from the road

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EDSA-NY STUDIO

FALL2017

from the road featuring....

ALBANY theCATSKILLS HUDSONRIVERVALLEY NEWCANAAN

the EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

NEW YORK

Living and working in New York City provides the studio with boundless sources of inspiration and design exploration. It is here that some of the country’s most prolific built works are located – the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Grand Central Terminal, The Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim. The father of our firm’s founder, Edward Durrell Stone, was a key player in the development of the pure modernist architecture in addition to fusing modern principles with BeauxArts styles which has since become a key part of the vernacular of New York City architecture and design.

It was after a road trip across the United States in the year 1940 that Stone began to develop his own unique perspective and fusion of architectural styles. He traveled across the country, taken with bucolic landscapes and growing dissatisfied with the strictness of the modern design principles he had previously subscribed to. After meeting with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, his studio in Wisconsin, Stone became inspired to explore “new forms that expressed a warmer architecture that was more rooted in American vernacular design.”

Following this same idea, we wonder how exploring the local region’s landscape on our own version of a modernist, American road trip could help us to further develop our own personal design philosophies. Moreover, this trip can help connect us to Ed Stone and Ed Stone Jr. by visiting some of their heritage projects and some of those which inspired them to formulate their own unique design approach.

Here are our findings!

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EDSA-NY STUDIO

FALL 2017

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THE REAL VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY CONSISTS NOT IN SEEKING NEW LANDSCAPES, BUT IN HAVING NEW EYES. -MARCEL PROUST

Late October, a view into the Catskill Creek Valley within New York’s Catskill Mountains -- showcasing the region’s rich display of fall foliage.

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

theINTENT

The route of our road trip was determined by locating key sites across the region intended to broaden our knowledge of 3 main guiding learning objectives.

1 ARCHITECTURE •

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Visit Ed Stone and Ed Stone Jr. heritage projects to become more familiar with their seminal works in the region Visit modernist sites to learn more about the style’s design principles and understand what might have informed Ed Stone’s own work

2 ART + DESIGN •

Take advantage of the rich art culture here in New York City and beyond – including seeing how art can be integrated and sited seamlessly and thoughtfully within a landscape

3 NATURE •

Learn more about the local region’s diverse ecology and geology – spanning from the coastal shores of New York City up to the rugged, rural Catskill Mountains

Map created to document the route of our roadtrip

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POINTS OF INTEREST

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Our points of interest were selected with an intent to provide a widerange of educational experiences & design style inspiration; both within the scope of landscape & beyond.

RECAP

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PEPSICO WORLD HQ

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THE GLASS HOUSE

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GRACE FARMS New Canaan, Connecticut

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KAATERSKILL FALLS

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OLANA HISTORIC ESTATE

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UNIVERSITY OF ALBANY

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STORM KING ARTS CENTER

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MANITOGA Garrison, New York

Purchase, New York

pages 8-11

New Canaan, Connecticut

pages 12-15

pages 16-17

Hunter, New York

pages 20-21

Hudson, New York

pages 22-25

Albany, New York

pages 26-31

New Windsor, New York

pages 34-37

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

Left to right: Hats Off by Alexander Calder, Passage by Richard Erdman

Left to right: The birch grove, employee dining terrace

Left to right: the NY Studio team, PepsiCo HQ Building and woodland path

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DAY 1

Purchase, New York

PEPSICO WORLD HQ W

e began our road-trip with a drive to one of EDSA’s landmark projects – PepsiCo’s World Headquarters in Purchase, New York.

After the celebrated success of his design for the General Motors Building, Edward Stone took on a series of corporate commissions including PepsiCo’s headquarters in Purchase.

Ed Stone’s son, landscape architecture Ed Stone Jr., designed the site’s expansive sculpture garden and surrounding landscape.

At 114 acres, the gardens include pastoral lawns, a large lake, adjacent woodlands, a birch grove, and more. Each of these garden rooms work to

create an interesting visitor experience in the shadow of Ed Stone Sr.’s classical modernist building.

As an avid art collector, the CEO of Pepsico Donald Kesndell felt that the company’s success “could be best reflected by a lushly landscaped park and a collection of modern sculpture” (Johnson and Frankel, Modern Landscape Architecture, 1991). Over the course of a decade, Stone Jr. sited these modern sculptures across the lush corporate office-park landscape, unlike any landscape of similar type/ scale. Quite significantly, in 2009. Pepsico won the American Society of Landscape Architects Landmark Award.

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Lush lawn areas provide visitors with pastoral views, at times reminiscent of a traditional English garden

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DAY 1

New Canaan, Connecticut

Andy Warhol at The Glass House, 1964-5 by David McCabe

GLASS HOUSE

Next we came to Phillip Johnson’s Glass House – an exciting work of classic modern architecture designed

by Philip Johnson in 1949 and showcasing industrial materials such as charcoal-painted steel and glass. Much of the furniture was a gift from friend and famed architect Mies van der Rohe and the landscape was designed by his partner, David Whitney.

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In addition to the Glass House, where Johnson spent weekends and holidays, the property includes a variety of other buildings including a brick guest house, a painting gallery, a sculpture gallery, a study and a gate house most of which are open to the public for guided tours and managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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ALL ARCHITECTURE IS SHELTER, ALL GREAT ARCHITECTURE IS THE DESIGN OF SPACE THAT CONTAINS, CUDDLES, EXALTS, OR STIMULATES THE PERSONS IN THAT SPACE.

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A view inside the sculpture gallery

-PHILIP JOHNSON

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Site Plan by Philip Johnson 14

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ARCHITECTURE IS THE ARRANGEMENT OF SPACE FOR EXCITEMENT. -PHILIP JOHNSON

Elevations by Philip Johnson, March 23, 1948

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New Canaan, Connecticut

Photo by Dea Kaufman

DAY 1

GRACE FARMS 16

Grace Farms, designed by SANAA and OLIN, was completed in 2015. It provides a number of multipurpose buildings within an 80 acre nature preserve. The facility is run by a non profit with the aim of providing the public with open space to interact with nature, foster community and promote justice.

A focus was placed on providing a native plant palette while also preserving and creating meadows, woods, wetlands, athletic fields, and playgrounds.

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“SANAA’s goal was to make the architecture of the River become part of the landscape without drawing attention to itself, or even feeling like a building, with the hope that those who are on the property will have a greater enjoyment of the beautiful environment and changing seasons through the spaces and experience created by the River.”

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

NIGHT 1

Hunter, New York

SCRIBNER’S CATSKILL LODGE

Our first night on the road, we were lucky enough to stay at Scribner’s Catskill Lodge. Opened in 1966 with extensive renovations finishing up in 2016, this lodge serves as a bespoke mountain destination within the heart of the Catskills. Given EDSA’s speciality within the hospitality industry, it was especially exciting to stay at

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a resort to experience firsthand the adaptive reuse and updating that is possible with talented designers and operations teams. In addition to 38 guest rooms, the lodge houses a locally-inspired restaurant as well as many communal lounge spaces, decks, and “over 20 acres of mountainside to explore.”

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Left: one of our favorite communal lounges at the lodge

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

DAY 2

Hunter, New York

KAATERSKILL FALLS

As it just so happened, the highest waterfall in New York State was just down the road from the lodge so we ventured on a 1/2 mile hike to Kaaterskill Falls. Along the way, bright fall foliage, moss covered rock and a smaller waterfall (Bastion Falls) at the trail head greeted

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us. Steep and rocky, the quick hike pays off in a big way with a 260 foot drop, divided into two free falls. This site has been a tourist attraction for centuries - gaining prominence as a landscape painted by Hudson River School artists, including Thomas Cole.

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“The falls’ name probably came from a later corruption of the name Catskill by English-speaking colonists of the early 18th century. ‘Cat’ could mean Bobcat or Mountain Lion, while ‘kill’ means stream in Dutch, the main language of the first European colonists of the 17th century.”

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I CAN MAKE MORE AND BETTER LANDSCAPES [BY DESIGNING OLANA] THAN BY TAMPERING WITH CANVAS AND PAINT IN THE STUDIO.

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-FREDERIC CHURCH

DAY 2

Hudson, New York

OLANA O

Through the last half of his life, Church took immense interest in the landscape of Olana. It is regarded by some as the single most important remaining Picturesque landscape in the United States.

The estate was built in 1872 amongst 250 acres of pristine forest, overlooking the Hudson River Valley, Taconic Mountain Range, and lower Catskill mountains. The house itself is an architectural gem, drawing inspiration from Church's wordly travels througout Persian and Moorish lands and is built of stone and brick with victorian-styled accents. Stencils adorn the house and were drawn by Church to recall trips he took to the Middle East.

Since 1965, the estate has been a designated National Historic Landmark. owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the Olana Partnership nonprofit group.

In 2017, landscape architecture Nelson Byrd Woltz was awarded an ASLA Honor Award for their Strategic Landscape Design Plan studies, which "provid[ed] the path for reactivating the historical relationship between the residence, its landscape, and the greater context of the Hudson Valley."

lana State Historic Site, former home of Frederic Edwin Church, one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting, was designed

by Calvert Vaux with gardens by Church.

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Top: Frederic Jr’.s 1886 Plan of Olana Bottom: Winter Sunset from Olana, c. 1871-72, by Frederic Edwin Church. Oil on academy board, Collection Olana State Historic Site, NYSOPRHP

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

DAY 2

Albany, New York

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ay 2 ended at SUNY Albany, Uptown Campus which bears the unique post-modernist architectural design of Edward Durell Stone, replete with curving arches, slender modern columns, open spaces and fountains.

Designed between 1961 and 1962, The University of Albany Uptown Campus aimed to draw more students to the school and to establish it as a cutting-edge, world-class instituion. Working closely with then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Stone proposed something vaguely remniscent of an "ancient greek university." Rockefeller was taken with this proposal and thus selected it for construction over the many other competing proposals.

Stone aimed to unifiy the various disciplines across the university by connecting them with a grand podium. Vehicular circulation was pushed to the perimeter of the campus, creating a pedesrian-centric heart where dormotories were sited within close proximity to academic buildings - promoting a comfortable and convienent live/work dynamic. Stone explains, "This compact plan also allowed us to dispel the idea that a student should have to put on an overcoat and overshoes and struggle through a blizzard from a lecture on biology toa lecture on English.�

UNIVERSITY OF ALBANY

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Colonnades, domes and fountains provide an iconic design language which has come to define U.Albany’s Uptown Campus.

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Above & right: Construction photos of the academic podium at U.Albany in 1965. (U.Albany archives)

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[UNIVERSITY OF ALBANY CAMPUS] WAS A GRAND VISION OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE, AND IN THAT ERA THAT’S WHAT ARCHITECTS DID.

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-BENJAMIN HICKS STONE 31

EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

NIGHT 2

Germantown, New York

GATHERWILD RANCH

“Spread out on 75 acres of rolling hills in the Hudson Valley, Gatherwild Ranch offers a space for every human to do their best life work, including no work. We embrace the slow life here, inspired by grassy picnics, evening bonfires and star gazing.

Gatherwild provides unique shelters with simple yet luxurious interiors, where we encourage you to sit back and stay for a while.”

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Dusk at Gatherwild Ranch

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

DAY 3

New Windsor, New York

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e started off Day 3 at one of the most magnificent sculpture parks in the Northeast: Storm King Art Center.

Over the last 50 years, Storm King Art Center has welcomed tourists from across the world to enjoy the resplendant views of Storm King Mountain as well as native flora, sweeping meadows, rolling hills, woodlands, great lawns across 500 acres. Throughout this pictureesque landscape, we interacted with thoughtfully, exiicitingly sited sculptures from a wide array of leading artists.

William Rutherford was comissioned by Storm King's founders to create a subtle-yet-dramatic, pastoral landscape. With a poigniant dedication to native plant species, the landscape offers a wonderful education in New York's plant palette and its application within native grass meadows, allees, and woodlands.

STORM KING ART CENTER

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Counterclockwise from top left: Suspended by Menashe Kadishman, Three-Fold Manifestation II by Alica Aycock. Untiltled by Joe Shapiro, Mon Père Mon Père by Mark di Suvero, Storm King Wall by Andy Woldsworthy, & Three Leggged Buddah by Zhang Huan

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

Below: Wave Hill by Maya Lin Right: Mirror Fence by Alyson Shotz

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

DAY 3

Garrison, New York

MANITOGA

Manitoga, Estate and modernist home of designer Russel Wright, introduced the team to some interesting works of industrial design as well as a prime example of what it might look like to live in harmony with nature. Built of mostly reclaimed materials in an abandoned quarry pit, the estate is an exemplary work of sustainable living 38

which came at a time when the concept was not widely recognized or prioritized. Wright worked with the land’s typography and geology to create a magical landscape: including redirecting a stream to a designed waterfall, tucking the house into a native rock outcrop, and utilizing the quarry pit as a one-of-a-kind swimming pond.

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EDWARD STONE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

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AS THE ASSEMBLY LINE ENCROACHES MORE AND MORE ON OUR WORKING LIFE, CROWDING OUT INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE EXPRESSION, THE NEED FOR A HOME IN WHICH WE CAN REALIZE OURSELVES AS INDIVIDUALS BECOMES INCREASINGLY URGENT.

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-RUSSEL WRIGHT

Left: Wright during Dragon Rock’s construction (Manitoga Inc.) Center: The quarry pool, Dragon Rock, location of the main building & the waterfall (Manitoga Inc.) 40

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Floor plan by architect David Leavitt

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