Howard Meyer and Materials

A Homage to Substance and Space

While earliest practitioners of the International Style, such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, elevated the exposure of structure and “weightlessness,” Meyer strove to maintain spaciousness while providing material substance. Whereas stuccoed planes and exposed steel structures dominated the Modernist aesthetic, Meyer’s alliance to providing a home of substance while maintaining the intrinsically including the qualities of discretion and understatement.

With the rustic and brick partitions, Meyer married indigenous Texas charm with a modernist aesthetic with the free flowing arrangement of space. The prevailing engagement with the outdoors through the large windowed expanses lends greatly to the connectivity to nature that Meyer wished to achieve in order to create a suitable form of domestic architecture.

Entering the Nakoma Residence

Balance Within Asymmetry

Looking into the entryway of the Nakoma House, Meyer’s considerable facility with geometric form is revealed as a recurring motif. The sense of craftsmanship, honesty towards materials, and the predominance of carefully arranged rectilinear forms become the primary language of Meyer’s domestic interiors. Meyer plays the two congruent entry portals asymmetrically within the context within a orthogonal framework . The off-centered arrangement indicative of modern, International Style influence in Meyer’s creative handling would have seemed less startling to fledging circles of Modernist patrons in Dallas. Meyer achieves this equitable arrangement by balancing the asymmetry with the natural wood paneled door. Instead of the stark and unadorned surfaces of Modernist interiors, Meyer captures a moment of intimacy and warmth that is befitting of time and place.