Olana’s Summer House Designers: IN THEIR OWN WORDS

By Published On: March 9, 2017Categories: Insider Perspective

Mark Prezorski, Senior Vice President & Creative Director

“I am building a house and am principally my own Architect. I give directions all day and draw plans and working drawings all night.”
— Frederic Church, 1871

“I am busy landscape architecturing!”
— Frederic Church, 1887

The words of Frederic Church were highlighted in Olana’s recent exhibition, Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House. This design exhibition, which unites 21 visionary architects and landscape architects, allowed The Olana Partnership to feature aspects of Frederic Church’s talents which are sometimes overlooked. In addition to being a famous landscape painter, Church also viewed himself as an architect and landscape architect while creating his great masterpiece, Olana. Our exhibition has since traveled to the Center for Architecture in New York, which is a perfect venue. From the start, we collaborated closely with the New York chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY) and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA-NY).

When Jane Smith (our exhibition co-curator) and I invited architects and landscape architects to submit a concept sketch of their design, we also asked them to submit an artist statement about their particular idea. These statements were included on our exhibition labels and in our printed catalogue. As we prepare for a panel discussion related to our exhibition at the Center for Architecture, I have revisited these original artist statements. Here are some excerpted examples, in the words of our summer house designers.

Unfolding the Framed Panorama by Adriaan Geuze (West 8 urban design and landscape architecture) “Olana, Frederic Church’s chosen site, is a panoramic stage for atmospheric effects and painterly foregrounds, middlegrounds and backgrounds, many of which were created by his own hand.”
Man’s Nature in the Landscape by David McAlpin, AIA (Fradkin & McAlpin Architects) “Olana’s summer house investigates how we inhabit, view, and interpret the landscape — how we reveal ourselves in making nature our own.”
Frederic Church Looks Back by Ken Smith, ASLA (Ken Smith Workshop) “Using white athletic-field chalk and nitrogen turf-fertilizer, I propose to field paint an anamorphic projection portrait of Church as an old man looking back at Olana.”
Tentolana by Tom Krizmanic, AIA (STUDIOS Architecture) “I imagined a temporary structure inspired by the tents that Church likely would have seen on his late 1860s Middle East trip.”
Cloud by Margie Ruddick, ASLA (Margie Ruddick Landscape) “The artist-designed glass roof continues Olana’s tradition of considering every component of the built environment a rigorous work of art.”
To Be Seen and To See by Adam Yarinsky, FAIA (Architecture Research Office) “I imagine the summer house as a microcosm of Church’s intention to unite nature and culture through experience at Olana.”
Summer Shadow by Michael Vergason, FASLA (Michael Vergason Landscape Architects) “The design is a place of refuge, shade, and prospect— reinterpreting the essential spirit of Frederic Church’s beloved landscape for the contemporary visitor.”
Drawn Out by Joan Krevlin, FAIA (BKSK Architects) “As a choreographed arrival sequence conceived by Frederic Church, his house is intermittently seen from the ascending carriage road as a gradual series of revelations. His summerhouse surely played a role in the unfolding.”
Framing the Landscape by Diana Balmori, FASLA (Balmori Associates) “A simple cedar structure will serve as a framing device for the Hudson River landscape as painted by Frederic Church. Olana itself plays this role.”