Gay architects and houses

I can understand gay writers and gay painters but I can't see 'gayness' expressed in concrete and wood.

I am a little suspicious of Mr John Wellborn Root of Chicago.

Can you give us a clue, OP?

Do you have a Philip Johnson story?

His curtains? His conniving?

Speaking of Philip Johnson, OP I've been to PPG Place in Pittsburgh, but am dying to see The Glass House in person, the next time I visit friends in Connecticut. I haven't sought out his work like I have that of Frank Lloyd Wright. But he's on my list. I need to get my hands on the Lamster biography (it's pretty cheap online).

Houston has several Philip Johnson buildings including Pennzpil Place, BofA Center, Transco .tower, several buildings on the U of St. Thomas campus.

What's the gayest house in America no longer a home but open for tours?

Barry Dierks!

Really R1?

You don’t sense it in sensibility?

Not quite, R8, but I was struck by this 1897 drinking fountain.

You know what they say about architects that they have no gutts: Not man enough to be civil engeneer nor enough sissy to be a designer.

Light and airy, by the late gay Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa

Lush & verdant

[quote]What's the gayest house in America no longer a home but open for tours?

Here's a candidate, R6: the early 20thC Henry Davis Sleeper House in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a rambling seaside 40-room house that incorporated interior woodwork of Colonial New England domestic architecture of various periods and styles and served as a sort of laboratory for his own work as an interior designer. He was among a good many rich gay men and gay-adjacent men of the period who pursued similar antiquarian interests and architectural campaigns.

Sleeper may have had some little architectural training and hired another self-taught architect to design his house near the object of his "besottment" Abram Piatt Andrew, a Harvard professor and founder of the Federal Reserve.

There are lots of important houses that reflect the lives of 20th C gay men as preservationists of a sort, as with Sleeper's "Beauport," a curiously eccentric composition that expanded to encompass his expanding collection of house parts and Early Americana; or financier Richard Jenrette who died died only in 2018 who collected and restored and furnished historic houses in the U.S. and the Caribbean (about 9 of them his own, starting with Gore Vidal's old place on the Hudson, "Edgewater.") Historic New England operates it as a house museum today.

R4 Still a mystery how such a Nazi-loving anti-Semite could have such a prominent position in the American art world.

[quote] "Love and War on the Côte d'Azur"

Surely Maureen Emerson was inspired by the titles of Barbara Thorndyke, R7.

[quote] What's the gayest house in America no longer a home but open for tours?

I don't know.

Can you give us a clue?

OP, you need to make more of an effort to resuscitate this thread.

I still don't understand your R8.

I was acquainted with the architect David Leavitt some years ago, he said that he worked with Russell Wright on Drago Rock House and that he did most of the work and Wright took most of the credit, but I suppose that is common is those situations. David had worked in Japan for many years.

Bump on a lot

Brutalist architect Paul Rudolph was Gay and lead the Yale School of Architecture and built the school of architecture’s building, which is still in use. His most well known houses were the one he built for himself on the notorious Beekman Place. He also designed Halston’s famous Modernist apartment, which got a lot of interest after the miniseries came out last year, which still exists and is owned by Tom Ford.

22 Beekman Place.

Johnson's buildings in Texas were schlock and he knew it and admitted as much. He was basically a impresario rather than a real architect.

It's no unusual for the name architect to get the credit. IM Pei finally used "and associates" after awhile, but you could tell that the same person did not design his more pedestrian buildings like Erie view Center and the more ambitious like the Bank of China.

Edgar Kauffman Jr. was enamored with Modernist architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright and went to study with him at Talisen West, but got caught having sex with another man and thrown out. Wright was notoriously homophobic and believed architecture was no field for sissies. But Wright wasn’t against taking a sissy’s father’s money and built Fallingwater for them soon after. Perhaps by the time it came to building their family compound on Palm Springs, they had enough of Wright and choose his protege Neutra to build their house instead. Kauffman did go on to get his architecture degree from Columbia and become a professor and historian and was the first curator of Design and Architecture at MOMA.

After living in two of the most beautiful houses in history, one could understand never building his own, how could anything compare to those fabulous houses? I’ve always wondered what his NYC residences looked like. I’ve also wondered how contentious the relationship was with Johnson, since he was heavily involved with MOMA as well.

Johnson as a consummate social climber from his childhood in Cleveland onward. He would have tried to befriend Kaufmann if he saw Kaufmann as useful (e.g., his connections to Neutra and Wright). Kaufmann, being from a provincial elite though a bit of an outsider (gay and Jewish), he probably would have recognized Johnson for who he was and had as little to do with him as possible.

Mike Brady and the beautiful house

Thread theme song:

Standards of living

They're rising daily

But home, oh sweet home

It's only a saying

From bell push to faucet

In smart town apartment

The cottage is pretty

The main house a palace

Penthouse perfection

But what goes on?

[quote]After living in two of the most beautiful houses in history, one could understand never building his own, how could anything compare to those fabulous houses?

R24, never designing their own houses is a not infrequent habit of architects. The pressure to design the.perfect house and one that stands the test of time is the.principle reason, there being a lot of attention paid to an architect's own home. Few architects achieve financial success except maybe late in life (architecture being famously regarded as an old man's profession profession.) Many instead restore old houses and that is both an interesting point of discussion and an excuse to relax one's own principles at his.own house.

Louis Sullivan never married and wrote extensively about bringing together the masculine and feminine into one mode of structure. He died a lonely drunk when his buildings fell out of fashion.

I've often thought he was most likely gay.

Great buildings, anyway.

Michelangelo, darling.

Seldom given a free hand, though.

As one of the most powerful artists during his time, I dare say he had all sorts of free hands, R30.

Fallingwater is over-rated.

Its built in a drain.

You have lie on your stomach to see the view shown in all the glamor photographs.

R32: Not difficult to get postcard views of Fallingwater

Sullivan was a notoriously difficult person. He was most productive when working with Dankmar Adler who handled the business side and was a gifted acoustic engineer (helpful for churches, synagogues and theaters). He had at least one long-time live-in female companion, who was from a "low" background.

Adler was an acoustic genius. IIRC he was partly responsible for Carnegie Hall's acoustics.

Louis Sullivan, brown-eyed and porky.

Robert A. M. Stern, still creating classic elegant buildings.

Another example of Stern's work, this time interiors at 15 Central Park West

Stern always struck me as a fuss budget prisspot.

Sullivan was most likely gay and a genius. Frank Lloyd Wright was an absolute asshole and is generally overrated. The prairie style houses are great but the LA houses with those pseudo Mayan concrete blocks uninhabitable.

Didn’t know Stern is gay. He does look the part in the picture. His buildings are boring, like something designed by Charlotte York Goldenblatt.

R40, Stern is listed on the site linked. Personally, I love the classic symmetry of his work. I don't find it boring at all.

I always get RAM Stern confused with Rammstein.

Charles Moore: taught at UCLA and UT Austin; Dean of School of Architecture at Yale. Responsible for some of the more famous residences at The Sea Ranch among other projects. Vivacious. Never married.

Post Modern.

Matthew White's book 'Italy Of My Dreams' (2010) is about creating is Palladian country home.

Ben Pentreath is a neo classical architect. Link is to one of his new Scottish projects.

Very dull but nicer than most new town builds, although I can't help thinking the houses make no allowance for climate change and the greater opportunities for outdoor living in the years ahead.

[quote] the houses make no allowance for climate change

Such as what?

R43 Bleak.

Suicide country.

[quote]Such as what?

Such as backs that fully open up, and balconies and verandahs for outdoor living.

I was in the Scottish highlands two years ago in November and I could have sunbaked nude it was so sunny and mild. IN NOVEMBER.

Designing houses like closed box eighteen century crofter's cottages that turn their back on the outside is fucking idiocy given what lies ahead.

r13, Piatt Andrew and Sleeper led very interesting gay, gilded age lives! I wonder how many Harvard boys Piatt Andrew hooked up with

Very interesting, thanks, R49.

How bizarre the "secret library" accessible only by dismantling s settee in the adjacent living room!

There are so many of those fascinating little gay 'sets'.

Sir Cedric Morris had another one.

R48 You almost going nude two years ago is obviously an exception to the norm.

bump

Ben Pentreath has a womanly ass. But a cute husband, at least.

Ben Pentreath is one of the few Classical architects whose work has assuredness and ingenuity. George Saumarez Smith (not gay) of ADAM Architecture does beautiful drawings, but the buildings usually come out looking very just minted and corporate. Francis Terry, and the other UK classical architects all have a tentativeness to most of their work. Agreed, Pentreath's housing development work is not his strongest, but that's to be expected given the limitations.

An sexy architecture professor cruised me in the university rec center tearoom in around 1990. We went to his place, and he fucked me on his bed. His wife was out of town. It was probably terrible for him because I was pretty inexperienced at the time. We hooked up many times after, and he broke me in so to speak. I lost comtact after graduating and going off to grad school. I recently googled him and saw he passed away last year in his mid 70s. Tempus fugit. Always a fond memory of one of my first FBs.

R1, I'm a great fan of Le Corbusier. Yes concrete is plain/cold, but it's a canvas to show off pieces of art/furniture etc. As I'm a minimalist at heart LC is my man.

r56

Was this at Cornell?

Bump

there's no more bigger closet cases than in green design.

It's understandable as the bulk of their work is often realized in the developing world where homosexuality is a crime... but so many bitter confirmed bachelors or those married to burly forewomen.

[quote] Ben Pentreath is one of the few Classical architects whose work has assuredness and ingenuity.

That big statement needs some qualification.

I can't see the 'ingenuity'.

R2 Who is this John Wellborn Root of Chicago.

[quote] concrete is plain/cold, but it's a canvas to show off

That's a poor reason to like anything, R57.

That's like saying you like Global Warming because its a useful way to appreciate the weather back in the good old days.

R32 That Google Street View shows that house has car parking for 48 cars! ! !

Ben Pentreath has a womanly arse. 👎🏼

The favorite architects of the very rich – not the star architects to the architectural magazines or the profession – are usually gay. Their work is often unseen until it's recognised decades later or after their deaths. It's an age-old story.

e.g. In Australia, Guilford Bell who was gay was one of the architects of choice to the rich in the 50s and 60s, but completely ignored by the profession. He did incredibly refined work: eg. doors always went right to the ceiling. His last house, 'the Grant House, was a white pavilion in the country for a gay couple.

WTF are you talking about? Beekman Place is considered "notorious"??

It's just another area of NYC where the wealthy live.

All the architects who practised a neo-regency or neo-palladian style in the 50s in England and America were gay. e.g John Elgin Woolf in the US.

Here's an English neoclassical country house of the 30s by the gay Paul Paget, for the gay aristo Lord Templewood.

There was a big gay element in English art deco houses in the 30s as well.