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Camouflage House, Burr Ridge, Illinois (Cornell Box)

A work made of mixed media.
© 2009 Doug Garofalo.

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  • A work made of mixed media.

Date:

1991

Artist:

Architecture Garofalo Leary (American, 1990-1992)
Douglas Garofalo (American, 1958-2011)
David Leary (American, born 1956)

About this artwork

The Camouflage House is a conceptual project for an imagined planned community called Falling Water in Burr Ridge, a western suburb of Chicago. Garofalo’s design takes the architectural and aesthetic conventions for such corporate-controlled developments and turns them on their head to emphasize the absurdity of prevailing, idealized notions of landscape and domesticity. The plan for the Camouflage House exaggerates the idea that the automobile is an integral part of suburban living. Cars are treated like extra family members; the garage is integrated into the room layout as a pivotal programmatic element and the entire house is oriented toward the bifurcated driveway. The seemingly random pattern of colors and materials that cover the house and extend into the landscape emphasize the absurd conceit that a man-made, million-dollar house could fit in with its natural surroundings. Here the relationship between the term “natural” and the highly choreographed landscape of suburban America is called into question with a fragmented, “camouflaged” structure that fails to obey the rules of suburban taste.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Architecture and Design

Artist

Garofalo Architects (Architect)

Title

Camouflage House, Burr Ridge, Illinois (Cornell Box)

Place

Burr Ridge (Object made for)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1991

Medium

Mixed media

Dimensions

66 × 51 × 5 cm (26 × 20 × 2 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Douglas Garofalo

Reference Number

2009.125

Copyright

© 2009 Doug Garofalo.

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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