Blueprints for Modern Living : History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses

by Elizabeth A. T. Smith (Ed.)

• ISBN13: 9780262692137
• ISBN10: 0262692139
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Winner of the 1999 Philip Johnson Award presented by the Society of Architectural Historians.essays by Reyner Banham, Dolores Hayden, Thomas Hine, Thomas S. Hines, Esther McCoy, Helen Searing, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Kevin Starr One of Southern California's most significant contributions to modern architecture was the Case Study House program sponsored by John Entenza's Art & Architecturemagazine. Between 1945 and 1966, thirty-six experimental prototypes were designed and the majority built. Featuring some of the most important architects of the region and generation-including Charles Eames, Craig Ellwood, A. Quincy Jones, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, and Raphael Soriano-the program reflected the modernist goal of reinventing the house as a way of redefining living. A number of the essayists in the book suggest that what made the houses distinctive and influential was not so much their International Style modernism as how that style was domesticated and scaled to the single-family house. . . and how it forecast what came to be known as the California lifestyle. In addition to the eight main essays, the book, which was based on a 1989-1990 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, contains entries by the exhibition curator, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and research assistant Amelia Jones on the thirty-six Case Study projects, documentation of six projects commissioned by MOCA, biographies of the thirty architects involved in the program, and a wealth of photographs, drawings, plans, and scale models.

Table of Contents

Foreword and Acknowledgments	9	(4)
Richard Koshalek
Introduction Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses	13	(2)
Elizabeth A. T. Smith
Arts & Architecture Case Study Houses	15	(26)
Esther McCoy
The Thirty-Six Case Study Projects	41	(42)
Amelia Jones
Elizabeth A. T. Smith
Case Study Trouve: Sources and Precedents, Southern California, 1920--1942	83	(24)
Thomas S. Hines
Case Study Houses: In the Grand Modern Tradition	107	(24)
Helen Searing
The Case Study Program and the Impending Future: Some Regional Considerations	131	(14)
Kevin Starr
Arts & Architecture and the Los Angeles Vanguard	145	(22)
Elizabeth A. T. Smith
The Search for the Postwar House	167	(16)
Thomas Hine
Klarheit, Ehrlichkeit, Einfachkeit...and Wit Too!: The Case Study Houses in the World's Eyes	183	(14)
Reyner Banham
Model Houses for the Millions: Architects' Dreams, Builders' Boasts, Residents' Dilemmas	197	(16)
Dolores Hayden
Extending the Case Study Concept: Newly Commissioned Works	213	(1)
Adele Naude Santos	214	(2)
Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung	216	(2)
Eric Owen Moss	218	(2)
Itsuko Hasegawa	220	(2)
Toyo Ito	222	(2)
Robert Mangurian	224	(3)
Biographies	227	(13)
Chronology	240	(11)
Bibliography	251	(2)
Index	253