{"id":5199,"date":"2019-06-18T16:25:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T16:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/?p=5199"},"modified":"2024-08-21T08:37:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T08:37:27","slug":"endless-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/principal-thoughts\/endless-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Endless House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early in its history, Severud Associates gained a reputation for efficient and economical structural designs for housing projects in New York City and the surrounding suburbs.\u00a0 The Dyckman, Lillian Wald, and Elliott Houses in Manhattan; the Breukelen and Farragut Houses in Brooklyn; and the Bronx River and Gun Hill Road Houses in the Bronx are just a few of the apartment buildings that were in its portfolio by the mid-20th century.\u00a0 The firm\u2019s practical analysis approach, innovative framing systems, and studies of alternative materials were so successful, in fact, that Fred N. Severud and architect Joseph H. Abel authored a book on the subject, Apartment Houses<\/em>, in 1947.\u00a0 Most of these residential buildings were very large and strictly rectilinear so it might at first seem surprising that in May 1959\u201460 years ago this spring\u2014Severud Associates was chosen by Frederick Kiesler to engineer his Endless House.<\/p>\n

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The house, a culmination of concepts that Kiesler had developed over several decades, was included in an exhibition titled \u201cVisionary Architecture\u201d that was presented by the Museum of Modern Art in 1960.\u00a0 The museum\u2019s press release described the showing as a collection of \u201c20th century projects considered too revolutionary to build.\u201d \u00a0Endless House certainly seemed to fit the bill.\u00a0 The one-level dwelling consists of several inter-connected ovoid shells\u2014some reviewers compared them to eggs, others to wombs\u2014of rough-textured concrete with irregular window and door openings.\u00a0 The entire assemblage hovers roughly one floor above grade and rests on four comparatively stout pedestals; a sweeping spiral stairway, which appears to be self-supporting, provides access.\u00a0 The house itself is mostly curves with few straight edges and no corners (one element of the \u201cendless\u201d concept).<\/p>\n

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This housing project was unlike any that Severud Associates had previously designed.\u00a0 And yet, it would not be the firm\u2019s first unusual project.\u00a0 By 1959, Severud\u2019s engineers had already successfully designed the Toronto City Hall in Canada, the Hall of Congress in Berlin, Germany, and the David S. Ingalls Rink at Yale University in New Haven, CT.\u00a0 At about the same time, the firm was beginning its work on Marina City Towers in Chicago, Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the Gateway Arch at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis.\u00a0 Cable nets, arches, and thin concrete shells were well within the breadth of the engineering staff\u2019s demonstrated expertise.\u00a0 As Dr. Hannskarl Bandel pointed out in a later Architectural & Engineering News<\/em> article (\u201cThe shell as backbone,\u201d April 1963), the structure for Endless House was the \u201clogical and integrated finale\u201d of combining flat slab and thin shell principles to create a shallow, long-span framing system.<\/p>\n

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As originally planned, a full-scale prototype of Endless House was to be constructed in the museum\u2019s garden.\u00a0 Sadly, the museum\u2019s press release proved prescient and the prototype was never built.\u00a0 For the architect\u2014and the exhibition\u2019s visitors\u2014an eight-foot-long model, built with concrete and wire mesh, and several drawings would have to suffice.<\/p>\n

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Severud Associates continues its tradition of providing innovative engineering designs for complex projects with the Live Work Home, a sustainable and affordable urban housing development in Syracuse, NY and the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, scheduled to open later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early in its history, Severud Associates gained a reputation for efficient and economical structural designs for housing projects in New York City and the surrounding suburbs.\u00a0 The Dyckman, Lillian Wald, and Elliott Houses in Manhattan; the Breukelen and Farragut Houses in Brooklyn; and the Bronx River and Gun Hill Road Houses in the Bronx are … Continue reading “Endless House”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5986,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions\/5986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}