I missed another birthday-again. This time, I had a good excuse, we had problems with our new cell phone, and somehow lost reoccurring dates (like birthdays) from our calendar.
Of course, I should admit that I hardly ever look at the calendar and an excuse is, after all, just an excuse.
Thinking about all this, it occurred to me that the technology excuse is hardly new and I decided to trace its history.Our protagonist shows that excuses, and glasses, have been with us since the dawn of time.
Like the McAlmon Apartment, and most of Schindler’s houses, the Oliver House has lots of movement. In the Mc Almon Apartment the horizontals move out in different directions. In the Oliver House, all the movement points to the front corner where, for me, it meets and moves out into space (Figure 1).
One thing that adds to the movement is the cantilever of the front corner. This two-sided cantilever seems, in typical Schindler fashion, to be floating. The cantilever separates the front corner from the ground, and reinforces its horizontal proportions and movement. Figure 2 shows what the house would look like without the cantilever-not so dynamic.
Architect language alert: Architects call the location or lot where a house is placed the “site”. A house is “sited” and we talk about where and how the house is placed on the site as its “siting”.
Like the fronts of so many of Schindler’s houses, the Oliver House is very dramatic (Figure 1). Much of that drama is created from the way the house is placed on its sloping lot.
Another missed birthday, another card…
