Schlagwort-Archive: Schindler

Allgemein, On the spot

John Lautner, Silvertop, 1957, 2138 Micheltorena St; Richard Neutra, Neutra Colony, 1948-1961, Silver Lake Blvd, Neutra Place, Earl St; Rudolf M. Schindler, Droste House, 1940, 2025 Kenilworth Ave, Los Angeles, CA

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Upon our arrival at Silver Lake, right after we had parked our cars in front of Neutra’s Van Der Leeuw (VDL) house, we wandered across a lawned recreational area right by the reservoirs shore. To our surprise the water level appeared to be extremely low. We later learned from one of the residents that due to an effort by the municipality the lake was emptied. The home owners of Silver Lake neighbourhood had successfully fought the city on the resolution. The reservoir is now planned to be refilled by summertime in 2017. This is only possible thanks to the end of a seven-year long drought in California.

After observing many runners, picnickers, young families with toddlers roaming about the lake’s pathways we started out on our own adventure around their neighbourhood. Walking along Silver Lake Boulevard we turned unto Glendale Boulevard heading toward Neutra’s former office building. By the large sign up front, today, it appears to house the Neutra Institute Museum of Silver Lake.

Neutra Institute, Museum of Silver Lake, photo by the author

From street level just one storey is visible but as we wondered down the driveway along side the building it revealed two levels on the back. In Neutra fashion it is a flat top roof house dominated by rectangular forms. Long, horizontal window strips as well as sun shields decorate the sides and the back. The building was poorly maintained.

As our group continued on Glendale Boulevard we then turned on to Earl Street. Walking downhill Neutra Place came up on our left side. The cul-de-sac revealed several homes designed between the years of 1948 and 1961. Returning to Earl Street we then continued to discover the second part of the Neutra Colony on Silver Lake Boulevard.

Overall, the homes seemed well taken care of, appeared to provide every owner with individual housing design and secluded living space. In conversation, most of us concluded the houses to be similar to each other in the overall design theme. Nonetheless every home featured a different structural set up. Placement of stairways, doors and window fronts helped differentiate.

Neutra Colony on Silver Lake Boulevard, photo by the author

After a quick lunch break our group decided to meander through the West side of Silver Lake hoping to catch a closer glimpse of John Lautner’s Silvertop (1957) as well as Rudolf M. Schindler’s Droste House (1940). As we ascended Kenilworth Avenue the Droste House made an appearance as the road took a turn. Gazing at the architectural sight from street level suddenly the very friendly couple owning and living in the home opened the door and welcomed us in. Excited, we followed their invitation. As they guided us through their well cared for home our group marvelled at the many details Schindler added to the design: invisible storage space, air circulation strategy, window placements et al. All of us were very appreciative of the family’s openness to share about their experience of living in and owning a Schindler designed home.

Droste House living room, photo by the author

Upon our drive leaving the neighbourhood we managed to view Lautner’s Silvertop from the distance. The shiny, curved structure clearly stood out among all the homes on Silver Lake’s West Side.

Strolling through Silver Lake left me with a furthered understanding of the neighbourhoods quality. Neutra’s, Schindler’s, Lautner’s, among many other renown architects’, homes are situated within Los Angeles’ urban context and their individual design is powerful because of it. Having previous to our visit only viewed photos and read about Silver Lake this experience led me to comprehend its and the architects‘ home architecture.

Talitha Breidenstein

Allgemein

Rudolph M. Schindler, Falk Apartments, 1939/40, Los Angeles

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Falk Apartments – R M Schindler (E) by Kansas Sebastian https://www.flickr.com/photos/kansas_sebastian/3338454940/in/photostream/ is licensed under a Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Rudolph M. Schindler, Falk Apartments, 1939/40, Los Angeles

Rudolph M. Schindler designed the Falk Apartments in Los Angeles from 1939-40. The complex is built on a sloping, triangular site which determines the way each apartment is laid out. The site influences how each dwelling relates to the corner site and the hill.

The complex is characterized by a push-and-pull-play of cubistic elements which leads to an intense communication between the interior and exterior spaces. In contrast to the more flat, orthogonal residences Schindler did before the Falk Apartments are concentrated on a more expressionistic, sculptured front. This can be shown by Schindler’s design of the garages. On the one hand they act as brackets/placeholder, which separate street (publicity) and dwelling (privacy) and one individual privacy from another. One the other hand the garages can literally be interpreted as the formative cubistic base of a twisting and turning sculpture expanding in stages to the hill. Schindler made sure that each resident has an individual unobstructed view from the terraces and rooms. Touring the Falk Apartments one might learn how each apartment differs from another and what unifies them. What view do residents enjoy?
While investigating on this building one finds a large quantity of photographs. But it is hard to discover a picture which shows the whole arrangement of the area of Falk Apartments. To really understand how the segments of the Falk Apartments influence on each other and bind together as a coherent whole, one should absolutely go for a walk around this architecture. On our visit at Falk Apartments into which we presumably cannot enter one task should be taking the most overarching photograph as possible and identify problems while doing it.

Hines, Thomas, The Frame for a Life. Rudolf Schindler‘ Discordant Modernism, 1930-1953, in: Thomas Hines, Architecture of the sun. Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970. New York 2010. S.316-363

Wilson, Richard Guy, Die Metaphysik von Rudolph Schindler, in: Elizabeth A. T. Smith/ Michael Darling, R. M. Schindler, Bauten und Projekte, Ausst. kat. Los Angeles 2001, S. 116-143.

Jasmin Roth

Allgemein

Expectations

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Expectations

Between mountain ranges and the Pacific beaches, Los Angeles is embedded in a sort of paradisiac garden. A place where the earth is soaked with creativity and the minds can bloom. Where ideas can rise, and become something more than just illusions . The finish line of the western, modern final frontier seems to be the essence of civilizing development . All the cultural accomplishments of mankind are represented here and it could come to your mind that there is no further level to be reached. That there is only one step for us to take before bringing our science fiction fantasies to earth and space . But we must overcome ourselves to reach it. It’s an escape for those who seek for a new kind of freedom and a room to let their spirit fulfil itself, some might say . This all sounds too much for one place to be real and we are willing to proof these words right or wrong.

We, students of the art historian faculty at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, have dedicated ourselves to this place of desire in the past semester. We searched for the trails of modernist architecture at the shores of the pacific and the slopes of the foothills. Our ledgers were architectural masterminds like Richard Neutra, Rudolf Schindler, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. During our studies one main statement was frequently repeated by many architects: Los Angeles is an ugly place.[1]  And it seems to be true when also Reyner Banham describes the metropolis as dictated by the automobile and divided by its freeways.[2] But this statement doesn’t really fit in our idea of Los Angeles. The place of palms, beaches, beautiful, creative and rich people. So, for us there is still the question, if we could picture us the city correctly, when we are only looking on singular buildings – as those in Julius Schulman’s photographs . Do we require the aspects of mobility, reality and three-dimensionality, to understand the city of angels completely?

There is only one way to get some satisfying answers: boarding a plane.

So, we will follow the example of two European exiles and leave our continent: Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler, two Austrian architects, were attracted to the United States from hearsay of a place where they could fulfil their architectural dreams. As their new mentor, they had chosen Frank Lloyd Wright.[3] After stops in New York and Chicago, where they first met their idol, they found Los Angeles as their place to be . There they laid the fundament for modern architecture and following generations of architects. John Lautner and others followed and conquered the foothills by planting extraordinary structures, opening new sights on difficult sites.[4] But modernism seemed to be just a privilege for upper classes. Till the Case Study House Program was announced and tried to find forms which could be replicated for everyone.[5] While the program stuck in theory, some architects took on practical, often in suburbs or new settlements: William Krisel for example experimented in big scales, in the desert town of Palm Springs, to bring modernism to the masses. Another approach for modern architecture in everyone’s everyday life is, to build  in a modernist way not only in the housing sector. Franklin D. Israel and Frank Gehry tried to think factories and cultural institutions modern. They were not the first, but especially Gehry managed to put this commercial architecture to a new level.

Like Banham we will drive on the freeways through architectural space and time. Neutra and Schindler are the starting point, followed by John Lautner. We will search for the starting point of modernism  for the people in the Case Study House Program and practical approaches by William Krisel. Franklin D. Israel and Frank Gehry then will be the finish line for our excursion, but not for modern architecture in Los Angeles

[1] Olsberg, Nicholas, Between Earth and Heaven, 2008, p. 18.; James Steele and Franklin D. Israel, Interviews, 1994, p. 13.

[2] Banham, Reyner: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, 2001.

[3] Hines, Thomas S., California Calls You, 2010, p. 273.

[4] Campbell Lange, Barbara Ann: Lautner, 2005, pp. 19.

[5] Announcement, The Case Study House Program, Arts and Architecture, January 1945, p. 37-38.