Rowdy Meadow

Rowdy Meadow

Rowdy Meadow, a Czech Cubist-inspired house designed and decorated by PPA in Ohio, is a complete work of art, encompassing architecture, interior design, decorative arts, an important contemporary art collection, landscape architecture and a sculpture park. Set on a high plateau, it sits above a ravine that wraps dramatically down to a valley of horse farms below. Drawing on the American Arts & Crafts tradition, the house has stucco walls, stone details, and a slate roof; the design uses strong symmetries on all four sides and each facade has a particular variation of the forms of the house, with each slightly different but still relating to the others. While the house is symmetrical in plan and symmetry rules the rooms, from the massing to the smallest detail, PPA’s design also embraces the crystalline aesthetic of Czech Cubism, an ephemeral period distinguished by its exploration of prismatic forms which was a precursor to German Expressionism and Art Deco and best exhibited by the works of Josef Gočár, Vlastislav Hofman, Pavel Janák, and Emil Králíček. What is in its parts a house of tremendous complexity, it is made to feel simple and calm by the mastery of the language of this style. The program includes a double-height library with a sculpted cubist ceiling, an octagonal foyer lined in Venetian Smalti mosaic, and a study executed in parchment and bronze by the French artist Ingrid Donat as well as Czech Cubist hardware that PPA designed expressly. In other spaces, including the basement gallery, PPA shaped the rooms and walls to display of an ever-evolving art collection and decorated them to highlight the client’s extensive collection of decorative arts and furnishings. The house and grounds, designed by Reed Hilderbrand, which includes a sculpture park with works by Sol Lewitt, Richard Serra, Ai Weiweim and Andy Goldsworthy, among others, will eventually be donated to the Cleveland Museum of Art; this project is also the subject of the book Rowdy Meadow: House, Land, Art, published in 2021 by Vendome Press. 


Peter Pennoyer Architects