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Modern architecture 101

At Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, dorms by Eero Saarinen and Marcel Breuer get a refresher course from architects Leonard Parker and Herbert Beckhard

Alan G. Brake -- Interior Design, 5/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Vassar College had high design ambitions from the start, with a parklike campus in the Frederick Law Olmsted mode and a main building modeled on the Tuileries in Paris. Besides being beautiful, this groundbreaking palace-in-brick housed one of the first collegiate art galleries; the building's continuous hallways—extra-wide to accommodate hoop skirts—served as an indoor exercise area. Such innovations expressed founder Matthew Vassar's vision for his novel project, the first degree-granting women's college in the U.S.

This experimental spirit was still alive and well in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1958, when Vassar College commissioned Eero Saarinen to design Noyes House, a crescent-shape dormitory whose parlor featured a flamboyantly sunken circular sofa that students quickly dubbed the passion pit. Vassar president Frances Fergusson, a Harvard University–trained architectural historian, adopts a more elevated tone. "Noyes House is the gem of Saarinen's art," says Fergusson. Three years ago, she enlisted Leonard Parker—one of Saarinen's senior architects on Noyes House and now chairman of the Leonard Parker Associates—to return the building to what Parker calls its "lively, informal, social" persona.

After Noyes House, Fergusson turned her attention across campus, to a more austere piece of modernism. Ferry Cooperative House, designed by Marcel Breuer in 1951, was intended to promote a new way of living for 28 young women. Students prepared their meals together in a long galley kitchen, and the ground level's public areas featured the latest in industrial design, including furniture by Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, and George Nelson. Cantilevered over the public areas, the small bedrooms were virtually set in the branches of tall Dutch elms.

A turbulent era caught up with Ferry, however. Vassar went coed in 1969, and Dutch elm disease soon robbed the building of its trees. Then, as modernism fell out of fashion, furniture was replaced by bland institutional pieces, and Breuer's structure began to show wear. "I was devastated when I saw it," Herbert Beckhard Frank Richlan & Associates principal Herbert Beckhard says. Having joined Breuer's studio in 1954, become a partner in 1964, and worked there until Breuer's retirement, Beckhard easily secured the restoration job.

On Ferry's ground level, a lounge offers two sitting areas, a fireplace, and a Steinway grand—every Vassar dorm has one. A spare-looking dining area is adjacent to the kitchen, where glass lighting globes hang amid unadorned white-painted cabinetry. Slate flooring flows seamlessly throughout. Creating a similar continuity overhead, Beckhard raised the doorway between the lounge and dining area to the ceiling.

That ceiling represents the major intervention of the Ferry restoration, which is reverential without being slavish. To balance the coolness of the slate below, the architect installed planks of heart cypress above. "Breuer used wood ceilings in many of his houses," Beckhard explains. "Here, it reinforces the sense that this is just a big house."

And a big house to heat, too. "With so many floor-to-ceiling windows, radiant heating wasn't getting the job done," Beckhard says, so he upgraded the HVAC system and added wall-mounted radiators painted to blend in with Breuer's interior color scheme: cerulean "Breuer blue" for the lounge's rear wall and white for the other walls. The exterior is white as well, except for the crimson-orange "Breuer red" on the underside of the cantilevered upper level, the black-painted doors, and the cedar panels and trim.

For the time being, the college opted not to replace original bedroom furniture, such as Saarinen's Grasshopper chairs, so Beckhard used Grasshoppers in the lounge and paired them with Eames molded-plywood chairs, sofas by Charles Pfister, and granite coffee tables of his own design. The dining area features folding tables and Eames chairs. A pair of vintage Nelson benches occupy the foyer. With the mid-century influx and the new cypress ceiling, the sunny interior feels almost Californian.

A similar sunniness seems to be pervading the design outlook campus-wide. Though the college's post-Breuer years yielded a certain number of postmodern confections, a progressive spirit has returned. Currently in progress are a sustainable office renovation by Dennis Wedlick Architect and a minimalist classroom renovation by Gluckman Mayner Architects. Marcel Breuer and Matthew Vassar would approve.

Project associate (Herbert Beckhard Frank Richlan & Associates): Yutaka Takiura. Project manager: Carl Gottschalk. Project manager (Leonard Parker Associates): Paul Hagen. Lead designer: Virginia Pappas. Interior designer: Andrea Geerdes. Seating upholstery (Noyes House): Anzea. Carpet: Prince Street. Chairs, tables (Noyes House), sofas (Ferry House Lounge): Knoll. Rugs (Ferry House Lounge): Shaw Industries. Custom coffee table: Cold Spring Granite. Lounge chairs (Ferry House Lounge, upstairs lounge): Modernica. Side chairs (Ferry House Lounge, dining area), coffee table (Ferry House upstairs lounge): Herman Miller. Wood stain (Ferry House exterior): Sherwin-Williams Company. Window, door screens: Screens & Fabricated Metals. Flooring (Ferry House upstairs lounge): Permagrain products. Windowsill plastic laminate: Wilsonart International. Tables (Ferry House dining area): Ki. Down-lights, sconces: Lightolier. Paint: Benjamin Moore & Co. Associate architect: Harry N. Pharr architects & planners. General contractor: Storm King Contracting.

The parlor of Noyes House, a dorm built by Eero Saarinen and restored by the Leonard Parker Associates, is dominated by a sunken lounge. Known as the passion pit, it comprises a cotton-upholstered sofa encircling a marble-topped table by Saarinen. His Womb and Tulip chairs and Pedestal tables round out the furnishings.

Completed in 1951, the main lounge at Marcel Breuer's Ferry Cooperative House featured an open plan and chairs by Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames. Photography: Courtesy of Vassar College Special Collections.

Herbert Beckhard Frank Richlan & Associates refurbished the lounge's Charles Pfister sofas and added Saarinen's Grasshopper chairs. The ceiling's heart-cypress planks are also new. Below: Every Vassar dorm boasts a Steinway grand.

Breuer separated public and private areas at Ferry, which was originally surrounded by Dutch elms. Photography: Courtesy of Vassar College Special Collections.

Slate, now restored, flows from the ground level to the patio.

Breuer designed the kitchen for utility, with glass lighting globes and white-painted cabinetry; photography: courtesy of Vassar College Special Collections.