John G. York's design philosophy was best expressed in his family residence. Inspired by the Charles Eames Case Study House of 1949, the one-story, flat-roofed dwelling is set in a raised expanse of lawn bordered by a low retaining wall in native brick to offset the building's machine-made materials. Modular in design, with its steel-bar joist and pipe column construction, the exterior wall panels of glass, or opaque insulating material, were originally neatly “zipped” into the envelope with automobile-type glazing gaskets. The linear, open-plan design connected along one side to a full-length, covered screened area supported by exposed bar joists and resulted in, according to York, “the feeling of the absence of construction.” Sadly, today, unsympathetic alterations, including a gabled roof and enclosed carport, make it difficult to perceive the singular modernist traits of the York House.
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York House
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