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Edward L. Powers Residence
Purcell, Feick and Elmslie
Minneapolis, Minnesota 1910
Text by William Gray Purcell
Parabiographies entry, Volume for 1910
Job Date (in Parabiographies entry): November 8, 1910
E. L. POWERS
Working drawings, March 14, 1911 April 29, 1911 July 17, 1911
A Beautiful Opportunity
Mr. and Mrs. Powers were people of fine intelligence and very appreciative of our methods and results. The site as a special one with its most interesting outlook toward the rear but with the necessity of presents a satisfactory facade toward the street on the north. [Annotation by GGE on original draft: "Well I remember the basic layout. It disturbed you greatly at first in that you were a bit averse to showing it because it was too unusual and not likely to suit. However you sold it and all were happy." WGP responds in annotation: "It was the elaboration and cost that bothered me."]
The idea of reversing the house and putting the living rooms to the rear, notwithstanding its obvious reasonableness from the point of view of happy and comfortable living, was a revolutionary procedure. Up to this time, parlors were in front and kitchens in the rear--always done--and that was that.
We learned one important economic fact in this project. The working drawings called for a building which, when the bids were in, proved to be considerably more than the Powers thought they could expend for their house.
Practical House -- Unpractical Procedure
At considerable expense to us but no cost to Owner, we redrew the plans entirely, and rewrote the specifications, reducing the mass of the house just 30%. When the new bids were in, the 30% reduction in size had saved just 4% in cost, a negligible saving. However, it was apparent that in using cubic contents as a basis for cost determination, building material could be packed in and around a given volume of space so effectively that reducing the volume made almost no change in cost. Practically the same amount of piping, plumbing, wiring, doors and windows, would serve two houses one which which was as much as 50% larger than the other in mere size, if the number of living or utility units were not increased. It was, therefore, plain to us that our efforts to [s]olve the terrific cost pressure placed on us by clients could not be solved by compressing the size of rooms to a point where they were just barely satisfactory to the owners, but that we could be freer to give out clients more living space without endangering the cost factor, provided we could keep to a definite structural simplicity.
Looking over the many working drawings and many complete details, I find that Elmslie, Feick and Purcell are down for many hours over the draughting boards. Paul Haugan [Haugen] and Marian [sic] Parker did most of the final draughting and tracing. Lawrence B. Clapp was responsible in general for the full size details on which Mr. Elmslie of course drew the decorative details in wood sawing, leaded glass, terra cotta. A. H. Wider, who died a few years later, made numerous revisions and kitchen details. He was a deft and skilful man with a good head for construction and assembly. T.H.T., whose name I now forget, and with whom our relations were most agreeable for a number of years, came in to do the heating.
These will soon be just names to any who read, but they should all be honored for their enthusiastic share in this good pioneering. They went out to other work all influenced by what they saw and believed true in our office.
We also began to see that compactness was not necessarily a housekeeping economy in the matter of the labor required to take care of rooms. The housekeeping duties and chores were apparently related to the number of units to be cared for rather than the size of the units, within reasonable limits.
We Review Our Philosophy
A house like the Powers house was expensive because its finish detail was too highly articulated. There was also a tendency in Mr. Elmslie's design approach, to build the structure organically and then cover it with an integument of various and often decoratively enriched surfaces.
This meant that much of what was presented to the eye outside and inside the building had to be bought twice, and the public was, at that time so thoroughly drilled by Stickley and his Mission Furniture, to find their aesthetic satisfaction in structural craftsmanship that is was difficult to secure acceptance of even the most sincere and restrained architectural embellishments.
We Finally Get Going
The Powers finally approved the second project, even though the savings was so slight, because they began to feel that the first project was really unduly large and would prove a burden and an expense in maintenance. This house was very beautiful, complete with polychrome terra cotta, some lovely glass, a lot of highly enriched built-in furniture, flush veneer inlaid doors and a complete set of personally designed dining room furniture to correspond with the built-in sideboard.
This Powers house is a distinguished piece of work, and it still stands fresh and interesting, truly contemporary with the most thoughtful buildings of today. Indeed, Mr. Elmslie and I feel that the ultimate working out of the purely mechanistic fashion now current will come to follow the direction which we took in this Powers house for enriching and humanizing these now fashionable mechanical aspects of building.
True Function Versus Constructivism
Indeed, it is inevitable that sensitive designers cannot continue to view Architecture are nothing more than streamlined engineering, but must recognize the spiritual element emanating from utilitarian forms and learn to express this vastly more important value of everyday living. This, of course, gets right back again to our program of enriching a building either by using more beautiful materials for the structural elements that show, or decorating these elements with beautiful garments that do not deny or stultify its character and where the ornament is highly orchestrated to give it an actual functional structure of its own. This will come whenever we reach a point where our enjoyment of beauty is more important to us than speed, everlastingly trying to get to where we don't happen to be, or gratifying our grandeur complexes.
Collection: William Gray Purcell Papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota [AR:B4d1.4]
research courtesy mark hammons