Art: Add Water, Mix & Pour

People who live in concrete houses can throw stones. They can also laugh at fires, earthquakes and termites. And now they can take an art collector’s pleasure in looking at the place they live in as though it were an outsized sculpture (see color pages).

Curves & Squares. For Manhattan Physician Howard Taylor, Architect John M. Johansen has built a many-chambered nautilus. Johansen, who trained under Walter Gropius, has veered away from the Master’s Bauhaus cubism into a vocabulary of curves and coils, pleasing both to look at and to live in. The Taylor house is cast in forms of rough-sawed random-width oak slabs, which give concrete a rich, grainy texture. Says Johansen: “I think of a house as a series of shells which contain human organisms; the outside of the shell is an epidermis, and it can be as rough as the seaworn shells one finds on the beach. The inner surface, against which the organism moves, rubs its shoulders, should be comfortable to the touch.”

Where the Taylor house is curvy, the Arthur W. Milam house in northern Florida is all right angles. Architect Paul Rudolph, another Gropius alumnus, designed a series of concrete block rectangles that turn the house’s seaside exposure into a mammoth Mondrian. It is a straight place, but not all for show; the open-end geometry that ornaments the facade functions as a sunbreak and keeps the interior cool without cumbersome draperies. The house is built on seven levels that form a series of “living platforms,” the lowest being a utility room, while the uppermost is a rooftop lookout—a modern version of the widow’s walk. Rudolph, chairman of the department of architecture of Yale and designer of its new all-concrete, Art and Architecture Building, had originally specified poured concrete for the Milam family, but smooth-cast sand-colored concrete blocks for walls turned out to cost only half as much: $88,000. While not big, the house tricks the eye into an impression of size because its wall-less interiors give unobstructed vistas.

Penthouses & Fishbowls. Inside the Johansen house, the concave surfaces of the walls are finished in plaster, silk or Italian glass tile. The shell walls surround a living room with a fireplace in its own enclosed area, a dining room large enough for twelve, a skylighted kitchen, a master bedroom with two baths, a sitting room, and a penthouse study for the doctor. From here, he can wigwag through the skylight into the kitchen when he is ready for lunch. There is also a separate guest house that can accommodate six when the occasion arises.

The ceilings in both houses vary from 9 ft. to 30 ft. high, the walls are 8 in. thick, and there are plenty of windows; air conditioning has so far been unnecessary. The Taylors built it mainly for weekends, now find themselves staying there year-round. “It’s a terribly exciting house to live in,” says Mrs. Taylor.

In place of rooms, the interior of the Rudolph house is divided into areas with built-in furniture and greenery-laden overlooks. Medieval brass rubbings, a 16th century refectory table, and plenty of books lend visual warmth to the house. A conversation pit in a two-storied living area gives a feeling of airport-lobby spaciousness; just over a concrete-block wall is a lower-ceilinged area whose built-in sofas and cheery fireplace make it a more popular snuggery. Rudolph, who likes to punctuate his interiors with oubliettes and galleries, has provided the Milams with a handy vantage point for supervising activity in the children’s living room on the lower level. A little balcony juts out at the end of a short passageway alongside the fireplace, saving steps and making family togetherness a practical matter. Says the architect: “You can go from nest to fishbowl to cave in a few steps. The house has endless variety.”