Washington DC based architect known for elegant modernist houses that drew on traditional and vernacular forms died at 91.
He had some fans among Tasteful Friends postings, and there was one of a Philadelphia area house of his design in the past year or so.
[quote]The owner of a house that Mr. Jacobsen designed on the coast of Maine told Architectural Digest in 2009: “When we first met Hugh, there was an hour of chitchat and then the brass tacks. He said, ‘My houses are expensive to build, my fees are outrageous, and I’m a prima donna.’ He was always candid with us.”
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 14 | March 22, 2021 6:02 AM |
Never heard of him. The article is behind a paywall.
Elegance and Modernism are inimical to each other.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | March 22, 2021 2:23 AM |
Corbusier wouldn't describe this man's stuff as 'modernist'
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | March 22, 2021 2:25 AM |
I selected as s link an old real estate listing for a vacation home in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania that sold 3 years ago for a most improbable $345,000. It's more economical in it's details than a lot if Jacobsen houses, but in its series of boxy pavilions relieved by geometric cut-outsof glass united as a house it displays a theme common in his work, together with an outdoor/indoor use of white, simplicity of color and materials, and his elegant bookcases (often copied yet seldom well.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 3 | March 22, 2021 2:25 AM |
A larger house in Short Hills NJ, again a dead listing with old photos in place.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 4 | March 22, 2021 2:29 AM |
R3 I'd like to see that house in a thunderstorm.
I'd like to see how the roof gutters can direct the stormwater away from the house and don't leave dirty streaks across the white walls (as happened so frequently on Corbusier's early white houses.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | March 22, 2021 2:36 AM |
Looking at some of his houses on google I'm not a fan.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 6 | March 22, 2021 2:40 AM |
I was always of mixed mind about his work. In form it's terrific, in the white on white HNJ whiteness it's a nice concept, but without texture white boxes don't arrive for me. The fenestration seems a bit crazy but always works internally from the houses I've seen, and there is an elegance and fineness to his work. I love to see them, but am not sure I would want one of his houses -- an addition to the rear of an historic townhouse, though, I would like.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | March 22, 2021 2:55 AM |
I would kill for the Joseph Albert piece beside him in the photo.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | March 22, 2021 3:55 AM |
[quote] I would kill for the Joseph Albert piece beside him in the photo.
No violence necessary. Make your own. All you need is a square of canvas, a marker, a yardstick, a roll of masking tape, and cans of graduating color spray paint .
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | March 22, 2021 4:44 AM |
I was always a big fan of his work. Very elegant space, sometimes a bit too museum-like but he was a great architect.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | March 22, 2021 4:49 AM |
He built Jackie Onassis' house on Martha's Vineyard then afterwards she dropped him without word
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | March 22, 2021 5:03 AM |
Jackie was fucking the architect who designed the JFK gravesite and eternal flame. Did Jacobson also receive his bonus?
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | March 22, 2021 5:17 AM |
His structures are beautiful. They have simple, stunningly elegant interiors; are expensive to build, (and equally so to maintain).
Unforgettable.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | March 22, 2021 6:02 AM |
