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Inside Iconic Houses - 28 April: Tour of Maison Cazenave
Inside Iconic Houses - Online Tour Program
Welcome Atelier Volten!
Inside Iconic Houses Tours Vizcaya Museum & Gardens in Miami
Casa Masó Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary
Inside Iconic Houses tours Roland Reisley's Usonian Frank Lloyd Wright House
Rietveld’s Experimental Housing in Reeuwijk Saved
Serralves Villa after restoration
Watch Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House Now On Demand
Portraits of the Architect - Interview with Gennaro Postiglione
Test Labs for New Ideas - Interview with Natascha Drabbe
Inside Iconic Houses - Isokon Building
Inside Iconic Houses - 16 December: Sunnylands with Janice Lyle
BCN-BXL Coderch-De Koninck - Beyond Time
New Chairman Architect Nanne de Ru on The Perfect Platform
Health and Home - Interview with Beatriz Colomina
A Life Less Ordinary – Interview with Valentijn Carbo
Invisible Women - Interview with Alice T. Friedman
Winy Maas on the Green Dip
Anita Blom on Experimental Housing of the 1970s
Women’s Worlds - Interview with Natalie Dubois
The Culture of Living - Interview with Robert von der Nahmer
Hetty Berens: A Fresh Take on Modernism
Niek Smit on Supporting Modern Heritage
Alice Roegholt on Amsterdam’s Working-Class Palaces
July is Iconic Houses Month
Save Maison Zilveli - Sign the Petition!
How a Building Tells a Story - Recorded Event
Toolkit for Owners of a Modern House
13 Aalto Sites Nominated for UNESCO World Heritage
Villa Beer At Risk - Sign the Petition!
Business Cards of Stone, Timber and Concrete in the Brussels Region 1830-1970
Exhibiting & Visiting Modernist Monuments
Fostering Well-Researched Responsible Design
ICONS AT RISK
Enjoy a virtual visit to the California House and a Q&A with architect Peter Gluck
Exhibition 'Modernism and Refuge'
A Hidden Gem of Postmodernism
New Centre for Historic Houses of India
An Online Chronicle of the Douglas House
SPECIAL – Northern (High)Lights!
SPECIAL - Casas Icónicas en España!
SPECIAL - Vacances en France!
SPECIAL – Iconic Dreams - Sleep in an Iconic House!
SPECIAL – Dutch Delights!
SPECIAL – German Greats!
Villa Henny, geometric style icon in The Netherlands
A Mendini temple in Amsterdam
IH-lectures USA & Canada Feb 2020 on Melnikov House
An Afternoon with the Glucks
Danish Moderns – Looking Back at Our Mini-Seminar
Venturo house complements Exhibition Centre WeeGee’s offering
Lecture report: Remembering Richard Neutra
Hôtel Mezzara and the Guimard Museum project
We welcome 13 new members!
BREAKING NEWS: 8 Wright Sites Inscribed on Unesco World Heritage List!
LECTURE 29 August - Raymond Neutra: My Father and Frank Lloyd Wright
Iconic Reads
SPECIAL – Iconic Artist Residencies
Our Badge of Honour
SPECIAL – Women & Iconic Houses
SPECIAL – Iconic Housing
Iconic Houses End Year Message
City-ordered rebuild of landmark house stirs debate: Appropriate or overreach?
Kohlberg House Restoration in Progress
Planned Demolition of Rietveld Homes in Reeuwijk
Renovation Gili House in Crisis
An Iconic Saga
Restoring Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027 and Clarifying the Controversies
Modernism on the East Coast
Iconic Houses in Latin America
House Tours May 2018
Expert Meetings
Terence Riley -KEYNOTE SPEAKER- on Philip Johnson
New era for Villa E-1027 and Cap Moderne
Jorge Liernur -KEYNOTE SPEAKER- on Latin American Modernism(s)
Restoring the past: The Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Home Studio
Behind the Scenes: Hendrick de Keyser Association
Latin America Special – Focus on Mexico
De Stijl in Drachten
Preserving the Nancarrow House-Studio
Meet the Friends - Nanne de Ru
Latin America Special – Focus on Brazil
Jan de Jong’s House is Latest Hendrick de Keyser Acquisition
Stay in a Belgian Modernist Masterpiece
In Berlin’s Modernist Network
Rietveld-Schröder House Celebrates De Stijl Anniversary
Meet Our New Foundation Board Members
Virtual Tour of a Papaverhof Home in 3D
Getty Grant for Villa E-1027
Iconic Dacha
11 Le Corbusier Homes now on Unesco World Heritage List
At home with Le Corbusier
Wright Plus 2016 Walk
Speaking Volumes: Building the Iconic Houses Library
Follow us!
Documentary La Ricarda
Rent a house designed by Gerrit Rietveld
Barragán House on Screen
Gesamtkunstwerk – An Icon on the Move
Triennale der Moderne 27 September - 13 October 2013
Prestigious Art Nouveau mansions in Brussels open
September 14 + 15: Heritage Days in Paris
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Iconic Houses is now on Twitter and Facebook
Corbu’s Cabanon: Reconstruction and Lecture
Projekt Mies In Krefeld: Life-sized model of the Krefeld Clubhouse
New arrivals: Spain special
MAMO: Le Corbu’s ‘Park in the Sky’ open 12 June
Annual Wright Architectural Housewalk: 18 May
Frank Lloyd Wright Homes on Screen
Message from the Editor
Neutra’s House on Screen
Melnikov House on Screen
Iconic Houses in the media
Message from the Editor
Eileen Gray House on Screen
Copy Culture
At Home in the 20th Century
New 20th century Iconic Houses website launches
Meet the Friends - Frederick Noyes
Frederick Noyes is Principal of Frederick Noyes Architects in Boston – and a Friend of Iconic Houses. He is the son of the architect Eliot Noyes. He first studied biology at Harvard, then architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has taught both subjects at the college level, but has been most closely associated with Boston Architectural College, for which he has developed curricula and programs and chaired the board. His Boston architectural practice mainly builds hospitals and houses.
What’s your own relationship with iconic houses?
I grew up in New Canaan in the company of the Harvard Five architects: Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson and, of course, my father.
Do you have a favorite house?
Ski House, by my father, Eliot Noyes. This deceptively simple, small and informal house — post and beam, open stud construction, no moldings or details — is, in fact, very sophisticated. A stone façade faces the road allowing the house to unpretentiously disappear into the New England woods. With the main space essentially a living/dining/kitchen (LDK) flanked by a balcony (half a storey up) on one side, a large deck on the opposite side, and a fireplace partially separating an entry, the room flows beyond its actual dimensions, giving multiple readings of the overlapping spaces. The room’s proportions and simple furnishings promote warmth and relaxation around the huge fireplace, very much in the New England ski lodge tradition and quite appropriate for winter use.
What kind of house do you live in, and what appeals to you most about your home?
A shingled Victorian Arts and Crafts house in Boston with easy public access to downtown. For me, the most important aspect of any house is not the era or style, but, rather, its character (and efficiency). In this house, the space flows easily between well-proportioned south-facing living and dining rooms, leading to a great rear yard. In addition, the house has had only minor renovations since it’s 1910 construction — and thus retains most of its rich detail from that era.
Why did you decide to support Iconic Houses?
Houses have traditionally provided canvasses and springboards for ideas that are later incorporated into larger, more expensive buildings. A microcosm of universal architectural conditions — public/private, backdoor/front door, relative long/short spans, cardinal orientations, circulation efficiencies, heating/ventilating control, landscape integration — houses lend themselves to relatively inexpensive tests for new ideas about space, technologies, materials, and changing social values. Hence in every era, houses have been hallmarks of things to come. They are lessons unto themselves and need to be taken very seriously.
What role do you think Iconic Houses should play?
In private hands it is very difficult, financially and practically, to open houses to the public, especially as they transition from one owner to the next. Iconic Houses can play an important role in linking like-minded owners to address the inherent issues in attempts to do that. In addition, it can serve as a venue for the interested public to understand the cultural value of this scale of architecture.
Which 21st-century house in the USA should become a future Iconic House, and why?
Clearly the Noyes House in New Canaan is a candidate. In my opinion one of the very best houses of the early modern era, it is provocative (outdoor separation between public and private — in snowy Connecticut!), melds seamlessly with the landscape, is rigorous in concept, and contrasts materials (stone/glass) to exploit the weight of one against the fragility of the other. Yet the house presents itself with understated elegance, its unpretentious and comfortable spaces geared to accept the turmoil of real family life.
What are you working on now?
A range of architectural projects and various initiatives for the Boston Architectural College.
What’s next for you?
There are exciting developments in neurobiology and epigenetics. I want to better understand those.
Are you also passionate about significant homes and do you find Iconic Houses interesting and useful? You can support our work by donating and becoming a Friend of Iconic Houses! You'll become part of a growing international community of architecture lovers with a special interest in 20th-century residential masterpieces. Further information can be found here.
Frederick Noyes recommends taking a look at a short video Christie’s auction house made when it sold two Calder mobiles: The Noyes Calders: Property from the Estate of Mrs. Eliot Noyes. It offers a short synopsis on his father, his relationship with Calder and the New Canaan house.
Hear Frederick Noyes talk at the Boston Architectural College about architectural fundamentals in the video lecture, Lessons of Modernism: Learning from New Canaan and the Harvard Five.
Noyes House 2, photo Michael Biondo
Noyes House 2, Courtyard
Noyes House 2, Interior
Noyes Ski House
Noyes Ski House, Fireplace
Publication date 4 February 2016