About this artwork
Bruce Goff designed buildings for the Navy during World War II and there became acquainted with the versatile Quonset hut, a demountable steel structure with a distinctive, half-tube shape. This experience fueled Goff’s increasingly experimental approach to architecture after the war. When asked to create a home for the director of an arts school in Aurora, Illinois, Goff returned to the Quonset hut, whose semicircular ribs created an opportunity for spatial play. Military materials found their way into other parts of the rounded structure as well—including army surplus rope in the ceilings and aircraft domes repurposed as skylights—creating a kind of postwar fantasy far removed from the formulaic ranch houses being built across the Chicago suburbs.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Architecture and Design
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Artist
- Bruce Alonzo Goff (Architect)
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Title
- Ruth and Sam Ford House, Aurora, Illinois, Section
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Place
- Aurora (Building address)
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Date
- 1947–1949
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Medium
- Graphite on white tracing paper
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Dimensions
- 44.2 × 86.1 cm (17 3/8 × 33 15/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Shin'enKan, Inc.
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Reference Number
- 1990.809.17
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.
