Barry Byrne and Alfonso Iannelli
House for Dr. J.F. Clarke (detail of East Elevation)
Fairfield, Iowa
Cyanotype blueprint, 1915
40 x 23 1/2 inches
(Sold as pair of blueprints)

September 10, 2010 – December 25, 2010



The truest test for an architect is to design a house. As the most personal form of public architecture, one’s residence is an expression of character. As a group, they define the civilization.

From the log cabin to the most stately mansion, the house acts as both nest to which we escape and stage for our most intimate dramas. Long before current "shelter" magazines appeared, copperplate engravings of famous residences infected Europeans and Americans alike with cases of "house envy" during the Industrial Revolution fueling competitions for the biggest, grandest edifices built by Nineteenth Century robber barons.

Richard J. Neutra, A.I.A. Arch. (R.H., del.) Residence for Mr & Mrs. Warren Tremaine Montecito Cal. Ground Floor Plan Proposal 3-B (Sheet No. 1) Cyanotype blueprint with colored pencil Tracing paper drawing included July 25, 1945 Signed in pencil on verso Blueprint: 25 x 37 inches (drawing, marker on yellow trace: 14 x 17 inches)

Alfonso Iannelli Design for a stone house Colored pencil on tracing paper, circa 1950 12 x 21 inches

The design of a house can start with a few quick lines on a napkin and evolve to a hyper-realistic perspective used as a sales tool. Colored pencil sketches and simple watercolors can grow to complicated puzzles as abstract as a maze.

ArchiTech Gallery has assembled dozens of these historical works for a commercial exhibition running the gamut of design from 18th Century villas to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie houses to a fanciful embassy from the 1950s.

Abel Faidy Villa Dionysos South-North Section Pencil on tracing paper, 1959 17 1/2 x 50 1/2 inches

Horace Walpole, arch. (Pub: Essex & Marlow) Strawberry Hill Perspectives, plans and an elevation Set of eight copperplate engravings, 1781 (Sold as set of 8. Various sizes from 8 x 5 1/2 inches to 8 1/4 x 13 1/2 inches)

Other architects whose work will be exhibited in "The House" are Frank O. Gehry, Charles R. Mackintosh, Richard Neutra and Bruce Goff.

"The House: Drawings for Residential Architecture" opens the Fall season on September 10th and continues to the end of the year December 25th, 2010.

Bruce A. Goff, arch. (Wm. Murphy, del.) Sydney H. Rodin House, Libertyville Colored pencil on Diazo lineprint, circa 1961 (Sold as set of 3)

Frank O. Gehry (FOG & Assoc.) Faris Residence Pencil and colored pencil on tracing paper, 12/27/74 17 1/2 x 22 inches (plus portion under mat)

Notes on the Exhibition:

Surprisingly, to me anyway, I’d never done a show of "Houses." Skyscrapers, of course, and chairs, toys, interiors, even lawn mowers ("Dream Machines"...Jan. 26, 2006) but never houses.

This would not stand. I went through the drawers and found gold. Some drawings hadn’t been seen in any shows. Some needed conservation. What was more apparent is that, hung together, they would show every stage of the design process, from "napkin" sketches from the earliest stages through elaborate presentation perspectives to technical drawings on linen sheets. To top it off, my antique engravings of famous houses were the 18th Century equivalents of "Architectural Digest." Yep, this could stand.

A. "Greek" & G Thomson, archs. (Pub: Blackie & Sons, Del: R. Dawson) Craig Ailey Villa Steel engravings, circa 1850 10 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches (Sold as pair)

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, arch. (Pub: Alexander Koch) Meister der Innen Kunst (A.K.A: A House for an Art Lover) Portfolio label Lithograph on green wove paper, 1901 Label: 9 x 9 inches (Sold as pair with plate #1 plan: 15 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches)

Since Frank Gehry’s archive will probably be saved for a museum, any of his early drawings that still resemble architecture will always be rare. There will be one from 1974 in this show. And Bruce Goff will forever be the ultimate "outsider" architect. Three of his drawings will hang too.

Most all of the lithographs from the famous 1901 portfolio of C.R. Mackintosh had already sold but I still had the floorplan (plate #1) and the label from the coverboard of "A House for an Art Lover." Since even text graphics by Mackintosh are so rare, this pair could work for a museum or connoisseur.

And as always, my Frank Lloyd Wright drawings and prints would bring the biggest name value to the walls.

As it’s "Back to Basics" these days for the economy, it would be so for what I exhibit.