Vladimir Kagan's Blog

An Ode to a Bridge

In Celebration of the George Washington Bridge

Copyright Vladimir Kagan December 20, 2015

I cross the GWB (George Washington Bridge) four or five times a week to and from my studio in Clifton N.J. Thousands of cars and trucks join me each day. For trucks it’s the only route between Manhattan and New Jersey as they are banned from the tunnels.  This enormous overpass is the conduit for millions of cars each year. It boasts the most traffic of any suspension bridge in the world.

To pass the time, I am on my cell phone or directing the Uber driver to ignore the ‘Google lady’ giving him wrong directions. Though the view is spectacular, I take it for granted! I seldom look out of the window.

That’s a huge mistake!

One day I took a moment to look-up and rediscovered this magnificent structure. The realization that mere humans conceived this gorgeous bridge was mind-boggling.  Engineers and architects, whose names have long been forgotten and the hundreds of human hands brought it to fruition. And yes, the forgotten workers whose lives were lost in its building.

         

 

I was awe-struck by the massive chunks of concrete anchoring the cables at each end. It is unfathomable to contemplate the amount of concrete needed to create them. Imagine the number of cement trucks it would take to build such a mass. (The builders wisely had their own cement factory on sight.) Visualize the teams of men riveting each red-hot rivet into the superstructure. Squint into the sun and look at the height of the towers and the cables extending from them. Then imagine tiny men manipulating strands of steel stretched across the river’s span. If you are lucky, you might see the high-wire-act of today’s maintenance crews painting every inch of the bridge or servicing the string of light bulbs along its cables.

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I have a wonderful connection to this bridge!

 In my early teens, I lived on Riverside Drive and 103^rd Street, in a gracious old building with a wire-caged elevator and a spectacular view of the Hudson River. I would often sit in our living room window and paint the changing seasons on the river. With a little stretch of the neck I could see the GW Bridge off in the distance.

My water color painting of Ice on the Hudson River - circa 1943

Though I was a good student in most subjects, I had a terrible time with math! I couldn’t visualize the hypotheses of mathematical formulas; algebra, geometry and trigonometry stifled me. I could not accept a theoretical truth.  If it wasn’t visual, I flunked the test. 

A few floors above our apartment lived a friend of my family, David Bernard Steinman. D. B. Steinman, as he was known to all. Mr. Steinman was an affable man who loved puffing on his pipe and explaining the theories of mathematics to me. He made mathematics visual. D.B. Steinman was not a tutor; he was the world’s foremost bridge designer!

D.B. Steinman was born on the lower east side in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. He fell in love with Roebling’s masterpiece and determined … he wanted to become a designer and builder of bridges. At age thirteen, he was the youngest pupil admitted to City College.  He graduated with honors and went on to Columbia University receiving his PhD in engineering. 

His career as a consulting engineer struggled for a number of years. He recalled … his first consulting fee was $5! Ten years later he was offered a job to work with Holton Robinson, who built the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges across the East River in New York.  Mr. Holton wanted to enter a competition to build the Florianopolis Bridge in Brazil. The firm won the competition largely due to D. B. Steinman’s revolutionary new concepts for suspension spans. The Florianopolis Bridge was hailed worldwide as a huge success.  His revolutionary concept laid the foundation for the successful design of the George Washington Bridge, which at the time was twice the length of any suspension bridge ever built.

In addition to the Florianopolis Bridge, Mr. Steinman’s list of successes include the Henry Hudson Bridge and the Triborough Bridge in NY, the Mt. Hope Bridge connecting Providence with Newport, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan and the Messina Straight Bridge linking Italy with Sicily. One of his favorite projects was the commission to modernize the Brooklyn Bridge, the first love of his life. D.B was an avid writer and wrote many books of poetry and the best selling ‘The History of the Brooklyn Bridge’ and ‘The Biography of the Roeblings, THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE.’ 

In his memoirs Mr. Steinman gave words to his meaning of a bridge: “A bridge is more than a thing of steel and stone: it is the fulfillment of human dreams to link together distant places. A bridge is more than a problem in stresses and strains; it is a challenge and an opportunity to create the beautiful.”  

He and I would sit for hours discussing bridges. The conversation would eventually be intermingled with the explanation of the bridge structure’s connection to math.  His patience and love of math helped me to understand the theories of math well enough to pass my exams!

During our chats, he explained how the Tacoma Washington Bridge disaster could have been averted with a simple sea anchor to stop the oscillation that finally tore the bridge apart. He explained his theory of how a bridge could be built over the New York Harbor, even though it was considered impossibility at the time.  His dream became the Verrazano Bridge. He described how the George Washington Bridge was designed to be clad with steel plates like the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was decided that the structure was too beautiful to be hidden. When I first saw the GW Bridge, it had only one deck!  He explained that the clever engineers envisioned one-day, the increased traffic would need additional roadways and so their original design factored-in the second level.

These pieces of knowledge have stayed with me for sixty odd years, imbedded in my mind forever through the teachings of the indomitable D.B. Steinman.

Today, I no longer keep my head down. I love the approach to the bridge from the Henry Hudson Parkway. It looms up through the fog, glistens in the rain or shimmers in the sunlight. This massive work of art is nearly eighty-five years old and still one of the great wonders of the world. Next time you have a chance to cross the Hudson, enjoy all that is before your eyes. 

A Walk in the Country - part two

A Walk In The Country

PART 2

Discovering Grace Farms

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, December 10, 2015 

 

…. By mid-afternoon the weather had turned to glorious sunshine - just in time for our visit to the newly opened Grace Farms. Most people have never heard of Grace Farms as it had only opened to the public a few weeks earlier.

 photos Dean Kaufman

 

Like all architectural masterpieces, Grace Farms would not have seen the light of day without its patrons.

Versailles, had King Louis XIV, the Louvre with gratitude to Napoleon. The Parthenon in Greece, the Pyramids in Egypt, the Coliseum in Rome, all had their benefactors. The ‘Glass House’ owes its existence to the wisdom of Philip Johnson’s father, who bestowed some ‘worthless’ Alcoa stock onto his son.

Below is the history of Grace Farms.

Grace Farms had the gracious support of Grace Farms Foundation, a private operating foundation established to support initiatives in the areas of faith, the arts, justice and community. This vast project was quietly underwritten by a discreet group of like-minded individuals, who thought saving a sprawling landscape, once used as a private equestrian training facility, from a developer’s 10-lot subdivision, and opening it to the public as a shared space was a worthwhile endeavor. 

In 2009, the leadership of the Foundation initiated an international search for an architect to develop the idea of Grace Farms. The Foundation selected Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of Tokyo to design this sensitive project. Shortly thereafter, their firm, SANAA was awarded the most coveted prize in architecture, the Pritzker!

Quoting from Grace Farm’s brochure, it is “A welcoming new place, where a building designed by SANAA is seamlessly integrated into 80 acres of open space for people to experience nature, encounter the arts, pursue justice, foster community and explore faith”.  Faith was an underlying factor: Back in 2007 a group of individuals affiliated with Grace Community Church, purchased 48 acres of property with the intention of gifting it as open space for the town. In 2009, these individuals formed Grace Farms Foundation, which purchased 27 additional acres and gratefully accepted the donation of the original 48 acres. The concept of Grace Farms became a reality.

 

 photo Iwan Baan

 The delicate River Walk snakes down the hill - all five buildings of the 'Farm" are integrated under the one slender roof

 

The River consists of five glass-enclosed volumes that are virtually transparent - nestled under a sensuous continuous roof that flows down the slope like a lazy river and becomes a part of the landscape. The River begins on a knoll, and then flows down the long, gentle slope in a series of bends, forming pond-like spaces (volumes) on its journey. The River uses only a fraction of the property’s acreage so that it totally blends into the countryside. The rolling hills and changing seasons becomes the artistic palette for visitors to enjoy. The pebbled path gently winds down the hill like the river’s dry-bed cutting its path lazily into the valley. The buildings are enclosed by 203 slabs of curved thermal glass panels each custom fabricated in Germany and Spain – none are duplicates of the other, neither in size nor shape!

 

                                                                                                                       photo Dean Kaufman

          

 

I was fortunate to have my electric tricycle in the trunk of the car, as the hill to the top of the property would have been too much for anyone to push me in a wheel chair. Along the way I snatched the one man in the complex who turned out to be ‘The Guru’ of all that I needed to be explained about Grace. Bill Stonebridge had been the construction manager during the two and half years of its building and now was in charge of maintenance of the entire facility! I bombarded him with tons of question.

What’s the walkway material that looks like pebbles but feels like a carpet?  “Resin Bonded gravel.”

Where’s the lighting? “Primary lighting is recessed into the floor surfaces and small surface-mounted spot lights reflect off the wooden ceiling"

How does the roof drain? “The project uses a New England gutter which directs water to several open scuppers where water gracefully cascades into gravel drains.”

How do the glass windows keep from compression fractures? “The windows are not load bearing. Each panel is constructed of the double glazed thermal glass.”

How’s the place heated – is it energy neutral? “Fifty-five Geothermal wells were bored 500 feet into the ground, to provide heating and cooling for all but one building - making the entire complex energy neutral. Grace Farms has applied for LEED Certified for High-efficiency mechanical, electrical, plumbing and lighting systems.”

Bill had more precise answers and additional information as we meandered up the ‘River’.

What happened to the forest? “In clearing the site, a number of magnificent red oak trees, birch, hickory and ash had to be cut down, but they were not wasted. Seven eighteen foot long dining tables were custom fabricated out of the felled oaks and other furniture is custom built out of the other woods.”

How is snow removal done? “The long winding covered pathways are carefully cleaned by hand as it is too risky to use conventional snow blowers where a small pebble could crack one of the curved glass panels.”

“And the Chapel? Called the Sanctuary, the multi-purpose amphitheater stands on the top of the hill and seats 700 people in comfortable Thos. Moser armchairs. Thoughtfully, the Sanctuary has a glass enclosed “quiet room” where parents can take a screaming child until it calms down. This Sanctuary volume has the longest unsupported (Glu-Lam laminated) timber beam roof of the five River volumes, which was custom fabricated in British Columbia and transported by specially modified trucks across Canada to New Canaan.”

 

While I was wanting more, poor Amy was agitating to go home as it was getting close to cocktail time and her evening date.

This will not have been my last visit to ‘Grace Farm’. I hope you’ll be inspired to see it yourselves.

SUMMARY:

The Glass House and Grace Farms offer a perfect study in contrasts from the mid-twentieth century to the twenty-first.  Compare the ethereal serenity of the Grace Farms ‘River Walk’ with the celebratory styles of the ‘Glass House’ and you feel the dichotomy of our times.

This statement does not hold true for most 21^st century architecture – by contrast, look at the monumental projects that Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid have created.

While the ‘Glass House’ has an impressive baronial drawbridge barrier that is majestically lifted to admit invited guests, the entry to Grace Farm is accessible through a modest white gate and a drive down to the old stables. These buildings have been converted into modest offices and programming space. There is no ticket-office as the admission is free.  The property is open and available to all who come.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                      photo Dean Kaufman

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the firm SANAA - The Tokyo architects that designed Grace Farms and won the coveted Pritzker Prize

New Canaan, home to classic modern.

A Walk In the Country

In Search of Modern

PART 1

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, December 2, 2015 

 

A few weeks ago, I lauded my friend Zaha Hadid.

This time I sing my praise to two Japanese architects, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the firm SANAA. Both Zaha Hadid and SANAA have won the Pritzker Award; both are at the peak of their success; both compete for the same projects.

There is a tug-of-was between the deconstructionism of Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry vs. the esthetic understatement of Mssrs. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. Both styles are important statements of the 21^st centuries. One is explosive, a tribute to modern technology; the other a return to the drawing board. Neither could achieve their masterpieces without the 21st Century’s new technology.

I had recently received an invitation to a luncheon at Philip Johnson’s ‘Glass House’ in New Canaan Connecticut and used this occasion to explore the newly opened ‘Grace Farms’ near by.

This is a Blog in Two Parts for you to enjoy both properties

 

Though the weather started grey and raining, it was a beautiful fall day in Connecticut. The trees were in full color and the ground covered in glistening golden leaves like a carpet.

    

A carpet of fall leaves

Our destination was New Canaan long known for its iconic mid-century modern architecture spearheaded by The Harvard Five, a young architectural cooperative back in 1949: Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes and my old skiing and sailing buddy, John Black Lee. They were affordable modern houses; some two stories others ranch, nestled into the woods, often precariously cantilevered on jagged granite boulders protruding out of the ground. My son-in-law’s mother lives in one of them - A little gem perched on top of one of these boulders.

 

Early 50's houses in New Canaan designed by The Harvard Five Architectural Group

Too many of these gems were demolished by enterprising builders and replaced with hideous “McMansions” and clapboard houses that now dot the neighborhoods - all too readily visible behind the historic stonewalls so ubiquitous in this part of Connecticut. Mercifully, the town fathers of New Canaan finally came to their senses and put a stop to this destruction. Today, what’s left of these examples of mid-century modern is landmarked!

 

 

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Our destination was the Philip Johnson Glass House. A return to a landmark I had written about a few years ago in one of my earlier Blogs. The centerpiece of the property is the Glass House. Its primary purpose was for entertaining. However, behind a partition wall was a beautiful bedroom open to the sky and the prowling deer; it was for show only or the occasional privileged guest. The bathroom has a secret tunnel that leads to the real sleeping quarters some hundred feet away!

 

The Philip Johnson Glass House was a tribute to his friend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

 

The occasion of our visit was a private viewing of the paintings by Enoc Perez; huge wall to wall, floor to ceiling paintings of Philip Johnson’s pink granite office tower nicknamed the ‘Lipstick’. The event was a discreet fundraiser sponsored by Peter Brand and his lovely wife Stephanie Seymour Brant, both great patrons of the arts. My friend Amy Lau managed to get us invitations for this event. 

   

Enrico Perez with Scott Dreving, Deputy Director of the Glass House and Amy Lau and myself

(photo Patrick McMullan)

 

Enrico Perez's striking paintings of the Lipstick Building

The Philip Johnson Compound was built in the 50’s on 49 acres of hilly wooded land. The property is a celebration in opulence; money well spent on the indulgence of beauty. Each structure is a tribute to Philip Johnson’s fertile and whimsical mind. All the buildings on the rambling property are accessible by footpath only. It is a sybaritic treat.

Age has its privilege  - I was comfortably transported in a golf cart from building to building

 

Tucked into the landscape discreetly away from the other buildings is a window-less fortress constructed entirely of bricks. Intimate on the inside with a fireplace, it has a huge elliptical opening in the ceiling that emits a glow of indirect lighting. This quite sanctuary houses Mr. Johnson library.

The library is a foreboding windowless structure (though hidden from view is a nice window into the woods)

   

Mr. Johnson's library was a place for peace and solitude

 

In a dell near the entrance to the woods is the ‘Ghost House’, designed by Johnson with his friend Frank Gehry as a sanctuary for growing Lilies. The two architects gleefully thought they had outwitted the ever-prowling deer on the property. Of course the deer outsmarted them and enjoyed munching on the succulent deer-candy flowers.   All that remained of the flowers were stems. The very ethereal look of this building gave it its name ‘Ghost House’!

   

The Ghost House was conceived as an outdoor shelter for growing lilies. It is tucked into the woods and is virtually invisible with its thin wire construction

 

A visit to the property would not be complete without venturing down the winding path through the woods to the Lincoln Kirstein tower and beyond that the bucolic pond with a miniature ‘floating’ pavilion that was Mr. Johnsons little ‘Folly”. He loved sitting there and contemplate the world.The Lincoln Kirstein Tower is an imposing sculpture, strategically placed at the edge of the woods overlooking the floating Pavilion.(it is interesting to note that Lincoln Kirstein was a good friend of my father and had Dad restore all the wooden sculpture of Eli Nadelman for a show at MOMA.)

    

 

 

Unfortunately, the beautiful White Sculpture Gallery with its subterranean caves was closed for repair. It houses Mr. Johnson’s diverse taste in sculpture from Greek Marbles to Frank Stella’s abstract constructions.

A view of the interior of the Sculpture House

 

At the top of the hill, near the ‘entrance to the property, is ‘The Monster’, an avant-garde building, created under the influence of Frank Gehry. It was the newest building on the property. Today, it serves as the welcome center for the complex.

 

The Monster guards the compound at the entrance - it is the most modernistic building on the property.

 (photo Patrick McMullan)

Almost invisible from sight with only a grass mount as a hint of something happening, is an underground bunker, reminiscent of a World War II airplane hanger. If the doors weren’t open, you’d pass it by completely. This is the treasure trove that houses Mr. Johnson’s phenomenal collection of modern art. – Three enormous carrousels of rotating panels conceal dozens, maybe hundreds of paintings to be viewed leisurely by rotating panel after panel.

The Gallery was set up for our little private luncheon

 (photo Patrick McMullan)

Lunch was a casual tête-à-tête with a group major art collectors and an interesting introduction to the works of Enoc Perez given by the host, Peter Brand. The luncheon was so hi-toned that only champagne or tea was served. I had no idea how addicted I was to my little dram of decaf coffee, and so a stop at the nearest Starbuck afterwards provided the right fix. 

TO BE CONTINUED