A new building monograph, Eppich House II, presents the story of a masterful Gesamtkunstwerk designed by architect Arthur Erickson, landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, and interior designer Francisco Kripacz. It?s Erickson?s first steel residence, and arguably his most complete work, with its seamless integration of architecture, landscape and interiors. Eppich House II epitomizes the sensitivity to site, joy in material inventiveness, and, importantly, critical role of enlightened clients associated with West Coast Modernism.
Designed for the owner of a metal manufacturing firm and his wife, Eppich House II was constructed primarily using the materials, expertise and labour available in the owner?s plant.
While marvelling at the completeness of this work, other Gesamtkunstwerke may to mind: Mies?s Villa Tugendhat, Wright?s Taliesin West, Gaudi?s Palau Güell. But a more apt comparison would surely be the 1957 Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, the manifestation of a similar collaboration between a visionary industrialist and an accomplished trio of designers, in this case, architect Eero Saarinen, landscape architect Dan Kiley, and interior designer Alexander Girard. Eppich House II and Miller House belong to an elite subgroup within the history of Gesamtkunstwerke that were designed collaboratively and seamlessly, inside and out. Each of the house?s levels terminates in a half-vaulted greenhouse space made of glass block for privacy from neighbouring residences....