April 2019
View over Los Angeles from Griffith Park [1]
I recently treated myself to a weekend away to my favourite architecture city, Los Angeles. The weekend divulged into a full-scale architectural binge that encompassed 3 days, 18 houses, 2 galleries, 1 concert hall, 1 office building and an observatory.
After a rare LA rainy day on the Friday, the sun came out on the Saturday and provided the perfect setting for some architectural exploration. Recharged after lunch looking over the endless city views from Griffith Observatory I wandered down the park and into the Los Feliz suburbs in search of two of residential architecture icons, the Ennis House by Frank Lloyd Wright c.1924 and the Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra c. 1929. After countless hills, some non-pedestrian friendly streets and a brief diversion for coffee with an Australian I met also embracing the Saturday afternoon sunshine, I successfully found the two houses and was blown away by what I uncovered.
Still reeling from the success of these two houses I angled back towards my accommodation in West Hollywood and re-visited the Kings Road House by Rudolph Schindler c.1922. When I first arrived in the US two years ago I knew little of Rudolph Schindler and less about his Kings Road House. However, with dinner reservations nearby on my second day in the US I visited the house and experienced a humbleness, warmth of material and flexibility in plan that since that day left me wondering: ‘is the Kings Road House my favourite house in the US?’. Curious to know if my jetlagged eyes had deceived me, I thought it important to revisit this house and analyse it with fresh eyes, rich with two years of US architectural experiences.
This impromptu Saturday of exploration was not planned around a timeline of architecture. It was simply the result of a morning tour in Silver Lake and my accommodations home base location. Sitting back at the end of the day I realised something special. These three houses are all uniquely different, independently important and all built within 7 years of each other in the 1920’s. The 20’s were a period of great movement in architecture and I wanted to explore this concept through these three wonderful houses.
Ennis House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Los Feliz, 1924 [2]
It is hard to have any discussion of American architecture without a direct reference or link to Frank Lloyd Wright. His widespread influence in the US is unparalleled anywhere else in the world that I have experienced. I was amazed to uncover that most Americans knows who is – a level of recognition usually reserved only for Presidents. Los Angeles, of course was not immune to this.
Wright after parting from Louis Sullivan launched his own office in Oak Park and developed his revolutionary style of ‘Organic Architecture’. His Prairie style of design, executed predominantly as houses, embraced long horizontal forms and looked to break down the disconnection between architecture and nature.
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
Wright’s unique and enigmatic style never led to direct reproductions, although his impact, both through built works and personal influence had a transformative effect of architecture. Wright’s Taliesin Architecture apprenticeship program led to multiple important architects of the next generation. The school lured budding designers from around the globe – including Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra.
Imperial Palace, Frank Lloyd Wright, Tokyo, 1923 [3]
Wright in the early 1920’s was travelling regularly through California to visit his Imperial Palace project under construction in Tokyo (c.1923). The focus in the United States around this time was looking west for a new start, leading to numerous exciting commissions for Wright’s office. The first of these projects was the Hollyhock House for the oil heiress Aline Barnsdall in East Hollywood. This project also led to Rudolph Schindler moving to Los Angeles as the Project Architect for Wright.
Wright throughout his career was fascinated with creating a new American architecture style that was not beholden to European influences. This had already been successfully realised across the Mid-West with his renowned Prairie Style. After the success of this style Wright was looking to utilise this concept of creating organic design concepts linked to the site and indigenous environmental aspects in other areas. Given Southern California’s vast difference from the Mid-West, Wright began exploring varying options that would suit the Los Angeles environs. These concepts first appeared as four projects that he completed in Los Angeles during the 1920’s in a ‘Textile Block’ style. These designs have a distinct Mayan influence that was vastly different to anything else being designed at the time.
On the new western frontier in Los Angeles Wright investigated what he coined a new ‘Textile Block’ architectural style that utilized site cast modular blocks in a theatrical manner. The outcomes created an anciently modern style that sat heavily on their sites to withstand the long, dry weather of Southern California. The four houses were: the Storer House in Hollywood, c.1923, the Millard House in Pasadena, c.1923, the Samuel Freeman House in Hollywood, c.1924, and the climax, the Ennis House in Los Feliz, c.1924.
Wright envisioned an inexpensive and simple method of construction that would allow ordinary people to build their own home with the stacked blocks. These utilitarian ideals however, have little to do with the Ennis House or his other three residences of the Textile Block style due to their lavish scale, budgets and auras.
The dramatic interlocking pre-cast concrete blocks use granite from the site to colour the blocks in a manner that inherently links the building to the site. The blocks are imprinted with Mayan inspired reliefs. Wright at this time was interested in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, especially the Uxmal area, the similarities between the proportions and patterns are hard to ignore. I am yet to visit the interiors of the Ennis House, however thanks to an extended period of loitering out the front hoping to find an invite inside, I have developed an appreciation for the power of this building. The ancient blockwork, its unrelenting atmosphere and dramatic position on the hill prompts me to think that this may be the most commanding building I have ever experienced. All other potential candidates for this title are public buildings. This prompts a real need to explore the interiors of this house to see if it is able to function as a home.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence on global architecture is one of the more substantial folios of work across the course of architectural history. It therefore seems fitting that he produces one of his more interesting and creative works in this era of LA where the innovative thinking of a series architects would dramatically change the trajectory of the whole industry.
Kings Road House, Rudolph Schindler, West Hollywood, 1922 [4]
Rudolph Schindler was one of the great early modernist architects in Los Angeles. However the reputation of his work and his overall legacy does not get credited as greatly as the importance of his work should have been. This is largely due to Schindler’s main focus of linking to site and nature, rather than conforming and embracing the International Style machine that Philip Johnson was preaching at MoMA. This naturally cost him potential publication in an era where it was thought the the International Style was the future. His works relevance today, with numerous becoming timeless pieces of design, highlights why his refusal to conform to the International Style was founded on logical ideals
Schindler was born, raised and educated in Vienna. He was drawn to the US early in his architecture career by the exciting architectural developments. He courted employment with Wright for several years and with the commission of the Imperial Hotel, Wright was able to find space to hire Schindler. Wright’s presence in LA was beginning to grow and with this came the opportunity for Schindler to move to the west coast as the Project Architect for the Hollyhock House in East Hollywood.
Following his time working on the Hollyhock House he started work on his own private commissions in Los Angeles, including his own residence, the Kings Road House c.1922. This house was one of the earliest instances of modern residential design. The Kings Road House, still stands as an example of one of the finest contemporary houses ever executed, making its 1922 completion date even more incredible.
Kings Road House, Rudolph Schindler, West Hollywood, 1922 [5]
The Kings Road House was just as remarkable for what it did not have, as for what it did have. The houses’ planning was quite revolutionary, proposing that two couples (Rudolph and Pauline Schindler and Clyde and Marian Chase) live together in one combined, detached residence. The floor plan dismissed traditional layouts and instead created a separate studio apartment for each occupant that unfolded across the site opening uniquely onto a series of patios.
Schindler theorised ‘Space Form’, his idealised academic path forward for architectural design. This theory looked to design in a manner where the house is a symphony of spaces – each room acting as a necessary and unavoidable part of the whole. Structural materials, walls, ceilings, floors were only means to an end. Each element lost its individual importance and was to be simplified to the utmost. His ‘Space Form’ theory evolved and guided his career with the outcomes usually comprising of a simple weave of a few materials that articulate spaces into forms. Given Schindler’s affinity with Wright, the Kings Road House aggressively looked to blur the line between the inside and outside of the dwelling. Wright preached the need for ‘breaking the box’ and continuous spaces – a concept that was fully achieved here. Schindler believed that buildings were part of nature and should not be treated as two discernible items.
“The house is no longer a castle, with thick brick walls to emphasize its safety, but the background for harmonious life. The ‘front and back door aspect’ of the house will be dispensed with, and ‘the garden will become an integral part of the house. The distinction between the indoors and out-of-doors will disappear”
The two concepts of ‘Space Form’ and ‘breaking the box’ underpinned the concepts behind the Kings Road House. Nothing superfluous is included at the Kings Road House. Its success arises from the Japanese restraint for materials, combined with an unwavering desire for each interior space to connect to the outdoors. The house feels more like the perfection of camping, than a house – which in the Southern California climate works perfectly.
Schindler’s work evolved throughout his career to be more personal than international. He focused more on practical facts, rather than being dictated by any form of style. This led to his dismissal from most of the cannons of modernity. Schindler was more attuned to the Regionalist architects that would arise along the West Coast later in the century such as Joseph Esherick in Northern California and John Yeon in Oregon. He was more concerned about whether the design is really a house, than the fact that it might be made of “steel, glass, putty or hut air”.
The Kings Road House is truly one of the more remarkable houses in the world. Schindler was able to innovatively balance the influences of climate, nature, materiality and spatial layouts into a wonderfully cohesive and succinct design. The Kings Road house and Schindler long after his passing (1887–1953) are starting to get the credit deserved. This timeless piece of architecture stands as an example of architectural perfection that should be experienced by all who have the chance.
Lovell Health House, Richard Neutra, Los Feliz, 1929 [6]
As Schindler began to redefine how architecture could be realised, another architect who paralleled Schindler’s life arrived in Los Angeles. This man was Richard Neutra and he unlike Schindler, he would receive vast international acclaim that would put both Los Angeles and the United States on the map as a modernist icon.
Neutra was also born, raised and educated in Vienna. Neutra and Schindler crossed paths whilst studying under Otto Wagner in 1912. Soon after Neutra also found himself working briefly for Wright in Chicago before moving west to Los Angeles in 1925. Due to their connection Schindler invited Neutra to live in the recently vacated second half of the Kings Road House. He started work in Southern California as a landscape architect, with one of his earlier landscape commissions being on the Schindler designed Lovell Beach House c.1926.
Neutra’s early career was halted by the lag of the world economy following WWI, however upon his arrival in the now thriving Los Angeles his creative desires were allowed to flourish. Neutra embraced the new found global opportunities created technically in recent decades more avidly than most on the west coast at this time. His desire for experimentation was insatiable. The wartime innovation had developed new construction techniques, methods and opportunities. His early architecture endeavours involved a range of new procedures and creative uses of materials. Neutra like few others before him was able to rationalise these ideals far beyond industrial design and instead create innovative pieces of architecture that integrated new technologies inherently into the design, rather than isolated from it.
“Neutra took nothing for granted in those early years of exploration, he re-examined every building practice; no member or detail or material escaped his scrutiny. His buildings of the twenties and early thirties brought into the folds of architecture various elements that would never be alien again.”
One of the earliest examples of Neutra’s innovative direction was the Jardinette Apartments c.1928. This was the first International Style building in Los Angeles. The buildings minimal and functionalist design had little to do with the influences of Wright or California. Instead the building was a pragmatic design that looked to explore the opportunities of the new technological age.
Neutra quickly followed the apartments with the Lovell Health House c.1929. The Lovell Health House was designed as the main residence for Dr Phillip Lovell, who just three years earlier had commissioned Schindler to design his beach house. Lovell made this decision while Neutra and Schindler were living under the same roof – a decision that would create tension between their friendship.
Lovell Health House, Richard Neutra, Los Feliz, 1929 [7]
The Lovell Health House took the ideals first developed at the Jardinette Apartments and with the help on an expansive site up in the Los Feliz hills and a sizeable budget and brief, Neutra was able to create something truly magical. The design utilized the recent technical advances to create a dwelling that focused on the health benefits of natural light and connections to nature that both Neutra and the client Dr Lovell were fascinated with. The house is pinned back to the cliff at the rear of the site to prioritise the perpendicular views down over LA.
Neutra’s meticulous technological knowledge for manufacturing allowed the steel shop work to be held to a decimal tolerance. This precision aimed to reduce the costliness of any changes on site during construction. This resulted in the steel skeleton for the whole house being fully erected on site in less than forty hours.
The design is defined by a series of overlapping planes that are supported by slender columns throughout. The design is not constrained by Wrights usual low sprawling proportions; instead it looks towards the machine aesthetic being explored by Le Corbusier in Europe. The houses success on the site can also be attributed to Neutra’s years as a landscape designer. The site below draws the occupants out into the landscape. It is only from the below that the full appreciation for the sculptural ‘machine’ of the functionalist house can be fully appreciated.
The Lovell Health House was the first icon of the International Style on the west coast. It was through this house that Los Angeles first began to be recognised on the world stage. After the completion of the house and its subsequent publication worldwide Neutra was hailed as a technological genius, launching his successful career. In hindsight this house declared to the west coast the arrival of the International era of design. Not just the ‘International Style’, but the whole palette of architecture available in the globalising world. No longer would LA be nestled away in its corner. The completion of the Lovell Health House signified that the influence of LA on the world and the world on LA would never been the same again.
“The difference between Neutra’s generation and the previous one was summed up by Eric Mendelsohn: “The old gradually unclothes itself to nakedness, while the new is born naked.”
The crucible of Los Angeles in the 1920’s was hot and ready to dictate the path forward for architectural design in the century that would follow. In the seven decades that came before this moment steel had been developed to span large spaces; steel skeletons had replaced masonry; reinforced concrete had been mastered as a self supporting plane; glass had advanced to unveil the desire for transparency; Japanese influences taught Europe and the US an appreciation for lightness and rhythm. All of these advances had changed the laws of physics and dismissed the static classical balance, ushering in an era of dynamism and open-ended possibilities.
These three houses define an era of dramatic change in LA that has excitedly embraced by the city and the greater world. The houses whilst all dramatically different were all trying to answer the same question: What is the best outcome for this site, and through this houses innovation, how can it shape the greater design discussion?
Wright, was trying to create a unique and site appropriate style of Southern Californian indigenous design.
Schindler, was endeavouring to create a house perfectly connected to nature in a refined and homely manner.
Neutra, was exploring the extremes of architectural possibilities to create the home of the future.
Together these three pioneers of global architecture created a legacy that has shaped the trajectory of all who followed them. This created a nucleus of design exploration in Los Angeles that will endlessly have me returning to find more inspiration and ideas.
References:
August Sarnitz, ‘R M Schindler Architect 1887-1953’, 1986
Esther McCoy, ‘ Richard Neutra’, 1960
Ada Louise Huxtable, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’, 2004
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