Triangle Modernist Houses’ Director Receives City Award

October 8, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) – George Smart, Jr., founder and executive director of Triangle Modernist Houses.com, has received a 2009 City of Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Community Appearance. The awards ceremony was held October 7 at the

George Smart

Fletcher Opera Theater in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.

The award credits Smart as “a champion of the local Modernist architectural movement, raising public awareness through web-based resources, grants, and public tours.”

In 2007, George Smart launched www.trianglemodernisthouses.com, a website dedicated to preserving modernist homes in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina by increasing public awareness of their existence – especially when that existence is threatened by neglect or encroaching development.

“The more people who know about these extraordinary houses, the less likely they are to get torn down,” Smart told Dwell magazine earlier this year.

Triangle Modernist Houses’ Raleigh Tour Spotlights Architects’ Personal Residences

The Crowder residence

October 1, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) – Three Modernist houses  that architects designed for their own families in West Raleigh will be the focus of Triangle Modernist Houses’ (TMH) Homes Tour to be held Saturday, November 7, from 1-4 p.m.

The tour will spotlight the private residences of architects Thomas Crowder, Raymond Sawyer and Brian Shawcroft.

George Smart To Address National Preservation Conference

George Smart

September 22, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) – George Smart of Durham, NC, the founder and director of Triangle Modern Archives, Inc. and TriangleModernHouses.com, will be part of a panel of seasoned preservationists and colleagues from around the nation that will address the preservation of modern resources during the National Trust of Historic Preservation’s National Conference. The Conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, from October 13 to 17.

The theme for the 2009 National Conference is “Sustaining The Future In Harmony With Our Past.” The interactive session in which George Smart will participate, dubbed “Help! There’s this Modern Resource I Want to Save,” will be held Friday, October 16, from 1:30 – 3 p.m.

TMH Hopes Good News for Housing Market Means Good News for Modernist Houses

August 25, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) — After the Associated Press reported last week that “the U.S. housing market is rebounding faster than expected” (News & Observer), George Smart of Durham, NC, the founder and director of Triangle Modernist Archives Inc, (TMA) is hoping some of that momentum will help preserve some of the modern houses currently on the market in the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill region of North Carolina.

Smart is the founder and director of Triangle Modernist Archives, Inc., a non-profit entity that archives and advocates modernist residential design. It’s website, www.trianglemodernisthouses.com, includes a free “For Sale” section that spotlights modernist houses on the market solely for the purpose of helping them find new owners. TMA does not receive a percentage of the sale.

Durham Modernist House Tour: Jewel In The Woods

August 7, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) – Triangle Modernist Houses.com (TMH), the educational archive for modernist residential design in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area of NC, will host tours of the Christine and Michael Coates residence in Rougemont, NC, on Saturday, October 3, from 1-3:30 p.m.

Tucked away on a 10-acre site just north of Durham, the house was designed by Michael Coates, AIA, who serves as director of design for Little Diversified Architectural Consulting in Charlotte, NC.  He graduated in 1994 from UNC-Charlotte. From 1994 to 1999, he worked for the firm Blake & Vagone in Charlotte.

Exemplary Mid-Century Home Endangered In Durham

August 3, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) – A 1950’s house going on the market isn’t news. When that house is exemplary of its style and period and in danger of demolition, it is.

The 1958 John and Binford Carr residence in Durham, NC, overlooking Hope Valley Golf Course is for sale.  Triangle Modernist Houses, an archiving and advocacy organization for mid-century homes in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill “Triangle” area of North Carolina, considers it the most endangered house among its listings of modern homes for sale.

Carr residence as seen from the golf course. (Photos by Lewis Clarke)

“We’re putting out a national alert to find a loving owner for this exquisite, Kenneth Scott-designed home,” said George Smart, executive director.  “Its location on a golf course coupled with an available lot next door makes this a prime teardown target.”

Putting The Ease in Easements: How To Save Modernist Houses From Future Bulldozers

July 22, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) — Property easements aren’t sexy, but they are important, especially when they concern property with historic value. Easements protect historic structures by assuring that the property’s intrinsic values will be preserved through subsequent ownership.

To help the general public understand how easements work, what they protect, their advantages and disadvantages, Triangle Modernist Houses.com (TMH) will present a workshop and panel discussion in the new addition to Pullen Memorial Church, 1801 Hillsborough Street in downtown Raleigh, on Saturday, August 15, from 10-11:30 a.m.

"Green" addition, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh

Members of the panel will include TMH founder and executive director George Smart; Elizabeth Sappenfield, director of Urban Issues for Preservation North Carolina and the National Trust for Historic Preservation; J. Myrick Howard, executive director, Preservation North Carolina; and Sig Hutchinson, a Wake County insurance agent who is best known for his work in protecting and preserving open space and expanding Raleigh’s greenway system.

TMH’s George Smart is particularly interested in how preservation easements can save mid-century Modernist houses from being razed in the Triangle.

Triangle Modernist Houses’ Summer Doubleheader Tour Sells Out Quickly

July 22, 2009 (DURHAM, NC) – Triangle Modernist Houses has sold out its first August tour, a “Behind-The-Scenes” look at the Durham Performing Arts Center in downtown Durham and architect Phil Szostak residence in Orange County. The tour will be held on Saturday, August 1, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Durham Performing Arts Center

Phil Szostak, FAIA, principal of Philip Szostak Associates in Chapel Hill, designed both structures and will be on hand to conduct the tour.

“It’s an honor to have people want to come see our work,” Szostak said. “I have always enjoyed sharing stories about the projects and how they developed versus just showing the end product. In this case, I think it offers a more rounded understanding of the DPAC and our home.”

Triangle Modernist Houses Presents Its First Grant

July 15, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) –  David Hill, assistant professor architecture at North Carolina State University’s College of Design in Raleigh, has received Triangle Modernist Houses’ first Macon Smith Research Grant.

David Hill

Triangle Modernist Houses.com is the online entity of Triangle Modernist Archives, Inc., an award-winning nonprofit which preserves, advocates, and builds community around modernist residential design in the Triangle area of North Carolina.

TMH established the Mason Smith Research Grant program to support research into Modernist architecture and architects who practiced in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill region of North Carolina.

Blueplate PR Goes Modern with Triangle Modernist Houses

July 7, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) -  The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill “Triangle” region of North Carolina has the third-largest concentration of modernist houses in the nation, bested only by Los Angeles and Chicago. This fact surprises most people, even those who live in the Triangle. But not TriangleModernistHouses.com (TMH), an award-winning nonprofit which preserves, advocates, and builds community around modernist residential design in the Triangle area of North Carolina, from mid-century to the present. To leverage the area’s uniqueness regionally and nationally, TMH has contracted with Blueplate PR in downtown Raleigh.

Blueplate PR is a boutique public relations agency owned and operated by award-winning journalist Kim Weiss. Blueplate specializes in message development, media relations, communications, online presence, and website text development.

Weiss is also a modern architecture enthusiast. For nearly two decades, she
wrote about architecture and historic preservation for the former Spectator
Magazine and North Carolina Architect magazine, and founded the Triangle
Architecture Awards Program through Spectator.