Open your eyes. Look around. Everything you see \u2014 the newspaper in your hand, the chair you\u2019re sitting in, the room you occupy \u2014 has been designed. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Even the \u201cnatural\u201d world outside \u2014 landscape, walkways, streets, buildings, the plants \u2014 have been designed by someone \u2014 or a committee, all educated, experienced, trained, mentored, licensed and insured. Years of study and a lifetime of experience go into making the most mundane of objects. When designers are successful, you don\u2019t even notice they\u2019ve been there. Good design seems inevitable, invisible. No wonder we don\u2019t give it much thought.<\/p>\n
Still it seems surprising that so many old house owners, when it comes to redesigning the costliest art object they own \u2014 their home \u2014 decide to wing it. They get their inspiration from Pinterest, from online real estate ads for houses in the neighborhood they couldn\u2019t afford, and they leave the execution to a guy with a high school diploma and a license to negotiate contracts with subcontractors \u2014 but no formal training in architecture or design.<\/p>\n
For new buyers of old houses, the ink is hardly dry on the escrow papers before a dumpster is parked in the driveway, filled with lathe, plaster and $100,000 worth of old-growth Douglas fir molding.<\/p>\n
Blame it on the internet, where all opinions are legitimate, no matter how unqualified the source. Blame it on reality TV, and the home shows dedicated to the premise that the road to happiness stops off at the dump, where you can unburden yourself of the previous owners\u2019 ill-conceived design ideas.<\/p>\n
OK, I\u2019m probably being too hard on today\u2019s old house owner \u2014 if he or she wants to get some professional advice about how to sensitively remodel his or her historic house, it\u2019s hard to figure out who to turn to for advice.<\/p>\n The internet is full of charlatans and self-promoters selling snake oil (which can be used to revive your woodwork \u2014 see the YouTube video). The average contractor doesn\u2019t know how to restore a 100-year-old house. He only knows how to gut it and build a 21st-century house inside it.<\/p>\n And the average architect might have good ideas about the use of space, and proportion, and how to insulate your house for a Chicago winter, but he knows nothing about Spanish Revival plaster textures or arts and crafts millwork.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the restoration architect comes in.<\/p>\n \u201cThe restoration who?\u201d you might ask. \u201cThe restoration architect has a broad perspective and a background in handling both the scope of work and the unexpected situations you\u2019re going to encounter when working on an old house,\u201d said John Eisenhart, principal of Union Architecture, a local firm that specializes in restoring early 20th-century vernacular architecture.<\/p>\n For the renovator, there are two separate issues to consider. \u201cOne issue is with the city, with permitting, building codes and the general construction practices one needs to get through. The more important issue comes down to the basic day-in and day-out. We deal with space and spatial issues and the emotions attached to space. Any homeowner has some affiliation with a dwelling and the emotions attached to it. But an architect specializing in restoration understands the emotions of clients as well as certain core principals in our field, and certain situations to avoid.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have 35 years of studying architecture. We understand the materials and spatial concepts from decades ago. And we try to understand the original intent [of the original designer].<\/p>\n \u201cNot that we\u2019re perfect. The client and other professionals have certain information that they add. We\u2019re the commander of the ship, making sure it stays true to its course. \u201c<\/p>\n Eisenhart and his partner Eva Thorn have decades of experience and years of training (he in architecture and preservation from the University of Michigan; she in architecture from the University of Kaiserslautern, in Germany). This has given them some unique insights into the lives of their predecessors, the master builders whose work they endeavor to preserve.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the teens and twenties, most of the houses weren\u2019t even built by architects,\u201d Eisenhart said. \u201cThey were the product of builders who used pattern books. And the plans in the books might not have even have been designed by an architect. Actually, a home designed by an architect was pretty rare. Maybe 5 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Eisenhart makes a distinction between the sort of journeyman builder who stuck to the plans he purchased from pattern books and the master builders such as Nathan Rigdon, Martin Melhorn, Cliff May and Richard Requa.<\/p>\n Requa started out as a site foreman for Irving Gill but eventually became a licensed architect as well. The majority of the houses built at the beginning of the 20th century were based on vernacular designs. (Vernacular architecture is \u201cindigenous to a specific time and place,\u201d Eisenhart explained.)<\/p>\n The journeyman builder stuck with the designs he found in books like \u201cWilson\u2019s California Bungalow.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe master builder had a greater interest in architectural styles,\u201d Eisenhart said. \u201cNot just in what was built around them. They referred to the journals that were available at that time. They worked within the vernacular.<\/p>\n \u201cRichard Requa worked within the vernacular. But he also played within the vernacular theme, like a jazz musician. Not like a classical musician, who can\u2019t improvise. In general the classical musician is playing the music the way it\u2019s written. Some of the builders, like Rigdon or Melhorn, had some improvisation going on. How deep was that vibe? It\u2019s hard to say. Cliff May . . . he was always evolving. (May was a big-band leader before he took up architecture and introduced the California ranch house.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at Irving Gill,\u201d Thorn said, \u201cyou can see the change; he was evolving. Over time his trim work, instead of having the trim pronounced from the wall, he recessed it from the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n Then you have the classic gentleman architect, like William Templeton Johnson, who married into money and designed for the class of people to whom he belonged.<\/p>\n \u201cThat guy could do various styles. He could do classical. He got into art moderne. He got into deco. He could flow with any style,\u201d she said. \u201cUsually builders had a couple styles they could go with. Whereas an architect has that, but he also has a general background and awareness of the history of architecture and he draws from that. Not just local building, he\u2019s looking at it from the standpoint of his educational background. It can be a very unique house, even though it shares something with the vernacular.\u201d<\/p>\n True to their training, Eisenhart and Thorn\u2019s most recent projects have run the gamut from Mid-Century Modern to early 20th\u00a0century vernacular; Spanish Colonial to Cliff May-inspired Rancho.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve done residential and commercial, designed dream homes in La Jolla and monitored historic structures in the path of a high-rise development Downtown.<\/p>\n That particular project, a 1906 Church for a Mexican congregation Downtown, stood in the way of progress \u2014 from the developer\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n As Eva put it, with their influence, the project went from: \u201cLet\u2019s get rid of this old shack,\u201d to, \u201cHow is this interesting? How can we use it?\u201d It\u2019s now on its way to becoming a jewel, rather than an eyesore.<\/p>\n Architects are famous for their egos. You need to believe in yourself to build something that could last for a hundred years. But restoration architects have to possess humility as well; after all, they\u2019re trying not to screw up something that\u2019s already lasted a century.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every job you get to the point where, you know everything and then, suddenly, you don\u2019t know anything,\u201d Eisenhart said. \u201cYou had a certain prejudice about things. And then you encounter new stuff and discover it\u2019s different. You never want to think you know everything. That\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s interesting. When you get with clients, a bit of what they know gets added to what you know and the concept of the house grows.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps because she grew up in Europe, where houses evolve over the centuries, Eva thinks even modern tract houses can be improved \u2014 if homeowner associations would let them. Instead, many a 1980s tract home is frozen in time by CC&Rs. \u201cThat\u2019s why I feel HOAs have too much control over tract houses. They don\u2019t let people expand on their houses based on their own needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that the average old house owner can\u2019t use a little guidance \u2014 perhaps even from a restoration architect.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople always want something unique and they don\u2019t understand they already have something unique,\u201d Eisenhart said. \u201cI think we can help them see that. We can help them learn to love it and appreciate things they didn\u2019t see before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014P\u00f3ngase en contacto con Michael Good en <\/em>visitas domiciliariassdun@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>To learn more about Union Architecture, go to unionarch.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Michael Good |\u00a0HouseCalls Think you need to destroy your old house to save it? Put down that sledgehammer. Maybe you need a preservation architect. Open your eyes. Look around. Everything you see \u2014 the newspaper in your hand, the chair you\u2019re sitting in, the room you occupy \u2014 has been designed. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1306,"featured_media":251251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Preservation \u2014 by design","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Harmon_UnionArch-300x200.jpg\")
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