John Lautner's Silvertop

The Bavinger House: Art vs. Architecture

 

Most architects care deeply about the quality of their building designs in whatever way they seek it.  It’s a complex, elusive issue, and one that can involve many different levels of successive, even invisible, realities. On the surface can be found a building’s fundamental pragmatics—issues relating to the site, codes, user needs, cost, etc. from which almost all three-dimensional translation can be readily gleaned. At this level, design can sometimes seem relatively easy, with some misguided designers willing to believe that such is “all there is” to meaningful design.

 

Deeper issues, those of a more symbolic, psychological, philosophical nature (the building’s   user-process, its symbolic purpose, its appropriate presence within its context (nature, community etc.) can be as difficult to understand as they are to manifest. They often can demand a more sophisticated and determined approach from the designer.

 

A building’s definition—one of the most profound ways that we conceive a project—is just such a primary factor in design. It has a significant purpose to the designer, that of condensing the myriad criteria-factors, (that can overwhelm a noble, overall idea) and providing simpler, more straightforward, comprehensible synopses, images, or visions. It can more effectively guide the designer in the early stages of their growing project comprehension.

 

Defining, for example, a proposed bathing facility as an “exotic center for social discourse,” can—especially when fully functionally appropriate—narrow a designer’s parameters and “set the tone” to better envision a detailed elegance as it proceeds into greater detail. A proposed residence as a “refuge” (from society, fire, earthquake, etc.) or as a “celebration of democracy” are alternates to what is, in reality, an infinite list of possibilities

 

Essentially, technically, all buildings are designed in ways that follow the designer’s definitions, whether right, wrong, good, bad, consciously known, or otherwise. The possible potential here for quality rests almost entirely on whether they are conscious and rational pursuits or, conversely, those inadvertent influences outside of the designer’s awareness and control. This fact alone can be the determining factor for any eventual degree of architectural quality.

 

There is no better example of the importance of these principles—and their easy predilection to success or failure—than the Bavinger house, a uniquely striking project, built in 1955 in Norman, Oklahoma. It was designed by noted architect Bruce Goff (the then Director of Design at the school of architecture, at the local University of Oklahoma) with an especially close participation by the clients: Eugene Bavinger (a practicing artist and professor of art at the university) and his wife, Nancy Bavinger (a practicing artist in the community).

  

My personal experience
   In 1957, soon after the building’s completion, I had the privilege of an in-person meeting with Bruce Goff. I had recently graduated from UC Berkeley and was, with my wife, touring the U.S., seeking prominent architects of renown, and their works of architecture, and he was definitely on our list. We met in his office/studio/residence (in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower) in Bartlesville, OK. Our meeting was delightful; he set aside ample time and included his two employees as we discussed mutual friends, his architecture, and architecture in general. He was as inspiring as he was charming, and it was certainly a memorable experience.

   Since the newly completed Bavinger house was fresh on his mind, he urged us to make the drive to Norman to see it, even being willing to call ahead to formalize the meeting — an offer we could not refuse. When we arrived, we were similarly, graciously received by both of the Bavingers, with an enhanced credibility of a “special” guest. We were able to fully examine the building’s grounded, nature-based exterior, its imaginative and spacious interior, and listen to the many stories about its construction adventures and challenges. At such time, my relative inexperience in architecture prevented all but the most superficial assessment of its merits, yet we succeeded at appreciating it as most did, for the rare, unprecedented, and creative quality it richly demonstrated.

 

  

 

DESCRIPTION

The building’s site, 8 acres of scenic pond, creek, and trees in the rustic suburbs 5 miles outside downtown Norman, featured four distinct seasons: hot summers, snowy and icy-cold winters, and a relatively mellow spring and fall. Goff’s overall role in the design was seemingly as the professional interpreter, translating the client’s lofty objectives through his unique creativity and into its inspired architectural form. Eugene’s role was to be the “general contractor” (yet having no experience in the field) while Nancy’s was to manage several of the building’s sub-projects (the indoor landscaping, the fishpond, etc.) and provide the many needed, basic, domestic services. The three of them enjoyed an on-going, unique working bond singularly united to the endeavor and its resultant design excellence.

         Bavinger House Floor Plan                                            Bavinger House Ground Floor

                       

The design—technically a “2BR, 1B single family suburban residence”—saw, in its eventual outcome, a sensational, unprecedented, award-winning creation of international renown. Defined, in primary part, with a dedicatedly rich connection to nature, it sought to be a celebration of connected family life in a fully inspired artistic context and certainly become a cutting-edge, enlightened work of architecture.

 

Form Systems

Bavinger House Isometric View

 

Its fundamental layout was made up of two distinctly separate form-systems: a primary one comprised of three sub-parts: (1) an all-encompassing overall space encapsulated by a spiraling ultra-rustic rubble-stone wall that began at a three-story height and widened as it “unwound,” down to a seven feet height at the building entrance; (2) a roof that rested on top of the outer wall and butted against the inner one, spiraling down from an almost vertical (apex) position above to a flat one over and down to the entrance; and (3) a flagstone ground floor with three level changes of approximately 18” to 24” each (to follow the site contours) embellished with a large, exotic indoor planter and fishpond. Within this system, only the functions of a subdued entry and kitchen alongside a contrasting, moderately celebrated and extroverted dining functions were accommodated. Nature, and its direct, overall connectedness to the users, was the primary theme here.

  

The secondary form-system existed within the primary space as a series of five 10’-9” diameter “pods” or “saucers” with their accompanying 5’ diameter storage cylinders, each projecting, “floating” (yet secretly being suspended by almost-invisible steel cables attached to an elevated, central steel post) from the core of the stone wall spiral. They began 3’ above the ground floor and spiraled upward in 3’ vertical increments, progressively approaching the upper, outer wall and, with the final pod #5, eventually, dramatically, penetrating it, in part, out and into the natural out-of-doors, now three stories above grade.

 

Each pod/cylinder unit was purposed to serve its own separate, household function: Pod #1 was a lounging circle; pod #2 facilitated adult sleeping (with the double bed sunken into the floor and flush with its surface); pod #3 was a child-play area (for their two sons, Bill and Bob); pod #4 was for children’s sleep and an almost exact replica of pod #2: and pod #5, the upper-most one, was made flush with the modest, third floor level of the overall building, and enjoyed a 200% increase in area and served as Eugene’s office and painting studio.

 

Bathing purposes were singularly facilitated at the modest second floor level tucked in-between the ground floor and the third (studio) floor, within the “inner coil” of the stone wall spiral. It had its own separate stair access from the ground floor, with a toilet, shower, and small lavatory; it was finished with elaborate, exotic, ceramic tiling in the spirit of Spain’s “Antonio Gaudi.”

 

The building’s overall fenestration was generally treated as “gaps” between other systems: the stone walls at the entrance, the edges between the roof and the stone walls, and random places where the masonry was abruptly omitted (as a “hole” in the wall).

 

 

ANALYSIS

Altogether, the design was perhaps the most unique, creative, “avant-garde” artistic residence in the world. In 1955, it was published in Life magazine; in 1987, Goff received the AIA “25-year award” for its design excellence; in 2001, the building was given a listing in the National Register of Historic Places. These recognitions, alongside the many others of less official status, combined to underline the unique importance placed on this work by the world audience.

 

Unfortunately, as can often be the case with building design, the Bavinger house, at a deeper, sometimes less visible level, suffered especially significant dysfunction. The theories, principles, and attitudes that made up its essential definitions, policies, concepts, and strategies resulted in so many conflicts between form and function that its ability to serve its users, even minimally, became almost unsupportable. And this reality—for primary purposes of acknowledging “truth in all things,” of learning from its profound lessons, and deepening the comprehension of design by students and other aspirants—is the deeper purpose of this essay.

 

Equally unfortunate is the fact that any hope for a sufficiently comprehensive analysis for this project, where one might be able to comprehensively address the important, deeper issues that surround this noble objective, is long gone. The building has been removed, its designers have all passed away and the ensuing years have erased substantial volumes of critical information. And yet, the general need for examples, “lessons to learn by” for educational purposes exists more now than ever; in addition, the Bavinger house offers its own unique magnitude in this noble pursuit. In light of this dilemma, and in order to proceed in perhaps the only remaining way, the following two policies arise:

a)     Gather as much as is reasonably possible of the existing factual data that can be gleaned from today’s scattered, piecemeal records, and,

b)    Postulate, with as much common sense as is reasonably possible, the implied, inferred, rationally presumed intentions, purposes, and motivations of those involved in the building’s creation.

 

Finally, many of the observations that follow might be controversial, even offensive, to at least some of the many dedicated admirers of Bruce Goff, and the Bavinger house. Their historic community of adherents has invested much in their heart-felt thoughts and feelings, and any suggestion of an “error” in their views, regardless of any possible validity, might still result in defensive reaction.  Some may need time to “process,” while others may never be able to relent in any way. In sympathy for this understandable circumstance, the observations that follow will be as empathically tempered as possible.

  

Contradictions

Connection to Nature.    Our critique might begin, then, with the project’s broadest overview, and observe two unrelated yet similarly significant dysfunctional features of its implied definition of primary objectives. The first, most striking one raises questions about one of the project’s deepest stated purposes. While the project’s primary form-system made emphatically clear, in so many ways, that the building’s design definition was in support of a noble user-focused acknowledgement and celebration of their fundamental connectedness to nature, the subtle, tangible reality of the overall facilitations strongly suggested otherwise. The ground floor, for example, with its generous stone paving and stone walls, indoor planter, and fishpond, etc., was where most of the “nature” saw focus, yet it utilized only a minimal number of user-facilitations, (the entry, and the kitchen/dining areas) that would be able to enjoy such connectedness.

 

Conversely, the great majority of the project’s remaining user-facilitations occurred within the secondary form system, specifically the five pod/cylinder units that spiraled up and out from the stone wall. Each of these, to their own degree, was significantly isolated, detached, not only from each other, but also even more so from the “nature-based” ground floor … aloof, disdainful perhaps, reminiscent of seeking refuge in a treetop in a dangerous, wild jungle—certainly a significant contradiction to the project’s fundamental objectives with a resulting, compromised project credibility.

 

Privacy. The project’s second overall “significant dysfunctional feature” contradiction exists alongside the first and shifts the focus to their oversimplified policy of “no rooms and no doors” as a reaction to the conventional practice of designing housing that is oppressively comprised of separate rooms, each with its own lockable door. This gave an over-emphasis of privacy and tended to foster a strict formalization of each function, and an accompanying isolation that could often be disconcerting.

 

The Bavinger house reacted to this in the extreme, and became a household that determinedly forbade privacy, allowing almost no facilitation of even the user’s most fundamental, most natural needs for such. Its facilitation of bathing, for example, perhaps the most private of all its domestic functions, may have been somewhat of an exception—since its degree of privacy (except for the curtained entry) was fairly normal and realistic—but only partially so. When its user-process progressed, however, to its co-activity, “dressing,” it was abruptly mandated to occur on a pod, at its cylinder/wardrobe, in full view of the primary space. Such contradiction, such inconsistency, would have brought a subtle, invisible chaos to the building’s lifestyle experience.

 

Conversely, less obvious, but similarly meaningful was the building’s ineffectual “provision” of privacy’s opposite—the various degrees of “community,” of positive social interaction that all humans, throughout each day, naturally need. The project’s generous ground floor, made grandiose by its vast, three-storied overhead space, would have been an excellent opportunity as a prominent, glorious, and well located, dramatic gathering place. Unfortunately, such usage here was thwarted at every turn:  its “clutter” of planters, fishponds, floor-level changes, and the headroom encroachment by the first and second pod/cylinder systems combined to leave no meaningful area for legitimate social purposes. All that realistically remained, as any barely meaningful facility for socialization within the building occurred at either the dining table or pod/cylinder #1, with each being of similar, yet limited size and narrow facilitation.

 

The Bavinger house thus essentially reneged on its “promise” to be nature-based as well as to provide healthy degrees of needed privacy/community. The result must have yielded—inside the user’s daily psychology—a subconscious need to “fend for themselves” as they navigated their way around the many unsupportive inconsistencies that would naturally result from such well-intended yet deeply misconceived definition.

 

Heating and Cooling

Providing heating and cooling, throughout the seasons—a task that every residence is obliged to address—saw, in the Bavinger house, its own dysfunctional responses. The summer and early autumn seasons, the months of excessive heat, would have seen a relatively benign impact. The massive stone wall, the indoor planter, the fishpond, and its modest solar intake, would have undoubtedly brought a significant, meaningful ambient cooling effect that would have needed little additional support.

 

Come winter, however, with the full fury of its wind, rain, snow, and ice—alongside a diminished sunlight—new and opposingly negative challenges would have quickly emerged. The uninsulated rubble stone wall, with its R-value of only 1 or 2 (instead of the normal 15 to 21) and a thermal mass that would have gobbled up most of the available radiant heat throughout the space (including that from the bodies of the user-occupants). Its coarsely textured (outside) surface would have featured myriad “shelves” upon which rainwater would collect and determinedly permeate its natural porosity, entering and humidifying the building’s interior, and bringing significant condensation, mildew, mold, insects, etc. alongside an overall “dinginess” throughout its general ambience; (Nancy was allegedly able to successfully grow orchids against the stone wall with only this humidity as their source of water).

 

The (uninsulated) roof, with its inspired and similarly spiraling configuration, could never have succeeded at properly flashing itself against the extreme irregularity of the stone wall’s outer surface. Its upper reaches that grew progressively more vertical presented, as well, their own stunningly impossible flashing challenges, with even more leaks, more humidity, staining, moss, mold, and dry rot.

 

The general flagstone ground-floor area, with its large planter, fishpond, and single-glazed entry would, of course, have compounded these problems. Its vast, three-story overall space, would, at different times, see either a stratification of the enclosed air, with warmer air above and colder below, and pollutants (cooking products, woodstove smoke, etc.) hovering lazily at their appropriate strata. On other occasions, it would have resembled a “cloud chamber,” with warmed air from below gathering moisture and rising, by natural convection, to the upper areas of increasing cold, and condensing into liquid water on every surface available.

 

There were, in fact, efforts to alleviate this dilemma by providing heat for the space. The more innovative one involved placing, during the construction of the concrete floors, a series of standard sheet metal roof-gutter downspout tubes atop a previously poured rough concrete slab, then later pouring a second slab over them, with the intention of forcing heated air through them (“Air-floor”), thus heating the floor, and then proceeding to exhaust the remaining partially spent air into the overall space through grilles at the floor’s perimeter. Ideally, this could have provided a pleasant radiant heat from the slab itself, with the remaining convective heat entering the upper space to bring its own warming relief to the upper areas. Unfortunately, during the second slab pour, the inexperienced student construction crew inadvertently dislodged many of the ducts during the placement without sufficient time for correction. As a result, much of this system—with such a promising potential—became irreversibly compromised and introduced another unfortunate dysfunction to the building.

 

The furnace appliance unit that provided the heated air, located on the ground floor deep in the recesses of the kitchen area, seemingly utilized a conventional forced-air circulation system, pushing the heated air through the system, then “pulling” it back into the “return air” register at the base of the unit, to be then reheated and recirculated.

 

At the bottom line, however, such a system’s efficacy is a moot issue; while such a clever idea may have been somewhat beneficial (when properly executed), it would have been readily overwhelmed by the extreme heat losses of the building’s envelope and quickly rendered disappointingly insufficient toward any reasonable degree of thermal comfort.

 

Finally, in retrospect, had the under-slab downspout tubes not been disrupted, and had there been a large return air duct, extending from the upper reaches of Eugene’s studio at the third floor down two floors to the back of the furnace, the heated air (at the perimeter of the ground floor) would be obliged to rise all the way to the top of the space before it could enter this duct and be returned to the furnace, there would have been an excellent distribution of heated air and a much dryer, more effective, overall environment. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of such incorporation.

 

The second alternative heat source featured two separate, almost identical wood stoves (suggesting that one was inadequate?) in close proximity, on the ground floor. When fully utilized, such a combination could certainly have provided some welcome radiant heat as well as even a modest amount of convection heat rising to the upper areas.  Functionally, however, such welcome thermal contribution would have demanded, in order for it to even minimally  work, significant provisions for firewood, kindling, newspapers, matches, ash removal, stoking tools … and a daily process of refueling with fresh firewood. Also, once utilized, its cozy appeal would have called for its own facilitation of tables, chairs, shelves, lamps, reading paraphernalia, TV, stereo, blankets, etc.

 

In its reality, with regards to these many functions and purposes, the Bavinger house revealed no facilitations at all towards any such purposes. The stoves sat there, naked, isolated, with an almost surreal, impersonal abstraction of any legitimacy, awaiting the frigid winters as an ill-conceived, last-minute provision of desperately needed additional heat.

 

Ventilation

The vast space provided by the primary form-system appears to have had no provision for ventilation, neither natural nor mechanical. No (screened) windows to open during the hot summer nights, or whenever the inside air needs refreshing, or simply to admit the pleasant sounds and smells of outdoor natural ambience. Its inherent, spatial “stack effect” would have presented an easy opportunity for a natural convective circulation; with an air inlet at the ground floor, and an outlet at the upper levels, a welcome cooling effect would have occurred that would concurrently relieve the oppressive ambience of living in a “sealed-up chamber.” The only existing recourse, then—if any such ventilation was desired—would have been to open the main entry door and the upper, mid-level one at the suspended bridge, bringing another ill-conceived, clumsy, quasi-resolution alongside a new set of dysfunctions to acknowledge and address.

 

 

USER FUNCTIONS

The functional usage, the “user-process,” of the somewhat extravagant ground floor presented its own list of dysfunctions, despite the fact that so few of the overall household functions were located there. The kitchen itself was strangely concealed, tucked in behind the inner coils of the spiral stone wall and giving its food handlers (Nancy?) an uninspired, confined isolation from anyone else within the building. With the dining room table, some 25’ away and focused primarily on socialized criteria, it became “around the corner” to the pragmatic purposes of food preparation and service and possibly making a subtle acquiescence to conventional issues of status and class, even within the confines of such a small, tight-knit domestic scenario.

 

The dining function/area was the only primary facilitation on the ground floor, and it alone was given an excess of emphasis of the ground floor’s nature-based objectives. When not in use, it retained its “look” of generosity, as a socially inclusive circle surrounded by an exotic   nature-based stage set, exuding images of hearty gatherings, friendship, and goodwill.

 

The actual fact of using it, however, presented several subtle dysfunctions that would have clearly compromised, even spoiled, such a well-intended idea. The table and its seating (without backs) were both “built-in,” fixed in their position and thus unable to be meaningfully adjusted to the varying comfort needs of each guest. Worse was the fact that it was facilitated as a “booth,” where guests were obliged to seat themselves sequentially, getting into a half-squat while cumbersomely working their way around to the other end of the table. Even worse was that whenever any guest needed to remove themselves in mid-meal, there would have been a need to ask those seated “upstream” to either similarly remove themselves, or endure an almost clumsy, embarrassing scramble over their laps, shoes, etc., coming and going, each time.

 

The Pods  

The pods, with their associated storage cylinders (the secondary “form-system”), presented their own extensive list of functional misconceptions. Beginning with the almost astonishing premise that a series of five identical form-systems could ever hope to appropriately facilitate even one of the widely disparate purposes assigned to them. Such a notion flies in the face of common sense, of the universal, fundamental “form follows function” architectural principle, and even Frank Lloyd Wright’s “organic” principles that Goff so regularly espoused; it became a recipe for the extensive dysfunctions that did, in fact, follow. Such an oversight not only directly risks failure, it puts into question the deeper substance of a project’s overall design process and compromises the integrity upon which any kind of meaningful architecture depends.

 

Pod #1 (socializing, lounging), positioned three feet above the ground floor and purposed with the task of facilitating most of the primary social and lounging functions, became—partly due to the predetermined reality of the pod’s formalized presence—face to face with an unreasonable magnitude of problems: its modest size allowed only a limited number of occupants (with no viable alternatives elsewhere). And, had a functional essential such as a “coffee table” been provided within the circle, the result would have seen the same dysfunctional conflicting of the “booth” already manifested at the dining table. Furthermore, the puzzling omission of the many furnishings typically associated with such normal lounging functions (lamps, bookshelves, TV, stereos, coat hooks, etc.) would have denied its users a significantly improved, more realistic facilitation. This, however, would not have been able to fit into the assigned space (and would, of course, have spoiled the artistic “integrity”).

 

Pod #2—adult sleeping. While the elaborate curtain that encircled the pod might have succeeded at addressing some of its more direct privacy needs, others (acoustics, ambience, even fundamental “morality,” etc.) went ignored. The questions surrounding the boys’ regular exposure to their parent’s deepest personal interactions can certainly be, to some extent, debated but will always remain a complex matter that cannot be entirely dismissed. Bottom line, their emotional development was whatever it became, and yet perhaps another consequence of artistic priority.

 

The bed’s recess into the floor, made flush with the adjacent surfaces, covered with a matching carpeted “bedspread,” (hoping it to seemingly “disappear”) was certainly a clever, artistic idea that primarily served to preserve the pod’s geometric, artistic purity of form. Its functional consequences were, unfortunately, not without significant sacrifice. While overall the floor surface had the appearance of being smooth and unassuming, its hidden reality was otherwise: traversing its expanse would have been, of course, perfectly firm around the pod floor’s surrounding the bed’s perimeter, yet any errant step onto the bed itself would bring an abrupt, much softer, and precarious surprise. Even worse, if the user were to inadvertently lodge their foot into the gap between the edge of the bed and the wall of the recess, a greater threat to the user’s safety would occur. Finally, such a complex gauntlet of hazardous potential could very well subconsciously preoccupy the user’s mind and foster a generalized anxiety towards simply being on the pod. Finally, the activity of “making the bed” would have been a completely absurd insult to the user’s fundamental dignity.

 

The storage cylinder at this specific pod served as a clothes-closet to facilitate the dressing/undressing functions of Eugene and Nancys’ lifestyle. Its internal facilitations being presumably a circular, rotating system featuring the usual coat hanger/clothes pole configuration, would have encountered a significant flaw in its conceptualization: while the outside circumference would have been an acceptable approximate of 16’, it is the inside circumference, at the inside edge of the hanging garments, that truly controls the closet’s capacity. In the Bavinger house, this would have been a paltry 3’ or so, or enough to accommodate only 5-6 articles of clothing each for Eugene and Nancy.

 

Furthermore, properly facilitating the many sub-processes associated with even the most fundamental criteria towards the intended purposes on this pod, incorporating all of the legitimately needed activities in order to facilitate their functions even minimally—while being ever-cognizant of the risk of a fall off the floor’s edge (even considering the makeshift afterthought of fishnet “safety measures” being in place)—would have demanded a significantly altered, larger configuration.

 

Pod #3—child play—facilitated perhaps the most benign form-function interaction, since its purposes can be treated more casually with a wider variety of reasonable interpretations of appropriate activities. Considering the very real, specific needs of two growing boys, however, without adequate lighting, storage, surfaces to work on, for display or partitioning, etc., it. Would quickly fail at its intended objective.

 

Pod #4 (the boys’ sleeping) Became an essentially exact replica of Pod #2 with most of the same dysfunctions, even adding some new ones. Being similarly modest in effective area as the other pods, with the same cumbersome features, this pod would have been expected to satisfy the rich and varied needs of two growing boys. Beyond sleeping and dressing (already inadequate) there would have been a probable need for purposes similar to pod #3: “sleepovers” with friends, TV, bookshelves, storage, seating, etc. with the same risk of a fall, and an obvious need for greater area.

 

Pod #5 (Eugene’s art studio) was its own special facility. Being the vertical culmination of the spiraling pod/cylinder system, it merged with the building’s third floor level and thus brought a relative generosity of floor area and potential facilitation. It was, in addition, a sculptural “form-conclusion” of the entire secondary form-system, while significantly larger. Warmed by the convective heat with a meaningful physical and visual connection to the nature outside and below, it was perhaps the most comfortable place in the building at any time of the year. It was, in subtle probability, Eugene’s “temple” that presided over the vast interior complex below, asserting his hierarchal status within the family politic. Nancy enjoyed no such privilege.

 

Bathing, Laundry and Storage

The building’s bathroom, certainly a domestic necessity, was single, small, and discretely tucked into the inner coil of the stone wall spiral at the second level, with its own separate staircase from the ground floor. Its curtained entry, shower, lavatory, and toilet, while generously embellished with its exotic, Gaudi-like ceramic tilework, offered only a minimal service for such an important household necessity. Perhaps its greatest dysfunction was its location: a trip, for example, from Eugene’s studio would entail descending two flights of stairs, a 15’ walk across the ground floor, and up an additional flight to the bath. A trip from the dining area would entail crossing 20’ of ground floor (including two level changes of approx. 24” each) then the flight upstairs to the bath. The facility’s “bathing” processes would have been significantly incomplete since the closets and their dressing/undressing functions were relegated to either pod#2 or pod#4 (in full view of the primary form system space).

 

Laundry is, in most residences, a much under-rated domestic function, and certainly was so in the Bavinger house. In today’s world, a fully functioning household ought to provide not only the usual washer/dryer; it should equally acknowledge a need for a laundry tub, an ironing board, places for sorting, folding, and storage of soaps, bleach, etc. Nearby should be a hamper for accommodating soiled articles. Such a facilitation, due to a complexity that is not realistically practical off the premises, becomes even more essential when in rural locations. In the Bavinger house, there appears to have been no such provision anywhere for this fundamental function.

 

Storage, in general, is a similarly underrated domestic function. Truly meaningful storage is often so insufficient in our daily residential experience that most of us have lost touch with the kind of improved lifestyle that results whenever effective facilitation of this everyday need occurs. The Bavinger house was no exception to this oversight and did not escape its overriding, pressing, unmet need. The purposes, for example, of the building’s general housekeeping (brooms, mops, vacuums, trash bins, ladders, cleaning chemicals, etc.), of the indoor garden (rakes, shovels, buckets, snippers, shelves, fertilizer, etc.), of the fishpond (nets, filters, fish food, boots, etc.), of the pantry (foodstuffs, rarely needed implements, canned goods, dry goods, etc.), of the linen (towels, washcloths, sheets, etc.), and more … all went almost entirely unaddressed, and certainly resulted in the predictable negative consequences to the smooth operation of the household.

 

In any realistic building design, it is also not until the location of the facilitated storage is appropriately accommodated that the design process can be considered complete. In the Bavinger house, this was far from the case; all that it offered to these broad purposes was the five identical storage cylinders, suggesting that all of the project’s storage needs would be satisfied by such a singular, limited, specialized “facilitation.” Such was conspicuously impossible.

 

 

SAFETY

Physical safety, within any residence, is an issue that ought to be fundamental to its overall makeup. Building codes have come a long way, throughout their recent history, in addressing this issue—the “health, safety, and welfare” of a building design—and continue to progress with this noble purpose. Unfortunately, there’s still room for improvement; there remains a large inventory of building dysfunctions that emanate from “grandfathered” older buildings, from “bootleg” remodels, and even from entire buildings successfully constructed without permits in more inconspicuous locations. Whether caused by owners who seek to circumvent the law or simply from unmitigated ignorance, household safety remains a very meaningful societal issue … and any such indiscretion can indirectly threaten the experience of the occupant.

 

The Bavinger house was almost shocking in its disregard for safety, with sweeping minor and/or major conditions that were as dangerous as they were casually incorporated and tolerated. It was seemingly a “stuff don’t happen” mentality that subtly, comprehensively, imposed daily risk onto its occupants. Traversing the ground floor, for example, with its irregular, trip-prone flagstone paving, its charming-yet-cumbersome “stepping-stone” walkway across the fishpond, its level-changes without guardrails, the imposition of pods (#1, #2) into the ground floor user’s head space, its entryway with its “invisible” floor-to-ceiling plate glass … brought a subtle, veritable obstacle course to daily life there.

 

“Fall protection” was a significant area of oversight also wherever users were elevated above the ground floor. The after-thought installation of fish-netting around the edges of the pods, while a compromise to the artistic purity of the free-flowing pod geometry, was certainly a strategy superior to its original manifestation (no rail of any kind). Its true efficacy, however, was, at best, questionable since, while it may have succeeded in minimizing injuries from an easily possible fall, the task of untangling oneself from the netting and clambering back onto the pod would entail its own potential for an inherent risk of exasperating inconvenience, if not injury itself.

 

Perhaps the building’s worst feature was the flawed gesture at “stairway protection” that was   incorporated at every staircase: essentially nothing more than the approximately ½” diam. vertical cables, approximately 14” apart, that were used to hold up the outer ends of each stair tread. No handrails, no guardrails, no meaningfully respectful consideration toward any occupant (resident, visitor, child, elder, etc.) who might become caught up in the frenzied, split seconds of an inadvertent fall.

 

Tragically— and in some ways ironically—sometime in the 1960’s, there was a serious fall. Nancy was at the third level when a slip-up of some kind caused her to fall through the vertical guard rails and plummet two full stories down to the flagstone kitchen floor. While under normal conditions she would have certainly suffered severe injury or death, there was, providentially, at the very location of the fall, on its very occasion, a sleeping cot that Eugene had temporarily placed for his recuperation from his own, unrelated, ailment. She emerged, certainly dazed yet essentially unscathed, and given a one-time reprieve from the perilous probabilities associated with the building’s many overall, unacknowledged hazards.

 

Despite this sobering “red flag,” Eugene continued with his careless policies, seemingly unchanged. In order to gain access, for example, to a very charming hillside just outside the building’s second level, he erected what must have been a very bouncy suspension bridge that spanned the chasm (15’-20’) below. Approximately 3’ wide and made up of flat 2x6 transverse deck boards, it was hung by cables approximately 6’-8’ apart. Beyond that, there were no safety provisions: no guardrails, no horizontal stabilizers, no “grab-bars” to grip even if only to offer a fundamental sense of psychological stability appropriately needed for such circumstances.

 

 

MAINTENANCE

General maintenance of the Bavinger house, especially with such overall dysfunction, would have been a full-time job. Beginning with those tasks common to ordinary residences and adding all those that would have been inherent to this particular building’s idiosyncrasies, this activity must have been an almost incomprehensible responsibility, imposing never-ending, updated “to do” lists on a seemingly overwhelming scale.

 

This was undoubtedly Eugene’s full-time obligation, and any reasonable facilitation of such a role would normally require, at a minimum, a substantial workshop, with tools, equipment, electricity, heat, etc., in reasonable proximity to the overall project. While such tasks were certainly in need of regular attention over a span of more than four decades, no evidence of any such facilitation is readily available. The building was presumably expected to “absorb” the inherent chaos, clutter and disruption associated with such maintenance activity, in impromptu ways that could never occur without deeply worsening the already comprehensive household dysfunction.

 

DEMISE

The Bavinger house, throughout its tenure as a symbol of American architecture, as a family legacy, or even simply as a unique residential facility, abruptly entered its “death throes” upon Eugene’s death in 1997 (age 78). Not only was its daily maintenance abruptly terminated, all its essential purposes, at so many levels, became almost meaningless overnight. To make matters worse, their eldest son, Bill (an architect), died soon thereafter, in a tragic automobile accident. Nancy, by now an elder herself, obviously under intense and prolonged emotional strain, understandably needed to relocate to more supportive circumstances, and was effectively obliged to abandon the building. She died 5 years later.

 

The building languished, unattended, for ten long years, suffering not only the normal ravages of nature’s seasonal swings, but the additional impact of a severe storm (2011) that damaged portions of the roof and worsened the building’s already egregious intake of rainwater, snow, and ice, vermin, etc. The house was described, at this time, as a “Mayan ruin;” overrun, inside and out, with thick, almost impenetrable vegetation.

 

At this time, son Bob, the family’s only remaining survivor, returned to the area to confront this long-deferred challenge. His attempts to restore it were, however, quickly met with exorbitant cost estimates; attempts to sell it similarly failed for lack of buyer interest. Attempts to coax certain institutions (U of OK arch. Dept. for one) to use as a museum piece, with guided tours, etc., went similarly unheeded. While readily willing to laud the building with the highest of praise, the fact that not one of its world-wide admirers was willing to “step up to this awesome plate” in any way could very well have been a subconscious testimony to their intuitive knowledge of the building’s excessive dysfunctions.

 

Bob’s frustrations mounted, and his patience apparently hung on a delicate thread. Finally, in what could easily have been an understandable angry fit of exasperation (even possibly incorporating some deeper, more personal rage about the building’s symbolic meaning to his earlier life), he abruptly had the building demolished to the ground and hauled away to the local landfill.

 

Such a rash act shocked the world. Erasing, literally, from the face of the earth such a revered, historic edifice seemed unfathomable to much of the mass of its grieving adherents … as they contended with the utter helplessness so common to such an experience.

 

 

ART vs. ARCHITECTURE

Any suggestion that this excessive demise of the Bavinger house was not a coincidence, that its eventual fate was sealed at its earliest inception … is not without credibility. Sometimes, in all of life, even the noblest of intentions can incorporate deeper, subconscious forces that will countermand its original intentions, sabotage its intended integrity, and foster a result that betrays its straightforward simplicity as it leaves little more than a hodge-podge of multi-leveled contradictions.

 

The Bavinger house certainly seemed like the very best of architecture, excelling in its form/sub form composition, its spatial interaction, its nature-based usage of materials, its integration with the site, its geometric purity, and its final manifestation into a harmonious, singular geometric form. On the surface, it was an impressive contender for full architectural legitimacy.

 

But it also seemed like the very best of art, being the impeccably executed organization of symbolic form and space, by two accomplished, professional artist-clients and an architect with definite artistic inclinations.

 

The clients, Eugene, and Nancy, were admittedly biased in their priorities towards “all things artistic.” As a circumstance of influence towards the design of their home, this, by itself, could very well have overwhelmingly been a significant interference to any open minded, rational, and competent functional approach to design. However, with Goff in the mix, such a concern might have seemed “handled” in ways that might have allayed such concerns. Having established himself with his many local examples of building designs that not only demonstrated a delightful artistic flair, but also impressive as viable, legitimate, functioning residences, his credibility could have seemed, to the Bavingers, fully intact.

 

At the time, however, of his commission by the Bavingers, Goff had recently been appointed the “Director of Architecture” at the University in Norman, Oklahoma. He had also been preparing to teach an advanced, year-long architectural design class for seniors (Arch 273-274—see “Renegades-Bruce Goff and the American school of architecture,” University of Oklahoma press, pp82-83). in describing (his definition of) the class, he explained that “pragmatism” would “go out the window” and the students—in their design process towards classroom projects—would be urged to express their most cherished “fantasies.” Such must have seemed to be a reasonable exercise, an approach, that would serve to open the student’s minds and introduce them to the deeper levels of sophisticated, perhaps playful, avant-garde creativity.

 

The book’s many illustrations of related student projects reveal a high percentage of designs that could be regarded as “radical,” exhibiting bold, dramatic forms, shapes, spaces that are not only foreign to our familiar, more conventional examples of “normal” architecture, they also exhibited some degree of disregard for the basic realities of functional usage, of design and construction methodology, of structural soundness, etc. In other words, the term “fantasy” as a design teaching approach, was—in all its common interpretations—not inaccurate.

 

Such controversial, theoretical thinking must certainly have been active in Goff’s mind as he designed the Bavinger house. It very possibly might have even been an uncontrollable force that subconsciously wedged its way in between general, common-sense awareness of fundamental reality and imposed artistic fantasy. When combined with the Bavinger’s easily presumed mind-set, there could quickly have been a possibility of a collective illusion that put true reality into an almost disdained secondary priority.

 

Furthermore, this bias, whether acknowledged or not, undoubtedly emerged to exert additional influence toward some of the fundamental logistics associated with the building’s physical execution, specifically those policies that typically arise after the design process and before groundbreaking and construction. Proceeding, for example, without Building Department approval (such services may have been, at the time, underdeveloped); without the services of a licensed general contractor; without normal competitive bidding of its construction cost; or even without the approval of a conventional loan … spared them many of the “red flags” that would have arisen, making at least some of the building’s flawed facilitations conspicuous and better subject to question. Their absence, probably coincidental, served as an unintentional, covert means to rationalize, even further, the by-now well-established system of fantasy design, and proceed to its problematic groundbreaking.

 

 

SUMMARY

Neither art nor architecture, in our still-imperfect society, are effectively understood nor realistically defined, and their deeper, more subtle realities are much more disparate than most realize. Obviously, if we are to be successful in incorporating their profound principles, any such related mysteries ought to be fully addressed, clarified, and resolved.

 

Art, then—whether two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or otherwise—might be realistically defined as little more than “an inspired object to be looked at, evoking (at whatever level of profundity) symbolic meaning and philosophical introspection.”

 

Conversely, Architecture, (certainly in its nature-based, “organic,” form-follows-function, Functionalist manifestation) needs primarily to be recognized as a facility, one that acknowledges, organizes, and manifests all relevant criteria, (at all levels); that selects appropriate, uncompromised geometric form/sub-forms that facilitate these criteria with a result into a fully integrated, harmonious, composite, singular organism. As a human experience, it would incorporate its deeper physiological, psychological, and philosophical user-needs without artifice, in ways that bring nature-based “Life” to its finished reality … with the inherent integrity that true beauty needs for its genuine presence.

 

While both art and architecture have—when fully legitimate—their meaningful place in a sophisticated society, they are not sufficiently compatible to coexist as equals; art, in fact, is obliged to be subservient to the much broader based, more significant architecture.

 

Goff, Eugene, and Nancy, operating in unison, could very well have allowed themselves to succumb to personal, insufficiently examined, timeworn, probably often subconscious forces that served to exert undue influence on their minds, and significantly compromise the many considerations associated with the building’s outcome:

a)     Allowing the “correct” images of the “artiste” to countermand legitimate, rational design consideration.

b)    Succumbing to romantic nostalgia, establishing “stage sets” that harken seductive illusion.

c)     The tempting self-aggrandizement that celebrity can bring, with distortions of one’s basic reality. These factors, of course, would combine to compromise their healthy connection with the deeper benefit of universal principles, realities, and truths.

 

In their design of the Bavinger house, they were, of course, profoundly well-intended. From the onset of their design process, however, it suffered from misguided definition. The many invisible, heartfelt premises common to its three creators quietly demanded that it be, above all “sculpture,” a “work of art,” perhaps on the position that “architecture” alone would not, could not, sufficiently address the deeper issues of a humane, creative, domestic environment.

 

Function, rationality, common sense gave way to a resolution primarily purposed to be “looked at.” Illusion prevailed throughout its conceptualization, its manifestation, its utilization … up to its final demise. Could it be that nature—ironically the project’s primary borrowed theme—at the deeper levels of its universal wrath, through the channels of young Bob’s frustrations, angrily recoiled at such assault on its fundamental integrities, and stepped in to bring it crashing to the ground? We will never know.