Cape/Modern at PAAM

Friday, July 29th marks the opening of what looks to be a very exciting exhibit on residential regionalism. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum on Cape Cod offers "Cape/Modern: The Architecture of Survival and Celebration," a show about "two kinds of houses that are iconic on Cape Cod: the Cape Cod cottage and the modern houses that started to spring up in the 1950s." In the show, curator and Massachusetts-based architect Mark Hammer compares the two forms, finding that both typologies have a similar origin, though the colonists who settled the Cape were driven by survial and the modernists, on the other hand, were looking for some fun on the beach. "Colonists from England were the ones who imported what they knew back in Europe to build the Cape Cod cottage," Hammer says. "And in the 20th century, Europeans who were fleeing Germany and other places for intellectual freedom brough along their building styles as well." Check out the slideshow for a preview of what you'll see at PAAM starting Friday.

View 9 Photos

On the other end of the spectrum is this Cape Cod cottage from 1730. Atwood-Higgins House is also in Wellfleet and Hammer, who took the photo, credits it to Thomas Higgins Architect.

Here we see a board for the exhibit that traces the modernist legacy to Cape Cod. We see work by Serge Chermayeff (upper left), Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, and in the middle a rendering and two sketches for the Wilkinson cottage in Wellfleet, MA, by Chermayeff again. Below we have work by Mark Hammer's firm Hammer Architects and a renovation Hammer did of a project by Saltonstall and Morton.

We get another look here at the Atwood-Higgins cottage from 1730. The plan on the bottom right is of Ebenezer-Atwood house by an unknown architect. Though the home is clearly not modern, it's easy to see that a stripped-down approach to design rules here. As does a small footprint. Elevation image courtesy of Historic American Building Survey. Photos by Mark Hammer.

This board offers a quartet of modern Cape Cod residences. Clockwise from top left we have the Colony Club Cottage by Staltonstall and Morton in Wellfleet (1951); the plan for the Comfort House by Satltonstall and Morton in Wellfleet (1951); a view of the Comfort House's facade; and an interior of the Grossman House by Henry Hebbeln Architect in Truro (1953). Photos of the Colony Club House and Comfort House by Mark Hammer, photo of the Grossman House by Peter Vanderwarker.

This board makes the clearest case for the formal links between the cottages and farmhouses of Europe and early America and the Cape Cod cottage. The Peterson House (center) was once home to the lighthouse keeper of Truro harbor, and is a classic example of early Cape Cod architecture built to withstand the harsh New England winter. A pair of modern homes in Austria and Germany carry on the farm house tradition.

In addition to what Hammer has curated in the show Cape/Modern, I also wanted to show three projects by his firm. This is an addition to and a rebuild of a mid-century home in Provincetown, MA.

The home from 2001 in Wellfleet has a more rustic feel, though employs modernist form with the kind of hard-wearing siding common in New England.

This home is a renovation and addition to a home in Truro by Henry Hebbeln. The 2008 work by Hammer Architects turned the unheated summer cottage into a functional four-season abode. Don't miss a word of Dwell! Download our FREE app from iTunes, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!