The Cool House: Robert Venturi
Showing posts with label Robert Venturi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Venturi. Show all posts

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Lieb House finds its new home


A month ago I posted this piece about the the start of the journey to move the Robert Venturi Lieb House from the Jersey shore to the north shore of Long Island. The beach cottage, which had been in danger of demolition, has been purchased by Deborah Sarnoff and Robert Gotkin, who plan to use it as a guest house to their own Venturi designed home. On Friday it succesfully completed the second leg of its journey from Manhattan's South Street Seaport to Glen Cove NY, a move that was documented both by news teams and by cameras for a forthcoming film Learning from Bob and Denise by James Venturi, son of the architect.
You can see the whole move in a New York Times slideshow and read the rest of the article here.
There has been a lot of discussion on architecture blogs about whether this is a judicious move, if the removal costs are justified in a recession and whether modernist beach houses should be preserved. I think you know which side of the argument I come down on but I'm interested to hear what you think. If you had the means to undertake such an endeavour, would you do it?

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Floating a Beach House


Well this certainly puts my attempts at restoration into perspective. Imagine the amount of money and the stress for the architect and new owners as the Robert Venturi designed 1969 Lieb House is hoisted from its home on the Jersey Shore, placed on a barge and floated up the East River, around the North Shore of Long Island to Glen Cove, where it will eventually be used as a guest cottage to another Venturi house. All this being dependent on the City of Glen Cove giving the project a permit. At the moment the iconic beach house is stuck in a parking lot. For shame. If it gets the go-ahead I'm going to cheer it as it sails in. Go Lieb House!
The NY Times has a story on the move here. Further background, plus a video of the initial stages of the move, here and from Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates here.