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Modernist architect Rakatansky (1919-2014) began his ground-breaking practice in Providence following studies with pre-eminent Modernists Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius, who came from Germany’s Bauhaus school in the 1930s to Harvard, where Rakatansky received architectural degrees. This is one of a number of individually designed small-scale houses he designed in the first decade of his practice. All are characterized, like this one, by vertical-board siding, large sweeping planes that create dramatic and intersecting volumes, and ample light through abundant fenestration. Carefully planned but unformulaic, these houses provide comfortable, unpretentious, and thoroughly livable residential spaces that remain, as described around the time this house was built, “as modern as tomorrow.” 

— 2012 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook

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© 2025 Guide to Providence Architecture. All rights reserved. Design by J. Hogue at Highchair designhaus, with development & support by Kay Belardinelli.