Starting in the late 1930s, the Outer Cape attracted some of the prime movers of modern architecture, including Bauhaus luminaries like Marcel Breuer, as well as self-taught American design-builders. This group made homes for themselves in the splendid isolation of the remote ‘back-shore’, creating a vibrant creative community. Some of these houses were eventually abandoned and slated for demolition. To date, Cape Cod Modern House Trust (CCMHT) has leased and restored four these. This lecture from Peter McMahon, the Founding Director of CCMHT, will explore this history, and current efforts to revive and re-imagine the legacy.

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Peter McMahon is the Founding Director of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, incorporated in 2007 to archive, restore and celebrate the Outer Cape’s outstanding modern architecture and the creative culture that surrounded it.

 

He is co-author, along with Christine Cipriani, of Cape Cod Modern. Mid-Century Architecture and Community on the Outer Cape, (2014, Metropolis Books) winner of the Historic New England Book Prize, 2015.

 

His design practice, PM Design, focuses on sustainable, modern architecture and restoration of mid-20th century buildings. His summer house in Wellfleet has been published in House Beautiful and Outside Architecture. 

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