Shingle and Stone | Thomas Kligerman
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating By The Book, hosted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
Thomas Kligerman: My name is Thomas Kligerman, I'm an architect in New York City, and my latest book is called Shingle and Stone: Thomas Kligerman Houses, published by the Monacelli Press, also based here in New York City.
Suzy Chase: I received your book in this lovely constructed cardboard box with a sketch and this quote on the flap: "A book is a mirror. It is a chance to pause and look back at my work as if it were done by someone else or others, and it is also a reminder that architecture is not a solitary pursuit." So talk to me about that quote.
Thomas Kligerman: This is the third design book I've done on houses. It's the fourth book I've done, but what struck me the very first time we did a book was the graphic designer came in with the first pass at it. And the way he had assembled the images was completely different from the way that we present to clients or even look at things ourselves, and I felt like I was looking at someone else's work. And it was helpful to see the work objectified. It was like I was looking through a magazine at someone else's project and it gives you a distance and you reflect on what you're looking at in a different way from the times that you are looking at your own photographs or doing a presentation. That's part of what I meant by a mirror, but also, the one thing about doing a book is it's about a lot more than just showing your work to the public or to some audience. It's a time you have to pause to think about what you're doing. It's like a friendly time out.
And you put the work together, you think about how you want to rearrange it, you reflect on things you've done and what you might do better. It's a time to reflect, but it's also a launchpad. And I guess when I use the word reflect, that brings up the notion of a mirror. So a book is so much more than just a volume you hold in your hands. It's a pallet cleanser or a pause in your career where you get to reevaluate, and so I think those are the things I meant when I said at the beginning of the chapter.
And also, houses, and I'm sure all kinds of other disciplines, any kind of art except maybe being an author, although you have an editor and a publisher to collaborate with. But none of these houses happens because I sit in a room by myself someplace. There's a big team of people in the office. There are engineers, there are surveyors, there's the contractor, the bricklayer, the tile guy. All of these houses are a reflection of many people working to make them happen. And these things aren't a singular pursuit. It's not the idea of a genius in a tower someplace. It's a lot of hours and collaboration and hard work, but fun hard work.
Suzy Chase: So you've lived and breathed architecture since you were two years old. I saw you speaking on a video for the ICAA where you said you lived in a 1665 salt box in New England that you moved out of before you were four years old. And to this day, you could draw me a floor plan. You haven't been back since. I feel the same way about a historic home I lived in Arlington Heights, Illinois when I was really, really, really young. A concept that fascinates me, and one that people don't really talk about, is how homes imprint on us when we're young. I would love for you to talk a little bit about that.
Thomas Kligerman: The idea of imprinting is really important. Who we are is in part a memory of all the things we've been through all our lives. That house in Connecticut, there are certain moments in it that stick with me. I remember my third birthday, so when I think about that, I remember that house when I was two years old. I wasn't even yet three. Kind of incredible, but there are specific memories I have. The dining room ceiling was very low. Big beams. I guess it must have been a service or servant hall at the back of the house which had been turned into a screened porch, and so I had these memories of beam on a screened porch. And there's that classic adage in American architecture about the sound of a slamming screen door. All those things have become part of me, among other things. I think there was a sense of a... It was a New England house and there was a very distinctive character in the proportions and the light in it, all of which stick with me today as I design the houses that we're working on this year.
Suzy Chase: So you just brought up sound, and in the book you talk about the shingle-style houses' look, the way they smell, whether rain-soaked or sun-dried, and the way they sound. The sound is a sense. Another thing that nobody really discusses in architecture, but it's crucial and often the most viscerally remembered, which brought me back to another memory of mine in my house in Prairie Village, Kansas where I grew up, and my mom never fixed the screen door so it banged every time someone walked in or out. And I can still hear it in my head. So can you just talk a little bit about sound also?
Thomas Kligerman: Yeah. Sound is really important. I think all the senses are important in architecture, but to your point, I can remember the sound of my sister running up the back stairs versus the way my brother sounded versus the way my father sounded, which was often a scary sound. I can remember the sound of a door in our house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, just like the sense of smell, are things that bring back the past in a way that shouldn't be ignored. I think when you design a house, you should think about what it sounds like. What does it sound like to walk out onto a screened porch and hear the sort of thump of your feet on a wooden deck versus going out into a porch and having a stone floor? It's a completely different experience, not just because they are different materials that look different, but they feel different and they sound different.
And I think when we design houses, we think about those things because we realize more and more as we do them that we are creating the memories that we have about our houses for some other family. That 40 years from now, some kid is going to remember the sound of that deck on the screened porch, that we are currently designing for somebody who doesn't even exist yet. So I think it's a nice way to inform the design beyond just what something costs or what materials it's actually made out of.
Suzy Chase: So you're 14 and your family up and moves from the East Coast to New Mexico. How did that architecture influence you?
Thomas Kligerman: Well, it was a shock because, as I've described, we were living in these wooden houses like that colonial house, and all of a sudden we drive out west and the landscape becomes more and more arid. And all of a sudden, houses that were familiar to me made out of wood were suddenly buildings made out of adobe, which is dried mutt. And we moved into a house that was in adobe, and everything about it was different. Everything about the way it looked, everything about the way it was built, everything about all the things we talked about, sound and stuff like that were completely different. What I loved about it was how thick the walls are in those houses. My brother lived in a house that was about 150 years old and the walls were four feet thick of solid mud and stucco.
And what's wonderful about them is when you have a wall that thick, the windows are very deep-set, and where on a New England house the windows basically flush with the face of the wall, in New Mexico, the window can be two or three feet or more back from the surface so you get these wonderful recesses. And what that brings with it are shadows and wonderful light play. And so I think the thing I got from New Mexico was the sculptural forms of architecture and how they are revealed by sunlight over the course of the day and how they change over the course of the day. That's one of the great lessons I think of that kind of masonry architecture.
Suzy Chase: So you graduated from the Yale School of Architecture in the 1980s and you knew exactly what you wanted to do professionally. You wanted to be an American architect designing American architecture, but there was a catch. The catch was finding the answer to the question. What exactly does this mean? What was the question?
Thomas Kligerman: You say I wanted to be an American architect. I wanted to design American buildings. And I remember a friend of mine saying, "What does that mean?" And I didn't know what it was because I remember saying, "The thing about American architecture is it embraces every style of architecture from around the world." Georgian from England, or Norman from France, or the chalets. If you go to Colorado and the ski area, you see these sorts of interpretations of Swiss buildings. At the time, when I said that to myself or asked myself that question, I was thinking that anything goes with American architecture. But over time, what I've realized is there are certain styles of architecture that were born here. One of them is the shingle style, which started basically in Rhode Island on the East Coast, which is very American. There's lots of shingle-style buildings all around the world or shingled buildings all around the world, but the shingle style is very distinctly American.
And the Adobes that I just talked about in New Mexico, whether the Adobes or the ruins of places like Chaco Canyon, these are these thousand-year-old ruins in the northwest corner of New Mexico. That's also indigenous American architecture. That was done by Native American who were there way before the white man arrived. So there are American styles that you don't find anywhere else, and I think the answer is to find those and to work with them, and that's what I've been trying to do in the last 10 years or so of my practice.
Suzy Chase: So the title, Shingle and Stone. What is the story behind that?
Thomas Kligerman: I think maybe it's a quick synopsis of the two things we've been talking about, shingle being East Coast, the East Coast influence on me, and stone being the masonry architecture of the American Southwest, because there are a lot of adobes, but the earliest architecture that I know about there anyway was actually stacked stone. The ruins, as I mentioned before. The landscape out there. So those two influences played a big part in what I'm doing now. And it was shorthand, I think, for those two influences. It was a way to encapsulate my thoughts about architecture in a short phrase.
Suzy Chase: So I'd love to chat about one of the homes in the book called Shingle Dune Gable in Martha's Vineyard.
Thomas Kligerman: Yes.
Suzy Chase: I found it interesting that shipwrights had a hand in many old houses in New England, and very often they constructed roofs that bowed as if they were building the hull of a ship upside down. I'm curious to hear about this home.
Thomas Kligerman: That house was done about 15 or 16 years ago, and that's a house that we really wanted to draw on the shingle-style traditions of Martha's Vineyard. Obviously, Martha's Vineyard is filled with fishermen and people who build boats. They still build boats up there. And a lot of the guys who would build boats during certain parts or times of the year, if they were out of work or looking around, ended up being carpenters on houses and they knew how to build curved forms. Building a boat is much more complicated than building a house because the house is, for the most part, very rectilinear. But it's interesting to me how those boat shapes came into it as though it was built on the ribs of a boat. It's indigenous, you see it all over the northeast, and something I love. So we put it into that house. It just only happens in one small moment in the house, but it's an important part of the building that faces the ocean.
Suzy Chase: So the house is set on a dune, a short walk from the water's edge. The design inside and out you say is informed by the past. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Thomas Kligerman: That house was done for a family where the wife really liked things that are modern. The husband liked things that were old, that were more traditional. And so the outside of that house is fairly traditional. It's got window boxes and window frames and divided light glass and things like that. The inside's a little bit of a different story. The inside is, I wouldn't call it starkly modern, but it doesn't have traditional things like moldings that you'd see at the crown molding or bases or moldings around doors. It's modern and flowing. It's not discrete rooms. There are bedrooms, but for the most part, the living room leads into the entrance hall, which goes into the kitchen, which opens the family room. It's all very open plan like a modern building, and it's done in a very spare way. There's whitewash brick, there's timber, it's cut very square. In some ways very modern in how spare it is, but it still has all the materials of a traditional beach house: whitewash floors, timber, things like that.
Suzy Chase: I often wonder how relationships work when one person loves contemporary and the other person loves classic. I love maximalist. I have a lot of antiques. If my husband was into contemporary, I don't think we could work
Thomas Kligerman: Well, but that's part of the job of the architect and maybe the interior designers define that path. That's one of the things that's interesting to me is when you have someone who comes to you with this... I'll call it a problem. It's not really a problem for us. It's an opportunity, where figuring out how to make both people happy is part of what's exciting. And sometimes it's the outside is different from the inside. Sometimes it's a matter of some rooms being one way, others another. Sometimes it's a matter of how you use materials in an interesting way, but it's those tough challenges that I think make the best buildings. And sometimes it can even be people who come to us and say, "We really, really like the shingle style, but we also like gothic architecture," or something like that.
And the amount of work you put into answering those questions and bringing those things together, which makes the buildings much more interesting and it sets up problems that you wouldn't set up for yourself necessarily. So I think those kinds of issues, or even the kinds of requests clients make sometimes that you think are completely hair-brained and they end up being the most interesting part of the house. And I guess it's because you work harder and you draw on resources more or you brainstorm, whatever it is. They often become the signature part of the house and the strongest part of the house.
Suzy Chase: Do you think that you're so inclined to work this way because you were informed by both New England and New Mexico?
Thomas Kligerman: Yeah, maybe. Again, that's something I hadn't really thought of until the last couple of years, but maybe that's what it is. Maybe. Yes. Probably.
Suzy Chase: Okay.
Suzy Chase: Stay tuned.
Thomas Kligerman: Yeah. No, I think so. I think that I've been incredibly lucky. To live in a place like Connecticut and Rhode Island and then also live in a place like New Mexico. By the way, on the way we lived in London. I've lived in Paris, I've lived in Rome, so I've been incredibly lucky to have all these things that are stuck in my head that I can draw upon. But in the big picture, I think you may be right that in some ways, even as a teenager, I was seeking ways to resolve these different influences. I think you're probably onto something.
Suzy Chase: So I love everything about this home, especially the pool house where you reinterpreted shingle style, glass and steel with horizontal louvers of teak. And looking at this, I felt that this was really a visual of the couple's relationship. I feel like the louvers were very modern, but the house itself was classic. Could you talk a little bit about it?
Thomas Kligerman: That pool house relates to a big tradition in architectural history, and even back to the English, where someone would have this wonderful manor house and they would build a folly someplace out on the property. Blenheim Palace, this big palace, and off in the distance is a bridge that was influenced by ancient Rome. So we thought of the pool house as a folly and it didn't have to match the main house. It's funny, the wife is the one who really likes modern. But when we came up with this concept and we presented it, both of them fell in love immediately. One of the reasons was we built a model of it, a very detailed model with the pool and the landscape and the little building. And there was a button, and when you press the button, the pool house lit up.
And so I presented it to them in a closet and I said, "When I leave, I can turn the light to press this button." And I close the door and there's a silence. And there was these giggles and stuff and they came out and they said, "We're building this." It appealed to both of them. It was also probably a dramatic way to present it. But if you look at it, it has the exact same roof pitch and proportions as the main house right nearby. It becomes a little lighthouse or folly out in the landscape.
Suzy Chase: So what's the thinking behind the slats? Does it make it cooler in the sun?
Thomas Kligerman: Exactly. When the sun is high, it's very shady in there, because the sunlight doesn't make it through those horizontal louvers. But as the sun goes down, it's a cooler part of the day. The light does come in because it's now lower and it comes through the slats. And so you get wonderful changing light quality in there, and you also get these amazing patterns. I think there's a couple photographs of the book of how those slats look, the shadows going across the interior of the building. But no matter what, whether it's in the middle of the day or the morning or the end of the day, you can still see out. They don't block your view at all. They're there, but they don't impede your view. But they have a way of changing the light all throughout the 24 hours or certainly during the daylight hours.
Suzy Chase: The incomparable Mitch Owens wrote the words in this book. I'd love to hear how that process worked.
Thomas Kligerman: First of all, I know Mitch well. He and I have known each other for quite a long time, and so there was a general camaraderie working with him. And the way it worked was we would sit down and he would interview me about the house. And then it's interesting working with Mitch, you talk to him and he doesn't say anything. Some people interview you and it's a real conversation. But at the end of the first couple, I said, "Mitch, is there anything else you want to know?" He goes, "Nope, I'm done." And then he would send back this incredible text, and I would then edit a little bit, add some things.
I wanted to make sure it sounded enough like me that my voice was represented in the book. But I also love the way he is able to describe things, and his turns of phrases and the images he brings into things are incredible. So I didn't want to lose that. I think the sound of the book when you read it captures both of us, maybe a little bit more Mitch than me, but I read this and feel like it's something I really said.
Suzy Chase: The shingle style ushered in radical change in the layout of interiors. Suddenly the time-honored symmetrical arrangements of rooms on either side of a central hall was replaced with an almost random and irregular floor plan. I love the fact that you have included architectural plans in the book. How has McKim, Mead & White influenced you?
Thomas Kligerman: McKim, Mead & White I became interested in when I first was studying architecture as an undergraduate. There's a monograph for their work published in 1915 or so. And I used to go to Avery Library and I would go through that book, over these huge giant volumes, so I just began to know their work from photographs. I then started visiting the houses in Rhode Island and notably the Isaac Bellhouse. I guess what influences me is how open those plans are. When you go into the Isaac Bell House, the hall, which is really a combination of entrance hall and living room and single nook, all that kind of stuff, is this wonderful freeform space with the stair piling down into it, barn doors, big openings. I just loved how it had all the materials of an old house, but in a way, it was very modern in its shape.
If you looked at the floor plan of that room, it's anything but a box. And so that's the kind of character we try and get into our houses, at least into the public spaces. Bedrooms obviously can't flow out into the hallway, but the public spaces can. And that house was a big influence on the house we just talked about on Martha's Vineyard, where rooms' functions don't have to be defined by walls. They can be defined by all kinds of things, whether it's ceiling height changes or steps down, or maybe being arched opening or a pocket door or a barn door. That's just one of the ways they've influenced me in terms of how the plans work. And there are others as well, materiality and that kind of thing.
Suzy Chase: So the photographs in this book are striking. They do such a good job of focusing us on different elements in these homes. What struck me is there are a few photographers who contributed to this book and the photos seemed so seamless. I couldn't tell. I actually thought it was just one photographer for this book.
Thomas Kligerman: One of things we learned early on when I first started practicing over 30 years ago was to hire the best photographer. You can only go into a house really once. We don't bothering our clients more than once to photograph the house, because typically you want them to not be home while you tear their house apart and photograph it. So I guess they're related to each other and that they're all top photographers. And the other thing is, I have to give credit to the graphic designer who was able to put them together and select and crop and edit those pictures in a way that really flowed through the book, because I think there are at least three or maybe four photographers in the book. But it is one book and it's one body of work, so it was important that the flow you mentioned worked.
Suzy Chase: In terms of American architecture, I'm drawn to big old homes, especially in the middle of urban blight. As I said, I'm from Kansas City and there is this gorgeous boulevard called The Paseo, and it's lined with these grand old homes, and they are the byproduct of redlining and the abandonment of the "inner city" in favor of suburban living. When I go back home, I drive around and I find myself saying they don't make homes like this anymore. But when I look at your projects, it reinvigorates me and brings me hope. It's so exciting to see that you make homes like this.
Thomas Kligerman: I think there's a misconception that houses like those old ones can't be built anymore. They can. What's extraordinary is the range and depth of craftsmanship that's available in this country and in Europe and other places. All the metal work you see in those old buildings, all the brick work, the marble work, the carving of the wood, all that stuff, there are people who can do it today. The thing that makes it possible is money. And that's why not everybody can necessarily afford some of these things. But the craftsmanship still exists and we've been incredibly lucky to tap into a clientele that may not do everything in the houses you're describing, but we can certainly pick and choose and do the appropriate amount of material selection and detailing that maybe is somewhat reminiscent of those old houses, so the ability to do them still exists.
I just hope they don't end up derelict. I don't know. I can imagine in a nightmare, I drive down the street and I see this ruin of one of my houses. I hope that doesn't happen. But like those old houses, these houses are built to last, so maybe that'll happen someday.
Suzy Chase: So this book marks the official end to your 34-year run of Ike Kligerman Barkley, since you've split into three successor firms. So how does that feel?
Thomas Kligerman: Well, it feels nice just to see my name on the door. I have four new partners, which is important to me. Again, as the introduction says, architecture's not a singular pursuit. I have people who are important, who are doing a wonderful job. The split into three firms was very amicable. I'm still good friends with John Ike and Joel Barkley, so it was not an acrimonious situation. We were all launched and happily launched since these new companies, and generally it feels good. It's amazing to me to see a book with just my name on the cover. That's something I haven't had before, which is also nice. But I owe a lot to that partnership. I learned daily from my partners at the time, and I learn daily from my new partners and the people in the office. So I think on balance, it's all good. We all have good memories of things in the past, and I sure do, but I'm happy to have this new firm.
Suzy Chase: Talk a little bit about the new firm.
Thomas Kligerman: Well, in some ways, the new firm is the old firm. The traditions we have here, the staff, the philosophy, the kinds of projects we have, our clients are the same. In some ways, it's just a name change. We have moved our offices. We now have this nice office overlooking New York Public Library in Bryant Park, which is really cool. We're in a landmark building designed by the same architects who designed the Empire State Building, which we look at right out of our windows. We have the same philosophy about how we talk to contractors, how we deal with clients. We still have the same philosophy about history and learning from traditional architecture as well as modern architecture. So in some ways, it's I guess like doing a book. A little bit of a reboot, a little bit of an energizer, and a chance, like a book, to look back what we've done and pick the good things and maybe edit some of the things we weren't as happy about. But I think on balance, it's a very exciting time for us.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Thomas Kligerman: So you can find us on the web at kligermanad.com, and we have an Instagram page, which is kligerman.ad. And then I have my own personal Instagram, which is @tomkligerman. And on that one, I talk a little bit less about our work and more about things that I find inspiring or interesting about architecture, so it's architecture from all over the world than I post pretty much on a daily basis.
Suzy Chase: At their best, shingle-style houses are the architectural equivalent of a soulmate. Comforting, dependable, and emotionally supportive. Thank you so much, Tom, for coming on Decorating By The Book podcast.
Thomas Kligerman: Well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.
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