Midcentury Houses Today

There are few towns anywhere like New Canaan, Connecticut-a small, bucolic town that in a short time transformed into an epicenter of residential Modernism in America. Close to Yale and other modernist hothouses, New Canaan became the site of fervent experimentation in its core principles-simplicity, openness, sensitivity to site and nature-by some of the leading lights of the movement in the United States at the time. This is where Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, Eliot Noyes, Edward Durrell Stone, and others built houses that would test these ideas and push the awareness of architectural modernism as the ideal for the domestic lifestyle of the twentieth century. Each chapter features one house in detail, revealing not only its history but also how the house is lived in today. All new photography will reveal key details in the original construction, its interaction with subsequent additions, and of course the effects that reinforce the relationship between modern design and modern living. The voices of the current residents, as well as past owners, clients, builders, and the architects, themselves are included in the book, each stating in their own way how the modernist residence is more than just a philosophy of design and construction, but also a philosophy of living.