Sea and sky
One of the most recognized contemporary houses built in North America during the past decade sits high on a rocky slope overlooking the Bay of Fundy, writes John Leroux
Princeton Architectural Press, one of the world's most prominent publishers of books on architecture, design and visual culture, produced an impressive monograph of the Minneapolis architecture firm Julie Snow Architects in 2005. Proudly displayed on the cover is a photograph taken on a clear and sunny winter day showing an austere glass house anchored atop a rocky and snow-covered seaside landscape. Unlike many signature architectural images, the building is not boasting its presence, its exclusivity or its dominance to the viewer, but rather it rests back calmly - as if it was always part of this stark terrain. This jewel of a building became one of the most widely-published houses worldwide at the turn of the century, featured prominently in journals from America to Russia, Mexico and Japan.
But this is no distant landscape or remote architectural work; it is the Koehler House, sitting proudly on the New Brunswick coast of the Bay of Fundy. It is one of the most important and recognized contemporary houses built in North America during the past decade, winning some of the highest design awards from the American Institute of Architects, celebrated by everyone, but essentially unknown to New Brunswickers.
Both the owners and the architect, Julie Snow, are from Minneapolis, and what brought them to this stunning Canadian location was a three-year search for a similar coastal site in Maine, which never quite materialized. David and Mary Beth Koehler have to travel a full day by plane and car to reach their oceanfront hideaway, but its secluded character with no other houses in view is exactly what they were looking for. The site is a rocky peninsula jutting into the wide expanse of the Bay, with the meeting of sky and sea at the distant horizon a powerful constant that speaks to the seafaring history of our region.
Julie Snow recalls the initial visits: "We visited this rugged, remote, stunningly beautiful site on New Brunswick's Bay of Fundy with the client in the early spring and immediately identified a rocky finger of land sloping east and south toward the bay as the building site. With the wind blowing from the west the rocky slope protected us as we discussed the house, and standing on the ridge above permitted extraordinary views. Exposed granite, partially covered with a thin but dense mat of plant material, faces an uninterrupted ocean horizon."
Set on a property of more than 55 acres, the 2001 Koehler house presents itself as a clean shelter, fully exposed and directly engaged with its forceful cliff site and the tidal waters beyond. A series of horizontal platforms with nearly complete glazing on all sides projects into the landscape, floating above grade like the prow of a ship.
Through its solitary nature, the owners are able to escape the more hectic aspects of their lives through the captivating coastal environment, where whales, eagles and seabirds are a constant reminder of the life permeating this exceptional ecosystem. Snow began her design exploration with a rigourous understanding of the site, whereby "the house intentionally slows the rituals of everyday life, allowing the presence of landscape to permeate every activity"¦ Both subtle and sudden changes in light, wind, and water modify every experience within the house."
The small 1,700 square-foot house embraces an open plan and dramatic, sweeping views of the sea from every location. Where historic building practices required coastal dwellings in such locations to be robust shingled structures with small windows to withstand the rough beating of the weather, modern technology allows much more freedom and openness without compromising safety and protection.
For those who admire and appreciate the clean lines and technical confidence of mid-20th century modernism, the Koehler house (and much of Julie Snow's other architectural work) harkens back to an age and spirit when the pioneering German architect Mies van der Rohe avowed that "less is more."
Van der Rohe's work is revered among many modernists, and Mary Beth Koehler had been assembling a file on his 1951 Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., before the design work had even begun on her New Brunswick getaway. The Farnsworth House is one of the most famous icons of modernism ever built, boasting a single-storey exposed white steel frame filled on all sides by huge sheets of glass - with the entire building floating several feet above the ground on steel columns. Its crisp efficiency blurred the traditional lines of interior/exterior and the typical massiveness attached to the act of building. The mid-century masterpiece was all about lightness, and there is a great deal of the Farnsworth in the Koehler House.
In Snow's case, however, she was not given a flat, grassed site in middle America, but a sloping, craggy, exposed setting that required special attention. In creating the two-storey volume for the Koehlers, she established an east-west axis with a thin plan that has virtually every room surrounded with glass. The slender building's anchor is a stone wall to the north, which contains the service portion of the house along with a fireplace, heating, power and storage.
The stacked volumes appear to hug the rough terrain, with the single-storey western bedroom end dipping to becoming a full-height two-storey space at the central kitchen/living room/stairway hub. The eastern end is completed by a large cantilevered deck supported by slender square wood columns. The entire building moves effortlessly between being fully grounded to its site (in both material and form), to a transparency that virtually takes flight at both ends. Snow felt she "wanted to create a feeling of a house being both anchored in the site and floating - connecting with the horizon."
All interior surfaces are lightly stained wood veneer with no ornamental trimwork to break the purity of the design. The golden warmth of the wood makes a perfect foil for the surrounding grey stone and the varying blues of the sky and water. It's a counterpoint that is an incredibly successful example of how a minimalist palette can be perfect if carefully selected in accord with its natural surroundings. In addition to the wood floor and cabinetry, a series of sliding wood pocket doors in the two bedrooms allow for a fluid transformation of the spaces from open to private, thereby eliminating barren hallways that compromise the stunning views.
Within the worldwide architectural sphere, minimalism is making a strong comeback. But where the reservations and limitations of modern systems from the 1950s and 1960s created buildings that are sometimes seen as severe and unyielding, its contemporary revival is more humane and enlightened - welcoming subtle influences from local culture and environmental concerns while being technically savvy. In the residential field, the Koehler House has become one of the textbook examples of insightful and sensitive modernism, and much of this comes from the design's intuitive interaction and relationship to its site.
As Snow puts it: "The site is considered for opportunities, limitations, and possible contradictions. The physicality and experience of the context is explored as the conceptual foundation for the architecture." By welcoming these contradictions between expectation and execution, the architect allows for an intensity of experience that transforms a building opportunity from banal to extraordinary by designing a solution that seems unanticipated. In the Koehler House's case -¦ the fragility of the New Brunswick landscape that requires light construction conflicts with the threatening climate that demands a grounded sense of enclosure."
Built by Erb Builders of Saint John, the Koehler house is a refined and beautiful work of architecture. It is often the first structure I mention to someone who is thinking of building on a waterfront site. It proves that a meticulous and clean modern design can be the most beautiful and appropriate solution in this day and age.
As New Brunswick is a 21st century province that, in many ways, sees its culture as defined by the 19th century, the Koehler House is a revelation that proves we should be looking forward as well as to the past. During a time of self-reflection and considerable change in our region, it seems entirely fitting that our most famous building in decades offers a different direction in how we can build in our province. Leave the kitschy lighthouse replicas and vinyl-clad Cape Cod cottages to others; the Koehler House is a beacon of light that is a shining example of remarkable and appropriate architecture. And the rest of the world knows it.
John Leroux is an architect and art historian who lives in Fredericton. He can be reached at johnnyleroux@hotmail.com.
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