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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: raleigh modernism
  • Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 22:11:54 -0400

That was one problem. Another problem was that it wasn't engineered very well. I take your point about maintenance, but if you saw the pictures of the state it was in . . . . the roof had come completely delaminated & was literally falling to pieces.

In any case, had it been a true joy to live in, it wouldn't have sat vacant to begin with.

Don't get me wrong -- I love insane 20th-century architecture -- I've tromped all over the country looking at it, including some amazing Wright houses that are literally falling apart (got in to see the Ennis house last year just before it was closed due to being unsafe to visit).

But the ones that have sat vacant & are falling apart are by-and-large the victims of architects who didn't know or didn't care about engineering. Or, to be more charitable, of people whose ideas were ahead of the technology's ability to execute them.

Or the victims of clients who couldn't afford to do it right, and so did it on the cheap. Or some combination of all of those factors.

xo

Ross

p.s. going to see the Farnsworth house next year, hopefully. Fucking gorgeous, and a royal pain to live in, even when it's *not* 3 feet underwater.

Bo Williams wrote:
Yes, but someone was living in (and maintaining) your house since
1962. The problem with the Catalano house is that it was empty and not
maintained (or maintained poorly) for quite a long time.

On 10/11/05, John Iwaniszek <Not AT hotmail.com> wrote:
grady AT ibiblio.org (grady) wrote in 434C1921.1000406 AT ibiblio.org:">news:434C1921.1000406 AT ibiblio.org:

John I wrote:
Chris Calloway wrote:

help. what was the name of the modernist house in
raleigh that was abandoned and falling down? it may
have already been demolished. it was on a wooded lot
and the roof had caved in. i think it was designed by
some ncsu designo in the 40s or 50s, maybe that polish
guy who designed dorton arena? there was a really nice
website devoted to finding a preservationist for the
house.

there's a matsumoto house in chapel hill off country
club that's practically ready to fall over.

3

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It's the Catalano House (no longer) located on Catalano Drive off of
Ridge Road.

http://www.jetsetmodern.com/catalano.htm
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Preservation NC would want to know about any opportunities to preserve
more 50s-era NC Design School houses, since they're feeling kinda
shitty about the demise of the Catalano house: http://www.presnc.org/

Did you see the article in Dwell about the moving of the Raleigh
Matsumoto house to Bahama?

(not online, annoyingly)

& actually, you should snap some photos of the one in Chapel Hill &
email them to Dwell. http://www.dwellmag.com

Or contact Nathan Wieler -- He'd probably be interested:

http://www.wieler.com/

(He's the owner (unless he's managed to sell it already - I heard it
was on the market) of the first Dwell Home, out near Pittsboro. He's
now in business selling similarly-modernist prefab homes.)

Ross

The problem I have with this whole thing is that if these houses served
their function, then they would not be decaying or fallen to disrepair.
My house is vintage 1962 single-family-detached and it is highly
livable, in good repair, and appreciating in value.

I get that the Catalano house, et al. are objets d'arte, but why didn't
they survive as houses? Wouldn't Bucky sigh and concede that form
somehow didn't serve function in these ephemeral dwellings?



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