early father's day // late mother's day

The reason for me getting interested in landscape architecture is probably because of my parents. My mom is an incredible sewer, very sensitive to color, quality, texture and fit. She is a gardener and truly appreciates good composition. If I have any of those qualities, they probably came from her. My dad also has a keen, analytical eye and has, for as long as i can remember, been an armchair architect drawing house plans, taking us to homes in construction to look at the floor plans while especially enjoying the art of residential architecture. I have come to appreciate those things, too, and hope to call myself a landscape architect very soon.

One of my Dad's favorite architects is Royal Barry Wills. Royal Wills never became well known enough to be on a first name basis in the world; his often humble, yet successful work exemplifies the ethic that fame is no reason to become an architect. Subtlety and comfort are at the core of his design philosophy, two ideals my dad finds appealing in architecture.

As an aficionado of fabrics, my mother has favorite designers, too, but in sewing, and especially quilting, limiting yourself to one designer would be silly because the real magic comes about as a result of a good combination diverse fabrics. It can be an endless task to bring multiple colors, patterns, and forms together to create a cohesive composition. Choices of fabric may seem numerous until you start putting one next to another to find out if they get along or not. Often, you may start with ten orange-based samples thinking you are all set, only to find out the hues or patterns don't fit together and you end up with just two instead of ten.

I say all of this because I visited the home of a Danish designer, Finn Juhl, and it struck me that it is equal parts Mom and Dad, and ever since I have been thinking about how much the they have influenced me. Mother's Day came and went, and though I called my mom, I didn't send a card (sorry mom!). Father's Day is only a week away and today is the day I would send a card via mail. But, he will be out of town on the 15th, so, I am going to forgo the card and make a post about Finn Juhl's house and dedicate it to my parents. I feel so modern.
Ordrup, the suburb of Copenhagen where the house lies, is a lovely bike ride from the city center that starts on the main road by my apartment, runs through the edge of the truly dense area, drops out onto a coastal bike path before turning inland through shady wooded roads. The entrance to the land is inconspicuous though there is a sign with Finn Juhl's picture marking the road. As I rode in, I thought I was entering a little forest as the road narrowed and eventually brought me to a courtyard where the where two extremely different yet cohesive buildings sit. The first one I noticed was a very estate-y structure that houses the Ordrupgaard art collection and rotating exhbitions.

The other building is an addition designed by Zaha Hadid and the "New Architecture in Copenhagen" has it just right when it says, "The experience of space is a key feature of the new annex, which both harmonizes and contrasts with the fine old house(Ordrupgaard Museum)..." And harmony would be an understatement when talking about how the building interacts with the landscape. It rises out of a hillock covered in messy crasses like a capsule of shaped, black coal to rest in the tree-ringed meadow that characterizes the whole site. The wild grasses sway in rhythm with their own reflections in the glazing, the trees have a double too, crystal clear, but darkened by the shadow cast by the black scarf of concrete that holds the structure together. Materially the addition is so different from it's surroundings and maybe it's the contrast that makes it so perfectly appropriate--it looks like it has always been there.

Once inside I discovered that I was cleverly coordinated in color choices that allied well with Mr. Juhl's. I asked some other visitors to take my picture in Juhl's Pelican chair.

The annex featured a retrospective of Juhl's furniture. As an architect, Juhl was most interested in creating a Gesamtkunstwerk wherein he designed everything in the home from the building to carpets, to cutlery to collanders. I can identify with that desire. Can you imagine getting to design every last detail? That would be a task where I would certainly be channeling both parental influences. Wow, I think I would start with the dish-ware. Ok, enough fantasizing and back to the real life fantasy of a room full of chairs designed by Finn Juhl. If it had been allowed to take pictures, I would have surely filled my 1-gig card to the limit, this room was so juicy and full of amazingly hand-crafted wood frames dressed in leather and wool cushions of colors that crayola has long forgotten.

After getting scolded for one photo, I resorted to drawing. On the right is a picture of Juhl lounging blithely, enjoying his hand-work, no doubt. On the left is a drawing of desk chair I:4. It was designed for the NY Museum of Modern Art's International Furniture Competiton of 1948. I chose to draw this one because written on the schematic was a description of the chair, "very light, stack easily and can be put together by an ordinarily-witted person," that made me laugh out loud. Danes hold a lot for common sense and people seem to have a bit of it here. But, I guess when going abroad, Juhl thought he better think more liberally about his audience and state the obvious.

I wish I could show pictures of the inside of his house, but again, no pics aloud. However, I do have this now and then comparison--the "then" is from poster featuring a picture of the house from many years ago. The house is extremely simple, L-shaped and designed to bring in light, but keep out the cold. Wherever possible Juhl maximized natural light in subtle ways using small windows, glazed dividers between rooms and a generously livable floor plan that emphasizes views into the garden. The second current photo on the comparison is a section of one side of the house. I included it because I am just a sucker for sections of house-shaped houses.

The entrance to the house deserves a bit of attention, too, though it does very little to draw attention to itself. That is, on first glance. The blue and yellow are signature Juhl colors that add a playful character to the otherwise simple white-wash exterior. The overhang is low, very much appropriate to the scale of the house and the other houses in the area. I never get sick of humble entries that betray the contents of the house--simple, elegant, functional, unpretentious.

So, back to Mom and Dad. Mom, I think you would really enjoy Juhl's creative, thoughtful choices of color and his attention to subtle details. Dad, I think you would enjoy the sheer livability of the modest, comfortable, yet elegant home. And I think you would both appreciate the incredible composition that all of the wonderful parts come together to make, only when combined as they are.

So, that was one LONG mother's day / father's day post. There is a website for this place but I warn you, it takes forever to load. It's definitely worth looking at, though. And I think I am ready to declare that my favorite Danish icon is not, in fact, the hot dog, but rather FJ45.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Happy Mother's Day, Mom!