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Framing the New: Mies Van Der Rohe and Houston Architecture

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Framing the New: Mies Van Der Rohe and Houston Architecture The Brown Pavilion of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (below) wos the lost building completed to Mies van der Rohe's design. It opened in 1974, live years alter Mies died. Framing Mau Mies van der Rohe and Houston Architecture m ' . » • * £i-vr • - BY S T E P H E N F O X be I [ouston architecture oi Mies "school" of Miesian architecture is this van der Rohe and those whom he exploration of the place of history in Tinfluenced represents an attitude modern life.1 ?%M inward building that now seems immc.i It was John ile Menil, and Ins wile, numbly distant. lUit in the 1'JSOs. Mies" Dominique Schlumbcrger, who brought integration of construction, architecture, Miesian architecture to Houston, and the poetics "I spatial experience although they did not bring Mies \.m tier proved so compelling ili.it .i generation of Kobe. During World War II, Dominique young Houston architects committed and John de Menil became acquainted in themselves to his discipline. In a way that New York with the French Dominican is not stylistically explicit, their architec- pi lesi I .iilui M i l le Main t outui u r. ture resonates with I lotiston history, sug- Father Couturier introduced them to their gesting narratives that involve such signif- vocation as collectors, and through him • icant personae.es as Mies, Philip Johnson, the) met modern artists. One was the and Dominique and John de Menil: the sculptor Mary Callery. When asked to divergent preoccupations and motivations recommend an architect to design a house of I iouston's Miesian architects and their m I loustnn tor tin- Menils' expanding I clients; and competition among local family, Callery suggested her friend Men) House, 19S0, Philip Johnson, architect. Houston's first Miesion house established n standard for what modernists for cultural hegemony. When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. James compared to Chicago or Los Angeles, Johnson Sweeney later implied that the where, as the Hritish architectural histori- Menils found this suggestion a bit intimi- an and critic Reyner Banharfj noted, dating, (..alien's second recommendation Miesian architecture also exerted special was another dose friend, Philip Johnson, influence, what distinguishes Houston's whose dlass I louse in New I an.i.ui was I 1 "» 9 i v m m e i H) 1 T 1.: » Right: Dominique de Menil and Philip Johnson in November 1949. Menil ond her husband, John, Gordon House of B roes wood, 1955, Bolton & Barns lone, architects. The Gordon House positioned Miesian architec- introduced Mission architecture to Houston when, ture in Houston as a defender of modern standards and forms. in the spring of 1949, they commissioned Johnson, a Mies disciple, to design their house, the floor plon ol which is seen below. ing of the bouse is tectonic. In the major attracted to M i e s ' architecture because it rooms of the house, a panelizcd dn ision provided spaces that were clearly defined of the wall surface was applied, particu- yet liberating, authoritative yet uninsis larly to the detailing of doorways. tent. For t h e m , such architecture repre- I'aneh/ation implied ih.it the design was sented a beginning rather than an end. based on a m o d u l a r planning g r i d , ratio- • nally and economically regulating all In H o u s t o n , the M e n i l I louse was aspects of construction , as Mies custom- unquestionably a beginning. I he "school Dam reon arily did w i t h his buildings. At the M e n i l o f M i e s " that developed in the city by the illl'-.MIIIJ I louse, where no planning module is evi- mid-1950s stemmed f r o m Philip Johnson , ii ir-, dent, this practice seems to have been fol- and his w o r k for the M e n i l s. H u g o V. lowed lor aesthetic reasons. C r i s p , right- NeuhausJr., a young H o u s t o n architect :<ir!l,,1,|! angled m i l l w o r k makes d o o r frames, who had been a classmate of Johnson's at I !•• ii especially those w i t h inset transom pan- the i larvard Craduate School of Design els, stand out, i m b u i n g wall surfaces w i t h in the early 1940s, supervised construc- a plasticity not apparent in photographs, tion of the M e n i l I louse. I he impact of as moldings w o u l d do in a classically Johnson's Miesian modernism on detailed interior. Neuhaus was immediate I In- house Compensating tor the house's a w k - Neuhaus designed tor his family in the wardness in plan are its spatial serenity Homewoods section of River O a k s, com- and amplitude. Johnson achieved these pleted in 195 I, was his refined and per- attributes w i t h a ten-foot, six-inch ceiling fected version of the M e n i l House: a gar- height that prevails t h r o u g h o u t the house den pavilion of serene, glass-walled am! the big scale of glazed openings (the spaces carefully adjusted to its site and ilu'ii under construction. The Menils took sensual and e m o t i o n a l reaction that the wood-framed sliding glass d o o r in the liv- made to seem l u x u r i o u s because of this suggestion ro heart, and in the spring house's reticent wall planes and flat roof ing r o o m is ten-feet, one-inch wide). Neuhaus' orchestration of views, d.n of 1949 they L'ommissioiH'd Johnson to did not forecast. Johnson also opened vistas t h r o u g h the lighting, and proportion. 1 ' design their H o u s t o n house.- the M e n i l f louse lacks the exquisite house that underscore his quest for "free- In such details as the lattice screening By the standards o f ! i o u s t o n in 1950, clarity of Johnson's Class House and the dom and order," the subject of a polemic o f the pool house, Neuhaus made nostal- 4 the M e n i l I louse was w i t h o u t other Miesian houses he designed in the he published w i t h Peter Wake in 194K. gic connections to the k i n d of traditional 1 precedent. The discipline of Johnson's late 1940s and early 1950s. T h e floor [-'or Johnson, freedom and order were screening devices he w o u l d have k n o w n mentor, M i e s van der Rohe, was reflected plan suggests Johnson's struggle to orga- embodied in the modern architecture of Ironi the H o u s t o n houses of his child- in the house's slab-sided composition , nize tin varied spaces required In a fa mi Mies van der Rohe. Johnson adopted and hood. Rather than dismissing such c o n - tl.it rout, elongated fascia, and glass ly w i t h five children into a one-story c o n - adapted the architecture that Mies invent nections, as modernists impatient w i t h walls. The house's carefully studied pro- figuration. R e m a r k i n g its "modernity " in ed w i t h great skill. In d o i n g so, he was the past were inclined to d o , Neuhaus portions, apparent in the expansive, lofty terms of American domesticity ol the bound to observe certain limits beyond made m o d e m architecture that engaged feel of its interior spaces, were similarly 1950s, the house dispensed w i t h a formal which his architecture w o u l d cease to be the past. Unlike the M e n i l House, w h i c h Miesian. J o h n s o n incorporate d an inter- dining r o o m in favor of a " p l a y r o o m . " A Miesian. |ohnson demonstrated the way was not published in the national press nal c o u r t y a r d , w h i c h M r s . i\v M e n i l three-car " c a r p o r t " was incorporated in in w h i c h y o u n g American modernists — until 1963, the Neuhaus House secured Idled w i t h lush tropical vegetation. James the body of the house. Perhaps tor rea- without, perhaps, quite understanding national recognition through publication Johnson Sweeney later ascribed this to sons of economy, the structural design of what they were d o i n g — formularized the almost immediately. her "nostalgia, " as he called it. for a the house was not as rigorous as in visions of the masters of m o d e r n architec- Neuhaus continued to d r a w on the house in Caracas in w h i c h the M e n i l s Johnson's publicized early houses: the ture into competing stylistic alternatives. past in tin small, ci m n y a r d i entered had lived temporaril y in the 1940s, Vs Menil House is of brick cavity wall con- I I.
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