Modern to Classic II

R ES ID EN TIAL ESTATES BY LAN DRY DESIGN GR O UP

VOLUME II FOREWORD BY PAUL GOLDBERGER • TEX T BY E R IK A HE E T

FOREWORD

BY PAU L G O LDB ER G ER

Brady-Bündchen Residence II

Collingwood Residence

The title of this book is Modern to Classic II, picking up on the theme of

underneath—scale, proportion, light, materials, the floor plan, and

Landry Design Group’s initial book of a decade ago, Modern to Classic.

perhaps most important, space and how we move through it, all the fun-

That title was chosen to indicate the range of Richard Landry’s work,

damentals of architecture, the things that have always meant more than

which has always had much in common with that of the most talented

style. These architects all knew, as Richard Landry knows, that a Span-

and committed eclectic architects of the American tradition: architects

ish Mediterranean villa or a Georgian house or a French château can be

like Delano & Aldrich, John Russell Pope, David Adler, Bertram Grosve-

well-proportioned or badly proportioned, that it can be well detailed or

nor Goodhue, James Gamble Rogers, Cass Gilbert, Carrère & Hastings,

badly detailed. The difference comes not from the choice of style, but

and Warren & Wetmore. They were designers who moved easily from

from what the architect does with it. And Richard Landry by and large

style to style, with little concern about whether they were designing a

has known how to make the most of whatever style he works in.

house in the style of the Italian Renaissance or that of Tudor England.

All of that said, this new book might almost have been called Clas-

What garb their houses wore was something they were generally willing

sic to Modern, inverting the earlier title, because while the array of styles

to leave up to their clients. What mattered most to them were the things

is still present—there are some excellent traditional houses to be found

in these pages—it has been clear for some time that Landry is moving, slowly but steadily, toward a more modern form of expression. No, not all of his recent houses are full of glass, not by any means, and I suspect that he will always be designing in a range of traditional styles. He enjoys all of them too much. But there is more glass, and more openness, in his newer work, and in almost all of his newer houses, whatever the style, we see and feel his buildings as shapes, not just as exercises in one architectural language or another. They come off as clearer, less fussy, and more self-assured than his houses of a decade or more ago.

The spaces flow well from one into the next, and the overall massing of the exterior is almost always a well-crafted composition. Landry houses may be visually striking, but they are not visually awkward.

Quite a number of his new houses do use the language of modernism, a language that by now, of course, is worthy of being called a historical style itself, since it owes much to the early experimental modern architecture of Europe and the United States, some of which is now a century old.

As Landry, in the tradition of the great eclectics, has taken historical styles and adapted them to contemporary American life, he has done the same thing with modernism, showing as vividly as in his traditional work that he is not a copyist at all, but an imaginative synthesizer. The cold, white

Samson Beach House

starkness of early modernism is not the theme of his modernist houses.

Neither is the rough, heavy concrete of Brutalism, or the swooping curves

The house is beautifully sited, making the most of one of those chal-

of midcentury futurism, or the tensile energy of midcentury’s Case Study

lenging, steep hillside sites that are characteristic of Los Angeles, and that

Houses, so important to the architectural history of Southern California.

in many other cities would be considered unbuildable. The skill with which

But all of these things are somehow present in Landry’s new work

Landry has integrated a large, multi-story house, complete with a circular

(as they are visible in the striking and expansive new office building he

motor court and a large garage, into a tiny site stands as a reminder that,

designed for his firm on the west side of Los Angeles). They represent a

like all good architects, he is also a solver of practical problems, and that

kind of genetic heritage that he has absorbed, and begun to use to cre-

he is able to perceive buildings not only in terms of their façades and their

ate something new, just as he has used the genetic material of Spanish

floor plans, but also in terms of how their pieces fit together vertically. He

Mediterranean to make of those styles something new and right for the

understands sections, and he takes an architect’s joy in being as creative

life lived today. In a house like the Collingwood Residence, one of the fin-

here as in his plans and details. The result is a house that is perched exu-

est houses in this new volume, there are hints of John Lautner and Rich-

berantly over the city, looking out over the expanse of Los Angeles with a

ard Neutra, two of California’s greatest modernists, but no one would

drama that calls to mind Pierre Koenig’s legendary Stahl House nearby,

mistake this house for the work of either of these architects. Landry, like

the house that, thanks to Julius Shulman’s legendary photograph, has

all good architects, has taken in the influence of his predecessors and

always embodied the aspirations of Los Angeles modernism.

transformed it into something that is entirely his own. This house is not

Where the Stahl House was relatively modest, the Collingwood

restrained by any means; indeed, it has a panache that represents Landry

Residence, like almost all of Landry’s work, is extravagant, designed for

at his best, here bringing the flamboyance of much of his traditional work

a client with large ambitions and an ample budget. Yet Landry is able to

to the challenge of reinterpreting southern California modernism.

work under tighter conditions; one of the best modernist projects in this

dence in Beverly Hills to the angular James Residence in Malibu, where, as at Samson, Landry experiments with the idea of the wall as a sculptural element on its own, this time as something angular, not curving.

There is the Rosen Residence, another modernist villa in which grandeur is rendered in sleek form, perched on a dramatic hillside. And then there are what Landry calls his “transitional” houses, buildings that are neither demonstrably modern nor traditional, but seem somewhere in between, of which the most striking is probably the Xanadu residence in Beverly Hills, which plays on the 20th-century Hollywood Regency Xanadu Residence

style, and which is, for all intents and purposes, a stripped-down version of a traditional French classical château. There is nothing wrong with this; architects have been stripping down classicism to find a modernist heart beating inside it since the 1930s. So here, too, Landry belongs to a tradition—but a tradition to which, as with all others, he makes his own contribution, and brings his own creative spark.

It is a spark defined, in the end, by his enthusiasm, and by that of his colleagues at the Landry Design Group. Landry does not work alone: not the least of the things he has in common with an earlier generation of American eclectic architects is that he has built a large, diversified

Rosen Residence

practice around exceptionally skillful and committed partner and associates who share his love of the whole of design, ranging across style,

book is the Sea Level Residence in Malibu, which is squeezed onto a tight

and his ability to deploy all of the elements of architecture. Landry’s

oceanfront site and yet addresses the Pacific with the same openness

practice, like the eclectic architectural firms of earlier generations, is

with which the Collingwood house embraces the entire city. The same

a studio of active practitioners, not an atelier based around a single

skill for making much out of a smaller footprint is visible in the lovely stu-

superstar. As in those firms, Landry sets the general design direction,

dio barn on the property of Landry’s Brady-Bündchen Residence II, in

but the outcome of any project is a shared effort.

Boston, a small wooden structure that manages to combine both sereni-

To the Landry Design Group, the world is a vast smorgasbord of

ty and energy, as well as to sit comfortably beside a much larger tradition-

architectural possibility, and it is clear that Richard Landry and his col-

al villa. The ability to work on a confined site brings even more exciting

leagues enjoy all of it too much to rule out any chapter of it. Their archi-

results at the Samson Beach House, also in Malibu, now under construc-

tecture, whatever its style, is celebratory, which is why Landry may be the

tion and presented in the final section of this book, “Works in Progress.”

least cynical architect around today: he wants to embrace all of the his-

Here, in a composition of curving walls, Landry manages both to be con-

tory of architecture, and to help his clients experience what he himself

tained and to break free with a real sculptural energy.

seems to feel, time and time again, with every project, which is the thrill

The final section of the book gives an intriguing indication of

of discovery.

where Landry is heading. There are a number of modernist houses, but there is no more a single modernist direction than there is a single traditional direction in his work: he is playing with everything, from the abstract masses of the Bell Canyon Residence in Ventura County to the wild, curving skeletal structure of the Aronowitz-Chalom Resi-

paul goldberger, who The Huffington Post has called “the leading figure in architecture

criticism,” is the author of Why Architecture Matters and Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, among other books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism for The New York Times. He is now a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair.

5

PO RT E R RES I D EN C E LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

PORTER RESIDENCE The request was a unique one for Landry Design Group: to reno-

firm raised ceilings throughout, and opened rooms to the exterior.

vate an original house in a Los Angeles canyon by respected architect

The entrance, living room, and parlor now step out to the covered log-

Paul Williams. Before approaching the firm, the clients had lived in the

gia through bifold doors that open the length of entire walls. Wher-

house for several years and fully understood its benefits and drawbacks,

ever possible, portions of the existing house were kept, such as the

which gave them a clear sense of what the renovation should entail

inward-curving entrance façade or details like the bay window project-

relative to their lifestyle. They wished to retain the home’s Hollywood

ing from that façade, formerly part of the kitchen and now the source of

Regency bones and semicircular flow, but needed to add a new master

natural light in the breakfast nook.

suite and larger bedrooms for their children, as well as introduce a fam-

Spaces were based on the study of the rhythm found elsewhere

ily room that better related to the more formal living and dining rooms.

in the original plan. Take the parlor, for example: its graceful curve now

The firm answered with a cohesive layout that resulted in a more pro-

matches that of the living room, whose parameters remained large-

nounced interpretation of a circular plan, plus an expanded garage that

ly intact. Within that curve, as elsewhere in the interior scheme set by

would connect to the house, a subterranean home theater and wine

interior designer Thomas Pheasant’s firm, a sofa specially selected for

room, a new pool house, an upstairs gym with its own terrace, and, on

the space captures the essence of the architecture. The Regency ref-

the ground floor, a grand covered loggia.

erences in the original home were carried over to the new pool house,

In addition to the spatial requirements of the renovation, more

which has a curved tower that links directly to those shapes in the main

potential improvements were immediately apparent to the firm. Ceilings

house. The residence offers an updated design for the clients’ lifestyle,

were oppressively low, rendering the rooms dark. Windows were small

while keeping the spirit of the original home.

and, typical of homes of the era, the house was not as well connected to the outdoors as a more contemporary structure would be. The

01

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VA SUDE VA N RES I D EN C E KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

03

Opening photograph The villa borrows

02

from Andalusian architecture, with a tall entrance and porte-cochère to protect the clients from weather. 01 Reclaimed antique Spanish brick was used for the base of the gatehouse. The exterior walls are smooth plaster and the roofs are antiqued tile. 02 Landry Design Group modeled the lanterns in the courtyard after some the clients had admired on their travels. 03 The dining room opens directly onto the courtyard. An oak tray ceiling offsets a door surround in chengal (a Malaysian hardwood) and limestone walls.

SAMSO N BEAC H HO U S E MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

Front façade showcases simple concept of house.

The great arc walls of sculptor Richard Serra provided a point of inspiration for the development of the forms that cut through the Samson Beach House in Malibu, a remodel of an existing oceanfront home. From the street, its effect is immediate: a cube covered in reflective glass (the garage) punches through the colossal main plane, creating interest on arrival. A second reflective cube intersects more planes on the ocean side, and a third cube housing the entrance, made of transparent glass, disappears into another curve. On the rear façade, a curved plane breaks away from the house, its sense of movement resembling a sail carried by the wind.

Inspiration: Richard Serra, Snake, 1994–1997. © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, Bilbao 2017, photo by Erika Ede.

Reflective office cube floats above outdoor dining while cutouts in rear sculptural wall frame ocean views.

Modern to Classic II: Residential Estates by Landry Design Group explores the Los Angeles firm’s recent work, defined by an eclectic range of references and styles. Emphasizing the unique stories that inform each of the projects, the monograph’s 15 chapters—each dedicated to a single completed residence and opening with a conceptual sketch by principal Richard Landry—demystify the process behind creating the grand estates the firm has become known for. From a modern steel and glass aerie perched above L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard to a lakeside stone villa in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, the houses selected embody the spirit of those who inhabit them. A special section, Works in Progress, previews 25 current projects from the firm consistently sought for its ability to collaboratively intuit architectural styles, siting, and materials in structures that innovatively reflect the area vernacular and elevate the imaginations of their clients, who include celebrities, creatives, and industry leaders.

USD 75.00

ISBN: 978-1-940743-29-5 57500

9 781940 743295