Tagged: modernizing

MODERNIZING 1921: SCHINDLER CAMPS OUT

Could this design from the Housekeeping Campground Map in Yosemite Valley be the original inspiration for LA architect Rudolf Schindler’s radical home design on King’s Road? (See our post Sun-worshipers and Free-thinkers.)   As Schindler describes it,  the home “… fulfils the basic requirement for a camper’s shelter: a protected back, an open front, a fireplace and a roof…”( ‘A Co-operative Dwelling’ , T-Square, February 1932).

In 1921 amidst the falling oak leaves of September and October Rudolf and wife Pauline  enjoyed an idyllic few weeks in camp shelters in Yosemite Valley.  Having just terminated his employment with Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolf and Pauline planned their modern life and modern home in Los Angeles. Four independent and  utilitarian studios conjoined in a communal relationship would provide a background for work and play.  They would be joined in this experimental four-plex by housemates and friends Clyde and Marian Chace.

Schindler enlists his Illinois in-laws’ financial support with this enticing description of their daughter’s future Hollywood home: , “The rooms are large studiorooms–with concrete walls on three sides, the front open(glass) to the outdoors–a real California scheme.” (letter to Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gibling). He continues: “Both ‘court’ and ‘terrace’ are to be used for social events–especially the ‘court’ may be covered by velumn and serve as a real room.”

Rating 3 1/2 stars on Yelp, Chad A describes the Housekeeping Camp experience like “The name sounds totally ghetto, but believe me this place is awesome. You have a couple of concrete walls that are of course covered, a couple of beds, drapes to close the “door”, a camp fire pit, covered “patio” area, and the best part electrical outlets to plug things in. Now I know some of you will say that is not camping to have electrical outlets, but I think it makes for a most wonderful addition… especially if you have like an iPod Dock because then you can cue up music for hours.  If you want to make the small trek they also have a small liquor store with all the basics for a good time in case you forgot something. We kept hitting it up for more beer for our drinking games. They also have laundry facilities and some transportation to some of the more famous places.”  Beyond the fireplace neither place has heat so bring extra blankets.

The home was completed for move-in by May of the next year.  In terms of partying and bohemian entertainment it was certainly competitive with Housekeeping Camp.   Schindler employee and architect Harwell Harris writes: The Schindler’s open house on Sunday evenings attracted the “arty” intellectuals of post-World-War I. … Hollywood drew them like a magnet. … Poets, playwrights, dancers, photographers and musicians … Socialists, reformers and intellectuals of all varieties were there. The talk was not chit-chat but about revolutionary ideas in all fields. The New, the Advanced. There were no fights because the participants, too, were advanced and so in fundamental agreement with one another. Most were locals; some were habitues; others were ones who came and went. Everyone felt free to bring a friend if he were interesting; it was a way to entertain.” (as quoted in Esther McCoy’s: Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys).

Schindler would live and work here for the rest of his life.  As others came and went, he would  share spaces with architect Richard Neutra and wife Dione, Galka Scheyer (Pasadena Art Museum donor) and dancer John Bovingdon (here in 1930 photo by Imogen Cunningham), musician John Cage, and Pauline Schindler returned from a gypsy lifestyle, but now separated from her husband. After Schindler’s death, Aldous Huxley moved in, the year of his first LSD trip.

In recent history Yosemite’s Housekeeping Campground provided both X-shaped four-plexes as well as this H-shaped duplex under a tent roof still extant at Housekeeping Camp.  Schindler slept here?  You can too!

For reservations:  www.yosemitepark.com/Accommodations.

MODERNIZING 2011: LIGHT AND AIR

On September 15th, 2011, we were featured at the “Modernizing Your Space” series at Design Within Reach during San Francisco’s Architecture in the City Month. We took the opportunity to clarify what we do and value in modern design.

Frequently our clients come to us with cramped, compartmentalized homes and formal rooms with poor interior and exterior connections inhibiting casual living.  Breakthroughs in modern residential design in the mid-century were sensitive to goals of personal comfort and connections to the environment, but they were insensitive to the environment at a community and global level with sprawling development, freeways and parking  lots actively replacing positive neighborhood and urban pattern.  These goals– casual comfort and easy interior and exterior connections–remain worthwhile to pursue, even  while we shift away from patterns promoting oil dependency to patterns supporting global responsibility and sustainability.

Our office takes on the challenge of bringing casual living and sunshine to urban living within a sustainable culture. When we modernize, we open homes to an easy flow of space and functions, opening the home to light, air, garden and views.

In this example, connections to light and views are not always horizontal.  Here, within a 25′ wide San Francisco lot width with zero lot line construction, connections to light and air are challenging.  Large skylights  and setback windows provide some solutions.

Once upstairs this penthouse master bedroom addition overlaps functions and eliminates doors and trim to provide a casual and nuanced arrangement of spaces, maximizing the flow of light and view while economizing on space.  Controlled views and  sunlight provide protected connections to our local environment.  These changes are transformative at a fundamental level and not particularly expensive as the materials (light, views, the outdoors and a relaxed attitude) are readily at hand if we open our homes to them.

MODERNIZING 1971: TRAFFIC JAM

A sea change occured in home design and life style in mid-century California as promoted in the work of Schindler, Neutra and the Case Study House program and popularized by Eichler planned developments and ranch style homes.  Providing modern and positive values of casual living and connection with the sun and outdoors, suburban home production flourished in an anti-urban, auto-based culture made concrete through asocial town planning.  These mid-century modern designs were sensitive to personal comfort and environment, but they were insensitive to the environment at a community and global level with sprawling development actively replacing positive neighborhood and urban pattern.

Established commuter rail lines, like the Red Car lines in LA, were ripped up for freeway right of ways promoted by the oil and auto industry.  Downtown buildings were demolished for parking lots and block-style housing projects with a misguided idea of how to re-populate urban cores.

Traveling at 70 mph on the Santa Monica Freeway reveals a sprawling vista of interspersed highrise, mid-rise, mid-rise parking structures and vacant lots.   With plentiful oil, market manipulation and political lobbying supporting a pattern of suburban sprawl and smog,  developing your backyard as  a private oasis brought sensible relief from the abandoned downtown and its public realm of social engagement and responsibility.  Behind backyard fences, away from the living hell of the traffic jam, modern living goals of connecting indoors and outdoors and casual living do well.   These goals remain worthwhile to maintain, even  while we shift away from patterns promoting gas consumption and oil dependency to patterns supporting global responsibility and sustainability.

MODERNIZING 1921: SUN-WORSHIPERS AND FREE-THINKERS

Photographed in LA in 1931, barefoot Galka Scheyer adopts a modern attitude in the sundrenched window of Rudolf Schindler’s revolutionary Kings Road House which proposed new arrangements for living and working, defining what it means to be modern, at least in California.

Designed in 1921 for two couples, four identical studio spaces placed in a pinwheel pattern frame two courtyards.  Studio spaces flow directly out into private exterior courts through window walls and sliding doors.  The interior and exterior are integrated to such an extent that the courtyards’ hedged boundaries effectively form the fourth wall of the studio interiors.   The interior spaces are just as casual and ambiguous in proscribed use and privacy.  Each studio provides individual work/play space promoting radical possibilities for social relations from independent to  communal.  The history of the house reflects the possibilities from communal habitat and salon for Schindler and Neutra family to separate quarters for the ultimately separated Rudolf and Pauline Schindler.

“Our rooms will descend close to the ground, and the garden will become an integral part of the house. The distinction between the indoors and the out-of-doors will disappear. Our house will lose its front-and-back door aspect.  It will cease being a group of dens, some larger ones for social effect, and a few smaller ones (bedrooms) in which to herd the family.  Each individual will want a private room to gain a background for his life.  He will sleep in the open.  A work-and-play room, together with the garden, will satisfy the group needs.   The walls will be few, thin, and removable. All rooms will become parts of an organic unit instead of being small separate boxes with peep-holes.”  (Schindler, “Care of the Body,” Los Angeles Times, 1926).