Robie House
Image by fensterbme
Robie House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Robie House is currently having the dining room reworked (hence the plywood on the windows) but is still open to walk through, etc. in Hyde Park part of Chicago.
The Robie House is a very signifiant Frank Lloyd Wright house and is one of the most signifiant houses in American architecture as it is a perfect blend of modernism meets the prairie style. Outside of Falling Water this is probably the most important house that Frank Lloyd Wright built aside from Falling Water in Fayette County PA.
The White House Southside
Image by Glyn Lowe Photoworks
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.
Today, the White House Complex includes the Executive Residence, West Wing, Cabinet Room, Roosevelt Room, East Wing, and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the executive offices of the President and Vice President.
The White House is made up of six stories—the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, and Third Floor, as well as a two-story basement. The term White House is regularly used as a metonym for the Executive Office of the President of the United States and for the president's administration and advisers in general. The property is a National Heritage Site owned by the National Park Service and is part of the President's Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects list of "America's Favorite Architecture".
www.whitehouse.gov/
Rugby House Doodle
Image by elefanterosado
My incredibly talented English first cousin, J, hand-designed and sent me this elaborate postcard some 18 years ago. I've kept it ever since. J grew up in a house like this in Rugby, England, during the years his father (my uncle) was an English master at Rugby School. As my uncle rose through the ranks and eventually became head of the English Department he and his family were relocated to the comfortable school house resembling this one. I spent many enjoyable visits there. J, the only one of four siblings *not* to attend the school and to take the intellectual path of his family, got busy painting, taking photographs, and eventually blossomed into a green party activist. He makes news headlines by chaining himself to the chairs installed in British airports in his not-so-subtle protestations against biodiesel.
His salutation to me on the back of the "postcard" reads, in part:
"Thanks for the letter. Do you like my doodle of a typical Rugby House?! A touch wonky, perhaps.
I've just got back from a holiday in Belle Isle, France, with 8 others. We spent most of the time on a beautiful nudist beach. I got some quite good "Bill Brant" type nude photos. Parents don't approve. I'm off to sunny Northern Ireland Island on the 4th for a conservation working holiday. Parents don't approve! Love, J."
But I approve J.
It takes guts to be an original, after all.
Field trip to the Gropius House
Image by juhansonin
Design Group field trip to the Gropius House... only 10m from work, we took a long lunch.
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