CASE STUDY HOUSE Yaëlle Champreux Experimental Ground Los Angeles 1
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SUMMARY
CSH 5 6
10 12
The Idea Other Examples The Architects List of the Case Study Houses
Context 16 18 20
Los Angeles Experimentation Post war
The need for housing The post war house The post war process
Materials 24 28
The phases of the CSH program from Design to Achievement 3
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CSH The Idea
A
rts & Architecture was the beginning of the Case Study House Program thanks to John Entenza. The magazine Arts & Architecture (1929–1967) was an American design, architecture, landscape, and arts magazine. John Entenza, publisher and editor of the magazine had his own views and leadership which enabled to
«
California cultural map », put
on the
creating a lasting impact on the cultural history of Los Angeles, Southern California, the West Coast, and the United States in the development of American modernism. The Case Study House was a part of it and was sponsored by the magazine.
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CSH
Other Examples
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t’s important to consider the Case Study House program not as an isolated phenomene but as an episode in a wider architectural history, both in Los Angeles and internationally. For example in Europe, the 1927 Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, a housing exhibition developped under the aegis of the German Werkbund und masterminded by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe.
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A tradition also existed in the United States for architectdesigned demonstration houses dating from the mid-nineteenth century.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1901 design for «A Small House with Lots of Room in it» was presented to a wide readership through its publication in the Ladies Home Journal, the most renowned example of early efforts to disseminate welll-designed, low-cost residential prototypes through the popular media.
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CSH #22, Stahl House, Pierre Koenig, 1950
J
ohn Entenza envisioned the Case Study House efforts as a way to offer the public and the building industry models for lowcost housing in the modern idiom, foreseeing the coming building boom as inevitable in the wake of drastic housing shortages during the depression and war years. Using the magazine as a vehicule, Entenza’s goal was to enable architects to design and build low-cost modern houses for actual clients, using donated materials from industry and manufacturers, and to extensively publish and publicize their efforts. 8
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CSH
The Architects
C
Richard Neutra
Eero Saarinen
ontributors to the Case Study House Program ranged from architects who were to attain international reputations like Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Craig Ellwood, and Pierre Koenig, to those whose reputations remain primarily localized, such as Whitney R. Smith, Thronton Abell, and Rodney Walker. Architects who participated in the program did so at the invitation of Entenza himself, and therefore the roster of participants clearly reflects his personal predilections rather than a comprehensive overview of American, or even Californian, approaches to low-cost modern house design.
Charles Eames
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Map of the Case Study Houses in Los Angeles
It’s about 36 houses in the Case Study House Program which ran intermittently from 1945 until 1966. The first six houses were built by 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors. While not all 36 designs were built, most of those that were constructed were built in Los Angeles.
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CSH
List of the Case Study Houses
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Case Study House N°1 J. R. Davidson 1948 10152 Toluca Lake Avenue North Hollywood Case Study House N°2 Sumner Spaulding and John Rex 1947 857 Chapea Road, Pasadena Case Study House N°3 William Wurster and T. Bernardi 1949 13187 Chalon Road, Los Angeles Demolished Case Study House N°4 Greenbelt House Ralph Rapson 1989 Unbilt Case Study House N°5 Loggia House Whitney R. Smith April 1946 Unbuilt Case Study House N°6 Omega Richard Neutra October 1945 Unbuilt Case Study House N°7 Thornton Abell 1948 6236 North Deerfield Avenue San Gabriel
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Case Study House N°8 Eames House Charles and Ray Eames 1949 203 Chautauqua Boulevard Pacific Palisades Case Study House N°9 Entenza House Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen 1949 205 Chautauqua Boulevard, Pacific Palisades Case Study House N°10 Kemper Nomland and Kemper Nomland, Jr. 1947 711 South San Rafael Avenue, Pasadena
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Case Study House N°11 J. R. Davidson 1946 540 South Barrington Avenue, West Los Angeles Demolished Case Study House N°12 Whitney R. Smith February 1946 Unbuilt Case Study House N°13 Alpha Richard Neutra March 1946 Unbuilt
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15 16 ‘53 17A 17B 18A
Case Study House N°15 J. R. Davidson 1947 4755 Lasheart Drive, La Cañada Flintridge Case Study House N°16 Rodney Walker 1947 9945 Beverly Grove Drive, Beverly Hills Demolished Case Study House ‘53 Craig Ellwood 1953 1811 Bel Air Road, Bel-Air Case Study House N°17A Rodney Walker 1947 7861 Woodrow Wilson Drive Los Angeles Case Study House N°17B Craig Ellwood 1956 Remodeled Beyond Recognition 9554 Hidden Valley Road Beverly Hills Case Study House N°18A West House Rodney Walker 1948 199 Chautauqua Boulevard Pacific Palisades
18B 19
Case Study House N°18B Fields House Craig Ellwood 1958 Remodeled Beyond Recognition 1129 Miradero Road, Beverly Hills
20A 20B 21A 21B 22 ‘50 23
Case Study House N°20A Stuart Bailey House Richard Neutra 1948 219 Chautauqua Boulevard Pacific Palisades Case Study House N°20B Bass House C. Buff, C. Straub, D. Hensman 1958 2275 Santa Rosa Avenue, Altadena Case Study House N°21A Richard Neutra May 1947 Unbuilt Case Study House N°21B Walter Bailey House Pierre Koenig 1958 9038 Wonderland Park Avenue West Hollywood Case Study House N°22 Stahl House Pierre Koenig 1960 1635 Woods Drive, Los Angeles Case Study House ‘50 Raphael Soriano 1950 Remodeled 1080 Ravoli Drive, Pacific Palisades Case Study House N°23 Triad Killingsworth, Brady, Smith & Assoc. 1960 Rue de Anne, La Jolla
Case Study House N°19 Don Knorr September 1947 Unbuilt
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24 25 26 27 28 1 2
Case Study House N°24 A. Quincy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons December 1961 Unbuilt Case Study House N°25 Frank House Killingsworth, Brady, Smith & Assoc. 1962 82 Rivo Alto Canal, Long Beach Case Study House N°26 Harrison House Beverley «David» Thorne 1963 177 San Marino Drive, San Rafael Case Study House N°27 Campbell and Wong June 1963 Unbuilt Case Study House N°28 Janss Dev C. Buff and D. Hensman 1966 91 Inverness Road, Thousand Oaks Case Study Apartment N°1 Triad Apartments Alfred N. Beadle and Alan A. Dailey 1964 4402 28th Street, Phoenix, Arizona Case Study Apartment N°2 Whitmore Apartments Killingsworth, Brady, Smith & Assoc. May 1964 Unbuilt
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« the house must be capable of duplication and
in
no
performance.
»
sense
be
an
individual
Extract of the annoucement of the Case Study House Program in Arts & Architecture, Juanuary 1945, edited by John Entenza.
Program
«
the house[s]… will be conceived within
the spirit of our times, using as far as is practicable,
many
war-born
techniques
and materials best suited to the expression of man’s life in the modern world.
»
Extract of the annoucement of the Case Study House Program in Arts & Architecture, Juanuary 1945, edited by John Entenza.
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Los Angeles
Context Los Angeles
Los Angeles is an important geological depression near the San Andreas Fault, and surrounded by mountainous barriers isolating the numerous outlying deserts. Neither a notable port nor a remarkable fluvial setting, this valley is not a strategic site. The capital of the last century and the cinematic center of the turn of the century, along with oil, petrochemical, and the aeronautic industry all contribute to metamorphosing the countryside and the city that was opened by the gold rush. From 1,610 inhabitants in 1850, the megalopolis composed of several cities successively passes population thresholds of 100,000 in 1900, and then a million before 1930 to total 1,970,358 in the 50’s.
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Context Experimentation
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y the time of the Case Study House program’s inception in 1945, Los Angeles had emerged as a vigorously experimental context for the residential architecture. Numerous modernist precedents existed in the starkly minimal work of Irving Gill, active in the early decades of the century in southern California, as well as in the bold experiments with materials and construction techniques of Franck Lloyd Wright in Los Angels beginning the late 1910’s.
Hugo Klauber House, Irving Gill (1908)
Sturges House, Franck Lloyd Wright (1939)
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The house as a laboratory for experimentation with materials, construction, techniques and aesthetics has been a persistent theme throughout the history of modern architecture. And in Los Angeles the program is clearly part of a continuum of experimental residential design characterizing practice throughout the 20th century.
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CSH#21, Pierre Koenig (1958)
The Case Study House Program is a product of its time and place. The result of convergence of historical, economic, technological, social, and cultural factors in mid-century Los Angeles - which drew heavily upon the innovation landscape of California, and which, permitted an informal lifestyle in close proximity to nature and to its culture of invention and absence of oppresive strictures and traditions.
Context Post war
The need for housing
With the onset of war, domestic construction concentrates on military barracks to house workers, large numbers of whom were mobilized in new labor centers scattered throughout the country, most notably in Los Angeles. Such short-term employment goes in hand with its precarious housing. Construction is distinctly military in aim, and is perfected through the rapidity and efficiency of its completion.
R
ight after the war, the military industry ceases, in part, to exist, leaving 10 million people henceforth unemployed. The 20 million women who had worked during the conflict must give back their jobs to the returning soldiers. The government must also face a shortage of singlefamily housing that is exagerated by the inefficient resumption of civilian construction since the crash of 1929, and aggravated by the conflict.
Enriched by the pragmatic methods used at the time, industry is in a position to respond to the needs of the postwar civilian population and to adapt its efforts to the incomes of the average American. The government plans the immediate construction of 5 million homes, with 12.5 million more to be built in the years to come. 20
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The post war house
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he idea of the postwar house is envisaged during the war, more precisely towards the end of the conflict, since it’s at this time that the wish to see the return of the heroes from the front becomes more present.
The single-family house has always been viewed in the United States as one of the greatest opportunities for the flourishing and freedom of the family unit. With the conclusion of the war, it is viewed as an industrially produced commodity like the automobile. The direct transference of the war is a remarquable effort, from the optimal supply and arrangement of everything from airplanes to the domestic space. 22
The post war process
T
he stimulation of the military industry allowed the country to restructure itself and increase its wealth without having to suffer, as such, the losses of the war on its own soil. After the conflict, peace occurs only at the price of continued support form armament. Facilited by the machinations of publicity and marketing, military techniques and materials are rapidly converted to serve the everyday needs of the civilian population, the implementation of large scale construction, prefabrication, the use of aluminum, plywood and plastic.
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Materials
The phases of the CSH program 24
t the time of the case study house program, that is, in the period between 1945 and 1964, four different phases follow one another in succession. The first phase constitutes the establishment of the program in 1945, and its announcement and proposal of nine projects, which are presented to criticism.
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These first houses would hold the attention of critics not for their structural innovations owing to the shortage of materials after the war, but for the inventions within the bounds of the plan, and the maintenance of their particular rapport with the exterior. The turning point towards the second phase occurs with the metal frame construction of CSH#8 and CSH#9.
Exterior of the CSH#8
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T
his second phase is elaboreted between 1950 ans 1960, an episode marked by the research and use of metal structures. An aesthetic and structural rigor underlines a new rise in production as with the inaugural project of Raphael Soriano. Craig Ellwood and Pierre Koenig will pursue this research and develop a new modular structural steel systems. A remarkable desire for design research pervades the projects from this period, of which the end is announced by the return of wood structures and the generic post and beam system of Los Angeles, revisited by Calvin Straub, Edward Killingsworth and their associates.
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The projects from the third phase will orient themselves towards the production of houses in large numbers, resuming the idea of community settlements abandonned at the time of the first projects. Lastly, the final episode opens with the departure of John Entenza from Arts & Architecture. The imbalance between the single-family house promoted by the magazine and the house produced by the property developers is flagrant. The house as product now takes to the arguments of cost-effectiveness above all. The program then suggests to architects to pursue their investigations with the creation of appartment blocks. 27
Materials
from
Design to Achievement
T
here are also a significant number of examples that remained unbuilt, espacially during the program’s early years. For the most part, these were designs that had been undertaken without benefit of actual clients or sites, as a way to allow the architects to develop ideas about use of materials, organization of plan, or other experimental features, in the hope that these elements could be applied when a client was forthcoming. In other instances designs were changed radically upon realization and changed from the architects’ original vision, owing to building materials shortages or other difficulties surrounding the undertaking of construction in the immediate postwar years. This is the case of Charles and Ray Eames’ house, the built version of which departs significantly from its initial design as published in the magazine, or one of several early designs by Richard Neutra, which was dropped from inclusion in the program owing to differences that developped between the architect and the client. A few of the early built houses were even brought into the program after being designed in order to continue some degree of momentum for the Case Study effort during breaks in its continuity. 28
Changement of the CSH#8
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Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_ Houses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_%26_Architecture#cite_note-Votolato54-1 http://www.artsandarchitecture.com/index.html google images The presence of the Case Study Houses, Ethel Buisson and Thomas Billard, Birkhäuser, 2004 Case Study Houses : the complete CSH program, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Julius Shultman, Peter Gössel, TASCHEN, 2009
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