Huxley in London after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), when Huxley was promoting the evolutionary biology of Darwin and scientific naturalism. Alexander and Elizabeth had seven children, which may have prompted them in 1878 to build the duplex in front of their home, The Bordley-Randall House, described in this series in Annapolis Home Magazine Vol. 2, No. 3.
The architecture of 86-88 State Circle celebrates the complexity of organic life. The building’s silhouette is asymmetrical and varies dramatically from different vantage points. Interior rooms seem to push and pull themselves into space as if they are responding to a force requiring their existence. The three-story front bay windows are dominating vertical elements. The narrow chasm between them further accents their
thrust into the sky. Each material of the house seems to have its own life. The brick foundation steps down in the front to support the vertical bay windows, and then moves around to the sides of the building and reaches up to the roof at the pediment over the stairs. Note the “room” above the entrance porch: it spans over half of the porch ceiling, and seems as if it has been pushed out from inside to create the space
necessary for its existence. Its two small windows make no attempt to match others in the house. They are the size they need to be, based on natural selection, not a contrived sense of symmetry or balance.
This is an excerpt from a column called On the Corner, part of series by Chip Bohl published in Annapolis Home Vol. 2, No. 4. The rest of the article will appear in my next post.
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