The tour is upon us!

For anyone who has not yet purchased tickets but would still like to attend the tour at any point over the weekend, tickets will be available for sale at the carport of the Loewenstein house located at 2104 Granville Road. The tour runs from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday and 1 pm to 4 pm on Sunday. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Purchase Tour Tickets

Tickets for the Loewenstein Legacy : Modernism at Home tour are available online:  http://blandwood.org/tour
You may also pre-purchase Modernism at Home catalogs and Danville Fundraiser tickets on the site.

The above may also be purchased at the Extra Ingredient in Friendly Center

Those purchasing tickets will receive an email about picking up tickets the day of the tour on site at one of the houses.

Looking Local: Architect W. E. Jenkins

In addition to highlighting the works of Edward Loewenstein, we hope to share information on African-American architects who were also responsible for introducing modernist design to Greensboro, particularly in East Greensboro. One of these architects, Willie Edward Jenkins, worked at Loewenstein’s architectural firm from 1949 to 1961, where he rose up the ranks from draftsman to associate architect all within five years of his college graduation.

Loewenstein-Atkinson Architects: Jenkins standing in the middle

Jenkins received a B.S. in Architectural Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University, graduating the year that fellow architect William Streat joined the faculty, 1949. He served in the Army during World War II before enrolling at A&T. After graduation, Jenkins went to work for Edward Loewenstein at his firm Loewenstein-Atkinson Architects, but only after Loewenstein’s one African American employee William Gupple suggested Jenkins for the job, as he could not find one elsewhere. Jenkins did well at the firm, and in 1953 he became North Carolina’s third officially registered black architect, after Gaston Alonzo Edwards and William Streat. By 1962 Jenkins had established his own independent firm, the first in the state run by a registered black architect.

James B. Dudley High School Gymnasium, 1959

St. James Presbyterian Church, 1959

Jenkins embraced modernism with gusto from the beginning of his career, mostly in the form of public buildings in east Greensboro. In turn, he focused on architecture that benefitted the black community. Examples from his time at Loewenstein’s firm include the highly praised 1959 gymnasium for Dudley High School, at the time Greensboro’s only high school for African Americans, as well as the 1959 building for St. James Presbyterian Church. This was another of Loewenstein’s projects centered in the black community for which Jenkins served as head architect, and he was also a church member. Later commissions, completed while leading his own firm, include the c. 1959 J. Kenneth Lee residence, designed for a prominent local civil rights attorney and businessman, the Cumberland Office Building (1965), Smith’s Funeral Service (1967), St. Matthews United Methodist Church (1970), and Greensboro National Bank (1974). In these buildings Jenkins utilized modern technological developments such as pre-cast panels on the office building and the steel-framed roof of St. Matthews Church. This imaginative roofline embraced the expressionist side of modernism, while Jenkins also turned to the more restrained, rationalist design tendencies of earlier modernism in buildings like the cuboid Greensboro National Bank. Much like Loewenstien, Jenkins designed buildings that were modernist yet still well suited to North Carolina in terms of their modest dimensions, orientation to the landscape, and familiar local materials, namely brick.

J. Kenneth Lee Residence, c. 1959

Drawing of St. Matthews United Methodist Church, 1970

Highlighting Thursday events: De Miranda tells us of NC modernism in the national press

Thursday night October 10th starting at 7pm,  The Loewenstein Legacy tour and Symposium is inaugurated by a lectures on the national and state wide experts on Modernism. These events will take place at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro.

Burroughs Wellcome & Co., Inc. Corporate Headquarters and Research Labratories, Research Triangle Park

Starting at 7:45 pm on Thursday, October 10^th at the Weatherspoon Art Museum on UNCG campus, architectural historian Cynthia de Miranda will give a lecture on North Carolina’s modernist architecture as viewed on a national stage. Cynthia, along with Jennifer Martin Mitchell, is a founding Principal of MdM Historical Consultants based in the triangle area. She has authored numerous mid-century National Register nominations in North Carolina, including the 2008 nomination of the Edward Loewenstein-designed Wilbur and Martha Carter House, which is on the house tour.  Additionally, Cynthia has performed comprehensive architectural surveys, prepared preservation plans, and documented buildings in the Carolinas and beyond, including throughout the Midwest and in Washington State, as an architectural historian with Edwards-Pittman Environmental, Inc. in Durham and with Hess, Roise and Company in Minneapolis.

On the Tour: The Frances and Edward Loewenstein Residence

Perhaps the most cutting-edge of all his Greensboro residential designs, the Loewenstein house sprawls across its site, capturing outdoor rooms adjacent to indoor spaces. A separate carport frames the yard for a built-in pool. Modern sculptures occupy garden spaces throughout the site. The slanted windows give both the interior and exterior of the house a recognizable profile. The bedrooms, in a wing to the left of the main entrance, maintain social distance from rooms for entertaining. Loewenstein employed built-in bookshelves, drawers, and closets throughout the home to achieve the separation. Interior features include the curving stone wall separating dining and living rooms, the fireplace embedded within the slanting glass wall, the wet bar just inside the entrance, the efficient and well- designed bathrooms, and the marvelous views from each room. Make note of the Carolina fieldstone, slate floors, and naturally-finished wood paneling beams speak to Loewenstein’s commitment to indigenous materials.

Highlighting Thursday events: Isenstadt explores ghosts in the garden

Thursday night October 10th starting at 7pm,  The Loewenstein Legacy tour and Symposium is inaugurated by a lectures on the national and state wide experts on Modernism. These events will take place at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro.

Cover of Dr. Sandy Isenstadt’s book

The symposium begins with our national speaker and author, Sandy Isenstadt. Dr. Isentstadt teaches the history of modern architecture in the Art History department at the University of Delaware, concentrating on developments in Europe and the United States. He provided a hint to the topic by providing the title “House and (Haunted) Garden”.

His writings span post-World War II reformulations of modernism by émigré architects such as Richard Neutra, Josep Lluis Sert, and Henry Klumb, visual polemics in the urban proposals of Leon Krier and Rem Koolhaas, as well as histories of American refrigerators, picture windows, landscape views, and real estate appraisal.  His 2006 book, “The Modern American House: Spaciousness and Middle-Class Identity,” which won the Spiro Kostof Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, describes the visual enhancement of physical space in the architectural, interior, and landscape design of American domestic architecture from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

 

Reilly and Lucas walkabout on modernism in built form downtown

Former Greensboro Public Library, now the Elon University School of Law. Designed by Edward Loewenstein. Credit: Benjamin Briggs, Greensboro’s Treasured Places

At 1:30 pm on Friday, October 11^th,  Patrick Lee Lucas and tour co-chair Karyn Reilly will lead a walking tour highlighting modernist architecture in downtown Greensboro starting at the Greensboro Historical Museum, located at 130 Summit Avenue. Join Patrick and Karyn as they share insights on the great and quirky modernist works found scattered through a few blocks’ walk downtown. This activity will occur rain or shine.

Warther explores an African-American perspective on Design

St. Matthews United Methodist Church

Directly following Patrick Lucas’s lecture at St. Matthews Church on Friday, October 11^th, at 12:15 pm,Sally Shader Warther will give a talk on modernist architecture in Greensboro designed by African American architects Gerard Gray, William Streat, W. Edward Jenkins, and Clinton Gravely.  Sally graduated from UNCG with an M.A. in History and a concentration in Historic Preservation in May 2012, focusing her seminar paper on these architects and their largely unexplored impact on East Greensboro and beyond. She was brought on as a co-chair for this year’s symposium and house tour in an effort to expand the focus beyond Edward Loewenstein himself to his fellow Greensboro architects, including many in this group who worked for his firm

Lucas sketches in the Greensboro modernist scene

Beginning at 11:30 am on Friday, October 11^th, Patrick Lee Lucas will deliver a lecture on Greensboro’s modernist architecture at St. Matthews United Methodist Church located at 600 East Florida Street in Greensboro.  Until recently an associate professor at UNCG, Patrick currently serves as the Director for the School of Interiors at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. Patrick researched Edward Loewenstein for a decade during his time spent in Greensboro, heading an effort collectively known as the Loewenstein Legacy. This project comprises a constellation of events and activities, including classes, extra-curricular activities, and student research projects at UNCG, as well as a house tour and symposium held in 2005, an exhibition in 2007, and a website dedicated to Loewenstein. This year Patrick’s research culminates in the release of a catalog on Loewenstein’s work entitled Modernism at Home:  The Architectural Legacy of Edward Loewenstein in the Civil Rights Era. Join in the fun for the latest insights on Modernism in the Gate City.

National Spotlight on local Landscape Architect’s home

One of the houses on our tour has received national attention. The Huffington Post recently featured The Fountain House, playing up the Disney connection of the current owners. Congrats to the homeowners on the finished product, and to the national recognition! Click here to read the article.

Dining banquette of the Fountain House

Kitchen with original restored built-in blender

view of Space traveler mural on back wall