Peter McMahon
PM Design & Director Cape Cod Modern House Trust
"Cape Cod Modern"
Lecture: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 | 6:00PM | ARCH 132 DF Pray Lecture Theatre
Starting in the late 1930s, outer Cape Cod attracted some of the prime movers of modern architecture including Bauhaus luminaries and 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 the has leased and restored four of these structures and relaunched them as a platforms for study and new creative work. The lecture will explore this history, with a special focus on the current efforts to preserve and restore Marcel Breuer’s summer house.
Peter McMahon is the Founding Director of the (CCMHT), incorporated in 2007 to archive, restore and celebrate the Outer Cape’s important 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. He is currently engaged in the restoration of Marcel Breuer’s Wellfleet summer home, which CCMHT purchased in 2024 in order to preserve it from likely demolition. Recent lectures include: The Crowley Theater, Marfa Texas and the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC), Girona Spain. His design practice, , focuses on sustainable, modern architecture and restoration of mid-20th century buildings. His summer house has been published in House Beautiful and Outside Architecture.
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