NEWS & OBSERVER: “Help Save Raleigh’s Lustron House”

The Raleigh Historic Development Commission is hosting an awareness and fundraising event at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 to try to preserve a local Lustron house.(Photo by Sally Keeney)

By Andrea Weigl

The Raleigh Historic Development Commission is hosting an event at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 to try to preserve a local Lustron house.

The event includes a screening of the film, “Lustron: The House America’s Been Waiting For,” followed by a panel discussion. Among the speakers: George Smart of NC Modernist Houses, Lustron homeowner Deborah Chay, and Virginia Faust, a realtor and Lustron specialist. The moderator will be Dan Becker. READ MORE…

NEWS & OBSERVER: “Raleigh’s last mail-order house might find new life”

A promotional photo showing a Lustron home living room. Courtesy of KDN Films

By Chris Cioffi

Tom Morris was a teenager when his family’s new home rolled up on the back of a tractor-trailer in thousands of pieces ready for assembly.

The Lustron home arrived from Columbus, Ohio, one of fewer than 2,500 prefabricated steel houses built between 1948 and 1950 as affordable housing for soldiers returning from World War II. It was put together on a nearly 12-acre parcel at 3612 Buffaloe Road in Raleigh and became a cozy if odd-looking home to the Morris family.

“Best I can remember, it took them about three weeks for them to assemble it,” said Morris, 82, a retired physician who lives in Durham.

Now the Raleigh Historic Development Commission is raising money to save the house from demolition. READ MORE…

December Film Celebrates Frank Sinatra’s Architect

“The Nature of Modernism” explores the work

of E. Stewart Williams

The 1947 Sinatra house, designed by E. Stewart Willams

“The Nature of Modernism,” the December screening from the 2016-2017 MoHo Realty Architecture Movie Series, presented by North Carolina Modernist Houses, explores the work of architect E. Stewart Williams, the prolific modernist who designed Frank Sinatra’s iconic house in Palm Beach. The film will be screened in The Hunt Library auditorium, NCSU Centennial Campus, Thursday, December 1, starting at 7:30 p.m.

“When Frank Sinatra walked into E. Stewart Williams’ newly established architectural office in May of 1947 he wanted a Georgian-style house built in the desert of Palm Springs. Williams tactfully convinced him of the benefits of modernism and Sinatra went for it. The two had no idea how far reaching and influential that decision would prove to be.” (Denver Art Museum on the film’s premiere there)

The film traces Williams’ family history and professional career from his early days designing Sinatra’s house, to later years producing civic structures, including the Crafton Hills College, Palm Springs Art Museum, and the Santa Fe Federal Savings, now the Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion.

Each fall, the award-winning non-profit organization North Carolina Modernist Houses presents its annual movie series of hard-to-find architecture-related films. NCMH screens the films once a month through February.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door. Cash and credit cards are accepted. Mod Squad members get in free until capacity is reached. The first 100 NCSU students with a student ID are admitted free of charge. NCSU Friends of the Library members receive 10 percent off the ticket price with a “Friends of the Library” card.

MoHoRealty — specializing in modern and unique architect-designed homes in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill — sponsors the entire series along with VMZinc, Hill Country Wood Works, and The Kitchen Specialist. For more information on the series, the films, and to view trailers, go to www.ncmodernist.org/movies.

The Hunt Library is located on Centennial Campus at 1070 Partners Way, Raleigh (27606). Free parking is available adjacent to the library. For directions, go to www.lib.ncsu.edu/parking or call 919-515-7110.

NEWS & OBSERVER: “Dwell Home showed how to do modern modular”

The Dwell Home goes up for auction in Chatham County on Tuesday. AuctionFirst Inc.

BY RICHARD STRADLING

PITTSBORO — When it was completed in 2004, the Dwell Home, which goes up for auction in Chatham County on Tuesday, was an early, high-profile example of a modern-design house made from components built in a factory.

It was also an opportunity for the home’s owner, Nathan Wieler, to get into real estate development and to begin selling similarly prefabricated modern homes. After a decade that included the real estate bust of the Great Recession, Wieler’s ventures have had mixed results; only one of three subdivisions he launched in Chatham County came to fruition.

But Wieler still believes in the promise of prefabrication to bring homes designed by architects to a wider audience, and he continues to offer them for sale on the internet, where there’s now a crowded market for modern prefabricated homes. READ MORE…

AECCafe: “NCMH Secures All-Star Jury for 2017 Matsumoto Prize”

A unique awards program honoring Modernist residential design, sponsored by North Carolina Modernist Houses.

Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger joins the 2017 jury.

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) announces the blue-ribbon jury for the 2017  George Matsumoto Prize for North Carolina Modernist residential architecture.

Among the seven jurors, representing internationally known architects, critics, and designers, is Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic  Paul Goldberger. From 1997 through 2011, Goldberger was The New Yorker’s architecture critic. Today he is Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, for whom he weighed in on the controversy surrounding the Cherry-Gordon house in Raleigh’s historic Oakwood neighborhood. In the article  “Is This House Too Modern To Exist?” he praised the Cherry-Gordon house and called NCMH “a wonderful preservation organization.” READ MORE…

NCMH Secures All-Star Jury for 2017 Matsumoto Prize

A unique awards program honoring Modernist residential design, sponsored by North Carolina Modernist Houses.

Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger joins the 2017 jury.

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) announces the blue-ribbon jury for the 2017 George Matsumoto Prize for North Carolina Modernist residential architecture.

Among the seven jurors, representing internationally known architects, critics, and designers, is Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger. From 1997 through 2011, Goldberger was The New Yorker’s architecture critic. Today he is Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, for whom he weighed in on the controversy surrounding the Cherry-Gordon house in Raleigh’s historic Oakwood neighborhood. In the article “Is This House Too Modern To Exist?” he praised the Cherry-Gordon house and called NCMH “a wonderful preservation organization.”

The 2017 jury will also include:

• Carl Abbott, FAIA, of Carl Abbott Architect, Sarasota FL
• Curt Fentress, FAIA, RIBA, of Fentress Architects, Denver CO
• Robert Miller,FAIA, of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Seattle WA
• Ron Radziner, FAIA, of Marmol Radziner, Los Angeles CA
• Susan Saarinen, ASLA, of Saarinen Landscape Architecture, Golden CO
• Harry Wolf, FAIA, of Wolf Architecture, Los Angeles CA

Founded by NCMH in 2012, the George Matsumoto Prize is named to honor the architect who designed many exemplary mid-century Modernist houses in North Carolina, and who serves as honorary jury chair each year. The Matsumoto Prize is a unique design competition featuring $6000 in cash awards and online public voting. It is the only design awards program in the state exclusively honoring Modernist residential architecture. Submissions will open in May 2017.

For more information, including submission guidelines, keep checking http://www.ncmodernist.org/matsumotoprize.htm. To see the 2017 jury and winning submissions, visit http://www.ncmodernist.org/prize2017.htm.

 

November Film Celebrates Groundbreaking Architect Donald Wexler

The first feature-length film on the steel and prefab construction pioneer.

 The 2016-2017 MoHo Realty Architecture Movie Series, presented by North Carolina Modernist Houses, continues its tribute to Palm Springs, California, on Thursday, November 3, at 7:30 p.m. with the documentary “Journeyman Architect: The Life and Work of Donald Wexler” directed by Jake Gorst.

During the 1950s and 60s, Donald Wexler pioneered commercial and residential construction using steel and prefabrication. He applied his groundbreaking techniques and unique style to projects for such clients as Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, the Alexander Construction Company, and Walt Disney World Resort.

Wexler’s designs for public buildings in the Coachella Valley of California, including the dramatic Palm Springs Airport, served as both soaring and practical models for other municipalities to emulate. Today Donald Wexler’s work is garnering new appreciation worldwide and providing inspiration for a new generation of architects.

“This is the first feature-length film celebrating Don’t amazing career,” said Gorst.

Each fall, the award-winning non-profit organization North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) launches its annual movie series of hard-to-find architecture-related films. NCMH screens the films once a month through the following February.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door. Cash and credit cards are accepted. Mod Squad members get in free until capacity is reached. The first 100 NCSU students with a student ID are admitted free of charge. NCSU Friends of the Library receive 10 percent off the ticket price with a “Friends of the Library” card.

MoHoRealty — specializing in modern and unique architect-designed homes in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill — sponsors the entire series along with VMZinc, Hill Country Wood Works, and The Kitchen Specialist. For more information on the series, the films, and to view trailers, go to www.ncmodernist.org/movies.

The Hunt Library is located on Centennial Campus at 1070 Partners Way, Raleigh. Free parking is available adjacent to the library. For directions, go to www.lib.ncsu.edu/parking.

TRIANGLE BUSINESS JOURNAL: “Original ‘Dwell House’ in Pittsboro going up for auction”

By Amanda Hoyle

The storied Modernist-style house that was co-commissioned by the editors of Dwell Magazine and an early dot-com entrepreneur in 2004 on a rural, wooded road outside of Pittsboro is being put up for auction to the highest bidder.

The so-called “Dwell House” located off of Hanks Chapel Road in eastern Chatham County was a bit of a novelty when it was built, primarily because its design was the result of a contest among architecture firms nationally and the fact that each of its modules were prefabricated – a construction method that is still a bit of a novelty for high-end homes more than a decade later.

…The nonprofit North Carolina Modernist Houses of Raleigh is also hosting a public tour of the Dwell House on Oct. 29 and selling tickets for the tour for $10. READ MORE

NEWS & OBSERVER: “Upcoming events for modernist architecture fans”

North Carolina Modernist Houses is offering a tour from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 29 of what is known as the “Dwell House” in Pittsboro. Courtesy of NC Modernist Houses.

By Andrea Weigl, Oct. 5, 2016

…North Carolina Modernist Houses is offering a tour from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 29 of what is known as the “Dwell House” in Pittsboro.

The house is slated to be auctioned off in November, like James Taylor’s childhood home was auctioned this summer. N.C. Modernist Houses organized tours of the James Taylor house as a fundraiser before the auction; it was so successful that they are doing that again with this house, which has been described as “the most high-profile modern prefab house in America.”

Dwell is an American magazine devoted to modern architecture and design. In 2003, the magazine’s editors partnered with the original homeowners to initiate the Dwell Home Design Invitational, a 21st century version of the Case Study Houses program. The designs submitted had to be pre-fabricated with sections no wider than 16 feet so that they could be moved by truck to the site on the top of a small mountain in Pittsboro.

Tickets for the tour are $10. Entrance is on a timed basis. Tickets are available at ncmodernist.org/pittsboro.htm. Participants will take a free shuttle to and from the house.

North Carolina Modernist Houses is a non-profit dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting modernist residential design across North Carolina. Info: ncmodernist.org

The Raleigh Architecture Co. To Host October’s “Thirst4Architecture” at Trophy Brewing Co.

Trophy Brewing Co on Maywood (Photo by Joe Bruno)

The Raleigh Architecture Co. (RACo) will host this month’s  “Thirst4Architecture” (T4A) networking event, along with North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH), on Thursday, October 20, from 6-8 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the event will be held at one of RACo’s commercial projects, Trophy Brewing Co., 656 Maywood Avenue, Raleigh. Following the success of its first location on W. Morgan Street – which RACo also designed – Trophy Brewing opened this location in 2015 to feature a spacious taproom attached to a 20-barrell-production facility.

NCMH’s T4A events offer those interested in Modernist residential design the opportunity to connect and converse in a casual environment.

As the hosts for the evening, RACo principals Robby Johnston and Craig Kerins will provide food and beverages. They will also welcome special guest Lester Levine, the author of the new book 911 Memorial Visions: Innovative Concepts from the 2003 World Trade Center Memorial Design Competition, who will sign copies of the book.

 
Levine spent nearly seven months as the only person to ever review all 5201 entries in the 2003 World Trade Center Memorial Design Competition, identifying designs that challenged traditional ideas of a public memorial. After four years of seeking out and interviewing the creators of the design, Levin’s book tells the story of the evolving concept of an American memorial.

For more information on The Raleigh Architecture Co., go to www.raleigh-architecture.com.

T4A’s in the Triangle are sponsored through December 2016 by the RED Collective. For more information on NCMH and future Thirst4Architecture dates and locations, visit www.ncmodernist.org.