Design Pilgrimage: Alden B. Dow Home and Studio
A midcentury playhouse imagined by one of the movement's most talented pioneers
I know this seems like a long way to travel and possibly esoteric, but I promise you, if you appreciate modernist, colorful, clever, thoughtful, playful, original design, this house museum is not to be missed. In 1937, a prolific yet largely unknown architect named Alden B. Dow designed a 20,000-square-foot masterpiece in Midland, Michigan for his own family. It opened to public tours in 1992 (less than a decade after his death), and all these years later, it still feels wholly inventive, like nothing before and nothing since—a singular work of playful architectural genius.
I wrote about this magic midcentury home for The World of Interiors a few years ago, and it was photographed by the incomparable NYC design photographer Annie Schlechter (with the exception of the photo directly above, all photos are from that feature). It is a marvel of a place, and her stunning photographs perfectly capture its spirit.
Alden and his wife Vada had three children, and I loved hearing stories about how they treated the house as a literal playground, scaling the roof to fly kites or climbing up the bedroom built-ins to jump onto the bed. Even though so much of the furniture and design (Herman Miller, Harry Bertoia, George Nelson, etc) is considered iconic now, nothing was considered precious then, and Dow's playfulness is on display in every corner.