Senior Curator of Design Arts, Indianapolis Museum of Art

"It's at the summit of the experience of Modernism."

- Maxwell Anderson, CEO Indianapolis Museum of Art


Behold the Miller House, completed in 1957 for industrialist and philanthropist J. Irwin Miller, and created by a holy trinity of 20th Century design masters: Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard, and Dan Kiley.  Featuring amazing custom furnishings by both Saarinen and Girard, including an illuminated Tulip dining table, and a modified Eames Sofa Compact in polished brass.  Girard continued to worked as the home's interior designer for the next 15 years, modifying the interiors in accordance to the changing needs of the Miller family.

This is the ultimate modernist home.

Photos by Leslie Williamson for Dwell, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Garden Visit. See more photos and read more project details at the links.