Modernism as not just an artistic movement but as a social transformation took off when an intellectual and artistic avant-garde embraced industrial mass production and advances in technology after the First World War. This was a surprise, a true U-turn: Before 1910, artists in particular were almost perfectly defined by exalting the work of human hands and despising the machine-made. Cubist painters and...
Casa Kuderna suffered from ill-advised alterations in the years after its 1956 completion. Worse, a foreclosing lender neglected the house for a long period after 2008. Few modern California houses of the classic postwar era endured such mistreatment and yet managed to avoid demolition. A Transparent Floor Plan As restored, the floor plan links the separate living and sleeping pavilions, which allows...
UPDATE: As of October 26th of 2024, the Smith House is sold for its full asking price of $3,295,000. Congratulations to all involved! There is a rare purity of design and structure always in full view via the steel architecture of the Smith House (completed in 1958). One of Modernism’s core principles is literally on display: The structure, with extremely thin steel beams and flanges, IS the...
What is it that entices us to want to live in an iconic Modern house? Prestige? Spare lines and simplicity? We wouldn't want to go without air conditioning today, as many in California did in the 1950s and '60s. Almost all Case Study Houses lacked air conditioning, for example. Until the past two decades, the majority who live close by the Pacific did so without modern climate control. Even in...
Whatever the downsides of the Social Media age we are living in, one of its advantages is that it has never been easier to see what is being designed and what is being built right now. On LinkedIn; on architects' websites; and on Instagram, in particular. Instagram offers a nearly inexhaustible trove of images of new architecture, design and furniture. Accounts curated by professional designers,...
In 1969, Richard Neutra and his architect son Dion were asked by curators at the Smithsonian to record his thoughts about his career, architecture and philosophy. The audio recording would accompany a slide-show of his buildings, a key part of a retrospective exhibit held at the “Institution” located on the edge of the Mall in very heart of the U.S. capital. Original Smithsonian Institute on the...
Bruce Alonzo Goff (born 1904, died 1982) never studied directly with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. East or West – Wright's architecture school was largely developed in Scottsdale, Arizona (where until recently it was still headquartered.) Unlike John Lautner, who completed his degree at Taliesin under Wright's direct supervision. But the teen-aged Goff apprenticed to a leading Tulsa...