Ralph Rapson

I started this blog September 6, 2010. Some of you have been readers since the beginning. Others have come on board later. From now through the end of the month, I'm going to be on a short blogging break. Not only am I in the middle of a big volunteer project, I'm also trying to help get the new store open, so I've decided share some of my favorite posts from the past four years. I'll throw in a few new photos for you longtime supporters who read the posts when they were first published.


(First posted 1/3/2011)

Ralph Rapson (1914-2008) was an architect, designer and entrepreneur. He was educated at the University of Michigan and the Cranbrook Academy of Arts, where he studied under Eliel Saarinen. At Cranbrook he met Florence Schust, who would later marry Hans Knoll and then introduce him to the Knoll company, for which he would design a successful line in the 1940s.

Rapson taught architecture at the New Bauhaus School in Chicago from 1942-1946. He Also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1946-1954. He is well-known for his experimental concept houses like the 1939 "Cave House" and "Fabric House," and the 1945 "Greenbelt House," which was Arts & Architecture's Case Study House #4. Rapson was the Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota from 1954-1984.

In 1963 he designed the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He also worked for the U.S. Government's Department of Foreign Buildings in the 1950s, after striking a deal that any work he did would be furnished with Knoll furniture. From this period, Rapson is best known for the U.S. Embassy buildings in Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Rapson's furniture designs employed newly developed materials and mass production processes. In 1945 he helped Knoll introduce the 'Equipment for Living' series of furniture. The program was commissioned by the Kellett Aircraft Corporation, who requested that the pieces be made of metal. Rapson's line featuring a tea trolley, side table and lounge proved to be extremely successful, and Knoll created 'Thermalware' accessories like cocktail shakers and ice buckets to accompany the furniture. Knoll then released the Rapson Line in 1945, which included the now-classic "Rapson Rocker."  Knoll sold the playful, organic line to Bloomingdale's in 1945, who then took out a full page advertisement for the rocker in the New York Times, touting it as a modern take on a traditional piece.

Throughout the 1950s, Rapson and his wife Mary had a store, Rapson, Inc., in Boston. The couple sold Rapson's furniture, as well as George Nelson furniture and objects, Harry Bertoia jewelry and pieces from both the Knoll and Herman Miller collections. They also imported pieces that they found to be integral to the energy of modern design like porcelain from Germany and Marimekko textiles from Finland.

From r20thcentury.com and rapsonarchitects.com

Slide cart

rapsonarchitects.com

Slide rocker

rapsonarchitects.com 

Slide sofa and chairs

rapsonarchitects.com

Variation of slide rocker

rapsonarchitects.com

Ralph Rapson's personal Rapid Rocker
rapson-inc.com

Slide lounge

rapsonarchitects.com

Slide lamps
rapsonarchitects.com

Slide lamp sketches
rapsonarchitects.com

Highback Greenbelt rock
rapson-inc.com

Gidwitz House
archpaper.com

Butler House
ncmodernist.org

Schecter House (House of Doors)
ncmodernist.org

casasugar.com

Travel watercolors

Not only was Ralph Rapson a gifted architect and furniture designer, he was also a very talented artist. He sketched constantly for the pure pleasure of drawing, and these sketches often became more finished drawings, rendered in pencil, ink, crayon, watercolor or felt markers.  In 2002 Afton Press published a book entitled Ralph Rapson: Sketches and Drawings from Around the World, which Rapson dedicated to his wife Mary, to document their extensive travels.

I was fortunate to find a used copy which had been inscribed by Rapson. My next purchase will be Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design, which is considered to be the definitive biography of the man. It is also available from Afton Press.

All images courtesy of Afton Historical Society Press

Florence, Italy

Kyoto, Japan

Lake Geneva, Switzerland

New York City, New York

San Francisco, California

Rapson inscription in my book

Football...Rapson and Saarinen style

Sometimes the best stories about designers are the ones that remind us they didn't really inhabit the pedestals we invent for them. They had friends and hobbies and work habits just like the rest of us, and knowing this somehow makes me appreciate the brilliant work they did all the more. One of the most endearing stories I've read lately is on the Rapson-Inc. blog in a post by Caroline Engel.

Engel tells of the friendship that developed between Eero Saarinen and Ralph Rapson when they worked together in Eliel Saarinen's architecture firm while Rapson was a graduate student at Cranbrook.

Rapson, although born with only one arm, loved football and was known to get up a game on beautiful fall afternoons. Nose-to-the-grindstone Eero Saarinen wasn't moved by Rapsons's argument that recreation relieved an architect of stress and allow him to return to his desk refreshed and productive. One day Rapson half-dragged and half-carried his friend to the field. From that day forward, Saarinen declared himself the official quarterback of the team and never missed a game.

You can find the full story in Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design by Jane King Hession, Rip Rapson and Bruce N. Wright (1999, Afton Historical Society Press). Be sure and visit the Rapson-Inc. blog for other posts too. You're in for a treat.

From rapson-inc.com

Ralph Rapson (left), Eero Saarinen & Fred James
discussing plans for the College of William and Mary, February 1939
[Cranbrook Historic Photograph Collection, #4832]
rapson-inc.com

Ralph Rapson running down sideline during touch football game at Cranbrook, 1939.
[Cranbrook Historic Photograph Collection, #284]
rapson-inc.com

Selling Modernism: Rapson-Inc.

Much of my blog focuses on the designers of modern furniture and accessories. This is the first in a series of posts about how those pieces reach the public once they have been manufactured. The series will take a look at some of the pioneers in retailing of modernist design, as well as businesses around the world today that sell exceptional modern home furnishings.

In 1940, Elliot Noyes, a student of Walter Gropius and the first curator of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, organized a competition called Organic Design in Home Furnishings. The participants included the world's most talented modernist designers and architects. In the years following World War II, their designs went into production, but there were few retail outlets selling the products.

Ralph Rapson and his wife Mary decided to open a store that would sell specifically this type merchandise. Rapson continued to work as a practicing architect and architecture professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, in his spare time, he selected the designs for the store. Mary was responsible for the financial, promotional and operational end of the business.

Rapson-Inc. opened in 1950 at 282 Dartmouth Street, one block from Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. Mary proposed that their inventory be made up primarily of Rapson's own designs, along with pieces acquired on credit from Knoll Associates, with whom her husband had been collaborating on several projects.

The long, narrow store was decorated with Angelo Tasta's fabrics hung from ceiling to floor, Knoll chairs hung on the wall, storage cabinets of Rapson's design to display smalls and a living room vignette used to show customers how to incorporate modern design into their own homes.

In the early 50s, Rapson received a commission to design a number of American embassies throughout Europe, so they closed the store and moved abroad, but in the late 1990s, Toby Rapson, Ralph's son and business partner at Rapson Architects, worked with Ralph and a team at the firm, along with master craftsman Jonathan Loeck, to put some of Rapson's designs back into production.

After Ralph Rapson's death in 2008, Toby Rapson separated the furniture design business from the architecture firm, and Rapson-Inc. was reborn, using the original bowtie logo from 1950. The company now makes furniture from the large collection of original Rapson designs, determined to produce a top-quality product by remaining mindful of Rapson's observation that "there's a lot of half-assed Modernism out there."

From rapson-inc.com and modernism101.com

Rapson Inc., circa 1950
esotericsurvey.blogspot.com

Rapson Inc., circa 1950
rapson-inc.com

Rapson, Inc., circa 1950
esotericsurvey.blogspot.com

Rapson-Inc. logo
rapson-inc.com

Mid2Mod to carry Ralph Rapson furniture

We are proud to announce that Mid2Mod will be one of ten brick-and-mortar stores and three online stores in North America to carry Ralph Rapson designs.

I wrote a post about Rapson in January of 2011. His grandson Ian R. Rapson happened upon it and left a comment in June of that year thanking me for the post and letting me know that he had linked back to my blog on the Ralph Rapson Facebook page. A month later, he contacted me to let me know that his family had begun selling furniture designed by Rapson. For the past year, my SIL has communicated periodically with family-owned Rapson-Inc. and finally reached the decision to become a dealer. The order has been placed, and I will post an update when the pieces are actually in the store.

The minute I saw the line, I was immediately enamored of the Greenbelt rockers and hoped to own one someday. (I even included it on my Pinterest board entitled "Things to buy before I die.") I'm pleased to say, that is looking more and more like a reality now. Not only am I a huge fan of Rapson's furniture designs, but I also have tremendous respect for him as an architect, so it's an honor for our family to be working with his family.

The chairs will come in maple or walnut with either natural, red or black cotton webbing or black leather straps. We hope to expand our selection to include the entire line in the store eventually. Here are the models we will have on the floor to start:

Highback Rapson Greenbelt rocker
startribune.com

Rapson Greenbelt rocker
takesunset.com

Rapson Greenbelt lounge
yliving.com

Announcing Rapson-Inc.

Ian Rapson, grandson of noted designer/architect Ralph Rapson, contacted me yesterday to let me know that the family is now selling Rapson's iconic designs. Their website, Rapson-Inc., is a wonderful mix of images of the new pieces and Rapson's delightful illustrations, like the one above. The site also has a very interesting biography and a video of Rapson explaining the importance drawing played in his design.

As regular readers of this blog know, I admire Rapson's talent as a furniture and lighting designer, as well as his work as an architect, and at the top of my wish list is to live someday in a Rapson Greenbelt House by Wieler. I posted about Rapson and his work and about these beautiful modular homes last January. If you've joined the blog since then, you might like to go back and take a look. The Greenbelt was the #4 Case Study House that was unbuilt during the project.

I'm very excited about the new Rapson furniture, and I think you will be too. Now I have something else to add to my wish list...someday having an opportunity to sell the line in our store.

All images from rapson-inc.com

Rapson Bentwood rocker

Rapson Greenbelt rocker

Rapson Highback Greenbelt in natural cotton

Rapson Dwell Lounge

A Greenbelt lounge, as well as stools and ottomans, will soon be added to the line. I can't wait to see them!

Thanks to Ian R. Rapson

A special thanks to Ian R. Rapson, grandson of mid-century architect and designer Ralph Rapson, for the nice comment he made on my blog, as well as the mention/linkback on the Ralph Rapson Facebook page. What an honor it is to know that he enjoyed my post on his grandfather!

Shu, Cranbrook and the roots of Knoll Associates

youtube.com
Uploaded by knolldesign, October 8, 2009

When Florence Schust (called "Shu" by her friends, as you will hear Richard Schultz refer to her in the video) saw Cranbrook Academy of Art, she knew it was the place she wanted to go to school. The campus, known as the birthplace of American modernism, was designed in 1928 by Eliel Saarinen and is comprised of ten Artist-in-Residence homes on one side of Academy Way and dormitories above graduate studios on the other side. The Academy's website provides several beautiful video tours of the campus today.

While a teenager and a student at the Kingswood School, a part of the 315-acre Cranbrook Educational Community, she met Eliel Saarinen and became an "unofficially adopted" member of the Saarinen family. During her years at Cranbrook Academy, she was immersed in a community of painters, sculptors, architects and designers, all working together to form an integrated concept. Later, when she married Hans Knoll, she brought Eero Saarinen, Ralph Rapson and Harry Bertoia...all from Cranbrook...into the company.

The magical beauty of Cranbrook, as well as the associations and friendships she formed there, no doubt influenced Florence Knoll's aesthetics and her vision of excellence for the company.

Wieler Greenbelt Houses

Wieler is a present-day builder offering the iconic mid-century Greenbelt House design of Ralph Rapson as a modular home. The Greenbelt was the #4 Case Study House that was unbuilt during the original project. These homes start at 576 square feet with the Starter model and range up in size to the Greenbelt 2, which is 2660 square feet.

The Greenbelt Starter can be used as a guest house or detached office. It features floor-to-ceiling windows, an efficient kitchen, utility room and bathroom. 

Greenbelt Starter

wieler.com

The split-level Greenbelt 1½ includes an additional module underneath the bedroom/office area. The extra space can be used as a garage or finished to provide additional living space.

Greenbelt 1½ 

wieler.com

The Greenbelt 2 is the largest of the Greenbelt designs, with up to four bedrooms and three full bathrooms. Featuring large kitchen and living areas, the Greenbelt 2 is ideal for big families. It was submitted to the Dwell Home Design Invitational in 2003. 

Greenbelt 2

wieler.com

With large front and rear decks and floor-to-ceiling windows, the Greenbelt Piloti is particulary at home in natural settings and temperate climates. The elevated design allows for storage, parking, and utilities to be located underneath the main living area. This reduces the overall footprint and makes the Piloti ideal for small lots or challenging home sites. 

Greenbelt Piloti

wieler.com

The Greenbelt Walkout is designed for sloped home sites. The fact that it's intended to be built into a hillside allows for a full-height basement that can easily be converted into living or office space.

Greenbelt Walkout

wieler.com

I was excited to stumble upon the Wieler site when I was researching Ralph Rapson and the Case Study Houses, because I've spent a couple of years looking for a floor plan for a small apartment and hadn't had much luck finding a layout I really liked. I'm really interested in the Starter version of this house, because I've been telling my daughter and SIL for ages now that when I get really old and gray, I'm going to plop a modular home in their back yard and move in. (Yes, you probably hear them groaning right now.)

I think the Starter floor plan would be perfect for a guest house...or a detached mother-in-law's apartment. And how cool would it be to have your own little Case Study House?

Ralph Rapson

Ralph Rapson (1914-2008) was an architect, designer and entrepreneur. He was educated at the University of Michigan and the Cranbrook Academy of Arts, where he studied under Eliel Saarinen. At Cranbrook he met Florence Schust, who would later marry Hans Knoll and then introduce him to the Knoll company, for which he would design a successful line in the 1940s.

Rapson taught architecture at the New Bauhaus School in Chicago from 1942-1946. He Also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1946-1954. He is well-known for his experimental concept houses like the 1939 "Cave House" and "Fabric House," and the 1945 "Greenbelt House," which was Arts & Architecture's Case Study House #4. Rapson was the Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota from 1954-1984.

In 1963 he designed the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He also worked for the U.S. Government's Department of Foreign Buildings in the 1950s, after striking a deal that any work he did would be furnished with Knoll furniture. From this period, Rapson is best known for the U.S. Embassy buildings in Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Rapson's furniture designs employed newly developed materials and mass production processes. In 1945 he helped Knoll introduce the 'Equipment for Living' series of furniture. The program was commissioned by the Kellett Aircraft Corporation, who requested that the pieces be made of metal. Rapson's line featuring a tea trolley, side table and lounge proved to be extremely successful, and Knoll created 'Thermalware' accessories like cocktail shakers and ice buckets to accompany the furniture. Knoll then released the Rapson Line in 1945, which included the now-classic "Rapson Rocker."  Knoll sold the playful, organic line to Bloomingdale's in 1945, who then took out a full page advertisement for the rocker in the New York Times, touting it as a modern take on a traditional piece.

Throughout the 1950s, Rapson and his wife Mary had a store, Rapson, Inc., in Boston. The couple sold Rapson's furniture, as well as George Nelson furniture and objects, Harry Bertoia jewelry and pieces from both the Knoll and Herman Miller collections. They also imported pieces that they found to be integral to the energy of modern design like porcelain from Germany and Marimekko textiles from Finland.

From r20thcentury.com and rapsonarchitects.com

Slide cart

rapsonarchitects.com

Slide rocker

rapsonarchitects.com 

Slide sofa and chairs

rapsonarchitects.com

Variation of slide rocker

rapsonarchitects.com

Slide lounge

rapsonarchitects.com

Slide lamps
rapsonarchitects.com

Slide lamp sketches
rapsonarchitects.com

Highback Greenbelt rock
rapson-inc.com

Case Study House Program

In January of 1945, Arts & Architecture magazine announced the Case Study House Program. Several of the country’s most talented and innovative architects proposed to study, plan, design and construct eight houses in Southern California. Their mission was to gather a mass of material that would eventually define the post-war house.

The studies began with analysis of land in relation to work, schools, neighborhood conditions and individual family need. Each house was to be designed within a specified budget, and the architects were answerable only to the magazine, which posed as “the client” during the design phase.

The plan was to feature all eight of the houses in Arts & Architecture, with the architect(s) explaining the design and choice of materials. Upon completion, each house was to be open to the public for six to eight weeks. The houses would be completely furnished under a working agreement among the architect, the designer and the furniture manufacturer.

However, several of the designs remained unbuilt, because the architects had to find actual clients who could afford construction, since banks at that time were not yet loaning on flat-roofed modern houses. In all, 28 Case Study houses and two apartment buildings were built between 1945 and 1964.

Original 8 Case Study Houses

Number	Architect(s)	Year	Status	Location	Issue
1	J. R. Davidson	1948	Intact	North Hollywood, CA	Feb 1945
2	Sumner Spaulding, John Rex	1947	Intact	Arcadia, CA	May 1948
3	Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons	1949	Intact	Mandeville Canyon, CA	Aug 1947
4	Ralph Rapson		Unbuilt		Mar 1949
5	Whitney R. Smith		Unbuilt		Sept 1945
6	Richard Neutra		Unbuilt		Apr 1946
7	Thornton M. Abell	1948	Intact	San Gabriel, CA	Oct 1945
8	Charles Eames	1949	Intact	Pacific Palisades, CA	Jul 1948

From artsandarchitecture.com

Charles Eames House #8

you-are-here.com

Entenza House #9 by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen

la.curbed.com

 #16 by Rodney Walker

artnet.com

Bailey House #20 by Richard Neutra

artnet.com

Stahl House #22 by Pierre Koenig

jennyhaniver.com