Modern Furniture

Robert Venturi – The Lieb House goes down the river.

The house floating up the river was well known to many in the crowd, but Samantha Aezen was one of the few who could call it home.

The Lieb House, a beach cottage designed by a prominent Philadelphia architect that has been widely studied as a model of modernist architecture, was nearly torn down. Instead, on Friday, the house continued its unusual interstate journey, plodding up the East River on a barge, destined for a new resting place in Glen Cove on the North Shore of Long Island.

The spectacle attracted a throng of about 150 onlookers to the third floor of Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, including the 83-year-old architect, Robert Venturi, who designed the house in 1969 for Nathaniel and Judy Lieb. The Liebs had it built near the northern tip of Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore. The current owner of the property planned to demolish the structure, prompting the unusual rescue effort, which involved selling the house to an owner willing to relocate it.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/nyregion/14lieb.html?hp