Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein

Private Residence

Atlanta, GA

The owners of this single-family residence in Atlanta decided to make extensive renovations and several additions to their circa 1910 home. They wanted a house that would be comfortable for their family but that would also serve as a showcase for their extensive collection of modern art. The overall design also had to be sensitive to the historic neighborhood where the house is located.

The owners expressed an interest in classical structures and the architecture of antiquity after returning from a trip to Italy. They were particularly taken with the feel of the hill towns in Tuscany - where the skyline can resemble a neat jumble of tile roofs and little windows, attesting to the often-winding medieval streets below. The architect took this aesthetic idea and added some important pieces of Italian architecture and art as inspiration for portions of the project. "Il Tempieto" by Brammante and Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel as well as the iconic Renaissance painting entitled "View of an Ideal City" gave rise to the concepts of marching strong columns and domed rotundas. These concepts and ideas were eventually realized in the main addition to the house: a modernist glass and steel enclosure topped by a stucco rotunda extending from the back of the home. The structure of the central portion of the addition is articulated by a square grid of large stone columns. The pure geometry of the columnar grid and the octagonal/circular form above centers the new family room and helps fuse the interior space with the loggia, lawn and guest-house behind it.

Prior to the renovation, the driveway extended from the street in front of the house to the back of the home. Most of the back yard space was covered in asphalt. All of this asphalt, a 1950's garage and an outdated pool were removed to reclaim some green space in the back of the house. Space was also allotted for a sweeping loggia and garden, that provided a path to a detached guest-house with the garage below, now accessible from an alley along the rear of the property. With the front drive no longer extending around the side of the house, an outdoor side porch with fireplace was added on the side of the house to take advantage of the skyline views of the city.

Throughout the spaces, the architect infused abstracted classical structural elements with a clean contemporary aesthetic also desired by the owners. With some elements, scale became the best expression of this fusion of modern and classical form-making. The columns that support the rotunda and march into the kitchen are articulated in a clean modern fashion, however, they retain the massive weight and scale common to more ancient architecture. Thus, the substantiality of historic architecture is invoked through abstraction without being stylistic, or resorting to pastiche quotation.

While the new design provides a modern insertion with the new steel and glass structure, other forms and details such as roof brackets, clay roof tiles, cornice detailing, and matching brickwork allude to the existing century-old residence. These subtle traditional details allow the larger modern forms to blend with the architecture of the existing residence.

While the most extensive additions were made to the back of the house, the front entrance became an important piece of the design - alluding to the contemporary fabric threaded throughout the home. A glass and steel extension pushes away from the front of the house, extending the foyer and giving more sense of the outside spaces blending into the interior.

Images 1-7 © Rion Rizzo, Creative Sources Photography
Images 8-10 © Mali Azima