Steven Holl and Others Imagine Olana's Summer House

Concept sketches by Diana Balmori, Adriaan Geuze, Steven Holl, Laurie Olin, Margie Ruddick, Ken Smith, Hayes Slade, and other primarily New York-based designers are on display at Olana in the exhibition Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana's Summer House. The exhibition was spurred by the mystery around the design of what's labeled "Summer House" on Church's son's 1886 plan for the 250-acre estate. Church designed the main house with a mix of Victorian architectural elements and Middle-Eastern decorative motifs, but, "there is no documentary evidence to support what Olana's summer house looked like," according to co-curators Mark Prezorski of the Olana Partnership and Jane Smith of the architecture firm Spacesmith.

The invited designers, therefore, were given free rein to imagine what Olana's summer house could be today, with most designing pavilions rather than summer houses and a few looking to the impressive site's 19th-century vernacular for inspiration. Classical architect Peter Pennoyer's design, for instance, is a colorful design inspired by Mughal follies and other traditional structures, while landscape architect Laurie Olin's sketch is a circular bench capped by a large retractable umbrella under which Church would no doubt have enjoyed painting. That said, most of the sketches depart from the historical and explore contemporary expressions for the summer house.

Architect Steven Holl, with one of his signature watercolors, envisions a temporary construction of scaffolding and fabric skin that lifts people above the trees to take in views of Olana's lake and the Hudson River. Although a significant departure from the style of Olana, the design's lightweight kit of parts would be easily buildable – and demountable – meaning its mark on the landscape would be minimal. The design by Hayes Slade (with James Slade and Matt Fisher) of New York's Slade Architecture, on the other hand, is deeply integrated into the site. The two-layer, circular design berms partially in the landscape to provide a pool in the summer and a skating rink with hearth in the winter. Slade's beautiful presentation accentuates the design's features while embodying the essence of Church's landscape paintings.

Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana's Summer House is on display at the Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, until 13 November 2016.