Total Design

HILL HOUSE Helensburgh, Scotland Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1902-4

Saarinen’s watercolor plan of the house, superimposed on the organizing grid, depicts the furnishings of the public areas. The front door is at the bottom, with the dining area at right, the conversation pit in the center, and the den at left.

What Mackintosh had built for the Blackies, he said, was a “Dwelling House,” and as such he had been careful to make it simple, functional, and comfortable, an up-to-date expression of Arts and Crafts ideals. But Hill House is more than a simple utilitarian dwelling. With its woodwork, furniture, lighting, textiles, household objects, and stenciled decoration also conceived by the architect himself, it is an inspiring example of a restrained, but fully orchestrated, total design. The house is suffused with Mackintosh’s decorative vocabulary, one that finds unity in the play of opposites: dark and light, black and white, masculine and feminine (as was then understood), plain and ornamented, geometric and organic. Working with the vision of a modern architect, Mackintosh established the layout of the interior spaces first (not the façade as had been customary in the nineteenth century), and he was able to arrange the small and intimate rooms off a luminous central hall designed for easy circulation. The ground floor has three principal rooms: library and dining room with dark paneling, male domains, and in between, a drawing room with a windowed, sunny alcove and a music corner, white, light, and feminine. Upstairs, reached from the cylindrical tower that encloses the central staircase and through a dark hall, is the bright master bedroom, painted all over in white and similarly feminine in its decor. The central hall, four steps up from the entryway, emphasizes the structural system at the heart of the house, with beams exposed and tall vertical planks that serve as the balusters of the staircase. Here the decorative elements you see throughout the interior are introduced,

Kiley designed a landscape of many options, not predetermined paths or precise vistas.

TUGENDHAT HOUSE Brno, Czech Republic Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1928-30

The garden side of the house shows the window wall of the main living area and above, the parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bedroom block. The upper terrace, with its bronzed column, is laid out with planters, circular bench, and a sandbox.

SAARINEN HOUSE Utrecht, The Netherlands Designed by Gerrit Rietveld 1924-25

Previous spread. TK TK sitting area of Mies van der Rohe’s

This spread. TK TK sitting area of Mies van der Rohe’s Tu-

Tugendhat house glows as the castle above the city of

gendhat house glows as the castle above the city of Brno

Brno catches the last sun of the day.

catches the last sun of the day.

THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE AT THE CRANBROOK ACADEMY of Art, which the Finnish-born architect Eliel Saarinen designed as part of his master plan for the school and lived in from 1930 until his death in 1950, has its footing on two continents. European in its brick row-house format, its elegant Art Deco furnishings, and its reference to the traditional crafts of Finland, it was built of local materials and fitted out almost solely by craftspeople at the Cranbrook school. Saarinen, artist as well as architect, paid particular attention to the design of furnishings and

Previous page. The sitting area of Mies van der Roheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tugendhat house glows as the castle above the city of Brno catches the last sun of the day. This page and following. With the luminescent glass wall, the travertine pavement, and the fine rosewood paneling, the entry to the house prepares the visitor for the restrained luxury on the floor below.

MILLER HOUSE Columbus, Indiana Designed by Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard, and Dan Kiley 1953-57

Saarinenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s marble dining table, eight feet in diameter, has a fountain and flower pool at its center. The blownglass ceiling light is an Italian fixture designed by Paolo Venini.

The lounge chair in the den is one of a number of pieces of furniture by Girard’s colleagues Charles and Ray Eames that he chose for the house. Girard’s checkerboard carpet and colorful curtain fabric enliven the children’s common area, which was converted to an office for Xenia after they were grown.

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