In 1945, Arts & Architecture magazine editor John Entenza launched a series of “Case Study Houses.” His aim was to bring efficient, contemporary building models to a wider public in post-WWII America. Some were never built, some were completed differently, and none were ever mass-produced, as Entenza hoped, but CSH would become one of the most defining contributions to American modernism – in design, style, and architecture. And it came from right here in Los Angeles.
Entenza began his editorship of a home and garden magazine in 1938, but shifted its focus to modern art, featuring the likes of Jackson Pollock and Buckminster Fuller. The Case Study House program started as an initiative to explore new techniques, simple materials, appliances and modern designs in architecture that can be easily duplicated during the housing boom as cities expanded. Entenza picked 8 architects, Richard Neutra and the Eames among them, who he knew were as committed to modernism.
Nighttime views from inside
Neutra had been building in L.A. for 20 years, the Lovell House among them, while Charles Eames had studied with Entenza and both moved here because it was a fast emerging art city. Besides the film industry, its reputation for a city open to creativity and experimentation attracted all kinds of artists, as it does still today.
CSH#8 was built with prefabricated parts and 11 tons of steel, rarely used before in residential homes. Its use of mass-produced, readily available industrial materials was one of the main components of the program. Various colors of translucent glass were added, like a rendering of a Mondrian painting. The Eames House would of course become a landmark in architecture.
Other notable architects were J.R. Davidson (CSH#1 and CSH#2), who worked designing ship cabins and whose sense of compact space and interiors was very important to the program’s goal of creating smaller, straightforward houses; and Ralph Rapson, whose Greenbelt House was one of the program’s most radical designs – an open floor plan with the communal spaces and bedrooms separated by planting. Though the Greenbelt House was never built, a full-scale model was exhibited at MOCA.
Each design was published in Arts & Architecture, and its progress followed through in later publications. Once each house was built, Entenza planned to have it open to the public, like model homes. After the first 8 commissions, he also decided to extend the program. CSH#11, designed by Davidson for the magazine’s managers, became the first to be completed in 1946. Its 1-story 1,100-square foot space was a perfect example of the kind of compact, economic designs the program wanted, made modern by its glass walls and flat roof. In 1946 and 1947, the first 6 houses were toured by over 368,000 visitors.
Corner views of the pool
Arts & Architecture also published modern furniture and interiors, and other consumer products were featured with the houses. These would be picked up by other publications, and the Case Study Houses became very popular to an international audience. This was one of Entenza’s goals – to bring modernism to the public, and tear them away from traditional Victorian and Spanish colonial architecture.
Because of its popularity, many successful commissions were built in the 1950’s. Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, and Pierre Koenig were the ones to really pioneer the use of steel framing in residential design. Ellwood was trained as an engineer, and had a keener sense in using industrial materials and techniques. CSH#16, #17, & #18, all by Ellwood, are considered the program’s most elegant designs, using thin, painted steel, glass walls, open floor plans and green spaces. This inclusion of attached green spaces has always been an integral part of Southern California’s architecture. Architects designed with its all-year warm weather in mind. But this was also one of the program’s drawbacks because this kind of regional architecture did not work in other climates.
CSH#21, by Pierre Koenig, was built with 7 prefabricated steel frames for the walls and roofs, sliding doors, and reflecting pools. The Bailey House would win several architectural awards. Bur more famous of course is CSH#22, the Stahl House, a dramatic L-shaped design of steel and glass with 270° views of Los Angeles – Hollywood and Sunset Blvd, Griffith Park and all the way to the ocean. The 20-foot wide windows were the largest available at that time.
House views with Downtown LA
After venturing into multi-housing projects (CSH#23 – The Triad) and more organic designs (CHS#28, a symmetrical brick house, would be the last), John Entenza sold the magazine in 1962, pretty much closing the program with it.
Although it did not succeed in its goal of making the Case Study Houses prototypes for modern America homes, the program was impressive in originality, ambition, and influence. Renzo Piano’s technologically-driven designs, Norman Foster’s glass and steel framing, Frank Gehry’s use of cheap industrial materials at the beginning of his career, and today’s open floor plans all owe to CSH.
People may not think of Los Angeles in architectural terms the way they do of Chicago and New York, but it was CSH alongside other great L.A. architects – R.M. Schindler, John Lautner, Gregory Ain among them – that helped pioneer modernist architecture. And it did succeed in the spirit of experimentation that makes this city so unique.
When the plans for the Stahl House were finally approved, building officials said there will never be another house built like this because no one would want the big windows. Of course it would actually become a blue-print model in the kind of architecture where you can see as far and as much as possible. In L.A. this means the mountains, the ocean, and the city all at once.
“The owner wanted a clear and unobstructed view and this is the only way we could do it. It’s all glass. The view is important. The house is supposed to fit in with the environment and relate to it. You don’t see the house when you’re in it, you see the view.” –Pierre Koenig
