The Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of its building, a mid-century modern structure with vast expanses of glass tucked into the woods at the corner of Cedar Lane and Beach Drive in Bethesda. The building was designed by Pietro Belluschi, the dean of the MIT School of Architecture in the 1950s and one of the most prolific modern architects. I also have seen references that mention that local modern architects Francis Donald Lethbridge and Arthur Keyes of Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon worked with Belluschi on the design. (Keyes, Lethbridge & Condon did win an award in 1967 from the American Institute of Architects for their design of the River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda. I’ll highlight that building another time.)
In addition to a Gazette story on the building’s anniversary, here’s a brief article on the church’s auditorium.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-24 15:17:002020-06-02 13:46:40Modern Snapshot: Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
These two 1959 Charles Goodmans in Rock Creek Woods in Silver Spring have had their prices cut. The 76-home community, built by Herschel and Marvin Blumberg, entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
This 3/3 is down to $610K from $622K. Here’s the address.
This 6/3 home looks like one of Charles Goodman’s larger designs. It’s dropped from $679K to $645K. Here’s the address.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-21 19:04:002020-06-12 06:49:49Price Drop: Two Goodmans in Rock Creek Woods
Here’s a listing for another flat-roof Phoenix model located in the Fairfax neighborhood of Mantua. The 6/3 home with clerestory windows sits on more than half an acre. This model was done by Phoenix Builders, not Ken Freeman, who designed many of the modern homes in Mantua.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-18 06:41:002020-06-12 06:50:001963 Flat-Roof ‘Phoenix’ MCM in Mantua
The Washington Post’s architecture critic Philip Kennicott reviews (includes a short slideshow)the Eero Saarinen exhibit at the National Building Museum. He delves into Saarinen’s eclectic career and suggests that the Finnish-American may have been the first “starchitect.” Excerpt below:
“The National Building Museum has a decent bullet-point summary for this exhibition: Saarinen is a great and famous architect about whom we know surprisingly little. This can be explained, in part, by his sudden death, which cut short his career at its zenith and left several of his most important projects to be finished posthumously. It can also be explained, in part, by his eclecticism. Even in his own day, his fellow architects and many critics felt that Saarinen reinvented his vocabulary with every project.
“In the short run, that sort of stylistic adventurism is problematic. Critics wondered, who is the real Saarinen? The refined practitioner of corporate headquarters? The maker of eccentric forms? The contextualizer with a sense of history who tried to fuse campus Gothic with contemporary style?
“In the long run, however, this sort of eclecticism only makes Saarinen seem prophetic. The breadth of his practice, his fondness for “iconic” forms, his forays into furniture and design, his fame — all of this feels very familiar. Another quick bullet point for this exhibition might be: Eero Saarinen, the first ‘starchitect.'”
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-12 18:22:002008-05-12 18:22:00Saarinen: The First ‘Starchitect’?
Before striking out on his own to design modern homes, Charles Goodman was a government architect. He designed post offices and other federal buildings. In 1939, he was selected to be the government’s architect to help design National Airport. While Goodman would eventually resign amid bureaucratic meddling in his vision for the airport, elements of Goodman design were retained, including the sweeping lobby of Historic Terminal A, as it is called. The terminal, which opened in 1941, has a massive, slightly curving wall of windows perfect for viewing the planes taking off and landing. The terminal is currently undergoing renovations “to restore the terminal to its 1941 design and architecture,” according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. I took this quick shot of the vintage Eames chairs as my family and I were rushing to catch a recent flight to Florida.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-08 16:17:002020-05-08 12:12:35Modern Snapshot: Eames Chairs in National Airport’s Historic Terminal A
Eero Saarinen’s future was, sadly, cut short. The modernist architect and designer of some of the most recognizable mid-century modern furniture designs (think Tulip chair) passed away at the age of 51 from a brain tumor. In his short life, Saarinen, who immigrated to the United States from Finland in 1923 when he was 13, designed some of the most iconic examples of American architecture: the St. Louis Arch, the main terminal at Dulles (seen at left circa 1963) and the former TWA terminal at JFK airport.
Beginning tomorrow and running until Aug. 23, the National Building Museum will present Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, the first retrospective of Saarinen’s career. The exhibition will feature full-scale building models, never-before seen drawings, furniture, photographs, films, and other artifacts. The exhibit marks the first public unveiling of the architect’s complete archives–the largest repository of Saarinen-related material in the world–which was donated to Yale University in 2002. Saarinen’s “untimely death—coupled with the extraordinary diversity of his work–made Saarinen a problematic figure for critics and historians, and as a result, the architect’s many contributions were widely overlooked for much of the past four decades,” the museum says in announcing the exhibit, which “makes a powerful case for recognizing Saarinen as an exceptionally innovative figure whose work has exerted a profound and continuous influence on architectural theory and practice for more than a half-century.”
If you feel inspired to buy something by Saarinen, you’re in luck. Knoll is having its annual sale from May 2 to 11. It’s only 10 percent off, so I hope you have been saving up.
Photos courtesy of the National Building Museum.
Dulles photo copyright of Balthazar Korab Ltd.
Patent drawing for pedestal chairs, June 7, 1960. Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-02 02:02:002020-05-08 12:12:35Saarinen Retrospective: Shaping the Future at the National Building Musuem; Begins May 3
The blog got a nice mention in the Post yesterday. Terri Sapienza highlighted Modern Capital in her Blog Watch column that appears weekly in the Home Section. Hopefully, the exposure will bring more MCM fans out of the woodwork here in D.C.
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.png00Mid-Century Mike/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/modern-capital-logo.pngMid-Century Mike2008-05-02 01:36:002008-05-02 01:36:00Modern Capital: Picked to Click by Washington Post