John Sugden (1922-2003) was one of the most important Utah architects of the 20th century. Born in Chicago in 1922, he studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) under the legendary Mies van der Rohe, and worked at Mies's firm from 1945 to 1952 before moving to Utah.
For those who may not be familiar, Mies is a big deal in the architectural community. Some of his most noteworthy projects include the Farnsworth House (which hosted a 100th anniversary collaboration between Braun and the late Virgil Abloh in 2021); the Barcelona Pavilion (and its accompanying chair); Crown Hall at IIT (which is high on my list of buildings to visit); the Seagram Building in New York; and, of course, the Toronto-Dominion Centre complex.
Sugden moved to Utah in 1952. He would then spend the rest of his career defining what the International Style — a major architectural movement that dominated modernism from the 1920s to the 1970s — could be in a mountain context, while educating the next generation of architects at the University of Utah's Graduate School of Architecture.
His first major project in Utah was a house for his mother: the Roberta Sugden House in Salt Lake City (1955). It is a classic steel-and-glass structure that takes obvious cues from the Farnsworth House but that was adapted to the Utah landscape. Today, it remains an icon of Mid-Century Modernism in the city.
His own home and studio followed in 1984. Referred to as "The Glass Cube," or the Mountain House Studio, it is located in Park City (just down the street from Parkview Mountain House in Summit Park). A perfect 33 x 33 x 33 foot cube, the home marks an important turning point for architecture and design in the area.
By the 1980s, modernism had entered into a mid-life crisis in urban settings. Architects and designers were beginning to reject its austerity and lack of ornamentation in favor of a new movement: Postmodernism.
But in the Wasatch Mountains, and outside of perhaps only Aspen, the International Style had yet to truly make its mark. Mountain homes simply did not look like this; they were heavy and rustic, and they had gabled roofs. Sugden changed that. His home/studio was the opposite of this: light, transparent, flat-roofed, and industrial in its orientation.
It's also worth mentioning that the construction of the Glass Cube roughly aligns with the rebirth of Park City. By the early 1950s, it was a dying ghost town in the mountains. Many of the silver mines that had made it a wealthy place at the end of the 19th century had already shuttered, and the city was without an economic purpose.
The first ski operations opened in 1963 under the banner of Treasure Mountain Resort. However, it was a makeshift operation, and it would not be until 1971 that Aspen-developer Edgar Stern would acquire Treasure and transform it into Park City Mountain Resort.
By 1974, he had successfully lured the US Alpine Ski Team to the city. And by 1981, he had moved on to even grander ambitions with the opening of his latest project down the street: Deer Valley Resort. It was also around this time (1982) that Toronto-based Noranda stopped all work and closed the last mining operations in the city.
Then came Sugden's modernist Glass Cube in 1984.
Today, the Summit Park area is filled with countless new and under-construction modern homes, designed by award-winning firms such as Klima Architecture and Brach Design. No two homes are the same, and there's a palpable willingness to experiment. It feels like an architectural playground, and I like to think that it all started with John Sugden's simple glass cube.
I spent much of this morning reading about and listening to discussions about what's happening in Ukraine and so, instead of a typical post this morning, I'm just going to share a mélange of links.
Monocle 24 Foreign Desk episode talking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Speakers are Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko, former NATO chief Richard Shirreff, Russian journalist Ekaterina Kotrikadze, and Russia expert Mark Galeotti. I found this helpful in better understanding some of the dynamics at play here and what might happen going forward -- though, of course, who knows. All of this is both deeply sad and frustrating. [Link]
Discussion in Bloomberg Green about the feasibility of the EU shutting off Russian gas right now, as opposed to through a protracted transition. Currently, the EU satisfies about 20% of its total energy needs through gas and about 40% of it comes from Russia. [Link] Also, a chart showing Russian natural gas exports, by destination. [Link]
Warren Buffet published his widely read annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders this weekend. He likes to deliver news like this on a Saturday so that people have time to digest it before the markets reopen on Monday. The overall message was one that we have heard before: BH has a lot of cash (~$144 billion to be exact) and they're not finding very many compelling opportunities in which to deploy it. [Link]
To add to the above, here is a longish Q&A session with Buffet's partner, Charlie Munger. He continues to be worried about excess money in the system and high inflation. [Link]
Construction has been recently completed on a Mies van der Rohe design from 1952 that had been forgotten and buried in some archives. Originally commissioned to be a fraternity house at Indiana University, the building is now the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. This is a supremely cool story, particularly for an architecture school. [Link]
Yet another simple example by Bobby Fijan on how highly restrictive zoning codes and design guidelines don't always produce the end results that we might want. Different times and different contexts in this example. But it's interesting to think about how best to promote design excellence in our cites. Is more creative market freedom the answer? [Link]
My friend Randy Gladman, who is senior vice-president of development advisory at Colliers here in Toronto, published an opinion piece in the Financial Post last week about the hidden costs of inclusionary zoning. It is consistent with the ad nauseam discussions that we have been having on this blog for the past few years, but it of course remains an important read. [Link]
Steve Pomeroy of Focus Consulting makes an argument in the Globe and Mail that elevated home prices in Canada isn't primarily the result of a supply deficit. Using recent census data that allegedly shows that housing supply in Vancouver actually kept pace with demand (over how long of a period?), Pomeroy instead points to the other typical culprits: strong demand, low interest rates, unused homes owned by non-residents, and so on. This one likely deserves a dedicated post at some point. [Link]
Ironically, the post turned out to be wordier than my usual ones.
John Sugden (1922-2003) was one of the most important Utah architects of the 20th century. Born in Chicago in 1922, he studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) under the legendary Mies van der Rohe, and worked at Mies's firm from 1945 to 1952 before moving to Utah.
For those who may not be familiar, Mies is a big deal in the architectural community. Some of his most noteworthy projects include the Farnsworth House (which hosted a 100th anniversary collaboration between Braun and the late Virgil Abloh in 2021); the Barcelona Pavilion (and its accompanying chair); Crown Hall at IIT (which is high on my list of buildings to visit); the Seagram Building in New York; and, of course, the Toronto-Dominion Centre complex.
Sugden moved to Utah in 1952. He would then spend the rest of his career defining what the International Style — a major architectural movement that dominated modernism from the 1920s to the 1970s — could be in a mountain context, while educating the next generation of architects at the University of Utah's Graduate School of Architecture.
His first major project in Utah was a house for his mother: the Roberta Sugden House in Salt Lake City (1955). It is a classic steel-and-glass structure that takes obvious cues from the Farnsworth House but that was adapted to the Utah landscape. Today, it remains an icon of Mid-Century Modernism in the city.
His own home and studio followed in 1984. Referred to as "The Glass Cube," or the Mountain House Studio, it is located in Park City (just down the street from Parkview Mountain House in Summit Park). A perfect 33 x 33 x 33 foot cube, the home marks an important turning point for architecture and design in the area.
By the 1980s, modernism had entered into a mid-life crisis in urban settings. Architects and designers were beginning to reject its austerity and lack of ornamentation in favor of a new movement: Postmodernism.
But in the Wasatch Mountains, and outside of perhaps only Aspen, the International Style had yet to truly make its mark. Mountain homes simply did not look like this; they were heavy and rustic, and they had gabled roofs. Sugden changed that. His home/studio was the opposite of this: light, transparent, flat-roofed, and industrial in its orientation.
It's also worth mentioning that the construction of the Glass Cube roughly aligns with the rebirth of Park City. By the early 1950s, it was a dying ghost town in the mountains. Many of the silver mines that had made it a wealthy place at the end of the 19th century had already shuttered, and the city was without an economic purpose.
The first ski operations opened in 1963 under the banner of Treasure Mountain Resort. However, it was a makeshift operation, and it would not be until 1971 that Aspen-developer Edgar Stern would acquire Treasure and transform it into Park City Mountain Resort.
By 1974, he had successfully lured the US Alpine Ski Team to the city. And by 1981, he had moved on to even grander ambitions with the opening of his latest project down the street: Deer Valley Resort. It was also around this time (1982) that Toronto-based Noranda stopped all work and closed the last mining operations in the city.
Then came Sugden's modernist Glass Cube in 1984.
Today, the Summit Park area is filled with countless new and under-construction modern homes, designed by award-winning firms such as Klima Architecture and Brach Design. No two homes are the same, and there's a palpable willingness to experiment. It feels like an architectural playground, and I like to think that it all started with John Sugden's simple glass cube.
I spent much of this morning reading about and listening to discussions about what's happening in Ukraine and so, instead of a typical post this morning, I'm just going to share a mélange of links.
Monocle 24 Foreign Desk episode talking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Speakers are Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko, former NATO chief Richard Shirreff, Russian journalist Ekaterina Kotrikadze, and Russia expert Mark Galeotti. I found this helpful in better understanding some of the dynamics at play here and what might happen going forward -- though, of course, who knows. All of this is both deeply sad and frustrating. [Link]
Discussion in Bloomberg Green about the feasibility of the EU shutting off Russian gas right now, as opposed to through a protracted transition. Currently, the EU satisfies about 20% of its total energy needs through gas and about 40% of it comes from Russia. [Link] Also, a chart showing Russian natural gas exports, by destination. [Link]
Warren Buffet published his widely read annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders this weekend. He likes to deliver news like this on a Saturday so that people have time to digest it before the markets reopen on Monday. The overall message was one that we have heard before: BH has a lot of cash (~$144 billion to be exact) and they're not finding very many compelling opportunities in which to deploy it. [Link]
To add to the above, here is a longish Q&A session with Buffet's partner, Charlie Munger. He continues to be worried about excess money in the system and high inflation. [Link]
Construction has been recently completed on a Mies van der Rohe design from 1952 that had been forgotten and buried in some archives. Originally commissioned to be a fraternity house at Indiana University, the building is now the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. This is a supremely cool story, particularly for an architecture school. [Link]
Yet another simple example by Bobby Fijan on how highly restrictive zoning codes and design guidelines don't always produce the end results that we might want. Different times and different contexts in this example. But it's interesting to think about how best to promote design excellence in our cites. Is more creative market freedom the answer? [Link]
My friend Randy Gladman, who is senior vice-president of development advisory at Colliers here in Toronto, published an opinion piece in the Financial Post last week about the hidden costs of inclusionary zoning. It is consistent with the ad nauseam discussions that we have been having on this blog for the past few years, but it of course remains an important read. [Link]
Steve Pomeroy of Focus Consulting makes an argument in the Globe and Mail that elevated home prices in Canada isn't primarily the result of a supply deficit. Using recent census data that allegedly shows that housing supply in Vancouver actually kept pace with demand (over how long of a period?), Pomeroy instead points to the other typical culprits: strong demand, low interest rates, unused homes owned by non-residents, and so on. This one likely deserves a dedicated post at some point. [Link]
Ironically, the post turned out to be wordier than my usual ones.
Search for the most iconic chair designs in the world and you'll likely come across a list that includes:
Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer (1928)
Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe (1929)
Grand Consort by Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanneret (1928)
The various Eames Chairs (starting in 1945)
Wishbone Chair by Hans Wegner (1949)
Wiggles Side Chair by Frank Gehry (1972)
And the list goes on.
Most of these chairs also look as if they were just designed yesterday. Meaning, they're timeless and have stood the test of time. But they are mostly older designs. Which raises an interesting question: How much does the passage of time play in a role in determining whether or not something is "iconic"?
There are some more recent designs that you could call iconic. The Roly-Poly Chair by Faye Toogood (2014) and the Louis Ghost Chair by Philippe Stark (2002) come to mind. This suggests that really great designs can become immediate classics. (Though, this latter example is a reinterpretation of a classic French chair that in and of itself is an icon.)
What I think is the mostly right answer is that, yeah, sometimes you can catch lighting in a bottle. The Louis Ghost Chair, for instance, is one of the top selling chairs of the 21st century. It's a clever and modern take that used new technologies (as is often the case) to revisit an old classic. Starck nailed it.
But more often than not, you probably need time. Time is what allows the object to form cultural associations in our mind and to prove that it is, in fact, timeless. However, if this is truly the case, then it makes it difficult to determine if we're still producing as many design icons today as we did in the past. We won't really know until they become old.
Image: Louis Ghost Chair via Knoll
Search for the most iconic chair designs in the world and you'll likely come across a list that includes:
Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer (1928)
Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe (1929)
Grand Consort by Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanneret (1928)
The various Eames Chairs (starting in 1945)
Wishbone Chair by Hans Wegner (1949)
Wiggles Side Chair by Frank Gehry (1972)
And the list goes on.
Most of these chairs also look as if they were just designed yesterday. Meaning, they're timeless and have stood the test of time. But they are mostly older designs. Which raises an interesting question: How much does the passage of time play in a role in determining whether or not something is "iconic"?
There are some more recent designs that you could call iconic. The Roly-Poly Chair by Faye Toogood (2014) and the Louis Ghost Chair by Philippe Stark (2002) come to mind. This suggests that really great designs can become immediate classics. (Though, this latter example is a reinterpretation of a classic French chair that in and of itself is an icon.)
What I think is the mostly right answer is that, yeah, sometimes you can catch lighting in a bottle. The Louis Ghost Chair, for instance, is one of the top selling chairs of the 21st century. It's a clever and modern take that used new technologies (as is often the case) to revisit an old classic. Starck nailed it.
But more often than not, you probably need time. Time is what allows the object to form cultural associations in our mind and to prove that it is, in fact, timeless. However, if this is truly the case, then it makes it difficult to determine if we're still producing as many design icons today as we did in the past. We won't really know until they become old.
Image: Louis Ghost Chair via Knoll
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