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"View Slideshow\n\nThe notion that classicism and modernism are antithetical design modes is more of an attitude than an architectural fact. Since the advent of modernism, early this century, discussion about their differences has polarized classicism and modernism, emphasizing points of disagreement.\n\nIn a recent interior renovation for a 1920s Fifth Avenue duplex, New York architect Robert A. M. Stern uses classical elements in spaces that have an open, and sometimes flowing, modernist character. While the forms are clearly classical, Stern abstracts them from their precedents and generalizes them. The results are clean, rather uncommitted modernist forms that contrast with some of the Italian Renaissance details remaining from the original apartment.\n\nAs a contemporary architect using classical forms, Robert Stern does not reject the best lessons of modernism, but selects from the two traditions, interpreting elements of one with a sensibility affected by the other. He establishes this classicist/modernist ambiguity at the outset, in the entryway. Situated many floors above, the entryway is inside the building, but the architect design it, and the following spaces, for an openness intended to imply the out-of-doors.\n\nThe suggestion of outdoor space in the entryway is reinforced by a view of a staircase surfaced in rusticated marble, leading to the second floor, and of a light-filled, voluminous living room. Stern says, \"From the entrance to the first glimpse of the stairs, to the full discovery of the living room, there is a sense of anticipation that is heightened by the view.\"\n\nThe architect carefully modulates the passage into the living room area and between other rooms by an ordered procession of classical forms. Split columns create frames or gateways between the plan's major areas, helping to establish an ordered series of transitions. The pronounced horizontal wall moldings and a built-up cornice discipline a fluid progression. The horizontal coursing divides the rooms vertically into a continuous tripartite base, shaft and capital. All the secondary rooms\u2014closets, powder rooms, service areas\u2014are concealed behind walls designed to impart a feeling of solidity. The recessed lighting traces the architectural shapes. \"The architecture,\" he explains, \"is built on a human perception basis. From the floor, to the chair railings, to the cornice molding, the eye is constantly building, satisfying itself.\"\n\nStern accentuates the outdoor quality of the living room by giving the room the light and space of an outdoor Italian piazza. The floor-to-ceiling windows are framed by heavy pilasters and set in deep pockets with balconies that give the room added depth. The city outside is visually accessible, but does not intrude.\n\nThe grand space, however, does not overwhelm the rest of the apartment. The sitting room across from the entryway, and the dining room, directly on line with the living room, share the same architectural elements. Though the forms are less pronounced, they are formally and spatially related to the living room without being competitive. The architect has modified the architectural treatment of the dining room so that it almost equals the size of the living room, yet remains more intimate. Windows are not dropped; the thick frame moldings are truncated, and the lighting at the capitals creates a more domestic scale. The dining room is both a room in itself and a part of the whole. Stern achieves a flexibility usually identified with modern space, without sacrificing the formal sense of shelter and privacy of the classically defined room.\n\nThe architect's horizontal ordering system of moldings and cornices, broken by split columns, has a comparably disciplined vertical equivalent in the impressive marble staircase. Like the entryway, the stairway has a bank of glass block illuminating the passage. With the light and the subtle rustication, this staircase continues the interplay between interior and exterior\u2014a proper connector between the piazza living room and the private living areas upstairs.\n\nIn the master bedroom, Stern adapts the public forms to this private context. Here, and in the children's wing, a general discipline and stylistic order are applied, but the architecture is never literal or solemn. It encourages the life of the home. Stern elaborates: \"Any live language is capable of carrying meaning from generation to generation while, at the same time, it can interact with the vernacular of the present moment. Classicism is simply a means of expression that is satisfying for both the architect and the observer, because it resonates with meanings that the more vernacular language of our own time seems to lack.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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