Improvisations on the Land: Houses of Fernau + Hartman by Richard Fernau, FAIA
Although
working in a number of project typologies, San Francisco-based firm Fernau +
Hartman present residential work in their first monograph. Introductory essays
by Richard Fernau, FAIA, and Laura Hartman, AIA, establish their history,
outlook, and intentions for the reader, prior to investigating 18 stellar
examples of homes in mostly chilly locales of Montana, Colorado, Massachusetts,
and New York State, in addition to both coastal and mountain areas of
California. Prolific architectural journalists Beth Dunlop, Thomas Fisher,
Assoc. AIA, and Daniel Gregory also contribute commentaries.
The connection to nature is key through
text and images, yet the book is generous in showing additional important influences
of art, architecture, and music. Axonometric diagrams are helpful in
understanding how Fernau + Hartman’s Cubist-like volumes fit together. Some
photos are taken from dizzying angles, emphasizing the staccato quality of the
architecture, which is akin to the improvisational jazz that Fernau admires.
Gregory aptly describes the architects’ process as “lifting each major room out
of its ‘packing crate’ and setting it apart.”
The firm was an early adopter of
sustainable architecture, but Fernau was dismayed by how it was becoming a
style, which he sees as a “contradiction for architecture that was supposed to
be site- and climate-specific.” The houses, most set within beautiful sylvan
sites, nevertheless emerge in an industrial aesthetic that is tempered by
natural materials and playful color. Though tied to the land, the homes also exude
light and air. This array of projects exhibits how the architects synthesize
nature, while combining creative elements into three-dimensional collages for
living.
