As a cultural institution, The Gamble House relies, in part, on grants, gifts and donations for revenue. Most people don't have the means to donate a sum that would qualify as a grant or even a gift but nearly all of us can make a donation. The Friends of The Gamble House provides the perfect vehicle for doing so. By becoming a member of the Friends, you can help support The Gamble House and programs such as the Sidney D. Gamble Lecture Series. Membership starts at $40. In return, you'll receive the satisfaction of helping preserve one of the icons of American residential architecture. In addition, membership offers benefits commensurate with the membership level, including complimentary tours, a subscription to the newsletter and the annual Friends of The Gamble House calendar.
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We're also trained to notice flashy, brightly colored objects and are often rewarded for doing so. Consider the relative appearances of tomatoes and strawberries (very yummy) versus say, cauliflower (considerably less yummy - no emails from the cauliflower lobby, you know I'm right). How much more appealing is a golden loaf of freshly baked French bread than the lump of pasty-colored dough of 15 minutes earlier?

The point is that our training serves us well. So it is little surprise that we don't often notice some things. Such as the stretchers on chairs. They aren't edible and they aren't very likely to eat us. Typically they aren't any more brightly colored than the rest of the chair. So why would we notice them? The only reasonable answer is because we are furniture geeks. In fact, even furniture geeks marvel at the extreme geekiness of one who would run about looking at chair stretchers. Seriously, get help. Consider this an intervention.
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What do Frank Gehry, Richard Neutra, Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren have in common? Probably not much except for those attributes shared by any two random human beings. So why do their names appear in the title of this post? Good question.

Yesterday I wrote about analogies between Frank Lloyd Wright : The Beatles and Greene & Greene : The Beach Boys. On Twitter, Architect Magazine picked up on it and asked for other Architect : Musician analogies. What follows is a list of the pairings that @ArchitectMag's Twitterati came up with.
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Several months ago I wrote: "If Frank Lloyd Wright is the Beatles then Greene & Greene are the Beach Boys." Such analogies are rather tenuous and this one was written in jest. There are, however, broad parallels though I certainly do not intend to suggest that the savvy aspect of the rock group comparison carries over to the architects. There is some fun to be had in further examination.

Wright was THE architectural star of his time. His fame was unparalleled, certainly in popular perception, and was so great that it became self-perpetuating. Wright's reputation and popularity were well deserved, his work an important part of our cultural heritage. In fact, his fame was such that clients were willing to overlook "features" that would have ruined lesser architects.
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After my recent entry about shutters (and flying monkeys), I received a kind comment from Chuck Wolfe a lawyer specializing in Environmental, Land Use, Property and Redevelopment law. Chuck had also written recently about shutters. After exchanging thoughts, we agreed to exchange blog entries as well. The post below first appeared on the website Chuck created, myurbanist.com where he blogs about topics related to urban development. All photos by Chuck Wolfe, myurbanist.

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Like streets, doors and windows, shutters stand at the intersection of public and private domains. A venerable urban feature with Greco-Roman origins, the shutter historically provided security, privacy, shading, and ornamental interface. Today, shutters provide one of many ongoing opportunities to recreate a sense of place and vibrantly define the look and feel of city spaces.

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In 2008, I drove from Pasadena to Berkeley, and back, with my good friend Tom Moore. Intellectually, I knew that California is large and that a huge fraction of America's food originates there, but I hadn't experienced it. The vastness of the central valley is awe inspiring. At one point, I-5 continues in a perfectly straight line for 70,000 miles. Honest. That's nearly 800 Delawares. (According to the fine folks at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one Delaware is equal to 90 miles, the length of the state from North to South.)

The reason for my trek through "The Greatest Garden in the World" is that I'd been granted the privilege of visiting and photographing the Thorsen house, located in Berkeley, and Charles Greene's studio in Carmel. The well known Thorsen house is one of the premiere commissions of the Greenes' careers, the last of the so-called Ultimate Bungalows. Charles Greene's studio is a much more private place. Built by Charles after his 1916 move to Carmel, the studio became his refuge and his canvas during the final decades of his life.
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I spent my childhood, as did many of you, in suburban tract houses. Built in the 1960s, these were typical American homes of the time. Well-built, unpretentious symbols of the American Dream. The second of these houses, which my parents purchased when I was 15, is a wonderful split level with 3 bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and a two-car garage. There is no marble in the bathrooms nor granite in the kitchen. The stairs are not 48" wide. It was a simple, warm and inviting home for our family. My parents lived there for 29 years before heading south for warmer weather some years after retiring.

The two houses in which I spent nearly my entire childhood share a feature that caused me some confusion as a child. I believe that the first time I saw shutters that actually closed was in The Wizard of Oz (not one of my favorite movies -- to this day, I hate those damn flying monkeys). The house we lived in from the time I was six had shutters. They were black and rigidly attached to the house. No hinges, no latches, no attempt at functionality. Until I saw The Wizard of Oz (I hate those monkeys), I thought nothing of it, I had no idea that there was a function for them.
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The basic elements of the Greene & Greene furniture vocabulary are relatively simple. Ebony pegs, lifts, shop-made pulls, and breadboard ends are used almost universally. Some other details occur more rarely. Scrolls and corner brackets, as in the Blacker living room, are examples. None of these elements are particularly complex from a design perspective and yet incorporating them well into a piece of furniture requires a surprising degree of sensitivity.

Other factors -- some tangible, others less so -- are at least as important to the look and presence of a piece as is the design vocabulary. Scale, visual weight and proportion, grace and the previously mentioned sensitivity all figure large in the success of a design. Charles and Henry Greene mastered use of their unique and inventive vocabulary as well as these intangibles. The result is furniture that is widely considered to be the best of the American Arts & Crafts era.
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Chalets and bungalows both became part of the American architectural scene well over a century ago. They bear some resemblance to each other, a fact that is not accidental. Both arose as peasant dwellings, the bungalow in India and the chalet, as we know it, in Switzerland. Climatic differences account for some of the stylistic distinctions we find in the two forms. India's hot climate makes a one level house appealing. Broad eaves provide a level of protection from the harsh sun. In Switzerland, heat is not often a consideration. There the primary climatic concern is harsh winter weather. A compact, multi-level design makes most sense. Broad eaves are employed in the chalet as well but to protect from rain and snow rather than sun. Shallow roof angles allow snow to accumulate to provide insulation.
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Chalet Week continues today with a look at historic examples of these ubiquitous structures.

Last Summer, I spent two weeks in Switzerland with my wife, who was here on business. During the day, when my wife was at work, I drove around the countryside, photographing anything that didn't move: fields, mountains, buildings, towns. I had never experienced anything quite like it. Ancient villages with incredible, old buildings were around every bend in the road. It was a wonderful experience. It was also almost entirely free of chalets.

Switzerland is roughly one third the size of Ohio -- small, but not as tiny as Lichtenstein. Or Monaco. Or Delaware. In spite of being area-lly challenged, it contains a surprising degree of regional diversity. It begins, of course, with the languages. In most of the country's 26 cantons, German is the official language. French is spoken in several cantons while several others are officially bilingual. In Ticino, the canton bordering Italy, Italian is la lingua ufficiale. It is a confusing situation with which the Swiss seem entirely at ease. By comparison, a little regional architectural identity isn't surprising, even in so small a country.
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It's Chalet Week here at Poems of Wood & Light headquarters. This event was originally scheduled for last week, that is until I learned that Shark Week at The Discovery Channel began August 1. Not wanting to steal their thunder, I postponed Chalet Week. To my friends at The Discovery Channel, you're welcome.

"Little Switzerland." This name has often been used to describe the Arroyo Terrace neighborhood of Pasadena, a neighborhood that includes an unusually high density of houses designed by Greene & Greene, including Charles Greene's own house, the Hawks house, the Willet house, the Van Rossem/Neil house, the White Sisters' house, the Irwin house and the James Culbertson house. The Gamble house and the Cole house are located nearby. The Little Switzerland nickname appeared by 1907 when it was used in an article in the Pasadena Daily News.
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I have very few true regrets. Given my years, that fact means that I've led something of a charmed life, the universe has been good to me. Even so, there are some small things I wish I'd done or done differently. I wish I had gone to see the Grateful Dead before Jerry Garcia died. It seemed like they would tour forever and then he was gone. I wish I had watched less television as a kid. All of those reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies don't seem all that important to me now. I wish I had bought stock in LEGO about twenty years ago. If I had, I'd be writing this blog entry from my magnificent Monte Carlo apartment, overlooking the marina where a crew of 22-year-old Swedish women would be preparing my yacht for another tour of the Greek Isles.

LEGO is not new, it was founded in 1932. My brother and I had them when we were kids. They came in any color we wanted, as long as it was red. There were a multitude of shapes: square and rectangular and... Uhhh, square. We would put them together to make bigger squares and rectangles. Maybe the lack of variety and my own lack of imagination are the reasons that I didn't play with them more. If I had, maybe I would have had the foresight to see what was coming. Maybe Inga and Birgitta would be serving me lunch on the lido deck.
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On Monday February 28, 2000, I ate an ice cream cone for breakfast. I don't have a Rainman-like talent for recalling such facts. I recall that breakfast because it was an unusual day. Several hours earlier, my wife had awakened me at 5:00AM. She spoke only two words, "It's time." Never before in my life was I so instantly awake. Under normal circumstances, I would have mumbled something along the lines of, "Time for what?" But this day wasn't normal. It was her due date, our first child, Dylan, was arriving right on time.

I doubt that I will ever have a more surreal experience than standing in the delivery room watching my son come into the world. (For the record, I know they are no longer called delivery rooms but I can't remember the new-agey name in vogue at that time.) We had taken the classes and read the books and done all of the things that modern, enlightened couples are supposed to do to prepare for that day. We hadn't been at the hospital for very long when I realized that it had all been a colossal waste of time. There was nothing that my wife needed to know that wasn't hardwired into her brain by mother nature. And there was nothing I needed to know, period. Nothing.
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Chicago, Illinois, June 1992. My wife and I were there for a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary and it was magical. Everything was perfect. We went to the top of the Sears Tower. We went to a Cubs game at Wrigley. When we went to dinner on our anniversary, the concierge at the hotel got us a table at a great restaurant where we had the best table in the house - a private booth overlooking Lake Michigan. We spent a day at the Art Institute of Chicago. That's the first time I can recall seeing this activity -- people, I assume they were students, sitting in a museum sketching the artwork.

I know very little about art education but this activity makes sense to me. In every discipline, students must understand the significant contributions of those who have come before. What better way to understand the work of the masters than by observing AND doing?
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