Skip to main content

The Miesian Exchange


As my thoughts drift, I'm reminded of the Case Study Houses (1945-1966), a program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine.  Perhaps the signature work of this series is the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22

The idea was to bring European modernism to America.  One might call this The Miesian Exchange as Mies van der Rohe is regarded as the godfather of this movement.  He came to the States in 1938 and became an American citizen in 1944.  His only built project during this time was an apartment redux for Philip Johnson, who was a big fan of Mies and promoted his work.  This eventually led to the commission for the Farnsworth House, outside Chicago, which would radically redefine American residential architecture, and later the iconic Seagram Building, which redefined the tall building. 

John Entenza sponsored over 30 residential projects in the LA area.  He enlisted local architects like Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames and many others.  The idea was to keep the ideas simple and elegant, with the appearance of prototypical parts.  You might say these were the first pre-fab modern houses, although Frank Lloyd Wright was experimenting with similar pre-fabricated ideas in his Usonian houses at the same time.

Julius Shulman provides a stunning photographic record of these houses and many others from that bygone "Modernist" era.

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Every time I see this photo I am reminded of the very creepy segment in the film Babel involving the Japanese girl whose mother either did or did not commit suicide by jumping off the balcony.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Didn't see that one. The house in North by Northwest looked like a cross between the Stahl House and Fallingwater,

    http://hookedonhouses.net/2010/03/15/north-by-northwest-hitchcocks-house-on-mt-rushmore/

    Very architectonic movie by the way ; )

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!