Restoring the Alexander Girard home
“Alexander Girard inflected the modernist vocabulary with color, joy, playfulness. He responded to the rigor of his contemporaries, Eero Saarinen and George Nelson, with a kaleidoscope of patterns, carpets printed with frolicking cats, repurposed barn wood and reflections cast by brass tabletops. He countered postwar ideals of abundance and efficiency with craft objects, misfits in both the worlds of high art and industrial production. Under the heading of ‘tradition’ in a manifesto, Girard wrote, ‘let’s find our way / our forefathers found theirs! all that was Good [sic] / was modern / in its day.’”
Alexander Girard’s former home and studio is undergoing a thoughtful restoration by new owners. My story is on the cover of Santa Fe Reporter, with photography by Anson Stevens-Bollen.
The Girard story was part of an annual issue dedicated to significant architecture in Santa Fe.
Although designer Alexander Girard created iconic midcentry spaces, he delighted in subverting — or perverting — modernist dogma. He was a pagan who worshipped love, wonder, and the sun. His Santa Fe home, where he moved in 1953, was filled with toys and talismans, chatter and snacks. Painters slept in the kitchen and kids played in the pantry. Today, new owners treat the home’s genius loci with playfulness more than reverence.
My story about the restoration of Alexander Girard’s home was on the cover of the weekly Santa Fe Reporter, as part of a series about significant or mysterious architecture.