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William V. Kaeser House and Studio

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1951, William V. Kaeser. 3407 Circle Close

Madison architect Kaeser spent a career endeavoring to create buildings that seemed to emerge organically from the ground. His own house and studio articulate this Organicist sensibility, revealing the debt of his mature style to Frank Lloyd Wright. Like Wright, Kaeser employed geometric modules—here, triangles—and repeated them everywhere, even cutting them into the eaves. He also followed Wright in turning the back of the house toward the street and opening the living room and kitchen onto a private, terraced back yard. And like Wright, he blended his building into the natural environment. Kaeser shaped the house to its sloping site, placing his studio at the lowest level, under the bedroom wing. He used walls of limestone and horizontal board and batten to harmonize with the surrounding woods, and he built the massive fireplace of the same limestone, thereby bringing the outdoors in. A stone garden that extends into the house further blurs the line between art and nature.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Marsha Weisiger et al.
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Citation

Marsha Weisiger et al., "William V. Kaeser House and Studio", [Madison, Wisconsin], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WI-01-DA15.

Print Source

Buildings of Wisconsin

Buildings of Wisconsin, Marsha Weisiger and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017, 434-435.

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