Field Conditions

"Like the chambered nautilus, its shell was a logarithmic spiral. A wall of rough sandstone and aquamarine glass cullet twisted up fifty feet to an oil-drill-stem mast from which a floating roof was hung by the stainless-steel struts of World War II biplanes. You slid in with the humid air from the ravine outside to stroll a terraced garden of pools and plants, over which suspended and carpeted pods for living and sleeping drifted like clouds."

"It had just one wall. Where most houses frame rooms with multiple walls on facing sides, the Bavinger House was wrapped by a single wall that spun around you like a Möbius strip. It confounded our belief that inside and outside, front and back, here and there are distinct."

"Hand-built in 1950-55 outside Norman, Oklahoma, by the artists Eugene and Nancy Bavinger with help from students at the University of Oklahoma (where Gene taught), the Bavinger House was demolished in stages by storms and one of their sons between 2011 and 2016."

The Bavinger House, designed by architect Bruce Goff and hand-built by Eugene and Nancy Bavinger between 1950-1955 near Norman, Oklahoma, represents a radical departure from conventional architecture. The structure featured a single logarithmic spiral wall rising fifty feet, wrapped around suspended living pods and terraced gardens, creating a continuous space that challenged traditional notions of inside and outside. Built with unconventional materials including sandstone, glass cullet, and aircraft struts, the house functioned as a unified landscape rather than compartmentalized rooms. Demolished between 2011 and 2016, the Bavinger House exemplified Goff's innovative approach to architecture and remains difficult to capture through conventional description or documentation.

Read at Artforum