Architecture of the Cape Cod Summer: The Work of Polhemus Savery DaSilva

Michael J. Crosbie · John R. DaSilva

Jul 2008 · Images Publishing

About this eBook

In the twelve years since Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders was formed, the firm has created a significant body of wooden buildings that are rooted in the seaside vernacular of the fabled region of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. As a design/build firm led by architects, Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders is able to reach a level of aesthetic control not normally associated with light construction today. Each project is approached as an individual work of art and craft specifically associated with its site and client. The eclectic, evolutionary use of architectural history infuses the firm's designs with fresh interpretations of architectural tradition, subtle playfulness, and wit. The compositional and planning strategies ground the work in the vernacular tradition that evolved into the shingle style, the 'architecture of the American summer' to use the words of historian Vincent Scully. The experience of the firm's principal designers, John and Sharon DaSilva, includes several years at Venturi Rauch and Scott Brown and Cesar Pelli and Associates. The book features over twenty houses and a handful of small institutional buildings in photographs by some of the world's best architectural photographers and drawings by the firm. Includes essay by noted architecture writer Michael J. Crosbie. Also Available: Ken Tate Architect, Vol. 1: New Classicists, 1864701013, $95.00 Ken Tate Architect, Vol. 2: New Classicists, 1920744436, $90.00 William T. Baker: New Classicists, 1920744576, $90.00 Appleton & Associates: New Classicists, 1920744606, $90.00 Wadia & Associates: New Classicists, 1864702338, $90.00

Ratings and reviews

Bruce Snider, Senior Editor of Custom Home magazine, wrote the following about about this book in the 2009/2010 Provincetown Arts magazine: "...while PSD's work moves freely through three centuries of local vernacular architecture, it seldom confines itself to a single historical moment. In the facade of the Cape Cod Museum of Art, stark white Greek columns frame Gothic arches of red cedar; the shore-front residence Sand Dollars segues from Georgian manor house to Shingle Style cottage to antique Cape, its sprawling composition unified by a skin of weathered cedar shingles and trim. But PSD's approach is more than mere parts-bin eclecticism. A clear mastery of historical styles means that each vernacular quoted in these buildings is rendered in a perfect accent. More importantly, the firm's appropriation of historical source material serves a vibrant and forward-looking vision. PSD is a design/build firm, which means that it acts as general contractor on all of its projects. This business model is not uncommon among builders, but architect-led construction companies are rare, and those with a pedigree as impressive as this one are rarer still. DaSilva, the firm's design principal, worked under the noted architects Robert Venturi and Cesar Pelli, as did his wife and frequent collaborator, architect Sharon McGinnis DaSilva, who is PSD's senior designer. Venturi's influence, in particular, shows in his protégés' output. Like Venturi's houses of the 1980s, PSD's work employs Classical and vernacular elements, often in highly abstracted form. But the DaSilvas' appreciation for vernacular buildings seems both more deeply felt and more natural. Their use of ornamentation, while often as bold as Venturi's, is more refined, better integrated, and less ironic. Venturi's houses were essentially Modernist buildings in vernacular clothing, peppered here and there with Classical references. PSD's work represents an evolutionary development of the vernacular itself. ...PSD's work makes a strong case for a traditional architecture that respects the past without surrendering contemporary perspective, reflects the principle of evolution, and embraces emotion without losing its head. ...Like most traditional buildings, John DaSilva notes, PSD's contain certain mammalian parallels. "Sometimes there are faces," he says "sometimes heads and tails or arms that embrace space." That underlying principle holds even when the work strays from the path of identifiable historical styles, as in the firm's House on Harper's Island. With its canopy-like roofs and branching eave brackets, it looks like a creature that has evolved structural adaptations to its wooded island environment. Mammals are distinguished by a capacity for play, and PSD's buildings follow suit in that regard as well. They play with historical references; by unexpectedly bending or warping spaces; and with visual puns, such as a floating children's play loft in the shape of a boat hull (in House on Champlain's Bluff). Most often, they play with scale. Oversize details--like the flattened Gothic tracery in the screened gable of the DaSilvas' own Cottage at Fulling Mill Brook--pump up the visual volume of small buildings. Tiny windows toy with our sense of perspective, seeming more distant because of their unexpected size. At first glance, the entry facade of Fog Hollow looks like that of a handsome but typical gambrel cottage. Look a bit longer, though, and that impression begins to slide. Gradually we detect that the entry porch columns and the skirted roof above are deliberately oversized, giving the building a presence out of scale with its actual size. Round the corner, and a pair of extravagantly buxom porch-roof brackets--a DaSilva trademark--give the game away, but by then we are already in on the joke. Such gambits are amusing, but they serve a deeper purpose as well. If buildings are machines, these are machines engineered to delight."

About the author

Michael J. Crosbie is a practising architect & architectural critic. He is the former editor of Progressive Architecture & writes for Domus, Architectural Record & Landscape Architecture. He also teaches architecture at the Roger Williams University & is author of the book Cesar Pelli: Recent Themes.