OTher examples

CSHOTher examples

It’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.

Atradition 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.

CSH #22, Stahl House, Pierre Koenig, 1950

John 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.