<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Verdana; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Through my work with Teachers & Writers, I was invited to be a Pocantico writer in residence at the Breuer House on the grounds of the Rockefeller Estate about an hour north of New York City, on a hilltop overlooking a particularly wide part of the Hudson River.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Never have I a been a writer-in-residence in such a unique environment. The landscape and grounds around the mansion are ample, pastoral and at the same time home to a fabulous and quirkily-curated Modernist sculpture garden. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the really interesting thing was living in the Breuer House, which was created by Marcel Breuer in the late 1940s for a MoMa exhibit to be a "house of the future." It was<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/200..." rel="nofollow"> displayed</a> in 1949 in the MoMa sculpture garden and then, on the verge of being dismantled, moved in pieces to the Rockefeller estate where it was reconstructed on a hillock. This is where it still is. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was something totally dislocating and magical about inhabiting a “house of the future” that was built before I was born. There was a playfulness and an intimacy in these pre-plastic modernist spaces of wood and stone (Breuer was enamored with the natural landscape and designed his houses to sit within nature). </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">So much was particular, odd, and charming in its particularity. The cool, mottled surface of the slate floor. The clever, wood sliding doors that created a series of spaces an views within a space, like this one from my loft sleeping area. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9VDH5QS62-o..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9VDH5QS62-o..." width="240" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> There was so much that Breuer got right. The future—now!—was everywhere. The open multipurpose spaces, each room's wall of plate glass, which obscured the distinction between inside and outside, reminded me of the Richard Meier construct on Plaza Street near us in Brooklyn, the feeling of being in a Bo Concept catalog.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">  </span></div><style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Sec</style><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I  found myself in my free moments looking through books on Marcel Breuer and came across this quote in which he expressed his idea of architecture as  “physical aesthetic."  I kept it on my desk.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>Colors which you hear with your ears,</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>Sound to see with eyes</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The void you touch with you elbows</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The taste of space on your tongue</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>the fragrance of dimension</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The juice of stone.</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>  </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The juice of stone! Architecture was a kind of sensual poetic problem for him. This is obvious of course, but it was the first time I truly understood in a <i>physical </i> way that architecture is a kinesthetic art. </span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And as I explored Breuer's architectural process, which I found a different kind of inspiration for my own work too. I worked on my novel each day, and I became more aware of this work as a concrete process—even an <i>architectural </i>one.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It is extremely rare for a working writer to have time in seclusion, in a landscape of such natural beauty, as well as an interior space of such creative vision. The two together made for a powerful and dynamic writing residency. </span></div>