Breaking Ground: Henry B. Hoover, New England Modern Architect

What a great discovery of a fairly unknown early modernist architect. His work was progressive with large window and glass doors to have the landscape present in your life; but didn’t forget you would have to live in these spaces too.

Review of "Breaking ground" by Paul F. Ross Henry B. Hoover did his residential architecture in New England … heavily in Lincoln, Massachusetts, where Hoover himself lived and where this reader, this reviewer, also lived for 34 years. I knew Hoover, meeting him through first knowing his son-in-law, Paul Giese, and his daughter, Lucretia Hoover Giese, she being one of the authors of this book. Knowing the Gieses has been one of my life’s very important joys from about 1965 to now, five decades and continuing. I have visited more than a few houses in Lincoln designed by Henry Hoover. I learned to know Hoover’s son, Henry B. Hoover Jr., coauthor of "Breaking ground" with his sister, when the son retired from work in Washington DC and returned to Lincoln to live in the Hoover family home. This review is not an arms-length, disinterested-reader’s review of either the senior Hoover’s architectural career or the authors’ report about their father’s career. I can perhaps serve the reader’s interest in "Breaking ground" in a unique way beyond simply commenting on a work about American architectural history recently read. This relatively short work is beautifully illustrated with full color photographs showing a selection of Hoover-designed residences by presenting interior and exterior views, black and white floor plans, and text describing the residence and owner/visitor responses to it. The authors’ voices stick closely to describing their father’s work, avoiding the temptation to insert large biographical aspects of their father’s life along with a history of his work. Work and biography are reported where one would expect them to intersect … in Hoover’s training as an architect, in the opportunities that the war years of WWII offered a young residential architect, in a partnership that allowed Hoover to share workload and collaborative____________________________________________________________________________________Giese, Lucretia Hoover and Hoover, Henry B. Jr. "Breaking ground: Henry B. Hoover … New England modern architect" 2015, Friends of Modern Architecture in association with University Press of New England, Lebanon NH, xix + 146 pages____________________________________________________________________________________opportunity with an architect-colleague until Hoover’s stroke stamped uncertainty on Hoover’s further work, and in extended additional years working alone in serving residential clients, some of them multiple times. A list, acknowledged to be incomplete, names 131 projects including both complete residences and renovations as Hoover’s career oeuvre. Hoover (1902-1989) began his career as an independent, self-employed architect with the design-construction of the Hoover family home in Lincoln in 1937, motivated toward this step, perhaps, by the 1935 birth of their first child to Henry Hoover and his wife, Lucretia. The last dated project in the list of Hoover’s oeuvre is dated 1987. His active career as an independent architect spanned fifty years (1937 – 1987) or more. Educated at the University of Washington and then at Harvard University in the Beaux-Arts tradition of architectural design, Hoover’s early experience working with landscape architect Fletcher Steele may have heightened Hoover’s interest and sensitivity with respect to the site of a residence, shaping Hoover’s readiness to design homes that gracefully co-existed with their settings. Hoover’s training at Harvard was complete before the arrival of Walter Gropius, German Bauhaus architect, on Harvard’s architectural faculty and before Gropius and his wife became residents in Lincoln in a house of Gropius’ design. Lincoln as a town enjoyed many capable residents. By the 1970s the U.S. Census reports that Lincoln’s household income was second highest among the 351 cities and towns of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Lincoln had open land. It’s arriving residents had tastes and resources that allowed families the rewards of an architect-designed, custom built home. Lincoln and the surrounding towns of Lexington, Weston, and Concord have many architect-designed homes. Hoover entered this community not long before WWII, contributed his professional skills in war-related industrial activities in the Boston region for the war years, and became fully involved in the growth of Lincoln and the surrounding residential towns following WWII. Hoover’s thoughtful attention to his client’s needs combined with his artful understanding of the relationships between life outdoors and life indoors in a beautiful countryside brought him continuing work and a fruitful career. Other mid-century modern architects with houses in Lincoln include Lawrence Anderson, Walter Bogner, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Walter Hill, Carl Koch, Cyrus Murphy, G. Holmes Perkins, Constantin Pertzoff, and Hugh Stubbins. Giese and Hoover, the authors of "Breaking ground," select examples from Hoover’s oeuvre, show the reader floor plans, let readers see these beautiful residences inside, outside, and in their settings through excellent photographs, and introduce key features in experiencing architecture through a very readable, beautifully descriptive, economical text. The quality of scholarship is illustrated everywhere including especially attention to many details as described in footnotes … a valuable part of the read not to be missed. This reviewer has visited at least a dozen of the Hoover residences in Lincoln, some of them many times. He has enjoyed modern architecture by visiting Frank Lloyd Wright residences at Falling Waters, Pennsylvania, at the University of Chicago in Chicago, in Concord, New Hampshire, and on the campus of Florida Southern College. He has admired Philip Johnson’s glass house in New Canaan, Connecticut. Johnson’s glass house says “Won’t the neighbors envy you!” Wright’s structures say “Notice the architecture!” Gropius’ house in Lincoln MA says “Isn’t this unique, isn’t it clever!” Hoover’s houses say “Isn’t life beautiful in this setting!” Hoover’s architectural expression is a gentler, quieter, more sensitive linkage between living family life in a home and connecting with the outside as an integral part of daily life inside. Hoover’s work varies with his clients’ needs and tastes thus indicating Hoover’s sensitivity to the uniqueness of the client’s request and the client’s life direction. Hoover’s work is presented to us beautifully in this small volume by his daughter and his son, their work introducing the reader to a sensitive and creative contributor to modern architecture in its early days in the United States sans boasting, sans author ego, sans the drive to showmanship … simply helping us see for ourselves, to the degree that a book can replace actual visits, an important, early, insightful contributor to modern architecture.Bellevue, Washington28 November 2015Copyright © 2015 by Paul F. Ross. All rights reserved.ReferencesGiese, Lucretia Hoover and Hoover, Henry B. Jr. "Breaking ground: Henry B. Hoover … New England modern architect" 2015, Friends of Modern Architecture in association with University Press of New England, Lebanon NH