RTP-area local music and culture

[John Iwaniszek <Not AT hotmail.com>]

bowilliams AT gmail.com (Bo Williams) wrote in
469e988e0510111820n47a063d1u21c6e4860d8bf73b AT mail.gmail.com:">news:469e988e0510111820n47a063d1u21c6e4860d8bf73b AT mail.gmail.com: 
> 
> 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.
>> >>>
>> >>>

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

>> > 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?
>>
>>

> 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.



I think that is my point.  What kept people from living in them?  Is it 
because they were museum pieces?  if so, then why the neglect?  If 
people were living in them, then maintenance should have been routine 
and affordable.  At the very least, the houses should have been rented 
with a landlord seeing to the repairs and upkeep.  If the owners just 
let them go, then their function failed in some fundamental way.  
Perhaps it was an economic decision balancing the value of the land 
against the value of the house - sort of a highest and best use 
equation.

It seems like the concept of shelter was ironically sacrificed to some 
other ideal.  Without the element of livability the houses served no 
rational purpose as houses.