goodman house architecture

Updated January 17, 2022 ... click on images to enlarge

"Well-building hath three conditions:  Commodity, Firmness, and Delight."
 - Sir Henry Wotton, 1624, adapted from Vitruvius, 15 BC

"Charles M. Goodman Associates, A.I.A., is the prominent architect of the First Village hillside cluster. Groups of townhouses have been arranged around intricately paved terraces,which in turn are leveled into a wooded hilltop. The Goodman Houses overlook the Village Center and Lake Anne. Sharp changes in roofline, varying sizes, and contrasting textures accented by vivid colors contribute to a townhouse setting of great beauty. A variety of designs and facilities include 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms, rooftop terraces, balconies, playrooms, private studies, family rooms and recreation rooms. There is underground garage parking or carports for some models, large parking areas for others. Landscaped pedestrian paths, completely free of traffic, lead to shops in the Village Center, schools and recreation facilities. The Goodman Houses are an ideal application of contemporary townhouse design to a naturally wooded site."
- Reston sales brochure

" ... More than any other individual, Charles M. Goodman brought modern architecture to mid-twentieth-century Virginia.  A figure of international stature, Goodman's impact can scarcely be measured ... .  His designs formed the basis of the generic Modern American house and school, widely imitated in every part of the country. ... The result was a body of architecture of great distinction that captured Americans' imagination for many years. ... "
- Richard Guy Wilson, The Making of Virginia Architecture, 1992

"urban townhouse living in the country at RESTON ... Contemporary in style, these townhouses are by Charles M. Goodman Associates.  They are available in two, three, or four bedroom arrangements, and the variety of designs include rooftop terraces, balconies, playrooms, private studies, family rooms, and recreation rooms.  Some models have underground parking facilities, some carports."
- Reston sales brochure


"Charles M. Goodman Associates ... Only 1,500 feet from the village center, this cluster of 90 homes in three "blocks" capitalizes on the contoured terrain and a wooded dell.  The houses are linked by a network of pedestrian paths.  Houses are sited to offer a variety of vistas of open space."
- Reston sales brochure

" ... The dreams which accompany all human actions should be nurtured by the places in which people live. ... Without dreams, the other two forces which delimit choice (what we can afford and what is available) are not, as they should be, challenges that spark the imagination.  They are simply the dreary material limits which shape our world. ..."
- Charles W. Moore, FAIA, The Place of Houses, 1974

" ... Goodman's last major local residential commission took him back to the familiar ground of the woods, to what was then rural Reston, Va., where, in 1962, developer Robert Simon created an artificial lake and the seeds of a planned community. The first grouping of housing was given to Goodman to design.  In his Hickory Cluster town houses, Goodman built large concrete frames that could be bricked in, glazed, or left open as patios. From the most public side—the parking lot—the attached units appear as one undifferentiated, uninviting mass of brick and concrete. But the side of the building opposite the parking lot is a glazed wall facing the woods behind. From the forest path at night, the modules of Hickory Cluster glow with warmth.  When they were completed in 1964, they sold slowly. Modernism's limited domestic moment was over by then, its image in the consciousness of the home-buying public poisoned by the style's ugly domination of other aspects of life. The design was also more challenging to the common taste than the earlier Goodman developments had been. Predictably, many of Hickory Cluster's residents are artists, graphic designers, and architects, who seem to have been conditioned to the glass box in advance of living in one.  The largest unit in the cluster, for instance, was recently purchased by stained-glass artist Brenda Belfield and her husband. The couple doesn't like to stay in one place too long. They'd done Old Town Alexandria and a house by the Chesapeake Bay, and they were looking for something less traditional. "What we want to achieve is simple, essential, bare," says Belfield. "Something that has clean lines to it and that releases your mind of all the clutter."  When the two of them toured the glass box in Hickory Cluster, they were ready to buy immediately. The unit was a ready-made art studio and gallery, not only because of the wide-open floors, but because of all the glass panes Belfield could replace with her own work.  It's not exactly what Goodman envisioned, but Belfield seems unconcerned. "For once," she says, "I'm going to have glass I can live with. ... "
- David Morton, Heart of Glass, Washington City Paper, 2003

OTHER GOODMAN INFORMATION RESOURCES
  Aluminum in Modern Architecture, Volume 1 ... 1956
  Life for Dead Spaces, The Dev't of the Lavanburg Commons ... 1963
  The People's Architects ... 1964
  Charles M. Goodman ... The Modernism Magazine
    Part 1, Winter 1998
    Part 2, Fall 1999
  Hollin Hills, Community of Vision ... 2000
  Heart of Glass ... Washington City Paper, September 5, 2003
  Charles M. Goodman ... Montgomery County MD Planning Dept., 2004
  Robert C. Lautman Photography Collection ... Nat'l Bldg Museum, 2009
  Housing Washington ... 2010
  Covert Capital ... 2013
  The Charles Goodman Project ... Nat'l Bldg Museum, 2013
  Charles M. Goodman Archives
    Prints and Drawings ... Library of Congress, 2013
    Photos, Drawings, Model ... National Building Museum, 2014
  An Uncommon Architect ... remnants of The Commons of McLean, 2015
  Midcentury Mecca ... Washingtonian Magazine, December 15, 2017
  Radical Suburbs ... 2019

OTHER LOCAL GOODMAN MULTI-FAMILY HOMES
  River Park Mutual Homes ... Washington, DC
  The Commons of McLean ... VA ... to be demolished, redeveloped

LOCAL GOODMAN SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES
  Annanwood ... Annandale, VA
  Burman House ... Chevy Chase, MD
  Crest Park / Hillandale, 1960 ... Silver Spring, MD
  Erlich House ... Bethesda, MD
  Ferris House, 1957 ... McLean, VA ... demolished 2009
  Gray Residence, Bulls Neck Road ... McLean, VA
  Garfinck House ... Silver Spring, MD
  Goodman Residence ... Alexandria, VA
  Hammond Hill, 1949 ... Wheaton, MD
  Hammond Wood, 1950 ... Silver Spring, MD

  Herndon Elwardstone, Herndon, VA
  Herndon Woods, Herndon, VA

  Hollin Hills, 1946 ... Alexandria, VA
  Hollinridge, 1958 ... Potomac, MD
  Homes House ... Chevy Chase, MD
  Jacobs House ... Chevy Chase, MD
  Lake Barcroft ... Fairfax County, VA
  Moran Residence, Chain Bridge Road ... McLean, VA
  Oak Forest, 1953 ... Vienna, VA
  Powell House, 1940 ... Forestville/Great Falls, VA
  Radebaugh House ... Silver Spring, MD
  Roberts House ... Bethesda, MD
  Rock Creek Woods, 1958 ... Silver Spring, MD
  Schlosser House ... Chevy Chase, MD
  Sevareid House ... Alexandria, VA
  Takoma Avenue, 1951 ... Takoma Park, MD
  Wheatoncrest, 1951-52 ... Wheaton, MD

OTHER RESTON COMMUNITIES BY NOTED MODERN ARCHITECTS
  Coleson Cluster ... Cloethiel W. Smith FAIA
  Golf Course Island Cluster ... Louis E. Sauer FAIA
  Heron House and Quayside Apartments ... Conklin Rossant
  Wainwright Cluster ... PARD Team Inc.
  Washington Plaza Cluster... Conklin Rossant
  Waterview Cluster ... Cloethiel W. Smith FAIA