modciti.dallas - issue 02 // october 2019

oct ‘19

// dallas holocaust and human rights museum omniplan architects // photo: jason o’rear

1019 Dragon Street | Dallas | Design District | 214.350.0542 | www.sminkinc.com

BUILDING MODERN

DREAMS

by J. Claiborne Bowdon

// all photos: imagery intelligence and adimagery

A house is a big responsibility, for those that live in it, but certainly for those that are thinking about the lives lived within it. What will the days and years be like based on the shape of the home? Should the sink be the first thing you encounter in the kitchen? What are the benefits of the type of flooring used? How will natural light potentially improve someone’s morning? Michael Turner has been asking these questions, and finding answers to them, for 15 years with his design firm, Classic Urban Homes. It’s “Building for the way people really live,” as the maxim on the website reads. “Most clients are referrals, or live in neighborhoods where we have built. They typically have a strong idea of what they are looking for, and a strong opinion about the materials they want to use. We are fortunate to have a fairly large portfolio of homes with many different finishes and styles, and that gets the conversation started.”

Michael has been designing and building in Dallas for decades now, and responding to the changing nature of methods, trends, and the business itself is as much a part of it as the intuition of what makes a great home.

“We definitely try to start with smart design, as the cost to build continues to increase due to mostly labor and also materials. It’s important to pick materials that will be sustainable and not costly to maintain long term.

Materials and methods have definitely changed over the last 15 years, so has our climate and rainfall. It’s more important than ever to make sure you are paying attention to the details behind the walls and not just what cladding you are putting on them.”

As much thought has to be given to the process of building as the building itself. As a designer and builder Michael has to anticipate issues that a design, or the location,

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present, and then respond to that. “There are always changes and edits along the process. Sometimes a client needs to see and feel a space to know if it will work for the way the live. 3D models are really changing the way we design before we build. I tell clients it is much less expensive to make changes on paper.” Bringing together all of the elements, from the client’s vision to every component of construction, requires as much skill as the design process, and client’s descriptions of Michael as diligent and patient point to how he manages this aspect of the work.

A home is an even bigger responsibility when you’re building it for a friend, or, rather, when you’re building the home

that your friend would have liked to have built. Tom Greico was a beloved part of the Dallas architecture community, and a friend and mentor to Michael since he was a student in high school. Tom himself had begun designing in high school, and knew Michael’s uncle from the University of Texas at Arlington. Michael worked with Tom in every capacity, from drafting projects to sweeping up job sites in those early days, and they remained friends thereafter.

Tom was no different than the many clients that would come to him to help build their dream home. He owned a lot in Midway Hollows, between Walnut Hill and Midway, just behind St. Monica’s, and had planned to build

his own home there. Here and there, once a month or whenever the mood struck, he would put out different ideas for the house and renderings on Facebook to see what his friends and colleagues thought. When Tom passed in January of this year his brother came to Michael about buying the lot that Tom had planned to build his home on. After looking through Tom’s computer Michael found the plans for the home he had planned to build, and he will begin building it a month from now.

The design has all the hallmarks of Tom’s approach to designing homes, with lots of natural lighting, an open living plan, and the outside and inside seamlessly engaging

with each other. According to Michael it will take five to six months to build. The look and feel captures Tom himself with a calm, understated, and easygoing floor plan that allows you to move through it and interact with it without obstacles- no walls or posts to navigate around or block your view or conversation. It’s a project that extends a legacy and leaves a fitting tribute.

Each client brings different tastes and expectations with them, and these nuances are what give a house its character. Michael’s role is building that into the design itself, so that it can really feel like home. “All our homes share a common element. We build a stage, leaving you free to express your own personal style. I look back on

A house is a big responsibility, for those that live in it, but certainly for those that are thinking about the lives lived within it.

—Michael Turner

what we have built and are currently building and I’m always pleasantly surprised when it starts with an idea in someone’s head or a picture, and then we create this amazing house that a family will enjoy for generations to come. It’s a great business, and can be a rollercoaster ride at times. I have been part of this industry for over 35 years now and cannot imagine doing anything else.”

art

as verse

by Kendall Morgan

// green mirage, 2019 oil on yupo 26 x 40 inches

For Mary Vernon, painting equals a kind of poetry. Currently celebrating a show of new work at her longtime gallery Valley House, she explains her methodology in a way that almost absolves herself of the works’ content.

To her, the color, the inspiration, the very paint itself has its way with ultimately appears on her canvas.

“The paint is much older than we are, it knows everything about paintings,” Vernon explains. “There’s no need for me to boss it around; it knows what it’s

going to do. You know that famous conversation between (French symbolist poet) Stéphane Mallarmé and Degas? Degas said, ‘I’d like to make some poems, I have some ideas,’ and Stéphane said, ‘Poems aren’t made out of ideas, they’re made out of words.’ Which Degas should have known because his works are made out of light and dark and paint.

(Artists) think they are in control of the image, and in fact that’s a fantasy.”

A longtime painting professor at Southern Methodist University, Vernon spent decades teaching her

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students this very philosophy, one she embraces in her career. Because narrative portraits were “not my thing,” she let the paint drive her in the direction of landscapes, something she equates to a still life on a master scale.

Vernon paints from memory, so canvases like “Green Mirage” with its rocky butte or the cumulus cloud over a field in “Mesa Sky” could be of something she saw years ago, somewhere in the world. Although the occasional animal stalks across the surface (most significantly, a titian-hued tiger featured in her Valley House show), it’s the flora that Vernon portrays that takes center stage, whether translated precisely or splashed on in abstract explosions.

Though landscapes have earned a less-than-stellar reputation over the years for their occasional kitsch factor

(think Bob Ross’ “Happy Little Trees”), for Vernon, they’re something much more—a color-based equivalent of a sonnet or verse. With this in mind, it might be surprising to learn that Vernon has no idea what a work is going to be when she begins.

“I don’t know anything about what the painting is going to be when it starts; I just know a way of starting that is often (through) something I’ve seen in a museum, or I’ve noticed in a landscape,” she says. “I pretty much try to do a few starting marks or colors that will go somewhere, then they take over and go by themselves. I can’t tell them what to after that, I watch the formula unfolding, and then my memory tells me what landscape I’m remembering, and I try to make it a little bit more like what is it trying to be.”

Growing up, Vernon initially anticipated becoming a physician, but once she found herself immersed in her studies, she was swept away by the subjects of painting and art history. As a child of academics, it felt natural for her to enter the teaching field post-graduation. After finishing her masters at the University of New Mexico, she was introduced to the legendary artist and professor Jerry Bywaters at SMU, who immediately offered her a job.

This led to her 50-year teaching career, from which she retired only a year ago. Having spent decades balancing her course load and practice with raising her children, she’s in a significant moment where she can purely concentrate on her painting, creating a rough estimate of 25 pieces a year.

A self-professed “color study lover,” she chooses to paint on the synthetic art paper Yupo. Made of 100% polypropylene, it’s tough enough for her muscular brushstrokes, but light enough Vernon can transport it easily.

The 50-plus pieces collected in “New Work” painted on Yupo run the gamut from a mix of abstract and figurative images collaged into an oversized scene (“Grassland”) to the more traditional portrayals (“Field at Crested Butte”) of what we define as landscapes.

In addition to the show, Valley House has also published a comprehensive catalog of the artist spanning the last five years, a marker of her career she says is “pretty thrilling.”

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// garden tiger, 2018 oil and acrylic on yupo 60 x 62 3/8 inches

“It feels like actually a memory palace of some kind,” she says of the publication. “It’s things you forgot you made that are there are people still love them. I think of (my paintings) as creatures of memory. I let them go, they go off and do their work, then I turn the page and say, ‘That isn’t bad.’”

Vernon has never had a problem sending her paintings away, as she feels they serve the same purpose as a poet’s poems.

“They’re supposed to be treasured and mused over by you. They have perhaps more meaning for you than they do for me.

// studio table, 2019 oil and acrylic on yupo 60 x 60 inches

“They ought to cause some things, and I hope good things, in their thinking, and people who have them on their walls get to stare at them and work them out.”

FineArtEstates.com FINE ART

At Estate Sale Prices

by J. Claiborne Bowdon

FINDING

flora

// all photos: celebrity cruises

The Galapagos Islands hold a special place in the imaginations of many. They’ve fascinated the world for almost two hundred years, ever since Charles Darwin’s voyage on The Beagle in 1831. Darwin, then twenty-two, found his life and worldview changed when he accepted a position as the ship’s naturalist. It was a trip around the world, but Darwin’s exposure to the coast of South America, especially the Galapagos, would chart the course of his life. He arrived back in England already famous for the wildlife and detailed sketches of the islands themselves that he’d sent ahead of him. The remote nature of the islands had created an ecosystem unto themselves, with dozens of species that exist nowhere else in the world.

The islands remain an enticingly rare experience, but that rarity also makes the islands particularly vulnerable to contact with the world outside. The first consideration of any expedition has to be how it may impact the island and the animals that inhabit it. In Darwin’s day, a voyage to the islands would last months at a time, but now a cruise out to the islands and back can be done in ten to eleven days, which means more exposure from the outside world.

Celebrity Cruises took that into consideration when they began thinking about how to allow more people to explore a world within the world. In order to answer this need for they didn’t just plan a route- they built a whole new ship.

The Flora was designed specifically for the Galapagos.

It’s a smaller vessel that can hold up to one hundred people with all suite accommodations. The interior is bright and modern with plush, solid colored furniture, natural textured surfaces, and mottled abstract patterned carpets. The wood that gives the boat its signature look along its walkways and walls emphasizes the concept of the boat being of a piece with the world outside of it. The prow at the front is straight, but the vessel maintains a dynamic look befitting an epic journey with the blade-like graphics along its sides.

Sustainability is the guiding principle of the design of the boat and its own interaction with its destination. While it only manages fifteen percent better fuel efficiency it does have a specially engineered reverse osmosis system that converts sea water into fresh that covers all of the ship’s water needs. It even has a stationary system to eschew the use of anchors that would otherwise damage the sea floor. Multiple programs and labs are also available to help deepen your knowledge and appreciation of the wildlife and ecosystem. It’s a rare experience that matches its port of call.

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MODERN SPACES

5546 Charlestown Drive // $1,350,000 JANELLE ALCANTARA c. 214.455.6542 janelle@galaxymodern.com

6305 Tulip Ln // $2,349,000 BECKY FREY c. 214.536.4727 becky.frey@compass.com

1430 Junior Drive // $1,445,000 FAISAL HALUM c. 214.240.2575 fhalum@briggsfreeman.com

3352 Walchard // $699,000 KATHERINE NIESMAN c.469.734.7977 katherine@ebby.com

by J. Claiborne Bowdon

Living History

// photos: jason o’rear

Omniplan’s case study of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum begins with a question: “How can a building educate and change the world?” The homepage of the Museum itself seems to answer it: “It’s about humanity. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.”

Igneous Head, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 34 x 44 in

MATTHEW BOURBON MIND GATHERING OCTOBER 12–NOVEMBER 16

KIRK HOPPER FINE ART

DALLAS

Living History: the challenge of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum by J.Claiborne Bowdon The webpage for Omniplan’s case study of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum begins with a question- “How can a building educate and change the world?” The homepage of the Museum itself seems to answer it: “It’s about humanity. Yesterday.

Today. Tomorrow.” Omniplan is an architecture firm that has been shaping Dallas for over 60 years with private and public architecture projects, but something of this emotional and historical magnitude is a rare and deep responsibility. How does a building contend with the pain of confronting the atrocities of the Holocaust? It works to demonstrate both the

profound human toll of doing nothing when everything is at stake, and the hope that lashes against it when those that are not in harm’s way willingly put themselves in it for the sake of others.

The permanent exhibit is an experience- one that shapes the building itself and you as you pass through it. You begin with an orientation. The doors swing open automatically to a theater based on a timetable. You enter into a minimalist gray room with simple wooden benches. This room prepares you to understand and confront everything that proceeds from it in terms of the historical weight of what you’ll confront, and the visual aesthetics of the building.

The minimalism is a timeless approach to the look of the interior, but it’s also an intentional gesture to put what the building offers at the forefront.

The way the first two rooms operate is also useful in how it puts you in a frame of mind to truly understand everything that will proceed it, though likely unintentional in some respects; the automated nature of the doors that allow you into the theater, and then into the stairwell, give you the feeling of being at the mercy of an abstract force that you cannot control. Once you enter the stairwell from the theater you are shown a diorama of the beginning of the Jewish faith. From there lights and a voice entreat you to move up the stairs to the next landing, where the history of the Jews continue. Once you reach the third landing a video outlines the roots of the hatred and the stereotypes that have shaped the destiny of a people for thousands of years. You then proceed to a door where Hitler’s voice booms on the other side.

Once you pass through the door you’re confronted with the beginning of the Nazis. Everything is organized on a timeline from these moments and everything, in every corner of the world involved or touched by Nazis, is presented as you proceed through the halls of the timeline of the Holocaust. Placards and entire walls list each progression that would lead to the creation of the concentration and death camps, and the testimonies of those that experienced each of them are available to watch on video screens with personal earphones so that they can tell you their stories. The transition from the theater to the stairs to these hallways is a more obvious change in levels, but as you move from one part of the exhibit to another there are more subtle shifts in elevation. The building is less structurally and visually audacious than the initial concept renderings suggest it might have been: the

stairway that returns you to the lobby appears to have originally been envisioned as a small scale Guggenheim in concrete-but the building embraces itself without and within. Even the copper itself mimics the interior path of the permanent exhibit.

The choice of copper to crown the structure is as much philosophical as it is aesthetic. The copper, like the Statue of Liberty, will develop a patina over time, which is meant to symbolize “perseverance in weathering the storm.�

Copper has been chosen as a cladding for buildings for this reason before, the de Young Museum in San Francisco for instance, but this added layer of meaning is seen

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11 February 2020 Tuesday, 7 pm Horchow Auditorium, DMA

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dallas holocaust and human rights museum 300 n houston st, dallas, tx 75202 // 214.741.7500 // dhhrm.org through as the copper continues into the building itself, and joins you as you finish the journey of the permanent exhibit. The copper within the building will forever retain its brilliance, and will stand in juxtaposition against the rich green it will show on the outside – reminding us of itself and what it has endured.

It’s fitting that OmniPlan’s website asks a question, as we are all left with so many in the face of unspeakable horror.

How? Why? The museum succeeds in fulfilling its maxim to “Embrace ideals, challenge reality, participate in repair,” by connecting the cause of the Nuremberg trial, the need

to establish human rights to prevent or answer injustice, and even the injustices that would follow the Holocaust throughout the world. These moments in human history are not books on a shelf; they are not separate and contained. They have happened and are happening in the same place, which of course is the planet we all share. Time and geography are poor distinctions when considering the magnitude of what is inflicted on those who lose their lives, literally and figuratively, to unanswered hate. Distance, in all its forms, cannot separate us from this. Just this week a 93-year old that was a guard at the Stutthoff concentration camp will go on trial for thousands of crimes against humanity. Yesterday is not so far away as we think, and neither is tomorrow.

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modern

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calendar your modern

Modern events and activities make for fall fun around the Metroplex.

Fall Architectural Tour - Modern Masterpieces October 26, 2019// Preservation Dallas

360 Speaker Series: Anne Le Troter October 26, 2019 // Nasher Sculpture Center

365 Modern Living - Architecture is by Nimmo Architecture, Interior Design by William Nash Design.

November 19, 2019 // Dallas Architecture Forum

Evolving a Personal Style: The Architecture of Charles Dilbeck Through November 27, 2019 // ADEX

AIA Dallas 13th Annual Tour of Homes November 02-03 // AIA Dallas

The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō through Novmber 24 // Dallas Museum of Art

Architecture Walking Tours - Main Street District Walking Tour November 09, 2019 at 10am – 12pm // ADEX Dallas

Art for Advocacy 2019 November 09 at 6pm - 11pm // 7pm // Art for Advocacy at General Datatech

John Currin + Alicja Kwade + Jessica Vaughn Through December 22, 2019 // Dallas Contemporary

Elmgreen & Dragset: Sculptures Through January 05, 2020 // Nasher Sculpture Center

modern

art galleries

Modern art, exhibits, around the Metroplex.

Lucia Hierro Sean Horton through November 02

Tyler Shields Samuel Lynne galleries through November 06

Always Ever New Plush gallery through November 09

Samantha McCurdy + Jason Willaford Galleri Urbane through November 16

Tom Orr + Frances Bagley Barry Whistler Gallery through November 23

Ludwig Schwarz 214 Projects through November 23

Marcelyn McNeil + Annette Lawrence + Angel Oleshove Conduit Gallery through November 30

Structured SITE 131 // through December 14

William Steiger Holly Johnson Gallery // December 21

AIA 13th Tour of Homes

by Leah Shafer Glaser

// maestri studio // photo: jennifer mcneil baker

// morrison dilworth + walls // photo: charles davis smith faia

Step inside seven exceptional residences during Dallas’ only architect-curated, citywide home tour, AIA Dallas 13th Annual Tour of Homes.

This self-guided, two-day event showcases some of North Texas’ most celebrated architects and designers, giving an inside look at their extraordinary, innovative residential work, both new builds and renovations. From sculptural staircases and walls of windows to courtyards worth coveting, these seven homes offer a diversity of architectural styles, communities, and residences. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. November 2-3.

“This year’s homes are especially diverse, from size and style to age, location, and home type,” said Chris Anderson, AIA, a designer at Laura Juarez Baggett Studio, and 2019 AIA Dallas Tour of Homes co-chair. “Each of these homes is responsive to the unique design challenges posed by the landscape and owners’ lifestyles.”

The first home is designed by Eckxstudio for Modern Architecture at 4403 Sexton Lane in Preston Hollow.

A beautiful marriage of modern art, sculpture, and architecture, warm, subtle materials create the home’s modern aesthetic. The owners’ desired a comfortable and welcoming environment, and they succeeded.

The house’s asymmetrical exterior design takes cues from modern art, with an entryway courtyard, as well as a dark and light color palette. The house’s name, project: BARCODE, comes from an energetic, painted pattern across the front siding.

Located at 7147 Alexander Drive, house number two on the AIA Dallas Tour of Homes is a design of Maestri Studio.

Details of this modern Lakewood renovation include wood slat ceilings, steel columns, custom millwork, patterned wallpapers, and vintage inspired modern lighting and tile.

The owners paid homage to its 1952 origins while expanding it to two stories and 6,660 square feet with midcentury influences, pops of color, and patterns throughout.

One midcentury element is the strong connection between inside and outdoors. This is created in part through a bright and open floorplan, large amounts of

// a gruppo architects // photo: charles davis smith faia

natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows, and warm, natural materials.

Designed by A.Gruppo Architects, the house at 8920 Aldwick Circle is an Old Lake Highlands gem in East Dallas and the third house on the tour. Inspiration came from a mature oak tree in the front yard and context came from the surrounding wooded properties. The house’s brick and shake shingle siding is decidedly modern, but also fits into the neighborhood comfortably.

Inside, an H-shaped layout features an entry courtyard and a smaller private deck area in the back. On the ground floor, tour visitors will find the entry, kitchen, living room, dining room, small office, media room, and master bedroom suite. Upstairs are children’s rooms and bathrooms are upstairs.

House number four, an expansion of a 1960s ranch-style house to accommodate the needs of a young, growing family, sits at 5831 Caladium Drive. Designed by NIMMO, this residence offers a serene setting with mature trees in a North Dallas neighborhood.

Flexible, flowing spaces, asymmetrical vaulted ceilings, large hidden doors, and wide hallways facilitate the family’s day-to-day needs, as well as entertaining possibilities. They incorporated understated finishes and floor-to-ceiling glazing in many areas, creating a strong indoor-outdoor connection and calm environment.

The house at 3609 Cragmont Avenue, designed by SHM Architects, is perfect for its empty-nester owners.

They desired a place that could host grown children and guests, but not feel overwhelmingly large for daily living.

There is a clean, contemporary aesthetic, with an exterior clad in a combination of stucco, cut Mexican limestone, and metal siding. Inside, all the major public spaces, as well as the master bedroom, are situated around a small pool and courtyard.

The sixth house on the tour, designed by Morrison Dilworth + Walls, is at 7002 Clayton Ave. in East Dallas.

This modern space offers abundant natural light and the main living spaces and master bedroom are organized around a central courtyard. This allows increased and seamless indoor-outdoor living and entertaining. The design paid careful attention to the visibility of a red oak in the front yard, which the owners planted three decades ago.

The final tour on the tour sits at 20 Vanguard Way in northeast Dallas’ Urban Reserve, designed by Marek Architecture.

Clad in Tennessee Crab Orchard stone to tie it to the existing stone surrounding the pond, the house is a // shm architects // photo: nathan schroder photography

modern and earthy. It also features cedar siding, Douglas fir beams, and a Cor-Ten roof to further blend with the stone. Inside, natural elements continue, contrasting with crisp white walls.

A separately ticketed premiere party is Wednesday, October 30, from 6:30 – 9 p.m. Held at an eighth home not on the general admission tour, Taula House, designed by M Gooden Design. This party will feature passed hors d’oeuvres, open bar, meet-and-greets with the tour architects, and a general admission ticket to the tour.

Advance tickets to the AIA Dallas 13th Annual Tour of Homes are $30 for general admission, and $10 for individual homes. VIP tickets can be purchased for an additional $20. Premiere party general admission is $100 for the public and $75 for AIA Dallas members. There is an AIA Dallas Tour of Homes app downloadable on iTunes.

Proceeds from the tour benefit AIA Dallas, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which aims to advance architecture and design.

hometourdallas.com

// shm architects // photo: nathan schroder photography