Class 16

More Modern Houses

agenda 3.30.15

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, 1936

Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, Plano, IL, 1951

Case Study houses, 1945-1966

#22 Pierre Koenig, Stahl House

a word about Julius Shulman

Joseph Eichler

John Lautner, Chemosphere (Malin House)

"Fallingwater" (1936-9)

designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Edgar J. Kaufmann

on site of "summer camp" owned by department store and

used as a retreat for employees

Fallingwater

Farnsworth House

south elevation

north elevation

Case Study Houses

January 1945 Arts & Architecture Magazine announced a

new program called the "Case Study Houses."

Each house that qualified "must be capable of duplication

and in no sense be an individual 'performance'... It is

important that the best material available be used in the

best possible way in order to arrive at a ‘good’ solution of

each problem, which in the overall program will be general

enough to be of practical assistance to the average

American in search of a home in which he can afford to

live.”

the domestic frontier

“...We of course assume that the shape and form of post war

living is of primary importance to a great many Americans,

and that...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.”

name architects like Richard Neutra and Eero Saarinen

were invited to participate, but others could apply to be

part of the program

No. 22 The Stahl House

Pierre Koenig, architect, designed house No. 21 as well

famous photos by Julius Shulman taken in 1960

built for Buck Stahl, who had acquired the land in 1954

very difficult site with spectacular view

John LAUTNER

"Chemosphere"

1960

When Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for

building houses on the difficult sloped land. The ground could be cut to create a

level platform or the house could be supported on an open steel framework. The

client, however, had a small budget (only $30,000) so Lautner instead took

advantage of the client’s extensive imagination and rejected both structural

methods for one that would cost about half of the conventional solution with

retaining walls and land drains. Lautner perched the entire one-story octagon on

a single 30-foot concrete column, leaving the natural surroundings untouched.

Joseph EICHLER (1900-

1974)

lived in a FLW home, Bazett House (1939)

briefly rented from Mr. Bazett, who wouldn't sell it to him. Is

now owned by the couple who evicted him.

hired architects to design plans

Bazett House

Hillsborough, CA, 1939

EICHLER STYLE

suburban ranches that emphasized casual indoor-outdoor

living

garages often faced the street, while living areas opened

toward the rear; later examples included an open-air

atrium at the center.

Flat or shallow-pitched roofs, exposed beams, and

expanses of plate glass.

Running materials both inside and out (like the brick for a

fireplace) to reinforce the idea that house and site were

extensions of each other.

John Pawson, House, 2002-2009, Los Angeles

John Pawson

Born in 1949 in Yorkshire, England.

Working in family textile business

Went to Japan where he spent several years teaching

English in Nagoya.

Moved to Tokyo, where he visited the studio of Japanese

architect and designer Shiro Kuramata.

After returning to England, he enrolled at the Architecture

Association in London, leaving to establish his own

practice in 1981.

— themes he also explored in

modernist credo

"From the outset the work has

focused on ways of approaching

fundamental problems of space,

proportion, light and materials, rather

than on developing a set of stylistic

mannerisms."

Pawson, Tilty Hill Barn, 1995