of sound and architecture...

while looking through some old architecture related magazine covers to run at the beginning of october (also known as architecture month), i found a 1957 LA examiner insert with a cover shot by los angeles' most famous architectural photographer - julius shulman - of his own house. i then noticed, in the lower left hand corner, an LP lying on the end table.

shulman was very particular about object placement in photo shoots, so it seemed significant. the nice thing was that i not only recognized the LP, but i also happened to have it in my own collection. this was not the first time i recognized an LP cover in a photo of an architect's home - years ago i noticed some avant garde music LPs in a photo of pierre koenig's house and eventually interviewed him about his record collection...

shulman's LP is called "conversations towards the future of architecture" and was put together by the reynolds metals company in 1956. the intention was to discuss an architectural future that might include the potential of aluminum; which, coincidentally, was one of reynolds' biggest products. the album features the voices of mies van der rohe, eero saarinen, walter gropius, philip johnson, gordon bunshaft, ernest kump, and richard neutra. the interviews were conducted by john peter, and i really wish i knew who designed the cover...

it seems that by the mid 1950's aluminum was in the architectural air. along with the LP, the reynolds company published a series of books titled "aluminum in modern architecture" in 1956, 1958, and 1960. in 1959, the alcoa company, who i believe was the main competitor of reynolds, published two volumes of their own related to aluminum and modern design/architecture called forecast; commissioning such experimental aluminum projects as charles eames' solar toy, better known as the do nothing machine.

since neutra and shulman worked together for so many years, i figured it made the most sense to post some of neutra's interview, and i like how he speaks of the main material of architecture as "the human material"...

click here to listen

of pipe stilts and concrete skeletons...

surprised to find this letter to the editors in a 1947 architectural forum magazine:

forum, i am much interested in your historical outline of contemporary architecture in the may issue, but i feel that you have slowed down the pace of our development unnecessarily.

you show under the date of 1929 a house by corbusier and one by neutra. i enclose pictures of a beach house i designed and built in 1929, which introduces the radical features of both buildings, except that instead of using the architecturally infantile device of pipe stilts, the house is raised on concrete posts that are an organic part of the concrete skeleton supporting the two upper stories of the building.

i should like to use this occasion to set another date. i built my own house in 1922, and it has become the prototype for most of the now fashionable california houses. it introduced the following characteristic features:

a cellarless, rambling, one story building, low on the ground, the floor extending without steps into the garden.

a full-height glass wall with large sliding doors on the patio side, under ample overhangs.

a flat shed roof with clerestory windows.

a solid back wall for privacy and movable partitions for flexibility.

the wall construction uses a prefabricated standard concrete wall unit, which also was a step ahead of contemporaneous experiments with precast, full length walls containing conventional window openings.

it might be interesting to publish this correction to see if the historic dates might be set back still further by others.

r.m. schindler, los angeles, calif.

i'm not sure if this short text by schindler has been published in any of the monographs, but figured aside from sharing some of his words in case it isn't, that it is interesting to note that as late as 1947, his work was still under recognized by the architectural hipsters running the show. left off of more than silly time lines, his work was generally overlooked in most of the important national and international exhibitions. the hints of bitterness here (particularly calling corb's and neutra's use of pipe stilts infantile) was perhaps a reaction to the publicity neutra was receiving by this time.

because of the idiosyncratic and experimental nature of schindler's work from project to project, and perhaps the consistency and cleanliness of neutra's; critics tended to fawn over neutra who never failed to deliver a "neutra house". neutra's work always fit comfortably into the established canon of modern architecture, while schindler's sometimes awkward (yet elegant!)forms and unusual material presences veered into uncharted (and potentially "unacceptable") waters.

in terms of "architecture" it seems ridiculous to compare two geniuses; but it is interesting to think of someone as important as schindler being overlooked 25 years after he designed one of his masterpieces. clearly schindler paid for his willingness to experiment by continually being left out the dialogue; while neutra's development, which followed a path of refinement, would eventually land him on the cover of time magazine...

because it's still architecture month in los angeles...

more architectural newspaper insert covers, this time from the los angeles examiner in the late 1950's.

the top one is from 1957, and is of course, the monsanto house that was built at disneyland. the second, from 1960, features richard neutra architect as rock star. the third features a great example of the kinds of things these newspaper magazines covered, but not the major progressive architecture mags. it's from 1959, designed by harry gessner. the bottom image is from 1957. it's a shulman photo of the spencer house, designed by richard o. spencer in 1955. this house seems to have collapsed circa 1975.