Falmouth Enterprise

From The Enterprise - Upper Cape Cod News and Information
Urges Commission To Include Modern Houses In Cultural Inventory
By MARTHA V. SCANLONJun 20, 2008 - 3:26:20 PM
A Woods Hole homeowner is urging Falmouth to preserve its modern architecture. Francis R. Lomento Jr., who owns a 1951 house on Woods Hole Road designed by the late architect E. Gunnar Peterson, told the Falmouth Historical Commission Wednesday night that, when he heard that the cultural resources inventory only included houses built before 1930, he thought about the number of significant modern houses on Cape Cod and the need to make sure they are protected. “I hate to bring everyone screaming forward into the mid-20th century,” he told commission members, who had just finished a discussion of updating the cultural resources inventory. Mr. Lomento’s Woods Hole Road house, which he bought from its original owner in 2001, is one example of modern architecture in Falmouth. Mr. Peterson also designed 10 houses on Bywater Court, which were featured in 1941 in the magazine Progressive Architecture. Since then, many of the houses have been renovated from ranch-style into two-story, shingle-sided homes. Mr. Peterson also contributed to the design of Woods Hole landmarks such as the Dome and the Nautilus Motor Inn. Plans for the latter are to demolish it so the property can be used for a housing development. In a presentation to the commission on the importance of modernism, Peter McMahon, an architect and the executive director of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, outlined the movement’s path to Cape Cod, which, he said, has one of the least-known concentrations of modern houses in the country. Modernism began in the late 1800s in Europe with the invention of modern building materials like steel and concrete, Mr. McMahon said, and while structures like the Eiffel Tower were being built, homes were still being constructed in revival-styles like late Gothic. Around the turn of the century, however, some Europeans, such as artist Pablo Picasso, began to reject the “historical prototypes” and the Victorian-style drawing rooms of the houses where they grew up. In the 1920s, he said, many of those modernists came to the United States and worked at universities training architects and designers. The modern movement came to Cape Cod in the 1930s, when three “rich kids” bought property in Wellfleet and began experimenting with the architectural styles they saw while traveling in Europe, Mr. McMahon said. In contrast to the traditional Cape Cod farmhouses that were “functional and owner-built,” he said, the new style of house that they experimented with had features like glass curtains that utilized modern building materials. Boston architect Frederick Noyes, whose father, Eliot Noyes, was a well-known modern architect, told the commission that “the most important period in all of history is modernism.” He said that the period had both technological and sociological change, the two factors that make a period important. In the modern period, he said, people rethought how they lived, with a shift away from large houses with servants’ quarters and lots of land, and started inventing around modern building materials, which resulted in creations like skyscrapers. “This area should be very careful with what it has,” Mr. Noyes said. “What you’ve got here in Falmouth is a perfect example [of modern architecture],” agreed David Fixler, a Boston-based architect and the president of DOCOMOMO New England, a modern movement organization. Mr. Fixler said that, historically, buildings are the least popular in the 30 to 60 years after their construction, which increases the need for their preservation. But he said that he is hopeful because younger generations seem to be celebrating modernism. Mr. Lomento added that the preservation of modern buildings can benefit tourism, with tickets for tours of The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, selling out a year in advance. He suggested a volunteer committee to look at preserving modern houses in Falmouth.