This building recognizes complexities and contradictions: it is both complex and simple, open and closed, big and little; some of its elements are good on one level and bad on another; its order accommodates the generic elements of the house in general, and the circumstantial elements of a house in particular. It achieves the difficult unity of a medium number of diverse parts rather than the easy unity of few or many motival parts.
The inside spaces, as represented in plan and section, are complex and distorted in their shapes and interrelationships. They correspond to the complexities inherent in the domestic program as well as to some whimsies not inappropriate to an individual house. On the other hand, the outside form—as represented by the parapeted wall and the gable roof which enclose these complexities and distortion—is simple and consistent: it represents this house's public scale. The front, in its conventional combinations of door, windows, chimney and gable, creates an almost symbolic image of a house.
The contradiction between inside and outside, however, is not total: inside, the plan as a whole reflects the symmetrical consistency of the outside; outside, the perforations in the elevations reflect the circumstantial distortions within. Concerning the inside, the plan is originally symmetrical with a central vertical core from which radiate two almost symmetrical diagonal walls that separate two end spaces in front from a major central space in back. This almost Palladian rigidity and symmetry is distorted, however, to accommodate to the particular needs of the spaces: the kitchen on the right, for instance, varies from the bedroom on the left.
A more violent kind of accommodation occurs within the central core itself. Two vertical elements — the fireplace-chimney and the stair — compete, as it were, for central position. And each of these elements, one essentially solid, the other essentially void, compromises in its shape and position — that is, inflects toward the other to make a unity of the duality of the central core they constitute. On one side the fireplace distorts in shape and moves over a little, as does its chimney; on the other side the stair suddenly constricts its width and distorts its path because of the chimney.
This core dominates as the center of the composition at this level; but at the level of its base, it is a residual element dominated itself by the spaces around it. On the living room side its shape is rectangular and parallel to the important rectangular order of the important space there. Toward the front it is shaped by a diagonal wall accommo-dating to the also important and unique directional needs of the entrance space in its transition from big outer opening to inner entrance doors. The entrance space also competes for center position here. The stair, considered as an element alone in its awkward residual space, is bad; in relation to its position in a hierarchy of uses and spaces, however, it is a fragment appropriately accommodating to a complex and contradictory whole and as such it is good. From still another point of view its shape is not awkward: at the bottom the stair is a place to sit, as well as ascend, and put objects later to be taken upstairs. And this stair, like those in Shingle Style houses, also wants to be bigger at its base to accommodate to the bigger scale of the first floor. The little "nowhere stair" from the second floor similarly accommodates awkwardly to its residual core space: on one level, it goes nowhere and is whimsical; at another level, it is like a ladder against a wall from which to wash the high window and paint the clerestory. The change in scale of the stair on this floor further contrasts with that change of scale in the other direction at the bottom.
The architectural complexities and distortions inside are reflected on the outside. The varying locations and sizes and shapes of the windows and perforations on the outside walls, as well as the off-center location of the chimney, contradict the overall symmetry of the outside form: the windows are balanced on each side of the dominating entrance opening and chimney-clerestory element in the front, and the lunette window in the back, but they are asymmetrical. The protrusions above and beyond the rigid outside walls also reflect the complexity inside. The walls in front and back are parapeted to emphasize their role as screens behind which these inner intricacies can protrude. Indentations of the windows and porch on the sides at all but one of the corners, increase the screenlike quality of the front and back wails in the same way as the parapets do at their tops.
When I called this house both open and closed as well as simple and complex, I was referring to these contradic-tory characteristics of the outside walls. First, their parapets along with the wall of the upper terrace in the back, emphasize horizontal enclosure yet permit an expression of openness behind them at the upper terrace, and above them chimney-clerestory protrusion. Second, the consistent shape of the walls in plan emphasizes rigid enclosure, yet the big openings, often precariously close to the corners contradict the expression of enclosure. This method of walls — layered for enclosure, yet punctured for openness — occurs vividly at the front center, where the outside wall is superimposed upon the two other walls housing the stair. Each of these three layers juxtaposes openings of differing size and position. Here is layered space rather than inter-penetrated space.
The house is big as well as little, by which I mean that it is a little house with big scale. Inside the elements are big: the fireplace is "too big" and the mantel "too high" for the size of the room; doors are wide, the chair rail high. Another manifestation of big scale inside is a minimum of subdivisions of space — also for the sake of economy, the plan minimizes purely circulation space. Outside the manifestations of big scale are the main elements, which are big and few in number and central or symmetrical in position, as well as the simplicity and consistency of the form and silhouette of the whole, which I have already described. In back the lunette window is big and dominating in its shape and position. In front the entrance loggia is wide, high, and central. Its big scale is emphasized by its contrast with the other doors, smaller in size yet similar in shape; by its shallowness for its size; and by the expedient position of the inner entrance behind it. The applied wood moulding over the door increases its scale, too. The dado increases the scale of the building all around because it is higher than you expect it to be. These mouldings affect the scale in another way also: they make the stucco walls even more abstract, and the scale, usually implied by the nature of materials, more ambiguous or noncommittal.
The main reason for the large scale is to counterbal-ance the complexity. Complexity in combination with small scale in small buildings means busyness. Like the other organized complexities here, the big scale in the small building achieves tension rather than nervousness-a tension appropriate for this kind of architecture.
The setting of the house is a flat, open, interior site, enclosed at its boundaries by trees and fences. The house sits near the middle, like a pavilion, with no planting at all near it. The driveway axis perpendicular to the middle of the house is distorted in its position by the circumstantial location of a sewer main at the curb of the street.
The abstract composition of this building almost equally combines rectangular, diagonal, and curving elements. The rectangles relate to the just dominant order of the spaces in plan and section. The diagonals relate to directional space at the entrance, to particular relationships of the directional and nondirectional spaces within the rigid enclosure on the first floor, and to the enclosing and water-shedding function of the roof. The curves relate to the directional-spatial needs at the entry and outside stair; to spatial-expressive needs in section in the dining room ceiling, which is contradictory to the outside slope of the roof; and to the symbolism of the entrance and its big scale, which is produced by the moulding on the front elevation. The exceptional point in the plan refers to the expedient column support, which contrasts with the otherwise wallbearing structure of the whole. These complex combinations do not achieve the easy harmony of a few motival parts based on exclusion — based, that is, on "less is more." Instead they achieve the difficult unity of a medium number of diverse parts based on inclusion and on acknowledgement of the diversity of experience.
