Events

exhibit: george nelson: architect, writer, designer, teacher

Central Figure in Defining Modernism

“GEORGE NELSON:
Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher”

Opens at Cranbrook Art Museum
June 16, 2012

Note: a2modern is taking a field trip to the exhibit Saturday July 21. The trip will include a docent tour of the George Nelson exhibit at Cranbrook followed by a docent tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Affleck home. The cost for the field trip is $25. Volunteers are needed to drive (carpool). Please email modernists@a2modern.org if you would like to join the caravan!
Space for this trip is limited so, please let us know of your interest.
We will be leaving Ann Arbor at 9:00 a.m. and will be leaving the Affleck house at approx. 2:30.

Bloomfield Hills, MI— George Nelson is considered one of the most influential figures in American design during the second half of the twentieth century. Operating from the western-side of Michigan as Design Director at the Zeeland-based furniture manufacturer Herman Miller for more than twenty-years, Nelson had his sights firmly focused on Cranbrook, which was also playing a defining role in the development of Modernism. This shared Michigan history comes into sharp focus in the exhibition, “George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher,” which opens at Cranbrook Art Museum on June 16 and runs through October 14, 2012.

“Cranbrook and George Nelson helped to define what Modernism would be,” says Gregory Wittkopp, Director of Cranbrook Art Museum. “Although Nelson never formally studied or taught at Cranbrook, he traveled in the same circles as many of our legendary architects and designers.” It was Eero Saarinen, in fact, that first introduced him to the work of Charles Eames who ultimately helped him radically reinvent the Herman Miller brand and the look—and feel—of the American interior.

Organized by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the exhibition “George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher,” is the first comprehensive retrospective of Nelson’s work. It has been touring in Europe and most recently in the United States at the Bellevue Art Museum in Seattle. Cranbrook is the final stop in the US tour and the last opportunity to see this major exhibition before the work returns to Germany.

With an architectural degree from Yale, Nelson was not only active in the fields of architecture and design, but was also a widely respected writer and publicist, lecturer, curator, and a passionate photographer. At Herman Miller, the renowned manufacturer of modern furniture design, Nelson had a major influence on the product line and public image of the company. He played an essential role in bringing the company together with designers such as Cranbrook’s own Charles and Ray Eames. Early on, Nelson was convinced that design should be an integral part of a company’s philosophy, and by promoting this viewpoint, he also became a pioneer in the areas of business communication and corporate design. Nelson was responsible for the production of numerous furnishings and interior designs that became modern classics, including the Coconut Chair (1956), the Marshmallow Sofa (1956), the Ball Clock (1947) and the Bubble Lamps (1952 onwards).

As an architect, designer and writer, Nelson was deeply interested in the topics of domestic living and interior furnishings. In the bestselling book, Tomorrow’s House (1945, co-authored with Henry Wright), he articulated the groundbreaking concept of the “storagewall.” The walls of a house, Nelson explained, could be used to store things by transforming them into floor-to-ceiling, two-sided cabinets. A revolutionary idea at the time, it anticipated the flood of consumer goods that the economic boom in the western world would soon produce, turning the single-family home into a small warehouse.

Nelson designed several private homes, including a New York town house for Sherman Fairchild (1941, together with William Hamby) and Spaeth House on Southampton beach (1956, together with Gordon Chadwick). As a committed proponent of industrial building methods, Nelson published numerous texts on the topic of prefabricated architecture. In the 1950s, he developed the “Experimental House,” a modular system of cubic volumes with Plexiglas roof domes that owners could assemble into personal habitations according to their own spatial requirements.

In addition to his preoccupation with architecture and the domestic interior, Nelson intently pursued the topic of office furnishings. Besides designing the first L-shaped desk, he played a major role in the development of Herman Miller’s Action Office, and in the 1970s he created his own office system, Nelson Workspaces. Similar to Nelson’s home furnishings and experimental architecture, this system was based on a variety of modular elements that could be freely combined.

The extraordinary diversity of design tasks taken on by the Nelson office extends far beyond the field of furniture design, although the latter forms the basis of his reputation today. Numbering among his clients were many large corporations including Abbott, Alcoa, BP, Ford, Gulf, IBM, General Electric, Monsanto and Olivetti, as well as the United States government. In his New York office, which he established in 1947 and ran for more than three decades, Nelson employed over fifty people at times, including familiar figures such as Ettore Sottsass and Michael Graves. Along with exhibitions, restaurant interiors and showrooms, George Nelson & Company designed kitchens, flatware and dishes, record players and speakers, birdhouses and weathervanes, computers and typewriters, company logos and packaging, rugs and tiles.

Nelson’s wide-ranging abilities culminated in the organization and design of the American National Exhibition in 1959, which was held in Moscow. Nelson and his associates selected several hundred industrial products manufactured by American companies and displayed them on a vast three-dimensional multi-level platform designed especially for the exhibition. He also furnished a “model apartment” and designed a large fiberglass umbrella for two other modular exhibition pavilions. The Moscow exhibition made history as the backdrop for the famous “Kitchen Debate” between Nixon and Khrushchev. Similarly spectacular was Nelson’s exhibit for Chrysler at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which featured a Pop-Art-inspired, 64-foot-long “giant car” and a huge walk-in engine as part of the exhibition space. While this fair still celebrated the automobile, Nelson expressed a more critical view of automotive transportation in his essays and lectures on urban planning. As early as 1943, he outlined the mall concept as an auto-free shopping zone in the article “Grass on Main Street.”

After earning an architectural degree, Nelson began his career as a writer and journalist. Throughout his lifetime he was regarded as a brilliant publicist. He was not only co-editor of the eminent journal Architectural Forum, but also worked for many other well-known magazines including Fortune, Life, Industrial Design, Interiors and Harper’s. He also published more than half a dozen books on design topics. Nelson was one of the speakers at the first Aspen Design Conference in 1951 and a regular participant in the years thereafter. His engaging sense of humor and penchant for radical theories surely contributed to his popularity as a speaker at a wide range of conferences and symposiums. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, he created a television program entitled “How to Kill People: A Problem of Design” — both an apt and bitingly ironic commentary on warfare from the designer’s viewpoint. Like the Eameses, Nelson was one of the early pioneers of multi-media lectures. He often used his own photographs for this purpose, many of which were taken on his wide and numerous travels. His photographic work and engagement with questions of everyday aesthetics found expression in the book How to See, which offered suggestions for sharpening one’s conscious perception of the everyday environment.

The exhibition is divided into five subject areas. Numerous furnishings by Nelson from the collection of the Vitra Design Museum—not only many classics, but also lesser-known pieces— form the core of the exhibition. They are organized in three categories:

1. Nelson and the House: Nelson as a pioneering planner and designer of the modern single-family home during the 1940s and 1950s: Sherman Fairchild House (townhouse in New York, 1941), The House of Tomorrow (bestselling book on modern housing, 1944), The Holiday House (model vacation home for Holiday Magazine, 1950), and Experimental House (design of a modular prefabricated house, 1952-57). Additional subjects: Storage Wall (1944), Herman Miller Casegoods (from 1946), Comprehensive Storage System (1959), Seating (Coconut Chair, 1956; Marshmallow Sofa, 1956; etc.) and kitchen design.

2. Corporate Design: Nelson’s work as a designer and design director for Herman Miller. Brochures, advertisements and vintage audiotapes document the development of corporate design at Herman Miller from the mid-1940s into the 1960s. In this context, corporate design programs for other firms, such as the pharmaceutical company Abbott (1959), also are presented.

3. The Office: Nelson as a prominent innovator in the development of the modern office environment: L-shaped desk as the forerunner of the workstation (1947), Action Office (1964), and Nelson Workspaces (1977).

4. Exhibition Design: This section will focus on the American National Exhibition in Moscow (1959), for which Nelson was responsible as head designer. Other topics include the Chrysler Pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, and Nelson’s exhibition work for the United States Information Agency.

5. Nelson as an author, editor, and one of the most important thinkers and visionaries in the realm of twentieth-century design. In addition to providing an overview of the numerous articles and books published by Nelson, this section of the exhibition will also show some of his films and slide presentations, in which he addressed the topics of urban planning, consumerism, and aesthetic perception in Western society.

The exhibition will be complemented at Cranbrook Art Museum with a second exhibition, “Vision and Interpretation: Building Cranbrook, 1904-2012.” Drawing from Cranbrook’s own rich collections, this exhibition presents the architectural legacy of Cranbrook as an artistic narrative emerging for the visionary ideas of George Gough Booth.

“George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher” is an exhibition of the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany. The American tour of the exhibition has been generously sponsored by Herman Miller. Herman Miller also is the presenting sponsor of the exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum. Additional support for the exhibition at Cranbrook is provided by the Alden B. Dow Home & Studio. Promotion of the exhibition is supported by an award from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Museum Hours and Admission
Cranbrook Art Museum is open to the general public Wednesdays, 10am – 5pm; Thursdays and Fridays, 10am – 8pm; and Saturdays and Sundays, 10am – 5pm. Regular admission is: $8 for Adults; $6 for Seniors; $4 for Full-time Students with ID; FREE for Children 12 and under. For more information, please call 248-645-3320, or visit www.cranbrook.edu.

About Cranbrook Art Museum
Cranbrook Art Museum is a contemporary art museum, and an integral part of
Cranbrook Academy of Art, a community of Artists-in-Residence and graduate-level students of art, design and architecture. The Art Museum, which was established in 1930 and opened at its current site in 1942, is Eliel Saarinen’s final masterwork at Cranbrook. Today, the Art Museum presents original exhibitions and educational programming on modern and contemporary architecture, art, and design, as well as traveling exhibitions, films, workshops, travel tours, and lectures by renowned artists, designers, artists, and critics throughout the year. In 2011, the Art Museum completed a three-year $22 million construction project that included both the restoration of the Saarinen-design building and a new state-of-the-art Collections Wing addition. For more information, visit www.cranbrook.edu.

tour and talk by original builder of a home designed by Arthur Browning Parker

When: March 8, 2012
Time: 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Wine + Cheese refreshments

Talk will be by Joe O’Neal who was the original builder for this unique home.

This home is currently for sale through Bob Eckstein, Edward Surovell, realtors. Bob will be the host of the tour and is sponsoring this event.

Location + Parking: The home is located at the end of Orchard Hills (on a dirt road). The house is right next to the Palmer House. Street parking on Orchard Hills is non-existent and the driveway parking is reserved.

We have arranged for a local shuttle service to run from 5:45 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. continuously from the site. Please park your car on Awixa Road and either walk to the site or take the shuttle. The shuttle will pick-up at the corner of Awixa and Orchard Hills. If you do decide to walk, the distance is .35/mile.

Description of Home:
Stunning mid-century home designed by architect Alfred Browning Parker the father of the “Tropical Modernist” school of design.
Absolutely unique for this area, Parker’s tropical modern style is not linear and rectangular as in the mid-century “California” style- but flowing and very organic in shape; spaces are defined by curved
walls, the roof’s peak line is not linear but an arc, the ceiling below tent like. The curved walls are stunning Magnolia tree wood, well cared for and unblemished.

Like Frank Lloyd Wright his friend and mentor, Parker’s homes were designed to integrate into an environment, draw in the outside, and take advantge of a site’s unique qualities. The Floyd House follows the curved contours of a steeply sloped wooded south facing hillside and every room looks into a valley of hardwoods contiguous to the University Arboretum. There are other Wright influences, among them: the public spaces are volumous and the private spaces more intimate, the home has a carport (enclosed on three sides), the home is very understated from the street, and great attention was placed on materials, detail and craftsmanship.

Shortly before his death in 1959 Frank Lloyd Wright recommended Parker as an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Fellow. Parker is the only architect Wright ever recommended. Alfred Browning Parker passed away in March of 2011 after having
completed over 6,000 commissions, predominantly residential homes in Florida where he had his practice and taught at the University of
Florida.

This event is free and open to all interested in seeing this unique home! An event not to be missed.

Questions about a2modern? Visit the a2modern website or contact modernists@a2modern.org.

a2modern presentation: february 15, 2012

a2modern is pleased to announce its first event for 2012. Mark your calendars and join us for a presentation and discussion by Kingsbury Marzolf and Calvin Hoeft.

Designing and Building a House in Ann Arbor

A local architect and a builder lead the audience behind the scenes to share the complex process of taking the plans for a single family house and turning it into a reality through eight months of work. Kingsbury Marzolf, architect, designed his home on Granger Avenue in 1965 and put the plans out for bids in 1966. Calvin Hoeft, builder, won the bid, contracted to build the house, and completed it in the spring of 1967. Marzolf took color slides of the work as it progressed and assembled the presentation. This illustrated conversation between the two men will describe the details of the process, and the audience will be encouraged to raise questions.

When: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Whiting room, Bentley Historical Library, 1150 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, Michigan

This event is free and open to the all interested in attending!

a2modern (www.a2modern.org) is a volunteer organization of homeowners and enthusiasts interested in raising the appreciation and awareness of modern design in Ann Arbor. Contact us if you have a program idea or are interested in helping out!

a2modern contact: Nancy Deromedi nancy@a2modern.org and Tracy Aris tracy@a2modern.org

Field Trip: alden dow home + studio

Join a2modern for visit to the Alden B. Dow Home and Studio
November 5, 2011

11:00 am -12:30 pm Tour the Alden B Dow Home and Studio 315 Post Street, Midland, MI

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Box Lunch

2:15 pm – 3:15 pm Special group tour of Herman Miller Furniture Exhibit at the Midland Center for the Arts

3:15 pm – 4:15 pm Individual time to explore the exhibit

4:30 pm – depart

Reservation taken until October 1, 2011
Costs per person = $55.00 paid in advance of the tour. Contact tracy@a2modern.org for more information.

Growing Up Modern

Island Park Shelter, Robert C. Metcalf, architect (1962)


Bentley Historical Library and a2modern present: Growing Up Modern
When: October 9, 2011 4:00 p.m.

Program
Mid-century Michigan enjoyed both a baby boom and a building boom. New homes for modern families distinguished Ann Arbor, among other places, where architects designed entire neighborhoods of distinctive, modernist residences. Thanks to the generosity of several of those prominent architects, many of the homes are now documented through a rich collection of original architectural drawings and photographs at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. Come join us for a fun and informative afternoon featuring Ann Arbor native Peter Osler (Director of the Program of Landscape Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology) as he recalls “Growing Up Modern.” The program includes a panel discussion and viewing of original architectural archives.

Location:
Bentley Historical Library
University of Michigan
1150 Beal Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Contacts:
a2modern contact: Nancy Deromedi nancy@a2modern.org (734.255.3959) and Tracy Aris tracy@a2modern.org (734.277.5722)

Bentley Historical Library contacts: Nancy Bartlett (nbart@umich.edu) and Nancy Deromedi (deromedi@umich.edu) phone: 734.764.3482

Image: Island Park Shelter, Robert C. Metcalf, architect (1962). Original rendering by Gordy Rogers. Image of original courtesy of Amanda Murray, Wicked Delicate Films.

fall: upcoming events

Willcox House, courtesy of Amanda Murray


There are several upcoming a2modern events that we want everyone to know about. Mark your calendars and continue to check back for new details!

8.30: summer series walking tour: regent drive. 6:30 This tour is now full. Please let Tracy Aris (tracy@a2modern.org) know if you would like to be put on the waiting list for next spring.

9.12-13: National Preservation Institute: Modernism Identification and Evaluation Seminar, Ann Arbor, for more details see: http://www.npi.org/sem-20th.html

9.12: Ann Arbor Hills walking tour. There are spaces available for this tour. $10 adult, $8 student. Contact Tracy Aris to be put on the list!

10.8-9: we are doing two events this weekend!
• Self-guided tour of Ann Arbor Hills residential structures (location for map pick-up to be announced)

• “Growing Up Modern” Bentley Library Friends event in partnership with a2modern. Location: Bentley Historical Library, 1150 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor. Time: 4:00. Peter Osler and others will reflect on growing up modern in Ann Arbor. Architectural drawings from the modern period will be on display for viewing. Mark your calendar now!

This is weekend is docomomo’s (International working party for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the modern movement) tour day weekend. a2modern was asked to participate in this important weekend– see: http://www.docomomo-us.org/tour_day_2011 for more information on what is happening across the nation on tour day 2011.

11.5: road trip to the Alden B. Dow House + Studio. This trip will include an extensive tour of Dow’s house, studio and archives and a tour of the exhibit “Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller” that will be on display this fall at the Midland Center for the Arts.

Cost for the trip $55/person which includes a box lunch. Let Nancy Deromedi at nancy@a2modern.org or Tracy Aris at tracy@a2modern.org know if you are interested in attending. RSVP deadline October 1.
We also need volunteers to be drivers to the Dow House—please let us know if you can drive a group to Midland!

questions about a2modern?
See our website at www.a2modern.org , email Nancy Deromedi at nancy@a2modern.org 734.255.3959 or Tracy Aris at tracy@a2modern.org 734.277.5722

summer series: walking tour

Dr.and Mrs. Joseph Morris house by Alden B. Dow

a2modern: summer 2011

what: a2modern walking tour
where: mid-century architecture on Regent Drive
when: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 6:30 pm
duration: One hour
cost: $10 donation to a2modern for future programming, $8 students

join us for a new walking tour of another pocket of mid-century architecture in Ann Arbor!

learn who designed what and for who from a period of 1963 – 1968

architects featured include Alden Dow, Robert Metcalf and David Osler.

this tour will be an exterior housewalk with one brief interior viewing opportunity.

Space is limited although you can place your name on a waiting list for the next tour which will be in the Spring of 2012.

please rsvp to Tracy Aris at tracy@a2modern.org

details on meeting place will follow with rsvp confirmation!

question about a2modern?
contact Nancy Deromedi (nancy@a2modern.org) or Tracy Aris (tracy@a2modern.org) or check out www.a2modern.org

modern on the market: 8.4.11

Robert C. Metcalf Collection, Bentley Historical Library

a2modern event: modern on the market
when: thursday 8.4.11
where: 830 avon road
time: 5:30 to 7:30 (note time change from earlier announcement!)
property: Dr. and Mrs. Richard Crane House, designed 1954 by Robert C. Metcalf
sponsored by: Bob Eckstein, Surovell Real Estate.

Please join us for a modern on the market mixer. The Crane house, Robert Metcalf’s first commission, is for sale. Come tour this significant house and socialize with other mcm enthusiasts.

Significance:
The architect of this home, Robert C. Metcalf, is one of the leaders in architectural modernism in southeast Michigan. The Crane house was Bob’s first commission after apprenticing under George B. Brigham from 1948 to 1952. At the same time he was designing the Crane house, Bob and his wife Bettie were building their own home.
Bob would go on to design over 40 residential structures in Ann Arbor for prominent business, research scientists and academic leaders in the Ann Arbor and SE Michigan.

The original homeowner, Dr. Richard H. Crane, was a distinguished experimental physicist of the 20th century. Dr. Crane’s early work on nuclear physics and the physics of accelerators culminated in the invention of the race track synchrotron, a design emulated by almost every particle accelerator since 1950. His pioneering measurements on the gyro- magnetic ratio of the free electron are a cornerstone of quantum electrodynamics.
During WWII, Dr. Crane worked as a research associate on radar at MIT and a physicist on the proximity fuse at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He served as the director of proximity fuse research at U-M and as director of the atomic research project for the Manhattan District.

This event is an a2modern–a homeowners and friends organization interested in raising the awareness and appreciation of mid-century architecture and design. Contact modernists@a2modern.org for more information.

summer series: walking tour

Walking Tour

a2modern: summer 2011

what: a2modern walking tour

where: tour will highlight fabulous mid-century architecture in Ann Arbor Hills

when: thursday, july 28, 2011 6:30
wednesday, august 10, 6:30* (new date added!)

cost: $10 donation to a2modern for future programming, $8 students

note: due to the high response to the walking tour held june 22, we are offering this tour again!

join us for a walking tour of one of the cool concentrated pockets of mid-century architecture in Ann Arbor Hills.

learn who designed what and for who circa 1950-1960

architects featured include Robert Metcalf, George Brigham, William Muschenheim, Herb Johe, Edward Olencki and David Osler.

this tour will be an exterior housewalk and is limited to 20 persons.

please rsvp to Tracy Aris tracy@a2modern.org.

details on meeting place will follow with rsvp confirmation!

summer series: walking tour

Walking Tour

a2modern: summer 2011

what: a2modern walking tour
where: tour will highlight fabulous mid-century architecture in Ann Arbor Hills
when: wednesday june 22, 2011 6:30
cost: $10 donation to a2modern for future programming, $8 students

join us for a walking tour of one of the cool concentrated pockets of mid-century architecture in Ann Arbor Hills.

learn who designed what and for who circa 1950-1960

architects featured include Robert Metcalf, George Brigham, William Muschenheim, Herb Johe, Edward Olencki and David Osler.

this tour will be an exterior housewalk and is limited to 20 persons.

please rsvp to Tracy Aris tracy@a2modern.org.

details on meeting place will follow with rsvp confirmation!