ALL THE RIGHT ANGLES

—How America’s Counterculture Eventually Went Square—And the Roofs Again Made Their Peace with Rain and Snow.

*An expedition through America’s architectural experiments.*

Mrs. Begonia Contretemps continues her American assignment on behalf of the Nouvelle Vague Zwischenschaft (NVZ), investigating the habits, curiosities, and contradictions of the United States in the hope of determining what America means. Guided by the mischievous instincts of Council editor John St. Evola, her journeys often begin with an innocent question and end somewhere entirely unexpected. The following is her latest report to René Séance at NVZ headquarters.

From America’s Long Roofline

From Raised Ranch Acres
During the Long Days of Summer

Some Seventy-Nine Years After Levittown

Dear René,

No sooner had I returned from my previous assignment than Mr. John St. Evola appeared at my motel room with the unmistakable expression that generally precedes another improbable expedition.

Without explanation, he slid an interview across the table.

“Watch this,” he said.

It featured the American builder Lloyd Kahn, who spoke fondly of the geodesic domes that had captivated the American counterculture. For a brief period, it seemed, the future belonged to spherical geometry. Yet, almost casually, Mr. Kahn explained that he had eventually returned to building remarkably traditional timber-frame houses with pitched roofs.

Mr. St. Evola smiled.

“There,” he said. “America has done it again.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“They’re forever convinced they’ve discovered a clever shortcut to the ordinary house.”

“And have they?”

“Sometimes.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“They quietly rediscover why their grandparents built houses the way they did.”

He unfolded a road map.

“I’d like you to find out why.”

That, René, is how I came to spend the following weeks driving across America in search of houses that had once been proclaimed the future.

Lynn Hall, Near Smethport, Pennsylvania

My investigation began surprisingly close to Council headquarters at Lynn Hall, the remarkable home of Walter J. Hall, a master builder deeply influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and later associated with bringing Wright’s architectural ideas into practical reality.

Standing before the house, I found myself thinking less about famous architects than about the curious relationship between visionaries and craftsmen.

“René, Lynn Hall stands beside historic U.S. Route 6, once the principal highway across Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier. I cannot help thinking of dear Jack Kerouac, whom I once picked up hitchhiking along this celebrated road. It pleases me to imagine he passed Lynn Hall more than once. Ever since, this stretch of Route 6 has possessed a peculiar Beat Generation mystique for me.”

The architect dreams.

The builder asks whether the roof will still be attached after the first winter.

Lynn Hall possesses Wright’s unmistakable influence, yet it also carries the reassuring confidence of someone who understood timber, stone, foundations, drainage, and the innumerable compromises demanded by gravity. The house nestles comfortably into the Pennsylvania hillside instead of attempting to dominate it.

It was here that the first clue emerged.

Perhaps civilization advances not merely through visionaries, but through craftsmen who quietly persuade ambitious ideas to survive contact with the weather.

“René, I am informed that diners at Lynn Hall once selected their own trout from the spring-fed pond before supper. I naturally endeavored to continue the custom but somehow managed to foul-hook a coelacanth instead. One does so hate to appear overdressed for the Devonian.”

The House and the Waterfall

Mr. St. Evola next directed me toward Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated desire to unite architecture with nature.

I confess the idea is magnificent.

Who would not wish to hear running water from one’s drawing room?

“Dear René, while sheltering beneath my umbrella inside the drawing room, I found myself wondering whether civilizations decline not only in their politics and philosophy, but occasionally in their rooflines as well. It is, at any rate, a hypothesis that appears to improve with every fresh drip.”

Yet another question gradually presented itself.

Water is undeniably beautiful.

It is also remarkably persistent.

It stains.

It seeps.

It encourages humidity, mildew, moss, and conversations with plumbers.

As I admired this poetic union of house and stream, I found myself wondering whether the stream had ever requested admission in the first place.

Perhaps nature occasionally prefers remaining outdoors.

The Dome People

My journey then carried me into the strange and optimistic world of the geodesic dome.

Here was a generation convinced that the ordinary house had finally been defeated.

Corners disappeared. Walls leaned. Geometry triumphed. Unfortunately, furniture remained stubbornly rectangular.

So did bookshelves. Pictures. Kitchen cabinets. Families.

Eventually I remembered Lloyd Kahn himself. Having once stood among the San Francisco–Marin County counterculture’s most enthusiastic builders, he eventually found himself constructing thoroughly respectable timber-frame houses with pitched roofs. The architectural left, it seemed, had quietly drifted to the right—or at least to the right angles. One might almost say the revolution eventually went square.

“René, Mr. St. Evola reserved me an Airbnb geodesic dome overlooking Lake Erie, where he apparently stays whenever his investigations bring him to the area. In the interest of scholarly immersion, I purchased authentic period attire for the occasion. I did rather see stars after gently bumping my head on the picture frame. Whether they resulted from the knock itself or the colorful gummies left in the welcoming candy dish, I am not entirely prepared to say.”

Earthships

My next destination featured houses constructed from old automobile tires, bottles, earth, and every imaginable recycled material. I admired the ingenuity enormously.

Americans possess a touching confidence that almost anything can become a house. The question, however, remained whether every ingenious solution introduces several entirely new challenges.

Innovation, I was beginning to suspect, enjoys presenting itself disguised as simplicity.

“Honestly. . . really René, I must have a rather serious conversation with Mr. St. Evola regarding his increasingly adventurous choice of Airbnb accommodations. This latest Earthship came complete with a most courteous notice requesting that guests wipe their feet before entering. I should have been perfectly willing to oblige, had I been able to determine at precisely which point the outdoors became the indoors. I fear the distinction had been thoughtfully recycled.”

Shipping Containers

Apparently international freight containers have now entered domestic life.

I spent the afternoon inside one.

The experience was unexpectedly pleasant.

Even so, I could never entirely forget that I was living inside something originally designed to transport microwave ovens across the Pacific Ocean.

The Americans have achieved the remarkable feat of transforming global commerce into suburban architecture.

“René, I believe Mr. St. Evola arranged my shipping-container accommodation a shade too close to the loading docks. I awoke to the sound of a tugboat’s whistle and soon realized my temporary residence had quietly resumed its former career. Unless I am mistaken, we appear to be making for Duluth.

Tiny Houses

The tiny house movement appears to ask a perfectly sensible question.

How much house does one actually need?

Unfortunately, the answer seems to vary dramatically depending upon the number of children, dogs, hobbies, grandparents, rainy afternoons, and Christmas decorations involved.

Everything in a tiny house is wonderfully close at hand.

Indeed, everything else is as well.

“René, I really ought to be more charitable toward Mr. St. Evola. However improbable his Airbnb selections may be, they do occasionally produce happy reunions, and I was delighted to find our photographer, Mr. Lee Sfocato, already in residence. The tiny house is unquestionably another ingenious American invention. It merely appears to have been designed without sufficient consultation with Minnesota’s Scandinavian population—or with photographers who insist upon bringing their entire profession indoors.”

McMansions

Having apparently concluded that houses had become too small, America immediately embarked upon making them dramatically larger.

Here the experiment reversed itself completely.

Gigantic foyers.

Multiple rooflines.

Three-car garages.

Ceilings approaching cathedral dimensions.

The curious absence of front porches.

I gradually realized that building a larger house does not necessarily simplify living inside it.

One can become surprisingly lost in prosperity.

“René, I had always imagined that one required a royal household to justify such proportions. Mr. St. Evola assures me this is merely an ordinary American residence. It is undeniably impressive, though I could not help noticing that the heating and air-conditioning appear to cost almost as much as a modest coronation. Mr. Huey Long once promised that every man might be a king. American builders seem to have taken him at his word—provided, of course, that the king can keep up with the utility bills. As I wandered through room after magnificent empty room, I found myself wondering whether a certain modern emptiness had simply been given an architectural form. It was rather as though the void had been externalized into square footage.

An Ordinary Suburban Street

Mr. St. Evola’s final destination proved the least dramatic of all.

No museum. No visitors’ center. No architectural pilgrimage. Only an ordinary suburban neighborhood. Children rode bicycles. Someone was grilling supper. Garden hoses crossed driveways.

(“René, it seems to be one of civilization’s little habits to mock what is ordinary until it becomes impossible to recover. Only then do we discover that yesterday’s commonplace was, in fact, rather precious.”)

There stood the familiar split-level house. It had inspired no movement. No manifesto. No revolution. No coffee-table books. It simply appeared to be getting on with the business of sheltering ordinary families.

At last Mr. St. Evola explained why he had ended my architectural expedition at an ordinary suburban split-level house.

“Every stop along your journey,” he observed, “solved one problem while creating another. The split-level quietly solved the greatest number with the fewest compromises.”

He then made his case.

A neutral entrance welcomed visitors without passing through the family’s private rooms.
Split living levels gave parents, children, guests, and hobbies their own spaces while keeping the family together.
Ideal for sloping ground, reducing excavation and working with the landscape instead of against it.
Pitched roofs shed rain and snow with quiet efficiency.
Expandable rooms allowed the house to grow as the family grew.
Comfort without extravagance, making it attainable for ordinary families.
Practical rather than ideological, it adapted itself to life instead of asking life to adapt to it.

Mr. St. Evola simply folded his arms.

“Mrs. Begonia, every other house we visited began with an architectural theory. The split-level began with a family.”

I looked back over my notebook.

A house that leaked. One that sailed away. A house built of earth and a place scarcely large enough for one. Another house so vast it echoed with its own emptiness.

Then, at the end of the road, an unfashionable house that quietly got on with the business of sheltering ordinary people.

Perhaps, René, that is why it never became revolutionary.

It never needed to be.

Your somewhat humbled—but now considerably better housed—friend,

Mrs. Begonia Contretemps