E-041

Moore House, Orinda, California . Charles Moore . 1962

'Orinda House, also known as “Moore House” is located in a valley behind San Francisco,  was designed by architect Charles W. Moore for himself and built in 1962. In this project, Moore experimented with very simple means the possibility to recreate a project that could embody references to different moments of architectural history and that would allow an unconventional distribution and space articulation.

The small project is based on simple geometry and on the archetypal square plan to create a direct relationship with architectural archetypes such as the primitive hut or a Hindu temple.

A pyramidal roof with a flat sky window on top emerges from the outside walls and is supported by a combination of elements: a ring of beams laid on the exterior walls and some of the wooden columns inhabiting the interior space, while the whole house rests on a simple, concrete foundation. The corners of the building, materialized by sliding barn-like doors, are never touched by the outside walls. The doors can be opened to let the light to get in, underlining the continuity between inside and outside.

Eight columns, in groups of four, sustain two aediculae of different dimensions supporting two asymmetrical pyramidal roofs located within the main roof. These two sub-spaces inside the larger volume articulate the interior, and as they are painted white, they contrast with the rest of the surfaces. Between the two pavilions, a high bookcase structures the place for the beds. Only the toilet, some shelves and the cooking area are enclosed behind a wall, while all the rest of the space is freely distributed under the main roof.'

http://socks-studio.com/2017/01/29/archetypes-and-free-plan-orinda-house-by-charles-w-moore/

A-010

'You', Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gallery, Chelsea . Urs Fischer . 2007

'“You” is an art installation by Urs Fischer done in 2007 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise Gallery in Chelsea. Consisting of  a 30 foot by 30 foot crater, 8 feet deep dug into the foundation of the gallery.
The installation took 10 days and was done at a cost of over $250 000.
The following warning greeted visitors “THE INSTALLATION IS PHYSICALLY DANGEROUS AND INHERENTLY INVOLVES THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH”'

https://no-one.la/stories/urs-fischer-2007

F-008

Sinclair Gas, Gustine, Texas (from Western Realty) . © Ed Freeman

'These digitally enhanced pictures of buildings across the western United States are part of my “Western Realty” series. They came about as a natural extension of my “Desert Realty” series – a way of seeing commonplace architecture with fresh eyes and discovering the charm, pathos and humor of easily-ignored structures.'

Ed Freeman

https://www.edfreeman.com/collections/western-realty

E-018

Sea Ranch Condominium, Califormia . Charles Moore . 1963-65

'Confronted with designing the condominium complex of Sea Ranch on a spectacular Pacific Ocean site north of San Francisco, Moore Lyndon Turnbull Whitaker tightly grouped the units around a courtyard with traditional shed roofs an intersecting and towerlike wall planes, creating an overall commanding form but one of identifiably individual parts, at once casual and modest, open to views and sun yet sheltered and protected from the wind. It was a concept of cluster designed to preserve the openness of a rugged and beautiful site, the California wood tradition projected into a mid-sixties leaner sensibility and aesthetic, with a builder's type awareness of economy'

'American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century'. Paul Heyer. Ed.Wiley, 1993. p106-107

E-016

Goldenberg House, Montgomery County, Philadelphia . Louis I. Kahn . 1959

'The Goldenberg House is a 1959 unbuilt project by Louis Kahn for an area in Montgomery County near Philadelphia. This work couples previous Kahn’s compositional themes with some degrees of experimentation in the spatial relationships between geometrical forms. The central patio is the center of the house and the departing core of the composition: a perfect square surrounded by a corridor opening on the service areas,  storage rooms and bathrooms lit by skylights. In the typical Kahnian separation between servant and served areas, the outer zones include only the living rooms and the bedrooms irradiated from the central core.

At this point the rigorous perpendicular composition is contrasted by the introduction of diagonal lines inciding the exterior geometry of the house and identifing the limits of some areas in the plan. The single-pitch roofs underline the formal autonomy of the single rooms which get progressively detached from the central core. In opposition with the free floor plan, (an architectural motif of the time), Kahn identifies the specificity of the rooms attributing a distinct shape to each one of them. The rooms are autonomous but not isolated, the plan establishing a relationship among each contigous space, encouraging the circulation among the living areas.'

http://socks-studio.com/2014/04/08/the-plan-is-a-society-of-rooms-goldenberg-house-by-louis-kahn-1959/

F-003

Michigan Theater (from Detroit Photos) . © Stan Douglas . 1999

'Bernd Becher, born 1931 in Siegen, Germany, died 2007; Hilla Becher, born 1934 in Potsdam, Germany, lives and works in Düsseldorf. The photography of the Bechers is a documentary one. The buildings, mostly industrial manufacturing plants, regarded by the artists as "anonymous sculptures", appear isolated without the workers. They are monuments in and of themselves, and at the same time symbols of functionality. In typological series, constructions or devices with the same functions and comparable structures are analyzed, always under the same  - objective - shooting circumstances, in absolute abstention from an expressive treatment.'

http://www.schellmannart.com/sa/sa_worklist.php?aid=5

P-001

French Quarter, New Orleans . © unknown

E-003

Sea Ranch Condominium, Califormia . Charles Moore . 1963-65

'Los apartamentos responden a la idea de espacio único con ambientes diferentes construida mediante la inserción de un "edículo" que contiene, en un altillo, el dormitorio y el aseo y, debajo de él, un lugar caracterizado de la casa. Este edículo se reconoce como un volumen propio dentro del amplio espacio interior que forma el apartamento, con claras referencias a edificios agrícolas. Cada interior se asoma al paisaje mediante una galería o un balcón, que se proyecta hacía el exterior del volumen; el resto de la iluminación se produce cenitalmente desde la cubierta'

http://josejove.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/sea-ranch-charles-moore-1963-65.html