Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House must be sold! Completed in 1987 for Mike and Penny Winton, the Winton Guest House in Owatonna, Minnesota is one of Gehry's few residential projects that contributed to his rising fame during the 1990s. According to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul -- the home's current owner -- the $4.5 million home will be up for auction on May 19 in Chicago, with auction house Wright in charge of handling the sale.
Entryway to the University of St. Thomas St. Paul campus
Mike and Penny Winton commissioned Gehry to design the home in 1982 when they needed extra room for their family to accompany their Philip Johnson-designed residence on their property in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. Built from plywood, stone, brick, and metal, the 2,300 sq.ft guest house consists of five separate geometric spaces that include a central pyramidal living room tower, two bedrooms, a kitchen, fireplace room, two bathrooms, and loft space. The house's distinctive geometric-block design is based on Gehry's "house as a village" concept, which was mainly inspired by the bottle paintings of artist Giorgio Morandi. Gehry also applied the concept to his own residence in Santa Monica.
Real estate developer Kirt Woodhouse purchased the home from the Wintons in 2002 and then donated it the University of St. Thomas in 2007 with the provision that the house must be relocated. Between 2008-2011, the university had the house shipped as eight separate parts 110 miles down south to its current location in Owatonna, where it was reassembled and repurposed as part of the Daniel C. Gainey Conference Center.
Ever since St. Thomas sold the Gainey Center, the guest house must begin relocation this June to meet its August 2016 deadline.
80 Comments
Teardown.
Miles, you are a ruiner. You have the most shallow understanding of architecture and yet you have the loudest mouth.
Instead of ad hominem attacks, I would be more interested in a rebuttal.
A rebuttal to the considered argument presented in the sentence "Teardown."? Davvid is right, and Mr. Jaffe is the main reason I seldom look at the discussions here.
These couple early Gehry works probably have more significance in the history of the practice than do the long sequence of rehashes he's executed since. There's at least something happening conceptually in the space planning here, and like the Gehry house there's something interesting in the formalism which arises from the modern materials he is working in. Personally I think the lineage you might draw from this project to some of Salmela's work is the most interesting facet, but that's just my bias.
Anyway, why on earth was this moved to its current site if it now needs to be moved again? Am I misreading something? The fact that it was excluded from the sale of the current property suggests the University thought it had some value, but now it seems more like no-one wants to deal with the potential preservationist battle of scrapping it...
^ Another schizo Quondam-fingering-Lauf delusional episode.
Dude, you need to get yourself to a mental health clinic. Really.
If someone builds something out of plywood, they aren't building something to last are they? Can't the impermanence be as beautiful as the part of the art that was constructed?
Teardown.
Curtkam, which part is made out of plywood?
C'mon davvid, waiting for your rebuttal. Or an apology.
hey Piles Jaffe: go fuck yourself
in your turd museum teardown
unless you want to apologize for being a turd yourself
the only stink you track in here is your opinions and your shit behavior
its fine if youre an idiot
but can you be less of an ass?
youre really becoming a reeking pile.
you put the shart in rebuttal.
Actually, that house is garbage. There's no form whatsoever. Like Miles said, "Not that there is anything to admire about the exterior: a series of random, unrelated shapes painted in different materials without any sensitivity to them (materiality, LOL).". The inside just dives deeper into the lack of fluidity and form on the outside.
Teardown.
P.S, is boy in a well trying to attempt poetry? Bravo!
davvid, it says in the write-up:
"Built from plywood, stone, brick, and metal, the 2,300 sq.ft guest house . . ."
The plywood must be on the interior.
^ It is apparent that an apology from davvid is not forthcoming.
Miles, you are a ruiner. You have the most shallow understanding of architecture and yet you have the loudest mouth.
A real man admits error and acts quickly to correct it. But no worries, you have fulfilled my expectations.
I believe that the brownish maroonish rectangular form on the left of the top photograph is clad in finply.
I also believe that this house and Frank Gehry are awesome. I don't personally find much for myself in his current buildings but I sure do find endless inspiration in his earlier houses.
Gehry has my deepest and undying respect for sticking to his guns and following through with his personal vision for over 50 years. Managing to get built what he has in a world filled with people afraid of difference and change is a huge huge huge accomplishment.
It's said it was six figures to move it, probably another six to reconstruct and another six for land.....thinking if near water it could be moved by barge (faster/cheaper) but it's located in the middle of nowhere.... Farmer/Bachelor lives just south, maybe he'll buy it for his new bride for their honeymoon cottage....tower being a symbolic gesture..
Easy fix.
And a public service, good training for the local FD.
Miles, Are you joking? I'm not taking back that statement. Its absolutely true. You are a ruiner.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ruiner
"A Ruiner is a person who habitually exhibits a desire to spoil or ruin things, often focused on a particular theme. Different from a hater in that a ruiner tends to hold deep, genuine, and long-lasting animosity toward their target which can reach obsessive and psychologically unsound levels. Ruiners have a tendency to latch on to specific people, whether they are famous or not, and perform stalking-like behavior. Ruiners who are members of a subculture such as a fandom, may paradoxially focus their hatred on their own topic of interest and attempt to throw wrenches in it or spoil the enjoyment for other people."
Davvid, particular pet peeve of mine also, but in this case think Miles is just out to have fun based on merits, would be that the-boy-in-the-well that is your "ruiner", at least on this thread. Heavy language never comes off well in writing.
Miles, you are a ruiner. You have the most shallow understanding of architecture and yet you have the loudest mouth.
So anyone who doesn't agree with you is a ruiner, or is it just me?
What about my having no understanding of architecture, or having the loudest mouth. This thread disproves both comments, and yet you stand by them.
Read the thread. I concisely expressed an opinion (teardown) and backed it up with specific detailed criticism. You have expressed nothing regarding the topic of this thread; not a reasoned rebuttal to my criticism, not the justification for your implied fandom of Gehry, nothing except insults.
Funny thing is that you have done the reverse of what you intended. The way to show that I have a shallow understanding of architecture is to prove it. Since you can't, you have actually proven that about yourself. As such, we have clearly exceeded the limit of your mental capacity. You are not only immature but witless as well. In fact your behavior is the very definition of ruiner.
This is an interesting discussion except for your stalking my posts, clearly to spoil the enjoyment of others. Does your mommy know you're on the internet?
^Miles, you expressed your opinion in more detail only after, or perhaps because I called you a ruiner. Your original "teardown" comment was classic Miles Jaffe.
"What about my having no understanding of architecture, or having the loudest mouth. This thread disproves both comments, and yet you stand by them."
I didn't write "no understanding of architecture", I wrote "the most shallow understanding of architecture". And your more detailed opinion didn't exactly disprove that.
"This is one of the most ill-proportioned houses I've ever seen."
Gehry along with many of his contemporaries (as well as industrial designers, graphic designers and artists) intentionally worked with forms that challenged classical ideas about proportion, scale and composition.
"The so-called 'formalist materialism' is confined to the exterior and the horrendous interiors are just plain drywall. None of the 'materiality' (I hate architecture bullshit) is expressed inside, where people would actually experience it."
There are actually other materials on the interior besides drywall.
But Gehry obviously isn't alone in using drywall unconventionally in his architecture.
^ IIT building by OMA
The word "materiality" isn't bullshit. Its just a word that means "the quality or character of being material or composed of matter".
"inside, where people would actually experience it. Real architects know that people spend their lives living inside their homes, not out in the yard"
Buildings are experienced inside and out, obviously.
"Not that there is anything to admire about the exterior: a series of random, unrelated shapes"
Not that there is anything for Miles Jaffee to admire...
Think you are both wrong, that building has nothing to do with architecture anymore, it transcends it, it's in the art world now, work of a thought to be great artist and once in that world all logic flies out the window.... it's for someone who collects things... like a Warhol, none of it is good or bad anymore, it's all good because his name is on it... his stuff isn't art anymore they're all just "Warhol's now".
Think I would buy it for those reasons... if the world wants to play that game... how many "Gehy's" can fit in a backyard? How many could one collect? Secret is not to move it in components but to deconstruct it stick-by-stick, brick-by-brick and transport with a few trucks at 65 mph.... Miles, lets do this, let's buy it, measure the shit out of it, take it apart then drive it secretary to a dump 5 miles away, then replicate it somewhere near you so it's easily movable out of stuff from Home Depot and sell it to some unsuspecting East Coast art schmuck for a million bucks.
Interesting point Carrera.
Carerra, even East Coast schmucks are to savvy to buy that PoS. Unless of course they could get it for the right price, then maybe, but only if they could unload it on some other schmuck for a fat profit.
davvid, I don't agree with your opinion. That doesn't make you a ruiner or give me cause to insult you. I simply think you're wrong, and I can demonstrate it in a number of ways. But at this point I'm not interested because of what it takes to have a discussion with you. You're so busy defending your fragile ego that you can't even begin to see what anyone else is saying. Your cup is overflowing.
That there is nothing for me to admire about that project is absolutely correct, but it is not justification for you to be a colossal asshole towards me. You still haven't rebutted my criticism, you're still wrong (not in your fanboy adoration of Gehry, as misguided as I may consider it) in your behavior, and you still owe me an apology. I don't think you're man enough to admit it.
Have a nice day.
Miles, in trying to understand your comments, I decided to take a look at this site:
http://www.milesjaffe.com
and discovered even bigger steaming piles of #$*&$ than Gehry's work.
^ Why don't you put up some of your own work for comparison, you anonymous two-post wonder who joined Archinect all of a month ago.
Thanks for the link!
Miles, This has nothing to do with us agreeing or disagreeing. It has to do with your behavior. We can disagree and make fair and reasonable points and counterpoints. I may not agree completely with Carrera's last comment, for example, but I still think its a very interesting and reasonable point worth thinking about for a while.
I can understand if you have certain ideas that contrast sharply with the careers of specific architects or the prevailing philosophies of certain periods of architecture history. What I don't understand is promoting the destruction of evidence of that history, especially when its relatively small and private. Same for the "monument by the International Museum of Turds in Colonville, New Jersey" Warsaw building. It just doesn't seem reasonable to me. Its not even clear if you're being serious or just trying to annoy other commenters.
I did my best to respond to every one of your points in my last comment and I don't owe you an apology.
ghostly_s, I also wonder about the reasons for moving it once then yet again.
I disagree with you, though, that Gehry has just been rehashing recently. I find something different in every project. I think he's limiting his material palette but trying slight differences in materials, or form, or both, in every project. I feel like he's one of the few starchitects who is actually still experimenting much.
Somebody better put wheels on that thing, this isn't the last time it's going to get moved. Maybe sell each element separately, put them on trailers and once a year have a reunion….Pete Seeger can come and sing “Little Boxes”.
What I like most about Gehry is he knows it’s all bullshit…..
I never seem to hear anyone say that Mies rehashed things even though many of his buildings look similar. Same for Wright. I wonder if it has something to do with the nature of media and a constant pressure to top the most recent success.
The design for the National Art Museum of China really would've have been amazing.
Carrera, sorry to break it to you but Pete Seeger is dead.
But in the spirit of revivalism we could ask the Richard Driehaus Foundation to pay for a Pete Seeger impersonator.
Davvid, dead? All the more appropriate. No need for an impersonator, I'm sure he'll come back for this.
Glass Museum - Back to Eisenman who put so much glass in the Wexner museum that it bleached the art, then declared “I like the way things turned out”.
It is an important work of Gehry. If it is demolished it can never be build again. It is not designed as multiples. Its concept, deconstructed plan carried fully throughout, still applied in most of Gehry's work. I consider it a gem.
C'mon Miles, I think we've got a buyer.
Carrera, And yet the Wexner's light problems didn't seem to keep museums from using glass over the last 15 years. The design solutions and material engineering evolved but glass was never banned.
Can we get back to agreeing that Calatrava sucks, and he shouldn't be allowed near a drawing board?
Davvid, talking to someone whose practice designed museums, did light monitors for day lighting, tucked windows in hidden pockets in corners of rooms, but curator's were all over us on this. Used motion switching for exhibit lighting for a reason. Some may, Wexner's curator did and when he saw what was happening had to pull the art and close the museum.... now it's so dark in there you can hardly walk. Have seen it with object exhibits but even then it's indirect. Fail to understand the purpose of glass in a museum.... just need enough light to enter the room then when someone steps up to a painting we would blast it with great clean light.... then off the second they stepped away, thought it added excitement...." Boom!"
hi carrera!
miles here deserves more insult than rebuttal for dogging specific people around the board. and asking for a rebuttal to 'teardown'? please. the rebuttal to that is simply "uh, no." or if you want to be more intellectual about it, you could say "uh, no: eat shit". I'd prefer "uh. no: suck a dick." but that might be too much. Like miles, i dont quite care how the language comes off, sometimes. Sometimes! And im the pot calling the kettle black for all the shit i've given thayer-d - but i've done my drunken best to explain why i think that chap is a broken bell with a mysteriously loud clapper.
Miles' proportion dry wall bit is just lame. how bout he convincingly explains why its not stupid before any one bothers responding to it? what should the proportions be, Miles? cuz im over my 144 characters and if you just want to say 'teardown', post a matchbook, and ask for a rebuttal - youre just gonna get "fuck off" again.
thanks, carrera, for your many informative posts. I think your mobile gehry could be quite nice.
oh, before i forget: fuck off, miles.
This was a great discussion.
Boy, thank you. Didn't say he was not-guilty, but I don't think he deserves the electric-chair either. I just don't believe in getting personal on here, smells the place up, regardless who does it. A profane word planted correctly is sometimes fun but a diatribe of it is like puking in a restaurant....it's hard to do but best to ignore it and leave the room because if you stand next to it somebody will think you did it and nobody is going to say thank you.
Miles thinks he's being funny and some of the best laughs I've had lately are thanks to him… funny is fun, but sometimes I think he thinks he’s playing George Burns in the movie “Oh God” with phrases from heaven, but there’s only one of those guys and he’s not it…. No point in breaking that news to him…. Any guy who writes a book making fun of his client base, doesn’t have a phone number, throws all his mail away without looking at it, picks fights with everybody including his dog and can apparently survive in this business….gets a hats off from me…. Thank the real God that worst thing he’s ever done to me is correct my spelling.
Carrera, How much influence do you think comment sections and forums like this one have on the culture of architecture? I used to assume that they had pretty much no influence, especially since only a hand full of random (no offense) people comment regularly. But now with these podcasts, it does seem like the online chatter has a stronger relationship to the broader academic and cultural debates. I think we've also seen the style of snarky armchair commentary enter the mainstream media through places like Curbed, Gizmodo, Atlantic's CityLab and even some of Michael Kimmelman and Martin Filler's weaker moments.
let's see if gehry cares so much for his offspring, right? he could buy it on a whim......
Davvid - “snarky armchair commentary” is everywhere today, but the thing is about this stuff is that there’s only about 2,000 of us in total, with nobody important on the outside listening….architects have been beating up on each other for 100 years….we all hate each other….guess I prefer “Snarky” to Facebook “Mamsy-Pamsy”.
JLC - Excellent point, if it's so "important" why doesn’t he buy it? I’ve said it before – “Some people sing in the shower, Gehry laughs in the shower – hysterically”.
I think it's critical to this discussion to put it in context of guest houses for wealthy clients. They are breeding grounds for experimentation, because people wealthy enough to build separate guest houses are also frequently of an art collector's mind when it comes to building small-ish buildings.
So if this little house doesn't have perfect performance, I think that's fine. It's not a public hospital building. It's a habitable folly.
And I'll repeat again: whether or not the roof leaks is absolutely not a metric for how good a piece of architecture is.
Very true.
The Rockefeller Guest House by Philip Johnson is one of my favorite small buildings in NYC.
miles here deserves more insult than rebuttal for dogging specific people around the board.
turd in a well, look at your history and count how many fuck yous you have dogged me with. Including the one above.
asking for a rebuttal to 'teardown'? please. the rebuttal to that is simply "uh, no."
Tell that to davvid, who's juvenile response can be read in the second post in this thread. The intelligent reply to a comment like teardown ranges from damn right to no (as you said above) to why? and is the start of a discussion. Fuck you has nothing to do with Gehry's PoS house and is not a discussion. It is however a pretty clear indication of a number of things about you.
You can't win a pissing contest with a skunk. So why do I even bother responding? For the same reason I replied to davvid, with the hope that you could rise above yourself. But don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.
Carerra, I never fought with my dog, she was far more humane than many people I've met. And I don't pick fights, I just have zero tolerance for bullshit.
OMG davvid I was unfamiliar with the Johnson project - what a beauty! Love.
Hi Carrera - is my telling a fellow to fuck off the electric chair? No, nobody cares. Play tough get slapped, fair enough? and im hardly getting personal. Lets all just embrace our different senses of humor, thats fine with me. Im all for it. Im glad Piles has given you a laugh. And Im happy to tell him when i think he's missed the mark. You know who else has survived in the business and gets to flip people off? take a guess.... Need some help? Probably not. Gehry's a good architect. His early houses are excellent. The guy embraced an vision of potential architecture and made it happen. You think he cant bring his brain trust to make a decently sustainable building to LA? Really?
and Piles Jaffe - you have so far to rise, its embarrassing to even read your bullshit. if you dont want a pissing match put your dick back in your pants and take a deep breath. you cant take the high road when youre up to your neck in your own shit.
Oh "boy" - literally
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