EAST MEETS WEST
Four Eichler households find some inner peace
being at home with the Asian-Japanese aesthetic

From the pages of the CA-Modern magazine
By Dave Weinstein

Much can be gained by adding an Asian touch to a mid-century modern home: drama, texture, color, a sense of history and tradition -- not to mention the beauty and intellectual stimulation provided by true works of art. But for many Eichler owners, it all comes down to tranquility.

"It really lends a sense of tranquility that directly comes from the Asian pieces," says Suzanne Wilson, of the Asian theme she and her husband Paul Salazar adopted for their Eichler home in San Jose.

Their atrium home is a beautiful blend of authentic Japanese, Chinese, and Thai antique furnishings, 19th century Asian paintings, a few Asian reproductions used as accent pieces, and modern furniture. The Asian pieces work well with the home's minimalist lines and light-colored walls.

Especially effective are the shoji screens that allow Suzanne and Paul to control the light and views from their walls of windows. "They give a feeling of calm," Suzanne says, "a really nice dappling of light throughout the day." Gerry Gassman and Suzanne Boxer-Gassman, who live in a Claude Oakland atrium model in Sunnyvale, also appreciate the Asian sense of repose. "There's a certain inner peace and a not-too-cluttered look," Gerry says.

In San Jose, Steve Murphy uses Japanese antiques to create an artful blend of modern and traditional. "We just love the quiet simplicity of Japanese design," he says.

And in San Mateo Highlands, Barry and Rosemary Brisco turned their Eichler into a Zen-like, minimalist paradise.

Repose with a splash of color Working without an interior designer, it took Suzanne Wilson and Paul Salazar three years to convert their Eichler atrium home into a quiet, meditative space -- that is enlivened nonetheless with splashes of color and artwork that, like any real art, rewards close attention. "We just threw together things we like," Wilson says. Wilson, who grew up in a home filled with Japanese and Chinese antiques, found wonderful examples at shops in San Jose and San Francisco. Antique teakwood chests provide colorful accents in red against their light-colored walls -- and harmonize with the color of their home's red door. "I like the character of some of the older pieces," she says. "It doesn't bother me that the wood warps a little bit. It becomes a house with more character rather than a showroom." In a sitting area off the atrium, a 19th century Chinese 'ancestor scroll' showing a patriarch and his consort, and a hundred-year scroll of a horse in a landscape create a room that is truly special. In the dining room, a flared-top Chinese chest from the 19th century is topped by a statue of St. Michael also from the 19th century -- but from Mexico. Eclecticism has its place. "I think it's very easy to combine simple modern furniture with lacquered pieces, and with very simple or with more decorative Asian art," Wilson says. "It's something that comes together as a jigsaw very easily."

Asian artifacts, modern art Gerry Gassman loves his home's 'square-doughnut design,' with living spaces and bedrooms arrayed around the atrium. The décor reflects his interests in art, nature, and Asia, which he has visited several times. The atrium is filled with plants typical of a Japanese garden -- low shrubs, a Japanese maple. But then there's the uncharacteristic bougainvillea. There are also modern ceramic bowls, an abstract canvas by the painter (not the actor) Don Johnson and, in the corner, an immense Asian grinding stone. Mexican tile serves as flooring in the atrium, kitchen and adjoining sitting area that Gassman uses for informal dining. Besides modern art and Asian objects, Gassman collects coral, and its otherworldly, starkness provides a touch of nature. Much of his modern art has an Oriental effect as well, including a textile piece in the sitting area that recalls a Chinese scroll. The home's light-filled living room features an immense tansu next to a figure of a carp that seems to be leaping from a pond. Two wooden Chinese foo dogs cavort atop the dining room table. Gassman plays up the Japanese theme in the library by having custom cabinetry built tansu-style. Gerry and wife Suzanne love their home at night, when hidden spotlights highlight the art, making it visible from every room in the house. Guests are charmed. "Eichlers are a great home for art," Gerry says. "Art and people."

Japanese beauty in hiding From the street, Steve and Nancy Murphy's Eichler looks like any other on the block. Only a modest stone lantern and the raked gravel in the parking strip suggest what's inside. In that way, the home is much like the antique haori jacket that hangs above their bed. Made during Japan's Edo period, which ended in 1867, it was designed to be totally blank on the outside but beautifully decorated on the inside. That was due to an edict from the emperor, who didn't want the up-and-coming middle class to display their newfound power and finery in public. The Murphys, who have collected Japanese antiques for years, have been fans of Eichlers even longer -- since they were both children growing up near Eichler's Fairglen neighborhood, where they live today. Their Japanese furniture, kimonos, fans, shojis, and lanterns work well with their home's original features, including its mahogany paneling. "The house has very simple lines," Steve says. "It goes well with the Japanese aesthetic." "We tried to blend together the Japanese look and feel without getting way out of hand. We still wanted to retain the Eichler feeling too."

Subtle, minimal house of calm Barry and Rosemary Brisco, who imbibed Asian style while living four years in Singapore and traveling in the Far East, have blended Asian motifs into their Eichler in a subtle but effective manner. Facing the street is a freeform ocean of river-washed stones, complete with an island housing a Japanese pine and one perfect boulder. The generous backyard is a sea of pebbles crossed by steppingstone paths. Weeping cherry trees, bamboo, Japanese umbrella pines, and cypress, plus a hillock with a tiny waterfall, add to the effect. The backyard has a Japanese-style deck instead of the standard Eichler patio, and a standard Japanese 'taking-off-shoe stone.' The home itself is filled with Buddhas, a family heirloom kimono that is often used as a wall hanging, Japanese screens, a Japanese sea chest, a classic Hans Wegener armchair, an Isamu Noguchi table, and an arrangement of bamboo tubes created by Barry's mother. A recent interior remodel emphasized the Asian aesthetic, with a bathroom of exposed wooden beams, a tatami, and a tansu-like cabinet for the sink. Cross-laminated bamboo for kitchen cabinets, a room divider, and an entertainment cabinet also adds to the effect. It sounds like a lot, but the effect is sparse. "Eichler rooms are small by modern standards, so they look good with less furniture," Barry says. The atrium has become a 'tsubo' garden, "a courtyard garden, without grand vistas," Barry explains. It's a place to enjoy as you walk by. "The atrium has flagstone steppingstones over a sea of pebbles, camellias, ornamental grasses. "It's Japanese in the sense that it's minimal," he says, "and there's an attempt to emulate nature without copying it." Both Barry and Rosemary work from home, but they feel no sense of hustle-bustle. "People remark how calm and peaceful it is," Rosemary says.

Photos: David Toerge

Asian Architecture and Its Principles Make a
Deep Connection at the Roots of California Modern

Kinji Imada was a pure International Style modernist when he visited New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1954 to see a traditional Japanese house that had been constructed in the museum's garden. "That was a real eye-opener for many people," said Imada, at the time a Japanese-American architectural student who had yet to visit Japan.

Imada, who died in 2005, remained a modernist throughout his career, which included helping design Eichler homes as an associate of Claude Oakland. But he retained an interest in Asian architecture.

Mid-century modern architecture, particularly in California, shares many characteristics with Asian architecture. Both are open to the outdoors, have modular structures that are clearly expressed, and a feeling of repose. Few American modernists copied Japanese style directly. But they followed many of the same principles and pursued similar aesthetic ends.

Modern architecture in America harks back primarily to the modern movement in Europe. But Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by Asia, and Japanese style -- more than Chinese, Korean, or other Asian traditions -- was much discussed in the 1940s and '50s. Architects understood that the similarities between Asian and modern had less to do with influence than with confluence.

"The Japanese system was quite modular, and so was the modern movement that gave rise to the Eichlers," said Carroll Rankin, an architect who has lived in Eichler homes for 45 years. "The spacing of the beams is directly related to the span capability of the decking. It's a structural reason. There's nothing arbitrary in the Japanese or the Eichler home."

A. Quincy Jones, a leading Southern California modernist who was one of Eichler's leading architects grew up with a taste of Japanese culture, said his widow Elaine Sewall Jones, thanks to his friendship with Japanese neighbors in Southern California. Claude Oakland never made it to Japan, but was always interested in Japanese art. His sister worked in Japan with the Occupation, and returned home with a marvelous collection of prints. Oakland had some in his home.

Jones and his partner Frederick Emmons also acknowledged the parallels. In their 1957 book, 'Builders Homes for Better Living,' they expressed the Eichler philosophy of homebuilding, hoping the book would inspire other developers. Jones and Emmons used historic images of Japanese homes to illustrate yard use, privacy, and "a physical and visual extension of entry."

Other similarities between Japanese architecture and California modernism are striking. Both use posts and beams, with non-load bearing walls. The structure of the home is both revealed and reveled in, creating rhythmic patterns of woodwork, paneling, openings and light. The home is a series of linked spaces, not a box with compartments.

Traditional Chinese architecture too shares many of these characteristics. The planning was open and flexible, gardens natural and poetic. Rooms often surround an atrium-like courtyard, especially in larger homes that are complexes of related buildings.

Bo Bi, a Chinese architect who has visited the United States many times, says his first visit to Eichler homes reminded him of traditional Chinese 'Siheyuan' homes -- a courtyard surrounded on four sides by rooms. ('Si' means four, 'yuan' means yard.). The goal was privacy in a crowded environment. "When I first discovered Eichler homes, I felt like I was in a mini Siheyuan," he said. "Even though the architecture and scales are not the same, the concept of having rooms arranged around a central courtyard is the same."

Similar courtyards can be found in many houses designed by the Southern California designer Cliff May, who often oriented his living spaces around a U-shaped courtyard. His inspiration was Spanish Colonial, not Asian, but the effect is similar.

Many of Palm Springs' modern houses, including those by the Alexanders, achieve similar privacy and outdoor living. People live in their outdoor rooms, sitting by the pool during the day and the fire pit at night, surrounded by walls that screen out their neighbors and provide instead views of the distant hills.

One parallel between Japanese and California modern architecture is an emphasis on rustic simplicity. Much of what we think of today as the 'Japanese home' evolved from the 16th Century Sukiya style. Sukiya, which means abode of refinement," used rough-hewn wood but elegant detailing to produce what Kazuo Nishi and Kazuo Hozumi, authors of 'What is Japanese Architecture?' call "unimpeded relaxation in the midst of nature." How very Californian.

Several modern California architects designed houses that resemble Japanese houses. In Northern California, some of Gardner Dailey's houses from the '40s and '50s took on an explicitly Japanese look, and John Hans Ostwald designed several Japanese-style pavilion houses in the 1950s and '60s. In Southern California, Harwell Harris's Japanese influence can be seen in the 1933 Lowe house in Altadena, with sliding shoji screens.

To find American architecture that pays as much attention as Japan to expressive woodwork and a dominating roof, you can look at bungalow builders Greene and Greene of Pasadena, or such later, Northern California architects as Jack Hillmer or Warren Callister. Several of Callister's homes from the 1960s to the '90s show explicit Japanese influence, with shoji-style screens and 'tokonoma' nooks for the display of art objects.

It's not by chance that American artists began turning to Japan in the 1950s. Several popular books, including Norman F. Carver's 1955 book-length photo essay, "Form and Space of Japanese Architecture," were spreading the word.

Ironically, even as Carter was urging that homes based on its precepts be built in the United States, the traditional Japanese house was disappearing in Japan. As the economy improved after the war, Japan adopted Western styles of living. Today, few Japanese live in traditional homes.

On his last visit to Japan, Imada visited a collection of model homes, each built by a different developer -- all very Western. But each had one traditional Japanese-style room, with a tatami floor and a tokonoma. A bit of history remained. "There's always some view of a little garden," Imada said, "and the feeling at the entrance was still very much the feeling of a traditional home."

Photos: Ernie Braun, Kathi O'Leary Photography