Douglas Newby Insights - Page 28
Max Exploration
Architect Max Levy, over his career, has explored the design of new houses in the city and the country. Max has explored renovation and extending the original architecture of period homes. This modern home is one of Max’s most interesting architectural explorations. Max was presented with an architecturally significant home designed by New York architect Steven Holl 25 years ago on a beautiful creek-framed lot in Preston Hollow. When one thinks of architecture as art, this lyrical modern house quickly comes to mind. Even 25 years ago the very specific floor plan of this modern home created some day-to-day challenges. Twenty years later the challenges became even more acute. Max Levy in 2018 approached this home with both confidence and deference. Slender light-filled additions knife through the substantial acreage of this site, preserving and contrasting with the swooping and soaring spaces of the original home.
#MaxLevy #StevenHoll #StrettoHouse #PrestonHollow #Dallas #DallasNeighborhood #CityHouse #EstateHome #ModernHome #ArchitecturallySignificant #Modern #Contemporary #Architect #Architecture #Addition #Renovation
#dallasarchitecture #dallasarchitect #dallastexas
Domestic Dignity
A female artist maybe appreciates the hard work, good work, important work, and daily chores of the governesses, maids, and other domestic workers serving the middle class families. One gallery of the Berthe Morisot show at the DMA presented paintings depicting the hard work of these women with elegance and almost reverential dignity. I have always loved Impressionist art growing up going to the Art Institute in Chicago. My interest was further enhanced in Dallas by the presence, expertise, and knowledge of Rick Brettell, and of course the wonderful private Impressionist collection of Margaret McDermott. Usually my first stop in a city would be to see their collection of Impressionist paintings. Most of these museums would include an obligatory Berthe Morisot in the Impressionism galleries. It was not until this opening, Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist, at the DMA that I began to really appreciate her work. My personal collection of art contains many female artists prompted by visiting my favorite gallery early in my career, Dallas Women’s Co-op which included many female artists whose work is owned by museums across the country. Their art does not have a conspicuous gender point of view or style. The early art of Morisot did. While Gustave Caillebotte , who is also found in most museum Impressionist collections, painted male figures dripping with testosterone, like the Floor Scrapers, or in stiff coats and top hats against the backdrop of an iron bridge, Morisot was able to use thick paint and broad strokes to create soft detail with delicacy and refinement. I can laugh at myself for being so attracted to the drab colors and strong simple lines of Caillebotte and overlooking the talent of Morisot because it was too feminine for my taste. This DMA exhibit changed all that. Seeing a succession of galleries filled with her work as it evolved into the last painting exhibited in the show being compared to Edvard Munch gave me a whole new impression of Berthe Morisot.
#BertheMorisot #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #Impressionism #Impressionist #Dallas #Art #Museum #ArtsDistrict #Artist #FemaleArtist #DowntownDallas
Living Room Threads Trees
In deference to the substantive live oaks on the property, Max Levy in 2017 broke the floor plan of this modern home into pavilions. Each pavilion threads the trees as does this kitchen with living and dining spaces. This modern home accentuates the neighborhood concept of parks and trees at at time trees are being torn down faster than houses.
#Pavilion #Kitchen #Trees #MaxLevy #Architect #Architecture #ModernHome #Design #InteriorDesign #CityHouse #Modern #Dallas #Contemporary #Interior #dallasarchitecture #dallasarchitect #dallastexas
A Place Apart
Architect Max Levy is a master at connecting separate structures with porches, terraces, breezeways in both his city and country houses. In 2017, he designed a place apart from the main house but still part of the architectural composition. The “sweet spot” of the site amidst the canopies of trees were selected for a second story porch with a fireplace that is only accessible by an outside stairway, separating it from the main house, making it a place apart!
#APlaceApart #MaxLevy #Architect #Architecture #ModernHome #ScreenPorch #Oak #Design #Dallas #CityHouse #Modern #greenwayparks
Command site
Five oaks of strong character command this flat suburban site. Architect Max Levy designed this 7,000 s.f. home in University Park in 2017 to defer to the trees. Acoustical aquatic fountains are dispersed through the site to ameliorate sounds associated with a city and that accentuate a tree-filled site.
#Oak #LiveOak #Dallas #SuburbanHouse #CityHouse #Dallas #ModernHome #Modern #Design #Architect #Architecture #MaxLevy
Texas Modern Sunshine
Turning the harsh Texas sun into an asset is, I think, the defining element of Texas Modern architecture. Good architects in any region are aware of the environment and site when they design a home. In Texas, architects often keep windows on the west side of the home to a minimum and open the house to the east with glass to enjoy the softer sunlight. The virtuosity of an architect can be seen when both the east and west façade of the home are glass and the sun is shielded and captured in an enticing way. In this home on Vanguard Way, architect Joshua Nimmo deployed a deep, angled slatted porch to provide shade in the summer and allow the low winter sun to stream all the way across the interior of the home in the winter. Patterns of sunlight and shadow provide visual interest, and on a cold Texas winter day the sun warms the home and the soul. One of the most rewarding opportunities of listing an architecturally significant home like this one is getting to spend time in the home thinking about why the home resonates with me in such a powerful way. Sometimes it is proportions, or the materials, subtle details, the site, or all of this and more, that contribute to its aesthetic success and to a home that makes one happy.
#JoshuaNimmo #ArchitecturallySignificant #ModernHome #VanguardWay #Dallas #BikePath #PathToTrinityGroves #PathToWhiteRockLake #Neighborhood #ModernNeighborhood #Architect #Architecture #Contemporary #Brise-Soleil #Porch #Trellis #SunlightAndShade #TexasModern #Sun #Sunlight #Interior #OpenHouse #Texas #TexasArchitecture #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #FeaturedListing
Living Pavilion
Each distinct pavilion of this home Max Levy designed in 2014 has glazed walls and doors providing views of a site surrounded by trees. The glazed bridges allow uninterrupted views as one traverses from one pavilion of the home to another pavilion of the home.
#MaxLevy #Contemporary #InteriorDesign #Tree #GlazedWalls #Architect #Architecture #Dallas #ModernHome #Design #modern
Glazed Bridges Connect
Max Levy connected three pavilions by glazed bridges that step around and through trees. Rather than create a presence on a flat featureless lot, here Max accentuates what a tree-dominated lot gave him. The architectural result was Max Levy creating a home in 2014 people love.
#MaxLevy #GlazedBridge #Pavilions #Contemporary #Modern #Design #Dallas #Tree #Architect #Architecture #modernhome
Design Within Trees
Cedar trees dominate this site. No trees were put down. The gently sloping lot was regraded creating the canvas for the Max Levy designed home in 2014. Looking through this house from the inside or outside, one’s view continues into the trees.
#CedarElm #MaxLevy #Tree #Design #Modern #Architect #Architecture #ModernHome #SuburbanHome #Dallas
Direction of Dallas?
Is wealth creation for low-income families thwarted by the city moving them to high-income North Dallas? Is a fashionable renter society of transients good for Dallas or does it subvert middle-income neighborhoods? Should middle-income neighborhoods, the lobby for good public schools, police and city services, be a priority or should they be allowed to continue to dwindle? Should affordable homes be built in South Dallas where low-income people now live or they should be built in North Dallas closer to jobs? Is it better for a low-income family to have higher income in North Dallas or a chance of wealth creation in South Dallas. The SMU/George W. Bush Institute conference on Policies To Promote Inclusive Urban Growth provoked these questions? Cullum Clark and Joel Kotkin pictured above, initiated the conference and invited speakers from across the country to discuss cities. You can see my summary of the thoughts and ideas that were generated at the conference on the Dallas Architecture Blog Direction of Dallas and Urban Growth: http://douglasnewby.com/2019/02/direction-of-dallas-determines-growth/
#GeorgeWBushInstitute @TheBuchCenter @SMUDallas @SMUCox #JoelKotkin #Cities #InclusiveGrowth #UrbanGrowth #UrbanEconomics #Dallas #CityConference #DallasDirection