Douglas House, Harbor Springs, Michigan. Designed by Richard Meier and constructed in 1973.

Dwell.com recently published an article by J. Michael Welton that discusses the restoration of Richard Meier-designed Douglas House by the home’s new owners.

Constructed in 1973, the Douglas House is, as Lissa Edwards notes, a “daring, liberating engineering and design feat that resulted in the internationally acclaimed.” Paul Goldberger, then-architecture critic for The New York Times, wrote in 1974 that the house was “the best example yet of Meier’s evolving style–and it is perhaps one of the most skillfully wrought pieces of American housing design in years.”

Photographs of the restored home, taken by Dean Kaufmann, can be viewed at the Dwell.com site.

General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan. SHPO National Register of Historic Places file photograph.

The State Historic Preservation Office of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to develop a National Historic Landmark nomination for the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, designed by Eero Saarinen.

The 2000 General Motors Technical Center National Register of Historic Places Registration Form can be downloaded here.

The RFP is available on the Bid4Michigan website.

Proposals are due on September 15, 2011 at 4 p.m.

UPDATE 8/22/2011:

If your company is a non-Michigan (foreign) entity that wishes to submit a proposal in response to the RFP for the General Motors Technical Center National Historic Landmark nomination, you do NOT need to have an office in the State of Michigan as indicated on page 2, II. Required Qualifications (E) of the RFP. Your company does need to submit a Certificate of Status from the Michigan Department of Economic Growth that shows they are authorized to do business in Michigan.

Firms that have been approved for the MSHDA RCQ for Technical Assistance for Cultural Management 2011-2012 list DO need to file a Certificate of Status form for the GM Tech RFP.

According to the descriptions, the two videos below were created by Alden B. Dow in the summer of 1933 at Taliesin. The narrator is William Wesley Peters.

The videos provide an intimate look into the casual side of life at Taliesin.

Note that the audio seems to go in and out on the Part 1.

Alden B. Dow Home & Studio. Photograph courtesy of the Alden B. Dow Home & Studio.

Here is your opportunity to “Be part of one of the “Coolest Homes in America“. The Alden B. Dow Home & Studio is “looking for enthusiastic people to help us share this National Historic Landmark!

If you are interested in architecture, the arts, and history, consider volunteering at the Alden B. Dow Home and Studio.

Volunteer docents give public and group tours and assist with educational programming and special events.

Contact Nancy Brooks-Siebert to learn more, or to register for our docent training session on June 7, from 10-11:30 am.”

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If you’ve an interest in Eero Saarinen or the development of corporate campus architecture and design, you may find this series of early videos enjoyable. Each video is approximately 10 minutes long, and they date from pre- through post-construction and provide nice views of the interiors of the buildings and furnishings (including many Saarinen designs). The first two are the most interesting.

One of the principles Eliel Saarinen taught his students was to consider an object in its next larger context. If you’ve not seen “Powers of Ten”, the Eameses demonstrate Saarinen’s principle beautifully in this video posted to YouTube by the Eames Office.

On Wednesday, March 23, Curbed.com posted an article by Sarah Firshein about the Frank Lloyd Wright-Designed Doroty Turkel House in Detroit. Originally designed the two-story house for Dorothy Turkel in 1956, the house is also an example of Wright’s Usonian Automatic style.

The Dorothy Turkel House, Detroit, Michigan. Michigan State Historic Preservation Office file photo (c. 1980).

The Dorothy Turkel House, Detroit, Michigan. Michigan State Historic Preservation Office file photo (c. 1980).

Firshein’s article features an interview with the current owners of the Turkel House, Norman Silk and Dale Morgan. The owners discuss how they approached the restoration of the house, and what it’s like (not) living in a “fish bowl”.

Check out the full article here.

You can see more photographs of the house at HourDetroit.com and at Flickr.com.

This photo provides an idea of the scale of the interior.

Author, designer, engineer, futurist, and inventor – just a few words that describe the dynamic R. Buckminster Fuller.

On January 13, 2011, the New York Times featured a piece written by Eve M. Kahn regarding a new Fuller documentary, The Last Dymaxion: Buckminster Fuller’s Dream Restored, by Noel Murphy.

The film’s companion website explains that:

Filming took place over one year and tells the story of the world’s first green car, the Dymaxion Transport, and the story beyond. Noel Murphy traveled to England and Spain, as well as all over the United States, doing research and filming. He talked to everyone from Jay Leno to Lord Norman Foster, (the world’s top architect and Bucky student) and even Bobby Kennedy Jr. The New York Times has slated a article about “The Last Dymaxion” for the first week of January 2011. The film then goes on tour to be shared at a number of film festivals.

Ms. Kahn notes that the film “covers Fuller’s dark side as well as his innovations: his youthful heavy drinking, fondness for showgirls, expulsion from Harvard and a “near suicide attempt” by drowning in Lake Michigan”.

The trailer can be viewed or downloaded here.

Fans of George Nelson, Charles Eames, Herman Miller, and other mid-century modern designers and companies may be interested to know that Augusta-Richmond County Public Library in Augusta, Georgia, will be holding an online auction beginning on January 15, 2011, and ending on January 31, 2011.

Items available include a Nelson-designed desk, Eames-designed chairs, another Herman Miller desk originally purchased for the library’s first director, and much more.

The Augusta-Richmond County Public Library, seen in this image, opened in 1960 and was replaced in 2010.

An article in The Augusta Chronicle states that the library, now vacant, opened in 1960, and many of the items are those originally ordered in 1959.

Here’s a link to the video on YouTube (note you’ll find a number of other interesting WML? videos there as well):