New Books: New Traditional Architecture Ferguson & Shamamian Architects

/ November 9, 2011
The book's cover. A glorious classical house.

The book's cover. A glorious classical house.Slideshow

My favorite drawing showing the incredible details of a section and elevation of a fence. All details are important to Ferguson & Shamamian. A Pennsylvania farmhouse transformed into a dignified country house presiding over the landscape. The architects surgically remodeled the house by re-proportioning details, adding a window and balancing parts. The facade of a house in LA whose once famous inhabitants give it a certain pedigree. The brick facade with its quoin details and swan neck pedant over the doorway, conceal a less than ideal interior. A completely remained interior was designed by the architects with gracious rooms and high ceilings resulting in a "casual formal" house. The living room entrance with a view to the porte cochere in the LA house mentioned above. Ferguson & Shamamian were asked to work on Casa del Sud in Palm Beach originally designed by Marion Wyeth in the 1920's. This house had been renovated by the architects once before the current renovation. This time the shift in emphasis from casual to formal implied a larger scale and grander architectural rhetoric. The atrium of the Palm Beach house with a new second floor balcony overlooking the pool.
A New York apartment updated with new mechanicals and adjusting the plan to conform with contemporary lifestyles. Even after a total renovation, the apartment looks as if it has never been changed. The final drawings for the facade of a house in Bridgewater,CT. A serenely proportioned Georgian building with a temple fronted entrance topped with a pediment. More detailed drawings for the Bridgewater house that has been renovated over a long and ongoing relationship with the clients. The house evolved from a modest saltbox to a patrician manor house. The completed facade with an elegant alley of trees leading up to the gracious entrance.

Our design and architecture clients create distinctive and timeless interior and exterior spaces from the most traditional to more modern. Their work is often featured in magazines, online, and now in the books they have written. One of the most recent additions to my library is the glorious folio of the work by the firm of Mark Ferguson and Oscar Shamamian called New Traditional Architecture: Ferguson & Shamamian Architects published by Rizzoli.

Mark and Oscar have been partners in their eponymous architectural firm since 1988. They create residences graced with traditional style, regional character and classic beauty. They collaborate with designers, landscape architects and artisans to produce homes that radiate a sense of place, feature impeccable craftsmanship and timeless elegance.

Their new book is as exceptional as the homes they create. Quite literally, the very first page captures what lies ahead with a detailed hand drawing of a beautiful fence with a classic post and urn finial.  Shingle style, French inspired houses, California Spanish Mediterraneans, and certainly Georgian styles and Colonial Revivals with an American point of departure are interpreted to suit the lifestyle of the client as well as the site.

As Richard Guy Wilson says in his introduction, “their houses look right”. Drawings are still created by hand and inspired by architectural fragments, roof tiles, and elegant renderings of buildings that are on display in their offices. But, it is the library of monographs, pamphlets, books and magazines that provides a reference to the past. Their diligent research, a respect for the client’s needs and aspirations, and a remarkable dedication to a sense of place leads to appropriate designs with character and personality.

Both Mark Ferguson and Oscar Shamamian worked for Parish Hadley, one of the country’s leading design firms that has incubated the talents of many great interior designers including David Kleinberg, Thomas Jayne, and Bunny Williams to name a few. They describe their experience as one that supported the decorators by inventing the background for decoration with architectural detail. All of their work shows a great fidelity to the past with classical symmetry and precise detail often modified for simplicity with great respect for geometry. Their houses are thoughtful with elegance and grace.

Barbara
bsallick@waterworks.com

 

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