Catalano, Eduardo, 1917-

Eduardo Fernando Catalano, (1917-2001), taught at the Architectural Association in London until 1951 when he was recruited as a Professor of Architecture by Henry Kamphoefner for the North Carolina State University School of Design. In 1956, he moved to Boston and taught at MIT until 1997. The Eduardo Catalano House, aka Raleigh House, aka Ezra Meir House, originally at 1467 Caminos Drive (now Catalano Drive), was built in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1954 and destroyed in 2001. The three-bedroom house featured a 4,000 square foot roof which was a hyperbolic paraboloid, built of wood and only 2.5" thick. The roof was warped into two structural curves (similar to the shape of a shoehorn), with two corners of the roof firmly anchored to the ground and two corners soaring high into the air. Sheltered beneath the double-twisted roof was a square interior enclosed entirely in glass. The undulation of the roof provided openness in some areas and privacy and seclusion in others.

The $40,000 house was also called the Potato Chip house because of the swooping hyperbolic roof. Catalano built this 1700-square-foot home for himself but only lived there a few years. The design was highly publicized as the "House of the Decade" by House and Home Magazine in 1956 and was praised by Frank Lloyd Wright. As with most modernist houses in Raleigh, it was built by Frank Walser. It is the only house Catalano designed in North Carolina.

From the guide to the Eduardo Catalano Slides, [Between 1954 and 2001], 2002, (Special Collections Research Center)