elis m. georgakopoulou

Dissertation by Elissavet-Maria Georgakopoulou/10136113

Name of Supervisor: Jeremy Gould

CASE STUDY HOUSES

Propaganda or necessity to suit a

Modern lifestyle?

Unpublished

Arco319/History and theory 3

BA (Hons) Architecture, University of Plymouth

Year: 2009/2010

Many of the most significant houses of this century...were

produced for exhibitions, publications, fairs, competitions and

journals...Even those houses that were built for actual clients derived

their main impact from their publication, before and after

construction. In this sense, it can be said that they are all exhibition

houses.”

1 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.64

CSH #24 (1961), Unbuilt, A. Quicy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons

Contents

Abstract.....7

1. Introduction.....9

2. The Program.....13

3. American Dream.....19

3.1 Post-war Dream House.....23

4. Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision.....27

5. Seductive Illustrations.....33

5.1 The Covers.....41

5.2 The Drawings.....43

5.3 The Photographs.....45

5.4 The Advertisements.....49

6. Conclusion.....51

7. Catalogue of the Case Study Houses.....56

8. Biographies.....64

9. Bibliography.....72

10. Illustration Credits.....74

CSH #20 (1958), Altadena, Buff, Straub and Hensman

7

Abstract

One of American’s most significant contributions to modern

Architecture was the Case Study Houses Program sponsored by

John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture magazine. Between 1945-1967,

thirty-six experimental prototypes were designed and the majority

built. Featuring some of the most important architects of generation.

The Program was a way of promoting the “good-living”, after War

World II, through large and clear illustrations like drawings,

photographs and advertisements that were launched in the

magazine’s pages. Arts & Architecture was not only read for

information, but also as a sourcebook. The Case Study House

Program had a wide impact to the public because of the new way

designing buildings, new materials and techniques. The Program did

not affect only the Americans, the influence spread around the

world. Few people had seen any of the work up close. Magazines

had to be the main source of information until after the end of the

fifties, but the impact of Arts & Architecture was increasingly being

multiplied by other magazines.

8 Introduction

GI Bill of Rights

Also called Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. United States legislation passed in 1944

that provided benefits to World War II veterans. Through the Veterans

Administration (VA), the bill provided grants for school and college tuition, low-

interest mortgage and small-business loans, job training, hiring privileges, and

unemployment payments. Amendments to the act provided for full disability

coverage and the construction of additional VA hospitals. Later legislation extended

the benefits to all who had served in the armed forces.2

1.1

Cover of Small Homes Guide,

12th ed., Spring 1944

1.2

Cover of Arts Architecture,

July 1945

2 G.I. Bill (of Rights), Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 28 Feb.

2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/536006/GI-Bill-of-Rights>.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186187/employee-training

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/536006/GI-Bill-of-Rights

9

1. Introduction

The entry of the United States into World War II caused vast

changes in virtually every aspect of American life. Many Americans

feared that the end of World War II and the subsequent drop in

military spending might bring back the hard times of Great

Depression. When the war ended, the United States was in better

economic condition than any other country in the world. The

automobile industry successfully converted from producing

armaments to producing cars, and new industries such as aviation

and electronics grew by leaps and bounds. Public policy, like the

GI Bill of Rights passed in 1944, provided money for veterans to

attend college, to purchase homes and to buy farms. A housing

boom, simulated in part by easily affordable mortgages, for

returning members of the military, added to the expansion. The

devastation wrought by six years of total war was viewed by many

architects and designers as both an enormous challenge and a

great opportunity for those associated with the pre-war avant-garde;

here was a real chance to built truly modern cities and towns with

high-rise housing and functional zoning, separating residential,

industrial and recreational areas.

A modified version of Modernist architecture, called “Contemporary”

had begun. The Contemporary post-war design was more generous

in its assessment of the public’s needs. Because Americans were not

ready to understand this new “philosophy” and type of design, they

preferred and were more comfortable with the traditional style of

architecture. For that reason numerous Modern architects started to

design modern houses and furniture. Also with articles in their

magazines and publications of “how-to” books and surveys of

contemporary practice, editors of architectural magazines were trying

to create climate for this new type of architecture in America. The

editor of the architectural magazine Arts & Architecture, John

Entenza, believed that “people would not really understand modern

architecture until they saw it, and they were not going to see it

unless it was built”.3

3 Steele, J., The Contemporary condition: Los Angeles architecture, London: Phaidon Press

Limited, 1993, p.48

10 Introduction

1.3

John Entenza

11

John Entenza had total faith in the ability of Modern architecture to

change American society in the way of living habits and he believed

that this type of architecture was for everyone. In January 1945, he

announced, in Arts & Architecture, the Case Study Houses Program.

The Program promoted the ideals of Modernism. It was a series of

experimental prototypes for low-cost housing, using standardized

mass production components. Born in a period of optimism and

anticipation after a decade and a half of economic depression and

war, it offered architects a chance to work on problems of family

housing and invited them to adopt the peacetime use of machine

technologies of prefabrications. The products that had been

developed for war, among them plastics, bonding agents, aircraft

glues, synthetic resins and new laminates, would now be adopted

for a new civil purpose. The Case Study Houses Program had a

wide impact on the public. Many have characterised it as

propaganda, whereas others have characterised it as a way of

promoting for the magazine and its architects.

12 The Program

2.1 Announcement of The Case Study House Program, Arts & Architecture, January

1945

2.2 List of the architects, Arts & Architecture, January 1945

13

2.3

Cover of Art & Architecture,

January 1945

2. The Program

The Case Study Houses Program was launched in the pages of Arts

& Architecture magazine and the announcement of the Program

appeared in the January 1945 issue. It is known as the most widely

studied effort to crystallize and popularize modern residential

architecture in an American context at midcentury.

Initially, Entenza selected eight architects or firms to design eight

houses. They were given a mandate to indentify and express the

characteristics of a new life-style that was seen to be desired by

post-war families in Southern California. The architects chosen were:

Thornton Abell, J R Davidson, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, Richard

Neutra, Ralph Rapson, Whitney Smith, Spaudling & Rex & Wustler &

Bernadi. Several of the architects involved the programme, such as

Richard Neutra and William Wustler, were already well established by

1940s, but the majority were relatively young and unknown. Charles

Eames, who built a house for himself with his wife Ray, and Eero

Saarinen, with whom he collaborated on a house for John Entenza4,

were still at the early stages of their careers. The architects were

free to choose old or new materials, although they had the

responsibility to demonstrate that a good house can be made of

cheap materials.

At first the drawings of the designs and then the photographs made

their appearance in the magazine’s pages with comments of the

architect5. Upon the completion of the houses, several weeks before

they were occupied by the new owners, the houses were completely

furnished with choice examples of modern furniture and open for

public viewing, like “showcases houses”6.

4 For CSH #8 & CSH #9 5 His reasons for his solution and his choice of specific materials 6 It has been estimated that over 350.000 people visited the houses. Travers, D., Arts &

Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh, 2008,n.p

14 The Program

2.5 CSH #10 (1945-1947),

Pasadena, Kemper Nomland

& Kemper Nomland, Jr.,

2.4 CSH #11 (1945-1946), Los Angeles, J. R. Davidson

2.6

CSH #18 (1947-1948)

Beverly Hills

Craig Ellwood

2.7

CSA #1 (1945-1948)

Phoenix, Arizona,

Alfred N. Beadle

& Alan A. Dailey

15

In the announcement, Entenza mentioned that the magazine would

be the actual client for the houses constructed in the Program but

he never explicitly abandoned that public posture. There was some

confusion, in practise. Entenza, and thus the magazine, was the

actual client in financial sense only for his own house, CSH #9, on

Cautauqua in the Pacific Palisades, designed By Charles Eames and

Eero Saarinen. In some cases, the actual clients and their precise

circumstances were known in advance of the design being

commissioned, as the CSH #11 on South Barrington Avenue, Los

Angeles, designed by J. R. Davidson, its clients were the advertising

manager of Arts & Architecture magazine and his family (fig.2.4).

Other designs were originally designed for imaginary clients and

went unbuilt because there were no clients and John Entenza either

did not have the money, or want to spend it. Before the designs

could be built, they had to await the architect finding a client and,

if deemed worthy, the project would be included in the Program.

Between the period 1945-1967 there are three phases of the Case

Study Houses Program. The first nine projects hold the attention of

critics for the inventions of the plan and their particular rapport with

the exterior (fig.2.5). The second phase consists of metal frame

constructions (1950-1960) (fig.2.6). The end of this phase was

announced by the return of wood structures and the generic post

and beam system of Los Angeles. The third and last phase of the

Program came after Entenza’s departure from the magazine (1962).

The Program suggested to architects that they pursue their

investigations with the creation of apartment blocks (fig.2.7).

All the Case Study Houses were a notable achievement in modern

residential design. One characteristic which all the houses shared,

particularly in the Program’s early phase, was technological

experimentation. In the 1950s Soriano, Koening, Buff, Straub and

Hensman were the primary innovators among the Program’s

contributors, experimenting with the structural application of steel

and the use of industrially fabricated plywood barrel - vaulted forms

as a major shaper of space. Sometimes this was embodied in the

actual structure of the building itself, as in the steel-framed houses

of Craig Elwood (fig.2.6), and sometimes in the choice of building

materials, as in Pierre Koenig’s use of steel decking (fig.2.8).

16 The Program

2.8

CSH #22 (1959-1960)

West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

2.9

CSH #21(1958-1960)

West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

2.10

CSH #20 (1958)

Altadena

Buff, Straub & Hensman

17

Their efforts were underpinned by the availability of industrial

materials in the technologically oriented context of Southern

California, where, in 1949, the Eames7 were among the first to

utilize off-the-shelf building components intended for commercial or

industrial uses in a residential building. The desire to experiment

was also reflected in the incorporation of new materials into the

interior, such as Formica on work surfaces and Naugahyde

upholstery on furniture. Likewise, the prevailing interest in technology

resulted in the installation of eclectic gadgets, such us automated

garage doors, hi-fi and television equipment and multi-purpose

kitchen appliances, such as the combined sink-cooker in CSH #21

(fig.2.9).

By the late 1950s, the Case Study houses, initially conceived as

low-cost, were becoming larger in size and for more affluent clients.

Moreover, the houses of the Program were about typical American

families-parents with children- rather than couples or professionals.

But according to the photographs being published only in few –more

specifically, only in three- of all Case Study Houses, have children

in them. For instance, in CSH #20, Bailey House (fig.2.10); we see a

child playing, and few toys around him, but this room does not

look-like a real child’s room. Eventually, the Program was expanded

to include thirty-four houses of which twenty-three were completed

before it ceased when Entenza sold the magazine by 1962.

7 Charles and his wife, Ray Eames

18 American Dream

3.1

“California’s Bold Look”, Life magazine,

June 14, 1954

3.2 “Coca-Cola”, 1951

3.3 “Good Taste Is Never Extreme”, advertisement for the 1959 Plymouth Fury,

Life magazine, February 9, 1959

19

3. American Dream

“America is not just the home of the Dream, but the Dream itself”

James Truslow Adams8

“It is the only nation that prides itself upon a Dream and gives its name to one”

Lionel Trilling9

The end of World War II set off two and a half decades of

prosperity in America, in which family income increased dramatically

and, equally important, the prosperity was shared across the social

spectrum. A great number of newly middle-class Americans were

uncertain about how to behave with the new-found wealth.

In the American Dream, citizens of every rank feel that they can

achieve a “better, richer and happier life”.10 According to the Dream,

this includes the opportunity for one’s children, to grow up and

receive American education and its consequential career

opportunities. Here was the opportunity to make individual choices

without restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic group. A

Dream of social order in which all citizens would be able to attain

the fullest stature for which they were innately capable, and be

recognized by others of what they are, regardless, of the fortuitous

circumstances of birth of position. It merely signifies self-determined

success, wealth, the “good life” of modish clothes, modern living,

cars, dining at great restaurants and dating beautiful young people.

Cars like the 1959 Plymouth model and other such the “dagger-

finned” Cadillac and the “swept-wing” Chevy, represented the

extreme point of decade trend in American consumer product

design toward ever greater dynamism of form and ever more

opulent expression of materials. They were festooned with crests,

contrasting colour insets, and other features that added to a

banana split.11

8 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,

p.6 9 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,

p.5 10 Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For American Studies, 1981,

p.3 11 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p. 209

20 American Dream

3.4

The movie “Gidget”

April 10, 1959.

The story centers on a peppy teenage girl who

penetrates the masculine world of surfing, learns to

“hang ten”, and falls in love, all in one summer.12

3.5 Cover of Playboy Magazine, 3.6 Cover of National

February 1959 Geographic Magazine,

March 1948

3.7 Frank Sinatra 3.8 Road Runner cartoon


USA, 2007, p. 220

21

Advertising, Hollywood and other forms of popular entertainment

provides a seductive view of idealized American lifestyle. Hollywood

musicals like West Side Story (1957), films like Gidget (1959), TV

serials like the Many loves of Dobie Gillis (1959), and advertisings in

magazines, such as, the National Geographic Magazine13, had

promoted the American culture and dream all around the world.

A modern use of “cool” represents the American Dream. “Cool is a

wannabe’s word”14. The concept of “cool” became the mark of

belonging and was associated with old ideas, about aristocracy and

good taste. The blue-jeans, ethnic clothing, fuzzy textures, layered

patterns, modern magazines, represented a total denial of cool. For

instance a cool magazine was the Playboy (fig.3.5), which was

founded in 1953 by its publisher Hugh Hefner. It was from its

beginning, a manual on showing taste and finding pleasure in a

world of mass affluence. “The magazine frequently flattered its

readers by calling them “cool cats” and it helped them to realize

that dream, by giving them advice on matters ranging from sex to

Scotch”15. “Cool was all sorts of things, many of them seemingly

contradictory. It was Peggy Lee singing “Fever” (1956), cool despite

its title, and Frank Sinatra smoking as he sang (1953). It was the

animated Roadrunner utterly indifferent to Wile E. Coyote’s obsessive

attempts to destroy him, created by Chuck Jones (1948)16. It

embraced the musical abstractions of Vivaldi and Paul Hindemith

along those of Dave Brubeck. It affected languor yet fixated on

detail. It pretended to be emotionless, but it was often sad.”17

From their inception, American self-images reflected the idea that

the past did not bind, one irrevocably fresh starts, could be made

tomorrow, promised to be better than today, and progress seemed

always to be possible.

13 First appeared in October 1888, edited by part-time volunteers, it contains articles about

Geography, popular science, world history, culture, current events and photography. 14 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p. 194 15 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.205 16 Jones said he created the Coyote Road Runner cartoons as a parody of traditional “cat

and mouse” cartoon.

http://looneytunes.warnerbros.co.uk/stars_of_the_show/wile_roadrunner/wile_story.html,

22/2/2010 17 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.195

http://looneytunes.warnerbros.co.uk/stars_of_the_show/wile_roadrunner/wile_story.html

23

3.1 Post-war Dream house

“This dream of the post-war house which so neatly combines the

future with the past has a familiar ring. Ever since the last war we

have been having dreams about the “house of the future” – dreams

which became particularly poignant during the depression. During the

war we changed the term to “post-war” house because the post-war

appeared to be safely in the future. Now that the post-war is here,

we are changing the term back again to “dream house” and “house

of tomorrow”.”18 Even before the war ended, ordinary people,

manufacturers and real estate developers had in their mind the

post-war house. It was something to think about, plan and hope for.

They begun to dream about what life after the war would be like,

and about where and how they could live. The returning soldiers

were to be the most changed, by the war experience, of all

Americans. The women’s magazines, spoke of women’s anxiety about

possible changes in their husbands, sons and boyfriends behaviour.

Until this period, magazine advertisements, had pictured the house,

as being an all-plastic house, an all-metal house, an all-plywood

house, self-dusting, self-heating, self-breathing, with an electronically

controlled kitchen, and steamless, sterilizing bathroom. The post-war

house has also been advertised as carrying forward the American

tradition of a Colonial House, an English house or a Spanish house,

each overstuffed with furniture to give the interior cosy, home-like

appearance. S. Robert Anshen said “In our dreams, these

contradictory characteristics have being combined quite logically and

normally into a sterile but cosy home, in which, moreover, expresses

our personality. I am, using personality in it pseudo-architectural

sense of being that peculiar combination of historical personae

which the mistress of the houses chooses to enact.”19

18 S. Robert Anshen, The postwar House and its materials, Arts and Architrcture, November

1945, p.43 19 S. Robert Anshen, The postwar House and its materials, Arts and Architrcture, November

1945, p.43

24 Post-War Dream House

3.1.1 “A Proper Dream House for Any Veteran”, published in House Beautiful,

January 1945

25

The most important thing for the soldiers was a comfortable and

practical home. At the same time, because in the war their lives

depended on technology and lived intimately with it, it has been

“necessary” to them. Because of the slow pace of construction,

some soldiers who returned from the war started to build their

houses themselves. This contributed to the rise of popularity of the

home workshop which became standard in their dream house. In

January 1945, same period with the announcement of the Case

Study Houses Program, another magazine, House Beautiful,

presented a two-bedroom house in Beverly Hills with a title “They

do dream of home...particularly a home of their own...here’s a proper

Dream House for any veteran”(fig.3.1.1). The article was highlighting

its decorative fences, its yard with fruit trees, its barbeque for

outdoor entertaining and its workshop attached to the garage. The

house was far from the street and its entry far from the living

areas. The magazine concluded “All of these plusses add-up to the

American ideal of good living – one of the ideals these veterans

have fought for, and which they can now look forward to attaining.”

“Most families want houses that are low and ground hugging instead

of high and boxy. They want at least three bedrooms and picture

windows. They want not imprisoning cells for living rooms, but

rooms big enough to relax in, entertain in and live in. Other desires

expressed were the possibility of indoor-outdoor living, no more than

one floor, a utility room and an attached garage.”20 Most Americans

had believed that a modern living was the purchase of new

appliances, the remodelling of an old, and gradual additions to the

small house that were all available to most people immediately after

the war

20 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the Case

Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 180

26 Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision

4.1

John Entenza,

Charles and Ray

Eames

4.2

Bullocks Wilshire,

Wilshire Boulevard,

Los Angeles, California

(1929)

Architect: John and Donald

Parkinson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilshire_Boulevard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parkinsons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parkinsons

27

4. Arts & Architecture and its editor’s vision

The Arts & Architecture magazine was best known, for the twenty-

year-long of the Case Study Houses Program, sponsoring new ideas

in residential design. According to the photographer Julius Shulman:

"A&A was instrumental in putting American Architecture on the

map".21

Arts & Architecture was formed in 1929 by a merger of Pacific

Coast Architect22, established in 1911. Architecturally it was devoted

to eclectic residential design-Tudor, Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean,

Georgian, and Californian amorphous.23 It preferred a classic style in

larger projects, and Art Deco (such as Bullocks Wilshire (fig.4.2), in

Los Angeles). In the 1930s issues ran from seventy to eighty pages

with lots of advertising. The editor was Harris Allen, and there were

familiar names among its contributors and advisors. By the Great

Depression the pages were reduced to thirty and afterwards it was

lead into bankruptcy, where John Entenza found it in 1938, and

transformed it into a mouthpiece for the Modern Movement in

America with an international profile.24 Entenza was the editor and

publisher of Arts & Architecture magazine. His ambition had been to

give a sense of reality to architectural thought. Although he had not

studied architecture, he became intensely aware of it when he was

young. He was interested in the Modern movement and dedicated to

presenting and furthering its precepts within the pages of his

magazine. Through the Case Study Houses Program, he was hoping

to bring the message home to people; that if they were going to

build a dream house it should by Contemporary rather traditional

style. He envisioned the Case Study effort as a way to offer to the

public and the building industry, models for low-cost housing in the

Modern idiom.

21 Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman, Rizzoli

International Publication, 1999, p.54 22 Architect’s name: unidentified 23 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,

2008,n.p. 24 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Lrgacy of the Case

Study Houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 16


California Arts & Architecture

The name of the magazine changed from California Arts and Architecture to Arts

and Architecture. There is a myth about that change; David Travers wrote: “The

story goes that California was dropped inadvertently from the magazine’s name by

the printer. It did disappeared from the cover of the September 1943 issue but

reappeared the next month. My belief is that the missing California was an

‘accident’ engineered by the wily advertising manager, Robert Cron, who must have

believed that there would be advertising advantages if Arts and Architecture went

national”.25 In any case, the word California was permanently removed from the

cover and masthead without comment in February 1944.

4.3 4.4

Cover of California Arts & Architecture, Cover of Arts &Architecture

April 1943 July 1953

4.5 Article about Art, Arts & Architecture, 4.6 Article about Music,

April 1954 Arts & Architecture, April 1954

25 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,

2008,n.p.

29

Ethel Buisson said that Entenza played the typical Hollywood role of

promoter and designer of Modern environment.26 The role of the

publisher was not solely that of an instigator builder, but also that

of a promoter of knowledge of, and appreciation for, an art of good

design that was close to the user and to architecture. After his

departure from the magazine in 1962, he would remark: “On the

whole I feel that Arts & Architecture has been a good client. At

least a patient client, and in some cases a long suffering one”.27

Arts & Architecture commitment to the scheme was never quite as

strong after his departure.

The format of the new Arts & Architecture was a slim volume,

monthly with a rich visual art coverage and modern layout that

recalled the format of Fashion magazines. It addresses modern

subjects; the articles included music, film and book criticism, as well

as features on modern art, architecture and interiors. “A magazine

as slim as a tortilla and as sleek as a Bugatti... became the

greatest source in the dissemination of information, architectural

and cultural, about California”28 A group of the highest integrity was

formed around John Entenza. Charles Eames (architect and

designer), Herbert Matter (photographer), Ray Eames, Harry and

Mercedes Carles (artists), and others - have put their talents and

efforts in a co-operative venture. Arts & Architecture tried to

generate new ideas and pass them along to the public. The

magazine was in the leading edge in architecture, art and music,

even in the larger issues of segregation in housing and education

and other manifestations of racial bias before they became codified

as civil rights.

26 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,

p.15 27 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,

p.234 28 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Lrgacy of the Case

Study Houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 16


4.7 Covers of Arts & Architecture, 1947

31

The Case Study Houses Program did not pop up in the magazine

as an isolated suggestion, it proceed, rather from a series of

speculations and proposals advanced, during 1945. Through the

“live” publications of the houses and by longevity, Arts &

Architecture and its publisher participated actively in the elaboration

and fabrication of a series of houses promoting “good living”.“Arts &

Architecture acted like sunshine on West Coast architects, who grew

and flourished under its rays.”29 Publications in magazine became a

door to national and international renown for West Coast Architects.

Reyner Banham said: “Arts & Architecture changed the itinerary of

the Grand Tour pilgrimage for European architects and students.

America replaced Italy and Los Angeles was its Florence”.30 The

magazine’s Los Angeles headquarters at 3305 Wilshire Boulevard

became the centre of Southern California architects with a common

cause, whose modest, low-cost, modern and remarkably efficient

designs laid the foundation of the Case Study Houses Program and

reinvented the single-family dwelling.31

29 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,

2008,n.p. 30Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,

2008,n.p. 31 Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture, reprint, Taschen Gmbh,

2008,n.p.

32 Seductive Illustrations

5.1 Charles Eames, Arts & Architecture, September 1946

33

5. Seductive illustrations

The graphic design production started during the late 1930s and

beyond World War II. It was characterised first and foremost by a

bias against the literal image in favour of a symbolic image, an

image that becomes a support or surrogate for a verbal idea. This

can be achieved using illustration or photography (or both), but in

fact the very use of an image synthesized from parts rather than

created “whole” signifies the conscious intervention and

interpretation of the designer.32 The role of the graphic artist,

delivering a visually styled rendition of someone else’s idea, was

replaced by a designer who has extended the concept and

transformed it into a visual message; “the “hired hand”33 has

engaged with an eye and brain”.34 Another visual signifier of this

new style, is the use of simplified typography which in the 1940s,

signified an architectonic approach to the composition of the pages

using a modernist, asymmetrical arrangement of type that placed

value on dynamics of motion and negative space, as opposed to a

reliance on the conventions of classical, symmetrical typography.

Arts & Architecture followed the houses of the Program from

inception to completion, illustrating the design and construction

process and listing all the materials and fitting specified.

Ethel Buisson wrote: “The Case Study House Program is portrayed in

Arts and Architecture magazine as if it were a television serial.”35

An “episode” of the Case Study House Program presented the CSH

8, Charles and Ray Eames house in Chautauqua Boulevard, Pacific

Palisades. The Eames house was the first to have real clients

(themselves) and a real site.


USA, 2007, p.153 33 Meaning the graphic artist 34 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.153 35 Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses, Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994,

p.35


In the December 1945 issue, the magazine announced the CSH 8

and CSH 9 (fig.5.2) –for the first and last time the magazine

announced two projects together. In the pages appeared the

drawings and the consideration about the projects.

5.2 CSH #8 and CSH #9, Arts & Architecture, December 1945

35

In the March 1948 issue, two pages with drawings and photographs

of the models of the same projects appeared in the magazine with

comments about the position in the site, the orientation and the

materials (fig.5.3).

5.3 CSH #8 & CSH #9, Arts & Architecture, March 1948

After four years, the name of the CSH 8 changed, into Case Study

House for 1949, and appeared alone, on one page, talking about

the site, with photographs (fig.5.4).

5.4

Case Study House for 1949

Arts & Architecture, February 1949


In March 1949, in two pages there are drawings and photographs

about the construction – Case Study House for 1949: the steel

frame (fig.5.5).

5.5 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, March 1949

A month later – April 1949 – in one page, there was a catalogue of

the companies that collaborated for the project (fig.5.6).

5.6

Case Study House for 1949,

April 1949

37

In May 1949, the final plan appeared (fig.5.7) and five months later,

the drawings of the interior (fig.5.8).

5.7 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, May 1499

5.8

Case Study House for 1949,

Arts & Architecture, September 1949


Between these months advertisements appeared on the pages about

the products, used for the project, like in July 1949, an

advertisement with title “Preview of some products merit specified

for 1949 Case Study House (fig.5.9).

5.9

Case Study House for 1949

Arts & Architecture, July 1949

The “episode” finished in December 1949, with photographs of the

finished

5.10 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, December 1949

39

5.10 Case Study House for 1949, Arts & Architecture, December 1949

40 The Covers

5.1.1 Cover of California Arts &

Architecture, January 1937

5.1.2 Covers of Arts & Architecture, 1959

5.1.3

Cover of Architectural Review,

May 1955

5.1.4 Cover of Arts & Architecture, 5.1.5 Cover of Arts & Architecture,

December 1946 January 194

41

5.1 The Covers

The covers of the magazine were never an afterthought; the purpose

was to present good, contemporary design to the magazine’s

audience. We can see the difference from the early magazine’s

issues, before and after Entenza’s editorial. There is also a

difference not only with the previous issues of the magazine but

between other architectural international magazines. The difference

is that the covers in Arts & Architecture were very stylized, always

with a message to the reader. In December 1946, the cover carried

an image of a photo collage by Herbert Matter. A head in profile,

which contained the image of a mushroom cloud rising to fill the

brain cavity (fig.5.1.4): The “bomb in the brain” was a potent

representation of the overpowering presence of nuclear anxiety

initiated by the USA’s atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.36 Hebert Matter, a Swiss

photographer and a graphic designer, who immigrated to the United

States in the mid-1930s moved to Los Angeles in 1943 to work with

the Eames. In the pages of Arts & Architecture, the graphic design

that he did, is very important. Matter’s designs for covers of the

magazine invariably include photographic images, but the images are

almost always used as a cropped detail or set into another form,

as he did for the cover of the January 1945 issue. In this cover

(fig.5.1.5) a “night sky” is set into the monumental forms of Sans

Serif 45, announcing the first issue of the year. “Matter’s

superimposition of a Tinkertoy-like network of lines and dots,

creating a dynamic structure that both borrows from the “stars” and

dances with them creates a cover of unmistakable optimism that

still rings true”37. Other designers who worked in Arts and

Architecture adopted methods similar to Herbert Matter’s; covers by

Ray Eames, Alvin Lustig and John Follis, all utilize a free wiling

juxtaposition of photographic and handmade elements, though each

did this, her or his own specific way.

36 Crowley, D., Pavitt, J. (eds) Cold War modern design 1945-1970, London: V&A Publishing,

2008, p.101 37 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.156

42 The Drawings

5.2.1

CSH #1

J. R. Davidson

Toluca Lake Avenue,

North Hollywood

5.2.2

CSH #4 (1945)

Unbuilt

Ralph Rapson

5.2.3a Furniture Drawings

CSH #7(1945-1948),

San Gabriel Thornton Abell,

5.2.3b Detail Drawings, CSH #7, Thornton Abell, North Deerfield, San Gabriel

43

5.2 The Drawings

For the first time the drawings and then the photographs played a

fundamental role in the perception of architecture. “The house

became a living catalogue, a space that was both intelligent and

enlivened”.38 The drawings published in the magazine appeared as

an opportunity for the architect to express himself, and in some

cases to add humour, rigor and discipline. Most of the time, the

drawings are rendered in ink, which was less common in the United

States, where they are generally done in pencil. They are simplified

to allow them to be scaled down for the magazine’s page. The lines

of the plans have different weights, “entailing the frames to be

conveyed in different grey tones and different materials. Sometimes,

they are accompanied by a flat colour, which gives a rhythm to the

black and white pages of the magazine”.39 They explore different

techniques of traditional architectural representations; plans,

sections, elevations and axonometric rather than perspective

drawings. They also present pictorial characteristics, scenic

environments and the treatment of interior and exterior, like Julius

Ralph’s Davidson of CSH #1 (fig.5.2.1). The sketches are sometimes

funny, simple in their message and efficient, as the CSH #4

sketches (fig.5.2.2). The bird’s-eye perspectives recall views from an

airplane, echoing a still-present war economy.40 In the magazine’s

pages, drawings also appeared with structural details, details like the

foundations, frames and materiality, and drawings of the furniture,

as in CSH #7 (fig.5.2.3a,b,)

The program’s drawings are reflective of the original design of the

object and the history, in which the object exists, but not

necessarily in the original context.




p.252

44 The Photographs

5.3.1 Raphael Soriano at construction site, Case Study House for 1950 (1950),

Pacific Palisades

5.3.2 Photographer Julius Shulman, CSH #22 (1959-1960), West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

45

5.3 The Photographs

While the sketch perspectives explore those views that can approach

accentuated distorted perspectives, the published prints in Arts &

Architecture remain greatly influenced by the stability of architectural

photographs. The shift from paper architecture, to built architecture,

appears to be the necessary condition for convincing the readers,

manufacturers and architects to invent or invest in the concept of

post-war house. The photographs of the Case Study Houses are

varied and several types retrace the program adventure.

Contemporary photographs of the houses show them furnished in a

modern style and with the newest appliances available at the time.

Animated with characters like the builders and the architects, they

show their creation and assembly, and present in detail the invisible

architecture. Most of them are in black and white. The black and

white effect helped with the difficulties and the cost of the four-

colour printing but at the same time responded to the aesthetic

tradition of architectural photography. They scrupulously reproduce

the verticals of the building, testifying for the most part of the

architect’s intentions while underlying the simplicity of the structure.41

On the masthead of the Arts & Architecture was the photographer

Julius Shulman. In 1926, as an eleventh-grade student at Roosevelt

High School’s class in photography, “he became an avid amateur

photographer, rarely without his Vest Pocket Kodak”.42 Shulman gave

a currency to his architectural subjects and above all a sense of

the “new”. Joseph Rosa explains in his biography, his mission more

than capturing architecture, was to transit the modern image.43 He

covers the reporting of eighteen of the Case Study Houses. He

approached them as if he was doing a fashion shoot, preparing

their modernist interiors, hiring models and arranging furniture to

project the most effective scenes.


p.254 42 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.33 43 Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman, Rizzoli

International Publication, 1999, p.52

46 The Photographs

5.3.3

CSH #22(1959-1960)

West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

5.3.4

CSH #21(1959-1960)

West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

47

“Shulman’s photographs of mid-century modernist houses have the

élan of Hollywood movies and their cinematic framing, minimal

decor, and fashionable inhabitants are in keeping with the ultimate

objectification of the house itself”.44 Indeed these houses function

like film sets, often framing spectacular backdrops – glorious palm

trees, cool pools, the Pacific Ocean and the city lights. Shulman

believed that including people makes the image more interesting.

Esther Mc Coy noted “Shulman was the only photographer I knew

who placed people in architectural photographs”.45 A photograph of

two stylishly dressed women, who are sitting in a glassed-walled

house, by Pierre Koenig, cantilevered over the lights of Los Angeles,

is his most famous picture (fig.5.3.3). For the critic Paul Goldber, this

image is “to midcentury modernism what Monet’s paintings are to

Gothic Cathedrals”.46 Through his images, he was “selling” the

houses as a finish product, to promote “good design”. His

photographs created the “American Image”. Shulman’s desirability of

“selling the subject”, functions by enabling the viewer to project

himself into the scene, “to participate as if he were in the room at

the same moment, and did not as a voyeur”.47 His mission, more

than capturing architecture through photographs, was to transmit the

modern image. The essence of modern lifestyle radiates from

Shulman’s photograph (fig.5.3.4) of the interior, of the architect Pierre

Koenig CSH #21, completed and photographed in 1959. In this

image, a man standing in the background, who appears to have just

entered the house through the still open door, and is perhaps about

to make a drink and a woman, seated in the foreground, with

colour clothing, hair and lips, turn from her seated position so that

she gazes away from the background. The man standing there is

the architect himself, playing the role of the husband. On view there

will be many of Shulman’s potent images of mid-century modernist

architecture, which had played a critical role in the revival of

interest in this period.


USA, 2007, p.37 45 McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey &

Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.77 46 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.36 47 Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Prestel

USA, 2007, p.79

.4.1

Sterling furniture for 1950 Case Study

House, Arts & Architecture,

December 1949

5.4.2 5.4.3

Modine Convector Radiation for CSH #1, Kimsul insulation for CSH #11

Arts & Architecture, November 1945 Arts & Architecture, July 1946

5.4.4

Pioneer-Flinktone roof for CSH #2,

Arts & Architecture, December 1945

49

5.4 The Advertisements

The houses became the pretext and principal support for numerous

advertisements in these columns of the magazine. Arts &

Architecture did its own advertising for the Case Study Houses

program. This self-promotion was followed by the manufacturers

eager to participate, and who in exchange for their offer of

materials and services benefited from the publicity in the magazine.

In the magazine’s pages, a swarm of products appeared, from

kitchen accessories and to furnishing, to cupboards, dishes,

ventilation, dryer and the pool. Sometimes technical innovation was

pre-determined by the sponsorship of particular manufacturers, who

provided free materials in the hope of benefiting from the resulting

publicity, the Pioneer-Flintkone roof used in the CSH #2 by Summer

Spaulding and John Rex being such an example (fig.5.4.4). In the

advertisements, the materials and appliances that were used for the

Case Study Houses had the label “Merit Specified”. “Merit Specified”

became the stamp of quality stamp on the products used for the

construction of the house and in the implementation of the

techniques, highlighting the business that carried out the work. This

label, which was validated by the architect, guaranteed the

aesthetics and the quality of the products as much as the

availability of materials.48

48 Arts and Architecture, March 1945, p.47

50 Conclusion

6.1

CSH #22(1959-1960)

West Hollywood

Pierre Koenig

6.2

CSH #20 (1958)

Altadena

Buff, Straub &

Hensman

6.3 CSH #7 (1945-1948), San Gabriel, Thornton Abell

51

6. Conclusion

The Case Study Houses Program had critical implications for the

American building industry and remains one of America’s most

significant contributions to architecture in mid-20th century.

Architecture in America changed dramatically after the Program.

Three basic characteristics had developed:

1. The emphases on the interior spaces –an open-plan- in terms

of usefulness, comfort, beauty and their interrelationship.

Open planning was restricted to the kitchen/dining

room/living room areas of the house. Linking the kitchen to

the dining room by means of designing these two rooms as

one, the housewife was not isolated within a back room while

cooking and her children and her husband enjoyed the

comfort of the lounge. (fig.6.1)

2. The indoor-outdoor relationship has changed. The use of

glass has made it possible to bring nature into the building

and extend the building out in nature. (fig.6.2)

3. The alignment of the facade to the street, in order to

disengage an interiorized private garden.(fig.6.3)

Furniture and appliances changed the post-war American life and

the design of most rooms and living habits. The television set was

the principal reason why the post-war living space became a place

where people saw and heard things happening elsewhere instead of

the centre of the family’s activities. The furniture became symbolic

in modern America. The Eames’s chairs, Saarinen chairs and Knoll

furniture and lights, which the Case Study Houses were furnished

with, had an impact to the public. The reason was that this

succeeded in getting low-cost, durable, well-designed furniture to the

consumer at a low cost on a mass level. This meant, that even for

those who were not fortunate enough to live in a newly-built

“Contemporary” house, modern furniture was still accessible,

enabling them the creation of a modern look in a house dating

from an earlier period.

52 Conclusion

6.4

Advertisement for the Tulip range of

plastic shell furniture designed by Eero

Saarinen, 1956

6.5

Charles and Ray Eames,

prototype plywood chairs,

Boyd Collection, 1950

53

By its end in 1967, despite the fact that many of the early designs

were not built and few of the houses had served their function as

prototypes, the Program had succeed in producing some of the

period’s most important works of residential architecture.

By the sixties more and more young architects – usually graduate

students – from Europe and the Southern hemisphere began to

make contact with the Case Study Houses “on the territory”.49 At

the same time the program did not address many of the key issues

of the post-war housing, particularly the creation of a new suburbia.

The program, with its increasing concentration on large houses on

choice hillside sites, paid attention only to the sprawl happening in

the valleys. Only Ralph Rapson, in the early phase of the Program

with the CSH #4, the Greenbelt house, addressed the question of

small city lots and groups of houses.

John Entenza turned his journal into a propaganda tool of the

California Model disseminating his ideas regarding a new style of

life, promoting a domesticity which would rapidly cease to be

experimental and rather become the immediate future. The Case

Study Houses Program was propaganda that was not only affecting

Americans but the Europeans as well. By the 1940s, the magazine’s

circulation and its influence had spread beyond Southern California

throughout the United States and Europe, to South America and the

Far East. A notable feature of the first post-war decade was the

movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic. Architects,

planners and engineers were taken on extensive study tours to

North America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Many architects

were influenced by the Case Study Houses. The house which

Michael and Patty Hopkins completed in 1977, on Downshire Hill in

Hampstead, London (fig.6.5) is such an example. The house won a

RIBA architectural Award and a Civic trust Award, and is like the

Eames house, CSH #8 – a steel and glass box. Another example of

the Program’s influence around the world is the Experimental Steel

Frame houses (fig.6.6) of the architect Peter Parkinson, of Hawkins

and Sands. These houses could be described as “Anglo-Australian”

versions of the Program’s houses. The pipe-columns, cross-bracing

and I-beams were very Californian.

49 McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the Case

Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p.187

6.5

Hopkins House,

Hampstead, London, 1977

6.6

Peter Parkinson of

Hawkins and Sands,

Kidston Hunter/ McKim

House, Applecross,

Western Australia, 1955

55

“The California influence” Parkinson explained “came to us simply

through Arts & Architecture, which for some reason Des took”.

Parkinson recalls how excited and influenced they were by Eames,

Soriano, and particularly Ellwood.50 West Germany, France and Italy

were keen to exploit housing exhibitions as a way of promoting “the

American way of life”.

The Case Study Houses Program has a local as well as a national

and international context of global war; Los Angeles emerged in

these years – at least in temporary anticipation – as a world city.

50

Jackson, N., The Modern Steel House, London: E & FN Spon, 1996, p.130

56

Catalogue of the Case Study Houses

64

BIOGRAPHIES

THORTON M. ABELL Born 1906, South Haven, Michigan. Studied at the

University of Michigan, University of California, and received a Bachelor of

Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1931.

Opened his own office in 1944. Taught interior design at Chouinard Art

Institute, 1949 to 1952; Critic, School of Architecture, U.S.C, 1953 to date.

McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles: Hennessey

& Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.205

REINER BANHAM (1922-88) Was one of the most influential writers on

architecture, design, and popular culture from the mid-1950s to the late

1980s. Trained in mechanical engineering and art history, he was

convinced that technology was making society not only more exciting but

more democratic. His combination of academic rigor and pop culture

sensibility put him in opposition to both traditionalists and orthodox

Modernists, but placed him in a unique position to understand the cultural,

social, and political implications of the visual arts in the post-war period.

His first book, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (still in print

with The MIT Press after forty years), was central to the overhaul of

Modernism, and it gave Futurism and Expressionism credibility amid the

dynamism and change of the 1960s.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10009, 24/2/2010

THEODORE C. BERNADI Born 1903, Korcula, Yogoslavia. Graduated from

College of Architecture, University of California at Berkeley, 1924. Went into

office of William Wilson Wurster 1936. Undertook government housing

projects with other associates during the war years, returning in 1944 to

Wurster firm as a partner. Lecturer University of California since 1954.

Member San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association. The firm is

now Wurster, Bernadi and Emmons.



http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10009

65

CONRAD BUFF III Born 1926, Glendale, California. Son of Conrad Buff II,

landscape painter. Bachelor of Architectural degree, University of Southern

California. Chief draftsman for Paul Kingsbury; two years as designer for

Clayton Baldwin. Entered partnership with Donald C. Hensman in 1947.

Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, U.S.C.



J. R. DAVIDSON Born 1888, Berlin, Germany. Studied in Germany, England

and France. Opened own office in Berlin, 1919. Came to United States in

1923. Established practice in Los Angeles in 1925. Instructor in Architecture

at Art Center School and Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. Cited by

Royal Institute of British Architects for design of hotel interiors, 1937.



CHARLES EAMES Born 1907, St. Louis, Missouri. Studied architecture at

Washington University for two years. Studied and taught at Cranbrook

Academy of Art. In association with Eero Saarinen won first two prizes in

furniture competition conducted by Museum of Modern Art, 1940. Most of

his activities have been in the field of industrial design and film making, in

association with wife, Ray.



RAY KAISER EAMES (1916-1988) A native of Sacramento, California, Ray

Eames studied with painter Hans Hofmann in New York from 1933 to 1939;

during this time, she became a founding member of the American Abstract

Artists. She began studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield

Hills, Michigan, in 1940, at which time she met Charles Eames as well as

architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen and artist/designer Alexander Girard.

McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and legacy of the

Case Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989, p.229

66

CRAIG ELLWOOD Born 1922, Clarenden, Texas. Started his design career

after World War II as a cost estimator, job supervisor and draftsman for a

contractor who built with Neutra, Soriano, etc. Opened own architectural

office in 1948. Studied engineering at University of California at Los

Angeles, Extension Division, 1949-1954. First Prize International Exhibition of

Architecture, Sao Paulo, 1954. Visiting critic at Yale University, Syrecuse

University, Cornell University.



JOHN ENTENZA Born 1905, Niles, Michigan. Bachelor of Arts, University of

Virginia; studied at Stanford and Tulane. Worked in the office of Secretary

of Labor James J. Davis during preparatory training of the diplomatic

service. Worked for two years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under Paul Burns

and Irving Pitchel in experimental production. Editor and publisher of Arts

and Architecture since 1938. Developed Case Study House Program in

1945. Manager and later president of Plyformed Wood Co. Under contract

to U.S. Navy and Air Corps. Member of Governor’s Council on Regional

Planning. Member of California Housing Council for migratory workers.

Member of the Board of Mental Health Association. Member of numerous

juries on art and architectural competitions. American editor of “Zodiac”.

Administers Graham Foundation for fellowships in architecture and the

allied arts.

McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles:

Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.204

DONALD C. HENSMAN Born 1922, Omaha, Nebraska. Bachelor of

Architecture degree, University of Southern California. Designer for Langdon

and Wilson. Partnership with Conrad Buff III since 1947. Critic, School of

Architecture, University of Southern California.



67

MICHAEL HOPKINS Born 1935.British architect. His buildings include the

extension to Glyndebourne Opera House, the Jubilee Campus of the

University of Nottingham, the Mound Stand at Lord's Cricket Ground,

accommodation for British Parliament, British Members of Parliament at

Portcullis House, and the new building for the Welcome Trust. Along with

his wife, also an architect, he received the 1994 Royal Gold Medal for

Architecture.

http://www.short-biographies.com/biographies/MichaelHopkins.html, 24/2/2010

PIERRE KOENIG Born 1925, San Francisco, California. Bachelor of

Architecture degree, University of Southern California, 1952. Several months

in office of Raphael Soriano. Office of Jones and Emmons. Designed his

first steel-framed house in 1950 while a student. Opened own practice

1954. Awards: Homes for Better Living, 1957; Sao Paolo IV International

Exhibition of Architecture, 1957; A.I.A. – Western Homes Award of Honor,

1959; A.I.A. – House & Home Award, 1960. On faculty of School of

Architecture, U.S.C.



PEGGY LEE Born 1920, Jamestown, N.D., U.S.—died Jan. 21, 2002, Los

Angeles, Calif. American popular singer and songwriter, known for her

alluring, delicately husky voice and reserved style.

http://www.biography.com/articles/Peggy-Lee-9377100, 24/2/2010

ALVIN LUSTIG The American graphic designer Alvin Lustig (1915–1955) was

inspired by the fine arts of his time, so his work reveals much about both

design and art of the 1930s, forties, and fifties. The close relationship

between Lustig’s work and fine art allows design historians to turn to art

historical writing for help in analyzing Lustig’s work. With the help of art

history, analyses of Lustig’s work can move beyond biographical chronology

to broader studies of context.

http://www.dis.uia.mx/conference/HTMs-PDFs/Clouse.pdf, 24/2/2010

http://www.short-biographies.com/biographies/MichaelHopkins.html

http://www.biography.com/articles/Peggy-Lee-9377100

http://www.dis.uia.mx/conference/HTMs-PDFs/Clouse.pdf

68

HEBERT MATTER Swiss graphic designer and photographer, was born in

Engelberg, Switzerland, in 1907. He studied painting at the École des

Beaux-Arts in Geneva from 1925 until 1927. Then Herbert Matter went to

Paris to continue his studies at the Académie de l'Art Moderne in 1928/29.

His teachers included Fernand Léger and Amédé Ozenfant. Between 1929

and 1932 Herbert Matter freelanced in Paris as a graphic artist and

photographer and worked for the Deberny & Peignot type foundry. From

1930 until 1932 Herbert Matter worked for the journal "Arts et Métiers

Graphiques". In Paris Herbert Matter met A.M. Cassandre, with whom he

collaborated on designing several posters. In 1932 Herbert Matter returned

to Switzerland. Herbert Matter is generally regarded as the inventor of the

modern Swiss photographic poster. In the early 1930s Matter convincingly

integrated the medium of photography in what had up to then been

advertising drawn by hand. For the Swiss Tourist Office Herbert Matter

designed tourism posters those are still famous. In 1936 Herbert Matter

emigrated to the US. In New York Herbert Matter worked as a

photographer for "Vogue", "Harper's Baazar", and "Town and Country"

magazines. During the World War II, Herbert Matter was commissioned by

the US government to design propaganda posters. Between 1943 and

1946, Herbert Matter worked as a graphic designer in the California

practice of Ray and Charles Eames. The 1940s also saw Herbert Matter

collaborating with Knoll International, for whom he designed the logo with

the big K as well as numerous catalogues and advertisements.

http://www.kettererkunst.com/bio/herbert-matter-1907.shtml, 24/2/2010

RICHARD NEUTRA Born 1892, Vienna, Austria. Graduated 1917 with honours

from Technische Hochschule, Vienna. Office of Eric Mendelsohn, Berlin.

Came to United States in 1923. Office of Hilabird and Root, Chicago, 1924.

Opened practice in Los Angeles in 1926. Member and then chairman of

the California State Planning Board, 1939 to 1941. Partnership with Robert

E. Alexander from 1949 to 1959. Consultant and architect to Civil

Government of Guam, 1951. Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Among his numerous honours and awards was an A.I.A. citation for his

1948 Case Study House.



http://www.kettererkunst.com/bio/herbert-matter-1907.shtml

69

RALPH RAPSON Born 1915, Alma, Michigan. Spent two years in Alma

College, three years in College of Architecture, University of Michigan.

Received a scholarship to Cranbrook Academy of Art and studied

architecture and planning under Eliel Saarinen. Worked in Chicago with Paul

Schweikher, George Fred Keck and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. While with Foreign

Buildings Operations of Department of State he was co-designer of U.S.

Embassy offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen. For four years head of

Architectural Department of the Institute of Design in Chicago. He is the

Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota.

McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los Angeles:

Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977, p.207

JOHN REX Born 1923, Macon, Georgia. Bachelor of Architecture degree,

University of Southern California, 1932. Travelled in Europe. Went into the

office of Summer Spaulding as a draftsman, later became an associate

and finally a member of the firm Spaulding, Rex and DeSwarte. After the

death of Spaulding he went into partnership with Douglas Honnold. Fifth

year critic at U.S.C. and on the faculty of the School of Engineering,

University of California at Los Angeles. Chairman of the Board of Zoning

Appeals for the City of Los Angeles. Fellow in the American Institute of

Architects.



EERO SAARINEN Born 1910, Kirkkonummi, Finland. Came to the United

States in 1923 when his father, Eliel Saarinen, was commissioned to the

design the Cranbrook Academy campus. Studied sculpture in Paris. Degree

of Bachelor of Fine Arts, Yale University School of Architecture, 1934.

Travelled in Europe from 1934 to 1936 on a Matcham Fellowship. Went

into partnership with his father. After the elder Saarinen’s death, Eero

continued the practice alone, in Birmingham, Michigan. Died 1961.



70

JULIUS SHULMAN Born 1910, Brooklyn, New York. Photographer of

architecture, naturalist, educator, and commentator on urban form. One of

the leading architectural photographers of the 20th century, Shulman

developed close association with the modernist architects, principally those

active in Southern California such as Gregory Ain, John Lautner, Richard

Neutra, and R.M. Schindler. Shulman's images played a major role in

crafting the image of the Los Angeles and "Southern California lifestyle" to

the rest of the nation and world during the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific

author, consultant, lecturer, exhibitor, and editor of his own vast archive,

Shulman remains active in the first decade of the 21st century. Died 2009

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Shulman_Entry_

3.html, 24/2/2010

FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA Born 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey. Beginning his

musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey,

Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being

the idol of the "bobby soxers." His professional career had stalled by the

1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for

Best Supporting Actor. Died 1998.

http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/frank-sinatra.html, 24/2/2010

WHITNEY R. SMITH Born 1911, Pasadena, California. Bachelor of

Architecture degree, University of Southern California, 1934. Staff of Farm

Security Administration. Smith, Jones and Contini joined in partnership with

Wayne R. Williams. Instructor in Advanced Planning and Architecture at

U.S.C., 1941 to 1942. Instructor in Architecture and Planning at Scripps

College, 1947 to 1952. Past member of the South Pasadena Planning

Commission. Advisory Board of U.S.C. School of Architecture. Fellow of the

American Institute of Architects.



http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Ain_01.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Lautner_01.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Neutra_01.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Neutra_01.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Schindler_01.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Shulman_Entry_3.html

http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/deLA/Sample_Entry/Shulman_Entry_3.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_era

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_James

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Dorsey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_soxer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Supporting_Actor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Supporting_Actor

http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/frank-sinatra.html

71

RAPHAEL S. SORIANO Born 1907, Island of Rhodes. College of St. John,

French School in Rhodes. Came to the United States, 1924. U.S. citizenship,

1930. Bachelor of Architecture degree, University of Southern California,

1934. Several months employment with Richard Neutra. Critic and guest

lecturer at University of Southern California, Yale, other universities. In

private practice since 1936, pioneering the development of housing in steel

construction. Moved his office from Los Angeles to Triburon, near San

Francisco, in 1953.



SUMNER SPAULDING Born 1892, Ionia, Michigan. Attended University of

Michigan, 1911-1913. Bachelor of Arts degree, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, 1916. Travelled and studied in Europe and Mexico. Worked in

Office of Myron Hunt, Pasadena. Partnership in firm of Weber, Staunton

and Spaulding, later in firm of Spaulding, Rex and DeSwarte. Taught

architecture at U.S.C. and Scripps College, Chairman of the A.I.A. Commitee

Institute of Architects. Died 1952.



CALVIN C. STRAUB Born 1921, Macon, Georgia. Studied at Texas A and M,

Claremont College, University of Mexico. Bachelor of Architecture degree,

University of Southern California. Project director for Authur B. Gallion,

Dean of School of Architecture, U.S.C. Private practice 1950-1956. Member

of Buff, Straub and Hensman 1956-1961. Associate Professor, School of

Architecture U.S.C., 1946-1961. Professor, School of Architecture, Arizona

State University, 1961.



LIONEL TRILLING Born 1905, New York City. He was an American literary

critic, author, and teacher. Trilling was seen as one of the great literary

critics and one of the New York intellectuals dominating the day. He is

probably most famous to the general public for his introduction to

a 1952 reissue of George Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia. He was

also a regular contributor to the Partisan Review. Died 1975.

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/lionel-trilling/, 24/2/2010

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/lionel-trilling/

72

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American History

Traynor, J., Modern United States history, Hampshire: PALGRAVE,

2001

Tindall, G., Shi, D., America: A Narrative History, Third Edition, USA,

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1984

Baritono, R., Frezza, D., Lorini, A., Vaudanga, M., Vezzosi, E., (eds),

Public and Private in American history, Torrino: OTTO editore, 2003

Case Study Houses Program

McCoy, E., Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Second Edition, Los

Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc, 1977

Smith, E. A. T., Case Study Houses: The complete CSH program

1945-1966, Taschen Gmbh, 2009

Neuhart, M., Neuhart, J., Eames House, Ernst & Sohn Verlag fur

Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, 1994

Steele, J., Eames House : Charles and Ray Eames, London: Phaidon

Press Limited, 1994

Smith, E. A. T., Case Study Houses, Taschen Gmbh, 2009

Billard, T., Buisson, E., The Presence of the Case Study Houses,

Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1994

McCoy, E., Singerman, H., Blueprints for modern living : history and

legacy of the Case Study houses, Los Angeles, 1989

McCoy, E., Five California Architects, New York: Praeger Publishers,

Inc., 1975

Jackson, N., The Modern Steel House, London: E & FN Spon, 1996

American Dream

Goodrum, C., Dalrymple, H., Advertising in America: The First 200

years, New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1990

Rublowsky, J., Pop Art: Images of the American Dream, USA,

Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965

Fossum, R., Roth, J., The American Dream, British Association For

American Studies, 1981

Marchand, R., Advertising the American Dream, California: University

of California Press,1985

73

Photography

Rosa, J., A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of

Julius Shulman, Rizzoli International Publication, 1999

Modern Design

Jackson, L., Contemporary: architecture and interiors of the 1950s,

London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994

Steele, J., The Contemporary condition: Los Angeles architecture,

London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1993

Crowley, D., Pavitt, J. (eds) Cold War modern design 1945-1970,

London: V&A Publishing, 2008

Armstrong, E., Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture

at Midcentury, Prestel USA, 2007

Jackson, L., The Sixties, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1998

Arts & Architecture Magazine

Travers, D., Arts & Architecture: A retrospective, Arts & Architecture,

reprint, Taschen Gmbh, 2008

year

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

1953

1954

issue

January July March March February December July April

February September March

March November April

April December May

May July

July September

September December

November

December

74

Illustration Credits

Arts & Architecture

January 1945: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3

July 1945: 1.2

November 1945: 5.4.2

December 1945: 5.2, 5.4.4

July 1946: 5.4.3

September 1946: 5.1

December 1946: 5.1.4

March 1948: 5.3

February 1949: 5.4

March 1949: 5.5

April 1949: 5.6

May 1949: 5.7

July 1949: 5.9

September 1949: 5.8

December 1949: 5.10, 5.4.1

July 1953: 4.4

April 1954: 4.5, 4.6

Case Study Houses: The complete

CSH program 1945-1966

2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10,

5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3a, 5.2.3b,

5.3.2, 5.3.3, 5.3.4, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3,

All images of Chapter 7:

Catalogue of the Case Study

Houses

Birth of the Cool: California Art,

Design, and Culture at Midcentury

3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.5

Blueprints for modern living :

history and legacy of the Case

Study houses

1.1, 1.3, 3.1.1, 5.3.1

The Contemporary condition: Los

Angeles architecture: 6.4

The Modern Steel House

6.5, 6.6

Advertising in America: 3.2

Eames House: 4.1

http://www.coverbrowser.com/cove

rs/national-geographic/14: 3.6

http://www.bc-

enschede.nl/wenglish/grassroots/p

opculture_3h10304/3h1/tenijenhui

s/website/Frank%20Sinatra.jpg:

3.7

http://www.preservation.lacity.org/f

iles/images/Bullocks-Wilshire-5.jpg:

4.2

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames

/images/vca8b.jpg: 4.3

http://crossroadshollywood.com/i

mages/cra06.jpg: 5.1.1

http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/

mcov/img/04.jpg: 5.1.3

http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/national-geographic/14

http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/national-geographic/14

http://www.bc-enschede.nl/wenglish/grassroots/popculture_3h10304/3h1/tenijenhuis/website/Frank%20Sinatra.jpg




http://www.preservation.lacity.org/files/images/Bullocks-Wilshire-5.jpg

http://www.preservation.lacity.org/files/images/Bullocks-Wilshire-5.jpg

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/images/vca8b.jpg

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/images/vca8b.jpg

http://crossroadshollywood.com/images/cra06.jpg

http://crossroadshollywood.com/images/cra06.jpg

http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/mcov/img/04.jpg

http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/mcov/img/04.jpg

elis m. georgakopoulou

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