Big Duck

The Big Duck is a ferrocement building in the shape of a duck. Located in Flanders, New York, the building was originally constructed in Riverhead, and has been moved several times to various locations on eastern Long Island. The building is well known for its distinctive appearance, and it inspired the word "duck" to be commonly used in academic literature to refer to either buildings shaped like everyday objects or excessive ornamentation used in graphical presentations of data.

It was originally built in 1931 by duck farmer Martin Maurer and used as a shop to sell ducks and duck eggs. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. It is a principal building on the Big Duck Ranch, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

History
The Big Duck is a duck-shaped building in Flanders, New York, 18 by 30 ft and 20 ft tall to the top of the head, enclosing 11 by 15 ft of interior space. The building was designed in 1931 by duck farmer Martin Maurer; shaped like a Pekin duck, it was intended as a farm shop as well as for publicity. Reportedly, Maurer was inspired by a building in the shape of a giant coffee pot which he had seen during a trip to California.

Maurer hired local labor for the construction job; carpenter George Reeve, along with William and Samuel Collins, brothers who have been described as "eccentric stage show set designers". A live duck was used as a model, and a cooked chicken carcass was consulted to ensure an anatomically accurate structure. After the wooden framework was complete, wire mesh was added and covered with cement, a building method known as ferrocement.

The duck's eyes were originally made from Ford Model T tail lights, which glowed red at night. These were later removed and stored at the Suffolk County historical archives. , the original lights had been reinstalled.

The Big Duck opened for business in June 1931 and was featured on the Atlas Cement Company's promotional calendar that year. The November 1932 issue of Popular Mechanics covered the building briefly, noting that it contained a salesroom and an office and sat on a foundation of concrete blocks. A miniature version was installed at the 1939 World's Fair by the Drake Baking Company. In 1939, there were about 90 duck farms in Suffolk County, with many concentrated in the area around Riverhead and Flanders. By 2019, only a single farm was left; the Crescent Duck Farm which had opened in 1908 in Aquebogue.

Relocations


The building was originally constructed in 1931 on West Main Street (New York State Route 25) in the Upper Mills section of Riverhead. In 1937, Maurer had the building lifted from its foundation and relocated from its original Riverhead location to his new duck ranch in Flanders, 4 mi away.

The Big Duck closed as a store in 1984. Four years later, the Suffolk County Department of Parks and Recreation acquired the building and moved it to Sears-Bellows Pond County Park, between Flanders and Hampton Bays and repurposed it as a gift shop operated by the Friends for Long Island Heritage.

In 2004, a proposal was made to move the duck to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Bohemia, with the move estimated to cost at least $60,000. It was claimed that this would both increase the number of visitors and help publicize the airport's new terminal building. The move to the airport never happened and the building was returned to its original Flanders location on October 6, 2007. Suffolk County continues to own it, maintains its interior, and pays for staffing while the Town of Southampton maintains the exterior. The original 27 acre duck farm was purchased by the town in 2006.

Legacy


Buildings such as this are classified as novelty architecture. However, in architecture the term "duck" is used more specifically to describe buildings that are in the shape of an everyday object to which they relate. According to the Long Island newspaper Newsday, "The Big Duck has influenced the world of architecture; any building that is shaped like its product is called a 'duck'."

Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information uses the term "duck", explicitly named after this building, to describe irrelevant decorative elements in information design:

"When a graphic is taken over by decorative forms or computer debris, when the data measures and structures become Design Elements, when the overall design purveys Graphical Style rather than quantitative information, then the graphic may be called a duck in honor of the duck-form store, 'Big Duck.' For this building the whole structure is itself decoration, just as in the duck data graphic."

The Big Duck was the target of widespread criticism during the 1960s and early 1970s, but the building did have its defenders. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown said that "Sometimes the building is the sign" and noted that this building – which they referred to as "The Long Island Duckling" – was a "sculptural symbol and architectural shelter". They used the term "duck" to refer to "a special building that is a symbol", as differentiated from a "conventional shelter that applies symbols", which they called a "decorated shed".

On November 13, 2006, radio station WBLI rated the Flanders Duck first amongst the seven wonders of Long Island. In 1997, The Big Duck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, joined by the Big Duck Ranch in 2008.