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Spring '15

Class 15 Modern Houses I

what is modern

architecture?

last time, we discussed this through manifestoes and written

statements

today, through residential architecture

Houses of Frank Lloyd Wright

Ladies Home Journal projects

Usonian Houses

Jacobs I (1936)

Jacobs II

Los Angeles

Rudolf Schindler

Richard Neutra

Walter Gropius

An organic architecture is "one that is integral to site; integral to

environment; integral to the life of the inhabitants. A house integral

with the nature of materials wherein glass is used as glass, stone as

stone, wood as wood and all the elements of environment go into

and throughout the house. Into this new integrity, once there, those

who live in it will take root and grow.”

—Frank Lloyd Wright, on organic architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright, "A Home in a

Prairie Town," Ladies' Home Journal,

February 1901

Frank Lloyd Wright, "A Small House

with 'Lots of Room in It,"

Ladies' Home Journal, July 1901

Frank Lloyd Wright, "A Fireproof House for $5000," April 1907

Usonian housesDuring Depression, Frank Lloyd

Wright turned his interest to low cost

housing for the masses. He called

these houses "Usonian" (an

adjectival form of USA, like

"American" for America.)

Each design was unique but they

shared common elements.

Usonian House PlansWright evolved from the original

2’x’4’, truly modular design

to possible layouts.

POLLIWOG DESIGN

90 degree “tail” extending into garden

separating public and private areas Jacob’s

house (1936)

IN-LINE DESIGN

House designed for narrower lots, square layout

without tail.

Goetsch-Winkler house (1939)

Usonian Housing Plans

RAISED DESIGN

Two-story design made to accommodate sloped

property lots

Lloyd Lewis House (1940)

HEXAGONAL DESIGN

Above: Hanna House (1936)

SOLAR HEMI-CIRCLE

DESIGN

Jacobs House II (1940)

Herbert Jacobs House

Wright wanted to design houses that were affordable for

middle class families.

Jacobs only had a limited amount to spend on the home and

challenged Wright to build an artistic home for him at a

budgeted amount.

Wright, who always spoke of his desire for a democratic

architecture, available to even those with modest means,

accepted the challenge, and agreed that he would built

Jacobs a house for $5,500 – the only time in his career he

agreed to a fixed price contract.

Wright on Jacobs I in Autobiography

"What would be really sensible in this matter of the modest

dwelling for our time and place? Let’s see how far the

Herbert Jacobs house at Madison, Wisconsin, is a sensible

house. This house for a young journalist, his wife, and small

daughter, is now under roof. Cost: Fifty-five hundred dollars,

including architect’s fee of four hundred and fifty. Contract let

to P. B. Grove."

"To give the small Jacobs family the benefit of the

advantages of the era in which they live, many simplifications

must take place. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs must themselves see

life in somewhat simplified terms. What are essentials in their

case, a typical case? It is not only necessary to get rid of all

unnecessary complications in construction, necessary to use

work in the mill to good advantage, necessary to eliminate so

far as possible, field labor which is always expensive: it is

necessary to consolidate and simplify the three

appurtenance systems—heating, lighting, and sanitation. At

least this must be our economy if we are to achieve the

sense of spaciousness and vista we desire in order to

liberate the people living in the house."

And it would be ideal to complete the building in one

operation as it goes along. Inside and outside should be

complete in one operation. The house finished inside as it is

completed outside. There should be no complicated roofs.

Every time a hip or a valley or a dormer window is allowed to

ruffle a roof the life of the building is threatened.

"A MODEST house, this Usonian house, a dwelling place

that has no feeling at all for the 'grand' except as the house

extends itself in the flat parallel to the ground. It will be a

companion to the horizon. With floor-heating that kind of

extension on the ground can hardly go too far for comfort or

beauty of proportion, provided it does not cost too much in

upkeep. As a matter of course a home like this is an

architect’s creation. It is not a builder’s nor an amateur’s

effort. There is considerable risk in exposing the scheme to

imitation or emulation.

This is true because a house of this type could not be well

built and achieve its design except as an architect oversees

the building.

And the building would fail of proper effect unless the

furnishing and planting were all done by advice of the

architect."

features of Jacobs I

• small clerestory windows on the street side.

• on the private side, the walls are almost entirely large

windows and glass doors, opening the house to the

terrace and garden area.

• Masonry elements are arranged near the front door,

fireplace, kitchen and bathroom areas all contained within

the central masonry core, permitting just short runs of

pipe.

cost savings

flat roof

no attic

no foundation

carport (instead of garage), and

gravity heating (eliminated the need for ductwork)

Apocryphal? Wright's apprentices culled substandard

bricks from the Johnson Wax Building (under construction

at same time), and brought them to this site, helping to

bring the house in $5,500 budget.

Solar Hemicycle (Jacobs II)

1944

• Middleton, WI

• second home designed for Herbert and Katherine Jacobs

• In 1942 the Jacobs family moved from their previous

Wright home to a 52 acre farm in what is now the suburb

of Middleton. The area around their first Wright home had

begun to become very developed and they wanted to

move further out into the country.

siting

• half circle with the north (back) wall protected from the

cold winter wind by a berm rising nearly to the top of the

wall

• on the south, the entire façade was open to the winter

sun, with large windows and glass doors facing a sunken

garden.

• wide overhanging roof shields these windows from the

sun in the summer.

interior

First floor is one large limestone and glass room, 80 feet

long and 17 feet wide.

Kitchen downstairs and the bathroom upstairs segregated

in the masonry core.

Bedrooms are on an upper level; in order to keep the

entire lower level open, the second floor is hung from the

roof with metal rods.

construction

• Because of material shortages caused by the Second

World War, construction of the house was not begun until

1946.

• The Jacobs family built the bulk of the house themselves,

with some help from local workmen. The home was not

completed until 1949.

Broadacre City• 1935: Wright began thinking

about planning and the design of

the new American city.

• Each residence was located on

a one acre lot.

Above: Frank Lloyd Wright

Rendering of Broadacre City (1935)

• The lots were accessed by

arterial roads that connected to a

main highway, which had a

monorail for public transportation

and freight traffic.

• Public venues such as

government, entertainment, and

recreation were located in one

central location.

• Various townships were

designed and built based on his

ideas.

Frank LLoyd Wright

Broadacre City Plot Design (1935)

ONE-ACRE PLOT PER HOUSE

Garden City (Ebenezer Howard)

Garden City

Not a suburb

The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively

economically independent cities with short commute times

and the preservation of the countryside. Garden suburbs

arguably do the opposite.

Garden suburbs are built on the outskirts of large cities with

no sections of industry. They are therefore dependent on

reliable transport allowing workers to commute into the city.

Lewis Mumford: "The Garden City, as Howard defined it, is

not a suburb but the antithesis of a suburb: not a rural

retreat, but a more integrated foundation for an effective

urban life."

suburban development

rail connecting city to suburbs, making the city commute

possible

car culture asserting itself, especially in the newest areas

of development such as Los Angeles

most concerted building of suburban infrastructure comes

after WWII

Los Angeles

1876: Southern Pacific rail line reached the city.

1892: oil discovered in the area

1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles; movie

production becomes a dominant industry.

1913: aqueduct needed to support additional growth

LA did well during the Great Depression because movies

were more than ever in demand. Population of one million

by 1930.

LA Modern Architects

both arrived before Hitler took power

Rudolf Schindler in 1914

Richard Neutra in 1929

Rudolf Schindler (1887-1953)

Vienna, Austria

studied at Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

Loos and Otto Wagner were among his professors

saw FLW Wasmuth Portfolio

finished 1911

worked 1911-14

moved to Chicago, met Wright at end of 1914

Rudolf Schindler (1887-1953)

Wright hired him to run Chicago office while Wright

worked on Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.

1920 relocated him to LA to work on Barnsdall House.

Deteriorating relationship with Wright, finally a decisive

split in 1931.

Reconciled a year before Schindler's death in 1953.

Schindler's Houses

Schindler House, Schindler-Chase House, Kings Road

House

Lovell Beach House

Schindler House (1922)

Lovell Beach House (1927-9)

Newport Beach, CA

Philip Lovell, a "naturopathic physician" known for his love

of modern architecture.

Steel frame spray-coated with gunite.

Rudolf Schindler

Tischler House

Westwood, LA

1949-50

Tischler House (1949)

Richard Neutra (1892-

1970)

Born Vienna in 1892; emigrated to US in 1929.

Unlike Schindler who was pretty experimental with

construction techniques, Neutra tended to use

conventional post and beam construction.

Neutra's Houses

• Lovell Health House, Los Feliz, LA (1927-9)

• Kaufmann Desert House (1946)

• Tremaine House (1948)

Lovell Health House (1927-9)

Lovell House viewed from FLW's Ennis House

the "Health House"

Lovell wanted a home with ”air, light, outdoors sleeping, the

ability of the sun to penetrate, etc. . . .

"The city house for nearly two decades became a house of

comfort, happiness, and above all, radical drugless health."

initial immigration 1933-5

January 1933 there were some 523,000 Jews in Germany (less than 1 % of total population)

Most German Jews lived in cities and 1/3 of the total number lived in Berlin.

When Nazis took power, there was a large wave of emigration (37,000–38,000 people), mostly to neighboring European countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland). Many of these immigrants were later captured when the Nazis took over Western Europe.

Banning of Jews from the civil service and the Nazi-sponsored boycott of Jewish-owned stores spurred additional immigration.

April 7, 1933

Only 36 days after the Nazi government assumed power

in Germany, the Law for the Restoration of Professional

Civil Service expelled university professors with at least

one Jewish grandparent from public service.

who emigrated first?

White-collar, urban people:

20% university graduates

more than 50% had 13 years of schooling

National Refugee Service listed approximately:

900 lawyers

2,000 physicians

1,500 writers

1,500 musicians

3,000 academics

Manhattan Project

Jewish refugees Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von

Neumann, Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, Hans Staub, and

Victor Weisskopf formed the core of the Manhattan project

that achieved controlled nuclear reaction in Los Alamos

between 1942 and 1945.

“If some two-thirds of these people ultimately found

positions as teachers of one sort or another, it was hardly

at the level they remembered from Europe. In the hungry

1930s, anti- Semitism was a fact of life among American

university faculties as in other sectors of the economy.

Physicists and chemists had the best chance of securing

appointments...” (Sachar 1992, p. 498)

anti-Semitism in the USA

Many universities did not hire Jewish professors until the

late 1940s.

Cultural differences made the transition difficult.

Private industry also discriminated against Jews, e.g.,

Dupont didn't hire one of the fathers of organic chemistry

because they thought he was "too Jewish."

1935-7

Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and subsequent

related laws that deprived German Jews of civil rights

Jewish emigration remained more or less constant.

Strict enforcement of American immigration restrictions as

well as the increasing reluctance of European and British

Commonwealth countries to accept additional Jewish

refugees may have been a limiting factor.

1938: dramatic rise in visa

applications

Anschluß: German annexation of Austria in March 1938

Increase in violence against Jews during the spring and

summer

Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom in

November 1938

seizure of Jewish-owned property

Approx. 36,000 Jews left Germany and Austria in 1938

and 77,000 in 1939.

by September 1939

Approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and

117,000 from annexed Austria.

Where did they go?

95,000 emigrated to the United States;

60,000 to Palestine;

40,000 to Great Britain;

75,000 to Central and South America, with the largest

numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia;

More than 18,000 Jews went to Shanghai, in Japanese-

occupied China.

end of 1939

202,000 Jews remained in Germany and 57,000 in

annexed Austria, many of them elderly.

By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was officially

forbidden, the number of Jews in Germany had declined

to 163,000.

The vast majority of Jews still in Germany were murdered

in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.

Walter Gropius (1883-1969)

• born Berlin

• family of architects

• met Peter Behrens and worked for him

• appointed director of Bauhaus

Bauhaus "Building House"

(1919-1928)Gropius was appointed Director

of the Academy of Fine Arts in

Weimar.

He merged it with School of Arts

and Crafts—no distinction

between the arts, all are

governed by the same basic

principles.

Collaboration and context were

key principles.

In 1925, financial troubles

precipitated a move to Dessau.

Bauhaus curriculum

one fine art; one craft

emphasis on properties

of materials

technology and

techniques of mass

production

aesthetic principles:

• economy of form

• fidelity to materials

• appropriate to function

Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaus Stairway, 1932

Gropius House (1937)

fled Germany in 1934 to England

was brought to Harvard Graduate School of Design in

1937

Marcel Breuer quickly followed to join Harvard faculty as

well

built house in nearby Lincoln, MA

rear elevation with screened porch

Gropius House, side elevation with hearth

Staircase

Gropius House

Gropius House, terrace