Washington,
D.C.-area architect Robert M. Gurney, FAIA, designs ecologically aware
modern homes using natural materials and varied construction methods.
Modern Order: Houses by Robert Gurney features photography and drawings
of 19 of Gurney’s homes, with an essay by architecture writer/editor
Vernon Mays.
Editorial Reviews:
The
cover of Modern Order: Houses by Robert Gurney shows a new, modern
house that seems to float atop a lush green lawn. Its long, taut lines
lead your eye to the body of water it overlooks, and its rigorous
geometry lives up to the book's title. It's a beautiful cover that
introduces an equally lovely book.
But
the project featured on the cover fits only one of the residential
project types at which Alexandria, Va.-based Robert M. Gurney, FAIA,
excels. Gurney moves fluidly among renovations, additions, new houses,
and interior remodels. His always-modern work is also notable for its
consistent sensitivity to context, whether that context is a green field
or a historic building or neighborhood.
Modern
Order (Architecture/Interiors Press, $55) demonstrates this
versatility. It presents full-color photography and drawings of 19
residences, including a new house in Potomac, Md., that draws subtle
influences from Japanese architecture a glass addition to an
18th-century farmhouse in Washington, Va. (winner of residential
architect's 2003 project of the year) a Bethesda, Md., renovation
completed over a span of 10 years and many other new homes and remodels
that demonstrate Gurney's skill and range. (As well as those of his
wife, interior designer Therese Baron Gurney, who created many of the
projects' interiors.)
An
engaging introduction by design writer Vernon Mays provides insights
into Gurney's design process and background. He posits that the
architect's early experiences working on construction sites with his
bricklayer father "helped [him] develop a sensitivity for the way
materials feel, in addition to how they look—a tactility that is
expressed in his buildings as compositions of textures." And Mays
details Gurney's fascination with form and composition: "His houses are
careful arrangements of shapes that give individuality and clarity to
the main elements of the residential program."
The
Washington, D.C., area contains a handful of world-class modern
residential architects, and Gurney certainly ranks as one of them. This
well-organized and visually pleasing book helps make that fact even more
apparent.
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