Breard House Postmodern Redux by Jerry Brown Birmingham Magazine, March, 1993 The chain of modern American architecture did not begin, as it is often assumed, with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago. These men were geniuses -- giants, in fact---and definitely revolutionary, but they were essentially romantics. Which means that in terms of leading a movement toward a bold new future, they were doomed. In America, romantics only succeed in the movies. The magnificence of Sullivan's Auditorium Building (1901), which housed the Chicago Opera, and Wright's incomparable Willetts (1902) and Robie (1909) Houses in the same city do not, in any sense, provide a hint to what was coming in the century ahead. Sullivan and Wright developed and labored under vastly different ideas than the ones which eventually took over our skylines. Had architecture followed their lead, America would be a very different looking, and probably far more attractive place. Instead, what we think of as modern American architecture began in Weimar, Germany, at a progressive school for arts and crafts founded in 1906 by the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. At the close of World War I, the school was renamed Staatliches Bauhaus and moved---for political reasons---to Dessau. During the twenties, the school leapt to international prominence because of the startling theories of its director, Walter Gropius, an architect with visions of a new world order. To comprehend Gropius' and the Bauhaus' sudden appeal, one needs to remember the state of Europe, and particularly Germany, following World War I. The old order of royal houses and collective empires had collapsed, and in its place was a seething political hotbed, fueled by widespread devastation, a brutal recession and a fervent and unusually intellectual unrest. The needs and desires of ordinary people, the workers and bureaucrats, not the arbitrary whims of crowned heads, were viewed as the focus of a new and utopian society. What made this movement unique was the fact that this new order would be created and led, not by politicians, but by artists. Naturally, this kind of notion could only arise in Europe, but arise it did. Gropius was instrumental as the leader of a new design theory called "Functionalism." In Gropius' view, anything ornamental or superfluous in architecture was emblematic of aristocratic decadence and rot. As respect for the worker was to become the focus of society, so respect for the working parts of a building would become the focus of architecture. The beams and girders, support structures and frames, ducts and pipes, which had heretofore been hidden behind layers of gilt, marble and plaster, were now to be glorified, exemplified and exposed for all to see behind curtain walls of sheer glass. Anything that wasn't pointedly functional was out. Even the pitch of a roofline was deemed unnecessary. Roofs were to be flat, and the unadorned boxes that resulted were revered as gateways to the future. Bauhaus, as the style came to be called, was a brand new religion and it came with a brand new god to support it. Technology. Our scientific advance and ability to dominate a whole collection of natural forces was seen as the ultimate salvation of mankind. Little did they know. In America, which was flush with victory and bounding straight into the Jazz Age, Bauhaus got some respectable press, but basically fell on deaf ears. We were throwing up neo-classical skyscrapers, reinventing period styles for weekend retreats and luxuriating in the towering geometric fantasies of Art Deco. None of that stern stuff for us. We'd even turned our backs on the home-grown purism of Wright. S ullivan, fortunately, as some would later say, didn't live long enough to see it. Then came the Depression, World War II and the slap of economic reality. A kind of atomic age spartanism suddenly took over the landscape, especially architecturally, in desperate need of a theory to bind it into something comprehensible. As if to answer the call of fate, Walter Gropius and his successor at the Bauhaus, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, had immigrated to the U.S.; Gropius to Harvard, and Mies -- (mees) as he is known -- to IIT in Chicago. The stage was set and the spark ignited. These two men fired the imaginations of their students with theories that, in retrospect perhaps, Americans may not have been culturally, or at least sociologically capable of absorbing. We did not need an architecture to ease our memory of war and tyranny. Neither did we need an architecture to glorify the common and mundane after centuries of aristocratic privilege and decadence. We got one anyway. American architects began producing some of the blandest, most anti-human buildings ever built. The blame for this has been laid more on Mies than Gropius. His name will forever be associated with the shiny, faceless, flat-top boxes that have dominated our cities and by-ways. In his defense, his theories -- which many still hold to be monumental -- have been widely misinterpreted. His most famous dictums, "Less is more," and "God is in the details," can be dangerous, and often have been, in the wrong hands. Mies, however foreign his ideas to American needs, was undoubtedly a master. When he was given the chance to design himself -- which wasn't that often -- the results were monumental. His most enduring work, the bronze and glass Seagram Building (1958) on Park Avenue in New York, is predictably austere, but it soars with a grandeur that few buildings ever achieve. It is pristine, glacial and perfect. It is architecture as machine, technology in triumph. Still, there is definitely something about it that keeps you from stepping inside if you don't have an appointment. And that, ultimately, is what's wrong with it. This is architecture that condescends. It keeps you out. It's a massive fortress that hides behind an illusion of openness and transparency, giving little more than lip-service to the theory that spawned it. It is elitism to the max. A counter-revolution was inevitable and it began, naturally enough, with another European, a Viennese architect named Hans Hollein, who, as a student, had walked out on a class taught by Mies at IIT and migrated to Berkeley. In a daring move, Hollein submitted a plan to a major competition which topped the androgynous, glass-boxed Chase Manhattan Building in lower Manhattan with an enormous Classical pediment. His submission garnered little more than guffaws, but those with a nose for this sort of thing could tell there something new in the wind. This time, the Americans were ready. One of those Americans was Lewis C. McKinney. A rare aesthete in a business that has largely gone commercial, McKinney can, with a flick of his drafting pen, turn the Bauhaus on its ear. He has an astonishing ability to create both warmth and a very adult playfulness -- anathema to his predecessors -- with the use of normally cold and rather austere materials. His most visible work in Birmingham -- the branch offices of First Alabama Bank in Inverness, Wildwood and Eastwood -- are a clear testament to his new breed of talent. Engaging, fun to look at and be in, these buildings are, nevertheless, still banks. They provide a definite sense of security. Still, with their exposed steel beams and reflective tiles, they tease our notions of what is, and should be, a place to keep our money. It's quite an achievement. McKinney has, through a judicious use of wit and irony, succeeded in creating what no advertising campaign ever can: a likeable bank. McKinney, consciously or not, is onto the essence of a true American architecture. As a people, we like to be liked. We like to be thought of as smart, clever and engaging, as well as compassionate, devout and committed to a better way of life. McKinney's buildings, and those designed with his partner, Paul Fridl, are a perfect reflection of the complex and complexed American identity. Nowhere is this better expressed than in the home McKinney designed for the Breard family in Mountain Brook. The Breard House cuts into the side of Shades Mountain and presents an unusually bold face to the street. The lines are straight, the roof is flat and the exterior is searing white, but this is no testament to technology. This is not only one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in Alabama, it is, perhaps more importantly, one of the most gracious and inviting homes in Birmingham. Built for a socially prominent and civically active couple with a grown son and two labrador retrievers, the house functions perfectly for day-to-day living and provides a lavish backdrop for both large parties and intimate get-togethers. The central axis of the house is commanded by a two-storey, balconied gallery, topped with a peaked skylight. The balcony and steel railing cut an oblique and unusual crescent curve into the space, which gives it the somewhat audacious hint of an oceanliner. The staircase is positioned at the far end of the gallery in a rounded tower, and the living room flows dramatically off the gallery down a flight of what appear to be "floating" stairs. They open into a great expanse which, through McKinney's generous use of glass, draws in so much of the outside that it almost seems to be open-air. A dining room and service area are more formally approached from the other side of the gallery. The kitchen and informal dining space are beyond, as are the main floor utility rooms. The couple's private rooms and guest rooms are sequestered upstairs. Spacious storage and utility areas, as well as the couple's red-doored wine room, are located below. Although the design of the interior in grand in scale, the effect is one of pure pleasure. Like all great houses, this one gives a visitor, simply upon entering, an immediate sense of joy and the promise of visual surprises ahead---a McKinney dictum. This is hinted at on the exterior and at the entrance by the cautious use of simple, abstracted entablature over the doors and windows. This is a house, these details seem to say, that will prove to be a great deal more than it seems. All of which it delivers. Because of the location, there are views everywhere into the surrounding woods. On the rear terrace level, a retaining wall has been transformed into a breathtaking, glass-like waterfall, which is the ultimate surprise for a visitor who sneaks into the kitchen for a refill. Which is exactly the way the Breards like it. This is a house perfectly wed to the needs of an outgoing, productive, confident and modern American couple. And as anyone who knows the Breards -- and Mrs. Breard in particular -- can attest, her warmth and laughter create the only necessary embellishment to the beauty McKinney has created here. This is true American architecture. With any luck, we'll get more of it ‹back to top›‹close window›