Horace Gifford

Horace Gifford (1932 – 1992) was a celebrated beach house architect of the Sixties, Seventies and early Eighties. He led the modernist transformation of New York's Fire Island, in a career that produced sixty three homes across Fire Island and fifteen more further afield. These beach houses were a lesson in sustainable design before green building was in vogue. They are generally modest in size, artfully wedded to their sites and wrought in now-weathered cedar and glass. Gifford died in 1992 of complications from AIDS. Though critically praised and published during his lifetime, Horace Gifford was nearly forgotten until 2013, when architect and historian Christopher Rawlins published "Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction." Fire Island Modernist combines the genres of monograph, biography, and social history to describe the operatic arc of Gifford's life and times:

As the 1960s became The Sixties, architect Horace Gifford executed a remarkable series of beach houses that transformed the terrain and culture of New York's Fire Island. Growing up on the beaches of Florida, Gifford forged a deep connection with coastal landscapes. Pairing this sensitivity with jazzy improvisations on modernist themes, he perfected a sustainable modernism in cedar and glass that was as attuned to natural landscapes as to our animal natures. Gifford's serene 1960s pavilions provided refuge from a hostile world, while his exuberant post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS masterpieces orchestrated bacchanals of liberation.

— Excerpt from Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction by Christopher Rawlins

Gifford is proof that American Modernism wasn't a single austere style after all; it gave a public voice to a surprising range of communities and ideas.

— Alan Hess, author of Julius Shulman: Palm Springs and Oscar Niemayer Houses

Horace Gifford
Gifford circa 1960
Born	1932 Vero Beach, Florida
Died	1992 (aged 59–60)
Occupation	Architect
Years active	1960 - 1985

The injustice of Horace Gifford's early death was compounded by the fact that his important contribution to American domestic architecture of the 1960s and 70s has been overlooked by history.

— Paul Goldberger, Architecture critic for Vanity Fair and author of Why Architecture Matters

References

The quotes from Paul Goldberger and Alan Hess appear as blurbs on the jacket of Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction.

External links

• "Fire Island Modernist Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction | ARTBOOK 9781938922091". Artbook.com. 2013-05-20. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
• "Pines Modern". PinesModern.org. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
• Christopher Bascom Rawlins; Horace Gifford; Alastair Gordon. "Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction". Amazon.com. ISBN 9781938922091. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
• "DC Hillier's MCM Daily - Horace Gifford". Mcmdaily.com. Retrieved 2016-01-08.