Pillwood - Su Rogers and John Miller
Before Pillwood's conception, if one were to stand in its place, brush shoulders against dense forestry - walk beneath the canopy and paddle over a tidal creek they would discover a seminal architectural movement nesting in the brush.
Within the brush five minds, shortly to be four, in 1963, Richard Rogers, Su Rogers, Norman and Wendy Foster and Georgie Wolton - the often elusive founding member of Team 4 who allowed the practice to exist at all, painted an architectural blend between flavours of the 60s playful brutalism and the dawn of revolutionary high tech modernism. The final strokes revealed Creek Vean.
Inspiration partly drawn from American trips to works by Frank Lloyd Wright and the architectural liberation the US handed Richard, Su and Norman followed home to London where Wendy joined the gossip. From there to Cornwall their defining project as Team 4 took breath and exhaled over the once architecturally polite Britain. Similarly to Pillwood, Creek Vean's inception was also somewhat funded by a painted canvas - rather this time by grace of Piet Mondrian, a piece that was bought directly from the 1930s artist by Su's parents. A gift crafted in Paris which found its way to honouring another on a Cornish timber slope.
A decade later Creek Vean's once empty hillside view became home to the same thread of architectural scarcity.
Pillwood doesn’t represent architecture. It represents an amalgamation of something more. A home to have coined tangible creativity. Within the wake of Ben Nicholson’s own artistic expression both Su and John raise an eternal moment with tactility. A rendezvous with structural engineer Anthony Hunt to execute its fruition. As Creek Vean’s fanciful younger sibling, Pillwood absorbs a story that has trundled down a hillside and settled into the landscape with saturated colour. From its sharp mono pitched glass body draped in steel bracken painted green, unapologetic boisterousness inviting light, country, modesty, feeling, intimacy and a confidence to share its malleable core with those who inhabit the space. As Ab Rogers describes the home, son of Su and Richard, a "wondrous magical place" - a broth of material marination. It’s no wonder what represents Pillwood mirrors a man who revitalises the same. It was a gift from boyhood.
While boisterous with invitation Pillwood's form equally carries femininity. Nude in material selection. Delicate in silhouette. Intelligent. Deliberate. The first to use glass reinforced plastic walls residentially, creating a singular canvas of its own. The parchment like sliding walls within its dual storey interior to sedate evocative feeling. The panelled glass expanse revealing its whimsy within while sliced louvred vents allow the home to take a breath in between the glazing. The freedom from planning constraints in its construction. Nothing to dilute the voice of those who built it. The building itself is a creative. Its identity is firm. A trait passed from sibling across the creek.
Pillwood wears many hats - a glazed reflection of its surrounding wilderness, a thinker of delicate, malleable modern architecture with a high tech flair, a holiday home where memories are stored for family, a wondrous magical place.
To inhabit a home that rejoices in its occupation is a reward for both. The home to be lived in joyously while occupants shamelessly grin absorbing its visual fragrance.
To stay here is to accept the same terms of whimsy caught in a few square feet five decades ago.
Easy terms at that.
Photography - The Modern House
