Events

Free Metcalf Open House

An open house will be held on Sunday, November 6 from 4-6:00 PM.

Realtor Anne Gilbert has invited friends of a2modern to an exclusive open house in this gorgeous Bob Metcalf home at 3965 Penberton, which she has just listed. It is an example of Metcalf’s mature style, as he had been designing homes for 25 years when he created this residence for the Eugene Claey family in 1978.

No need to sign up, just come.

This mid-century modern home is one of the most striking examples of Metcalf’s highly prized design aesthetic. An open floor plan for easy family living and gracious entertaining is complimented by extensive walls of glass, creating a sense of indoor-outdoor harmony in every room. There are two fireplaces, one in the living room and another in the master bedroom, along with oak paneling and built-ins throughout. Meticulously maintained and updated to preserve the design integrity, this home includes a thoughtfully updated kitchen with refinished original cabinets and Samsung appliances. Recent improvements include slate entry and planter box, updated lighting, new carpet. interior and exterior paint. Outdoor living spaces include a four-season room, re-built and expanded deck, and enclosed balconies. The home is located on a quiet cul-de-sac in a private wooded setting within walking distance of King Elementary and easy access to highways, Medical Center and North Campus.

Techbuilt Open House

An open house will be held on Sunday, October 2 at 1 PM, 2 PM, and 3 PM.

Techbuilt homes are considered the best of the many prefab houses that were developed to help solve the post- WWII home shortage.  Created by Boston area architect Carl Koch, a modernist who had studied under Gropius and Breuer, his design was a simple and inexpensive two-story bi-level house that could be built in a few days and added to when the family grew. Anitra and Jesse Gordons’ home, built in 1955, is one of the first built in Ann Arbor.

Click here to purchase tickets to the event.

The Gordon house on Chalmers Drive sits on the crest of a gentle ridge nestled in an encircling forest setting. On one side, steps descend to a swimming pool, open to the sky; on the other, a thick growth of tall trees provides a sheltering canopy for a spacious screened-in porch. This is a perfect site for a Techbuilt house, whose modern design allowed for ample light, open interiors and a settled-in-the-earth feeling.

Techbuilt, the brainchild of architect Carl Koch, solved two problems for homebuilders—wasted space in the basement and unusable space in the attic. By sinking the foundation a half story in the ground, the basement became the first floor. The second floor then rises to the pitched roof, whose gentle incline creates the dual effect of a cathedral ceiling in the center of the room and attic eaves at the edges. Because the barn-like frame of the building carried the weight, it was easy to install the standardized pre-fabricated wall panels and windows. Once the foundation was poured, the shell of a Techbuilt house could be put up in two days.

The Gordon house reveals the many strengths of the Techbuilt concept. Structural features—post and lintel framing, a roof visibly supported by solid but slender wooden beams, wall panels and windows placed to provide light or privacy, and an open interior wall-to-wall—present the durable, rational design elements typical of the original building. More recent modifications and additions demonstrate the flexibility of the original design, such that the four major additions authorized by the Gordons extend and cooperate with the lines of the existing structure. The large screen porch built over a wooded outlook, for example, continues the roofline in a natural extension, its gentle angle creating a cozy feeling in an open and airy space.

The Gordons are the fourth owners of the house. The second owner put in the swimming pool. Outside the house, one path leads to a short walk to Mallett’s Creek and another walk meanders in the densely wooded area nearby, accentuating the cabin-in-the-woods feel of the site. An original carport blocks the house from any view from the street. As with modern houses, the original entrance to this house was designed not to be immediately obvious to a visitor, and when you stepped in you could go up or down stairs. The Techbuilt design was the forerunner of the split-level house. These houses have a sleek, modern look and two levels of windows. Balconies could be added on, either on the ends or along the sides, and as for furniture, Carl Koch designed Techbuilt Spacemaking Furniture for those who found conventional furniture ill-adapted for use in these houses. Koch’s book, At Home with Tomorrow, catches the spirit of those days just on the verge of the Space Age and an encounter with a Techbuilt house provides an indelible insight into a vision for affordable living carried to an exceptionally detailed and successful resolution.

Written by Jeffrey Welch

Ann Arbor Hills Walking Tour

On September 4th at 2:00 PM Grace Shackman will lead a walking tour in an area filled with Mid-Century-Modern gems, including houses by Metcalf, Osler, Brigham, Johe,  Muschenheim, Olencki and Albano.  Meet at Heather Way just south of Devonshire.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at http://www.a2modern.myevent.com/

Law Library Tour

On August 21st at 2 PM there will be a rare chance to see the University of Michigan Law School addition.

Almost entirely underground, yet light and airy, Gunnar Birkert’s 1981 law library addition is an amazing feat.   The law school desperately needed more space for a library, yet were loath to build anything that would impair the look of their 1920s neo-Gothic buildings. Birkerts solved the problem by building a structure three stories underground, lighted by V-shaped troughs that bring in light from several directions, aided by the limestone base that reflects light and the mirrored window frames. Not open to the general public, this is a unique opportunity to see the underground library, led by Margaret Leary, Director of the Library when the addition was built.

For tickets go to http://www.a2modern.myevent.com/

Livingston Bandemer/Mirsky Home Tour

August 14th at 1 PM, 2 PM, and 3 PM. This is one of several homes designed by architect James Livingston in the Arbor Hills neighborhood. It is newly restored by John and Renate Mirsky and recently featured on a tour during the national Docomomo convention, which explored modern architecture in the Detroit area. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.a2modern.myevent.com/   When John and Renate Mirsky were searching for a new home, they were not specifically looking for a mid-century modern one, but “spotting the listing in an emailing, I immediately recognized that the house fulfilled all of our priority wants,” remembers John. Their wish list included large windows to let in the sun, an open floor plan, and room for a garden. The home was built in 1956 for William and Mary Bandemer. William was vice president of King Seeley and a Republican city council member from 1960-1964. Before marriage, Mary had been secretary to long-time mayor William Brown. The house was designed by James Livingston, who at the same time did one next door for Mary’s older sister, Margaret, and her husband Paul Greene. The two houses share a driveway and are both MCM but are quite different, although they share some traits like cove lighting and the same woodwork inside. When Livingston designed the Mirskys’ house he was in his mid-thirties and moonlighting from his day job working for architect Walter Anicka. Joining with Bob Chase, another Anika employee, they worked evenings and weekends on their own projects. According to Chase, Livingston was the driving force, making the initial contacts and finding out what the clients wanted. Livingston clearly didn’t do cookie cutter houses, as reflected by the two sisters’ houses, but his designs were always modern. “All of Livingston’s houses were contemporary, with lots of daylight. He did nothing old-fashioned, he wouldn’t waste his time,” says Chase, adding “It was a lot of fun working with him, he was so imaginative.” Livingston went on to start his own firm and work on larger projects including the Bell Tower Hotel, Webers, Lawton school, and Maynard house. He is best remembered as the architect of Lurie Terrace, a pioneering project to house active seniors. John and Renate moved in the summer of 2015 after spending a year and a half working on the house. They kept the original materials whenever possible or, if not, by using compatible replacements. They refinished all the woodwork and cleaned the metal hardware used throughout the house which often entailed taking things apart. Keeping an open feeling they have furnished the house with MCM furniture such as Herman Miller, Saarinen, and Eames. At the same time as meticulously keeping the Mid Century Modern ambience,they have made the house more energy efficient with a geothermal furnace, tripled glazed windows, andinsulation above the ceiling and in the crawl space. Enthusiastic gardeners, they are using the original landscape plans by Edward Eichstadt, a Detroit-based landscaper whose projects included Cranbrook, the GM Tech Center and the basic plan for U-M Botanical Gardens, as a basis for future changes. The land sloping down to Hill Street is a natural area, perennial gardens and raised bed vegetable gardens are on the side, and fruit trees in front.

© 2016 MyEvent.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Wells Bennett / Barbara Bergman Open House

Saturday, May 14th, at 2 PM, 3 PM and 4 PM

This is the first modern home that Wells Ira Bennett designed, although at that time, 1953, he’d designed almost thirty houses in more traditional styles. He is best remembered for hiring a group of stellar modern architects while dean from 1938 to 1957 of U-M’s College of Architecture.

Bennett arrived at U-M in 1912 as an instructor and rose to leadership through his early interest in low-cost housing and city planning. As a practicing architect, Bennett was active after 1921, developing a considerable residential practice, mainly with faculty clients.  His first project was a home for himself and his family at 500 Highland. He kept busy in the 1920s and early 1930s, designing homes in the styles of the time, mainly Tudor and Colonial Revivals.  He stopped during the Depression, when few could afford to build, and then became too busy in his years as dean.

Taking over the deanship from Emil Lorch, he followed Lorch’s example of encouraging new ideas and modern styles.  He invited many of leading architects of the day to participate in seminars and conferences.  After WWII, he began hiring some of the stars of  Modernism, luring both Walter Sanders and William Muschenheim from successful practices in New York City, and Edward Olencki and Joe Albano, both of whom studied under and then worked with Mies van der Rohe, from Chicago.  He also hired talented U-M grads such as Robert Metcalf and Tivadar Balogh.  These hires not only brought prestige to the U-M architecture school but built many fine examples of modern architecture in the Ann Arbor area.

In 1953, as Bennett was nearing retirement, and after a long hiatus, he designed a house, this one again for himself.  He sited it on the front lawn of his first house, on land that sloped down to Geddes.  Although this was his first modern house, he had by then seen many examples from the rest of the faculty and of course had a dream group of colleagues to advise him if he had questions. Bennett died in 1966.

Barbara and Rueben Bergman bought the house in 1980 from Sybil Bennett’s estate and moved in with their three sons. They made the house their own –enlarging windows, reconstructing the side balcony so it would be safe, enlarging and improving the master bathroom, making a closet out of a hallway for more storage, while still keeping the totally modern feel and in fact improving it with more natural light pouring in. The most interesting change is a small room with a tower added to what was basically a galley kitchen.  Designed by Janet Attarian, it not only makes the interior feel more roomy, but gives the outside of the house more pizazz.

For tickets go to a2modern.myevents.com

Grace Shackman and Jeffrey Welch.

Photo courtesy of Carolyn Lepard

Modern Cuba Encore

Back, by popular demand –

Modern Cuba:  Slideshow by Howard Shapiro

May 7, 3-5 PM:  Slide show starts promptly at 3:30 PM

Cost: $15: Proceeds will go toward upgrading our website.

Last October Howard participated in a do.co.mo.mo-US sponsored tour “Modern Cuba.” The architecture of Havana from the colonial area to the present was surveyed with an emphasis on the modern era prior to and following the revolution, including interior visits to numerous structures not open to the general public. Howard’s slideshow demonstrates the relationship of changing architectural styles to corresponding social changes and major historical events. Highlights include the Tropicana Cabaret (Max Borges Recio, 1951-1956), the Alfred de Schulthess House (Richard Neutra, 1956), and the National Art Schools (Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi, 1960-1964).

To purchase tickets go to a2modern.myevent.com

Modern Cuba

Modern Cuba:  Slideshow by Howard Shapiro in his 1965 Alden Dow house, 7 Regent Drive

April 16, 2-5 p.m.:  Slides at 3 with tours of the house before and after.

Cost: $20: Proceeds will go toward upgrading our website.

Last October Howard participated in a do.co.mo.mo-US sponsored tour “Modern Cuba.” The architecture of Havana from the colonial area to the present was surveyed with an emphasis on the modern era prior to and following the revolution, including interior visits to numerous structures not open to the general public. Howard’s slideshow demonstrates the relationship of changing architectural styles to corresponding social changes and major historical events. Highlights include the Tropicana Cabaret (Max Borges Recio, 1951-1956), the Alfred de Schulthess House (Richard Neutra, 1956), and the National Art Schools (Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi, 1960-1964).

To purchase tickets go to a2modern.myevent.com

Lecture: Gunnar Birkerts: The Work Speaks for Itself

In his talk on March 1, Martin Schwartz will discuss his first conversations with Gunnar Birkerts about his work, researching in the Birkerts collections at the University of Michigan Bentley Library, and how this led to the book, Gunnar Birkerts: Metaphoric Modernist.  He will concentrate his remarks on his and Gunnar’s shared interest in how architecture and daylight work together to make great spaces and enhance the experience of architecture, ideas that Gunnar addressed throughout his professional career.

The lecture will take place on March 1, at 7 PM in the Whiting Room of the Bentley Historical Library, at 1150 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, MI  48109.

Martin Schwartz is an architect as well as an Associate Professor and Associate Chair at the Department of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University.  He is the author of the architectural essays in the book, Gunnar Birkerts: Metaphoric Modernist (2009), an anthology of the architect’s career in design.

Martin’s research concerns daylight and its broad influence on architectural and urban design, specifically how a knowledge of daylight enables architects and urban designers to make a range of design decisions far beyond meeting minimum illumination standards.  His current scholarship focuses on how daylight influences the making of architectural space and form.  Martin writes a blog about daylight, Architecture in the Light of Day, which may be found at www.architectureinthelightofday.blogspot.com/.

Martin was the Willard A. Oberdick Fellow at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan in 1991-1992.   In 1994, he was the Frederick Charles Baker Distinguished Professor in Lighting at the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon.

Brigham's Hodges / Conlin Open House

We are hosting our first ever tour of a home designed by George Brigham on October 18. Tickets are $15 and may be obtained at http://www.a2modern.myevent.com/ .

When Chris Conlin bought this 1956 George Brigham house 18 months ago, it still had its beautiful clean mid-century modern lines, but was almost 60 years old and needed attention.  Chris kept the footprint and exterior exactly as it was, but did extensive work inside to update it and make it his own.

The house’s architect, George Brigham (1899-1977), is considered Ann Arbor’s father of mid-century modernism.  He trained at MIT in the prevailing Beaux Arts style, but when he taught at Cal Tech he became interested in the architecture emerging in California, especially homes by Greene and Greene, Schlindler, and Neutra.  When he came to U-M in 1930, he was anxious to work in the new style, although it took a few years to get commissions since it was the midst of the Depression. He ended up designing 66 buildings in the Ann Arbor area, concurrently with teaching. He was a champion of this style, often giving speeches on its virtues.  He was also interested in social issues and worked on developing affordable housing and temporary shelters.

Highland Lane’s development was a joint project of Brigham and his wife Ilma with Madeline and Fred Hodges, the latter chair of the U-M radiology department and an assistant dean in the Medical School.  In 1957 the two couples bought from Margaret and Robert McNamara (soon to be U. S. Secretary of Defense) a parcel of land that ran behind Highland Street and was part of the grounds of their house at 210 Highland.  The Brighams and Hodges put in a road and installed utility lines prior to selling lots.

The Hodges kept the two end lots for themselves while the adjoining ones were sold to Richard and Ann Kennedy and to Charles and Katherine Sawyer.  Brigham designed houses for all three couples,  taking care to position them so they couldn’t see into each other’s homes.   A fourth house was later designed by David Osler, following the deed restriction that all homes had to be designed by an architect.

Chris is happy that he was able to buy the Hodges house, fearing that someone else might have bought it just for the lot, which is in a prime location near campus.  “I’ve kept the modern feel, I’ve nothing ornate,” says Chris, explaining his guiding principal on what turned out to be a year-long job, including putting in new wiring, air conditioning, and insulation.   He kept the original windows and skylights so the house if full of light.  The original fireplace is still the heart of the house. Chris took down several walls which add to the free flowing modern look including making two bedrooms into one, moving a free standing hall closet out of the way, and opening up the kitchen.  He added more storage to keep down the clutter and put in light trays on the living room ceiling so no lamps are needed.  He has followed this aesthetic by choosing furniture with clean lines.  Chris cleared out the overgrown backyard, so the windows now look out on grass and trees and the new patio.

written by Grace Shackman