PORTLAND MONTHLY MAGAZINE
February/March 2007
Ethereal Design
By Colin Sargent Pages 28-29 & 76-77.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a
"James Schildroth," Maine's first name in soaring sculptural architecture.
Starbird Crest, with wings that make
it look like an origami riddle on the Maine Coast, is a signature design by architect
James Schildroth.
"Brackets hold the whole design up," he
says. "What do you think of that?"
Schildroth is Maine's closet connection to the legendary
Frank Lloyd Wright, having earned the distinction of being named a Taliesin Fellow at the
world center for Wright studies. Not that he's in complete lockstep with America's
most famous architect.
"I departed from that when I was in my twenties,"
he says. "The whole idea of find-your-own-voice, you know. If you keep
copying the old master, what are you? But some of my colleagues still think I'm too
close to the ether," he laughs.
One point of departure from Wright is to spin his client's
dreams, beyond an organic sense of site and situation, into a kind of holy writ that's
illuminated by his new creations. Put another way, he makes his designs deeply
personal, transforming his client's sense of adventure of intimacy onto raw materials as
palpable as glass and granite. "Starbird Crest is an example of the
client expression figuring into the end result," he explains.
Owner Rick Starbird says, "We told him we wanted to
maximize the view, with a lot of decking and living area above the trees."
What Schildroth has created has exceeded the Starbirds'
wildest expectations.
"James plotted summer and winter solstice so we could
orient it to get a lot of winter sun in all the glass. It can be 10 degrees outside
and we sometimes have to open two doors on the second level."
"It's very windy up there," on the mountainside,
with the effect "even increased because of the proximity to Cadillac and Champlain
mountains, so you get a wind-tunnel effect," Schildroth says.
Far from being the House of Seven Gables in a hall of
mirrors, "Starbird Crest is designed that way to deflect some of the wind and turn
its back on the north."
"I'm still counting them." laughs Maryanne
Starbird of the whimsical projections that lend verve and character to the
10,000-square-foot structure. Starbird Crest is so large that "my mother told
us she'd put a bell around her neck and shake her head if she got lost!"
A Wright masterpiece always finds the sun, while
Schildroth, funny, prickly, and adroit with his magic, finds the sun and his owners in
blueprints as well.
"See, the client picks a single place on earth-with
conditions." The ecstasy of trumping those conditions is what gets Schildroth
revved up. "I don't think what I do is the equivalent of being a method
actor," he says, "but I guess what the best architects do is adopt the
persona of the client" in creating a dream structure.
"I have all kind s of clients, some with all kinds of
money and others just barely getting it done," but the one thing in common his
clients have is, they must not bore him.
"I don't design for everybody who shows up. If
they show up with pictures of a French Provincial home, I'm not prepared to help them,
because they're not looking for an architect at all. Instead, "I send them down
the road to the lumberyard,"
end of article
See
more photos of this house click here.
Portland Monthly Magazine April 2007
Wright Stuff
William and Mary Palmer House, living area, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1950,
© Balthazar Korah, Ltd.
William and Mary Palmer House, 1950 by Frank Lloyd Wright,
Architect.
Page 66-67
'House Beautiful' interior design by this country's most
celebrated 20th-century architect. on display at Portland Museum of Art, June 28-October
8, 2007.
Frank Lloyd Wright's interior designs and accessories are
the subject of the Portland Museum of Art's new summer show, "Frank Lloyd Wright and
the House Beautiful," slated for June 28 through October 8.
"Wright believed families would be improved by living
in a house that supported a high quality of life." says curator Dr. Virginia T. Boyd
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Examples of his furniture, metalwork,
stained glass windows. light fixtures, drawings and architectural plans textiles,
publications, accessories, and photographs of home interiors combine to tell the story of
Wright's main contributions to modern life in America."
Though Wright (1867-1959) never personally designed
a home in Maine, our windswept coast plays host to many contemporary estates that show his
influences, particularly in the work of James Schildroth {see "Ethereal Design,"
February / March 2007}. And the fastidious, stubborn crafts-manship and genius of
many of his furniture and decorator items bring Maine topography to mind as well.
As for his pervasive influence, even the cliche 'House
Beautiful' derives form Wright, who designed a book of the same name early in his career.
Ultimately, the concept became the MacGuffin he chased for the rest of his
life. "Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful" is organized by
International Art & Artists of Washington, D.C., in cooperation with The Frank Lloyd
Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Visit http://www.portlandmuseum.org/Content/1381.shtml
end of article
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