I was once in a meeting with a client I respect very much. The subject of the meeting was, vaguely, “What Should Your House Look Like?” We were discussing Rome, Tuscany, and Cher’s house in “Clueless”. All of these places had that “look”—columns, porticos, marble, wood. I kept asking them, “Ok, but why do you like these looks? What are we saying when we design a house that looks like ancient Rome ate ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ and threw up in California?” Their response was perfect, “Well, that is what a house looks like.”
And so we have our subject for this inaugural Be Soothed: “Buildings Look Like That Because Other Buildings Look Like That.”
I want to start a conversation about how to Be Soothed in the world of architecture. This will be the first in the series that I revisit from time to time.
It is daunting. It is prestigious. It is subjective! So let’s tread carefully—but I am hoping to do three things: 1. Let’s look at some really expensive new houses and pick apart why they are very much NOT soothe and 2. I hope to communicate that arming yourself with this knowledge will not only allow you to come to some truths about why you like what you like, but also the power that you have the authority to know that and 3. Give you a chuckle.
(Side note: if you or anyone you know own, designed, or worked on one of these homes, I am truly not writing these as insults, but as a declaration that you, whoever you are, are worthy of beauty, balance, truth. Also it should be noted that I believe there is a lot of classism in the pastime of making fun of McMansions—building more homes to house people at all price points is, in my opinion, very crucial. If it looks like a mini Baroque chateau made of stucco—who cares. I think those can be done well, and make people happy. These houses we are about to look at are very expensive, in fancy zip codes and presumably making whomstever built them a lot of money. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this means they have “no excuse” to make these design choices, but it does mean that they sort of dropped the ball. I digress.)
A home is very personal. It is full of life, it is part of the resident’s identity, it communicates how that person wants to feel or be seen by others. It costs a ton of money, so there are a lot of tender feelings around a home. Your home should look and feel however you want it to! Love ancient Rome? Great! Want to live in a Japanese temple—perfect! Want a combo of both? I bet that could be achieved. What I am going to point out is when those things are slapped on and meant to transform that house into that “look”, just so it has that “look”, something is lost, we have strayed, and let’s return to the assignment at hand.
Today’s House: The French Revolution
What are we looking at here? It is a house, clearly. It is attempting to be stately, we can see that—why does it make me so uncomfortable? Why do I feel so thrown off when I look at it? It appears there is some French Normandy style happening?
But everything is out of balance, pushed together and so far away from the original version that it ends up only looking like a copy, but of nothing that fits together. In France, those turrets were useful, and crucial. The front doorways were in harmony with they slowly designed facade, meant to last generations. In our French Revolution house, doors aren’t centered, rooflines are purely decorative and end in bizarre places, slopes are arbitrary and lead to poor drainage which leads to lost downspouts:
Over all, a jumbled mess. It could be that this is answering the client’s brief! (“I want something that says, MC Escher gave up while vacationing in France with his buddy who ‘has a good deal on stucco’”) but I sort of doubt it. And how sad for that client! and no doubt for the designer, and now, for us, because here we have the “things” that make this a “house”— those indicators that tell us what type of house or building this is (BIG FRENCH MANSION, in this case), but if that is all we have, it is a shallow message. Like my client, all we are seeing are these outside indicators, and not the deeper level of how we want to feel about this house.
And this is where soothe comes in. Maybe what my client meant, and what the client of this French Revolution house meant, was that they feel soothed when they are in Rome, looking at the Colosseum. The stately houses in Normandy bring them peace, make them feel connected to a piece of history they enjoy, and they love the romantic, fancy, ancient turrets. I believe those feelings, those soothing moments (if you will!) could be translated to this home without the fake roofline, off-centered tower and willfully intrusive dormers.
Identifying, in this case, what is the root of what makes a space or place or where you want to live soothing, can hopefully release you from those cheapened outside indicators. Is it the turret that makes you feel like you are having a relaxing kir on vacation? Or is it a calm backyard, a small private patio, the permission to sit and have that kir? I think that distinction is massive and crucial, and this house could have been designed to foster that emotion, to free the client from the false aesthetic trappings of confusion currently on display, and instead deliver the balanced truth which is what is so appealing about those actual French homes and Roman columns to begin with.
So, in this example of non-soothe, maybe we have started to identify some soothe! There is some clarity and honesty which will help declare what is soothe in our next chapters. But, if simply saying “that isn’t it!!!” is all we can say so far about a home or building, that is good! Send it to me! There is a joy in pointing that out as well.