Product Code Database
The Snyderman House was a widely published single-family residence in Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed for Sanford and Joy Snyderman in 1972 by architect Michael Graves. Celebrated in both the architectural and popular press as a tour-de-force of late modernism, it was a splendid example of Graves' imaginative, sophisticated work. It stood, along with Graves' Hanselman House, Richard Meier's New Harmony Athenaeum —which was related to the Snyderman House—and the buildings of Columbus, Indiana, as national icons of modern architecture located in the state of Indiana (Graves' home state).
Martin Filler, in an overview of Graves' work as of 1980, wrote that "The Synderman House is a central work in Michael Graves' career. It is his largest completed building to date, but its significance comes not from its size. It is transitional work, and transitional works in architecture are much rarer than in other art forms, a result of the architectural artifact taking so long to produce. The Snyderman House, designed in 1972 and completed five years later, spans Michael Graves' two stylistic phases. The house is composed of a white, cage-like exterior frame, typical of his first projects. But within that cubism grill are set massive volumes--sheer gray wall planes, an undulating terra cotta facade--and relatively small expanses of glass, all of which are more characteristic of his current projects. This is an early Michael Graves building with a later Michael Graves building trapped inside it, fighting to emerge. Its debt both in form and color to the earlier work of John Hejduk, and its impact on later work by other architects (such as Richard Meier's Atheneum of 1975-70 in New Harmony, Ind.) confirm it as an important work of the 1970's."
The Snyderman House's bold coloration already suggested Graves' moving away from the narrower definitions of modernism of his earliest career, such as sometimes characterized the group of architects with whom he was associated, dubbed "The New York Five."
Given Graves' rapidly developed a more referential architecture after the Snyderman House, an approach that deliberately sought to establish connections with the history and culture of architecture by using or referring to familiar elements of buildings.
"Living in a Work of Art: Snyderman House, Fort Wayne, In," Suzanne Stephens, Progressive Architecture, March 1978.
"Color from the Outside In," House and Garden, September 1978.
Michael Graves, Architectural Monographs 5, David Dunster, editor, 1979.
"Michael Graves: Before and After," Martin Filler, Art in America, September 1980.
Michael Graves, 1966–1981, Karen Wheeler, Peter Arnell and Ted Bickford, editors, 1982.
|
|
