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Project
Deign
Matt Taylor
Palo Alto, California
Study
There was an architect in Palo Alto whose work I greatly admired. His name was Nickels. I asked him for a job in 1952. He didn’t give me one but, in retrospect, I have to admire the way that he conducted the interview apparently taking seriously a 13 year old boy dead set on getting into architecture. I liked his office so I took on the task of copying it with a few modifications of my own. Having seen the finished work and then having to work my way through recreating it, was, of course, very instructive. His old office still stands in Palo Alto and was recently remodeled with some loss and some improvements. At any rate, this project was the first that I had to think through the implications of a floor plan and justify WHY everything was the way it was.

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Major Donald Nichols
Design
Matt Taylor
Palo Alto, California
Built without my drawings or supervision 1959. I attended the Palo Alto Military School (for the 8th and 9th grades) which was owned and run by Major Nichols The major had property across the street one lot of which was considered un-buildable. It was too narrow to get a two bedroom, two bath house of conventional design on it. I solved the problem in one weekend which involved a layout trick or two which I was truly proud. The floor plan was followed carefully, unfortunately, the elevations and sections were not. Overall, however, the house was successful and is considered very comfortable to this day. It has been remodeled at least once. The Living Room remains the best feature of this house. It is a 20 foot by 20 foot open beamed space finished in natural wood with a large brick fireplace. It is simple, lodge-like and conducive to a number of furniture arrangements. I understand the house was on the annual house tour in the early 1960s. The last time I stayed in it was was 1964. The picture was taken in 2000.

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Charles McGregor
Design
Matt Taylor
San Francisco, California - Marin County
Unknown
This is one of the drawings I showed Frank Lloyd Wright when I interviewed with him to join the Taliesin Fellowship. He said that it looked like some of the tents at Taliesin. This was one of my first explorations with structure as the major expression of a building. I designed it and turned it over to the architect of the whole project and never found out what happened. Maybe somewhere in Marin County there are a bunch of carports that I designed. Actually, a project like this is interesting and challenging. The structure has a simple function and wants to be minimalist and clean. At the same time, there must be enough mass and presence so that it is not an ugly blight stuck on the landscape. The scale is inherently strange because you have a low building that can go on, horizontally, way beyond the dictates of good proportion. I solved this by creating a very simple “treelike” structure with the parts cars featured as the “subject” of the work. Well placed landscape was specified to “bring” the structure down to earth.

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Design & Present/Display
Matt Taylor
San Francisco
Study
This Project was featured on TV and displayed at the first multiple listing real estate office in San Francisco. It lead to a series of events that convinced me not to go to architectural school. It might have influenced Joe Eichler to get into the apartment building business - I hope not. The idea was to build one “house” per floor in a 26 story building to sit on three acres of land - the same density as a typical subdivision of the time. A landscape of these would be to create a “city within a park rather than a park within a city.” This idea came to me one day walking in Golden Gate Park when I was supposed to be in church. I wondered what it would be like if the PARK was the basic urban/suburban setting and the buildings sprang up out of it. Really not that hard to do but it would require a different approach to infrastructure and transportation (see Work #5). This work introduced me to certain problems associated with building circular buildings and I worked on the floor plan - on and off - for several years tying to resolve them. The main idea of the building has held up very well and has been partially done (one apartment per floor condos) several times in subsequent years - the landscape aspect has not yet been implemented at any scale. My idea was a landscape the scale of San Francisco Park with many structures within it but not dominating the experience. A good use of tall buildings. I still do not believe that dense urban communities have to lack a park-like setting. This project demonstrated this idea over 45 years ago. Not only can affordable land-use economics be achieved, the open area allows mixed use of the landscape - something impossible with the typical subdivision layout. Now, (2001), houses are being built lot line to lot line and there is not even the old amenity of traditional setbacks and yard. Windows look out at the walls of the house next door - and down into their back yards. No midnight skinny dipping here. Why not stack 20 or 30 of these on top of one another and open up the land? the basic “trick” of this version of the plan was that each floor foot print was “zoned” so that only three-quarters of the full circle could be built upon. On each floor, the foot print’s non_buildable quadrant flipped creating a two story vertical open space. This way, each “house” had 20 foot high outdoor balconies that was 25% of the entire environment. How much they used the rest of their slab was an individual choice. All this, of course, adds up to a varied, interesting and changing elevation - another improvement of the monolithic, fixed face of high-rise concrete prisons. The idea was to impose certain restrictions, provide the exterior skin (movable) system and leave the rest to each individual owner. Larger dwellings could be had by the owner purchasing two levels. The basic idea is to make the structure of the building the equivalent of land. All elevators, stairways and utilities came down the center fireproof core of the building. Because the structure of the building is simple, it is possible to prefabricate the majority of the pieces and erect the entire structure in a short period of time using the core itself as a crane. This technique has been done with notable success in recent projects (mostly outside the United States). This project is one reason why I moved to New York City in the early 1960s and worked in construction. I grew weary of people telling me that buildings like this could not be done. There, in 1962-1963, I built a project that was the equivalent of 40 of these towers in 14 months.

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Design
Matt Taylor
San Francisco
Study
An original piece of work that is relevant to this day. A solution to mass transit that can grow organically and utilize cars that can work on and off the system. This would be a perfect way to introduce the Hypercar today. The essence of the design was to employ existing systems to make an integrated transportation system that did not require great time and capital investment prior to use. This problem is still not figured out. This design fractured a great number of “either/or” dichotomies and that is what will have to happen before we will ever get mass transit that will work in the US.

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Eichler Homes
Design
Matt Taylor
San Francisco Bay Area.
Not built
A disappointment. Joe Eichler and I actually had quite a disagreement about this design with him contending that people did not want to live in a “triangular” house and me pushing for an even more compact affordable design then the work he was then building. The Eichler homes were becoming larger and more upscale - and while this was fine - I wanted him to keep working on the “basic” home. Unfortunately, we parted on angry terms and I never saw him again. I often wonder what might had been if we had been able to work together. Not being more patent with this relationship was probably a big mistake on my part. But these are things you don’t know when you are young and hungry to change everything.

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Betty Blankinship
Design
Matt Taylor
Palo Alto, California
Unknown
A fun design, simple and small. I designed it just before leaving for Taliesin and lost contact with the owner. I do not know if it was ever built - I keep looking for it. There is something about this design I have always cherished. It is perhaps one of the cleanest and simple projects I have ever done. The budget was minimal and the requirements few. A place to paint, display work and have an occasional party. It was to be built in a back yard of a traditional Bay Area Shingle-Style home in Pal Alto. The bay area shingle style houses always inspired me and this work was to be horizontal wood board and batten in side and out. Colored concrete flooring, skylights, a brick and tile fireplace and a carpeted sitting pit completed the arrangements. A quite setting, an embracing shape, simple, warm materials.

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City of Redding, California
Design Development
Xxxx and Matt Taylor
Redding, California
Built
One of two works on this list done while in the employment of an architect. These public swimming pool facilities were built for the City of Red Bluff while I was at Taliesin. After returning and working again for the architect, I got to enjoy using them.

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Project
Design
Matt Taylor
San Francisco Bay Area
Study
My second attempt at the circular idiom and a precursor to the Copper House (#17) although it was not designed with gunite in mind. It was this work and #13 that stimulated my search for an inexpensive and exact way to execute circular forms. This design is notable for it’s simplicity of lifestyle. In this regard, it was in the mainstream of the Arts and Architecture (magazine) post WWII movement. In form and idiom, of course, it was not. I worked on this floor plan - on and off - for about three years. The paper was nearly worn out when I exhausted what it could teach me. By the time I was “done,” I had a good grasp of how to work the layout and aesthetic issues associated with the circular form.

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Matt Taylor
Design-Build-Use
Matt Taylor
Taliesin West - Taliesin, Wisconsin
Not Built
If I had stayed at Taliesin this is what I would have built. It was designed for Wisconsin and, while cantilevered off of a hillside, has almost exactly the same floor plan as the Hoover Residence (#16) which was designed for a typical suburban lot a year later.

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Coffee Creek Ranch
Design - Build
Matt Taylor and Jack Rapp
Trinity Center, California
Not Built
A project lost to youthful stupidity. Jack Rapp and I designed this work together. We were supposed to build it but then confusion set in.

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Design
Matt Taylor
Newport Beach, California
Study
My first employment of FLlw’s concrete block system. This work was strongly influenced by Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Hollywood, California. I still have a great fondness for the “textile” block system that Wright and his son Lloyd developed.

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Design Study
Matt Taylor
Southern California
Precursor to Cooper House (Work #17). The technique of employing precast concrete elements for structural members and “edges” and tying it all together into a monolithic structure with gunite was developed with this project exercise. The texture and color of the finish was to match the sand and rock of the landscape. This building was conceived to be on a California bluff facing the ocean. Today, it would be called an “earth-sheltered” house as all of the roofs were designed to be planted and to act as outdoor living areas. The North and east sides of the house were recessed in to the landscape. The South and West exposures opened to the sea. The idea was to disturb that natural landscape as little as possible. The site in mind was the bluffs found below Newport Beach. I wanted the texture and the color of the building to match them exactly.

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Design
Matt Taylor
Southern California
Study
My first thoughts on a dense, “mixed use” city scale building. This idea came right out of the blue. There was no influence or preparation for it. I was driving down the coast highway and thinking about urban sprawl and suddenly the idea hit me: “why not super dense structures with lots of space around them.” In a way this follows from the Apartment Project (#4) but employs a much great density and use of volume. The Apartment Project was still composed of one-story buildings stacked 21 time high. This Mega City concept started to look into the concept of the real use of three dimensional space as it related to the human interactions intrinsic to an urban environment. WHY do people like cities and how can we have the life and density without the negative consequences?

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Project
Deign
Matt Taylor
Newport Beach, California
Study
This is the first time and, so far, the last time I turned my attention to the “hospital” as an environment. Hospitals I avoid. There are a lot of sick people there and not just the patients. These are SYSTEMS focussed on disease. Typically, the patent is placed in a non-active, socially isolated environment where they are helpless and passive. What I designed was an environment that facilitates HEALTH. If you approach the design from this perspective you discover that the traditional hospital design it almost totally 180 degrees wrong. Every message to the ALL the users of these traditional environments are wrong. This layout places the patient in a garden and still deals the the many logistical issues associated with trauma, disease and healing. Now 40 plus years later, modern practices are moving in this direction but the architecture still lags behind. This is the last place you want an INSTITUTIONAL environment.

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Gene and Herb Hoover
Design
Matt Taylor
Costa Mesa, California
Not Built
A work of love on two levels. Gene was a wonderful person and one of the first - and few to this day - who understood what I wanted to do with a house. The design itself had a great deal of Usonian House and Schindler sensibility in it as well as influence from the Art + Architecture Case Study House Program. The ghost of Gordon Drake is also present. The Hoover House was direct and simple in it’s module, form and use of materials yet offered a great variety of daily living experiences within the limited landscape of the typical subdivision lot. The lifestyle it promoted was simple and contemplative. Not the way most people live today. The 1950s building boom was well under way and I was working for a large developer in Southern California producing one house plan a week for a subdivision of $40,000 dollar homes (a substantial cost for its time). The consumerism and distracted life-style patterns that have now blossomed into full bloom were already evident. This work was my counter-statement. 50 years later (as of this entry July 2009) it may be that this approach will again find a market. There is much here to inform the postUsonian Project [future link]. The renewed interest in the small post WWII modern houses [future link] and the “not so big house” movement [future link] and the renewed interest in Eichler’s work are encouraging signs.

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Cooper Family
Design-Build
Matt Taylor
Southern California
Not Built
Revised in 1999 for Northern California. I consider this to be my first mature work. I had been building up to this design for several years and executed it with ease and confidence. I had intimate experience with the building method I was to use. The clients were in tune with the work and it fit their desired lifestyle perfectly. They were one of the first - and last - clients that saw the process of living the way that I did - and still do. They wanted to see the building method demonstrated and that was to be done with the American Pool Building (Work #18) which failed to get financing. I moved to New York shortly thereafter and lost contact with the client.

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American Pool Company
Design-Build
Matt Taylor
Southern California
Not Built
One of the big disappointments. I poured more into this project than any work to date. It was a crushing blow when the bank turned down the financing. It took me six months to develop the design. The property was challenging but the result would have been spectacular This was my first commercial building and it started my detailed thinking of how the environment can augment business processes. The VC Morris Shop informed this design a great deal although the final result was turned inside out from that example.

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Design
Matt Taylor
New York City
Project
A project out of the Fountainhead. I have been working this project in my mind for 40 years. Elements of it can be found in the tri-module house (#20), the Bay Area Studio (#96) and the Xanadu (#97) projects. Rand provided an extremely provocative and demanding architectural theme. One well worth designing and building. With the rise of the new boutique hotels in cities like New York, the Enright House theme may find itself a home. In a world of “thematic” architecture like is seen in Las Vegas, I do not understand why there is not some works of “authentic” themes - works that promote a unique experience of reality without drawing from some overt historic reference.

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Project
Design
Matt Taylor
New York City - New York countryside
Project - Basis of Bay Area Studio (#96)
Does a system building have to be dull? Why are buildings flat? Why do the sprawl all over a lot? How can modern materials and means create an “organic” result? How can strength be built-in the structure - intrinsically? This concept lead directly to the Prefabricated Bridge idea (#21) which questions the entire design and deployment method of small and medium scale bridge building. It also led directly to the later concept of the Sears House (#49). Of all my work, this was the deepest “dive” into modern materials. This was to be an almost totally metal building. Bucky explored this arena with the Dymaxion House. There have been many attempts to build conventional hoses out of steel and aluminum. I wanted to exploit the medium in an entirely new way.

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Design
Matt Taylor
New York City
Study
This was my first concept of integrating computer modeling and architectural design - a technique developed further with the Sears House concept (#49). The concept is that highway overpasses should be able to be erected in a matter of days not weeks and months. A system of of prefabricated components, a design strategic intrinsically more integrated to to the real stress diagram of the loads involved, and a computer program that could be site administered would allow the scenario of a completely deployed, site specific, system of construction.

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Project
Deign
Matt Taylor
New York, New york
Study
Many restaurant designs follow a theme. This always bothered me because it is rarely done in an authentic way. Besides that, most are historical in their approach echoing some pale version of a time and place that either no longer exists or cannot be replicated. In addition, the logistical design of restaurants could not be worse if that was the design intent. There is little privacy between tables and the miles of walking required by the server adversely effect the intrinsic economics of the system. This design, get at all there of this design challenges. It is based on a theme that derives from it’s own nature not some prior manifestation. It uses three dimensional space and zoned planning to create privacy AND density. It is organized, from the onset, around the logistics of serving food. It turns the server into a proprietor of a station and the facilitator of an experience.

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New York Development Partnership
Design-Build
Matt Taylor
New York City - Upstate New York
Not Built
Another Rand inspired project based on the resort described in the Fountainhead. A group of developers became intrigued with the idea and approached me to design it. Nothing came of the project, however. The grammar of this project is closely related to the modular system of of Renascense III (#90).

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Max Stormes
Design-Manufacture
Matt Taylor
New York City
Not Built
My first nautical attempt and a radical departure from the typical house boat configuration. The goal was to create space with architectural quality in a small mobile floating environment.

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Design
Matt Taylor
New York
Study
This design was for a multimedia theater environment . the idea was that a far greater mix of live and media materials was possible than was the norm in the 1960s. The house was designed to create a significantly greater sense of audience involvement than was typical then. The concept also deliberately facilitated a transition form the energy of the street to one appropriate for the abstraction of art. participants walked through a series of environments designed to act like a physical overture.