Esoteric Survey

The Mount Angel Abbey library (1970), designed by Alvar Aalto. It's located about an hour south of Portland, Oregon.  In the early 1960s, library director Fr. Barnabas Reasoner, O.S.B., invited Alvar Aalto to design a new library for Mount Angel Abbey, a Roman Catholic seminary. Captivated by both his love of libraries and the beauty of the Abbey’s hilltop setting, Aalto accepted the project for only a nominal fee. The library was funded by Howard and Jean Vollum. It was the site, and the monks' appreciation of their responsibility for its sensitive development, along with the Benedictines' emphasis on a contemporary approach to the world, that led the monks to Aalto. ( Architectural Record, May 1971) Aalto only designed two permanent buildings in the United States. This library and the Baker House dormitory at MIT (1949). Other projects include the Finnish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair (demolished), and the Edgar J. Kaufmann Conference Facility (1964) on t...

I recently went on a trip to visit Pond Farm in Guerneville, California. The idyllic site is located near the Russian River on a hilltop above the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. Pond Farm began in 1939 when writer Jane Herr and her husband, architect Gordon, purchased the 400 acre property with dreams of starting an artists’ colony. The site included a large pond (top of photo), hence the name. The San Francisco couple were inspired by Cranbrook Academy of Art, Black Mountain College, and  Bauhaus  - which the aforementioned had direct links to. Photo: The Press Democrat Sun, Jun 12, 1949 Gordon Herr traveled to Europe in 1938 to search out like-minded artists. This is when he met Marguerite Wildenhain. She was born in Lyon, France, to a British mother and German Jewish father. She was one of the first students of the Bauhaus and studied in Dornburg from 1919 to 1925.  Source:  Marguerite at Dornburg, 1925. Photo courtesy of Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin via  M...