PARSONAGE FIRST FLOOR PLAN

Modernism is not a specific style, but rather an international idea dating from World War II and reflective of the post war period. Some of its guiding principles include simplicity of form, open floor plan, blurring the distinction between interior and exterior spaces, and site specific design.

Lincoln Modernism

Lincoln Massachusetts has a strong and distinguished tradition of Modernism. From 1937-1970 over 300 modern residences were constructed in the town. The works include designs by locally, nationally and internationally known architects such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Henry Hoover, Hugh Stubbins and Earl Flansburgh. Walter Gropius was the Director of the Bauhaus in Germany, a school that combined fine art and crafts, before he moved to the United States and designed his own and Lincoln’s most famous home in 1938.

The Japan Connection

Walter Gropius wrote in the Yale Architectural Journal in 1955 about his trip to Japan, “you cannot imagine what it meant to me to come suddenly face to face with these houses, with a culture still alive, which in the past had already found the answer to many of our modern requirements of simplicity, of outdoor-indoor relations, of modular coordination, and at the same time, variety of expression, resulting in a common form language uniting all individual efforts.” Many famous Modernist architects in addition to Gropius, including Carlo Scarpa and Frank Lloyd Wright have found inspiration in Japanese design. In an interview a month before his final journey there in 1978, the Italian architect Scarpa wrote “yes, I am very much influenced by Japan, and not just because I visited it, but because even before I went there, I admired their essentiality and above all their supreme good taste. What we call good taste is present everywhere in Japan.”

studio J2

studio J2 architects is located in Lincoln and enjoys building on and reinventing its tradition of Modernism. The restoration/renovation of a Modernist residence designed by Henry Hoover and now used as the town’s Unitarian Universalist Church parsonage, is one example of their residential work. John and Jennifer were fortunate to have been sent on a client sponsored research trip to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto Japan in 2013.They were struck by the exquisite attention to detail and complete manifestation of beauty in simplicity they found there. They understood why a road they visited in Kyoto was described in a guidebook as “the most beautiful street in the world”. These and other local and international experiences have helped to shape their core design principles which they use to create architecture that reveals the distinct spirit of its occupants and place.