space architecture: schindler’s 1930 braxton-shore projectd-lab.kr/prof/2003_01.pdfwhy the project...

Rudolph Michael Schindler (1887–1953) designed abeach house for Henry Braxton and Viola BrothersShore in 1930. The house was to have been sited onOcean Front Walk, Venice, Los Angeles [1]. It wasnever built, but remains a paper project. In thearchitectural drawings archives at University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara, there are both sketchplans and detailed plans for four levels: the groundfloor, the main floor, the balcony floor and the rooflevel. There are drawings for each of the fourelevations as well as sections. Constructional detailsare provided on five sheets. All told there are 13extant drawings.1 In his signature upper case,Schindler typed a brief written description of thehouse [Table 1].

A 1925 photograph shows Ocean Front Walk, to thenorth of the Braxton-Shore lot, crowded with peopleenjoying themselves, and an aerial view shows theuninhabited wetlands inshore. These were the twoprospects from the Braxton-Shore site: the beach andthe Pacific Ocean to the west, and the naturalwetlands to the east. Motor access to the house wasalong Speed Way. This road was paralleled a blockinland by Trolley Way, a Pacific Electric streetcarroute, later renamed Pacific Avenue. Beyond that,Venice’s Grand Canal found its southern outlet in thePlaya Del Rey estuary. Then the pristine wetlands.

The clients and their cultural ambienceHenry Braxton was an art dealer. In 1928–29,Schindler had designed the interior and frontage for

the Braxton Art Gallery on Vine Street, Hollywood. In1930, the gallery held an exhibition of new works bythe Blue Four – Lyonel Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky,Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. Their works hadrecently been brought back from a visit to Germany,including the Bauhaus, by Galka Scheyer, the group’srepresentative in the United States. The exhibitionwas sponsored by Mme Scheyer and Josef vonSternberg, the film director.2 In a letter to Klee, MmeScheyer described Braxton as ‘the typical dealer inthe worst sense’ (Glaesemer, 1987, p91).

Mrs Braxton, the writer and lyricist Viola BrothersShore (1890–1970), is of greater historic interest. Shewas employed at the West Coast Studios ofParamount Pictures at the time. Oxford UniversityPress in a recent international collection, Shipboardand Shoreline Mystery Stories, advertises that it bringstogether ‘some of the greatest writers in the genre.From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, andViola Brothers Shore to William Faulkner, ElleryQueen, ... ’ Her Paramount screenplay credits includeNo Limit (1931), starring the legendary Clara Bow inone of the early talkies, and Breakfast for Two (1937),starring Barbara Stanwyck. Several productions ofMiss Shore’s plays and musicals hit Broadway.

The architectSchindler had come to Los Angeles to run FrankLloyd Wright’s office in Wright’s absence in Tokyo forthe construction of the Imperial Hotel, thefoundations of which had been reworked by

history arq . vol 7 . no 1 . 2003 51

historyReworked drawings and a model reveal this design as an exemplar

of the architecture of ‘space forms’ which Schindler believed

distinguished his work from that of other contemporaries

Space architecture: Schindler’s 1930 Braxton-Shore projectJin-Ho Park and Lionel March

ta b l e 1 Schindler’s written description of the house

LOCATION: ON THE BEACH OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. NARROW LOT.PROGRAM: SUMMER RESIDENCE. FRAME CONSTRUCTION.ARCHITECTURAL SCHEME: THE HOUSE IS ELEVATED ABOVE THE GROUND

TO PROVIDE A PLAY GROUND UNDERNEATH.THE FLOORS ARE SUPPORTED BY THE TWO FIREWALLS

AND A SERIES OF WOODEN COLUMNS AND BEAMS IN BETWEEN.THIS WOODEN STRUCTURE IS EXPRESSED DEFINITELY IN THEBUILDING. IT CONTAINS ALL STAIR-WAYS AND HALLS, ANDEXTENDS ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE PATIO TO THE GARAGE.

THE DESIGN OF THE FRONT WAS SUGGESTED BY AMOVEMENT SEEN IN THE OCEAN WAVES.

Schindler at Taliesin, Spring Green (March andFutagawa, 1999). The major project that Schindlersupervised for Wright in Los Angeles was the OliveHill estate for the oil heiress, Aline Barnsdall. In 1922,Schindler built the house at 835 Kings Road forhimself and his wife, Pauline Schindler, and for twofriends, the Chaces. By 1930, his works had beenfeatured in progressive publications in Germany;notably, Bruno Taut had published the 1923 PuebloRibera court, La Jolla, in 1927 and the 1925 Howhouse, Silver Lake, in 1929. The Lovell beach house,completed in 1926, which is now secure in the canonof twentieth-century masterworks, was notpublished until Richard Neutra included aphotograph in Wie baut Amerika? (1930).

Richard Neutra had joined Schindler at 835 KingsRoad straight from his fringe involvement, as anassistant to Erich Mendelsohn, with the Zehnerring –the Ring-of-Ten progressive architects in Berlin,including Bruno Taut, who met at Mies Van derRohe’s studio. In 1926, Schindler and Neutra,together with the urban planner Carol Arnovici,established the Architectural Group for Industry andCommerce (AGIC). In the same year, Schindler andNeutra submitted their proposal for the Palace of the

League of Nations. Their joint project was selected asone of three chosen from 377 submissions – alongwith the winning proposal by Le Corbusier andPierre Jeanneret – for the exhibition which touredEurope.

Coaxed apparently by Galka Scheyer, Neutraseparately accepted the commission to design thatjewel of Californian Modernism, the steel and glassLovell Health House (D. Neutra, 1986). Meanwhile,Schindler had completed his remarkable timber-frame structure for the 1928 Wolfe summerresidence, demolished 2002. At the time of theBraxton-Shore commission, then, Schindler wasreceiving international recognition. He was wellinformed about progressive movements in Europeand the Soviet Union. Galka Scheyer personally gavehim international standing when she dubbedSchindler ‘Five’, making him an additional memberof her Blue Four.3

Why the project was not builtThe Braxton-Shore project is technically inassociation with AGIC, but documentation showsthat it is solely Schindler’s creation. While Gebhard(1971) and others give 1928–1930 as a date for the

arq . vol 7 . no 1 . 2003 history52

Jin-Ho Park and Lionel March Space architecture: Schindler’s 1930 Braxton-Shore project

1


Space architecture: Schindler’s 1930 Braxton-Shore project Jin-Ho Park and Lionel March

2a(i) 2a(ii)

2a(iii)2a(iv)

2b(i) 2b(ii)

2b(iii)2b(iv)

1 A prime example of‘the other tradition’of Modernism. R. M.Schindler:presentationdrawing. Braxton-Shore summerresidence, 1930.Pencil, watercolour,and paint on linen.63 x 73cm. (R. M.Schindler Collection,

Architecture andDesign Collection,University ofCalifornia, SantaBarbara, CA).

2 Architectural form asspace encloseda 1⁄4in scale basswoodmodel. From top tobottom: view of theroof; the balcony

floor; the main floor;and the ground floorb Redrawn plans.From top to bottom:roof plan, balconyfloor plan, mainfloor plan, groundfloor plan. Note the48in SpaceReference Frameused by Schindlerfrom about 1920



3a

3b

3c

3d

3e

3f

3g

3 Elevations expressthe interior spatialorganization a West elevation tothe Pacific Oceanb East elevation toSpeedwayc South-northsectiond South elevatione North elevationf Model from north-eastg Model from south-west

house, no surviving material suggests anything but1930. Miss Shore owned the1⁄12 acre lot (95 x 381⁄3 ft)4 onthe beach at the southern end of Venice Peninsula.Schindler, who was staying at the Vanderbilt Hotel inNew York at the time, received a letter from her dated19 May 1930 saying,

‘don’t hurry home on my account, because there’s nothingstirring yet. There’s some talk about an oil lease, but ithasn’t come through. I can’t think of building under thecircumstances’.

Five days later, in a letter addressed to Schindler at835 Kings Road, Miss Shore’s agent writes,

‘to notify you, that under the terms of the Oil and GasLease on her property at Del Rey, Miss Shore is not atliberty to put any improvements on this property as longas this lease is in effect’.5

Oil was discovered on the Venice peninsula in 1929,just as Wall Street suffered the Great Crash. Withintwo years, 148 oil wells were producing nearly 50 000barrels of oil and 2 million cubic feet of gas [petrol]daily. Venice, which had been one man’s dream of aPacific paradise, overnight became a hellishlandscape of oil derricks and filthy emissions. Thefield was barely profitable beyond 1932, yet the last ofthe original derricks was not removed until early1970 (Stanton, 1993).6 It is ironic that it was oilinterests that denied Schindler the opportunity ofbuilding this exceptional project, when it was MissBarnsdall’s oil money that brought him to SouthernCalifornia in the first place.

The ‘space architecture’ of the projectThe drawings for the Braxton-Shore project providean exemplary illustration of ‘space architecture’. Theterm ‘space architecture’ was used by Schindler in a1930 lecture given in San Francisco and finallypublished in his seminal article of that title fouryears later (Schindler, 1934). A clear, succinctstatement of ‘space architecture’ was given byPauline Schindler (1932):

‘Schindler conceives of the architectural form as the spaceenclosed rather than the flat surfaces of wall which encaseit. The feeling of forms so conceived is radically differentfrom the inverse, and adds a dimension to spaceexperience.’

The plans, sections and elevations show Schindler’s‘Space Reference Frame’ which he had consistentlyused from around 1920 (Schindler, 1946). In theplans, a 48in unit module is clearly identified withnumbers (1–24) and letters (A-K) [2b].

Ground floor Typically, every part of the lot is spatially determinedby the architect. In Schindler’s words:

‘The space house as a space form becomes part of the roomformed by the lot, the surroundings, contours, and thefirmament’ (Sarnitz, p68).

The spatial scheme of the project comprises threespace forms – a garage, the residence itself and thecirculation spine that joins these two along thelength of the lot. This latter space form, on all fourlevels, is particularly evident in the iconicperspective, where it penetrates the oceansideelevation.7 The open ground between the three spaceforms is divided into four outdoor ‘rooms’. To the

north there is the forecourt from Speed Way,separated from a service yard by a hedge. Along thesouthern boundary, beyond the privacy provided bythe west wall of the garage, is a patio of sand. This isentered through a gate that is located beneath theterrace linking the garage roof with the main floorof the residence.

This entrance from the forecourt is constricted,but once in the patio, the space explodes: straightahead, and under the main house, is anarchitecturally-framed, tunnel view of the PacificOcean; looking up to the main floor level, is the fullyglazed, two-story elevation of the living room; and tothe right, the highly articulated circulationstructure, stepping four stories to the roof top.Connected to the patio, and beneath the main house,is a covered playground, overlooking Ocean FrontWalk and the beach. The playground is bounded tothe south by supporting walls and an outdoorfireplace. To the north, beyond a screened porchdefined by 4 x 6in structural posts at 48in centres, is aset of rooms: for a guest, for the maid, the furnace,and a bathroom. The ground floor accommodationis raised three steps from the patio.

Main floorThere are two stairways to this level: one is for publicuse and the other, narrower, is for service. Both runparallel to one another on either side of a commonframe wall. The foot of the service stair lands in theyard, while the foot of the main stair is by the patiogate under the terrace to the garage roof. Going up,the main stair arrives at a small entrance hall with aless wide stair continuing on to the gallery floor tothe right. Directly right, there is a porch area whichalso receives the service stair to the kitchen. Theterrace to the garage roof is accessed through thisporch. Straight ahead, on entering the main floor, isthe internal dining area and, through sliding glazeddoors beyond, the Oceanside dining terrace. Bothdining area and terrace are served directly from thekitchen located along the north wall. To the left, onentering, a visitor would sense the double-heightspace of the living room with its L-shaped balcony tothe north and west. A two-story, fully-glazed wallfaces east, over the patio, with views across the GrandCanal, the wetlands and the Playa Del Rey estuary,towards downtown Los Angeles. The west wall of theliving room, under the balcony, is fully glazed withtop hung sliding doors leading to a generous porchwith planters. On the south wall, in the moreintimate single-height area of the living room, is thefamily hearth sharing the same chimney stack as theoutdoor fireplace in the playground below.

Balcony floorThe head of the stairs is in the angle of the L-shapedgallery overlooking the double-height living room.Three private rooms are reached from the leg of thebalcony that looks to the east and the sunrise. Thethree rooms are all fully glazed to the west with viewsover the Pacific Ocean and the sunset. ‘Her’ room isthe largest. Located in the north-west corner of the L-shaped gallery, it opens on to an oceanside balcony,and is en suite with a dressing area, shower and



lavatory. ‘His’ room shares the same Oceansidebalcony. The remaining third bedroom closes off thisleg of the gallery. It has an internal window into theliving room as well as the fully-glazed openings ontoa narrow planted area, shared by ‘his’ room,overlooking the beach. The other leg of the galleryreturns past the stairways to a bathroom on the left.Straight ahead a door opens on to a terrace to thesecond flight of service stairs. To the right is a planterwhich is half inside and half outside the glazing. Thefamily hearth, in the living room below, is seen fromthis position.

RoofThe foot of the stairs to the roof is also at this point,making access to the bathroom particularlyconvenient for people using the main roof terrace.The stairway is protected from the elements by anenclosure under the extended 44 x 8ft roof of theoutdoor sleeping porch. The sleeping areas aredefined by a pine deck over the composite roofing. Aplanter runs half the length of the deck on the southside. Climbing plants cover the pergola thatoverhangs the west elevation as part of the porch

roof. In fact, the whole beach-front elevation is ahanging garden, with planting generously providedfor at every level. The southern half of the main roofprovided a private terrace for nude sunbathing,following the health fad of the day.

From the roof, there would have been a panoramicview of the Los Angeles basin. To the north might beseen Malibu Bay and the sun parched Santa Monicamountains; to the east the wetlands and beyond,possibly, to the Charles A. Lindbergh Airway Beaconflashing atop the 450ft tower of the newly completedCity Hall, 1928; to the south, the green peninsula ofRancho Palos Verde and, out to sea, Santa CatalinaIsland, the site of Schindler’s Wolfe summer house.

ElevationsThe spatial organization of the interior is wellexpressed in the elevations [3a and b, d and e]. On thesouth, the studio section of the living room isevident from the L-shaped surface of this wall.Projecting 16in from this plane, in the crux of the L,is the end wall of the third bedroom at the balconylevel. Small windows are cut in the surface aroundthe boundary between these two planes, defining



4

5b5a

4 The purest element of ‘spacearchitecture’ in theproject. Cutawayaxonometricshowing the fivelevels of thecirculation spine

5 Schindler’s ‘firewalls’ adopt amediaeval form inwhich a

small cantileverreduces deflectionsin the adjacent span.Deflection diagram a A simple beam and …b … a cantileveredbeam carrying anend load

6 The chimney stack in relation to thesouth firewall.Explodedaxonometric

the planes sharply. Similarly, the living room floor iscantilevered 16in from the mass of the outdoorfireplace and supporting walls, marking this levelwith a clean horizontal line.

On the north elevation, all three levels areexpressed by the cantilevering of floors. There is aninteresting complication where the commonbathroom occurs. Again small windows are used to‘underline’ the separation of planes. These are notwindows conventionally punched in the centre of awall plane.

From Speed Way, the house cannot be said to havean elevation. The Braxton-Shore presents, from thegarage to the sleeping porch, a mounting complex oforthogonal planes in a space of some forty or morefeet in depth and height. However, the principalelevation as drawn shows, with completetransparency, the double-height living room to theleft of the stairways, while three floors – ground,main, balcony – are clearly marked to the right.Minor spaces like the porch on the main floor, or thebathroom on the balcony floor, are defined by beingset back from the living-room elevation.

The west elevation is the one that Schindler

describes as having been inspired by ‘a movementseen in the ocean waves’. Most probably he had thebreaking of waves in mind. The circulation spinemight be read as a sea-breaker against which wavescrash before losing their momentum. It is surely acommon experience to stand on a break-wall andwatch a single rolling wave split in two as it reachesthe breaker, each half subsequently taking on itsown distinctive motion. This is evoked in theprojecting structure of the circulation spine, oneither side of which the elevations show suchasymmetrical dynamic. As one wave rides another, soeach floor overhangs the one below. Except for ‘her’room that comes to the fore, each floor is marked bya projecting low wall, or planter, with full-heightglazing, or openings, set behind.

Circulation spineThe circulation spine is the purest element of spacearchitecture in the whole project [4]. Little is hiddenas the stairways ascend to the roof level in a series ofstepped terraces. At each level a person would beconscious of spaces above and spaces below, ofaspects to either side, forward and back. Seen from



6



7

8

the patio, or through the double-height living-roomwindow, the play of sunlight, or of electric lighting atnight, on this perforated space form can only beimagined.

ConstructionThe key to the structure is the circulation spinewhich is a four-story tube, tapering off in height tothe roadside. It is supported by wooden posts –mostly 4 x 6in – joined by deep beams in both plandirections on successive floors – often 2 x 16in. Thisconstruction alone might make the structureresistant to shear, but the stairways provide diagonalbracing to create a completely rigid frame.

SectionsIt is to this rigid frame that Schindler anchors thecantilevers supporting floors on either side. The twoside walls, north and south, are the ‘firewalls’mentioned by Schindler. From the elevations it willbe seen that these walls are barely punctured bysmall openings. In addition, each wall steps out fromstory to story with the cantilever of the floor beams.This structural device, commonly seen in medievaltimber structures, reduces the bending moments inthe beams and reduces deflections over the samespan as a simple supported beam [5]. The south‘firewall’ of the Braxton-Shore is framed with 2 x 6instuds and is stabilized by the chimney stack whichrises through all three floors [6]. Each floor iscantilevered 16in to receive the load on the wallabove. The north ‘firewall’ is more conventionallybraced by cross partitions. Again, external walls use 2 x 6in studs; internal walls use mostly 2 x 4in studs.The cantilever at each level is less pronounced at justunder 6in and corresponds to the smaller spans onthe north side [7].

Despite the structural ingenuity, Schindlereschews the muscular expression of his earlier Lovellbeach house. He also leaves behind the directexpression of material. The Braxton-Shore is one ofhis first projects to make use of the standardmethods of wood-frame construction. Schindler in aDirectory of Modern Architecture introduced what hetermed ‘plaster skin design’ (Sarnitz, p68):

‘All surfaces of the structural skeleton are covered by aplaster coating which then speaks with its own form ofvocabulary.’

In certain ways, the mass of the building isdematerialized to mere light-reflecting surfacesenveloping spaces. This is key to space architecture.As Schindler put it in the same Directory:

‘In contrast to all architectural styles of the past whichmodeled “mass” sculpturally, it uses “space” as its ownmedium’.

Fenestration and other detailsThe Braxton-Shore shows a shift in Schindler’sarchitectural approach. Sarnitz (p212) gives 1928 asthe year in which Schindler abandoned concreteconstruction, for cost reasons, and began to adoptand transform the American balloon-frame systemto satisfy the demands of the space architect. TheBraxton-Shore stands at the beginning of this processof adaptation towards the Schindler Frame of his



9a

9b

9c

7 Cantilevers on eachside vary inproportion to thelength of theadjacent simplespans. North-southcross section withhorizontal andvertical cutsredrawn fromADC/UCSB1967.100.40.7,Garland 379. Not toscale in original, oras redrawn

8 Schedule ofwindows and doorsshowing Schindler’s16in vertical module.

Redrawn fromADC/UCSB1967.100.40.11,Garland 383

9 Exemplary modelsof Le Corbusier’s fivedefining points for amodernarchitecture.Diagrammaticcomparison of crosssectionsa The 1930 Braxton-Shore houseb The 1926 Lovellbeach housec Le Corbusier’s 1928Baizeau Villa atCarthage

later works (Schindler, 1947; Sheine, 1993). Already,the height to the underside of the 16in ceiling beamsin the circulation spine hints at the defining 80inheader plate of the Schindler Frame. In the sash list,Schindler shows 80in glazed sliding doors suggestingthat there would have been a header plate at thisheight. All other sashes are 64in or 48in high. Thesedimensions show an adherence, like the floorplanning, to Schindler’s Space Reference Frame withits 48in module and half (24in), third (16in), quarter(12in) divisions (Schindler, 1946. Sarnitz, 1988,pp59–60; March and Sheine, 1993, pp57–61). In theBraxton-Shore, the third divisions are usedexclusively in the vertical dimension [8].

The structure of firewalls, circulation spine, andcantilevered floors leaves the east and west elevationsfree of load-bearing requirements. Schindler is atliberty to fully glaze these two elevations as windowwalls. The east wall is spanned by a 40in high dadoabove a 16in glazing strip to the floor. Above thedado, fixed glazing is arranged in 16in horizontalbands with a tall 32 x 128in opening light against thesouth wall frame. The pattern of glazing bars in thisopening light mimics the structural cantilevers ofthe floors. A vertical bar rises the full height of thesash, 4in from the edge of the frame. Sixteen inchesdown, a horizontal bar is anchored to this verticaland spans to the opposite frame. A vertical bar dropsfrom this horizontal, another 4in across from thevertical bar. This stepping pattern is repeated fourtimes, leaving a clear 16 x 80in pane. This steppingmotif, involving different dimensions, is repeated insome of the glazing in the west elevation.

Most of the oceanside wall comprises top hung,sliding, glazed doors on parallel tracks. These are setin from the facade to provide for planters andbalconies. Full-height insect screens are arranged infront of the sliding doors to the living room.Schindler was to write (1952):

‘Light must be made to permeate the whole space and notremain a glaring spot area produced by a conventionalsmall window opening in a dark wall, or a free-hanginglight fixture. The present fashion of large view windowscondemns many a room to assume the character of thecave. This formation allows the light to enter through oneopening only and forces the inhabitants to face at all timesa glaring light source, unrelieved by light coming fromanother direction.’

In Braxton-Shore, the 6in width of the firewalls isclearly articulated at each level with a floor-to-ceilingglazed slot allowing daylight to wash unobstructedover interior walls. Schindler placed electric lights inthese slots to substitute for daylight at night. Theliving room obviously has both east and westlighting. But this is also the case in the west-facingbedrooms, where Schindler sets their ceiling level16in above the living-room roof to create clerestorylighting for the morning sun. In several places,Schindler builds in artificial light boxes. Moststrikingly he places two light boxes on either side ofthe outdoor fireplace.

Comparison with contemporary workSchindler’s work, as is well known, was rejected from

the Museum of Modern Art exhibition InternationalExposition of Modern Architecture organized in 1932 byPhilip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. Thegrounds for rejection were that his work did notconform to the stylistic conditions demanded byJohnson and Hitchcock and illustrated in theexhibition catalogue, International Style: Architecturesince 1922. Richard Guy Wilson compares two housesfor Dr Philip and Leah Lovell (Wilson, R. G., 2001,pp117–143). The 1927–28 steel and glass ‘HealthHouse’ by Richard Neutra was included in theexhibition, while Schindler’s summer house atNewport Beach, was not. Johnson and Hitchcock didnot recognize the beach house as a representative ofthe International Style. Nor did Schindler. In hisletter dated 9 March 1932 to Johnson, Schindlercomments on the selection of exhibits (Sarnitz,p209):

‘It seems to me that instead of showing late attempts atcreative architecture, it tends towards the so-called“International Style”.

‘If this is the case my work has no place in it. I am not astylist, not a functionalist, nor any other sloganist. Each ofmy buildings deals with a different architectural problem,the existence of which has been entirely forgotten in thisperiod of rational mechanization. The question of whethera house is really a house is more important to me than thefact that it is made of steel, glass, putty, or hot air.’

Sheine (1993) compares aspects of the Lovell beachhouse with Le Corbusier’s Five Points [Table 2].

In setting out their own criteria, Johnson andHitchcock clearly failed to appreciate Le Corbusier’sfive defining points for a modern architecture,otherwise the Lovell beach house would have beenincluded as an exemplary model. Yet the Lovell’slanguage is not the same. To satisfy the sameprinciples, it uses a foreign syntax and a differentvocabulary of elements than those in the orthodoxLe Corbusier grammar. Images of the beach housewould not have looked right, with its ‘variety offorms, colors, and textures’, alongside thephotographs of ‘tight white boxes that seemed toexude a machine-made air’ (Wilson, R. G., 2001, p119).The Lovell beach house was not white, its materialswere left natural, or stained a sand colour (Sarnitz,p21). These are not the Modernist’s palettes of the1920s and ’30s, nor the primary hues, ‘postercolours’, of De Stijl cited by Schindler (1952). Thecolour presentation drawing indicates that theBraxton-Shore would not have been the regulationwhite of International Style architecture.

What Braxton-Shore [9a] shares with the Howhouse and the Lovell beach house [9b] is a similarsectional design. All have double-height living roomswith galleries. The How has an open sleeping galleryon two sides. The long Lovell gallery provides accessto four bedrooms. The Braxton-Shore L-shapedgallery provides access to three. A comparison maybe drawn with Le Corbusier’s first design for theBaizeau Villa at Carthage (1928) (Le Corbusier, 1960,pp80–81; Risselada, 1988, pp116–118). This villa wassited on a low cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.An examination of schematic sections points to the



diagrammatic nature of Le Corbusier’s proposal inwhich the Domino floor heights remain inviolate[9c]. Schindler’s treatment seems subtler, especiallywith the lowering of ceilings over the living room toprovide clerestory lighting from the roof level. Thisrefinement is a nod, perhaps, to the raumplan ofAdolf Loos in whose circles Schindler had moved inVienna.

Both Le Corbusier and Schindler exploit thestructural economy of the cantilever: Le Corbusier inthe floor plates of the generic Domino structure, andSchindler in the particular loading of theextremities of the cantilevers in the Braxton-Shore.Unlike the Lovell beach house, or the How residence,the structure is dressed in plaster externally andinternally – walls, ceilings and overhangs. Structureis subsumed as a prominent feature and no longerchallenges the sovereignty of the space architectureas it does in both the Lovell and the How houses.Schindler was never to return to the beefcakestructural expression of the Lovell, nor to the nakedframing and interacting cantilevers of the floors androofs in the How residence.

Gebhard (1971) mentions the Braxton-Shoreproject at the end of a chapter entitled ‘Schindler’s“de Stijl”’. The chapter starts: ‘The year 1928 marksSchindler’s full commitment to de Stijl’. This seemsan exaggeration. Theo Van Doesburg, writing to Oudin 1924, claimed that De Stijl is ‘the whole of creativeEurope and soon the whole of America! Everyone,without exception, has experienced not only theinfluence of the De Stijl idea, but also the De Stijl ideaas a living source of energy’ (Doig, p223). True thatSchindler was touched. A cutting in Schindler’sarchive shows the 1923 axonometric drawing of theMaison Particulière by Van Doesburg and CorneliusVan Eesteren (for a colour reproduction, seeFriedman (1982), p86). In black and white, Gebhard(pp78–79) reproduces this opposite the 1925 Howresidence. The former is a graphic image, the latter isa building. The former depicts a sculptural mass ofboxes bounded by separately coloured rectangularplanes punctuated by conventional openings – an artobject. The latter realizes an architecturalcompartmentalization of space that provides richopportunities for day-to-day living – spacearchitecture. There is no question that Schindler wasaware of De Stijl, but to relate his space architecture,and the Braxton-Shore in particular, to its images is

to commit the error of judging and comparingarchitectural works from pictures and photographs.Schindler enquired of Hitchcock in January 1930(Sheine, 2001, p68):

‘Why not write a book on architecture after looking at thefloor plans and cross sections and forgetting all the goodphotos you might have seen?’

Among the most accomplished projectsSchindler’s work properly finds a place among that‘other tradition of modern architecture’ outlined byColin St John Wilson (1995). Until now, the Braxton-Shore has been known largely by Schindler’spresentation perspective. Through reading andmodelling the surviving plans, elevations, sectionsand constructional details, the authors believe theBraxton-Shore beach house deserves a primeinternational place among the most accomplishedresidential projects of the early 1930s. At least, inconceptual originality, it surely stands alongsideprojects by Hugo Hˇring (b1882) such as the 1930Berhendt project, or his own house of 1932 (BlundellJones, P. (1999), pp128–131); projects by HansScharoun (b1893) for Ferdinand Mπller in 1931 andthe completed 1932–33 Schminke house (BlundellJones, P. (1995), pp68–81); or the 1934–36 Alvar Aalto(b1898) residence in Helsinki with Aino Aalto(Yoshida, ed pp34–43).

In the Braxton-Shore, Schindler finds his owndistinctive voice. He leaves behind the sculpturaltendencies of Wright’s contemporary concrete blockprojects. There is nothing like the Braxton-Shorebefore, or at the time, in Wright’s work. WhileSchindler reflected the influence of his Viennesementor, Otto Wagner, in projects before 1920, and ofAdolf Loos in works in the following decade,especially the How house, the Braxton-Shore is afresh, peculiarly Californian departure. Schindlerhad arrived. The Braxton-Shore drawings recordexquisite architectural thought at the cutting edgeof their time, they illustrate much of what Schindlerwas later to articulate regarding his expectations for‘space architecture’. Schindler (1935) envisioned:

‘a symphony of “space forms” – each room a necessary andunavoidable part of the whole. Structural materials, walls,ceilings, are only means to an end: the definition of spaceforms. They lose their individual importance and aresimplified to the utmost – a simple weave of a fewmaterials articulates space into rooms’.



ta b l e 2 Judith Sheine’s comparison of aspects of the Lovell beach house and Le Corbusier’s Five Points

FIVE POINTS (1927) LOVELL BEACH HOUSE (1922/26)

1. Les pilotis Five concrete frames lift the house above the ground2. Les toits-jardins Rooftop sunbath3. Le plan libre 2 inch thick interior walls suspended from the frames4. La fenêtre en longueur Ribbon clerestory fenestration5. La façade libre The concrete frames free the envelope from any structural consideration



Notes1. Architecture and Design Collection,

University of California, SantaBarbara, CA. ADC/UCSB:1967.100.40.1– 13, Garland 373–383and 3293–4 (Gebhard, 1993).

2. Schindler had written to VonSternberg in 1930 concerning apossible commission for a house,but the director left Los Angeles tomake his only German film, ‘Derblaue Engel’ (1930), starringMarlene Dietrich and EmilJannings. On his return, VonSternberg chose Neutra as hisarchitect in 1933.

3. In a 1949 lecture, at the University ofSouthern California, recalling hisown architectural career aspractitioner and lecturer, Schindlerpaused to ‘record my appreciationof, and respect for, Mme GalkaScheyer, who paralleled my effortsin the interest of modern abstractpainting and sculpture, helpingmuch to dispel popular prejudices’(Sarnitz, 1988, p68).

4. Metric equivalents are given belowin the order in which they firstappear in the text:1⁄12 acre = 0.033 ha95 x 381⁄3 ft = 28.9 x 11.68m48in = 1.219m4 x 6in = 102 x 152mm44 x 8ft = 13.41 x 2.43m2 x 16in = 51 x 406mm. 80in = 2.03m64in = 1.62 m24in = 610 mm12in = 305 mm40in = 1.02 m32 x 128in = 0.81 x 3.25 m

5. Schindler was still in New York inlate June. His clients there wereHelena Rubinstein, for whom hehad worked in the 1920s, and theFifth Avenue store, Bonwit Teller.These commissions did notmaterialize (Sarnitz, p213).

6. Also seehttp://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/Venice/

7. ‘Iconic’ in the sense that two majorSchindler exhibitions have chosenthis image for the covers of theircatalogues: the 1984 show at Sala deExposiciones del Ministerio deObras Publicas y Urbanismo,Madrid, and in 2001 at The Museumof Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,later transferred to the NationalBuilding Museum, Washington, DC,and then to the …sterreichischesMuseum fur Angewandte Kunst,Vienna (ADC/UCSB 1967.100.40.12,Garland 3293).

ReferencesBlundell Jones, P. (1995). Hans Scharoun,

Phaidon, Oxford.

Blundell Jones, P. (1999). Hugo Hˇring:the organic versus the geometric,Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart.

Doig, A. (1986). Theo Van Doesburg:painting into architecture, theory intopractice, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Friedman, M. (eds) (1982). De Stijl:1917–1931, Visions of Utopia, Phaidon,Oxford.

Gebhard, D. (1971). Schindler, VikingPress, New York.

Gebhard, D. (1993). The ArchitecturalDrawings of R. M. Schindler, GarlandPublishing, 4 vols, New York.

Glaesemer J. (1987). ‘Klee and GermanRomanticism’. In (eds) C. Lanchner,Paul Klee, The Museum of ModernArt, New York.

Hitchcock, H-R. (1929). ModernArchitecture: romanticism andreintegration, Payson and Clarke,New York.

Le Corbusier (1960). My Work. (Trs)James Palmes, Architectural Press,London.

March, L. (1993). ‘Dr How’s MagicalMusic Box’. In (eds) L. March, J.Sheine.

March, L. and Futagawa, Y. (1999). R. M.Schindler House, Hollywood, California,1921–22; James E. How House, LosAngeles, California, 1925, ADA Edita,Tokyo.

March, L. and Sheine, J. (eds) (1993). R.M. Schindler: composition andconstruction, Academy Editions,London.

Neutra, R. (1927). Wie baut Amerika?, J.Hoffmann, Stuttgart.

Neutra, D. (1986). Richard Neutra,promise and fulfilment, 1919–1932:selections from the letters and diaries ofRichard and Dione Neutra, SouthernIllinois University Press,Carbondale.

Resselada, M. (1988). ‘Documentationof 16 Houses’. In (eds) M. Resselada,Raumplan versus Plan Libre, Rizzoli,New York.

Schindler, P. G. (1932). ‘ModernCalifornia Architects’, Creative Art,New York, 10.2, February, p113.

Schindler, R. M. (1934). ‘SpaceArchitecture’, Dune Forum, Ocenao,CA, pp44–46.

Schindler, R. M. (1935). ‘Furniture andthe Modern House: a theory ofinterior design’, Architect andEngineer, San Francisco: 123,December 1935, pp22–25, 124,March 1936, pp24–28.

Schindler, R. M. (1946). ‘ReferenceFrames in Space’, Architect andEngineer, San Francisco 165, pp10,40, 44–45.

Schindler, R. M. (1947). ‘SchindlerFrame’, Architectural Record, NewYork 101, May 1947, pp143–146.

Schindler, R. M. (1952). ‘Visual

Techniques’. In (eds) L, March and J.Sheine.

Sarnitz, A. (1988). R. M. Schindler,architect (1887–1953): a pupil of OttoWagner, between international style and space architecture, Rizzoli, NewYork.

Sheine, J. (1993). ‘Construction andthe Schindler Frame’. In (eds) L.March and J. Sheine.

Sheine, J. (2001). R. M. Schindler,Phaidon, Oxford.

Smith, E. A. T. and Darling, M. (eds)(2001). The Architecture of R. M.Schindler, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, NewYork.

Stanton, J. (1993). Venice California –Coney Island of the Pacific, JeffreyStanton, Los Angeles.

Taut, B. (1929). Die neue Baukunst inEuropa und Amerika, Verlag JuliusHoffmann, Stuttgart.

Wilson, R. G. (2001). ‘Schindler’sMetaphysics: Space, the Machine,and Modernism’. In (eds) E. A. T.Smith, and M. Darling.

Wilson, C. St J. (1995). The OtherTradition of Modern Architecture: theuncompleted project, AcademyEditions, London.

Yoshida, N. (1998). Alvar Aalto Houses Ñtimeless expression, A+U Publishing,Tokyo.

Illustration creditsarq gratefully acknowledges:R. M. Schindler Collection,

Architecture and Design Collection,University of California, SantaBarbara, CA

The authors, 2a and b, 3 a-g, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9

BiographyJin-Ho Park is Assistant Professor inthe School of Architecture at theUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa.

Lionel March is Professor of Designand Computation in the School of theArts and Architecture and a memberof the Center for Medieval andRenaissance Studies, at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.

Authors’ addressesProfessor Jin-Ho ParkSchool of ArchitectureUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa2410 Campus RoadHonoluluHI 96822 [email protected]

Professor Lionel MarchSchool of the Arts and ArchitectureUniversity of California Los Angeles California 90032, [email protected]

space architecture: schindler’s 1930 braxton-shore projectd-lab.kr/prof/2003_01.pdfwhy the project...

Documents