A week on Cape Cod in September: On the very edge of America, a landing place for pilgrims and emigres. It was here that architects and designers from Europe arrived in the 1930s and 40s. Gropius, Breuer, Chermayeff all came here; some stayed and made homes. The architecture of the Cape is light, weatherboarded, simple construction and the Modernists adapted the vernacular to their own visions and tastes.
The beauty of the place lies in its mix of aspects and terrain – an inland facing shore and an ocean facing shore with dunes, woodlands, marshes, creeks and ponds between. Overlooking the ponds can be as peaceful as Thoreau’s Walden, but the ocean is another matter, facing out towards the old world. As Thoreau wrote: ‘I seemed to hear the sea roar, as if I lived in a shell, for a week afterward’.