MY Architecture

While on the topic of Adolf Loos and his often unusual buildings, I am reminded of another untypical, early work of his, from 1904, a gut renovation of an 1820's villa in Montreux, Switzerland. It contains the ultimate bathroom to die for! If anyone one out there would like such a room in their own dwelling, we would be happy to oblige! On the other hand, the Villa Karma was recently for sale, for an undisclosed sum, for those for whom price is no object.

Skylights, yes! A conservatory is a tremendous addtion to a home at any scale, from a grouping of potted plants on a large window sill to a traditional skylit sunroom. Here is a current MY Architecture project for a conservatory addition that is a contempory interpretation of two sources of inspiration (the last two photos): a Victorian green house, in this case the Fernery at Morris Arboretum outside Philadelphia, and a traditional Japanese wooden bath.

The atrium traces its history back to the Roman domus, the upper class townhouse. The atrium was the open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides. In the middle of the atrium was the impluvium, a shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch rainwater from the roof. Paradoxically for us, the term in Latin came from atr, black, or dark. The atrium was a dark space. In the domus as in the Pantheon, the contrasting image of the sun moving across the relatively dark interior in the course of a day is a sort of sundial, keeping the movement of the heavens and the passage of time top of mind. What follows are some of my favorite mid 20th century atriums, all of which avoid cliched responses:

1. The House of Menander, Pompeii, 2. The Pantheon in an 18th C. painting, 3. The Guggenheim, FLlW, 4.The Ford Foundation, Roche and Dinkeloo, 5. Exeter library, Kahn, 6. The Thompson Center, Murphy Jahn, before its current evisceration by Google