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Dissertation by Elissavet-Maria Georgakopoulou/10136113
Name of Supervisor: Jeremy Gould
CASE STUDY HOUSES
Propaganda or necessity to suit a
Modern lifestyle?
Unpublished
Arco319/History and theory 3
BA (Hons) Architecture, University of Plymouth
Year: 2009/2010
Many of the most significant houses of this century...were
produced for exhibitions, publications, fairs, competitions and
journals...Even those houses that were built for actual clients derived
their main impact from their publication, before and after
construction. In this sense, it can be said that they are all exhibition
houses.”
1 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.64
CSH #24 (1961), Unbuilt, A. Quicy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons
Contents
Abstract.....7
1. Introduction.....9
2. The Program.....13
3. American Dream.....19
3.1 Post-war Dream House.....23
4. Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision.....27
5. Seductive Illustrations.....33
5.1 The Covers.....41
5.2 The Drawings.....43
5.3 The Photographs.....45
5.4 The Advertisements.....49
6. Conclusion.....51
7. Catalogue of the Case Study Houses.....56
8. Biographies.....64
9. Bibliography.....72
10. Illustration Credits.....74
CSH #20 (1958), Altadena, Buff, Straub and Hensman
7
Abstract
One of American’s most significant contributions to modern
Architecture was the Case Study Houses Program sponsored by
John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture magazine. Between 1945-1967,
thirty-six experimental prototypes were designed and the majority
built. Featuring some of the most important architects of generation.
The Program was a way of promoting the “good-living”, after War
World II, through large and clear illustrations like drawings,
photographs and advertisements that were launched in the
magazine’s pages. Arts & Architecture was not only read for
information, but also as a sourcebook. The Case Study House
Program had a wide impact to the public because of the new way
designing buildings, new materials and techniques. The Program did
not affect only the Americans, the influence spread around the
world. Few people had seen any of the work up close. Magazines
had to be the main source of information until after the end of the
fifties, but the impact of Arts & Architecture was increasingly being
multiplied by other magazines.
8 Introduction
GI Bill of Rights
Also called Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. United States legislation passed in 1944
that provided benefits to World War II veterans. Through the Veterans
Administration (VA), the bill provided grants for school and college tuition, low-
interest mortgage and small-business loans, job training, hiring privileges, and
unemployment payments. Amendments to the act provided for full disability
coverage and the construction of additional VA hospitals. Later legislation extended
the benefits to all who had served in the armed forces.2
1.1
Cover of Small Homes Guide,
12th ed., Spring 1944
1.2
Cover of Arts Architecture,
July 1945
2 G.I. Bill (of Rights), Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 28 Feb.
2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/536006/GI-Bill-of-Rights>.
9
1. Introduction
The entry of the United States into World War II caused vast
changes in virtually every aspect of American life. Many Americans
feared that the end of World War II and the subsequent drop in
military spending might bring back the hard times of Great
Depression. When the war ended, the United States was in better
economic condition than any other country in the world. The
automobile industry successfully converted from producing
armaments to producing cars, and new industries such as aviation
and electronics grew by leaps and bounds. Public policy, like the
GI Bill of Rights passed in 1944, provided money for veterans to
attend college, to purchase homes and to buy farms. A housing
boom, simulated in part by easily affordable mortgages, for
returning members of the military, added to the expansion. The
devastation wrought by six years of total war was viewed by many
architects and designers as both an enormous challenge and a
great opportunity for those associated with the pre-war avant-garde;
here was a real chance to built truly modern cities and towns with
high-rise housing and functional zoning, separating residential,
industrial and recreational areas.
A modified version of Modernist architecture, called “Contemporary”
had begun. The Contemporary post-war design was more generous
in its assessment of the public’s needs. Because Americans were not
ready to understand this new “philosophy” and type of design, they
preferred and were more comfortable with the traditional style of
architecture. For that reason numerous Modern architects started to
design modern houses and furniture. Also with articles in their
magazines and publications of “how-to” books and surveys of
contemporary practice, editors of architectural magazines were trying
to create climate for this new type of architecture in America. The
editor of the architectural magazine Arts & Architecture, John
Entenza, believed that “people would not really understand modern
architecture until they saw it, and they were not going to see it
unless it was built”.3
3 Steele, J., The Contemporary condition: Los Angeles architecture, London: Phaidon Press
Limited, 1993, p.48
10 Introduction
1.3
John Entenza
11
John Entenza had total faith in the ability of Modern architecture to
change American society in the way of living habits and he believed
that this type of architecture was for everyone. In January 1945, he
announced, in Arts & Architecture, the Case Study Houses Program.
The Program promoted the ideals of Modernism. It was a series of
experimental prototypes for low-cost housing, using standardized
mass production components. Born in a period of optimism and
anticipation after a decade and a half of economic depression and
war, it offered architects a chance to work on problems of family
housing and invited them to adopt the peacetime use of machine
technologies of prefabrications. The products that had been
developed for war, among them plastics, bonding agents, aircraft
glues, synthetic resins and new laminates, would now be adopted
for a new civil purpose. The Case Study Houses Program had a
wide impact on the public. Many have characterised it as
propaganda, whereas others have characterised it as a way of
promoting for the magazine and its architects.
12 The Program
2.1 Announcement of The Case Study House Program, Arts & Architecture, January
1945
2.2 List of the architects, Arts & Architecture, January 1945
13
2.3
Cover of Art & Architecture,
January 1945
2. The Program
The Case Study Houses Program was launched in the pages of Arts
& Architecture magazine and the announcement of the Program
appeared in the January 1945 issue. It is known as the most widely
studied effort to crystallize and popularize modern residential
architecture in an American context at midcentury.
Initially, Entenza selected eight architects or firms to design eight
houses. They were given a mandate to indentify and express the
characteristics of a new life-style that was seen to be desired by
post-war families in Southern California. The architects chosen were:
Thornton Abell, J R Davidson, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, Richard
Neutra, Ralph Rapson, Whitney Smith, Spaudling & Rex & Wustler &
Bernadi. Several of the architects involved the programme, such as
Richard Neutra and William Wustler, were already well established by
1940s, but the majority were relatively young and unknown. Charles
Eames, who built a house for himself with his wife Ray, and Eero
Saarinen, with whom he collaborated on a house for John Entenza4,
were still at the early stages of their careers. The architects were
free to choose old or new materials, although they had the
responsibility to demonstrate that a good house can be made of
cheap materials.
At first the drawings of the designs and then the photographs made
their appearance in the magazine’s pages with comments of the
architect5. Upon the completion of the houses, several weeks before
they were occupied by the new owners, the houses were completely
furnished with choice examples of modern furniture and open for
public viewing, like “showcases houses”6.
4 For CSH #8 & CSH #9 5 His reasons for his solution and his choice of specific materials 6 It has been estimated that over 350.000 people visited the houses. Travers, D., Arts &
Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh, 2008,n.p
14 The Program
2.5 CSH #10 (1945-1947),
Pasadena, Kemper Nomland
& Kemper Nomland, Jr.,
2.4 CSH #11 (1945-1946), Los Angeles, J. R. Davidson
2.6
CSH #18 (1947-1948)
Beverly Hills
Craig Ellwood
2.7
CSA #1 (1945-1948)
Phoenix, Arizona,
Alfred N. Beadle
& Alan A. Dailey
15
In the announcement, Entenza mentioned that the magazine would
be the actual client for the houses constructed in the Program but
he never explicitly abandoned that public posture. There was some
confusion, in practise. Entenza, and thus the magazine, was the
actual client in financial sense only for his own house, CSH #9, on
Cautauqua in the Pacific Palisades, designed By Charles Eames and
Eero Saarinen. In some cases, the actual clients and their precise
circumstances were known in advance of the design being
commissioned, as the CSH #11 on South Barrington Avenue, Los
Angeles, designed by J. R. Davidson, its clients were the advertising
manager of Arts & Architecture magazine and his family (fig.2.4).
Other designs were originally designed for imaginary clients and
went unbuilt because there were no clients and John Entenza either
did not have the money, or want to spend it. Before the designs
could be built, they had to await the architect finding a client and,
if deemed worthy, the project would be included in the Program.
Between the period 1945-1967 there are three phases of the Case
Study Houses Program. The first nine projects hold the attention of
critics for the inventions of the plan and their particular rapport with
the exterior (fig.2.5). The second phase consists of metal frame
constructions (1950-1960) (fig.2.6). The end of this phase was
announced by the return of wood structures and the generic post
and beam system of Los Angeles. The third and last phase of the
Program came after Entenza’s departure from the magazine (1962).
The Program suggested to architects that they pursue their
investigations with the creation of apartment blocks (fig.2.7).
All the Case Study Houses were a notable achievement in modern
residential design. One characteristic which all the houses shared,
particularly in the Program’s early phase, was technological
experimentation. In the 1950s Soriano, Koening, Buff, Straub and
Hensman were the primary innovators among the Program’s
contributors, experimenting with the structural application of steel
and the use of industrially fabricated plywood barrel - vaulted forms
as a major shaper of space. Sometimes this was embodied in the
actual structure of the building itself, as in the steel-framed houses
of Craig Elwood (fig.2.6), and sometimes in the choice of building
materials, as in Pierre Koenig’s use of steel decking (fig.2.8).
16 The Program
2.8
CSH #22 (1959-1960)
West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
2.9
CSH #21(1958-1960)
West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
2.10
CSH #20 (1958)
Altadena
Buff, Straub & Hensman
17
Their efforts were underpinned by the availability of industrial
materials in the technologically oriented context of Southern
California, where, in 1949, the Eames7 were among the first to
utilize off-the-shelf building components intended for commercial or
industrial uses in a residential building. The desire to experiment
was also reflected in the incorporation of new materials into the
interior, such as Formica on work surfaces and Naugahyde
upholstery on furniture. Likewise, the prevailing interest in technology
resulted in the installation of eclectic gadgets, such us automated
garage doors, hi-fi and television equipment and multi-purpose
kitchen appliances, such as the combined sink-cooker in CSH #21
(fig.2.9).
By the late 1950s, the Case Study houses, initially conceived as
low-cost, were becoming larger in size and for more affluent clients.
Moreover, the houses of the Program were about typical American
families-parents with children- rather than couples or professionals.
But according to the photographs being published only in few –more
specifically, only in three- of all Case Study Houses, have children
in them. For instance, in CSH #20, Bailey House (fig.2.10); we see a
child playing, and few toys around him, but this room does not
look-like a real child’s room. Eventually, the Program was expanded
to include thirty-four houses of which twenty-three were completed
before it ceased when Entenza sold the magazine by 1962.
7 Charles and his wife, Ray Eames
18 American Dream
3.1
“California’s Bold Look”, Life magazine,
June 14, 1954
3.2 “Coca-Cola”, 1951
3.3 “Good Taste Is Never Extreme”, advertisement for the 1959 Plymouth Fury,
Life magazine, February 9, 1959
19
3. American Dream
“America is not just the home of the Dream, but the Dream itself”
James Truslow Adams8
“It is the only nation that prides itself upon a Dream and gives its name to one”
Lionel Trilling9
The end of World War II set off two and a half decades of
prosperity in America, in which family income increased dramatically
and, equally important, the prosperity was shared across the social
spectrum. A great number of newly middle-class Americans were
uncertain about how to behave with the new-found wealth.
In the American Dream, citizens of every rank feel that they can
achieve a “better, richer and happier life”.10 According to the Dream,
this includes the opportunity for one’s children, to grow up and
receive American education and its consequential career
opportunities. Here was the opportunity to make individual choices
without restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic group. A
Dream of social order in which all citizens would be able to attain
the fullest stature for which they were innately capable, and be
recognized by others of what they are, regardless, of the fortuitous
circumstances of birth of position. It merely signifies self-determined
success, wealth, the “good life” of modish clothes, modern living,
cars, dining at great restaurants and dating beautiful young people.
Cars like the 1959 Plymouth model and other such the “dagger-
finned” Cadillac and the “swept-wing” Chevy, represented the
extreme point of decade trend in American consumer product
design toward ever greater dynamism of form and ever more
opulent expression of materials. They were festooned with crests,
contrasting colour insets, and other features that added to a
banana split.11
8 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,
p.6 9 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,
p.5 10 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,
p.3 11 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p. 209
20 American Dream
3.4
The movie “Gidget”
April 10, 1959.
The story centers on a peppy teenage girl who
penetrates the masculine world of surfing, learns to
“hang ten”, and falls in love, all in one summer.12
3.5 Cover of Playboy Magazine, 3.6 Cover of National
February 1959 Geographic Magazine,
March 1948
3.7 Frank Sinatra 3.8 Road Runner cartoon
12 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p. 220
21
Advertising, Hollywood and other forms of popular entertainment
provides a seductive view of idealized American lifestyle. Hollywood
musicals like West Side Story (1957), films like Gidget (1959), TV
serials like the Many loves of Dobie Gillis (1959), and advertisings in
magazines, such as, the National Geographic Magazine13, had
promoted the American culture and dream all around the world.
A modern use of “cool” represents the American Dream. “Cool is a
wannabe’s word”14. The concept of “cool” became the mark of
belonging and was associated with old ideas, about aristocracy and
good taste. The blue-jeans, ethnic clothing, fuzzy textures, layered
patterns, modern magazines, represented a total denial of cool. For
instance a cool magazine was the Playboy (fig.3.5), which was
founded in 1953 by its publisher Hugh Hefner. It was from its
beginning, a manual on showing taste and finding pleasure in a
world of mass affluence. “The magazine frequently flattered its
readers by calling them “cool cats” and it helped them to realize
that dream, by giving them advice on matters ranging from sex to
Scotch”15. “Cool was all sorts of things, many of them seemingly
contradictory. It was Peggy Lee singing “Fever” (1956), cool despite
its title, and Frank Sinatra smoking as he sang (1953). It was the
animated Roadrunner utterly indifferent to Wile E. Coyote’s obsessive
attempts to destroy him, created by Chuck Jones (1948)16. It
embraced the musical abstractions of Vivaldi and Paul Hindemith
along those of Dave Brubeck. It affected languor yet fixated on
detail. It pretended to be emotionless, but it was often sad.”17
From their inception, American self-images reflected the idea that
the past did not bind, one irrevocably fresh starts, could be made
tomorrow, promised to be better than today, and progress seemed
always to be possible.
13 First appeared in October 1888, edited by part-time volunteers, it contains articles about
Geography, popular science, world history, culture, current events and photography. 14 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p. 194 15 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.205 16 Jones said he created the Coyote Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional “cat
and mouse” cartoon.
http://looneytunes.warnerbros.co.uk/stars_of_the_show/wile_roadrunner/wile_story.html,
22/2/2010 17 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.195
23
3.1 Post-war Dream house
“This dream of the post-war house which so neatly combines the
future with the past has a familiar ring. Ever since the last war we
have been having dreams about the “house of the future” – dreams
which became particularly poignant during the depression. During the
war we changed the term to “post-war” house because the post-war
appeared to be safely in the future. Now that the post-war is here,
we are changing the term back again to “dream house” and “house
of tomorrow”.”18 Even before the war ended, ordinary people,
manufacturers and real estate developers had in their mind the
post-war house. It was something to think about, plan and hope for.
They begun to dream about what life after the war would be like,
and about where and how they could live. The returning soldiers
were to be the most changed, by the war experience, of all
Americans. The women’s magazines, spoke of women’s anxiety about
possible changes in their husbands, sons and boyfriends behaviour.
Until this period, magazine advertisements, had pictured the house,
as being an all-plastic house, an all-metal house, an all-plywood
house, self-dusting, self-heating, self-breathing, with an electronically
controlled kitchen, and steamless, sterilizing bathroom. The post-war
house has also been advertised as carrying forward the American
tradition of a Colonial House, an English house or a Spanish house,
each overstuffed with furniture to give the interior cosy, home-like
appearance. S. Robert Anshen said “In our dreams, these
contradictory characteristics have being combined quite logically and
normally into a sterile but cosy home, in which, moreover, expresses
our personality. I am, using personality in it pseudo-architectural
sense of being that peculiar combination of historical personae
which the mistress of the houses chooses to enact.”19
18 S. Robert Anshen, The postwar House and its materials, Arts and Architrcture, November
1945, p.43 19 S. Robert Anshen, The postwar House and its materials, Arts and Architrcture, November
1945, p.43
24 Post-War Dream House
3.1.1 “A Proper Dream House for Any Veteran”, published in House Beautiful,
January 1945
25
The most important thing for the soldiers was a comfortable and
practical home. At the same time, because in the war their lives
depended on technology and lived intimately with it, it has been
“necessary” to them. Because of the slow pace of construction,
some soldiers who returned from the war started to build their
houses themselves. This contributed to the rise of popularity of the
home workshop which became standard in their dream house. In
January 1945, same period with the announcement of the Case
Study Houses Program, another magazine, House Beautiful,
presented a two-bedroom house in Beverly Hills with a title “They
do dream of home...particularly a home of their own...here’s a proper
Dream House for any veteran”(fig.3.1.1). The article was highlighting
its decorative fences, its yard with fruit trees, its barbeque for
outdoor entertaining and its workshop attached to the garage. The
house was far from the street and its entry far from the living
areas. The magazine concluded “All of these plusses add-up to the
American ideal of good living – one of the ideals these veterans
have fought for, and which they can now look forward to attaining.”
“Most families want houses that are low and ground hugging instead
of high and boxy. They want at least three bedrooms and picture
windows. They want not imprisoning cells for living rooms, but
rooms big enough to relax in, entertain in and live in. Other desires
expressed were the possibility of indoor-outdoor living, no more than
one floor, a utility room and an attached garage.”20 Most Americans
had believed that a modern living was the purchase of new
appliances, the remodelling of an old, and gradual additions to the
small house that were all available to most people immediately after
the war
20 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the Case
Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 180
26 Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision
4.1
John Entenza,
Charles and Ray
Eames
4.2
Bullocks Wilshire,
Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles, California
(1929)
Architect: John and Donald
Parkinson
27
4. Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision
The Arts & Architecture magazine was best known, for the twenty-
year-long of the Case Study Houses Program, sponsoring new ideas
in residential design. According to the photographer Julius Shulman:
"A&A was instrumental in putting American Architecture on the
map".21
Arts & Architecture was formed in 1929 by a merger of Pacific
Coast Architect22, established in 1911. Architecturally it was devoted
to eclectic residential design-Tudor, Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean,
Georgian, and Californian amorphous.23 It preferred a classic style in
larger projects, and Art Deco (such as Bullocks Wilshire (fig.4.2), in
Los Angeles). In the 1930s issues ran from seventy to eighty pages
with lots of advertising. The editor was Harris Allen, and there were
familiar names among its contributors and advisors. By the Great
Depression the pages were reduced to thirty and afterwards it was
lead into bankruptcy, where John Entenza found it in 1938, and
transformed it into a mouthpiece for the Modern Movement in
America with an international profile.24 Entenza was the editor and
publisher of Arts & Architecture magazine. His ambition had been to
give a sense of reality to architectural thought. Although he had not
studied architecture, he became intensely aware of it when he was
young. He was interested in the Modern movement and dedicated to
presenting and furthering its precepts within the pages of his
magazine. Through the Case Study Houses Program, he was hoping
to bring the message home to people; that if they were going to
build a dream house it should by Contemporary rather traditional
style. He envisioned the Case Study effort as a way to offer to the
public and the building industry, models for low-cost housing in the
Modern idiom.
21 Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman, Rizzoli
International Publication, 1999, p.54 22 Architect’s name: unidentified 23 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,
2008,n.p. 24 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Lrgacy of the Case
Study Houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 16
28 Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision
California Arts & Architecture
The name of the magazine changed from California Arts and Architecture to Arts
and Architecture. There is a myth about that change; David Travers wrote: “The
story goes that California was dropped inadvertently from the magazine’s name by
the printer. It did disappeared from the cover of the September 1943 issue but
reappeared the next month. My belief is that the missing California was an
‘accident’ engineered by the wily advertising manager, Robert Cron, who must have
believed that there would be advertising advantages if Arts and Architecture went
national”.25 In any case, the word California was permanently removed from the
cover and masthead without comment in February 1944.
4.3 4.4
Cover of California Arts & Architecture, Cover of Arts &Architecture
April 1943 July 1953
4.5 Article about Art, Arts & Architecture, 4.6 Article about Music,
April 1954 Arts & Architecture, April 1954
25 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,
2008,n.p.
29
Ethel Buisson said that Entenza played the typical Hollywood role of
promoter and designer of Modern environment.26 The role of the
publisher was not solely that of an instigator builder, but also that
of a promoter of knowledge of, and appreciation for, an art of good
design that was close to the user and to architecture. After his
departure from the magazine in 1962, he would remark: “On the
whole I feel that Arts & Architecture has been a good client. At
least a patient client, and in some cases a long suffering one”.27
Arts & Architecture commitment to the scheme was never quite as
strong after his departure.
The format of the new Arts & Architecture was a slim volume,
monthly with a rich visual art coverage and modern layout that
recalled the format of Fashion magazines. It addresses modern
subjects; the articles included music, film and book criticism, as well
as features on modern art, architecture and interiors. “A magazine
as slim as a tortilla and as sleek as a Bugatti... became the
greatest source in the dissemination of information, architectural
and cultural, about California”28 A group of the highest integrity was
formed around John Entenza. Charles Eames (architect and
designer), Herbert Matter (photographer), Ray Eames, Harry and
Mercedes Carles (artists), and others - have put their talents and
efforts in a co-operative venture. Arts & Architecture tried to
generate new ideas and pass them along to the public. The
magazine was in the leading edge in architecture, art and music,
even in the larger issues of segregation in housing and education
and other manifestations of racial bias before they became codified
as civil rights.
26 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.15 27 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.234 28 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Lrgacy of the Case
Study Houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 16
30 Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision
4.7 Covers of Arts & Architecture, 1947
31
The Case Study Houses Program did not pop up in the magazine
as an isolated suggestion, it proceed, rather from a series of
speculations and proposals advanced, during 1945. Through the
“live” publications of the houses and by longevity, Arts &
Architecture and its publisher participated actively in the elaboration
and fabrication of a series of houses promoting “good living”.“Arts &
Architecture acted like sunshine on West Coast architects, who grew
and flourished under its rays.”29 Publications in magazine became a
door to national and international renown for West Coast Architects.
Reyner Banham said: “Arts & Architecture changed the itinerary of
the Grand Tour pilgrimage for European architects and students.
America replaced Italy and Los Angeles was its Florence”.30 The
magazine’s Los Angeles headquarters at 3305 Wilshire Boulevard
became the centre of Southern California architects with a common
cause, whose modest, low-cost, modern and remarkably efficient
designs laid the foundation of the Case Study Houses Program and
reinvented the single-family dwelling.31
29 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,
2008,n.p. 30Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,
2008,n.p. 31 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,
2008,n.p.
32 Seductive Illustrations
5.1 Charles Eames, Arts & Architecture, September 1946
33
5. Seductive illustrations
The graphic design production started during the late 1930s and
beyond World War II. It was characterised first and foremost by a
bias against the literal image in favour of a symbolic image, an
image that becomes a support or surrogate for a verbal idea. This
can be achieved using illustration or photography (or both), but in
fact the very use of an image synthesized from parts rather than
created “whole” signifies the conscious intervention and
interpretation of the designer.32 The role of the graphic artist,
delivering a visually styled rendition of someone else’s idea, was
replaced by a designer who has extended the concept and
transformed it into a visual message; “the “hired hand”33 has
engaged with an eye and brain”.34 Another visual signifier of this
new style, is the use of simplified typography which in the 1940s,
signified an architectonic approach to the composition of the pages
using a modernist, asymmetrical arrangement of type that placed
value on dynamics of motion and negative space, as opposed to a
reliance on the conventions of classical, symmetrical typography.
Arts & Architecture followed the houses of the Program from
inception to completion, illustrating the design and construction
process and listing all the materials and fitting specified.
Ethel Buisson wrote: “The Case Study House Program is portrayed in
Arts and Architecture magazine as if it were a television serial.”35
An “episode” of the Case Study House Program presented the CSH
8, Charles and Ray Eames house in Chautauqua Boulevard, Pacific
Palisades. The Eames house was the first to have real clients
(themselves) and a real site.
32 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.153 33 Meaning the graphic artist 34 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.153 35 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.35
34 Seductive Illustrations
In the December 1945 issue, the magazine announced the CSH 8
and CSH 9 (fig.5.2) –for the first and last time the magazine
announced two projects together. In the pages appeared the
drawings and the consideration about the projects.
5.2 CSH #8 and CSH #9, Arts & Architecture, December 1945
35
In the March 1948 issue, two pages with drawings and photographs
of the models of the same projects appeared in the magazine with
comments about the position in the site, the orientation and the
materials (fig.5.3).
5.3 CSH #8 & CSH #9, Arts & Architecture, March 1948
After four years, the name of the CSH 8 changed, into Case Study
House for 1949, and appeared alone, on one page, talking about
the site, with photographs (fig.5.4).
5.4
Case Study House for 1949
Arts & Architecture, February 1949
36 Seductive Illustrations
In March 1949, in two pages there are drawings and photographs
about the construction – Case Study House for 1949: the steel
frame (fig.5.5).
5.5 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, March 1949
A month later – April 1949 – in one page, there was a catalogue of
the companies that collaborated for the project (fig.5.6).
5.6
Case Study House for 1949,
April 1949
37
In May 1949, the final plan appeared (fig.5.7) and five months later,
the drawings of the interior (fig.5.8).
5.7 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, May 1499
5.8
Case Study House for 1949,
Arts & Architecture, September 1949
38 Seductive Illustrations
Between these months advertisements appeared on the pages about
the products, used for the project, like in July 1949, an
advertisement with title “Preview of some products merit specified
for 1949 Case Study House (fig.5.9).
5.9
Case Study House for 1949
Arts & Architecture, July 1949
The “episode” finished in December 1949, with photographs of the
finished
5.10 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, December 1949
39
5.10 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, December 1949
40 The Covers
5.1.1 Cover of California Arts &
Architecture, January 1937
5.1.2 Covers of Arts & Architecture, 1959
5.1.3
Cover of Architectural Review,
May 1955
5.1.4 Cover of Arts & Architecture, 5.1.5 Cover of Arts & Architecture,
December 1946 January 194
41
5.1 The Covers
The covers of the magazine were never an afterthought; the purpose
was to present good, contemporary design to the magazine’s
audience. We can see the difference from the early magazine’s
issues, before and after Entenza’s editorial. There is also a
difference not only with the previous issues of the magazine but
between other architectural international magazines. The difference
is that the covers in Arts & Architecture were very stylized, always
with a message to the reader. In December 1946, the cover carried
an image of a photo collage by Herbert Matter. A head in profile,
which contained the image of a mushroom cloud rising to fill the
brain cavity (fig.5.1.4): The “bomb in the brain” was a potent
representation of the overpowering presence of nuclear anxiety
initiated by the USA’s atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.36 Hebert Matter, a Swiss
photographer and a graphic designer, who immigrated to the United
States in the mid-1930s moved to Los Angeles in 1943 to work with
the Eames. In the pages of Arts & Architecture, the graphic design
that he did, is very important. Matter’s designs for covers of the
magazine invariably include photographic images, but the images are
almost always used as a cropped detail or set into another form,
as he did for the cover of the January 1945 issue. In this cover
(fig.5.1.5) a “night sky” is set into the monumental forms of Sans
Serif 45, announcing the first issue of the year. “Matter’s
superimposition of a Tinkertoy-like network of lines and dots,
creating a dynamic structure that both borrows from the “stars” and
dances with them creates a cover of unmistakable optimism that
still rings true”37. Other designers who worked in Arts and
Architecture adopted methods similar to Herbert Matter’s; covers by
Ray Eames, Alvin Lustig and John Follis, all utilize a free wiling
juxtaposition of photographic and handmade elements, though each
did this, her or his own specific way.
36 Crowley, D., Pavitt, J. (eds) Cold War modern design 1945-1970, London: V&A Publishing,
2008, p.101 37 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.156
42 The Drawings
5.2.1
CSH #1
J. R. Davidson
Toluca Lake Avenue,
North Hollywood
5.2.2
CSH #4 (1945)
Unbuilt
Ralph Rapson
5.2.3a Furniture Drawings
CSH #7(1945-1948),
San Gabriel Thornton Abell,
5.2.3b Detail Drawings, CSH #7, Thornton Abell, North Deerfield, San Gabriel
43
5.2 The Drawings
For the first time the drawings and then the photographs played a
fundamental role in the perception of architecture. “The house
became a living catalogue, a space that was both intelligent and
enlivened”.38 The drawings published in the magazine appeared as
an opportunity for the architect to express himself, and in some
cases to add humour, rigor and discipline. Most of the time, the
drawings are rendered in ink, which was less common in the United
States, where they are generally done in pencil. They are simplified
to allow them to be scaled down for the magazine’s page. The lines
of the plans have different weights, “entailing the frames to be
conveyed in different grey tones and different materials. Sometimes,
they are accompanied by a flat colour, which gives a rhythm to the
black and white pages of the magazine”.39 They explore different
techniques of traditional architectural representations; plans,
sections, elevations and axonometric rather than perspective
drawings. They also present pictorial characteristics, scenic
environments and the treatment of interior and exterior, like Julius
Ralph’s Davidson of CSH #1 (fig.5.2.1). The sketches are sometimes
funny, simple in their message and efficient, as the CSH #4
sketches (fig.5.2.2). The bird’s-eye perspectives recall views from an
airplane, echoing a still-present war economy.40 In the magazine’s
pages, drawings also appeared with structural details, details like the
foundations, frames and materiality, and drawings of the furniture,
as in CSH #7 (fig.5.2.3a,b,)
The program’s drawings are reflective of the original design of the
object and the history, in which the object exists, but not
necessarily in the original context.
38 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.226 39 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.252 40 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.252
44 The Photographs
5.3.1 Raphael Soriano at construction site, Case Study House for 1950 (1950),
Pacific Palisades
5.3.2 Photographer Julius Shulman, CSH #22 (1959-1960), West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
45
5.3 The Photographs
While the sketch perspectives explore those views that can approach
accentuated distorted perspectives, the published prints in Arts &
Architecture remain greatly influenced by the stability of architectural
photographs. The shift from paper architecture, to built architecture,
appears to be the necessary condition for convincing the readers,
manufacturers and architects to invent or invest in the concept of
post-war house. The photographs of the Case Study Houses are
varied and several types retrace the program adventure.
Contemporary photographs of the houses show them furnished in a
modern style and with the newest appliances available at the time.
Animated with characters like the builders and the architects, they
show their creation and assembly, and present in detail the invisible
architecture. Most of them are in black and white. The black and
white effect helped with the difficulties and the cost of the four-
colour printing but at the same time responded to the aesthetic
tradition of architectural photography. They scrupulously reproduce
the verticals of the building, testifying for the most part of the
architect’s intentions while underlying the simplicity of the structure.41
On the masthead of the Arts & Architecture was the photographer
Julius Shulman. In 1926, as an eleventh-grade student at Roosevelt
High School’s class in photography, “he became an avid amateur
photographer, rarely without his Vest Pocket Kodak”.42 Shulman gave
a currency to his architectural subjects and above all a sense of
the “new”. Joseph Rosa explains in his biography, his mission more
than capturing architecture, was to transit the modern image.43 He
covers the reporting of eighteen of the Case Study Houses. He
approached them as if he was doing a fashion shoot, preparing
their modernist interiors, hiring models and arranging furniture to
project the most effective scenes.
41 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,
p.254 42 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.33 43 Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman, Rizzoli
International Publication, 1999, p.52
46 The Photographs
5.3.3
CSH #22(1959-1960)
West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
5.3.4
CSH #21(1959-1960)
West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
47
“Shulman’s photographs of mid-century modernist houses have the
élan of Hollywood movies and their cinematic framing, minimal
decor, and fashionable inhabitants are in keeping with the ultimate
objectification of the house itself”.44 Indeed these houses function
like film sets, often framing spectacular backdrops – glorious palm
trees, cool pools, the Pacific Ocean and the city lights. Shulman
believed that including people makes the image more interesting.
Esther Mc Coy noted “Shulman was the only photographer I knew
who placed people in architectural photographs”.45 A photograph of
two stylishly dressed women, who are sitting in a glassed-walled
house, by Pierre Koenig, cantilevered over the lights of Los Angeles,
is his most famous picture (fig.5.3.3). For the critic Paul Goldber, this
image is “to midcentury modernism what Monet’s paintings are to
Gothic Cathedrals”.46 Through his images, he was “selling” the
houses as a finish product, to promote “good design”. His
photographs created the “American Image”. Shulman’s desirability of
“selling the subject”, functions by enabling the viewer to project
himself into the scene, “to participate as if he were in the room at
the same moment, and did not as a voyeur”.47 His mission, more
than capturing architecture through photographs, was to transmit the
modern image. The essence of modern lifestyle radiates from
Shulman’s photograph (fig.5.3.4) of the interior, of the architect Pierre
Koenig CSH #21, completed and photographed in 1959. In this
image, a man standing in the background, who appears to have just
entered the house through the still open door, and is perhaps about
to make a drink and a woman, seated in the foreground, with
colour clothing, hair and lips, turn from her seated position so that
she gazes away from the background. The man standing there is
the architect himself, playing the role of the husband. On view there
will be many of Shulman’s potent images of mid-century modernist
architecture, which had played a critical role in the revival of
interest in this period.
44 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.37 45 McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey &
Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.77 46 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.36 47 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel
USA, 2007, p.79
.4.1
Sterling furniture for 1950 Case Study
House, Arts & Architecture,
December 1949
5.4.2 5.4.3
Modine Convector Radiation for CSH #1, Kimsul insulation for CSH #11
Arts & Architecture, November 1945 Arts & Architecture, July 1946
5.4.4
Pioneer-Flinktone roof for CSH #2,
Arts & Architecture, December 1945
49
5.4 The Advertisements
The houses became the pretext and principal support for numerous
advertisements in these columns of the magazine. Arts &
Architecture did its own advertising for the Case Study Houses
program. This self-promotion was followed by the manufacturers
eager to participate, and who in exchange for their offer of
materials and services benefited from the publicity in the magazine.
In the magazine’s pages, a swarm of products appeared, from
kitchen accessories and to furnishing, to cupboards, dishes,
ventilation, dryer and the pool. Sometimes technical innovation was
pre-determined by the sponsorship of particular manufacturers, who
provided free materials in the hope of benefiting from the resulting
publicity, the Pioneer-Flintkone roof used in the CSH #2 by Summer
Spaulding and John Rex being such an example (fig.5.4.4). In the
advertisements, the materials and appliances that were used for the
Case Study Houses had the label “Merit Specified”. “Merit Specified”
became the stamp of quality stamp on the products used for the
construction of the house and in the implementation of the
techniques, highlighting the business that carried out the work. This
label, which was validated by the architect, guaranteed the
aesthetics and the quality of the products as much as the
availability of materials.48
48 Arts and Architecture, March 1945, p.47
50 Conclusion
6.1
CSH #22(1959-1960)
West Hollywood
Pierre Koenig
6.2
CSH #20 (1958)
Altadena
Buff, Straub &
Hensman
6.3 CSH #7 (1945-1948), San Gabriel, Thornton Abell
51
6. Conclusion
The Case Study Houses Program had critical implications for the
American building industry and remains one of America’s most
significant contributions to architecture in mid-20th century.
Architecture in America changed dramatically after the Program.
Three basic characteristics had developed:
1. The emphases on the interior spaces –an open-plan- in terms
of usefulness, comfort, beauty and their interrelationship.
Open planning was restricted to the kitchen/dining
room/living room areas of the house. Linking the kitchen to
the dining room by means of designing these two rooms as
one, the housewife was not isolated within a back room while
cooking and her children and her husband enjoyed the
comfort of the lounge. (fig.6.1)
2. The indoor-outdoor relationship has changed. The use of
glass has made it possible to bring nature into the building
and extend the building out in nature. (fig.6.2)
3. The alignment of the facade to the street, in order to
disengage an interiorized private garden.(fig.6.3)
Furniture and appliances changed the post-war American life and
the design of most rooms and living habits. The television set was
the principal reason why the post-war living space became a place
where people saw and heard things happening elsewhere instead of
the centre of the family’s activities. The furniture became symbolic
in modern America. The Eames’s chairs, Saarinen chairs and Knoll
furniture and lights, which the Case Study Houses were furnished
with, had an impact to the public. The reason was that this
succeeded in getting low-cost, durable, well-designed furniture to the
consumer at a low cost on a mass level. This meant, that even for
those who were not fortunate enough to live in a newly-built
“Contemporary” house, modern furniture was still accessible,
enabling them the creation of a modern look in a house dating
from an earlier period.
52 Conclusion
6.4
Advertisement for the Tulip range of
plastic shell furniture designed by Eero
Saarinen, 1956
6.5
Charles and Ray Eames,
prototype plywood chairs,
Boyd Collection, 1950
53
By its end in 1967, despite the fact that many of the early designs
were not built and few of the houses had served their function as
prototypes, the Program had succeed in producing some of the
period’s most important works of residential architecture.
By the sixties more and more young architects – usually graduate
students – from Europe and the Southern hemisphere began to
make contact with the Case Study Houses “on the territory”.49 At
the same time the program did not address many of the key issues
of the post-war housing, particularly the creation of a new suburbia.
The program, with its increasing concentration on large houses on
choice hillside sites, paid attention only to the sprawl happening in
the valleys. Only Ralph Rapson, in the early phase of the Program
with the CSH #4, the Greenbelt house, addressed the question of
small city lots and groups of houses.
John Entenza turned his journal into a propaganda tool of the
California Model disseminating his ideas regarding a new style of
life, promoting a domesticity which would rapidly cease to be
experimental and rather become the immediate future. The Case
Study Houses Program was propaganda that was not only affecting
Americans but the Europeans as well. By the 1940s, the magazine’s
circulation and its influence had spread beyond Southern California
throughout the United States and Europe, to South America and the
Far East. A notable feature of the first post-war decade was the
movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic. Architects,
planners and engineers were taken on extensive study tours to
North America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Many architects
were influenced by the Case Study Houses. The house which
Michael and Patty Hopkins completed in 1977, on Downshire Hill in
Hampstead, London (fig.6.5) is such an example. The house won a
RIBA architectural Award and a Civic trust Award, and is like the
Eames house, CSH #8 – a steel and glass box. Another example of
the Program’s influence around the world is the Experimental Steel
Frame houses (fig.6.6) of the architect Peter Parkinson, of Hawkins
and Sands. These houses could be described as “Anglo-Australian”
versions of the Program’s houses. The pipe-columns, cross-bracing
and I-beams were very Californian.
49 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the Case
Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p.187
6.5
Hopkins House,
Hampstead, London, 1977
6.6
Peter Parkinson of
Hawkins and Sands,
Kidston Hunter/ McKim
House, Applecross,
Western Australia, 1955
55
“The California influence” Parkinson explained “came to us simply
through Arts & Architecture, which for some reason Des took”.
Parkinson recalls how excited and influenced they were by Eames,
Soriano, and particularly Ellwood.50 West Germany, France and Italy
were keen to exploit housing exhibitions as a way of promoting “the
American way of life”.
The Case Study Houses Program has a local as well as a national
and international context of global war; Los Angeles emerged in
these years – at least in temporary anticipation – as a world city.
50
Jackson, N., The Modern Steel House, London: E & FN Spon, 1996, p.130
56
Catalogue of the Case Study Houses
57
58
59
60
61
64
BIOGRAPHIES
THORTON M. ABELL Born 1906, South Haven, Michigan. Studied at the
University of Michigan, University of California, and received a Bachelor of
Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1931.
Opened his own office in 1944. Taught interior design at Chouinard Art
Institute, 1949 to 1952; Critic, School of Architecture, U.S.C, 1953 to date.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
REINER BANHAM (1922-88) Was one of the most influential writers on
architecture, design, and popular culture from the mid-1950s to the late
1980s. Trained in mechanical engineering and art history, he was
convinced that technology was making society not only more exciting but
more democratic. His combination of academic rigor and pop culture
sensibility put him in opposition to both traditionalists and orthodox
Modernists, but placed him in a unique position to understand the cultural,
social, and political implications of the visual arts in the post-war period.
His first book, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (still in print
with The MIT Press after forty years), was central to the overhaul of
Modernism, and it gave Futurism and Expressionism credibility amid the
dynamism and change of the 1960s.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10009, 24/2/2010
THEODORE C. BERNADI Born 1903, Korcula, Yogoslavia. Graduated from
College of Architecture, University of California at Berkeley, 1924. Went into
office of William Wilson Wurster 1936. Undertook government housing
projects with other associates during the war years, returning in 1944 to
Wurster firm as a partner. Lecturer University of California since 1954.
Member San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association. The firm is
now Wurster, Bernadi and Emmons.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.209
65
CONRAD BUFF III Born 1926, Glendale, California. Son of Conrad Buff II,
landscape painter. Bachelor of Architectural degree, University of Southern
California. Chief draftsman for Paul Kingsbury; two years as designer for
Clayton Baldwin. Entered partnership with Donald C. Hensman in 1947.
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, U.S.C.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
J. R. DAVIDSON Born 1888, Berlin, Germany. Studied in Germany, England
and France. Opened own office in Berlin, 1919. Came to United States in
1923. Established practice in Los Angeles in 1925. Instructor in Architecture
at Art Center School and Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. Cited by
Royal Institute of British Architects for design of hotel interiors, 1937.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.206
CHARLES EAMES Born 1907, St. Louis, Missouri. Studied architecture at
Washington University for two years. Studied and taught at Cranbrook
Academy of Art. In association with Eero Saarinen won first two prizes in
furniture competition conducted by Museum of Modern Art, 1940. Most of
his activities have been in the field of industrial design and film making, in
association with wife, Ray.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
RAY KAISER EAMES (1916-1988) A native of Sacramento, California, Ray
Eames studied with painter Hans Hofmann in New York from 1933 to 1939;
during this time, she became a founding member of the American Abstract
Artists. She began studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield
Hills, Michigan, in 1940, at which time she met Charles Eames as well as
architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen and artist/designer Alexander Girard.
McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the
Case Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p.229
66
CRAIG ELLWOOD Born 1922, Clarenden, Texas. Started his design career
after World War II as a cost estimator, job supervisor and draftsman for a
contractor who built with Neutra, Soriano, etc. Opened own architectural
office in 1948. Studied engineering at University of California at Los
Angeles, Extension Division, 1949-1954. First Prize International Exhibition of
Architecture, Sao Paulo, 1954. Visiting critic at Yale University, Syrecuse
University, Cornell University.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.209
JOHN ENTENZA Born 1905, Niles, Michigan. Bachelor of Arts, University of
Virginia; studied at Stanford and Tulane. Worked in the office of Secretary
of Labor James J. Davis during preparatory training of the diplomatic
service. Worked for two years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under Paul Burns
and Irving Pitchel in experimental production. Editor and publisher of Arts
and Architecture since 1938. Developed Case Study House Program in
1945. Manager and later president of Plyformed Wood Co. Under contract
to U.S. Navy and Air Corps. Member of Governor’s Council on Regional
Planning. Member of California Housing Council for migratory workers.
Member of the Board of Mental Health Association. Member of numerous
juries on art and architectural competitions. American editor of “Zodiac”.
Administers Graham Foundation for fellowships in architecture and the
allied arts.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles:
Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.204
DONALD C. HENSMAN Born 1922, Omaha, Nebraska. Bachelor of
Architecture degree, University of Southern California. Designer for Langdon
and Wilson. Partnership with Conrad Buff III since 1947. Critic, School of
Architecture, University of Southern California.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
67
MICHAEL HOPKINS Born 1935.British architect. His buildings include the
extension to Glyndebourne Opera House, the Jubilee Campus of the
University of Nottingham, the Mound Stand at Lord's Cricket Ground,
accommodation for British Parliament, British Members of Parliament at
Portcullis House, and the new building for the Welcome Trust. Along with
his wife, also an architect, he received the 1994 Royal Gold Medal for
Architecture.
http://www.short-biographies.com/biographies/MichaelHopkins.html, 24/2/2010
PIERRE KOENIG Born 1925, San Francisco, California. Bachelor of
Architecture degree, University of Southern California, 1952. Several months
in office of Raphael Soriano. Office of Jones and Emmons. Designed his
first steel-framed house in 1950 while a student. Opened own practice
1954. Awards: Homes for Better Living, 1957; Sao Paolo IV International
Exhibition of Architecture, 1957; A.I.A. – Western Homes Award of Honor,
1959; A.I.A. – House & Home Award, 1960. On faculty of School of
Architecture, U.S.C.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.207
PEGGY LEE Born 1920, Jamestown, N.D., U.S.—died Jan. 21, 2002, Los
Angeles, Calif. American popular singer and songwriter, known for her
alluring, delicately husky voice and reserved style.
http://www.biography.com/articles/Peggy-Lee-9377100, 24/2/2010
ALVIN LUSTIG The American graphic designer Alvin Lustig (1915–1955) was
inspired by the fine arts of his time, so his work reveals much about both
design and art of the 1930s, forties, and fifties. The close relationship
between Lustig’s work and fine art allows design historians to turn to art
historical writing for help in analyzing Lustig’s work. With the help of art
history, analyses of Lustig’s work can move beyond biographical chronology
to broader studies of context.
http://www.dis.uia.mx/conference/HTMs-PDFs/Clouse.pdf, 24/2/2010
68
HEBERT MATTER Swiss graphic designer and photographer, was born in
Engelberg, Switzerland, in 1907. He studied painting at the École des
Beaux-Arts in Geneva from 1925 until 1927. Then Herbert Matter went to
Paris to continue his studies at the Académie de l'Art Moderne in 1928/29.
His teachers included Fernand Léger and Amédé Ozenfant. Between 1929
and 1932 Herbert Matter freelanced in Paris as a graphic artist and
photographer and worked for the Deberny & Peignot type foundry. From
1930 until 1932 Herbert Matter worked for the journal "Arts et Métiers
Graphiques". In Paris Herbert Matter met A.M. Cassandre, with whom he
collaborated on designing several posters. In 1932 Herbert Matter returned
to Switzerland. Herbert Matter is generally regarded as the inventor of the
modern Swiss photographic poster. In the early 1930s Matter convincingly
integrated the medium of photography in what had up to then been
advertising drawn by hand. For the Swiss Tourist Office Herbert Matter
designed tourism posters those are still famous. In 1936 Herbert Matter
emigrated to the US. In New York Herbert Matter worked as a
photographer for "Vogue", "Harper's Baazar", and "Town and Country"
magazines. During the World War II, Herbert Matter was commissioned by
the US government to design propaganda posters. Between 1943 and
1946, Herbert Matter worked as a graphic designer in the California
practice of Ray and Charles Eames. The 1940s also saw Herbert Matter
collaborating with Knoll International, for whom he designed the logo with
the big K as well as numerous catalogues and advertisements.
http://www.kettererkunst.com/bio/herbert-matter-1907.shtml, 24/2/2010
RICHARD NEUTRA Born 1892, Vienna, Austria. Graduated 1917 with honours
from Technische Hochschule, Vienna. Office of Eric Mendelsohn, Berlin.
Came to United States in 1923. Office of Hilabird and Root, Chicago, 1924.
Opened practice in Los Angeles in 1926. Member and then chairman of
the California State Planning Board, 1939 to 1941. Partnership with Robert
E. Alexander from 1949 to 1959. Consultant and architect to Civil
Government of Guam, 1951. Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Among his numerous honours and awards was an A.I.A. citation for his
1948 Case Study House.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.207
69
RALPH RAPSON Born 1915, Alma, Michigan. Spent two years in Alma
College, three years in College of Architecture, University of Michigan.
Received a scholarship to Cranbrook Academy of Art and studied
architecture and planning under Eliel Saarinen. Worked in Chicago with Paul
Schweikher, George Fred Keck and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. While with Foreign
Buildings Operations of Department of State he was co-designer of U.S.
Embassy offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen. For four years head of
Architectural Department of the Institute of Design in Chicago. He is the
Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles:
Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.207
JOHN REX Born 1923, Macon, Georgia. Bachelor of Architecture degree,
University of Southern California, 1932. Travelled in Europe. Went into the
office of Summer Spaulding as a draftsman, later became an associate
and finally a member of the firm Spaulding, Rex and DeSwarte. After the
death of Spaulding he went into partnership with Douglas Honnold. Fifth
year critic at U.S.C. and on the faculty of the School of Engineering,
University of California at Los Angeles. Chairman of the Board of Zoning
Appeals for the City of Los Angeles. Fellow in the American Institute of
Architects.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.208
EERO SAARINEN Born 1910, Kirkkonummi, Finland. Came to the United
States in 1923 when his father, Eliel Saarinen, was commissioned to the
design the Cranbrook Academy campus. Studied sculpture in Paris. Degree
of Bachelor of Fine Arts, Yale University School of Architecture, 1934.
Travelled in Europe from 1934 to 1936 on a Matcham Fellowship. Went
into partnership with his father. After the elder Saarinen’s death, Eero
continued the practice alone, in Birmingham, Michigan. Died 1961.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
70
JULIUS SHULMAN Born 1910, Brooklyn, New York. Photographer of
architecture, naturalist, educator, and commentator on urban form. One of
the leading architectural photographers of the 20th century, Shulman
developed close association with the modernist architects, principally those
active in Southern California such as Gregory Ain, John Lautner, Richard
Neutra, and R.M. Schindler. Shulman's images played a major role in
crafting the image of the Los Angeles and "Southern California lifestyle" to
the rest of the nation and world during the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific
author, consultant, lecturer, exhibitor, and editor of his own vast archive,
Shulman remains active in the first decade of the 21st century. Died 2009
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Shulman_Entry_
3.html, 24/2/2010
FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA Born 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey. Beginning his
musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey,
Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being
the idol of the "bobby soxers." His professional career had stalled by the
1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for
Best Supporting Actor. Died 1998.
http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/frank-sinatra.html, 24/2/2010
WHITNEY R. SMITH Born 1911, Pasadena, California. Bachelor of
Architecture degree, University of Southern California, 1934. Staff of Farm
Security Administration. Smith, Jones and Contini joined in partnership with
Wayne R. Williams. Instructor in Advanced Planning and Architecture at
U.S.C., 1941 to 1942. Instructor in Architecture and Planning at Scripps
College, 1947 to 1952. Past member of the South Pasadena Planning
Commission. Advisory Board of U.S.C. School of Architecture. Fellow of the
American Institute of Architects.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.208
71
RAPHAEL S. SORIANO Born 1907, Island of Rhodes. College of St. John,
French School in Rhodes. Came to the United States, 1924. U.S. citizenship,
1930. Bachelor of Architecture degree, University of Southern California,
1934. Several months employment with Richard Neutra. Critic and guest
lecturer at University of Southern California, Yale, other universities. In
private practice since 1936, pioneering the development of housing in steel
construction. Moved his office from Los Angeles to Triburon, near San
Francisco, in 1953.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.208
SUMNER SPAULDING Born 1892, Ionia, Michigan. Attended University of
Michigan, 1911-1913. Bachelor of Arts degree, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1916. Travelled and studied in Europe and Mexico. Worked in
Office of Myron Hunt, Pasadena. Partnership in firm of Weber, Staunton
and Spaulding, later in firm of Spaulding, Rex and DeSwarte. Taught
architecture at U.S.C. and Scripps College, Chairman of the A.I.A. Commitee
Institute of Architects. Died 1952.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.208
CALVIN C. STRAUB Born 1921, Macon, Georgia. Studied at Texas A and M,
Claremont College, University of Mexico. Bachelor of Architecture degree,
University of Southern California. Project director for Authur B. Gallion,
Dean of School of Architecture, U.S.C. Private practice 1950-1956. Member
of Buff, Straub and Hensman 1956-1961. Associate Professor, School of
Architecture U.S.C., 1946-1961. Professor, School of Architecture, Arizona
State University, 1961.
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey
& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205
LIONEL TRILLING Born 1905, New York City. He was an American literary
critic, author, and teacher. Trilling was seen as one of the great literary
critics and one of the New York intellectuals dominating the day. He is
probably most famous to the general public for his introduction to
a 1952 reissue of George Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia. He was
also a regular contributor to the Partisan Review. Died 1975.
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/lionel-trilling/, 24/2/2010
72
Bibliography
American History
Traynor, J., Modern United States history, Hampshire: PALGRAVE,
2001
Tindall, G., Shi, D., America: A Narrative History, Third Edition, USA,
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1984
Baritono, R., Frezza, D., Lorini, A., Vaudanga, M., Vezzosi, E., (eds),
Public and Private in American history, Torrino: OTTO editore, 2003
Case Study Houses Program
McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los
Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977
Smith, E. A. T., Case Study Houses: The complete CSH program
1945-1966, Taschen Gmbh, 2009
Neuhart, M., Neuhart, J., Eames House, Ernst & Sohn Verlag fur
Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, 1994
Steele, J., Eames House : Charles and Ray Eames, London: Phaidon
Press Limited, 1994
Smith, E. A. T., Case Study Houses, Taschen Gmbh, 2009
Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses,
Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994
McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and
legacy of the Case Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989
McCoy, E., Five California Architects, New York: Praeger Publishers,
Inc., 1975
Jackson, N., The Modern Steel House, London: E & FN Spon, 1996
American Dream
Goodrum, C., Dalrymple, H., Advertising in America: The First 200
years, New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1990
Rublowsky, J., Pop Art: Images of the American Dream, USA,
Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965
Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For
American Studies, 1981
Marchand, R., Advertising the American Dream, California: University
of California Press,1985
73
Photography
Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of
Julius Shulman, Rizzoli International Publication, 1999
Modern Design
Jackson, L., Contemporary: architecture and interiors of the 1950s,
London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994
Steele, J., The Contemporary condition: Los Angeles architecture,
London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1993
Crowley, D., Pavitt, J. (eds) Cold War modern design 1945-1970,
London: V&A Publishing, 2008
Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture
at Midcentury, Prestel USA, 2007
Jackson, L., The Sixties, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1998
Arts & Architecture Magazine
Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture,
reprint, Taschen Gmbh, 2008
year
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1953
1954
issue
January July March March February December July April
February September March
March November April
April December May
May July
July September
September December
November
December
74
Illustration Credits
Arts & Architecture
January 1945: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
July 1945: 1.2
November 1945: 5.4.2
December 1945: 5.2, 5.4.4
July 1946: 5.4.3
September 1946: 5.1
December 1946: 5.1.4
March 1948: 5.3
February 1949: 5.4
March 1949: 5.5
April 1949: 5.6
May 1949: 5.7
July 1949: 5.9
September 1949: 5.8
December 1949: 5.10, 5.4.1
July 1953: 4.4
April 1954: 4.5, 4.6
Case Study Houses: The complete
CSH program 1945-1966
2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10,
5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3a, 5.2.3b,
5.3.2, 5.3.3, 5.3.4, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3,
All images of Chapter 7:
Catalogue of the Case Study
Houses
Birth of the Cool: California Art,
Design, and Culture at Midcentury
3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.5
Blueprints for modern living :
history and legacy of the Case
Study houses
1.1, 1.3, 3.1.1, 5.3.1
The Contemporary condition: Los
Angeles architecture: 6.4
The Modern Steel House
6.5, 6.6
Advertising in America: 3.2
Eames House: 4.1
http://www.coverbrowser.com/cove
rs/national-geographic/14: 3.6
http://www.bc-
enschede.nl/wenglish/grassroots/p
opculture_3h10304/3h1/tenijenhui
s/website/Frank%20Sinatra.jpg:
3.7
http://www.preservation.lacity.org/f
iles/images/Bullocks-Wilshire-5.jpg:
4.2
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames
/images/vca8b.jpg: 4.3
http://crossroadshollywood.com/i
mages/cra06.jpg: 5.1.1
http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/
mcov/img/04.jpg: 5.1.3
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