Triangle Modernist Houses

Compiled by George Smart, Jr.                                                          

EDUARDO FERNANDO CATALANO
(1917-)

Catalano is an Argentinian architect who taught at the NCSU School of Design in the 1950's.  He left to teach at MIT from 1956 to 1977.   HIs buildings include the US embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in Pretoria, South Africa and the Juilliard School of Music at New York City's Lincoln Center.  He closed his practice in 1995 and now lives in Boston.

After the untimely death of Robert Burns, his former student and employee, Catalano donated $200,000 to the NCSU School of Design in his honor.  In 2002, Catalano came out of retirement to design the "Floralis Generica" sculpture in Buenos Aires, left, a gigantic metal flower with 6 motorized 20-etre-high petals that open on special occasions.

1954 - The Eduardo Catalano House,  1467 Ridge Road, Raleigh, the coolest house ever designed in North Carolina and perhaps all of America.  It is also referred to as the Ezra Meir House and the Potato Chip house because of the swooping hyperbolic paraboloid roof.   Catalano drew this 1700 square foot home for himself but only lived there a few years.  The design was highly publicized as the "House of the Decade" by House and Home Magazine in the 1950s and was praised by the rarely praising Frank Lloyd Wright.  As with most modernist houses in Raleigh, it was built by Frank Walser.  It is the only house Catalano designed in North Carolina.  Aerial shot, below, taken in the 1990's.  You can see the roof on the left side, at the end of the dirt road.

Catalano sold his masterpiece to engineer Ezra Meir and his wife Violet in September 1957.  The Meirs sold it to William and Bettie Hinnant in December of 1966.  The Hinnants sold it to Raleigh attorney Arch E. Lynch, Jr. in May of 1978.  Lynch lived there until approximately 1996.  From 1996 to 2001, the house was unoccupied.  Vandals, storms, lack of heat, and neglect made the house rapidly deteriorate.  The roof rotted in sections over time.  It would have taken tens of thousands of dollars to repair, if repair were even possible. Eventually the damage was too extensive to fix for any reasonable amount of money.

Preservation North Carolina bought an option on the house and tried unsuccessfully to sell it for $360,000 to anyone who would rebuild the same design.  Lynch sold to developer JBar Associates in March of 2001.  The house was destroyed later that month.  JBar Associates, owned by Andrew Rothschild and Jonathan Bluestone, has since built three large houses there, including this one:

Picture Gallery:

The Catalano House in its heyday.   Last two photos by Ezra Stoller.

Shortly after its destruction, Catalano unsuccessfully lobbied to have just the roof rebuilt on the grounds of the NC Museum of Art.  In early 2005, he proposed a gift of $1.5M rebuild the roof as part of a central campus Pavilion plan.  Alas, strong faculty opposition caused him to withdraw.  NCSU hired an architectural firm to evaluate seven other alternative sites but the narrowmindedness of NCSU's faculty committee kept Catalano and his donation in Boston. 

To see a Catalano-style house that not only survived but flourished, go to Jim Evans.