Dallas Architecture Blog discusses Modern architecture and Mid Century Modern
Homes, Dallas Neighborhoods, Dallas Real Estate and the Aesthetics of the City.

David Hocker landscape design

A brilliantly designed home will always be a fabulous home. A talented landscape architect can add even more context, texture and meaning to an architect-designed home.

Landscape Architecture vs. Landscape Allowance

Many think of landscapes as a “builder allowance” of a few thousand dollars for some hedgerows, foundation plantings and flower beds that serve as mitigating ornamentation. However, I’ve developed quite a different opinion having seen the work of great landscape architects in Dallas, such as the legendary Arthur and Marie Berger, and Thomas Church, as well as current landscape architects such as Armstrong-Berger, David Hocker, David Rolston, Kevin Sloan, Harold Leidner, Michael Kinler, Seeing their work in context to architecturally significant homes, it’s clear that these architects help accentuate the design of the home and give the home context in the same way a natural setting such as a mountain or a lake defines the essence of a residence.

David Hocker Wins Two American Society of Landscape Architects Awards

The Power House

Two excellent examples of the collaboration of a landscape architect (David Hocker) and an architect (Gary Cunningham) are the Power House in Dallas and the Pool House in Highland Park. The combination of these two talents and disciplines created extraordinary results.

Landscape architect David Hocker recently won two American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Awards for these projects. Usually these landscape awards go to architects who design in the mountains or along the ocean on the West Coast or in the verdant and forested East Coast. David Hocker won for these two landscape designs: The Power House, a 1930s former commercial structure renovated for residential use, and The Pool House in Highland Park, a new urban retreat for an artist and for a car collector who resided next door. The landscape of The Power House softens the hard edge of the commercial structure with native plants, but maintains the sense of urbanity with its strong structural elements.

Gary Cunningham Designs Highland Park Pool House

Gary Cunningham was commissioned to design The Pool House that would function as an artist’s studio, a gallery for cars, a family space, guesthouse and a space for large social gatherings. The desire was to quietly insert a modern home into an opulent, traditional neighborhood. This was accomplished by subtly placing it at the rear of the lot, behind a stainless steel wall illuminated from within. Also, this modern two-story box has 5,250 square feet, which is similar in mass to the original Highland Park estate homes. The combined size of this freestanding addition and the main house also mimics the mass of the new Highland Park homes being built nearby. David Hocker then created a garden design where both houses and lots contributed to the formation of a large garden en masse.

The Pool House

Existing red oaks and elms were included into the design as well as a minimal plant palette that was previously used for texture and privacy. In Texas the great natural asset is the bright sun and blue sky, which beg for glazed walls and an easy transition from indoors and outdoors. Some consider the harsh Texas sun and intense heat an environmental liability. Here you can see how the contributions of David Hocker, the landscape architect, and Gary Cunningham capture the sun and sky and mitigate their often harsh consequences.

The south façade is glazed in frameless, insulated glass incorporating two eight foot wide sliding glass doors. The 14 foot cantilevered roof insulates the interior from the overhead sun and still allows in the low sun and also serves as a porch to the glass tiled infinity edge swimming pool.

Large stone slabs become sinuous connectors throughout the garden and provide the transition from the street to the interior concrete floor of the first floor that extends outside into a deck that surrounds the infinity edge pool. A sunning deck extends out over the pool into the garden. The ipe wood decking complements the ipe wood skin of the pool house. The client’s affinity for blue is incorporated by both architects into meaningful interior and exterior features.

Gary Cunningham and David Hocker designed to the extraordinary taste of their clients and to unique talent of each other. The result is a free-standing addition on an independent lot that is bold and demure in design as it effectively becomes part of the whole.

Modern Architects Select Sites, Landscape Architects Make Their Decision Seem Genius

Great architects are very skillful in picking the best site in a neighborhood. Often an architect-chosen site is one that shows potential but becomes spectacular. The most exhilarating homes are influenced by the site, and accentuated by the landscape architect.

Collaboration of Arthur and Marie Berger and O’Neil Ford Stands Test of Time

O’Neil Ford designed Rock Creek house

Landscape architects Arthur and Marie Berger were great friends and collaborators with architect O’Neil Ford. The Bergers had O’Neil Ford design their small, midcentury home at 3900 Stonebridge, on a bluff overlooking Turtle Creek. It has since been torn down, with a large new house built on the lot. While the new house still has the advantage of a pretty location, this home never had the magic to capture the imagination of the public as did the O’Neil Ford designed Arthur and Marie Berger landscaped designed home. The new home dominates the site; the O’Neil Ford home submitted to the site, which the Bergers subtly influenced with their landscape design.

Around the corner at 3514 Rock Creek, O’Neil Ford and Arthur and Marie Berger collaborated on another home in 1936. On a tucked away street, this home was designed on .6 acres with the land plummeting towards the creek, giving the first floor and second floor windows a view looking down Rock Creek before it joins Turtle Creek. I can imagine the Bergers and O’Neil Ford traipsing through untamed land, evaluating the contours and orientation that resulted in a two-story L shaped house with endless forest views even now when the neighborhood is fully developed.

O’Neil Ford designed Haggerty/Hanley house

One of their most important collaborations with O’Neil Ford was for the Preston Hollow midcentury Texas Modern home designed for the Haggertys.

The Approach of Crespi Estate Declares This Architect Designed Home Most Significant of Its Era

Maurice Fatio designed this home on 22 acres in 1939. He was voted New York’s best architect and was the refined alternative to Mizner in Palm Beach for his beautiful estate homes. A visit to the Crespi Estate is breathtaking. Originally the entrance was from Walnut Hill Lane. Only after the first wide graceful turn on the descending drive did one see a magnificent French style estate home with a motor court flanked by a mature allée of magnolias. A visitor falls in love with the house along the drive that creates a transcending transition from city to estate.

Maurice Fatio designed Crespi Estate

Edward Durell Stone and Thomas Church Were Great Collaborators

Edward Durell Stone designed home

Edward Durell Stone, FAIA, and landscape architect Thomas Church appeared to have designed interior and exterior spaces as one person. The Edward Durell Stone home on Meadowbrook and Park Lane is a perfect example of their seamless work. The courtyards surrounding the home became rooms that provided light, privacy and intimacy for the exterior and interior spaces. The open interior spaces felt like an extension of the exterior. Pools of water were moved inside; a band of water circled the dining room island. A swimming pool became a centerpiece of the living room. Exterior terraces and verandahs became living spaces as one looked into the refreshing and open interiors. Glazed glass walls and hand carved screens blurred the boundaries of interior and exterior as the talent of Thomas Church and Edward Durell Stone blended the boundaries of their respective contributions to this architecturally significant home.

Modern home designed by Edward Durrell Stone

Gary Cunningham, FAIA, and David Hocker – A Contemporary Collaboration

Architect Gary Cunningham is an incredibly talented and accomplished architect known for pushing the envelope, experimenting with design and materials. Both his commercial and residential work has received Dallas and Texas AIA awards throughout two decades. The Pool House in Highland Park is a good example of the landscape architect not competing with the residential architect, but accentuating and helping define the architectural work. David Hocker’s landscape gives further balance and dimension to the architectural design of Gary Cunningham.

Architects Should Submit to the Landscape of the Site. Landscape Architects Should Submit to the Architect.

Michael Kinler landscape design

From my perspective the best houses are the ones that most closely follow the cues from the natural site and the most architecturally significant homes are designed in collaboration with a landscape architect who takes his or her cues from the natural landscape and the architect’s design. Landscape architecture should not call attention to itself or overpower a project. The best landscape architecture calls attention to the environment, anchored by an amazing house.

Every collaboration is approached in different ways and from different points in the process. The very best collaborations occur when the architect and landscape architect share early and often.

O’Neil Ford Influenced the Timeless Architecture of Scott Lyons and Frank Welch

Why are some modern architectural designs (such as the work of O’Neil Ford, FAIA, Scott Lyons, FAIA, and Frank Welch, FAIA) new, progressive and influential while other modern designs seem trendy and tired at the same time?

The Best Architecture for a Site Creates Timeless Design

Timeless modern architecture is inspired by the site, crafted by the finest artisans, and built using the best technology and materials of the time — those that are familiar as well as technologies and materials that have recently become available. Every era has its achievements from which we build, reinterpret and admire. Great design of any period remains great design.

The Haggerty/Hanley House Designed by O’Neil Ford Draws From Past and Influences Future

The Haggerty/Hanley house that architect O’Neil Ford designed in 1957 is a great example of timeless design. This midcentury Texas modern home draws from Ford’s earlier 1930s Texas modern work as well as that of David Williams, FAIA, which combined elements of European modernism and pioneer houses. This home is artfully situated to emphasize the site and orientation of the home in relationship to the sun much like the first Texas modern home David Williams designed in 1933 on McFarlin Boulevard with views of Turtle Creek. The Haggerty/Hanley home is also considered the best combination of Texas modern architecture and Texas modern art.

O’Neil Ford Designed the Haggerty/Hanley Home Almost As If It Were a Village

Architect O’Neil Ford designed the Haggerty/Hanley home in a much larger scale, one that is common today but rare in Dallas at the time. Taking advantage of the beautiful acreage bordered by a creek, O’Neil Ford designed the home almost as if it were a village, much like the early homes of Texas. It is set down from the street, wrapping around the topography with walls of windows in the living areas closest to the creek.

Even when designing in this larger scale, O’Neil Ford drew from his memory of sketching earlier pioneer homes. O’Neil Ford also still relied on the same artisans like his brother Lynn Ford (who did the metal work and wood carvings on O’Neil Ford’s first modern home) for the architectural details on the Haggerty/Hanley home.

O’Neil Ford’s Haggerty/Hanley 1957 Home Directly Influences Architect Scott Lyons’ 1983 Designed Home and Architect Frank Welch’s 2004 Designed Home

O’Neill Ford

Scott Lyons

Frank Welch

The Haggerty/Hanley home reiterates detail and handcrafted artisanship while creating new volumes and uses of materials that influenced great architects like Scott Lyons and Frank Welch who worked with O’Neil Ford and whose later work reflected Ford’s influence.

These three Texas modern homes by O’Neil Ford, Scott Lyons, and Frank Welch were built over a span of 50 years and yet all remain architecturally current and influential. The beautiful estate area acreage and topography drove the design of each of these homes. All three are approximately 10,000 sf, built with steel frame construction, and designed as a series of attached structures with a significant secondary structure.

The O’Neil Ford Designed Haggerty/Hanley Living Room Has Influenced Architects for Over 50 Years

Architects locally and around the country come to see this midcentury modern Texas home and the living room O’Neil Ford designed. Architects admire and absorb the hand carved open wood screen, the continuous walls of soft Mexican brick, the walls of windows overlooking the lawn and sculpture garden as it descends to the creek, the pitched ceiling that gives balance to the spacious dimensions of the space, and the stick ceiling that acoustically softens the room and brings warmth. The floating wall gives separation without impeding the immense openness of the room.

Architect Scott Lyons Reinterprets and Further Modernizes Design Inspired by O’Neil Ford

In 1983 Scott Lyons was selected to design a home on possibly the most beautiful land in Preston Hollow. Like O’Neil Ford, he submitted the design of this modern home to the landscape. Scott Lyons set the house down from the street with the main living room closest to the deep ravine and spring fed creek. The home expands and cleans up the horizontal axis while still retaining the indigenous qualities of the materials and details. An open wood screen shields and announces the living room from the front door. A stick ceiling is not used as a finish, but an exposed ceiling joint on the pitched ceiling dramatizes the precision in which the house was built. The oversized soft Mexican brick complements the warmth of the cross-cut white oak. The wall of floor-to-ceiling windows wraps around the room, providing views of the creek and small lake beyond the garden. While the house almost disappears when viewed from the street, from inside it affords a spectacular view of the beautiful land on which it is set.

Frank Welch Identifies O’Neil Ford Designed Living Room as Room That Inspires Him

Approximately 50 years after O’Neil Ford designed the living room in the Haggerty/Hanley home, Frank Welch designed the living room for this home in the estate area of Bluffview. A wall of windows looking over the garden, a pitched ceiling with a tight pattern of parallel sticks, a floating wall, and cross-cut white oak finishes add depth and polished texture to the room.

Frank Welch does not mimic the past. Frank Welch designs homes that reflect ideas of the past that he advances with new technology, greater precision, proportions that are perfect, and a design that is fresh, exciting, and will influence generations in the future.

Great architects like O’Neil Ford, Scott Lyons, and Frank Welch have designed modern homes that are perfect for the site, beautifully crafted and articulated, and offering a new vision for future generations.

See more information and photographs on this Scott Lyons architect designed home offered for sale.

Russell Martin, Director and Librarian of Southern Methodist University’s DeGolyer Library, one of my favorite places and the home of many extraordinary collections, sent me this ad from 1907 extolling the value of wood over sod as a building material for houses.

Architect David Williams Grew Up in a Sod House

David Williams, FAIA, (1890–1962), obviously took notice of the many opportunities wood provided for houses, but he never lost sight of his pioneer roots. Like Everett DeGolyer who donated his library to SMU, Williams grew up in the late 1800s in a sod house in Kansas (presumably the part of Kansas that was originally part of the Republic of Texas until it was sold to pay off Texas’ war debt). He was determined to draw upon the indigenous qualities of Texas pioneer houses and blend them with the tenets of European modernism. His goal was to develop a style as modern as anything in Europe and as regionally inspired by Texas as Frank Lloyd Wright’s modern style was inspired by the Midwest.

Architects David Williams and O’Neil Ford Developed the Texas Modern Style Still Thriving Today

Along with O’Neil Ford, FAIA, David Williams designed the first Texas modern home, placing a great emphasis on the environment, orientation of the home, and materials in the same way that the Texas pioneers did. Pictured above is a home in University Park, built in 1933 and the earliest home fully expressing this Texas modern style.

David Williams, FAIA, Designed Texas Modern Homes that Reflected Pioneers Adding on to Their Homes

In the Texas modern tradition, as resources became available over time, the original one room house with a porch would become a hierarchy of structures for the needs and functions of the family. Architect David Williams designed a series of attached structures to create a sense of a Texas compound.

O’Neil Ford, FAIA, and David Williams, FAIA, Used Wood in the Spirit of Pioneers

By the 1930s, lumber had long been the common building material. David Williams and O’Neil Ford incorporated wood in the spirit of the Texas pioneers to further their design. The structural wood and decorative elements of their designs were often one and the same. Exposed hand sawn lumber became decorative and integral components of the structure. Whether it was wood, wrought iron, or stamped metal, artisanship was considered key to the integrity of the architecture and the Texas modern style.

Would David Williams Be Designing Sod Houses Today?

While David Williams might not be designing pure sod or hay bale houses, one would think that he would be drawing from his experience living in a sod house to fully explore green architecture. Before he came to Dallas, David Williams had made some money and gained some experience designing residential developments in Mexico. After two decades in Dallas, David Williams joined the Roosevelt Administration to help develop low-cost housing and planned communities. Today, David Williams would likely be in the forefront of green development, planned developments, and sustainable communities.

Architect David Williams Would Have Reinterpreted the Tradition of Sod Houses into 21st Century Green Architecture

I imagine David Williams, if he were a young architect today, declaring his intent to continue the tradition of the Texas modern style of orienting houses, to capture summer breezes and the low winter sun, while shielding houses from the harsh west sun in the summer, maintaining the essential design elements of classical modernism, all the while exploring materials that were honest, sustainable and reflective of America’s growing interest in the environment. A green house from the architectural studio of David Williams would first and foremost exude good design.

Click here to learn more about this Texas modern home and to see additional photographs of the first Texas modern home David Williams designed.

There is a shortage of modern homes in every neighborhood, but it is most pronounced in Highland Park. Elegant, eclectic style homes – ranging from the 1920s Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial to the homes built over the next eight decades in the English, Georgian, Italian and French style – captured the aesthetics of most Highland Park homeowners who desired to live in this beautiful township close to downtown Dallas. The rare person desiring a modern home found land more available in Bluffview, Preston Hollow or Oak Cliff. While some magnificent midcentury modern homes were built in Highland Park in the 1950s and 1960s, and an occasional modern home designed later, European style homes prevailed in Highland Park.

Now There is Great Demand for Modern Homes in Highland Park

Starting in the mid 1990s interest in modern homes became more pervasive. Recent graduates emerged from college with great passion for modern design but not yet the resources to buy a home. At the same time, a generation who had lived in traditional suburban homes their entire lives wanted something different, something better, something modern. The market dynamic changed. Only a few years ago a buyer was usually thinking, “I love this modern home but will I ever be able to find someone else who likes a modern home when it comes time to sell?” Now the marketplace tables have turned and perceptions have changed. Buyers are now often thinking, “Will I ever be able to find a modern home?”

How many years will it take for the supply of modern homes and the demand for modern homes to even out?

Many Years. Traditional homes have dominated building in Highland Park for more than 100 years. Homes with 3,000 square feet were replaced with homes with 6,000 square feet. Highland Park homes with 6,000 square feet were replaced with Highland Park homes with 12,000 square feet. Highland Park, over the decade, has become further entrenched with the same European-style homes, only larger. Reversing the trend is difficult. Even though there is much greater demand for modern homes, it is economically difficult to replace a 12,000 square foot traditional home with a new 5,000 square foot modern home.

How modern homes will become more prevalent in Highland Park

Builder homes, no matter what size, often become economically and aesthetically obsolete after 25 years. As a result, over the next 10 to 20 years, a huge number of traditional homes will become candidates to be replaced by modern homes. The more immediate change will come from homeowners who find a traditional Highland Park home for sale and transform the interior to a modern space.

Highland Park traditional home transformed to modern home perfect for art

This traditional home that was transformed into a modern space has made me realize there is a whole new reason to be enthusiastic about preservation and renovation. Up to now, my passion for homes has revolved around revitalizing neighborhoods, saving historic homes, or bringing attention to, or encouraging more architecturally significant homes. Now I better realize the value in existing homes without great historic value or a spectacular architecture pedigree. Here is an attractive well-proportioned home that lent itself to a modern renovation. An inspiring and important art collection compiled of mostly young artists from Europe and the U.S. has made the house architecturally excel. The space is sympathetic to art, supports and even catapults the art visually. The residence also recedes from the art. Hints of the home’s traditional architectural past bring a subtle contrast to the arts, and a familiarity and comfort to the space that allows the mind to fully explore the inspiration and power of each piece and of the art collectively.

Continuity of art collectors and cultural leaders

Every great city has art patrons, and civic leaders who encourage the arts, lead by example, and donate their time and money to create a rich cultural fabric for the city. Dallas is the best example of a city with generous philanthropists and, just as important, a city where the brightest and the best have taken a deep, personal interest in Dallas that goes well beyond the scope of their magnificent donations. There is a reason Dallas has the only opera hall in the world funded primarily with private funds. There is also a reason why in one generation a little fine art museum by the lagoon in Fair Park became the Dallas Museum of Art now at the center of the Arts District, surrounded by the I.M. Pei designed Meyerson Symphony Hall, the Renzo Piano designed Nasher Sculpture Center, the Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas designed Wyly Theater and the Norman Foster designed opera hall, the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Arts Magnet) school and the Annette Strauss Artist Square. It was not enough to have just museums and performance spaces. Aesthetically, Dallas desired the finest.

The next generation of art collectors and civic contributors

At some point, the torch will be passed to another generation passionate about Dallas and aware of the importance of art in the life of the community. Derek and Christen Wilson are part of that generation. As we can see from just a glimpse of their art, they are passionate collectors with a good eye. Their home and collection recently also received an enthusiastic reception from art dealers from across the country when they came to Dallas for the Dallas Art Fair. The Wilson’s home and the Edward Durrell Stone designed home of John and Jennifer Eagle were the two Dallas homes chosen for this audience of art dealers. Patron members of the Dallas Museum of Art just had a chance to also view the Wilson’s home and collection. It is exciting to see Derek Wilson on the DMA Board of Trustees and Christen and Derek’s involvement in Two by Two, Silver Supper and so many other initiatives of the Dallas Museum of Art. They join the next generation of talented, committed civic leaders who continue to make Dallas the best city in the country.

Ron Wommack and Client Discover Location

What Ron Wommack and his client realized was this rather dowdy spur of houses on very high ground adjacent to an abandoned railroad track would soon be a site overlooking the Santa Fe Trail, a running, walking, bicycling trail from White Rock Lake to Fair Park. What was a lesser street now became a very desirable hidden street relating to the Santa Fe Trail.

Homes Either Diminish or Enhance a Site

Often locations are overlooked. Just as often a commonplace home is designed and built on beautiful land that diminishes the site. I have seen houses built next to a ravine, creek or a small lake with the master bedroom closet or garage on the water side of the house because that is what the plans called for, anticipating a generic lot, or the architect designed using only the lot dimensions not taking into consideration the surroundings.

The Best Homes Accentuate A Site

The Late Robert James, FAIA, former president of the Dallas Chapter, AIA, found a small irregular lot with difficult terrain rejected by all builders. James designed a modern home configured to the lot and still with vast views of green that gave one the sense that you were on a very large piece of property.

Ron Wommack Designed Home Reinterprets Location

The old traditional homes are classically lined up facing the street, and the ones with balconies or porches are facing away from the railroad tracks at the bottom of the ravine. Now the Santa Fe tracks have been removed and the Santa Fe Trail is being constructed. The orientation of the house still has a front forward facade the street with full length corner window walls providing a view of the Santa Fe Trail and park, but the orientation of the home is towards the trail and surrounding wooded areas.

The front door opens to an exterior corridor paneled with the trail that leads past walls of glass to the front door on the side of the house. A first floor screened porch and balcony porches are also oriented towards the new Santa Fe Park and Trail. A wall for art and with a few windows is on the side of the house towards the residential cut-through street a few houses away.

This modern home will transform this corridor of short streets.

Some successful architect designed modern homes stand alone in a one-off location. Other architect designed contemporary homes have the ability to transform an entire area.

Visually attractive and interesting modern homes attract attention.

People start thinking about architecture in a new way and the people start thinking about the location in a new way.

Dallas AIA Modern Tour

As interest in modern homes increases, an expanded audience drives ever increasing number of home tours emphasizing modern homes. The Dallas Chapter of AIA selects modern homes across the city which allows the public to learn about architecture and about Dallas neighborhoods. Most people did not even know this home existed before the Dallas AIA tour. Those on tour loved the home and loved the location. The word spreads, aspirations grow and we will soon discover many new great modern homes on the Santa Fe Trail.

The sophisticated client whose life has always revolved around art and architecture has accumulated many friends deeply involved in the arts and the city of Dallas. What better way to start the year than a New Year’s Day party in a fabulous modern home surrounded by the homeowner’s appreciative friends reveling in this architectural success and contribution to Dallas.

See additional photographs of this Ron Womack desined modern home on FaceBook.com/modernhomes.

I always enjoy discussing architecture, formally at forums and informally at parties and gatherings. Thanks to the Internet, I’ve had the privilege of hosting an even broader conversation about architecture, with participants from around the world, by way of my Facebook Modern Homes.

For 15 years, international visitors have come to Architecturally Significant Homes and, on occasion, described the impact this site has had on something they are building or designing in their respective countries. This correspondence has been interesting and satisfying in the same sort of way a personal letter in one’s mailbox brings a smile.

Modern Homes Receives Thousands of Comments

Now, because of the ease of communicating on Facebook, the response to homes posted on Facebook.com/ModernHomes has been abundant and immediate. Readers have sent thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments discussing modern homes located in Dallas on the Modern Homes Facebook page.

If Rock and Roll Linked the World in the 20th Century, Architecture Might Link the World in the 21st Century.

Interest in architecture in Dallas and around the world has exploded in the last ten years. In Dallas, a traditional “house walks” have been replaced with sophisticated tours of architect designed homes.

The Dallas Architecture Forum’s lectures featuring celebrated architects, are always full, as are the Forum’s more informal panels orchestrated by architect Mark Gunderson. You can see this same enthusiasm for architecture around the world. In a short time, over 20,000 people from 5 continents and 50 countries have joined Facebook.com/ModernHomes. It is as encouraging to see young people and students participate as it is architects, professors and sophisticated adults with a fresh or long standing interest in architecture and design.

I compare this growing phenomenon of interest in architecture to the explosion of interest in wine about three decades ago. When it began, anything other than a jug wine was considered exotic. Now, virtually everyone is at least minimally fluent in discussing vintage wines.

We Can Learn From the Passionate and Informed International Community of Architecture Aficionados.

Facebook.com/ModernHomes has offered an incredible international response to a wide range of homes found in Dallas.

As a practical matter, my experience with the Facebook Modern Homes page has helped me better understand how people respond to different architectural photographs. Photographs of homes are such an integral part of marketing architecturally significant homes. It also shows the depth and range of architectural interest. Even a few years ago, there was a strong perception that, while a modern home might be great, a homeowner would have difficulty selling it later. That has all changed. Now there is a market shortage of modern homes. As I have a particular passion for Dallas homes, seeing how people from different parts of the world respond to Dallas homes has been very interesting, including the comments in languages other than English. Here a few comments found on Facebook.com/ModernHomes.

Only this photograph of the home Harwell Hamilton Harris designed in Dallas in 1958 for Seymour and Jane Eisenberg was posted. Among the very positive comments received were Smriti Sachdev ‘s: “What a lovely transition space.” Iman Fouad Sleiman added “I love corridors that are open to interior gardens, this is just bliss.” Coleman Jolley, said “Beautiful. The atrium concept needs to make a return in modern architecture!”

This midcentury modern home was designed by Jim Wiley and Bud Oglesby. It is a very primitive, inexpensive structure that only survives because of its original owner, a 95 year old inhabitant. I was curious if this modern home would receive as many positive comments as the dramatic twilight shots of recently designed modern homes. It did. Mónica del Haya wrote, “Serene, I love the openness to light and the environment.” Hashu Rahman: “Simplicity.” Alexandra Hoepfner added, “…I like the ‘original modernist look’ of the space, that with the wooden elements reminds a lot of Marcel Breuer.”

Architect Gary Olp designed this green home in 1999. The comments this modern home generated included Suha Yuce’s: “I don’t like it, I love it!” Shahina Aslam: “splendid”
Murambiwa Tarabuku: “Splendid; nature/man-made dialectic; The massing a bit like balancing rocks – with the front ones sliced; for those familiar with rock formations in Southern Africa (Zimbabwe – Epwoth o Matopos-Matonjeni). Lurv it.

Join the Dialogue on Facebook.com/ModernHomes.

Become a fan of Facebook.com/ModernHomes and comment on architecturally significant modern homes and read what others say. I am more convinced than ever that Dallas has the best collection of 20th and 21st century architecture in the world.