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Show 1 by Anne G. Mooney I ~ rdiikhnlw.~~ asm- am) endowed Utah with an unprecedented legacy of outstanding modernist buildings. fi His sleek technological forms and 3 ' 6 impecca bly- executed details inspired D 4 8. architects and sophisticated clients alike. Sugden's designs reflect a profound appreciation for nature fostered under the tutelage of his father and a rigorous formal clarity developed under the influence of his mentor, the master architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( 1 886- 1 969). His blend of Miesian- inspired modernism coupled with his Utah-inspired naturalism led to a unique application of modernist ideals within the western landscape. 4 UTAH P R E S E R V A T I O N ah ROO)^,.^ T ~ U W ~ Sugden was born in Chicago in 1922 where his father was attending medi-cal school. When he was a young boy, the family returned to its native Utah. Sugden traveled extensively with his father through Utah's scenic landscape and learned to ski, rock climb, and love the mountainous terrain. Throughout his life Sugden remained profoundly influ-enced by his father. Shortly after he graduated from East High School in Salt Lake City, Sugden enlisted in the U. S. Army 10th Mountain Division and saw active duty on the front lines in Italy during World War 11. There he earned a number of citations including the Silver Star. As he was being decommissioned from the Army, Sugden was stationed briefly in Chicago. There he first encountered the influential European architects Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer while studying at the Illinois Institute of ' rechnology ([ IT). As Sugden's son Evan A. Sugden recalls, " His professional training took off almost instantly, propelled by a strong attraction to their stunning works and compelling modernist ideals." Sugden worked as a student and draftsman in the offices of Mies from 1945 until 1952. Sugden was also a stu-dent, and the only associate, of Ludwig Hilberseimer. With Mies, Sugden served as project architect on the 860 Lake Shore Drive apartment building in Chicago and oversaw a number of buildings on the IIT campus. He consulted on the reconstruction of the (; ernla11 Pavilion, originally designed by Mies in 1929 for the Barcelona International Exhibition and widely considered to be one of the seminal works of modern architecture. In 1952, Sugden brought this privileged experience and knowledge to Utah to set up his own practice. - 1: ~ mettos Sugden garnered a number of commissions from private clients that allowed him to work steadily in the early decades of his practice. This body of work constitutes his greatest contribution and consists of a series of important buildings of timeless and classic modern architecturc. ' The Makoff family of Salt Lake City proved an excellent client for Sugden. It pro-vided him with public and private commissions, including the hlakoff apparel stores on South Temple Street and in the Cottonwood Mall, a series of private residences, and the Makoff family mausoleum. Sugden's public commissions still intact include the University of Utah Merrill Engineering Building ( designed in collaboration with Dean L. Gustavson's office) and the additions to the Alta Lodge. Sugden's non- traditional work, however, was not widely sought after in Utah. It has UTAH P R E S E R V A T I O N fi ponents Kimball preserved is Sugden's original kitchen design featuring Republic Steel painted metal cabinets and a continuous stainless steel coun-tertop with integral stove burners. Her efforts earned her a 2005 Utah Heritage Foundation Heritage Award recognizing her thoughtful and well- researched reno-vation project. hiving in EI tree House Another Sugden- designed residence stands at the mouth of Emigration Open space flows around the central kitchen and hearth in this Sugden home in Emigration Canyon. The current owner Canyon. Architect Kathryn Anderson, a added a graceful, circular staircase to unite the separate first- floor studio and second- floor living spaces. I the harsh sun directly overhead. Sugden built a small working studio below Roberta's house where he spent much time. In the summer months he slept on a cot in the open- air porch, now an enclosed dining room. When the property was later put up for sale, an appraiser struggled to affix a price to the unusual house. " I've never seen anything like it," he explained, unaware of its clas-sic and famous origins. Appreciative of its history and significance, Kimball purchased the home from one of several owners following Roberta and carefully undertook a restoration of the deteriorating structure. Especially challenging was the reversal of the several additions and " improvements" that had tampered with the integrity of Sugden's original design. Among the com- The combination of Emigration Canyon's dense foli-age and Sugden's glass walls creates the sense of " living in a tree house." rn Salt Lake Tabernacle, in progress Bogue Supply Building, 2002 Cowles Building, 2001 Gardner Hall, 1999 m Ford Motor Company, 1999 Noyes Building, 1998 Vernal LDS Temple, 1997 Salt Lake Hardware, 1996 A r c h i t e c t s Joseph Smith Memorial, 1992 Squatter's Pub Interior, 1989 Pierpont Development, 1986 Historic Preservation and Adaptive Reuse 1 730 Pacific Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah I www. ffkr. com 1 801.521.6186 former student of Sugden, found the petite mountain dwelling in 1998. She had jok-ingly mentioned she was looking for a " glass house" and, shortly thereafter, a Realtor drove up the canyon and led her up a steep approach until the home came into view. Anderson immediately recognized it as a Sugden design and purchased it two days later. Sugden built the structure in 1965 for his colleague and draftsman, Charlie Griffin. The design was conceived of as a live- work space with living space above for Griffin and his wife and separate workspace for the Sugden architectural studio below. Outside sits the original Sugden- designed doghouse, a miniature matching the mid- century modern architecture of the main house. By punching a hole through the floor, Anderson connected the upper and lower volumes with a circular staircase. The precisely- scaled, perfectly- square volume is uninterrupted by the walls and doors of a conventional house. Rather, a central service core with a kitchen, bath, and fireplace hearth define space, while living, sleeping and dining programs float around it. " After living here I wouldn't know what to do with a door or a wall," Anderson muses of her unobstructed floor plan. The overall feeling of inhabiting the space, according to Anderson, is " like living in a tree house" with an indescribably intimate connection to nature. Admittedly the worst of this house, as with other Sugden homes, is the winter heat-ing bill. Just as Frank Lloyd Wright's residential work is notorious for leaking roofs, the me dcoigned ' Or himsealfn d his Jutta * Iwang Sugrkn, hovers amidst the trees on Parely's Summit. As Sugden's son Evan A. Sugden recalls, " His professional training took off almost instantly, propelled by a strong attraction to their stunning works and compelling modernist ideals." I use of glass and steel as primary building materials renders Sugden's houses notori-ously cold in winter. His structures would benefit from new glazing technologies, solar heating, heavy insulation, and energy- efficient HVAC systems. The structures also present an entirely different set of maintenance problems from the deterioration of the gasket membranes, to the rusting of the exposed steel deck ceilings, to the replacement of the expansive sheets of glazing. Preservationists are now developing the techniques to preserve and restore these modern materials. palbe Sweet Cube ' hirty years after returning to Utah, Sugden designed his own home on a hillside at the summit of Parley's Canyon. Sugden's wife, artist and graphic designer Jutta Alwang Sugden, continues to live in the home. The ground floor of the three- story live- work studio incorporates a covered carport, entrance, and a library and archive of creative work. A 45- degree open- deck steel stair tower leads up to the living- dining room and kitchen. The sleek black- and- white space has a theatrical quality and sets a dramatic tone lightened by the large- scale, colorful Sugden painting that forms one wall. Here the visible structure and cross- bracing details can be appreciated up close. The upper floor houses the live- work space, with sleeping and bathing quarters and a working design studio. The black concrete floors are softened with a grid of white sport court floor tiles, an innovative application of a material typically used as an underlay-ment. Floating walls and a digitally- designed panel created by Jutta free the ceiling from obstruction, allowing light to spill over walls and establish zones for working and living. The space is flooded with natural light from expansive glazing and a central overhead skylight and has an entirely different feeling from that of the proportionally equal floor below. Sugden enjoyed visiting the site when his house was under construction, watching the structure go up. Just after the steel was erected and before the windows went in, Jutta photographed him sitting in a director's chair on the just- poured concrete floor One of Sugden's paintings adds a splash of color and creates a free- floating wall on the dramatic black- and- white main floor of Sugden's home. 8 UTAH PRESERVATION within the structure he so carefully brought into being. Sugden's plans for a home on an adjacent lot sit awaiting an appreciative buyer to realize the project. All of Sugdell structures exhibit a direct connection between the conception and the execution of design. Detailing, material, and tectonics ARE the buildings' con-cepts. This integrated attitude toward technology sets Sugden's work apart from that of his contemporaries. An active participant on- site during the construction phase, he ensured that his techniques ( along with his structures) were exposed and executed with a great concern for detail. His is an architecture of planes, where every surface is considered, its connections at the top and base fully resolved and expressed. It is also an architecture without nails and without applied, superficial ornament. Though Sugden's architecture was associated with the International Style move-ment at the time of his education, his career emerged as uniquely western in its inex-tricable tie to the Utah environment. To him, the simplicity and formal restraint of modernism was not only a reaction to the misdirection of other stylistic movements in architecture, but also an illumination of nature, context, and the essence of human habitation. Sugden's work prefigures current trends in an emerging international neo- modern-ist design movement. No longer a cold and site- less solution, today's new take on modernism offers a framework for building that easily transforms itself. It responds to a multitude of climatic and cul-tural contexts, utilizing state- of- the- art technologies and building systems and incorporating sustainable design prin-ciples. Because the spirit of Sugden's work reflects these current trends, his designs merit study, recognition, and preservation. John Sugden produced a body of architecture that is simultaneously modest and understated, yet surpris-ingly radical and rich. We are gifted to have this body of work in Utah. It is now our responsibility to preserve Sugden's legacy of modernist expres-sion for future generations. @ Anne G. Mooney is an assistant professor at the University of Utah, College of Architecture - t Planning and a principal of the design firm Sparano + Mooney Architecture. . - UTAH P R E S E R V A I I O N 9 |
