MCM MASTERS & THEIR WORK

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U.S.A. (1867–1959)

“The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.”

I chose this image of Wright not for its embodiment of his personality, but for the juxtaposition of his kind, smiling portrait to the man documented by many as exceptionally difficult to work with.  Wright at one point abandoned his entire family and left them in financial turmoil.  A disgruntled servant murdered 7 people, including Wright's partner at the time.  Beyond the success he found throughout his career, it would be hard to say he lived a charmed life.  I like to think Wright's work brought him immense satisfaction, which brought him an inner peace...and that is what I see in this portrait.

With a prolific career of more than 70 years, Frank Lloyd Wright’s work spans the late 19th and mid-20th century. He designed a variety of building types across the country, but Chicago rightly claims Wright as one of our own. It was here that he began his architectural practice, formed ground-breaking theories about architecture, designed revolutionary homes and learned from his “beloved master” Louis Sullivan.

Wright grew up in the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin surrounded by an extended family that viewed nature as religion. But when he arrived in Chicago in 1886 at the age of 20, Wright’s love of nature collided with his newly adopted city. He wrote, “Chicago! Immense gridiron of dirty noisy streets … Heavy traffic crossing both ways at once, managing somehow: torrential noise.”

A young Wright worked for architect Joseph Silsbee before landing a job with the firm of Adler & Sullivan who were busy designing the Auditorium Building. Despite Wright’s well-known ego, even he would admit to the important influence that Louis Sullivan had on his own work. Wright learned from Sullivan’s fluid organic-inspired ornamentation and in turn, developed his own geometric, abstract designs inspired by nature.

Wright is mostly known for the dozens of Prairie Style homes he designed between 1900 and 1920. He described them as, “the city man’s country home on the prairie.” They were radically different from the popular Victorian homes of the era and appealed to upper-middle-class homeowners during a time of urban unrest. By providing a secure, private and sheltered space closely tied to the local natural landscape, he believed these homes united “man, nature and architecture.” His own home at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, exemplifies these ideas.

Until his death in 1959, Wright continued to work on hundreds of projects. The Usonian Homes, Fallingwater, his plans for a Broadacre City, a mile-high Chicago skyscraper and Taliesin West and the Guggenheim Museum in New York illustrate Wright’s ever-evolving ideas about design.

Credit  |  franklloydwright.org

GERMANY (1883–1969)

“The Bauhaus fights limitation, inferior craftsmanship and artistic dilettantism” 

Along with fellow architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius was a pioneer of modern architecture and the International Style. He’s revered as founder of the Bauhaus, a German art school that merged crafts and fine arts and had a powerful influence on the development of modernism across a range of disciplines throughout the 20th century.

After two years studying architecture, Gropius took a job in 1908 with architect and visionary industrial designer Peter Behrens in Berlin, working alongside Mies and Corbusier. He and colleague Adolf Meyer left two years later to start their own firm, and together they designed the Fagus Factory in southern Germany, sometimes considered the first modernist building and now a World Heritage Site.

Following four years in the German Army during WWI, Gropius was appointed master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Fine Arts in Weimar in 1919 and reestablished it as the Bauhaus, which attracted the likes of Paul Klee, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky to the faculty. Gropius championed the avoidance of ornamentation, the blending of craft and fine arts, the use of glass, concrete and steel and the belief that a building’s design should derive from its function. “The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art – sculpture, painting, handicrafts and crafts – as inseparable components of a new architecture,” states his Bauhaus Manifesto.

Amid rising political pressure, Gropius moved the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1925, designing a new school building that became one of his most famous works. In 1928, he resigned and returned to Berlin and his architecture practice until the rise of Adolf Hitler forced him to flee Germany for England in 1934, then move to the U.S in 1937. Gropius settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked the remainder of his life. He built a modernist home in nearby Lincoln that has become a National Historic Landmark known as Gropius House.

He taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University from 1937 to 1952 and during that time established an architecture firm with protégé Marcel Breuer, who also was teaching at Harvard and who had been one of the first and youngest students at the Bauhaus years earlier. Among other work, they designed the Alan I W Frank House in Pittsburgh – a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, harmonized from the landscape down to furniture designed by Breuer into a singular vision, which sets it apart as an important American monument.

Gropius established The Architects Collaborative in 1945 with seven younger architects, and it lasted until 1995. TAC designed many notable buildings, including the Graduate Center at Harvard University in the late 1940s, the first modern building on campus, and factories for Rosenthal porcelain in Germany in the 1960s. Gropius was active with it until his death in 1969.

Credit  |  theartstory.org

GERMANY (1886–1969)

“God is in the details” 

The modern city, with its towers of glass and steel, can be at least in part attributed to the influence of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Equally significant, if smaller in scale, is Mies’ daring design of furniture, pieces that exhibit an unerring sense of proportion as well as minimalist forms and exquisitely refined details. In fact, his chairs have been called architecture in miniature – exercises in structure and materials that achieve an extraordinary visual harmony as autonomous pieces and in relation to the interiors for which they were designed.

Mies van der Rohe began his career in architecture in Berlin, working first in the studio of Bruno Paul and then, like Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, for Peter Behrens. In 1927, a housing project called Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, Germany, would bring these names together again. Widely believed to be one of the most notable projects in the history of modern architecture, it includes buildings by Gropius, Corbu, Behrens, Mies and others.

In 1928, Mies and his companion and colleague, designer and Bauhaus alumna Lilly Reich, were asked to design the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. The purpose of the Pavilion was to provide a location that could be visited by the king and queen of Spain during the opening of the Exposition. With that in mind, Mies designed a modern throne – known today as the Barcelona® Chair – for their majesties. In the following year, Mies designed another notable chair, the Brno, with a gravity-defying cantilevered base.

In 1930, Mies succeeded Walter Gropius as the director of the Bauhaus, where he stayed until the school closed in 1933. In 1937, Mies emigrated from Europe to the United States, and a year later became the director of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The rest of his career was devoted to promoting the modernist style of architecture in the United States, resulting in rigorously modern buildings such as the Farnsworth House and the Seagram Building, designed with Philip Johnson.

Credit  |  miessociety.org

SWITZERLAND (1887–1965)

“Space and light and order.  Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep” 

Widely considered one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, Le Corbusier (born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris) is credited with changing the face of urban architecture, bringing it into the technological age. Connecting architecture with revolution, his legacy demonstrates a strong, if utopian, sense of purpose to meet the needs of a democratic society dominated by the machine. “Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city,” he said in 1923.

Born in Switzerland, Le Corbusier was encouraged by a teacher to take up architecture. He built his first house at the age of 18 for a member of his school’s teaching staff. In 1908, he went to Paris and began to practice with Auguste Perret, an architect known for his pioneering use of concrete and reinforced steel. Moving to Berlin, Le Corbusier worked with Peter Behrens, who taught him about industrial processes and machine design. In 1917, he returned to Paris, where he met post-Cubist Amédée Ozenfant and developed Purism, a new concept of painting. In 1920, still in Paris, he adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier.

Paradoxically, Le Corbusier combined a passion for classical Greek architecture and an attraction to the modern machine. He published his ideas in a book entitled Vers une Architecture, in which he refers to the house as a “machine for living,” an industrial product that should include functional furniture or “equipment de l’habitation.” In this spirit, Le Corbusier co-designed a system of furniture with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand. The tubular steel furniture – including the famous LC4 Chaise Longue and LC2 and LC3 seating collections – projected a new rationalist aesthetic that came to epitomize the International Style.

Corbusier was both credited with and criticized for his reinvention of the modern urban skyline – notably, the buildings he pioneered in Paris’ banlieues, which were considered efficient but austere. Though Le Corbusier’s illustrious career came to an abrupt end in 1965 when he drowned while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea off Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in France, his influence is undisputed.

Credit  |  moma.org

AUSTRIA (1887–1953)

"Can't you give me two lines, just two lines of recommendations without any hints at 'what a great man the boss is' and what poor fishes they are in comparison" — Schindler to Wright, while attempting to apply for his license to practice architecture

Rudolph Michael Schindler was an Austrian-born American architect who practiced in Southern California during the years 1920-53. 

R.M. Schindler was born in Vienna in 1887 and educated at the Bau-(Architektur) schule of the k.k. Technische Hochschule (Polytechnic Institute) in Vienna from 1906–11. Before he had finished his degree there, he enrolled in the k.k. Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) from 1910–13, studying with Otto Wagner, whose ideas about modern architecture permeated the school. Wagner believed that modern materials and methods, not historical styles, should be the source for architectural form.

Like other young architects in Vienna, including Richard Neutra, who later joined him in Los Angeles, Schindler was also drawn to Adolf Loos and his forceful lectures and writings arguing against ornament in architecture and for an architecture of complex interior space with highly articulated sections, later codified as the raumplan.

But perhaps the biggest influence on the young architect was the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, which he saw in 1911 in the Wasmuth portfolio. There he saw an architecture of space more advanced than even that of his teachers and he went to Chicago in 1914, hoping to work for Wright.

In 1918, Wright finally hired Schindler to work on the Imperial Hotel, leaving him in charge of his office during his travels to Japan; Wright sent Schindler to Los Angeles in 1920 to supervise construction of his most important American commission of the time, the Hollyhock house for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall.

Schindler had always meant to return to Vienna, but World War I and the unfavorable economic conditions that followed in Europe discouraged his return. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was at the beginning of an economic and population boom that coincided with his arrival there. After a visit with his wife Pauline to Yosemite in October 1921, Schindler decided to stay in Los Angeles and build his own house and studio at Kings Road. The house was essentially finished in 1922, and Schindler lived and practiced there for the rest of his career.

Credit  |  makcenter.org

ESTONIA (1901–1974)

“The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building” 

Born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky, Kahn was born into a poor Jewish family in Pärnu and spent the rest of his early childhood in Kuressaare on the Estonian island of Saaremaa, then part of the Russian Empire. At age 3, he saw coals in the stove and was captivated by their light. He put them in his apron which caught on fire and seared his face. He carried these scars for the rest of his life. In 1906 his family immigrated to the United States, fearing that his father would be recalled into the military during the Russo-Japanese War. His actual birth year may have been inaccurately recorded in the process of immigration. According to his son's 2003 documentary, the family could not afford pencils but made their own charcoal sticks from burnt twigs so that Louis could earn a little money from drawings and later by playing piano to accompany silent movies. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1914. His father changed their name in 1915.

Kahn trained in a rigorous Beaux-Arts tradition at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his Bachelor of Architecture in 1924, Kahn worked as senior draftsman in the office of City Architect John Molitor. In 1928, Kahn made a European tour and took a particular interest in the medieval walled city of Carcassonne, France and the castles of Scotland. After returning to the States in 1929, Kahn worked in the offices of Paul Philippe Cret, his former studio critic at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the offices of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary in Philadelphia.

He founded his own firm in 1935. For a time in the 1940's, he had a partnership with Oscar Stonorov. He also served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. Kahn was elected an FAIA in 1953. He was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964. He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1964. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968 and awarded the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award given by the AIA, in 1971 and the Royal Gold Medal by the RIBA in 1972. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Famous for his meticulously built works, his provocative unbuilt proposals, and his teaching, Kahn was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is perhaps his most important building. He got the design contract with the help of Muzharul Islam, his student at Yale University, who worked with him on the project. It was Kahn's last project, the centerpiece of the national capital complex designed by Kahn that includes hostels, dining halls, and a hospital. According to Robert McCarter, author of Louis I. Kahn, "it is one of the twentieth century's greatest architectural monuments, and is without question Kahn's magnum opus."

In 1974, Kahn died of a heart attack in a men's restroom in Pennsylvania Station in New York. He went unidentified for three days because he had crossed out the home address on his passport. He had just returned from a work trip to India, and despite his long career, he was deeply in debt when he died.

Credit  |  usmoderist.org

AUSTRIA (1902–1970)

“Architects must have a razor-sharp sense of individuality” 

Born in Vienna in 1892, Neutra developed an early interest in architecture, particularly the work of Otto Wagner. World War I interrupted his studies at the Vienna University of Technology. He served for three years in the Balkans, returning to Vienna in 1917 to earn his degree. Neutra’s desire to come to America was sparked by the stories of his mentor Adolph Loos and cemented after seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1911 Wasmuth portfolio. 

Neutra worked in Europe for several years and apprenticed with the great Erich Mendelsohn. After years of encouragement by friends including fellow Austrian R.M. Schindler (who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1914), Neutra moved to New York in 1923. He moved on to Chicago, spent several months in Wright’s Taliesin studio in Wisconsin, and arrived in Los Angeles in 1925. His wife Dione and son Dion  soon followed.

The Neutras lived with Rudolf and Pauline Schindler at Schindler’s 1921 Kings Road residence. Neutra opened his own practice and soon won his first major commission—from one of Schindler’s clients, Philip Lovell. The 1929 Lovell House in Los Feliz was a great achievement in steel-frame construction, with living spaces seemingly floating above the steep hillside.

Unlike Schindler, Neutra was included in the pivotal 1932 MoMA exhibit on Modern architecture, further fueling his career. The same year, Neutra built his own home and studio, the Van der Leeuw (VDL) Research House in Silver Lake. After a fire destroyed the house in 1963, Neutra rebuilt it with son Dion using new ideas and materials.

Neutra experimented constantly. He embraced technology, oddly enough, as a way to connect man with nature. His philosophy of “biorealism” sought to use biological sciences in architecture “so that design exploited, with great sophistication, the realm of the senses and an interconnectedness to nature that he believed fundamental and requisite to human well-being,” as described by architect and Neutra scholar Barbara Lamprecht. 

His prolific career encompassed iconic residences, innovative schools and multi-family housing, civic and commercial projects around the world, and inspiring city and community plans, including an unbuilt plan for affordable housing in Chavez Ravine (now the site of Dodger Stadium). 

Neutra retired from practice in 1968, spending his final years in Europe. He died in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1970. 

Despite its international renown, Neutra’s work has sparked intense preservation battles. An enormous outcry followed the demolition of his 1962 Maslon House in Rancho Mirage, and the Cyclorama Visitor Center at Gettysburg, designed by Neutra with Robert Alexander, was razed in 2013 after years of fierce advocacy. In 2010, the proposed demolition of Neutra’s 1955 Kronish House  in Beverly Hills ultimately spurred the City of Beverly Hills to strengthen its preservation policies (which has since weakened). The work of Richard Neutra continues to inspire design, debate, and devotion. 

Credit  |  neutra.org

U.S.A. (1906–2005)

“Architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space” 

Philip Johnson  was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1906, and in the years since has become one of architecture's most potent forces. Before designing his first building at the age of 36, Johnson had been client, critic, author, historian, museum director, but not an architect.

In 1949, after a number of years as the Museum of Modern Art's first director of the Architecture Department, Johnson designed a residence for himself in New Canaan, Connecticut for his master degree thesis, the now famous Glass House.

He literally coined the term "International School of Architecture" for an exhibition at MOMA.

Johnson organized Mies van der Rohe's first visit to this country as well as Le Corbusier's. He even commissioned Mies to design his New York apartment. Later, he would collaborate with Mies on what has been described as this continent's finest high-rise building, the Seagram Building in New York.

By the fifties, Johnson was revising his earlier views, culminating with a building that proved to be one of the most controversial of his career—the AT&T headquarters in New York with its so-called "Chippendale" top.

Joining forces with partner John Burgee from 1967 through 1987, their twenty year output has been nothing short of phenomenal.

The list of projects fills a volume, but suffice it to say, ranges from numerous high-rise projects such as International Place in Boston; Tycon Towers in Vienna, Virginia; Momentum Place in Dallas; 53rd at Third in New York; NCNB Center in Houston; PPG in Pittsburgh; 101 California in San Francisco; United Bank Center Tower in Denver; to the far flung National Center for Performing Arts in Bombay, India; Century Center in South Bend, Indiana; a Water Garden in Fort Worth, Texas; a Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois; the Crystal Cathedral in California; and a Dade County Cultural Center in Miami. There are many, many more.

Credit  |  usmodernist.org

U.S.A. (1907–1978) (1912–1988)

"The details are not the details. They make the design."

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.” – Ray Eames

Design is for living. That maxim shaped a widespread shift in design during the 1940s and 1950s. It was a revolution of form, an exciting visual language that signaled a new age and a fresh start – and two of its prime movers were Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses were a husband-and-wife team whose unique synergy led to a whole new look in furniture. Lean and modern. Sleek, sophisticated and simple. Beautifully functional.

Yet Charles and Ray Eames created more than a “look” with their bent plywood chairs and molded fiberglass seating. They had ideas about making a better world, one in which things were designed to fulfill the practical needs of ordinary people and bring greater simplicity and pleasure to our lives.

The Eameses adventurously pursued new ideas and forms with a sense of “serious fun.” Yet it was rigorous discipline that allowed them to achieve perfection of form and mastery over materials. As Charles noted about the molded plywood chair, “Yes, it was a flash of inspiration – a kind of 30-year flash.” Combining imagination and thought, art and science, Charles and Ray Eames created some of the most influential expressions of 20th-century design – furniture that remains stylish, fresh and functional today.

And they didn’t stop with furniture. The Eameses also created a highly innovative Case Study House in response to a magazine contest. They made films, including a seven-screen installation at the 1959 Moscow World’s Fair, presented in a dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. They designed showrooms, invented toys and generally made the world a more interesting place to be.

As the most important exponents of organic design, Charles and Ray Eames demonstrated how good design can improve quality of life and human understanding and knowledge.

Credit  |  eamesfoundation.org

FINLAND (1910–1961)

“The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man's life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence” 

Saarinen’s architectural legacy communicates this sentiment of giddy potential and unfettered optimism in post-war America. Iconic projects like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport Terminal and the Kresge Auditorium on MIT’s campus express his groundbreaking brand of midcentury modernism.

Born in Finland to famed architect Eliel Saarinen and textile designer Loja Saarinen, Eero immigrated with his family to the United States in 1923. Settling in Michigan, Eliel co-founded the Cranbrook Academy of Art and designed most of the buildings for the campus – now a National Historic Landmark – while the young Eero worked alongside his father as a student apprentice. It was at Cranbrook that Eero met Charles Eames, beginning their lifelong collaboration.

In 1934, Saarinen graduated from the School of Architecture at Yale University. As his career flourished, he was criticized for changing his style depending on his client’s needs and desires. The architect, however, saw his clients as “co-creators” and was dedicated to pushing the established boundaries of modernism, what he called the ”measly ABC.” Clients understood this creative potential. After his father’s death in 1950, Saarinen became principal partner of Saarinen & Associates, and the business thrived – landing him on the cover of Time magazine in 1956. Poised at the center of America’s post-war expansion, Saarinen created a visual vocabulary for both corporate and college campuses, including headquarters for John Deere, IBM and CBS, and buildings for Vassar College, MIT and his alma mater, Yale.

Saarinen didn’t ignore the smaller sculptural pieces needed to furnish his ambitious projects. Though he started designing furniture in his teens, it wasn’t until he and Charles Eames won first prize in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” competition in 1940 that he was taken seriously as a furniture designer. Though their award-winning molded plywood chairs were never put into production, the acknowledgement launched the careers of both men – Eames going on to work for Herman Miller, while Saarinen partnered with his former Cranbrook associates, Hans and Florence Knoll. His Pedestal Table, Tulip™ Chair, Womb™ Chair and Executive Seating have all become easily recognizable icons of American modernism.

Saarinen’s illustrious career was cut short with his untimely death in 1961, at age 51, while having surgery for a brain tumor. (Coincidentally, his wife Aline would die from the same affliction, a decade later.) His partners at Saarinen & Associates, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, completed his 10 remaining projects. In 2002, Roche donated Saarinen’s papers and drawings to the Yale University Library, which created a renewed interest in Saarinen’s life and work, including the establishment of Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, an exhibition and archival project dedicated to preserving the midcentury master’s legacy.

Credit  |  knoll.com

U.S.A (1911–1994)

“To me, architecture is an art, naturally, and it isn't architecture unless it's alive.  Alive is what art is.  If  it's not alive, it's dead, and it's not art” 

John Lautner's career spanned fifty-five years and left an indelible mark on the built environment of Southern California.

Lautner was born in 1911 and raised in Marquette, Michigan. His remarkable natural surroundings made a deep and lifelong impression. He had his first building experience at the age of twelve, when he helped his father construct a chalet designed by his mother. 

He earned a degree in English from what is now Northern Michigan University, whose only architecture class at the time was a history survey. After reading Frank Lloyd Wright's  autobiography, Lautner applied to Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship in Spring Green, Wisconsin. He served from 1933 to 1939 as one of Wright’s original Taliesin Fellows. 

Lautner adopted Wright’s philosophy of “organic architecture,” which promotes harmony between man and nature by exploring the interplay of people, spaces, and the natural and built environments. 

He began practicing in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. Lautner designed over fifty significant structures in Southern California alone, each a unique expression of his constant exploration of new ideas and materials. 

Unlike Michigan, the Southern California climate and light allowed Lautner to use large planes of glass, exposed wood, and other elements that brought nature into his designs. He was an engineering genius, able to juxtapose different angles and shapes to create forms that were at once organic and futuristic. He pioneered the use of concrete as both a sculptural and architectural element. 

He was instrumental in creating the California coffee shop, designing both Googie’s and Tiny Naylor’s (both demolished). Yet most of his best-known works are residential, with iconic designs including the 1960 Malin residence (Chemosphere) in the Hollywood Hills and the 1963 Reiner residence (Silvertop) in Silver Lake. 

In 1970, Lautner became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He received the Gold Medal from the Los Angeles AIA chapter in 1993. Lautner was active in a number of projects when he died in 1994 at the age of 83.

Despite its great significance, Lautner’s work was largely overlooked in his lifetime. It has gained increasing recognition in the years since, with exhibitions, publications, a documentary, and appearances in numerous films, commercials, and other media. 

Credit  |  johnlautner.org

U.S.A (1925–2004)

“Simplicity is the essence of beauty” 

Pierre Koenig was born in San Francisco and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1939. After attended the University of Utah in Engineering, he served in the Army from 1943-1946 then attended Pasadena City College, and USC-LA, graduating in 1952. He apprenticed with Raphael Soriano; Edward Fickett; Kistner, Wright and Wright; and Jones and Emmons. He established a private design practice in 1952 and was known for exposed steel-and-glass buildings. While in practice, he taught at the USC School of Architecture for 40 years. He was named both Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Professor at USC in 1998.

Structural engineer William Porush was Koenig's frequent (and necessary) partner for these innovative steel buildings; later it was Dimitry Vergun. He married Merry Thompson in 1953 and they had one son, Randy; married Gaile Carson and they had one daughter, Jean Pierre; married Gloria Kaufman in 1985. Research by Catherine Westergaard Cramer.

Credit  |  usmodernist.org

Designed by  |  Frank Lloyd Wright
Year  |  1939

1491 Mill Run Road Mill Run, PA 15464  USA

Fallingwater is a house designed in 1935 by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for the Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is one of his most widely acclaimed works and best exemplifies his philosophy of organic architecture: the harmonious union of art and nature.

Fallingwater is located in the mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania, also known as the Laurel Highlands, in Mill Run, Fayette County, which is about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Wright designed Fallingwater to rise above the waterfall over which it is built. Local craftsmen quarried native sandstone and other materials from the property and completed the construction of the main house, guest house and service wing in 1939.

The Kaufman family — Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. (1885-1955), Liliane S. Kaufmann (1889-1952), and their son, Edgar Kaufmann jr. (1910-1989)—used Fallingwater as a vacation house during their lifetimes. In 1963, Edgar Kaufman Jr. donated and entrusted Fallingwater and the surrounding 469 acres of natural land to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a nonprofit conservation organization established in 1932.

Fallingwater is owned and operated by the Conservancy and open to the public to tour as a museum. Fallingwater is surrounded by 5,100 acres of natural land, streams and trails known as the Bear Run Nature Reserve. On July 10, 2019, UNESCO inscribed Fallingwater and seven other Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings to the World Heritage List. In addition, Fallingwater is designated as a National Historic Landmark and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Treasure, and named the “best all-time work of American architecture” in a poll of members of the American Institute of Architects. Since the first public tours began in 1964, Fallingwater has welcomed more than six million visitors from across the globe. Travel+Leisure Magazine stated that Fallingwater is “one of the 12 landmarks that will change the way you see the world.”

Fallingwater is the only major Wright work to come into the public domain with its setting, artwork and original Wright-designed furnishings intact.

Credit  |  fallingwater.org

Designed by  |  Walter Gropius
Year  |  1938

68 Baker Bridge Rd, Lincoln, MA 01773  USA

The Gropius House was the residence of Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus school of architecture) and his family during his tenure at Harvard University during the mid 1900s. 

Completed in 1938, the Gropius House was his first commissioned project in the United States. Located in Lincoln, Massachusetts the house is a hybrid of traditional New England aesthetic and the modernist teachings of the Bauhaus. Located approximately one hour outside of Boston, Massachusetts and Harvard’s campus, Gropius selected a site in the town of Lincoln to accommodate the interests of his daughter’s education. The site for the house is set adjacent to the main road that cuts through the town. It sits among fields, forests of trees, and farmhouses. 

In Gropius’ mind keeping with the vernacular of the surrounding New England farmhouse aesthetic was of primary concern, while also introducing modern, mass-produced, pre-fabricated elements into the design. The Gropius House is a fairly modest building that maintains the scale and material identity of the surrounding area. The facade of the house combines common brick and local clapboard with manufactured ribbon windows and glass block, evoking a sense of stability and balance between old and new, traditional and modern, New England and European. 

While maintaining a connection with tradition, Gropius imposed a modernist aesthetic on the local materials by painting the house stark white. This color, combined with the tinted ribbon windows and glass block, projects the appearance of a slightly-Corbusian, foreign object placed in the landscape. In the interior, Gropius did not consider the New England architectural vernacular. The interior is a mix of fabricated pieces from the Bauhaus and furniture by Marcel Breuer. 

In accordance with concurrent trends in Europe, the house employs an open spatial organization filtering light throughout the house with large windows. Gropius used a minimalist color palette insidel--black, white, pale greys, and earth tones with only faint splashes of red. At the time of its completion, the Gropius House created a stir among the architectural community and the New England area. The house was the first sign of the International Style appearing in America’s residential milieu, an assessment that Gropius found unnerving: “As to my practice, when I built my first house in the U.S.A. - which was my own - I made it a point to absorb into my own conception those features of the New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate. 

This fusion of the regional spirit with a contemporary approach to design produced a house that I would never have built in Europe with its entirely different climatic, technical and psychological background.” The Gropius House was home to Walter Gropius and his family until his death in 1969, when it was officially transferred back to the owner of the land who was so enthralled by Gropius and his work that she opened her land to other architects to create similar structures. In 2000, the house became a National Landmark, which is a testament to the influence of Walter Gropius’ life work.

Credit  |  historicnewengland.ord

Designed by  |  Mies van der Rohe
Year  |  1951

14520 River Rd, Plano, IL 60545  USA

The Edith Farnsworth House is one of the most significant of Mies van der Rohe’s works, equal in importance to such canonical monuments as the Barcelona Pavilion, built for the 1929 International Exposition and the 1954-58 Seagram Building in New York. Its significance is two-fold. First, as one of a long series of house projects, the Edith Farnsworth House embodies a certain aesthetic culmination in Mies van der Rohe’s experiment with this building type. Second, the house is perhaps the fullest expression of modernist ideals that had begun in Europe, but which were consummated in Plano, Illinois. As historian Maritz Vandenburg has written in his monograph on the Edith Farnsworth House:

“Every physical element has been distilled to its irreducible essence. The interior is unprecedentedly transparent to the surrounding site, and also unprecedentedly uncluttered in itself. All of the paraphernalia of traditional living –rooms, walls, doors, interior trim, loose furniture, pictures on walls, even personal possessions – have been virtually abolished in a puritanical vision of simplified, transcendental existence. Mies had finally achieved a goal towards which he had been feeling his way for three decades.”

In many ways also, Mies van der Rohe was able to realize spatial and structural ideals that were impossible in larger projects, such as the Seagram Building. For example, the I-beams of the Edith Farnsworth House are both structural and expressive, whereas in the Seagram Building they are attached to exterior as symbols for what is necessarily invisible behind fireproof cladding. In addition, the one-story Edith Farnsworth house with its isolated site allowed a degree of transparency and simplicity impossible in the larger, more urban projects.

The significance of the Edith Farnsworth House was recognized even before it was built. In 1947 a model of the Edith Farnsworth House was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Describing it, along with the unbuilt Resor House, as a “radical departure from his last European domestic projects,” Philip Johnson noted that it went further than the Resor house in its expression of the floating volume:

 “The Farnsworth house with its continuous glass walls is an even simpler interpretation of an idea. Here the purity of the cage is undisturbed. Neither the steel columns from which it is suspended nor the independent floating terrace break the taut skin.” 

In the actual construction, the aesthetic idea was progressively refined and developed through the choices of materials, colors and details. While subsequent debates and lawsuits sometimes questioned the practicality and livability of its design, the Edith Farnsworth House would increasingly be considered, by architects and scholars alike, to constitute one of the crystallizing and pivotal moments of Mies van der Rohe’s long artistic career.

First conceived in 1945 as a country retreat for the client, Dr. Edith Farnsworth, the house as finally built appears as a structure of Platonic perfection against a complementary ground of informal landscape. This landscape is an integral aspect of Mies van der Rohe’s aesthetic conception. The house faces the Fox River just to the south and is raised 5 feet 3 inches above the ground, its thin, white I-beam supports contrasting with the darker, sinuous trunks of the surrounding trees. The calm stillness of the man-made object contrasts also with the subtle movements, sounds, and rhythms of water, sky and vegetation.

The dominance of a single, geometric form in a pastoral setting, with a complete exclusion of extraneous elements normally associated with habitation, reinforces the architect’s statement about the potential of a building to express “dwelling” in its simplest essence. While the elongated rectangle of the house lies parallel to the course of the Fox River, the perpendicular cross axis, represented by the suspended stairways, faces the river directly. With its emphatically planar floors and roof suspended on the widely-spaced, steel columns, the one-story house appears to float above the ground, infinitely extending the figurative space of the hovering planes into the surrounding site.

At the same time, the prismatic composition of the house maintains a sense of boundary and centrality against the vegetative landscape, thus maintaining its temple-like aloofness. The great panes of glass redefine the character of the boundary between shelter and that which is outside. The exterior glazing and the intermittent partitions of the interior work together dialectically, shifting the viewer’s awareness between the thrill of exposure to the raw elements of nature and the comforting stability of architectonic enclosure.

The architecture of the house represents the ultimate refinement of Mies van der Rohe’s minimalist expression of structure and space. It is composed of three strong, horizontal steel forms – the terrace, the floor of the house, and the roof – attached to attenuated, steel flange columns.

Since its completion in 1951, the Edith Farnsworth house has been meticulously maintained and restored. The most important restoration took place in 1972, when then owner Peter Palumbo hired the firm of Mies van der Rohe’s grandson, Dirk Lohan, to restore the house to its original 1951 appearance. A second restoration took place in 1996, after a devastating flood damaged the interior. Although the house was built to resist floods in 1951, building in the surrounding area has caused higher flood levels in recent decades.

During the late 1990s, moving towards retirement, Lord Palumbo tried repeatedly to sell the property to the State of Illinois for use as a public park and house museum. Finally, in 2003, he decided to sell the property at auction and through the generosity of several contributing donors led by the late John H. Bryan, the Friends of the Edith Farnsworth House were able to purchase the property for the National Trust, with a preservation and conservation easement held by Landmarks Illinois. The site opened for public tours in 2004.

Credit  |  edithfarnsworthhouse.org

Designed by  |  Le Corbusier
Year  |  1931

82, Rue de Villiers 78300 Poissy Poissy, Yvelines, France

In the late summer of 1928, Pierre and Eugénie Savoye    decided to build a cottage on their land in Poissy to spend week-ends with their son and to entertain their friends.  They chose an avant-garde architect of some renown, whose work they had discovered with the Villa Church in Ville-d'Avray.

Poissy in 1928, it's the countryside ! The Savoye's land, a grassland surrounded by trees with a view overlooking the Seine, is 7 hectares in size.  Le Corbusier decided to touch the environment as little as possible with a house above the meadow : "The house will rest on the grass like an object without disturbing anything". This idea appealed to the Savoyes, but the initial estimate was too high. Le Corbusier came up with a number of variants, culminating in a fifth and final project that was quite close to the first version.  Imagine, construction began before the final plan was approved! Fortunately, Le Corbusier was very active on site, helping to bring the project to life. 

New materials, especially concrete, and new construction techniques are being tried out.  These designs are difficult to grasp for companies still attached to traditional masonry, especially as the ambition to use factory-precast materials is ultimately impossible. Everything was poured or manufactured on site, even the hollow cement bricks that fill the walls!
 

Le Corbusier didn't just build a house, he created a true "architectural promenade".

Le Corbusier's villa Savoye is not just another house, it's THE house.  It is the culmination of ten years of research and experimentation. It embodies all 5 points of a new architecture: stilts, free facade, band window, open-plan and roof terrace.

1. The stilts detach the house from the ground, eliminating the need for load-bearing walls: the upper floor, supported by "pilotis", appears to be "a box in the air". This principle is also known as Dom-Ino  .
2. A long band-window to open onto the panorama: the landscape becomes a veritable painting. 
3. A flat roof to increase living space and install a solarium - a highly innovative feature in 1931 !
4. A open-plan layout for unrestricted use of interior space, as in the living room with the monumental sliding glass window that replaces the wall facing the interior garden.
5. Free facades to vary the shape effects: a curved wall protects the solarium from the prevailing winds, while a rectangular opening frames the surrounding greenery.

All this was made possible by the evolution of materials, such as concrete, which Le Corbusier had been studying since the beginning of his career.

But the villa Savoye is also about integrating the car as a fully-fledged element of the home. Did you know that it was the Savoye's car that determined the shape of the entrance hall and the dimensions of the peristyle !

Credit  |  villa-savoye.fr/en

Designed by  | Rudolph Schindler
Year  |  1939

835 North Kings Road, West Hollywood, CA 90069  USA

The Schindler House has the inevitability of a masterpiece.  Incorporating both architectural and social theory, it unfolds formally, spatially and intellectually with a coherence unparalleled in early modern architecture.  It was the shared vision of Schindler and his wife Pauline:  he gave brilliant architectural form to her interest in a revisionist lifestyle. The house was conceived as an experiment in communal living to be shared with another couple, Clyde and Marian Chace.  There were four rooms, one for each person to “express his or her individuality.”  The communal gathering areas were patios in the garden, one for each family.  There was a shared kitchen and outdoor sleeping porches were provided on the roof.  A guest apartment with its own kitchen and bath extended from the rear of the house.

Schindler designed the house over a two-month period, in November and December 1921.  There were four distinct phases in the planning process, each a logical development of a theme.  The essential plan—a pinwheel—was established in the earliest scheme.  Using a consistent four-foot module and standardized “Slab-Tilt” wall construction, Schindler created a building in which no two spaces are alike while at the same time seamlessly integrating indoors and out, creating, in his words, “A Real California Scheme.”

The house was constructed between February and June 1922. The deceptive simplicity—borne out in recent restoration work—of Schindler’s scheme became clear early in the building process.  There were problems with the technology of the building system:  on April 22 Schindler told Pauline, “now a few slabs won’t ‘tilt’ – they stick – and we shall have to use wedges.”  He also reported that he could “…not get carpenters – two came today – looked the job over – got scared – and ran –….”

The house became an architectural laboratory:  it is the birthplace of the Southern California modernism we celebrate today.  Here in the twenties Schindler, working alone and also with his erstwhile partner Richard Neutra, created a body of work as vital today as it was incomprehensible to the East Coast establishment eighty years ago.  The seminal Lovell houses, Pueblo Ribera Court, the Jardinette Apartments, and the Wolfe house on Catalina Island all were designed at Kings Road.

Credit  |  makcenter.org

Designed by  | Louis Kahn
Year  |  1961

204 Sunrise Ln, Philadelphia, PA 19118  USA

Designed and constructed between 1959 and 1962, the Margaret Esherick House in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania is a masterwork of modern architecture and craftsmanship. Internationally renowned Philadelphia architect Louis I. Kahn designed the house at the exact moment his career began climbing to unprecedented heights of success and influence. His robust buildings emphasized structure, spatial organization, context, and the architectural separation of “servant” and “served,” and were received by critics as powerful alternatives to the, by then, ubiquitous International Style glass box. 

The Esherick House is one of only a handful of built residential commissions by an architect known for his, sometimes massive, institutional projects. Its sophistication has clarity of design approaching his most important projects and, because of its modest scale, issues a clear and comprehensible demonstration of Kahn’s complex ideas about the interplay of humanity and the built environment. 

The Esherick House might appropriately be called a modern suburban villa that has two distinct faces. The severity and closed quality of the street facade is entirely transformed and opened up on the garden front, which overlooks Pastorius Park. Expanses of glass blur the division between exterior and interior and this transparency is heightened in the warmer months by idiosyncratic wood shutters that open up sections of the exterior walls. These shutters are just one example of exquisitely detailed woodwork found throughout the house, rendered in apitong, a type of teak. The artistic quality of the woodwork becomes literal in the kitchen where important American sculptor Wharton Esherick, the uncle of client Margaret Esherick, crafted the cabinetry. 

Kahn designed a studio for Wharton Esherick in 1955 and he likely provided the introduction for his niece, a mature single woman and business owner at a time when affluent women tended to be neither. A confident woman in her own right, with a famed sculptor for an uncle and a prolific and well-known West Coast architect for a brother, Kahn likely respected her artistic opinion or at least her ability to get a sound second opinion on matters of design. Together, they created a jewel-box of a building that is a testament to Kahn’s abilities and Esherick’s sensibilities, one that continues to demonstrate the transcendent quality of outstanding design, craftsmanship, and stewardship.

Credit  |  archeyes.com

Designed by  |  Richard Neutra
Year  |  1946

470 West Vista Chino, Palm Springs, CA 92262  USA

One of the most important architects of the 20th Century, yet often overlooked, Richard Neutra has been on the forefront of modern residential architecture.  After moving to the United States from Vienna, Austria in 1923, Neutra worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolf Schindler until 1930 when he started his own practice.  

One of Neutra’s several iconic projects is the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs , California. Completed between 1946-1947, the Kaufmann House was a vacation home for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. and his family to escape the harsh winters of the northeast.

10 years after the design of Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, the Kaufmann’s were looking for a residence that could be used to escape the cold winters of the northeast, which would primarily be used during January. 

After seeing Wright’s Taliesin West, Kaufmann was unimpressed and gave his commission to Richard Neutra.   Unlike Taliesin West, which implemented more earthy tones and materials, Neutra employed a more modernist and international style approach using glass, steel, and some stone in the design.

The design of the house is quite simplistic; at the center of the house is the living room and the dining room that is the heart of the house and the family activity. The rest of the house branches out like a pinwheel in each of the cardinal directions.  From the center of the house each wing that branches out has its own specific function; however, the most important aspects of the house are oriented east/west while the supporting features are oriented north/south.

The north and south wings are the most public parts of the house that connect to the central living area.  The south wing consists of a covered walkway that leads from the center of the house to the carport. 

The north wing is the guest’s quarters that are publicly accessible, but retain their private needs as they are separated from the rest of the house.  The west wing of the house is the service wing, which is fairly secluded from the rest of the open plan design.  The east wing is the most privatized aspect of the house as it is the Kaufmann’s master suite.

The house’s swimming pool is one of the most iconic and recognizable aspects of the Kaufmann House; however, it is not solely a photographic gem or simply a recreational feature.  The swimming pool creates a compositional balance of the overall design of the house.  The house alone is unbalanced and heavy as the wings are not equally proportioned, but with the addition and placement of the swimming pool there is a cohesive balance and harmony throughout the design.

The low, horizontal planes that make up the pinwheel design bring the house closer to the landscape making it appear as if it is hovering above the ground.  

The floating effect is emphasized through a series of sliding glass doors that open up to cover walkways or patios. The way in which Neutra designed the Kaufmann House was such that when the sliding glass doors were opened the differentiation of interior and exterior was blurred as if it was a sinuous space.

The flow from interior to exterior space is not simply a spatial condition rather it is an issue of materiality that creates the sinuous experience. The glass and steel make the house light, airy, and open, but it is the use of stone that solidifies the houses contextual relationship.  The light colored, dry set stone, what Neutra calls “Utah buff,” brings out the qualities of the glass and steel, but it also blends into the earthy tones of the surrounding landscape of the stone, mountains, and trees.

The Kaufmann House has gone through several owners after the Kaufmann’s owned the house, which led to the house to fall in disrepair and a lack of concern and preservation of the modern dwelling.   However, a couple that appreciated 20th Century modern homes restored the house back to its original luster with the help of Julius Shulman. The Kaufmann House is now considered to be an architectural landmark and one of the most important houses in the 20th Century.

Credit  |  archdaily.com

Designed by  | Philip Johnson
Year  |  1949

199 Elm Street, New Canaan, CT 06840  USA

The Glass House is best understood as a pavilion for viewing the surrounding landscape. Invisible from the road, the house sits on a promontory overlooking a pond with views towards the woods beyond. The house is 55 feet long and 33 feet wide, with 1,815 square feet. Each of the four exterior walls is punctuated by a centrally located glass door that opens onto the landscape. The house, which ushered the International Style into residential American architecture, is iconic because of its innovative use of materials and its seamless integration into the landscape. Philip Johnson, who lived in the Glass House from 1949 until his death in 2005, conceived of it as half a composition, completed by the Brick House. Both buildings were designed in 1945-48.

Since its completion in 1949, the building and decor have not strayed from their original design. Most of the furniture came from Johnson’s New York apartment, designed in 1930 by Mies van der Rohe. In fact, Mies designed the now iconic daybed specifically for Johnson. A seventeenth-century painting attributed to Nicolas Poussin stands in the living room. The image, Burial of Phocion, depicts a classical landscape and was selected specifically for the house by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art. The sculpture, Two Circus Women, by Elie Nadelman stands opposite. It is a small version of a marble sculpture that is in the lobby of the New York State Theater (now David H. Koch Theater) at Lincoln Center in 1964.

The floor plan of the Glass House reveals a fairly traditional living space. Although there are no walls, Philip Johnson referred to areas within the rectangular, loft-like space as “rooms.” There is a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, hearth area, bathroom, and an entrance area. Despite the very modern style of the house, the layout could easily be a colonial home, something Johnson noted.

As detailed in the floor plan, the placement of furniture throughout the house is precise. A rug defines the living room area, while seating around a low table anchors the space. The living room is the focal point of the house, and like nested boxes, it is the center from which the site is successively occupied: living room, house, courtyard, and landscape. The fixed furniture plan contrasts with the surrounding landscape, which is ever-changing through weather and season.

The “room” with the greatest privacy is the bedroom, which also contains a small desk. It is separated from the living room by a series of built-in storage cabinets with walnut veneer. Although today open space floor-plans are common, it was highly unusual in 1949.

Credit  |  theglasshouse.org

Designed by  | Charles & Ray Eames
Year  |  1949

203 Chautauqua Blvd Pacific Palisades, CA 90272  USA

The Eames House, also known as Case Study House No. 8, is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was designed and constructed in 1949 by husband-and-wife Charles and Ray Eames to serve as their home and studio. They lived in their home until their deaths: Charles in 1978 and Ray, ten years to the day, in 1988.

It was a home filled with gifts from friends, family and colleagues. The way the Eameses lived their life in their home echoed how they lived their life at work. They anticipated their guests’ needs – whether welcoming visitors at the house with delightful treats or when designing a chair and considering how best to meet the needs of the user — the guest in this case. They believed in the iterative process: the redesigning and rethinking of a project to improve it, whether it was through creating the three versions of their film Powers of Ten, or the two house designs for the site, or the constantly evolving décor during the early years.

Charles described the house as unselfconscious. There is a sense of that “way-it-should-be-ness”. Charles and Ray designed a house specifically to meet their needs, but they were those universal needs that we all share as humans. They believed in the honest use of materials and straightforward connections. The details WERE the product!

And then by nestling the house into the hillside, rather than imposing it on the site, they realized their original intent: for the house in nature to serve as a re-orientor. The scent, the sound of birds, the shadow of the trees against the structure whether inside or out, the openness of the site—all the elements join seamlessly.

Charles said, “Just as a good host tries to anticipate the needs of his guest, so a good architect or a designer or a city planner tries to anticipate the needs of those who will live in or use the thing being designed.”

Come visit and explore how the house exemplifies many of the themes of the Eameses’ work: from furniture to exhibitions, the guest/host relationship, the iterative process that leads to meeting the need, the importance of the direct experience, the relation with nature, the life in work and work in life, the importance of details, and more. Together the structure, collections, and landscape tell the story of the couple’s approach to life and work

The Eames House consists of two glass and steel rectangular boxes: one is a residence; one, a working studio, exploring process, materiality and color.

Credit  |  eamesfoundation.org

More on the case study houses here:  https://www.laconservancy.org/save-places/issues/case-study-houses/

Designed by  | Eero Saarinen
Year  |  1957

506 5th Street,, Columbus, IN 47201  USA

Completed in 1957 for industrialist and philanthropist J. Irwin Miller and his family in Columbus, Indiana, the Miller House and Garden embodies midcentury Modernism in it's fullest. Architect Eero Saarinen's steel and glass composition has held together very well, proving the quality and use of materials to be worthy of time.

Not the first building designed for these clients by Saarinen, the initial intention of Miller and his wife was to create a year-round dwelling that could be used to entertain business guests from around the world, also doubling as a good environment to raise their children. 

As head of Cummins Engine, was to create civic and institutional buildings in their town located 45 miles from Indianapolis, hoping to transform and reinvent into a hub of inventive design. Eero Saarinen worked with interior designer Alexander Girard and landscaper Daniel Kiley to best fulfill the ideas he had in mind for the house and garden.

An architectural tradition developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, this house encompasses some of the most fundamental aspects of the international Modernist aesthetic, including an open and flowing layout, flat roof and vast stone and glass walls.

Saarinen also included ideas of the main walls of public areas extending from floor to ceiling and cut out of marble several inches thick. The exposed edges eliminate a sense of separation between interior and nature through use of huge panes of glass.

It is located on a thirteen-acre rectangular site that stretches between a busy street and river. The plan acts as an organized rectangle divided into nine sections, the corners house the master bedroom suite, children's area, kitchen/laundry, and a zone encompassing the guest room, servant's quarters and a carport. 

The children's rooms were designed with knowledge of standard children's rooms in Finland, where the private bedroom of each child was made small and functional and attached to a common playroom that tended to encourage social interaction.

Totaling around 6,800 square-feet, the one-story house comprised of glass and gray-blue-slate panels is supported by steel cruciform columns and illuminated by a grid of skylights. 

The interior designing of Alexander Girard creates an intimate and colorful experience, particularly in the living room's conversation pit. The dining area's sculptural white pedestal chairs become the center of focus while passing through or stopping to eat and enjoy the company.

Landscaping by Kiley is admired for its large geometric gardens and alley of honey locust trees, which run alon the west side of the house.

n 2000, the property underwent a $2 million dollar restoration and the National Historic Landmark was reopened to the  public.The Irwin-Sweeney-Miller Foundation and the Miller family have donated around $5 million, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art is continuing to raise more funds.

Credit  |  archdaily.com

Designed by  | John Lautner
Year  |  1962

7436 Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90046  USA

John Lautner is unquestionably one of the most original and imaginative architects of the twentieth century and, much to the delight of Angelenos, many of his most iconic and enduring projects are found throughout Los Angeles. Built for Russ Garcia, an arranger for jazz great Stan Kenton, the "Rainbow" house is a one-of-a-kind work of architectural art easily identified by the distinctive lines of its arched clear-span roof and its playfully colored stained glass windows. And yet despite the impressiveness of the structure when viewed from the street, it's actually a modest-sized home designed with the practicality of everyday living in mind.

There is a distinct lightness and sense of fun to the Garcia House which rests upon two large V-shaped supports giving it the appearance of an aircraft hovering off the face of the hillside. The long span form of the steel roof piece was developed even further in future projects, becoming a signature of the Reiner Residence ("Silvertop") in Silver Lake and The Elrod House in Palm Springs. From the front of the house on Mulholland Drive, on a clear day, one can see through the glass walls of the house all the way to the Pacific Ocean. However, nobody can be seen inside of the house thanks to the living room floor being about 10 feet below Mulholland Drive.

2011 marked the 100th birthday of John Lautner, who was as an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesen West. His brillaince was evident early on and even Wright himself boldly claimed that Lautner was "the world's second greatest architect". Like Wright, Lautner is recognized for creating dramatic architecture that blends naturally into the surrounding landscape and he does so while working with powerful geometric designs. "I love lakes, mountains," Lautner is quoted as saying, "and none of them are square".

Credit  |  modernlivingla.com

Designed by  | Pierre Koenig
Year  |  1954

1635 Woods Dr, West Hollywood, CA 90069  USA

The Stahl house is an icon of midcentury modern architecture. Julius Schulman’s photographs of the house are often the headlining images for any article or publication on the topic.  

“If you don’t know the Stahl house, then you don’t know mid-century modern architecture.”

What makes this house so unique and iconic? The significance of this home is the product of the site, materials, design, location, photographs, and zeitgeist of the period it was built. These unique characteristics of the project amalgamate in an idealistic architectural cocktail that continues to enchant people to this day. 

With well-known architecture, the building’s notoriety is often due to the architect’s brand or the status of the owner rather than to the atmosphere and quality of space created by the architecture. When you inhabit one of these buildings, the experience is often underwhelming. This is not the case with the Stahl House. 

“Nobody famous ever lived here” - Stahl Family.

Buck and Carlotta Stahl purchased a vacant lot in 1954 from George Beha for $13,500 on a handshake deal. They had driven up the hill to explore the lot when Beha serendipitously drove onto the property. After negotiating with Beha for nearly two hours, the deal was completed, and the Stahls owned the lot. It is often said that Beha was ecstatic that he was able to “get rid of” the piece of land. 

The lot is located in West Hollywood. It is steeply sloping with panoramic views overlooking greater Los Angeles. At that time, this area appealed to younger buyers because the land was inexpensive, not highly desired, and there were fewer building restrictions on the lot. Buck would spend nearly two years on the nights and weekends grading the building pad, building retaining walls from collected rubble, and observing the sun patterns over the land. The Stahl’s envisioned a home with large expanses of glass so they could capture the views of the city; they just needed the architect to bring their vision to life. 

In 1957, Buck and Carlotta commissioned Pierre Koenig to design their 2,300-square-foot home. Initially, it was said that the Stahl’s wanted something much more figural than what is on-site today. They came to Koenig with the idea of a butterfly roof and several curves in the design. Koenig simplified their ideas into the “L” shaped plan with the flat roof you see today. The Stahls trusted Koenig and approved his design. 

Construction of the home started in May of 1959 and was completed one year later, in May of 1960.  The home’s foundation is made of large concrete piles and grade beams. The shell of the house is built primarily out of steel and glass. Large floor-to-ceiling, 20-foot wide panes of glass make up most of the walls facing the view. The panes of glass were some of the largest available for that time. Industrial-sized steel decking created the roof assembly similar to what you may have seen in warehouse or commercial construction. The massive sheets of steel decking allowed Koenig to extend the roof overhangs out over the pool hardscape to create shaded areas that cover the indoor/outdoor transition areas. Radiant heating pipes heat the home’s floors, and the pool is warmed to line the exterior by solar panels on the roof. 

Koenig was convinced he could use industrial stock materials and assemble them to create something beautiful. He would attempt to design the structure using typical connection details and parts without custom detailing and welding not only to help reduce cost but also to reduce the complexity and time of construction in the field. It is recorded that the structure of the Stahl house was erected in one day with a crew of five workers. This is a testament to the thoughtful design and approach to the structural frame of the building. 

Koenig spent months in the building department convincing engineers and planners to approve his design. Because steel was an unconventional building material for homes at the time, and the steep slope on the hillside, there was a lot of pushback. Koenig would not step down; he was adamant about building the house as he envisioned and spent months reviewing the details and drawings with the building officials. 

More here

Credit  |  stahlhouse.com