the midcentury ranch for a new generation
< 1 min readVisiting my friend Malea last weekend, I took a chance to peruse her amazing collection of children’s books. I was reminded how very traditional the architecture shown in most children’s books is … and how much it doesn’t have to be.
These would make a great gift list if you were looking to hook any kids or young-at-heart friends on Mid-Century Modern this Christmas.
Here are three great kids books that show off the exuberance of Mid Mod. Continue reading “Mid-Century for the Kids in your life”
3 min readSaturday, I gave a lecture at the MREA Energy Fair in Custer, WI about the joy of working with my parents to design their timber frame, straw bale, passive solar house, Underhill, completed four years ago. Here’s some of what I said.
If you happened to attend that lecture, the work I’m doing now might seem very different. After all, remodeling a 1950’s ranch LOOKs pretty dissimilar to building a timber frame, sod roofed house from scratch. However, I feel strongly that both projects come from the same place – a desire to use buildings to live lightly on the earth. Continue reading “In other News: Just Gave a Talk on Underhill at the MREA Energy Fair”
3 min readCliff May was an artist: a saxophone player turned furniture designer who inspired a modern housing movement. Today I meditate on his 1946 style book, Western Ranch Houses.
For my birthday, I took a break from scraping and re-painting from precariously balanced ladder platforms … just kidding, I was up and painting on the platform at 7am. However I did STOP at 8:15 when I hit the milestone of getting the second coat of paint on all the area that needs a ladder jack platform to reach. Then I took the rest of the day off from manual labor. Instead went down to campus to the Kohler Art Library to (metaphorically) check out Cliff May’s 1946 Sunset Western Ranch Houses. Continue reading “Cliff May and the Origins of the Ranch House”
3 min readMost experts acknowledge some Wright influence on the development of the ranch. I see some very direct lines from his Usonian experiments and later midcentury mass housing styles.
This, and the other Usonian houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright are more like older cousins of the ranch – not in the direct line but still strongly connected from both a design and lifestyle philosophy point of view.
Wright started to design Usonian or USA-onian houses during the depression when he was short of clients and those he did have were equally short of funds. They were more than cheap knockoffs, however. Wright designed the Usonian Houses to be a “building system, adaptable to each client with whatever modifications he might need regarding space and site conditions. Continue reading “Featured Ranch: the Jacobs House”
2 min readThe post war housing boom changed the character of American residential life in ways that still influence our daily lives now. In Madison, you can see the different “types” of post war houses, spread across neighborhoods on the east (mostly cape cod) and west (mostly ranch) sides of town.
The first post war housing boom spread out toward the manufacturing districts on Madison’s east side, filling in housing between Milwaukee and Atwood Avenues and on the west, filling in beyond Midvale Boulevard as several farms were converted into housing developments.
The “Ranch” house form lagged slightly behind the classic Levittown style “Cape Cod” in Madison’s development. The first houses to be added in these areas – in the first boom area from 1945 on – were the steep roofed Cape Cod styles sitting compactly centered on their lots. Continue reading “The Ranch House in Madison, Wisconsin”
