One family dwelling on the beach - New Jersey

Abstract

The McMullan house, built on the beach, has been designed to be inhabited all the year round. Basically this building is a rectangular block, lifted above the dunes on a framework of timber columns and beams. The ground floor contains the entrance hall, the guest room or servant's quarters, including a bath room, and a shower room which can be reached separately from the beach. The second floor is taken up with the main living quarters, and the second floor contains the bedrooms. The northern and southern sides have few windows, whilst the eastern and western sides have balconies protected with sliding and Venetian blinds, which in addition to supplying an effective protection against the sun, give the house a pleasant sense of secluded intimacy. The blinds are made of wood, and are painted dark brown. Doors and windows are also made of wood, but painted white. This beautiful house on the New Jersey coast exhibits in a marked degree the sculptural quality of architecture, a three dimensional plasticity, which is often neglected in many buildings of the more simple kind. Marcel Breuer has succeeded in making each of the facades of this elementary boxlike design have an interest of its own, by playing with their colour, light and shade effects, texture and combination of materials.