Tom Kundig, of the Seattle architecture firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, has won a
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for architecture. I first became aware of his work a few years ago when
The New York Times Magazine featured the Delta Shelter (pictured above, in Mazama, Washington), The Brain (below, in Seattle), and the Ridge House (bottom, in Eastern Washington).
Sometimes artists and architects in the Northwest are so overwhelmed by the beauty of the natural surroundings that elements of nature are included in their work in a far too obvious way. But while Kundig uses materials and shapes that respect their locations, and is clearly influenced by Northwest masters such as
Roland Terry, he's not held back by these references—and in fact he uses them as springboards for all kinds of genuine innovation.
Click
here to see more of his work.
This past Sunday's issue of T: The New York Times Style Magazine featured another great Tom Kundig house, this one for Merrill Wright (daughter of Seattle's all-time greatest patrons of the arts, Bagley and Virginia Wright). The sod-roofed 2200 square-foot concrete, glass and steel home is inlaid in the rocks of the San Juans; it's another example of the way Kundig's work respects its place by finding a balance between blending in and fully embracing what it is. This is true Northwest modernism.
Click here to read Pilar Viladas' article and see a slideshow of more photos by Dwight Eschliman.
