(Post Under construction. Stay tuned)

 

Jeffrey Head’s fascinating article, ‘Bubble’ born, then burst in the December 31, 2011 issue of the Los Angeles Times immediately brought to mind a recent article I have been working on which delves into the structural aspects of dome-like structures. (See Living Lightly on the Land: Bernard Judge’s “Triponent” and “Tree” Houses). Head’s in-depth research into the pioneering Airform work of Wallace Neff has resulted in a new book, No Nails, No Lumber: The Bubble Houses of Wallace Neff just released by Princeton Architectural Press which I just ordered. Head’s book will seemingly build upon the solid foundation laid by Diane Kanner in her chapter “The Bubble House” in the highly recommended Wallace Neff and the Grand Houses of the Golden State in which the below photo appears. (See my William Krisel and George Alexander in Hollywood for more on Neff’s Beverly Hills houses for Hollywood celebrities and Frederick L. Roehrig: The Millionaire’s Architect for details on Neff’s childhood in La Mirada).

 

Industrial Laundry for Pacific Linen Supply, Vernon, 1944. Wallace Neff, Architect. Photograph by Maynard Parker courtesy Huntngton Library Maynard Parker Collection.

The above and below Maynard Parker construction photos of Neff’s largest realized Airform project, 32-ft. tall and 100 ft. in diameter, constructed in 1944 to house an industrial laundry for the Pacific Linen Supply Co. indicate the use of a central mast to help hoist and support the Goodyear Neoprene balloon (see below) used as the interior form for the sprayed-on gunite outer wall. (For more photos go to the Huntington Library’s excellent Maynard Parker Collection).

 

Central mast used to facilitate construction of the Pacigic Linen Supply laundry facility. Photograph by Maynard Parker courtesy Huntngton Library Maynard Parker Collection.

 

 

Having begun his conceptual “Dymaxion House” central mast investigations as early as 1927 (see above), I couldn’t help but think of  the similarly employed mast in the erection of the Buckminster Fuller’s patented design of the first ever aluminum dome at Henry Kaiser’s Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu in 1957. (See below). Fuller and Neff were undoubtedly aware of each other’s experimental work as they both had similar visions of landing war-time housing contracts which never came to fruition. Both Neff and Fuller patented their designs but Fuller was much more successful in globally licensing and marketing his concept. (See Living Lightly on the Land).

In the meantime, for more on Drake go to my The Post-War Publicity Partnership of Julius Shulman and Gordon Drake.

 

Architect Bernard Judge’s “Triponent” House, which Julius Shulman helped make famous with his above iconic 1961 image has a fascinating back-story which few people other than personal friends of the designer are aware. Judge’s personal residence, begun  in 1958 while still an architectural student at USC, was also coined the “Bubble” House by legendary Los Angeles Times Home Magazine editor Dan MacMasters. (See above cover). Judge’s AIA Award-winning “Tree” House, his residence for the last 35 years, also has quite a story to tell. (See below). Recent publication of Judge’s “Waltzing With Brando: Planning a Paradise in Tahiti” and hearing him speak at a recent book-signing event at R. M. Schindler’s Buck House, now owned by Jocelyn Gibbs and Gene Lichtenstein, piqued my interest in the man and his architecture and prompted in the following story.  

 

 Judge was drawn to architecture through his architect father Joseph who was Dean of the School of Architecture at Penn St. University and later worked for Eggers & Higgins. Various projects took Joseph and his family to different parts of the world including France, Mexico, and Nicaragua. While still in high school, Bernard helped his father build a house, thus learning the construction process firsthand. Experience in his father’s office also led him to his first job after high school as a draftsman for Harrison & Abramovitz working on the United Nations Headquarters Building. This was an exciting time for Judge who recalls, “There were literally two architects from every nation in the U.N. in the drafting room. So for me that was a way of looking at architecture in the universal sense rather than in the parochial sense.” (Smith, Kathryn, “Bernard Judge, AIA,” L.A. Architect, March 1980, p. 2).

Judge added more practical experience through a four-year term of service with the Seabees during the Korean War where he gained an insight into architecture through construction. Much of this Navy time was spent in Morocco and North Africa. After his release in 1954 he traveled around Europe until his Seabees savings ran out and then spent a year at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Bernard’s extensive travels exposed him to a wide variety of cultures and vernacular architecture and indigenous building materials which helped formulate his life-long design philosophy of “living lightly on the land.” By the time he arrived in Los Angeles to enroll in the USC School of Architecture in 1956 he was ready to begin his studies in earnest.Before beginning discussion on Judge’s first project, his “Triponent” House, I must digress to lay some groundwork pertaining to his inspiration for same, none other than Buckminster Fuller.

R. Buckminster Fuller, “Design: The Dymaxion American,” Time, January 10, 1964.

 

“Bucky” Fuller, whom Time Magazine deemed “The Dymaxion American” in a January 10, 1964 cover story (see above) was a prodigious, seminal, free thinker without a college degree, was an engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. Fuller published more than 30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as “Spaceship Earth“, ephemeralization, and synergetics. He also developed numerous inventions, but it was mainly his “doing more with less“ architectural designs which held potential for prefabrication for the common man, such as the Dymaxion House, Dymaxion Deployment Unit, Wichita House, Autonomous Dwelling Unit and the Geodesic Dome, which held his interest throughout his lengthy career. A summary of the highlights of his lightweight, transportable housing will serve as an intro to the later dome discussion.

The project that made Fuller’s name was the 1929 Dymaxion House, which he unveiled in the interior decorating department of the Chicago’s Marshall-Field’s Department Store. “The name Dymaxion, Dy(namic)max(imum)(tens)ion, was created by the marketer Waldo Warren who, after listening to Fuller talk for two days, devised endless combinations of syllables taken from his highly idiosyncratic vocabulary. Finally he found the word which seemed to him best to dramatise Fuller’s personality. Made from lightweight steel, duraluminium and plastic and suspended from a central mast from which the rooms radiated in a hexagonal plan, the Dymaxion House was conceived not as private property, but rather as temporary, transportable space that could be rented – rather like a telephone issued by a telephone company.” (From R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventor, Designer, Architect, Theorist (1895-1983) at DesignMuseum.org).

In 1940, in anticipation of the bombing of British cities, he was asked by the British War Relief Organization to design an emergency shelter he named the Dymaxion Deployment Unit. In the DDU’s conception, Fuller started with an existing industry that he hoped to upgrade technologically. Fuller worked with the Butler Company of Kansas City, which manufactured grain silos (see below left) of curved galvanized steel, to develop a self-supporting structure in a circular shape designed to provide the most advantageous relationship between circumference and interior space. The unit was designed to be set up and taken down easily. Metal for its construction was, however, never made available by the British Government as it was needed for the production of armaments. When the US entered World War II, Fuller’s units were commissioned as emergency accommodation for the air force. (See above). (From Design Museum). A similar unit was also designed for domestic use but again due to lack of materials did not go into production. (See below).

 

The DDU’s sanitary unit is enclosed in a separate cylindrical element. Two units can be attached directly to each other. (See floor plan below). The pylon (see above right) is important, though originally Fuller conceived of it merely as a simple way to set it up: it holds up the dome that is built beneath it. From a constructive perspective, and even more from a structural perspective, Fuller was breaking a path that years later would lead away from the idea of a central supporting pylon to the supporting shell of the geodesic domes.

 

Dymaxion Deployment Unit floor plan.  (From Your Private Sky: R. Buckminster Fuller, edited by Joachim Krausse and Claude Lichtenstein, Lars Muller, 1999, p. 214).

Dymaxion Deployment Unit for domestic use, metal, adapted corn bin, built by Butler Brothers, Kansas City, May 1941. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

 

 Fuller’s expertise in the field of lightweight demountable housing was again enlisted by the U.S. government to explore post-war housing possibilities. These studies led to the famous 1946 Wichita House, a full-size family dwelling weighing only 4 tons that was designed to be assembled on wartime bomber production lines. The prototype (see below) is arguably the most important prefabricated house design of the 20th century, and certainly the greatest lost opportunity of the years of the post-war building recovery. Life Magazine, a close follower of Fuller’s work, featured the Wichita House in an article the same year. (“Fuller House,” Life, April 1, 1946, pp. 73-4, 76).

 

Frustrated, but undaunted, by the Wichita House not going into full-scale production despite a major marketing effort, Fuller began preliminary “geodesic” studies in his Forest Hills, New York apartment in the fall and winter of 1947-8 by assembling a series of four-foot diameter three-way grid structures. (See models above). Immediately following the geometric discoveries of the spring of 1948, Fuller took teaching positions at the Institute of Design in Chicago and at Black Mountain College. His research activity merged seamlessly into his modeling-based work with students.

It was the start of an unparalleled level of teaching activity at a growing number of art and design schools, universities, and colleges. Fuller had a talent for inspiring his students to achieve genuine innovations and inventions. He continued these early studies with the help of a very creative group of students at Black Mountain College the following summer including Kenneth Snelson, Jeffrey Lindsay, Ted Pope, Don Richter, and Shoji Sadao whose contributions enabled Fuller’s success of the fifties.It was more or less coincidence that Fuller came to Black Mountain College, a tiny art school in North Carolina, where Josef and Anni Albers were carrying on the Bauhaus tradition. Distinguished architects such as A. Lawrence Kocher, former partner of Albert Frey and editor of Architectural Record, and Walter Gropius, former director of the Bauhaus, preceded Fuller teaching architecture at the school. At the last minute, Fuller stepped in for Bertrand Goldberg, whose partner in the Chicago architectural firm, Leland Atwood, had suggested him as a substitute. Atwood had previously helped Fuller on the Dymaxion Deployment Unit project. Fuller packed his models into his Airstream Trailer and headed off to North Carolina for the 1948 Summer Institute session. (“Your Private Sky,” pp. 314-6).

 

In addition to his models. Fuller came to Black Mountain packed full of ideas and projects. Shortly before his departure, he had sketched out a project on 15 June: the construction of a transparent geodesic dome that would enable its occupant to locate his or her correct position in the universe. This was clearly the origin of the idea that was connected to the construction of geodesic domes. Fuller called it “Your Private Sky.”  At Black Mountain College, he planned to execute the small great-circle model on a larger scale, utilizing lightweight metal Venetian blind sashes to create the first dome. (See below).

 

Fuller’s first full-scale dome, a forty-eight foot diameter ”necklace” structure with a height of twenty-three feet which would cover an area of fifteen hundred square feet and was to weigh less than 270 pounds. The students measured the Venetian blind slats and computed the tensile strength of each unit. Each strip was coded and the points marked where they would meet. On a rainy day Fuller and his students gathered in a grassy area (see above) while rest of the community watched from the Studies Building or the nearby FHA units as the class began to connect the points on the strips.

 

The dome collapsed to the ground when tension was applied during its attempted erection. (See above). Fuller had said in advance that it probably wouldn’t hold due to the choice of materials, but decided to go ahead and complete the class project anyway. When the dome did not rise, it was coined the Supine Dome by Elaine de Kooning. Fuller reassured the class that “failure” is a part of the process of inventing, and success is achieved when one stops failing, a valuable lesson for the young students. (From Black Mountain College Project).

 

Fuller and his class succeeded in re-erecting the “Necklace Dome.” (See above). This dome, a thirty-one great circle structure, was made of aircraft tubing laced with cable which ran from the tubes through connectors at the joints. When the cable was tightened, the dome was erect; when relaxed, it collapsed into an easily-transported compact form similar to a necklace. The prototype for the dome which Fuller brought with him, had originally been constructed for a demonstration at the Pentagon in the winter. Assuming it would be erected indoors – it was actually erected in the Pentagon courtyard (see later below) – Fuller had reduced the size to fourteen feet in diameter to accommodate an indoor space.

 

The students erected the dome on a terrace at the end of the Studies Building. They demonstrated its strength by hanging by their hands from the structure and from a suspended platform on which a number of people could sit. Its light-weight was demonstrated by having three students lift it above their heads. (See two above).

 

After the late 1940s Chicago Institute of Design and Black Mountain summer sessions, Fuller’s dome work rapidly evolved with the continuing help of Black Mountain disciples Snelson and Lindsay whom he recruited as Fellows and Trustee in his Fuller Research Foundation along with Charles Eames, George Nelson, Knud Lonberg-Holm and others. He wrote of the first practical dome development experiments with Jeffrey Lindsay in Montreal in 1950 which would eventually end up as the actual framework for the Judge “Bubble” House in Beachwood Canyon,

 

 Fuller shortly thereafter presciently applied for a patent on the dome concept in December 1951. (See below). Patent licensing fees would within the next few years make Fuller a wealthy man. Although Fuller held dozens of patents on his inventions over the years, this is the only one that made him any significant money as he licensed to numerous other companies the rights to use his technology in future dome shelter production.

 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE

2,682,235

BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

Richard Buckminster Fuller, Forest Hills, N. Y.

Application December 12, 1951, Serial No. 261,168, p. 1.

 

Fuller’s patent application summary describes the elemental specifications of what would become the outer framework of Bernard Judge’s 49 ft. diameter Hollywood Hills house.

Jeffrey Lindsay, recently relocated to Southern California to proselytize on Fuller’s geodesic technology, designed the above dome for a children’s theater at the San Diego Zoo which was completed in 1955. This was possibly the first geodesic dome built on the West Coast. Judge, by then an architectural student at USC following his four-year stint with the Navy Seabeesduring the Korean War, met Lindsay a year or two later, and through him, met Fuller himself at a party hosted by Lindsay. Judge quickly became fascinated by Fuller and his theories and soon convinced USC Architecture School Dean Arthur Gallion to bring him to the campus for a lecture.

“SC Architectural Students Complete Models of Homes,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1957, p. VI-15.

About the same time, in the spring of 1957, Judge and his classmates in Calvin Straub’s and Conrad Buff’s architectural design class at USC, were building models incorporating elements of Fuller’s Geodesic Dome and “Autonomous Dwelling Unit” concepts. (See article above). Fuller was then widely lecturing at college campuses around the country and similar class exercises were all the rage in the architectural schools. The visionary class project was completed in conjunction with the following summer’s Construction Industries Exposition and Home Show at which one of Fuller’s full-scale domes was to be on display. (See below).

“A dome house that really works,” Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, June 8, 1958, p. 20. (From ProQuest).

Felix Candela: Shell Forms exhibition catalog fron cover, May 1957, text by Esther McCoy. From Archives of American Art Esther McCoy Papers.

The Spring 1957 semester on the USC School of Architecture campus were heady times for Judge and his classmates as noted Mexican architect-engineer Felix Candela also visited the campus for a May exhibition shortly after they had finished their dome projects. (See above and below catalog covers). The hosting committee and sponsors for the show were a veritable ”Who’s Who” of the Los Angeles architectural community. (For more on this exhibition see my Selected Publications of Esther McCoy).

 

Felix Candela: Shell Forms exhibition catalog fron cover, May 1957, text by Esther McCoy. From Archives of American Art Esther McCoy Papers.

 

At the same time the USC class was building their dome residence models, Kaiser Aluminum was erecting the first aluminum dome at Henry Kaiser’s Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu. (See above). Kaiser was one of Fuller’s earliest dome patent licensees and hired Fuller protege and former Lindsay classmate and Fuller Research Foundation colleague, Don Richter, to head it’s dome design and product development unit.  The Honolulu project was a 145-ft. diameter auditorium that could seat 2,000 people and, once the foundation was laid, was erected in 20 hours by a crew of 38 men. (See Kaiser Aluminum ad “Revolutionary New Building…The First of Its Kind: The Kaiser Aluminum Dome,” Life Magazine, March 18, 1957, pp. 20-21). Always one to capitalize on publicity stunts, Henry Kaiser arranged for an opening night concert the same evening the dome was completed. (See below).

Grand opening of the Kaiser Dome with an evening symphony concert, February 1957, the same day the structure was completed within 24 hours after arrival of the components. (From “Your Private Sky,” p. 384-5).

 

A couple months later a Life Magazine feature article on the UCLA arts programs led off with a model for a proposed domed arts workshop building for the campus designed by seminar teacher Jeffrey Lindsay. (See above). The article also included a photo of a kite Lindsay frequently used to demonstrate the inherent lightness of dome components. (See below). (See “Art Rides High at a Great University,” Life, May 20, 1957, pp. 92-103). A Buckminster Fuller exhibition was organized by Pomona College the following December and January and Fuller was often in town for lectures over the next few years.

Domes in all their forms had captured the nation’s fancy by this time evidenced by the above Mechanix Illustrated cover story. Lindsay continued to spread the gospel of the dome in Southern California with his 1958 design for a utility building at Newport Dunes Park in Newport Beach. (See below).

Recently married and intrigued with the idea of building a dome house for himself and his new wife, despite almost everyone at USC skeptical of his chances for success, Judge decided to take on the challenge. He planned to build the residence along the lines of the Case Study House Program using mostly donated materials and student labor. With much encouragement from Lindsay and the gift of the dome he had erected in Montreal in 1950, Judge purchased a difficult to build on, thus inexpensive, lot in Beachwood Canyon in 1958. Lindsay had the components for the dome framework shipped to Judge from Montreal in a 3ft. x 4ft. by 6ft. shipping crate and design conceptualization began.

Judge decided to build upon Fuller’s highly theoretical “Autonomous Dwelling Unit” idea which included a portable, Gypsy-like “living package” enclosed by an easily collapsible dome. Whereas Fuller’s ADU concept envisioned off-the-grid living, Judge’s concept was a more pragmatic, somewhat rooted and prefabricatable, three-component living system he labelled, a la Fuller, ”Triponent.” His triponents consisted of what he called the envelope, the utility core, and free space.

Like Fuller, Judge envisioned his “Triponent” proposal as housing system that could be standardized for the most part, to keep future construction costs down. The envelope, in this case the dome, would protect the living spaces from the elements and could be a somewhat standardized design using materials based upon the needs presented by regional climate conditions. He imagined the utility core, i.e., bathroom(s), kitchen, laundry room and HVAC, as being a totally prefabricated element that could be standardized for all future units no matter where the location might be. That left the “free space” for customization to suit the needs of each individual homeowner. Judge’s thinking was that this “Triponent” approach would appeal to a broader cross-section of potential home-buyers than Fuller’s completely rigid, standardized designs.

 

During this period, Judge recollected receiving inspiration from instructors Conrad Buff, Calvin Straub, Gregory Ain, and Emmet Wemple and guest lecturers Konrad Wachsman and especially Fuller. Despite encouragement from his instructors (see above) most of classmates remained highly skeptical of his chances for success. With the “Triponent” House, Judge was charting new territory, not only by adapting the first large-size experimental geodesic dome for residential use, something the resourceful Lindsay had not even dared to attempt, but by getting the dome itself and the myriad of space-age materials he was using for his envelope approved by the City of L.A.’s Department of Building and Safety. This process added at least two years to the four-and-a-half-year construction time.

Union Tank Car Maintenance Shop, Baton Rouge, LA, designed by Fuller’s Synergetics Corp. and completed in October 1958. From Wikipedia. 

 In the meantime Fuller’s 1957-8 technological advances resulted in the largest clear-span enclosure ever built anywhere in the world, i.e., a steel-skinned geodesic structure designed by Fuller’s own Synergetics, Inc. in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (See above). The 384 foot diameter, 184 foot high building, designed as a maintenance shop for the Union Tank Car Company, was completed in October 1958. Fuller’s rapidly growing list of licensees (over 100 by 1959) resulted in accelerating demand for his services as private corporations and the Armed Services began deluging him with construction projects. To keep pace, Fuller organized several corporations owned solely by him to channel the licenses for the use of his by then dozens of patents. Geodesics, Inc. handled all government and military contracts; Synergetics, Inc. took care of all private industrial work; and Plydome, Inc. was one of many research and development subsidiaries.

Cover images reflect Fuller’s influence on close friend George Nelson’s designs. George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design by Stanley Abercrombie.

 Late 1958 and early 1959 found Fuller in collaboration with his former Fuller Research Foundation Trustees George Nelson and Charles Eames, and Welton Becket & Associates and Kaiser Aluminum on the installation of the dome to house the American National Exhibition in Moscow, site of the famous “Kitchen Debate” between Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev and Vice-President Richard Nixon, held during the summer of 1959. Nelson was named by the U.S. government to lead the overall design effort for the exhibition and when he was presented with an almost impossible-to-meet design and construction schedule immediately called his old friend Fuller and Becket knowing they could get the job done with a quickly erected geodesic dome.

Buckminster Fuller in front of the exhibition dome at the American National Exhibition, Moscow, 1959. (From Britannica).
Inside Fuller’s dome, the seven screens for the Eameses’ film, Moscow, 1959. From George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design by Stanley Abercrombie, p. 174..

Fuller’s growing world-wide renown was recognized with a September 1959 solo exhibition in the courtyard garden of New York’s Museum of Modern Art immediately following the Moscow exhibition. (See above exhibition poster). MoMA exhibited three structures designed by Fuller including a cantilevered space frame “Octet Truss” of 2,380 gold-anodized aluminum tubes, a green plastic Radome such as used to protect radar equipment on the DEW Line and a black and white aluminum tubing and monel rod “tensegrity” mast (see below) built for the exhibition by Fuller protege Shoji Sadao. (MoMA Press Release, August 28, 1959).

Fuller at the opening of ”Three Structures by Buckminster Fuller,” Museum of Modern Art, September 1959. (From RWGrayProjects). 

Upon receiving shipment of the dome from Lindsay, Judge and some of his USC classmates erected it on a site in California City (see above) to take more precise measurements to design the layout of the foundation piers and began experimenting with protective skin materials and methods to attach same to the framework. Judge recollected of the time,

The next step was to pour the foundation piers on the Beachwood Canyon site and relocate the dome there.

Foundations were kept to a minimum on the steep grade. The lightweight structure required few foundation piers and the spaces in between were filled with single sheets of asbestos cement. (See above). Years were to pass, however, until this open dome structure became a reality as Judge had to get his design approved by the building authorities who found that it did not meet the letter of the building code in numerous areas. Judge “educated” the plan checkers and building inspectors and managed to obtain variances on seven decisive items. But he lost valuable time, construction could not proceed for long periods, and costs exceeded his shoestring budget. Another student Hendrik de Kanter finally advanced 10,000 dollars, to become, in the end, owner of the finished house. A deal was worked out that allowed Judge and his wife to live in the completed house for a year before turning it over to the de Kanters.

Water bags used by the Seabees during Judge’s tour of duty made for a more convenient test than using sand bags. Photo courtesy of Bernard Judge.

Once the frame was erected, the Department of Building and Safety needed to be convinced that the dome “envelope” had the necessary strength to withstand the required horizontal and vertical loads. Since Fuller and Lindsay were never able to calculate the loads in a fashion that would satisfy a plan checker, Judge had to devise an ingenious way to empirically load-test the framework. Plastic water bags Judge borrowed from a local Marine base were suspended from the dome skeleton, proving its structural stability and creating the fascinating construction photograph of bright sun light playing in the clear plastic bags. (See above).

Bernard Judge atop his dome, “Los Angeles in a New Image,” Life, June 20, 1960, pp. 74-75. Photo by Ralph Crane. 

In the spring of 1960 a staff reporter for Life magazine and photographer Ralph Crane were driving through Hollywood Hills to interview Aldous Huxley. It was by chance that they discovered a metallic dome structure far up on a slope. An old Ford engine was hoisting building material from the street. Standing on the thin metal cage, working with his own hands, was the young designer Bernard Judge and a group of his USC architectural school classmates. (See above). Life published the above double-page color spread, illustrating the filigree of the dome skeleton above the glittering lights of Los Angeles, bringing the work of three obscure years went into the pages of America’s most famous publication.

Framework for lower living platform, 1960. Photo courtesy of Bernard Judge.

Judge next planted a garden and was finally able to construct the living platforms which were not connected in any way to the dome itself. (See above and cross-section later below). Having seen the Lifephoto, Bucky Fuller visited the site to congratulate Judge about the time of the above photo. Judge recalls explaining the decks to Fuller and him liking the idea that they were not attached to the dome.Before the finish work could be completed, the skin had to be installed. During the load-testing Judge learned that thermal expansion and contraction of the dome’s metal rods caused the structure to sag up to one full inch at night. Thus, a system of attaching the skin to the framework had to be able to account for this. Judge developed a flexible wooden framework akin to an archer’s bow made up of 15 diamond-shaped panels  which he connected to the dome framework at every fourth joint. To that he stapled the cut-to-fit Mylar sheets seen under fabrication below. This allowed the skin to move independently of the dome framework as the dome contracted and expanded. (See two below). Any one of the dome’s 15 panels can be replaced in a few hours. However, the plastic is surprisingly strong. It has a 15,000-lb. tensile strength and is classed as fire-retardant.

The transparent skin was finally applied to the inside of the dome structure using the details above. Judge chose Mylar, 5 mils thick, the most durable clear polyester foil then available. Time had, for once, worked in favor of the young innovator, the price of the Mylar foil having gone down from 1 dollar a square foot to 9 cents in three years. Huge defense orders had reduced Du Pont’s production costs to a fraction. In this fact Judge found concrete proof of Fuller’s and his theory that today, for the first time in history, inventions are made before the need arises. The entire Mylar skin cost 300 dollars and had a projected design life of about eight years.

Cross-section showing both levels.

The living room and his-and-hers design and artist studios occupy the upper deck. (See above). Room transitions are lightly accented by heating panels. Views from the upper deck overlook the lower living area and the wide range of hills outside. A spiral staircase connects the two levels. To live with grasses, shrubs, and trees under one light-filled dome, man and nature sharing one shelter, seems to Judge a trend of future forms of habitation. “Gardens will allow us to live as individuals in the mass-fabricated houses of tomorrow.”

After graduating from USC and turning the dome over to De Kanter, Judge and his ceramicist wife, Dora De Larios, spent a year traveling the globe gathering inspiration for future work. Upon there return to Los Angeles in 1963, Judge advertised for living space for a young architect which was answered by none other than Pauline Schindler. He recalled, ”I advertised that I wanted to live in a garden atmosphere in the middle of the city.” Mrs. Schindler said, “I have what you want if I like your work.” .. He paused. “She did.” (From Ryon, Ruth, “Group Saves House Designed as Social Experiment,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1980, pp. VIII-1-2).

Bernard and Dora moved into the guest studio at Kings Road and soon were joined by new daughter Sabrina. Also renting space in R. M. S.’s old studio were architects David Ming-Li Lowe and Frederick Lyman and long-time Esther McCoy friend and collaborator and early Irving Gill historian, John Reed.

North Las Vegas City Hall, 1965, William Allen (and Bernard Judge). From North Las Vegas website.

Judge found employment with William Allen on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. He recalled that while working on the new North Las Vegas City Hall (see above) staring out the window toward the Hollywood Hills looking for a likely building site for a new home. He remembers seeing all the grading going on for Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills and the adjacent Bird Streets in Los Angeles following the subdivision of the old Doheny Ranch. He approached the developers of the Bird Streets subdivision and made an offer on their “unbuildable” greenbelt on the precipice above the development which they were only too willing to accept. (See below). His next challenge was to get the Department of Building & Safety to accept his proposal for a little tree house with a very small footprint.

Hollywood Hills with grading for Trousdale Estates and Bird Streets at the upper left. Judge “Tree” House site on Crescent Drive at the top of the “green belt” above the Bird Streets and abutting the Trousdaale Estates boundary. 1961 Dick Whittington photo from USC Digital Archive.

Following employment with Allen and several other local firms, he started his own office as space began to open up at Kings Road. He also concurrently worked for Jeffrey Lindsay in Los Angeles and Vancouver on several large span structures, most notably the 1967 Central Mall Space Frame at Simon Fraser University also in collaboration with Arthur Erickson. (See below).

Central Mall Space Frame, Simon Fraser University, 1967, Vancouver, British Columbia, Arthur Erickson, Geoffrey Massey and Jeffrey Lindsay. Plans and Specifications by Bernard Judge. Photo from The Bridge Studio.

 

Judge’s meticulous preparation of the plans and specifications for this project saved Lindsay from a major lawsuit. The space frame suffered snow damage due to connecting rod failure. Judge remembered from his Seabee experience to specify “upset” rods as so that their required cross-sectional area wouldn’t be compromised when the they were threaded. The rods delivered and installed were not “upset” which resulted in a structural failure after a heavy snowfall. The only people involved with this project who ended up not being “upset” were Judge and Lindsay.

 

Above drawing shows seven houses clustered and connected by walkways. They might be a hunting lodge in Kenya, condominiums, apartments or even commercial offices. This system would be useful on a flat site only if land cost was very high and several units could be developed. (From MacMasters, Dan, “A Tree House for the Hills,” Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, April 10, 1977, p. 15.

 

Sometime in the late 1960s, Lindsay asked Judge to design a tree house that could be used for a hunting lodge in Kenya (See above). It was to use local materials and be so simple that native workmen, with a little instruction, could put it together by traditional methods. The hunting lodge never got built but the idea was too good to give up. Why not use it for putting houses on those “unbuildable lots” scattered through the hills around Los Angeles? And for developing steep slopes without massive earth-moving? When Judge failed to interest local builders, he decided to build a tree house for himself. The concept worked perfectly for his precipitous 35 degree Crescent Drive site which he broke ground upon with the help of partner Ron Smart in 1968.

From his Kings Road base around the same time, Judge formed Environmental Systems Group, a team of architects and professionals who work independently, but come together to execute larger projects. The primary members who worked with Judge off-and-on over a 15-year period included Milica Dedijer, architect; Ron Smart, production; Tim Liu, structural engineer; Chris Davis, economist; and, until his death, Boris Lemos, mechanical engineer.

Tahiti Safari Club, Moorea, 1970, designed by Bernard Judge. From “Waltzing with Brando,” p. 68.

From 1970-1974, Judge was heavily involved with resort developments for Marlon Brando on his private Tahitian atoll, Tetiaroa, and the Tahiti Safari Club on Moorea. Judge met Brando through his contractor Jack Bellin whom he met by chance just before vacationing with his family at the Club Med Moorea in 1970. Bellin suggested that Judge visit Brando’s Tetiaroa while in Tahiti. Bellin and Judge quickly hit it off and collaborated on the design and construction of the Tahiti Safari Club. (See above). Judge’s design was inspired by hotels he had admired in Kenya while researching the above-mentioned hunting lodge for Lindsay. While working on this project, Judge, and his family, whenever possible, stayed at Marlon Brando’s house in Papaeete. Brando was keenly interested in monitoring the Safari Club’s progress as he had similar plans for Tetiaroa. One thing led to another and after trust was built, Brando hired Judge to design a landing strip and resort on his atoll.

Sabrina and Bernard Judge, ca. 1972. From “Waltzing with Brando,” p. 168.

uring this period, Judge spent almost all his time in Tahiti planning and overseeing construction of these projects with partner Ron Smart handling all of the production details from the Kings Road office. Wife Dora and daughter Sabrina spent significant time in Tahiti as well. (See above).

Design sketches for Tetiaroa, 1972, Bernard Judge. From “Waltzing with Brando,” p. 121.

 Tertiaroa airstrip under construction. From “Waltzing with Brando,” p. 187.

Judge incorporated the ideas for the Kenyan resort he developed for Lindsay into Brando’s resort. i. e., to  “live lightly” on the fragile atoll using sustainable indigenous materials and to be so simple that native workmen, with a little instruction, could put it together by traditional methods. The coconut tree trunks and leaves seen above were all stockpiled for use in constructing the resort’s structures and roofs. Judge imported a sawmill to cut planks from the tree trunks. (See below).

Judge and helpers cutting planks from stockpiled coconut tree trunks. From “Waltzing with Brando,” p. 170.

I highly recommend reading the entire saga of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable challenges of bringing the eco-friendly development of Tetiaroa to fruition in Judge’s fascinating “Waltzing with Brando: Planning a Paradise in Tahiti.” (See below). I also recommend “Trouble in Paradise,” by Matthew Heller which appeared in the Los Angeles Times Home Section in 2005. A final recommendation is an article William Hall wrote for the Los Angeles Times after an unauthorized [by Brando] visit to Tetiaroa about a year before it was ready to open in which Judge is quoted. (Hall, William, “And Brando as a Tourist Attraction: Last Tango in Tahiti,” Los Angeles Times Calendar Section, March 11, 1973, pp. 1, 18, 20).

Upon completion of Tetiaroa, Judge could again focus more time towards the completion of his “Tree” House. Finally completed in 1977, the house soon won an AIA-Sunset Western Home Award. (See above). The jury applauded a residence that literally could be built on any site. The house was soon thereafter featured on the cover on an issue dedicated to exploring the potential of factory-built housing.

Judge “Tree” house on a lot that slopes at a 35-degree angle down from the street. The view is to the southwest. Photo by Julius Shulman. (From MacMasters, Dan, “A Tree House for the Hills,” Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, April 10, 1977, p. 12). 

The house has two levels of 700 square feet each, including decks. (See above). It can be built larger, smaller, or as one of a cluster. Judge used a structural system based on four 10 by 10-inch steel columns set on 8-foot centers that run from the roof down to bedrock (in this case, 50 feet). Encased in concrete above ground and beneath the house, the columns form an 8 by 8-foot pedestal that houses all the mechanical systems – water heater, forced air furnace, sump pump (because the bathroom in the house is below street level), and storage. (See below).

Bernard Judge “Tree” House on a 35 degree lot above the Bird Streets adjacent to Trousdale Estates in the Hollywood Hills. Julius Shulman photo. (From Sunset, p. 108). 

The house was built on a shoestring budget using mostly his and partner Ron Smart’s labor. A number of ideas Judge incorporated into this house helped minimize costs: none of the wood is finished; all structure is exposed; floors are sub-flooring, sanded and sealed; the ceiling on the lower level is the underside of the upper level floor, with 2 by 8 floor joists seen as beams from below. The 10×10-inch steel columns seen below were set in place in 1969, just before the earlier-mentioned Tahitian work began. These had been fabricated in a shop, then trucked to the site and set in place by a crane. Judge recalls that while he was in Tahiti, Julius Shulman visited the site to capture the amazing construction photo below.

 

Steel columns set on 8-foot centers form the basic core of the house. Wood framework of house attached to the steel plates welded on before the columns were set.  Photo by Julius Shulman. (From MacMasters, p. 13).  Photo by Julius Shulman. (From MacMasters, p. 13).

This is how the Judge tree house is put together. Four caissons are sunk on the hillside and are filled with concrete. They are set in an 8-foot square and are quick and relatively cheap to install. On them are placed by crane the steel columns which are 50 feet tall; these the architect refers to as flagpoles. (See above). Trusses are fixed to the columns to support the structure of the house. These columns can be of timber or glue-laminated wood as well as of steel. Once the basic frame is in place you can use whatever materials you like for walls, roof, floors and other parts. And the interior can be arranged in many ways, for none of the walls is load-bearing. (MacMasters, p. 108).

Dramatic and extremely informal, the house is as easy-going as a summer cabin, with little furniture needed besides the built-ins. The entire upper level (see above images) has an open ceiling with living room, dining room, and kitchen all within conversational range. The spiral staircase at the center of the house helps define areas of use. (Sunset, p. 109). Two bedrooms and a bath occupy the lower level, plus a library-study at the foot of the stairs. Each bedroom has its own private deck. A 5 by 26-foot deck serves the upper floor on the view side. The house performs very well in earthquakes with only minor swaying and has sustained no damage since Judge moved in 35 years ago.

United States Patent No. 4,173,102 granted to Bernard Judge, November 6, 1979, p. 1 of 6.

Liking the potential for prefabrication of his “Tree” House and its use on difficult sites, Judge applied for a patent soon after completion on June 28, 1977. The patent was approved November 6, 1979, but unlike his hero Bucky Fuller, Judge did not pursue marketing the idea as he was by then deeply involved with the restoration of Schindler’s Kings Road House purchased by the non-profit Friends of the Schindler Housefrom the Schindler family upon the death of Pauline.Judge was named project director for development and implementation of the Schindler House Restoration Plan in 1979 by the FOSH of which he was also vice-president. He prepared the voluminous plans and specifications in September 1980 which included an exhaustive “room by room, surface by surface, verbal and pictorial work description.” (“Restoration of the R. M. Schindler House: Adaptive Use of the Kings Road House as a Center for the Study of 20th Century Architecture in Los Angeles,” Friends of the Schindler House, September, 1980, 362 pp.). (“Grant Will Help in Restoring Schindler House,” Los Angeles Times, November 25, 1979, p. VII-1).

In a 1983 article on the Friends of the Schindler House, Ruth Ryon quoted Friends president Michael Bobrow,

Judge further recalled,

“I got involved in the saving of the Schinder house because I lived and worked there for so many years, that I knew Pauline until her death, and promised her that I would be sure to save the house after her demise. Because of that, I became involved in other “preservation projects.” The Watts Towers Restoration Committee, the Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House, The Master plan for El Pueblo State Historic Park, and member of the LA City Cultural Heritage Commission (1980-86). Those activities led to actual paying jobs as an architect, like saving the Subway Terminal Building downtown, (1970) The Clark Hotel, LA, Restoration Plan, (1991), the Original Broadway Department Store, downtown, (1991),  the Hollywood Professional Building, (1994), and the Max Factor Building (1996). One thing leads to another- as it did in the South Pacific, i.e., Site analysis in Fiji and Western Samoa.” (Bernard Judge e-mail to the author, 08-31-2011).

Based upon his involvement in helping save the Watts Towers in the late 1970s, Judge was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to the City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 1981 where he served for 6 years. He has also lectured at UCLA on histrorical preservation issues.

In researching this article I have gained the sense that Bernard Judge, like his idol and inspiration Buckminster Fuller before him, is a totally ‘free-spirited” and adventurous architect who is unafraid to tackle projects in uncharted territory. Whether using indigenous materials on the nearly inaccessible, coral reef-enclosed Tetiaroa or new space age materials to economically solve seemingly insurmountable design problems on his “Triponent” House in Beachwood Canyon, he was able to achieve his life-long goal of creating an architecture that “lives lightly on the land.” He continues to live that dream in his “Tree” House aerie in the Hollywood Hills. His work on the restoration plan for the Schindler House, arguably the most important icon of modern architecture in Los Angeles, or the world for that matter, is terribly under-recognized and noteworthy.

I highly recommend as a follow-up to this story the upcoming exhibition at the Schindler Kings Road House

Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design 

Also stay tuned for a possible book-signing event for Judge’s “Waltzing with Brando” in conjunction with the exhibition.

I have recently been doing much research in Edward Weston’s Daybooks due to their amazing content chronicling the intertwined lives of the L.A.’s early Bohemian, avant-garde artists, architects and intelligentsia. Today while trying to track down where the original unexpurgated manuscripts might reside I ran across the below Edward Weston reminiscence written on the occasion of learning of the January 5, 1942 death of his former lover Tina Modotti with whom he traveled to Mexico with between 1923 and 1926. (See below).

Louis Henry Sullivan is the taproot of the genealogical tree of modern architects in Southern California.  His apprentices Irving Gill and Frank Lloyd Wright had a profound influence on the evolution of modern architecture in the Southland which in turn attracted Frank’s son Lloyd, Viennese emigres R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra and their eventual apostles Harwell Hamilton Harris, Gregory Ain and Raphael Soriano. (See below).

Genealogy of Los Angeles Modern Architecture from American Architects and the Mechanics of Fame by Roxanne Kuter Williamson, p. 32.

R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra became aware of Louis Sullivan and his work through the teachings and work of  Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos and their fascination with Sullivan apprentice Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio first published in Berlin, Germany in 1910 by Ernst Wasmuth. Schindler discovered Wasmuth in 1911 and Neutra first saw it in 1914, the year Schindler left Vienna for the U.S. They both studied under Loos, with Neutra beginning in 1912, the year he met Schindler. Loos had visited the U.S. between 1893-96 and became enthralled with Chicago and it’s Adler & Sullivan-designed skyscrapers and later regaled his students with tales of Chicago and Sullivan’s work.

Thus the previous genealogical diagram should be amended to include a dashed line connecting Sullivan to Loos and extending to Schindler and Neutra. The table below also places Wagner, Sullivan, Loos, Wright,  Schindler, and Neutra in historical context with their published doctrines. (See also the Pauline Schindler discussion on architectural lineages near the end of this article.)

Schindler-Neutra Genealogy in a Trans-Atlantic Context from “The Wagnerschule and Adolf Loos,” by August J. Sarnitz in RM Schindler: Composition and Construction edited by Lionel March and Judith Sheine, Academy Editions, 1993, p. 32.

 

Louis Sullivan, Transportation Building, World’s Columbian Exposotion, Chicago, 1893.

Ironically, Gill and Wright were still working side-by-side in Sullivan’s office about the time Loos arrived to view the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition which included Sullivan’s massive Transportation Building, the most modernist-leaning building in the exposition. (See above). Sullivan wrote of the deleterious impact of the Exposition’s architecture on his hard-fought battle for the acceptance of a more modern architectural language,

“Meanwhile the virus of the World’s Fair, after a period of incubation … began to show unmistakable signs of the nature of the contagion. There came a violent outbreak of the Classic and the Renaissance in the East, which slowly spread Westward, contaminating all that it touched, both at its source and outward…. By the time the market had been saturated, all sense of reality was gone. In its place, had come deep seated illusions, hallucinations, absence of pupillary reaction to light, absence of knee-reaction-symptoms all of progressive cerebral meningitis; the blanketing of the brain. Thus Architecture died in the land of the free and the home of the brave…. The damage wrought by the World’s Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer.” (The Autobiography of an Idea by Louis Sullivan).

I do not wish to delve into the text of Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats with this article but only to give the reader a sense of the impact Sullivan had on both Neutra and Schindler through their relationships with him. A close reading of the Chats however, will provide numerous hints that Sullivan’s writings profoundly influenced Schindler’s philosophical articles on ”Space Architecture” and Neutra’s development of his theories on “Biorealism” which he expounded upon in his Survival Through Design, Nature Near and other published work. (See for example below and Nuetra’s 1935 review of the Chats further below. Also see my Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism, 1927-1936 for more on the publication of Schindler’s Space Architecture in the February 1934 issue of Dune Forum edited by Pauline Schindler.).

Realismo biologico: Un neuvo Renacimiento humanistico en arquitectura by Richard Neutra, Editorial Nueva Vision, Buenos Aires, 1973. Serulnic House living room, Julius Shulman Job No. 2092, November 2, 1955, courtesy Getty Research Institute. (From my collection).

Schindler moved to Chicago in 1914 with the ultimate goal of working with Wright. His first Chicago employment was with the firm of Ottenheimer, Stern & Reichert between 1914 and 1918. Schindler met Wright in December, 1914 and finally began working for him on February 5, 1918. In December, 1918 Schindler, then living at Wright’s Oak Park studio, invited Sullivan for a visit where they met for the only time. See Sullivan’s acceptance letter below.

 

Louis Sullivan to R. M. Schindler letter, 12-12-1918. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Papers.

 

A by then destitute Sullivan was unsuccessfully trying to find a publisher for his Kindergarten Chats which he had recently spent five months revising and editing into book format. The “Chats” was originally conceived as fifty-two separate articles that appeared weekly in the Interstate Architect and Builderfrom February 16, 1901 to February 8, 1902. (See review below). It was an extended dialogue between a student and the master who leads him through a kind of spiritual and psychological confrontation with nature before introducing him to social and building analysis – Sullivan’s preferred method of architectural instruction.

Adolf Loos, photographer and date unknown. (From Wikipedia).

 

Schindler did not hear from Loos for a period of months and wrote Neutra, then working at the American Friends’ (Quakers) Relief Mission in Vienna, to go see him and find out about the status of the manuscript. Neutra’s July 15, 1920 reply was without any news of the manuscript but instead mentioned that Loos was thinking about moving his school to Paris and had asked if he could find out if Sullivan might be interested in heading it up. Schindler relayed the inquiry to Sullivan in a fascinating August 26, 1920 letter (see below) in which he described Loos’s love of America and publications on same, him being the only serious opponent against the architectural atrocities of the “Secession,” and his controversial, ornament free work. He closed with, ”Although not having any direct news about the manuscript, I hear that Loos said that he would try to publish one of your books, and the above offer convinces me that he is in possession of the manuscript and has read it.” (RMS letter to Louis Sullivan, August 26, 1920). (See below).

RMS letter to Louis Sullivan, August 26, 1920. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Papers.

 

Sullivan replied  in an August 31st letter that he might be interested in lecturing in Paris but, at his age, he had no interest in becoming the head of a school. He was much more interested in the status of his manuscript.

About this same time Neutra wrote to the American Red Cross attempting to find a way to enter the United States to join Schindler. Neutra opened his plea with, ”I am an architect and am hoping to go to America to study the Middle Western Architecture, the work of Richardson, Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright who in our opinion is the worlds first architect today.” (Richard Neutra to Miss Elsa von Elst, Foreign Language Bureau, American Red Cross, August 14, 1920, courtesy R. M. Schindler Papers, UC-Santa Barbara Art Museum).

 

R. M. and Pauline Gibling Schindler, Sophie and Edmund Gibling, Dorothy Gibling and Mark Schindler at Kings Road, summer 1923. (Sweeney, p. 93). Schindler Family Collection, Courtesy Friends of the Schindler House.

 

Schindler and wife Pauline moved to Los Angeles in late December 1920 to work on Wright’s Olive Hill Aline Barnsdall compound. Unbeknownst to Schindler, the manuscript was now in Neutra’s hands. He was trying to interest the Quakers in publishing it without success. Finally, in July 1921, a year before completing work and moving into his new house on Kings Road in West Hollywood (see above), Schindler received confirmation from Neutra that he indeed was in possession of the manuscript and was trying to find a publisher himself. Esther McCoy, in her Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys, illuminates through the correspondence of Schindler and Neutra and letters from Sullivan to Schindler, the efforts Sullivan and Schindler made over the next two years to get the manuscript back from Neutra. The letters from Sullivan to Schindler also portray his dire financial straits and that Wright had authorized Schindler to disburse to him a much-needed $200. (Sullivan to Schindler letter, Chicago, September 8, 1921, McCoy, p. 147).

Neutra apparently was still trying to find a publisher, an exercize that would serve him well when looking for a German publisher for his own first book, Wie Baut Amerika? in 1926-7. He also likely practiced his English by poring over the “Chats” while absorbing Sullivan’s teachings and fantasizing about returning the manuscript to him in person, a dream that was not to be realized until 1924.

 

Chicago Tribune Tower Competition entry, Adolf Loos, 1922.

In the fall of 1922 Loos submitted an unsuccessful but well-publicized Chicago Tribune Tower competition entry after Schindler left Chicago for Los Angeles in 1920 and before Neutra arrived in 1924. (See above). Loos’s entry, a seemingly serious attempt to win the $50,000 first prize, also appears to indicate that he read Sullivan’s Chats before handing the manuscript over to Neutra the previous year. His design makes an obvious wink at Sullivan’s chapter, “A Doric Column,” which derided in great detail its winning selection in a design competition for a memorial for the 200th anniversary of the discovery and founding of the City of Detroit. Sullivan ended his hyperbolic Doric Column chapter chastising the unnamed architect and the selection process with,

From Postcards and Poster Stamps of the Bugra.

 

(From Christie’s).

Loos is also likely to have recalled seeing the Doric Column that was part of the 1913 International Building Trade Fair in Leipzig (see above) as he was preparing his Tribune Tower entry and may have shared his heroes’ feelings about same.

Left, second prize, Eliel Saarinen, Helsingfors, Finland. Right, first prize, John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, New York. (Sullivan, Louis H., “The Chicago Tribune Competition,” Architectural Record, February, 1923, pp. 154-155).

Sullivan’s review of the competition in the February 1923 issue of the Architectural Record was also silent on Loos’s “Column” entry but instead focused upon a comparison between the first prize entry of John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood and that of second place winner Eliel Saarinen. (See above). Sullivan’s scathing critique of the Tribune’s selection jury choice bemoaned of a lost opportunity in the advancement of modern architecture,

“It’s act has deprived the world of a shining mark, denied it a monument to beauty, to faith, to courage and to hope. Deprived an expectant world of that Romance for which it hungers, and had hoped to receive.” Sullivan ended by repeating the stated goal of the Tribune, “It cannot be reitterated too emphatically that the primary objective of The Chicago Tribune in instituting this Competition is to secure the design for a structure distinctive and imposing – the most beautiful office building in the world.” (Sullivan, Louis H., “The Chicago Tribune Competition,” Architectural Record, February, 1923, pp. 151-157).

Sullivan’s remarks on Saarinen’s design prophesied “A time to come, and not so far away, when the wretched and the yearning, the sordid and the fierce, shall escape the bondage and the mania of fixed ideas.”

“Dear Schindler,
Your interesting letter of Feb. 28th at hand, thanks for Frank Wright’s address: its receipt has enabled me to write him a couple of important letters.
Glad you like the Tribune ‘Critique.’ It has produced a sensation: and the issue has sold out.
You ask me why I don’t write more? from which I take it you have not been following my ‘Autobiography of an Idea’ – ten chapters of which have already appeared serially in ‘The Journal of the Am. Inst. of Architects,’ which issues monthly. I have also written something on the Imperial Hotel. Good luck to you in spite of difficulties. Kindest to the Missus.
Sincerely,
Louis H. Sullivan” (From McCoy’s “Two Journeys,” p. 149).

I have not yet been able to find any writings stating what Neutra and/or Schindler actually thought of their mentor Loos’s tongue-in-cheek Tribune Tower Competition entry. They certainly would have gotten the intended joke immediately upon seeing his entry rendering as they both “cut their teeth” on the “Chats” and would have undoubtedly agreed with his critique of the winning entry in the Architectural Record. Neutra incorporated references to his idol Sullivan’s work and writings and his thoughts on the Tribune Tower winning design into his lectures on modern architecture as did Schindler. For example in a Pauline Schindler review of Neutra’s November 28, 1928 lecture in Carmel she wrote,

“He cited the principle which is the alpha and the omega of modern architecture, “Form Follows Function,” and distinguished between the functional architecture of the true modern, as compared with the formalist architecture of the earlier pseudo-classicists in the United States who took the Greek Doric column and thought they could make an American architecture with it. It is not the architect who now makes architecture said Mr. Neutra, but the situation out of which it arises. He clarified this by criticizing adversely several typically false buildings including the Chicago Tribune Building…” (Schindler, Pauline, “Neutra Renders Modern Architecture Intelligible,” The Carmelite, December 5, 1928, p. 4).

Louis Sullivan, ca. 1923. From “Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924,” Architectural Record, June, 1924, p. 587.

  

“Poor Sullivan is dead. I wrote to you two weeks ago that I had the good fortune to visit him “at home.” Oh my, Graceland Cemetery is a more suitable place than the Warner Hotel. I am sure it is not boasting when I tell you that I am probably the only person in Chicago who daily enjoys his buildings. He was not an achiever, never became as radical as the old Otto Wagner, but surely was one of the most significant Americans. Correspondingly, his funeral was sad. He told me, trying to get his breath and quite desolate, “What is left of my endeavors? Nothing. What are the young people doing? Oh my!” (Richard to Dione letter, Highland Park, May 1924. From Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, p. 122).

Seymour and erstwhile Sullivan apprentice, George Elmslie, formerly of the noted Prairie School team of Purcell & Elmslie, collected Sullivan’s possessions after his death for safekeeping, including the manuscript for Kindergarten Chats that Neutra had recently returned. It was at the funeral that Neutra finally got to meet Wright and tell him of his profound influence. A flattered Wright invited him to dinner and even though he had no work, to visit Taliesin.

Ralph Fletcher Seymour letter to R. M. Schindler, ca. May 1924. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Papers.

Not long after Sullivan’s funeral, Schindler wrote Seymour that he was planning a stopover in Chicago on his way to New York to do some work for Helena Rubenstein. Seymour replied saying that he could stay with him while in Chicago and that Neutra wanted to see him while he was passing through. (See above). The layover enabled a renewal of his friendship with Neutra, by then working at Holabird & Roche, on very friendly terms after their 10-year separation. This reunion most certainly heightened Neutra’s eagerness to finally make the fateful move to Los Angeles. (From R. M. Schindler by Judith Sheine, Phaidon, 2001, p. 65).

Like Schindler, Neutra also undoubtedly followed the Tribune Tower competition and witnessed much of its construction firsthand before moving to Taliesin in the late fall and Los Angeles in February 1925. He also had an article published in Europe in which he discussed the Tribune Tower structural system and expressed his admiration for H. J. Burt’s role in bringing to fruition the technology of the skyscraper. He characterized Tribune Tower’s structural system as “extraordinary” notwithstanding its Gothic cladding, and he expressed his admiration for Burt’s role in bringing to fruition the technology of the skyscraper. (Neutra, Richard, “Die altesten Hochhauser und der jungste Turm,”Die Baugilde, 6 (1924): 495-97, 505-7 and cited in Solomonson, p. 256).

Tribune Tower under construction from the southwest. Photograph by Eugene Cour, July 5, 1924. Scanned from Solomonson, p. 256. Original image courtesy of Chicago Tribune Company.

The above and below construction photos illustrate Burt’s structural design and indicate how rapidly the structure rose. It seems likely that Schindler and Neutra visited the site and discussed the building’s structural aspects during RMS’s late May visit on his way to New York. Ironically, Neutra would not include any images of the Tribune Tower in either of his first two books, the 1926 Wie Baut Amerika? and the 1930 Amerika: Neues Bauen in der Welt, probablyout of respect for Sullivan’s opinions on the design competition which they likely discussed during their meeting shortly before his death.  He did, however, include an extensive illustrated construction chronology featuring the structural skeleton of the Palmer House project in his second book.

Tribune Tower under construction from the north. Photograph by Eugene Cour, July 5, 1924. Scanned from Solomonson, p. 258. Original image courtesy of Chicago Tribune Company.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s six-page tribute to “The Master” was published in the July issue of Architectural Record. Wright wrote at length of Sullivan’s genius and the importance of his four masterpieces,

“Only the Chicago Auditorium, the Transportation Building, the Getty Tomb and the Wainwright Building are necessary to show the great reach of creative activity that was Louis Sullivan’s genius. … When he brought in the board with the motive for the Wainwright Building outlined in profile and in scheme upon it and threw it down on the table, I was perfectly aware of what had happened. This was Louis Sullivan’s greatest moment – his greatest effort. The “skyscraper,” as a new thing beneath the sun, an entity with virtue, individuality and beauty all its own, was born.” (Wright, Frank Lloyd, “Louis H. Sullivan – His Work,” Architectural Record, July, 1924, pp. 28-33).

Wainwright Building, Adler & Sullivan, 1891.

“I had never heard of Sullivan, although I’m sure I had seen something of his, because it looked familiar to me when I did see his work later. It was not until, as a student at Otis, [I] went into the office of the director on some matter or other, that Karl Howenstein shoved over a typewritten sheet for me to read. It was something he had written for a magazine, and the occasion for the writing was the death of Louis Sullivan. I read it and didn’t forget it, and, less than a year afterward, [Sullivan's] The Autobiography of an Idea was published. Howenstein spoke in his piece about the influence of Sullivan. He had worked for a short time for Sullivan, but in Sullivan’s much later years. He talked, I remember, in this piece for publication about the influence that Sullivan had on draftsmen in various offices. … I did read The Autobiography of an Idea, in 1926 I guess. I was very much taken with it and became a great admirer of Sullivan.” (Organic View of Design, p. 89.

Thanksgiving at Kings Road, 1923. Herman Sachs, far left, others at table clockwise from Sachs include Karl and Edith Howenstein, Anton Martin Feller, E. Clare Schooler (lover of Dorothy Gibling), person partially obscured at right (unidentified), Betty Katz, A. R. Brandner, unidentified, and Max Pons (obscured to Sachs’ right). Another photo exists from the opposite side of the table which includes Dorothy Gibling (frequent long-term guest at Kings Road) to Betty Brandner”s right. Photo by R. M. Schindler. From the UCSB Art Museum R. M. Schindler Papers and “Life at Kings Road: As It Was 1920-1940″ by Robert Sweeney in The Architecture of R. M. Schindler, p. 97. (I am indebted to architectural historian William Scott Blair, steward of the Feller Archive, for identifying Feller and sharing his tragic story with me and help identifying the others in the photo.)

From left to right, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Sylva Moser, and new baby, Kameki Tsuchiura, Nobu Tsuchiura, Werner Moser on the violin and Dione Neutra on the cello in the living room at Taliesin, 1924. From Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, p. 52).

 

Neutra moved to Taliesin with wife Dione and new son Frank in September 1924 before relocating to California in February 1925 to finally achieve his dream of joining Schindler.

The Neutras at Taliesin, 1924. From left, Dione, Richard, FLW’s namesake baby Frank, and Dione’s mother Lilly Niedermann. From Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, p. 51.

FLW having a Kindergarten Chat with baby Frank Neutra at Taliesin, 1924. From Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, p. 51.

While working at Taliesin, and sitting at lunch opposite Wright, Neutra,

The pin is now the proud stewardship of Neutra biographer Thomas S. Hines. Per Raymond Neutra, “My mother gave it to Tom Hines because she thought he would treasure it and see that it found an ultimate home.” (e-mail to the author, 06-24-2011). Sullivan’s pin could not be in better hands.

The Neutras left Taliesin in February 1925 and traveled to Los Angeles and moved the Schindler’s Kings Road House in early March. (See below). There they would remain until May 1930 when Neutra began his fateful world tour. (See The Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism for more details on this period).

 

Richard, Dione and Frank Neutra and RMS at Kings Road, 1925. Photo by Jean Murray Bangs, later wife of later Neutra disciple Harwell Hamilton Harris. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)

Pauline Schindler wrote of Neutra in late 1928 in The Carmelite, a newspaper in Carmel-by-the-Sea she was editing after leaving her husband,

“‘Form Follows Function’ said Louis Sullivan. ‘This is the basis for the new architecture.’ Richard Neutra, who lectures in Carmel at the studio of Denny and Watrous next Sunday evening, is what we might call a direct architectural descendant of Louis Sullivan. Every profession and every art which has great teachers has its lineages. The greatest of those who called Sullivan “Master” was Frank Lloyd Wright. … Louis Sullivan became a great influence upon American architecture because he could not only understand consciously what he was driving at; he could not only build buildings which illustrated the principle that form follows function; but he could make his meaning clear to the rest of the world. Richard Neutra is one of the two or three true descendants of the lineage of Sullivan and Wright, to whom architecture is not merely an expression of a civilization but a conditioning agent of future cultures.” (Schindler, Pauline, “The Architecture of the Future,” The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 11). (Also see my Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism, 1927-1936 for more details).

 

It would not be until 1934, ten years after Sullivan’s death, that Kindergarten Chats would finally be published in book form. (See above). It was through the foresight of George Elmslie’s saving of Sullivan’s papers that ten years after his death, SCARAB, the professional intercollegiate architectural fraternity, published Kindergarten Chats on the occasion of it’s Silver Anniversary. Editor Claude F. Bragdon states in his introduction that,