Manitoga
originally published in volume 13
Photography & Writer_ Sofia Nebiolo
Our feet sunk into the deep moss as we squinted between the tree branches. Perfectly camouflaged, Dragon Rock House melts seamlessly into the lush green of the mid-July heat. Manitoga, the former home and 75-acre woodland garden of American industrial designer Russell Wright celebrates good design for living in creative harmony with nature. The 20th century modern home explores the appreciation of Japanese architecture and landscape design through scale, structure and details. After studying the site itself for many years, Wright hired architect David Leavitt to help him realise Dragon Rock. He felt that Leavitt, who had worked in Japan with Antonin Raymond, shared his appreciation for design. From the outside it is almost impossible to tell the scale of the home.
The structure is built into the side of the quarry and the living roof plays an illusion on the eyes when staring across the “pool” which Wright created by redirecting a stream to the quarry pit to create a place to swim for his daughter Ann. The structures function as a family home as well as a studio for Wright, who has been coined with shaping modern American lifestyle through his everyday product design. In 1959 he had sold over 200 million pieces of his American Modern silver wear design, that was manufactured by Steubenville Pottery Company. He began to live full time at Dragon Rock in 1960 when the house was completed. Using natural and newly invented synthetic materials of the time, Dragon Rock is what Wright calls, “an exaggerated demonstration of how individual a house can be.” Large expanses of glass allow the outside in and the inside out, making the 30- foot waterfall and surrounding landscape a more entertaining accessory than any television.
Wright continues to bring aspects of the outdoors in when he uses a large cedar tree trunk as the main structural support of the house but also a design element. He also uses pine needles embedded in green plaster throughout the living room area as well as butterfly wings pressed between translucent plastic for a bathroom door. Manitoga is just about an hour north of New York City, in a small town called Garrison. Wright was inspired by the legacy of the Wappinger people or the ancestral residents of the lands and called his emerging vision “Manitoga”, or Place of Great Spirit. As important as the concept and design of the house and studio were to Wright, so was the surrounding woodlands. He wanted to focus on creating a deep connection with nature and human and this is reflected in the interactive nature of his gardens. Along each path, the landscape and its themes unfold, revealing conscious thought and movement interacting with the natural fauna, shadows and tension of the land. As we can often feel alienated from nature in our ever-expanding concrete jungles, Wright’s sentimental and inclusive outlook from over fifty years ago continues to inspire and evolve our consciousness of its importance.
