11 July 2014
Cape Cod Modern tells a fascinating story: that of a bay which in the 1930s began to attract a group of artists, intellectuals and architects, becoming a point of reference in the international debate. It is the tale of a unique freedom of expression, of semi-abandoned cottages that in the summer came to life with dinners and endless discussions, of love affairs, solitary strolls and dips in a sea as gray as steel. Walter Gropius was the first to rent a house: he was followed by his friends from the Bauhaus, from Marcel Breuer to László Moholy-Nagy. And then, year after year, the colony gained new members: the Saarinens, Arshile Gorky, Max Ernst and his wife Peggy Guggenheim, the cartoonist of the New Yorker Saul Steinberg and the historian Arthur Schlesinger. As for the pictures, the volume shows us the houses designed by the architects who were drawn to the Cape between 1938 and 1977: the result is an epic of American modernism and a paean to nature. The houses, like their inhabitants, blend into the surroundings, creating a series of examples of radical design scattered through the woods like secret gems. Raimund Koch’s photographs are accompanied by texts by Peter McMahon and Christine Cipriani. Foreword by Kenneth Frampton. Published by Metropolis Books.
Serge, Barbara, Ivan, and Peter Chermayeff at their new home on Slough Pond, ca. 1944. The curtain is a makeshift privacy screen to shield the house from the road. The Chermayeffs’ sons have achieved their own renown in the design world, Ivan as a graphic designer and Peter as an architect.
Serge Chermayeff, Chermayeff Studio, Wellfleet (1952), north facade as originally built, with four bays and semi-open porch.
Hammarström’s fireplace, a triangular shell of sheet metal fashioned by an old shipbuilder, was among Wellfleet’s best-looking failed design experiments—it filled the room with smoke. Burlap covers the wall behind the fireplace; the sling chairs are Hammarström’s design.
Lunch is served on the suspended porch with a view of three ponds.
Walling framed his modern living room in the 400-year-old saltbox form (a gabled roof extended downward on the back side), creating an asymmetrical cathedral ceiling. Grounded by natural materials—cool slate, a brick fireplace surrounded by a wall of reclaimed stained-wood siding—the room draws in the outdoors with walls of glass.
Photographs taken on Ryder Pond, Truro, ca. 1945. Gropius, Schawinsky’s assistant, and Schawinsky.
Walter and Ise Gropius on beach.
Nestled among pitch pines at the corner of Route 6 and Cove Road in Wellfleet, Hammarström’s Chapel of St. John the Fisherman (1957) was his most acclaimed work. Nodding to local building tradition, Hammarström clad the bell tower in cedar shingles.
Kepes House (1949), west side, facing Long Pond.
The Colony’s main building on Chequessett Neck Road, with sand-cast bas-relief by Xavier González. The cement relief panels on the left shield a garden terrace.
Edgar Stillman, ca. 1954, catches the breeze on the entrance ramp.
The Kugel/Gips House during restoration, 2009.
Hatch House viewed from the kettle hole, or glacial depression, that separates it from the barrier dune.
In 1962, the Hammarström House was published in Interiors magazine, where photographs by Ezra Stoller immortalized the brilliance of Marianne Strengell’s textiles. A rarely closed set of sliding barn doors forms the main entrance, drawing back the curtain on a surprise ocean view. Another barn door opens at the back, forming a breezeway that connects the winter wing (not shown) and the oak-floored living room to the right.
