Modern Homes Picture Thread...

This reminded me of The Big Lebowski for some reason. Thanks for posting those pics.

 

Outstanding...really evokes Philip Johnson's Glass House, on a much larger scale. A classic, and Hollywood Hills is an awesome place in itself, of course.

Agree, interesting but more dated. I never got the rationale behind the butterfly roof, other than for novelty's sake or to express some structural concept at large scale.

To me, the oldschool modernists usually got it a lot better than most of the contemporary ones.

tgood, you are an outstanding contributor here! Looks like you took all these pics yourself.

 

That is outstanding, Mr. Good. Did you shoot those yourself?

 

I love the Stahl House - thanks for the pics tgood. Very understandable why it's used in so many commercials and probably movies and TV as well.

Speaking of movie houses, three more fantastic modernist houses that I am going to try to find more pics of are:

1. House where Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon lived in Twilight: Gibbons/Del Rio House
2. Pierce Patchett's (the high end pimp/bad guy) house in L.A. Confidential: Richard Neutra's Lovell House
3. The Big Lebowski: John Lautner's Sheats-Goldstein Residence

(hoping my info above is correct)

 

Neutra's Lovell house is quite good. The site is hidden at the top of a hill. It's sloped topography is quite difficult but Neutra makes the most of it by situating the house for view over the swimming pool and locating the garage in a separate building at the far end of the site. Truely stunning, although the details suffer from their time. It is credited as being the first steel frame house in the US. The window frames are steels and were not well made. Probably custom made up in a shop 'in the day' Lovell made his money as an early media health star. The house was designed with notions of healing and 'good living' in mind. The simple clarity of the design is wonderful....

Neutra scoped Schindler to build Lovell's LA house. Word is that Schindler was difficult on his clients. See Schindler's Lovell House @ (http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/P._Lovell_House).

Jon
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Unbelievable. I can imagine it being the perfect rich bachelors house. If I lived there in my twenties.... oh god the parties

 

The early modernists had it down...it wasn't an established "style" in those days, other than as-noted by Philip Johnson.

Neautra and Schindler both did outstanding early-modernist work in the U.S.

 

Schindler came to the US to work with Wright. He ran Wright's Oak Park office for a couple years and later opened a Wright office in LA while Wright was in Japan doing the Imperial Hotel. Wright, rather typically, overworked and underpaid Schindler. So he eventually formed his own office.

Schindler's solo work was very interesting from the start. He built a tilt-slab concrete home and office for himself and Neutra on Kings Road (near Sunset Blvd). The house has Wrightian touches (especially its amorphous floor plan) but goes on to innovate with exposed materials, various spacial and enclosure transparencies and indoor/outdoor living. Sleeping porches were located on the flat roofs to allow outdoor sleeping in the summer months. Fireplaces opened to the interior and exterior. It is said that this was one greaet party house.

Many see the Kings Road House as the first modern house in California. The two lived and worked together for a while. Various affairs (about which there is much rumor to this day) between their spouses led to a split. Neutra moved out. Schindler continued living and working in the house until his death in 1953. The house is now preserved and used for architectrue events. Its well worth seeing...

Jon
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Here's another intereresting house. I don't have a lot of background info on this one. It has been published.... This house is located about 2 blocks from the beach on Ocean Ave in Venice (S. Cal). It has no side yards to speak of and is surrounded by heavy traffic..... Looks cool at night.
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I've seen that on the Dwell television show.

 

Jon...its been so long since I read about Schindler and his work...I had him mixed up with the International Style-Le Corbusier bunch.

Buddy, I've got one thing to say about that one...el barfo.

 

Tgood - I like it too. It works for its horrible site.... sort of house as toy. BTW: I have been meaning to comment on all the great examples that you provided earlier but have been too busy. The Stahl house was part of the Arts and Architecture magazine's Case Study program (see: [/url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_House)[/url]. Koenig and Craig Ellwood did a lot of similarly restrained modern designs.

Charles and Ray Eames house (below) was the most famous house of the Case Study houses (see: [/url]http://www.eamesfoundation.org/)[/url]. many of these hosues were photographed by Jules Shulman (see: [/url]http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5051514[/url]) His shot of the Stahl house at night is an icon of the period (below)

But my favorite of your selections is the gold grilled house in Trousdale (spelling?). At least that's what it looks like. Trousdale is a part of Beverly Hills that was developed in the 60's. The houses were very much like the one you show. Did you take these pics? If so, do you have more? Would enjoy seeing other houses in the area also. This area's homes were sort of 'contractor modern'. They have a comical kitschy quality that is the perfect backdrop to 63 Cads, Sinatra music, cheap cigars and bikini pool parties! Gotta love it! Of course the houses are now quite expensive as your updated version illustrates.

Jon
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Cool thread - great idea. There have been more and more modern-style homes popping up in my neighborhood (South Bay - Redondo Beach). I'll try to snap some shots.

A good friend of my dad's also had a few amazing houses in Malibu/Pacific Palisades/Venice. He's a photographer and his brother is an architect, so you can imagine the collaboration. Very modern with ridiculous amounts of solid concrete and blue-tinted glass, infinity pool on the edge of a cliff (much like some of the photos posted here), and a beautiful koi pond in the backyard to add some contrast. He recently bought Hideo Nomo's old house, and prior to that he owned Randy Newman's old home. I'll see if I can get some shots.

Looking forward to seeing some more!