The First House

First House is one of a series of works from the late 1960s and early '70s in which Siah Armajani explored the properties of different building types. The Oberlin First House exists as a model. As he did with other works from this period, Armajani also built a temporary large-scale version, which remained in his Minneapolis studio for three or four months in 1970 before being dismantled. The First House was preceded by a group of bridges starting in 1968, in which Armajani explored structural elements, relationships between interior and exterior, and the experience of space as it unfolds to the viewer. The bridges, whether in the form of models or temporary large-scale structures, were not meant to be functional: they did not span any type of expanse, and passage was hindered or prevented in various ways. The immediate antecedent of the Oberlin work was House with Base (1969; current location unknown), which served as a transition between Armajani's investigations of the conventions of bridges and those of houses. During this same period Armajani also produced a series of conceptual works for which he used a computer to calculate complex problems. According to Janet Kardon, "Armajani's houses are not houses but functions of their properties," reflecting Armajani's interest in Early American houses and vernacular architecture. The First House is made up of two spaces: an enclosed lower level, and an attic, open in front and back, with a pitched roof. The front and back walls are both at acute angles to the right side wall, which is therefore longer than the left side wall. Physical access to the interior of the lower level is blocked by the walls that enclose all four sides, but visual access is provided on the left side through cracks between the horizontal slats and on the front by three openings in the wall.(3) No doors or windows provide circulation through or between the upper and lower spaces in the traditional sense, yet the two levels are visually and conceptually unified by the parallel openings in the slats that describe the roof, in the ceiling of the lower space, and in the front wall. These openings correspond to the three beams (6 x 6 in. beams in the large-scale version) that run the length of the house, articulating the spaces and their relationship in a manner both logical and eccentric. While the beams and analogous openings give a conceptual order to the space, the lack of symmetry in the angled ascent of the beams suggests the happenstance eccentricities characteristic of vernacular building practices. The beam that runs along the inside of the shorter side wall juts out from the front of the house; the beam in the middle juts out half as far as the first, and the third beam, which runs along the inside of the longer side wall, begins flush with the front wall: together the ends of the beams describe a second, imaginary plane at right angles to the side walls. The two beams that run along the interiors of the side walls extend to the slatted roof, whereas the middle beam runs only to the top of the lower enclosure. Because of the angled roof, the angled front and back walls, and the varied extensions of the beams in the front, each extends upward at a different angle, and each intersects the ceiling of the lower space at a different point: after five crossbeams on the left, after six in the center, and after four on the right. These varying points of intersection with the ceiling create different visual experiences of space when viewing the interior through the three openings in the front of the house.