Deborah Aschheim, Encounter, 2009, plastic, LED’s

Deborah’s ensuing description of her recent architecturally-based work and upcoming show immediately piqued my interest. After visiting her web site http://www.deborahaschheim.com/ and seeing her illuminated model above of the Theme Building at LAX, my excitement level increased as I had recently been spending some time with one of the original designers of the building, renowned 94-year old structural engineer Richard Bradshaw. I learned of Richard while conducting architect William Krisel’s Oral History interviews and organizing his archives for recent acquisition by the Getty Research institute. Krisel met Bradshaw through taking his course designed to prepare architects for the structural engineering portion of the architectural licensing examination circa 1949. Krisel later hired Richard to help create some innovative designs in the early1950s. Film maker Jake Gorst and I met and interviewed Richard while filming a documentary on Krisel’s life which premiered in Palm Springs last February. There is footage of Richard and myself in the trailer at the following link. (William Krisel, Architect).

I then told Deborah about Richard and his wife, erstwhile TV star and Red Skelton Show regular, Chanin Hale and my upcoming plans for a photo shoot with them at the Theme Building. Our idea for the shoot was to try to recreate the infamous Julius Shulman photo (see below) of Paul Williams posing in front of the Theme Building which had the unfortunate result of creating the still-prevalent myth that the building was designed by Williams.

Paul R. Williams in front of the Theme Building. Julius Shulman Job No. 3946, Oct. 21, 1965. From the back cover of The Will and the Way: Paul R. Williams, Architect by Karen E. Hudson, Rizzoli, 1994. Courtesy Getty Research Institute.

Richard Bradshaw and his pride and joy, the Theme Building. John Crosse photo, May 25, 2010. Theme Building Photo Album by John Coosse

Deborah loved the idea and agreed to join us to meet Bradshaw, help document the event and to do some more research for her show. It ended up being a fabulous day as the weather was perfect and the group ended up having a lot of fun in the process. Chanin was definitely in her element as she selected Richard’s wardrobe, hairstyling and makeup and directed the setup and pose for the shoot. (See below).

Chanin Hale directing Richard Bradshaw while John Crosse takes the previous photograph. Deborah Aschheim photo, May 25, 2010.

Chanin Hale Bradshaw using Paris’s iconic Eiffel Tower to explain the finer points of structural engineering to Red Skelton, ca. 1965. Photographer unknown.

Bradshaw played a major role in the final design of the building by solving some very complex structural issues that made construction a reality. The definitve book on the history of the design of this most important Los Angeles icon is A Symbol of Los Angeles: The History of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport, 1952-1961. (See below). The extremely well-documented book written by Victor Cusack and Harrison Lewis Whitney and edited by William A. Schoneberger includes numerous drawings, renderings, construction photos and ephemera giving the most complete documentation of the design and construction as one is ever likely to find and is for sale at the Flightpath Learning Center at LAX.

After working up an appetite during the photo shoot, we all went to lunch at the Encounter Restaurant, echoing the title of Aschheim’s signature piece illustrating the cover of the Cella’s exhibition announcement card in the opening image. Just as I suspected, Deborah and Richard had an eerie amount of work in common as both of their oeuvres are concerned with the skeletal and neural essences of the completed structure. They are kindred design spirits in the truist sense. Deborah discussed having to employ a structural engineer to aid in the design and installation of her intricate neural architecture sculptures (see example below) just as a global cadre of modernist architects relied upon Bradshaw’s services to accomplish their creative aims. As we thumbed through Richard’s marketing book during lunch we discovered an amazing number of projects which had inspired drawings by Deborah which will be included in her solo exhibition and which I will touch on later. Richard had enthralling stories to tell about the design difficulties of each project and we could have gone on for hours.

Deborah Aschheim, “Earworm” (node), 2008, speakers, LED’s, plastic, copper tubing, 2008.

Go to the following link for a 13 second movie of Aschheim installing another complex sculpture Neural Architecture No. 6 and view some of her other very exciting neural architecture in her Reconsider Exhibition Catalog at the end of this article. A review of this extremely cerebral exhibition can be read at “Earworms”.

Theme Building page from Richard R. Bradshaw, Incorporated, Structural Engineers marketing book. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

The most interesting anecdote shared by Bradshaw was the problem of wind-induced harmonic resonance which surfaced during construction of the Theme Building. Wind of a certain velocity and direction set up harmonic vibrations in the steel superstructure as illustrated in the cross-section above. Richard had to create a dynamic field test to determine whether the stucco sheathing to be installed around the four spider legs of the building would totally dampen the vibrations. He and his team applied pressure to one of the legs by attaching a cable and cranking down on it and then quickly releasing it to determine the amplitude and force of the vibrations and was able to determine that the design would work. These daring design challenges are what Bradshaw lived for.

Left, Deborah Aschheim researching for upcoming show at the Cella Gallery, May 25, 2010. Photo by John Crosse. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Encounter No. 3 (Something Sensuous About the Grid of Holes), 2010 Ink on Dura-lar, 30 x 23 inches.

From left, Joe Kinishita, Jim Santiago, Richard Bradshaw, Don Belding, Welton Becket, Paul Williams and Don Wilcox, ca. 1959. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 85. Photographer unknown.

Theme Building structural steel and scaffolding ca. 1960. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 71. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Deborah Aschheim, Theme Building (Now I Miss the Scaffolding), 2010, Ink on Dura-lar , 24 x 36 inches

Aschheim states, “When I was growing up, the future was limitless possibility, jet-age, space-age, techno utopia. ‘Modern’ meant new. Now, modern means old and the future I grew up with seems dated, irresponsible, and obsolete.” Her initial attraction to the Theme Building came as she continued to view the preservation scaffolding wrapping the iconic structure during the last two years as she jet-setted around the country for her various shows. I couldn’t wait to send her the above and below photos to let her know her instincts were right on as to the scaffolding’s role in creating a sense of mystery and timeless nostalgia.

Preservation Magazine, September 2009 cover story on the preservation project for the LAX Theme Building facilitated by the recent scaffolding installation which in turn inspired Aschheim’s recent work.

Construction photo of Theme Building and maintenance garages ca. 1960. Photo courtesy of Richard Bradshaw. Photographer unknown.

Bradshaw not only designed work for the superstructure for the Theme Building, he also created the thin-shelled concrete roofs, his world-recognized specialty, for the adjacent maintenance garages seen above.

Left, Theme Building superstructure designed by Richard Bradshaw for the Joint Venture headed by Pereira & Luckman. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 53. Photographer unknown. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Theme Building No. 5 (Observation Deck with Scaffold), 2010

Much of Deborah’s work in her Cella show was inspired by the 1964 New York World’s Fair. She made drawings and created model of the New York Pavilion (Tent of Tomorrow) and the Unisphere. Unbeknownst to her, some of Bradshaw’s most iconic designs, the multiple award-winning General Electric and Ford Motor Company Pavilions were also major features of the Fair and were widely published to much critical acclaim.

Deborah Aschheim, Tent of Tomorrow (We Rode the Subway All the Way to Flushing Corona Meadows), 2009

Postcard of the New York Pavilion and Unisphere, New York World’s Fair, 1964.

Left, Deborah Aschheim, Tent of Tomorrow, 2009, plastic and LED’s. Right, unbuilt domed stadium, Richard Bradshaw for Welton Becket & Associates. From an unknown issue of Architectural Record ca. 1965. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Aschheim’s model and drawings of the New York Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair echo Bradshaw’s unbuilt hyperbolic-paraboloid stadium design for Welton Becket & Associates using remarkably similar design elements. Becket was trying to break into the fledgling domed stadium market and commissioned the above right stadium design from Bradshaw in 1964.

Deborah Aschheim, Unisphere (I See in My Mind Mom in Front of it Looking Like Jackie Kennedy), 2009, Ink and acrylic on Dura-lar , 25 x 34 inches.

General Electric Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1964. Photo courtesy Richard Brashaw.

Left, General Electric Pavilion Walt Disney Progressland Fair Brochure, 1964. Right, G.E. Pavilion structural details by Richard Bradshaw for Welton Becket & Associates

Carlos Diniz, General Electric Pavillion – New York World’s Fair 1964-65, 1965, Serigraph on paper , 40 x 26 inches. Courtesy Edward Cella Gallery.

Ford Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1964. Photo courtesy Richard Bradshaw.

Aschheim’s Unisphere and Bradshaw’s G.E. and Ford Pavilions above round out their Fair-inspired production.

Left, Gulf Life Insurance Building, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1968. Courtesy Richard Bradshaw. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Gufl Life, 2009.

Bradshaw’s above left photo of the Gulf Life Building in Jacksonville, Florida elicits the unbridled spirit of the modern skyscraper at the peak of the Modern Movement during the mid-1960s. It is coincidental that Becket & Associates, a firm whose work has inspired much of Aschheim’s, called upon Bradshaw for the firm’s most challenging design projects. The exterior frames are precast, post-tensioned sections. The floors are composed of prestressed concrete T-beams. At the time the 27-story concrete shear wall structure was built in 1968, it was the tallest precast prestressed building in the world, just the kind of challenging project Bradshaw sought out his entire career. The building garnered for Richard the Prestressed Concrete Institute Honor Award for 1968. Bradshaw is also not too shy to relate that the architects in the Becket offices thought he was a genius.

Many projects completed by Welton Becket & Associates appear to trigger a deep nostalgic response in Deborah’s psyche.  Her above right drawing of Gulf Life, enshrouds the building in scaffolding and evokes wrapping ourselves in a blanket to protect the modernistic memories of our youth. Ironically, at the May 25th Encounter luncheon, Bradshaw regaled us with a story of how a major repair had to be made to all four corners on each of the 27 stories which required a creative solution akin to to wrapping the building in scaffolding as above. If you attend the opening, don’t forget to ask Richard to share this anecdote with you as he is looking forward to being in attendance.

Below is an intriguing profile of Richard and his career published in the April 29, 1962 issue of the Los Angeles Times. It gives you the sense of the man’s deep desire to learn all there was to learn about the field/art of structural engineering and to translate his complex equations and calculations into the elegant designs seen herein. Nearly fifty years after this article was written, Bradshaw is still trying to solve ever more complex structural problems with a new sophisticated structural engineering software package he recently installed on his powerful Apple computer. Thom Mayne and Frank Gehry, do you need any help?

Profile on Bradshaw from the Los Angeles Times Real Estate Section, April 29, 1962, p. 2. From ProQuest.

Richard Bradshaw model of McCarran Field Terminal, Las Vegas for Welton Becket & Associates. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Much of Bradshaw’s design work could not be found in the textbooks and had to be created with complex stress-testing of design models equipped with strain gauges and other innovative techniques to determine how the structural forces between the interconnecting materials of concrete and steel might react to exterior and interior forces of nature, dynamic interior loading and aging. Add some LED lighting to the above model and it would make a great accompaniment to Aschheim’s show. Read the Scarlet Cheng review of Deborah’s exhibition “Rework, rebuild, recycle” at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design to discover eerie similarities between her Neural Architecture Series and Bradshaw’s design models.

Deborah Aschheim, Building as Body, 2007.

Bradshaw’s most recent lecture was titled “Structural Elegance” and was presented at the 2008 National Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The following excerpt from the abstract gives one the sense of the his design philosophy. “The use of the expression Structural Elegance should be used more often to describe excellence in Structural Engineering. Only Structural Engineers are qualified to decide which structures possess the quality of Structural Elegance: The attributes which define the expression are herein discussed. Structural aesthetics are a part but only a part of Structural Elegance. It is possible to have structural elegance without aesthetics. Many structures today are built on whimsical structural decisions rather than on classical methods. Structural Elegance also includes a clear sense of purpose, efficiency of materials and construction methods and lastly daring.”

Deborah Aschheim Curriculum Vitae:

Deborah Aschheim: Reconsider Exhibition Catalog

Don’t miss this opening! It will be a very fun event with a great cross-section of artists and architects in attendance. The soon-to-follow gallery talks will also be prove to be very interesting if Edward’s past events are any indication. For information on the special exhibition programs see the announcement card at the beginning of this post.

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(Link to the Bibliography at the bottom of this post)

Introduction

Beth Kudlicki and I have been blessed to have lived in Buff, Smith & Hensman’s Dorsey House in Playa del Rey since 2000. The house was completed in 1983 and received a Pasadena-Foothill Chapter AIA Award of Merit Award in 1984. We never tire of living in this wonderful house as we continue to enjoy fresh nuances which the change of the seasons and weather bring to the lighting patterns and shadows in the house interiors. We did not know that much about the firm when we bought the house, only that we immediately knew we wanted to move in. I soon thereafter began to collect material on Southern California’s modernist architectural history. I quickly learned the importance of the Buff & Hensman legacy while researching a book on Julius Shulman’s cover photos which inspired me to compile a bibliography of the firm’s published work.

A logical starting point for me was to perform Buff & Hensman; Buff, Straub & Hensman; and Buff, Smith & Hensman searches in my 8,000 item “Julius Shulman Annotated Bibliography.” The search resulted in 250 articles with Shulman photos of Buff & Hensman projects. Shulman has logged close to 50 assignments on Buff & Hensman projects over the years for various clients ranging from the architects to book and article authors, magazine editors, newspaper reporters, exhibition curators, homeowners and realtors. He also used his considerable marketing skills and contacts with publishers and editors to help spread the gospel of modernism according to Buff & Hensman to a global audience. Building upon my Shulman listings, exhaustive searches were also done in the Buff & Hensman archives courtesy of Dennis Smith, on ProQuest, Los Angeles Times Historical, RIBA, Avery, WorldCat, WilsonWeb, Art Index, Google and many other databases and sources resulting in well over 450 items discovered to date.

I am also in the process of compiling a Buff & Hensman Project Database which will list all of the firm’s projects, built or unbuilt, by year and job address. I hope that this effort will then make it easier for Buff & Hensman fans to find the still-existant work and foster future preservation efforts of same. My starting point for this effort was the “Chronology of Projects” compiled by James Steele and Alex Moseley included in the back of Buff & Hensman by Donald C. Hensman and edited by James Steele with introduction by Alex Moseley. To complete the work I am in the process of doing a tube-by-tube search of the plans in the Buff, smith & Hensman office to locate the individual project addresses. Once that effort is finished, I plan to merge that information into this bibliography chronologically by year as described below.

Structure of the Bibliography

Entries in the bibliography are chronological with divisions by year followed by a list of the year’s projects (when the above-mentioned database is complete) and finally, annotated bibliographical items published during the year. I have also included thumbnail images of the covers featuring the firm’s work. I have not taken the time to edit items from the Shulman bibliography that contain work by others in addition to Buff & Hensman. Readers may find it interesting, however, to see what company the firm was keeping in these group articles. Illustrations are from my personal collection, the firm’s archive, or from various internet sources and credited in the adjacent bibliography listing.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dennis Smith who has allowed me unfettered access to the firm’s archives in Pasadena and Don Hensman’s nephew Mark Troughber for sharing his extensive collection.

Link to the Bibliography

Buff & Hensman

Other Links of Interest

For a recent post on my blog Southern California Architectural History see “A Case Study in the Mechanics of Fame: Buff, Straub & Hensman, Julius Shulman, Esther McCoy and Case Study House No. 20” at:

http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/01/three-amigos-conrad-buff-iii-calvin.html

For more on the firm go to:

http://www.buffsmithandhensman.com/

For more on Calvin Straub and his Arizona work go to:

http://www.modernphoenix.net/straub/calvinstraubarizona.htm

For more on Case Study House No. 20 and Buff, Straub & Hensman visit the blog:

http://casestudyhouse20.blogspot.com/

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Pauline Gibling Schindler, 1920. R. M. Schindler photo. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)

Pauline Schindler’s mercurial relationship with husband R. M., her penchant to surround herself with artistically-minded, leftist intelligentsia and the creation of a salon-like atmosphere at the Kings Road House are all well-documented in Robert Sweeney’s highly recommended “Life at Kings Road: As It Was 1920-1940″ in the 2001 MOCA exhibition catalog The Architecture of R. M. Schindler organized by Elizabeth A. T. Smith and Michael Darling from which much of the material in this post is gleaned. All references will be denoted by (Sweeney). Sweeney recreated a fascinating story from the lively and voluminous correspondence preserved by Pauline Gibling Schindler (PGS).

I hope to build upon Sweeney’s findings by concentrating more deeply upon PGS’s considerable efforts to promote and market the brand of modernism produced by her notable circle of avant-garde architects, composers, musicians, designers, dancers, artists, writers, gurus and bohemian and radical friends and acquaintances. Her importance to a wider acceptance and appreciation of modern architecture and the arts in Southern California is much under-appreciated as her Kings Road, Carmel and Ojai salons, editorials, articles, exhibitions and lecture bookings generated numerous contacts which resulted in important clients for both her husband and his erstwhile partner and tenant Richard Neutra and others fortunate enough to have been in her circle.

Other useful sources were: R. M. Schindler by Judith Sheine, Phaidon, 2001. (Sheine), The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Volume II: California, edited by Nancy Newhall, Aperture, 1961, (Weston), Dione Neutra’s Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, (P&F), Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970, by Thomas S. Hines, (Sun-Hines), Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture, Oxford University Press, 1982, (RN-Hines), and Esther McCoy’s Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys: Letters Between R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra, Arts + Architecture Press, 1979, (McCoy).

During this period, the lifestyle embodied in Schindler’s design for his house was observed by the Schindlers (and the Neutras after they moved in in March 1925) through diet and exercise, psychoanalysis, education, and the arts of music, dance, painting and photography. The outdoor courts were dining rooms and playrooms for their toddlers, who ran free under the sun year round. They slept in the open air, ate simple meals of fruits and vegetables by the fireplaces, and wore loose-fitting garments of natural fibers closed with ties rather than buttons. At their parties, the terraces served as stages for musical and dance performances; in the audiences were many aspiring California artists, actors and writers.

Richard, Dione and Frank Neutra and RMS at Kings Road, 1925. Photographer unknown. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)

Former Neutra employee Harwell Hamilton Harris’s very insightful introduction to Esther McCoy’s Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys: Letters Between R. M. Schindler sheds much light on the Sunday evening open houses Pauline organized at Kings Road and the people who attended them, including himself. He wrote, “Poets, playwrights, dancers, photographers and musicians were not the only visitors on these occasions. Socialists, reformers and intellectuals of all varieties were there. The talk was not chit-chat but about revolutionary ideas in all fields. The New, the Advanced. There were no fights because the participants, too, were advanced and so in fundamental agreement with one another. Most were locals; some were habitues; others were ones who came and went. Everyone felt free to bring a friend if he were interesting; it was a way to entertain.”

Former Kings Road tenant Viennese architect A. R. Brandner recalled, “Pauline made the gatherings but it was Schindler who enjoyed them.” The parties were, “…happy times, unique gatherings – the intelligentsia and desperate characters. Pauline preferred a serious party, but when Schindler and Sadakichi Hartmann got together it was glorious fun.” (McCoy, p. 14, 41). A multi-talented artist, writer, critic and actor, Hartmann played the role of the Chinese prince in Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad in 1923. He was favorably reviewed in a July 5, 1923 L.A. Times article “New Faces and New Angles on Favorites” by Edwin Schallert.

Left, Sadakichi Hartmann, 1919, Edward Weston portrait. Photo courtesy of Center for Creative Photography. http://ccp.uair.arizona.edu/ Right, “Hartmann Reading Poe at Schindler’s”, pen and ink, Boris Deutsch, January 8, 1928. From the exhibition catalog The Life and Times of Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867-1944, UC-Riverside, 1970.

Announcement for a February 22, 1930 talk on modern art at Kings Road. From Sweeney, p. 107.

Pauline’s mother Sophie, a frequent guest at Kings Road wrote in a December 16, 1926 letter to her husband,”…when company drops in [Pauline] is a most fascinating hostess. Sunday evening it struck me again how much atmosphere, uniqueness and charm there is about her parties, and what interesting people she collects.” (Sweeney, p. 104).

The marriage was not a peaceful one. Schindler was truly a Bohemian and did not respect the institution of marriage, and behaved accordingly. Pauline had wanted to consider the marriage a legal formality to satisfy her family, but was much more conventional in her response to it than she imagined she would be. (From http://www.ex-tempore.org/ExTempore96/cage96.htm). The painter Conrad Buff, who gravitated in both the Kings Road and Jake Zeitlin social orbits and commissioned Neutra in 1927 to design the garage and entryway for his Eagle Rock house and studio, said of Schindler in his UCLA Oral History, “Schindler, besides being a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, was a very handsome fellow. He was quite a ladles’ man, and part of his business was to make love to all the ladies he could. He had a very interesting wife, but that didn’t bother him. There was quite a group of people that used to meet down at Schindler’s house.” (Buff Oral History).

PGS and RMS’s relationship finally reached the breaking point in late August 1927. Pauline packed up and left with son Mark in secrecy to avoid a confrontation. (Sweeney, P&F, p. 167). She had just weeks earlier written a highly favorable two-part review of tenant Richard Neutra’s Wie Baut Amerika? which was published in the July 30 and August 6 issues of the Los Angeles City Bulletin. This was about the time that Leah and Philip Lovell, RMS clients and Kings Road salon habitues, commissioned Neutra to design what would become his tour de force Lovell Health House which launched his distinguished career. The same year he designed s small remodel job for Lovell’s Physical Culture Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The Neutra’s had previously moved into the Kings Road guest-studio in March 1925 and the Chace wing about a year later. Galka Scheyer, Kings Road guest-studio tenant while apprenticing with Schindler for three months over the summer of 1927, was not only witness to Pauline’s departure but apparently facilitated the Lovell commission by talking to Lovell, Schindler and Neutra about their mutual concerns of who would (or wouldn’t) be working on the Health House design. (Sweeney, P&F, p. 171 and “Braxton Gallery, 1928-1929, Hollywood” by Naomi Sawelson-Gorse in The Furniture of R. M. Schindler, UCSB, p. 87).

“Recalling Happy Memories”, Peter Krasnow, summer 1927. Galka Scheyer lecturing on The Blue Four at Kings Road. From Galka E. Scheyer and The Blue Four: Correspondence, 1924-1945 edited by Isabel Wunsche, Benteli, 2006.

In 1929 Hazel Watrous became associated the Seven Arts Press which printed The Carmelite. (See above). In 1935 Denny and Watrous established Carmel’s now-famed annual Bach Festival, a continuing highlight of the town’s social season.

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Westways, 1934. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

I ran across the above article yesterday while researching something else. It’s a project that I have never seen before in all my years of Neutra research.  Barbara Lamont, frequent architecture and housing contributor to Westways Magazine, in this article, “California Castles in the Air”, described numerous recently built penthouses in Los Angeles and the increasing trend towards building more. She describes and includes a photo of the home of Mr. James Oviatt atop his Oviatt Building in downtown Los Angeles, a photo of the Norman-French penthouse at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Blvd., and references penthouse units at the El Royale on N. Rossmore, the Taggart, Highbourne Gardens, Sunset Towers, the Piccadilly, the La Belle Tour, and the Chateau Elysee in Hollywood. The article discusses why in a city with so much land would people “resort to crowded Manhattan’s expedient of building houses on top of other houses?”

Lamont then goes on to list the advantages penthouses bring such as reduced maintenance costs, convenience for traveling, concierge service and nice surroundings. She then questions the need for so much space in a penthouse and says there could be many more of them if they were smaller. To illustrate her point, editor Phil Townsend Hanna commissioned Richard Neutra to draw a sketch and floor plan for a modern one-bedroom penthouse to be used in the article. (See above). The “Skyline Apartments” drawn on a Hollywood hillside slope with a view towards the ocean include Neutra’s plan with a “small, efficient kitchen, snug dining-room, spacious living-room, and single bedroom no larger than comfort demands.”

“The last requisite, modernity, is supplied by the lines of the house design, which are low, racy and dynamic, with clean-cut angles and wide sweeping curves. The design calls for plenty of roof space, so the occupant can live and sleep out of doors. The house is, in fact, a country home in the middle of a city, with fresh air and high seclusion.”

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Los Angeles Times Headline, March 15, 1952. From ProQuest

Heavy rains on the ides of March, 1952 resulted in a major and rather disastrous life-event for photographer Julius Shulman, his family and his beloved home at 7875 Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills. He had met architect Raphael Soriano March 5, 1936, the same fateful day he met Richard Neutra, befriended him and in 1947 chose him to design his home and photography studio which has since become City of Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument No. 325. (See my related post at http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/06/julius-shulman-chronicles-1936.html).

Shulman house under construction circa May 1949. Julius Shulman photo from “Julius Shulman: The Building of My Home and Studio”, Nazraeli Press, 2009. (From my collection).<

Construction began on the house in May 1949. From the above photo it can be seen how heavy construction equipment including this bulldozer was needed to carve out a building pad from this steep, two acre parcel in Laurel Canyon. Shulman, wife Emma and four-year old daughter Judy moved into their steel-framed dream home on March 5, 1950, fourteen years to the day after the official beginning of his professional architectural photography career. (See my related post at http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/julius-shulman-residence-7875-woodrw.html).

First publication of the Shulman Residence in “A Guide to Contemporary Architecture in Southern California”, edited by Frank Harris and Weston Bonenberger, designed by Alvin Lustig, 1951. (From my collection).

The above photo of the house was taken shortly after moving in circa 1951. Note the landscaping just beginning to become established. Daughter Judy can be seen looking out the sliding glass door. The Shulman’s felt privileged to live in their Soriano home as Shulman states in his autobiography “Julius Shulman: Architecture and Its Photography”, “An unexpected bonus was thrust into our lives: Soriano was the foremost pioneer in designing steel-framed structures in his world of architecture. How fortunate for us, for during successive decades, seismic activity left us untouched.”

Julius Shulman being taken to the hospital on a stretcher with a broken leg after a landslide occurred in the heavy rains of March 15, 1952. Los Angeles Examiner photo from http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assetserver/controller/view/EXM-N-9542-029~1

A torrential rainstorm on March 15, 1952 created massive runoff from the slope behind the Shulman home which overwhelmed the newly-planted landscaping and brought down tons of mud, boulders and debris crashing into the garage and rear of the house. Shulman’s valiant attempt to shore things up to keep the slide from entering the house resulted in a broken leg and a wet ambulance trip to the hospital. His log book indicates he was out of commission for close to five weeks until the leg had healed well enough to get back on his feet. At the time Shulman was averaging about one-and-a-half assignments per day so he took quite a hit to the pocketbook as well.

Landslide damage resulting from the heavy rains of March 15, 1952. Julius Shulman photo from “Environment and Design in Housing” by Lois Davidson Gottlieb, Julius Shulman, Photography Consultant. (From my collection).

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assetserver/controller/view/search/EXM-N-9542-029~2

Landslide damage resulting from the heavy rains of March 15, 1952. Julius Shulman photo from “Environment and Design in Housing” by Lois Davidson Gottlieb, Julius Shulman, Photography Consultant. (From my collection).

Shulman quickly recovered from his broken leg, repaired the house and attacked the hillside with a vengeance building retaining walls out of stacked concrete. He then planted countless other varieties of vegetation that have long since fully matured as seen in the photo below. Over the last 58 years the grounds have grown into a forest of redwood, eucalyptus, jade, and agave, cut by trails that lead to the property’s edge.

Shulman House from the hillside above. From “Julius Shulman Does His Own House” by Julius Shulman and David Tseklenis, Nazraeli Press, 2008. (From my collection).

In a December 29, 1978 letter to Soriano from his autobiography Shulman writes, “Our home seems to accelerate in spirit and excitement as the years pass by. We finally have the living area especially, furnished in a most friendly and enveloping manner. The garden is even more exciting for Olga (Shulman’s second wife) has transformed it into a flowery retreat. The above added to the density of our jungle of trees makes this home in my estimation the most complete in every respect. Of course, that is particularly so because we use it twenty-four hours a day. We are home at least four to six days each week so you can imagine how indebted we are to you for having made it possible; a rare feat for an architect. I say that because with the passing years I truthfully have seen very few complete homes. So much is done for architectural trickery or the decoration is an obvious attempt to gild or to impress people and too often the gardens are manicured and stiff, formal statements.”

One can hardly fault Julius for creating his jungle. He was bound and determined to not have a repeat of the scary events of March 15, 1952. He also just loved his garden and never tired of proudly showing it off to each and every visitor to his studio and home.

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(Click on images to enlarge)

The above cover of the March, 1940 issue of California Arts & Architecture featuring a cross-section of Harwell Hamilton Harris’s masterpiece, the Weston Havens House in Berkeley, represents a major milestone in his life as well as John Entenza’s. For Harris it marked the end of his very productive involvement with the publication most responsible for establishing his career. For Entenza it heralded the beginning of his long and illustrious editorship of a publication which had been evolving since 1935 into one of the most respected purveyors of modernism in the country. The story of  this watershed event in the history of the magazine and the lives of the men unfolds below.

For a detailed look at Harwell Hamilton Harris’s life I strongly recommend the Lisa Germany monograph “Harwell Hamilton Harris”, University of Texas Press, 1991 (see above) featured in my recent post on Harris http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/harwell-hamilton-harris-houses-of.html and from which I obtained much of the following material (to be cited below as “Germany”). Also see Esther McCoy’s “The Second Generation”, Gibbs Smith, 1984 (McCoy SG) for a very insightful chapter on Harris. Harris’s oral history, “The Organic View of Design Oral History Transcript” is also another great source of material on his life and can be viewed online at at  http://www.archive.org/details/organicviewofdes00harr (UCLA). For material on John Entenza I recommend “Case Study Houses 1945-1962″ by Esther McCoy (CSH), Barbara Goldstein’s “Arts & Architecture: The Entenza Years” (Goldstein), “Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses” edited by Elizabeth A. T. Smith (BFML) and Taschen’s  “Arts & Architecture: The Complete Reprint 1945-1967.”

Harwell Hamilton Harris was born on July 2, 1903, in Redlands, California. Harris moved to Los Angeles in 1923, where he transferred from Pomona College after his second year to Otis Art Institute to pursue his studies in sculpture and painting. He also studied under noted abstract colorist Stanton MacDonald-Wright beginning in 1925. A visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House circa 1927 suggested by fellow sculpture student Ruth Sowden, who was then having a house built by Lloyd Wright, and immediately afterward viewing Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio at the L.A. Public Library was an epiphany for him to study architecture instead. At the age of 25 he applied to University of California Berkeley to that end and was accepted for the fall of 1928. (McCoy, SG).

Meanwhile another Otis student told Harris about Richard Neutra’s Jardinette Apartments then under construction in Hollywood. Noting the architect’s address on the project sign, Harris went Schindler’s Kings Road House where he received another indoctrination in modern architecture and met both Schindler and Neutra. Ironically, it was Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio that also influenced both Schindler and Neutra to emigrate to the United States to meet Wright and begin their brilliant careers. Neutra, needing help at the time, convinced the impressionable Harris that he would learn much more by going to work for him and taking night classes than he ever would in college. He canceled his plans for Berkeley and immediately started working in the Schindler House drafting room on completing the finishing touches on the working drawings of the Lovell Health House. (McCoy SG).

While working for Neutra alongside Gregory Ain until 1933, Harris learned the importance of publishing one’s work in furthering one’s career from master publicist Richard Neutra. The publicity Neutra generated must have been very influential and inspiring indeed as he had at least 250 articles published all over the world featuring the Jardinette Apartments, his ground-breaking Lovell Health House, all of the various manifestations of Rush City Reformed, the Vienna Werkbundsiedlung Model House, and Neutra’s personal residence, the VDL Research House during Harris’s employment. Harris also saw how Neutra’s ability to get his built and unbuilt projects globally published established a foundation from which to build his practice.

Neutra’s 1927 book “Wie Baut Amerika? and 1930 book “Amerika” (see above) must have instilled a sense of pride in Harris to be working for some of such international renown. Neutra also published an article under Harris’s byline in the April 1930 issue of Die Form “Ein amerikanischer Flughafen” describing the Lehigh Portland Cement Airport Design Competition which was also incorporated into Rush City Reformed. During this period, Harris became familiar with the principles of the Modernist movement and served as secretary of the American chapter of the Congrés Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) which was headed by Neutra. Harris and Ain prepared various elements of Rush City Reformed for Neutra to present at the 1930 CIAM III conference in Brussels during his well-received year-long world lecture tour following completion and extensive publication of his Lovell Health House.

Harris was also witness to how Neutra was able to parlay this recognition into inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art’s seminal Modern Architecture: International Exhibition in 1932. (See exhibition catalog below). Harris worked on the Lovell Health House model below which was included in the MOMA exhibition.

Under Neutra’s direction Harris also played a significant part in bringing the show to Los Angeles. The exhibition needed monied local sponsors to guarantee a venue so Neutra assigned Harris and Ain the task of calling businessmen for support. Harris called John Bullock and convinced him to become one of the directors of institutions subscribing to the exhibition (listed as such in the below catalog) and the show opened in his recently opened art deco showplace, Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store, in the summer of 1932. (Germany). Neutra published a review of the exhibition in the July-August, 1932 issue of California Arts & Architecture which included a photo of his Lovell Health House. The show garnered much local coverage with 20 articles in the L.A. Times beginning in February through August 20, 1932 coinciding with the closing of the Summer Olympic Games also being held in Los Angeles. (“International Stylists’ Designs Thrill Crowds“, Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1932, pp. 16-17).

Neutra enlisted Harris to build the above Lovell Health House model for an exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry for which he was paid $600 in 1930. The model eventually made its way to a museum in Rockefeller Center in New York. (“Life and Shape” by Richard Neutra, p. 259.)

Harris left the Neutra office in 1933 to establish his own independent practice in Los Angeles. His first commissions were for small homes based on the modular modernist principles he had learned from his mentors, Neutra and Schindler. His first significant built project, the Pauline Lowe House (1934) in Altadena, was first published in the October, 1934 issue of House Beautiful, one month after Neutra’s first appearance in the same magazine with his Sten-Frenke House.

Harris’s association with Richard Neutra’s circle paid big dividends as he was included in the January, 1935 special modern architecture and design issue of California Arts &amp; Architecture which was guest-edited by Pauline Schindler. Harris was featured with a two-page spread of his 1934 Pauline Lowe House and an article under his byline, “In Designing the Small House.” This was possibly the first issue of a magazine in Southern California dedicated entirely to modern architecture and also included work by Richard Neutra (Lovell Health House, VDL Research House, Koblick, Mosk, Beard and Sten-Frenke Residences), R. M Schindler (Oliver, Gibling and Wolfe Residences), J. R. Davidson, Kem Weber, Lloyd Wright, Jock Peters, Morrow &amp; Morrow and a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, “Modern Architecture Acknowledges the Light Which Kindled It” by Pauline Schindler.

This same cast of characters (minus Harris) were the subject of a traveling exhibition “What is Modern Architecture?” with venues at UCLA, the California Art Center at Barnsdall Park and the Plaza Art Center during 1930-31. (“Art Club Presents Exhibition: Contemporary Creative Architecture To Be Shown”, L.A. Times, June 22, 1930 plus many other articles). This small tribe of early L.A. Moderns seemingly headed by Neutra were in a constant struggle to spread the gospel of Modernism to the uneducated masses as a means to drum up commissions. Harris must have been thrilled to have finally been included with this crowd and their gradually growing portfolio of built work.

Publisher George Oyer’s courageous January editorial, “California – As We See It” reads, “For some months we have been considering the advisability of recording some of the work of our California modern designers. To the layman, the term modern applies to any house or building with dominating horizontal or vertical lines: to any shop front with polished aluminum or bronze wainscoting. The term modern applied to architecture and interior furnishings has but a vague meaning….It is quite impossible to show all of the distinctive work of our outstanding architects, nor are we able to include in this issue the work of all of our California modernists. In the selection of photographs and articles we are grateful to Miss Pauline Schindler for her able assistance. Whether or not you like it, is beside the point. It is here so we acknowledge it.”

Esther McCoy wrote in “The Second Generation”, “The small band of Moderns was fortunate in having California Arts &amp; Architecture to publish its buildings.” (SG, p. 42). Likewise, Lisa Germany states on p. 71 of her 1985 University of Texas exhibition catalog Harwell Hamilton Harris, “Throughout the 1920s and ’30s and into the ’40s, the California House became widely known as the latest in residential design. During these years the magazine California Arts &amp; Architecture was the sounding board for all things Modern, particularly those having to do with architecture.” She goes on to list the seminal January, 1935 modern architecture issue and many soon to follow articles as examples.

This issue met with much negative criticism in the East Coast establishment architectural press with H. Van Buren Magonigle, FAIA writing in the March, 1935 issue of Pencil Points dismissed the movement in California as a “flurry.” “Modern houses, he wrote, looked alike wherever they were built, and nothing about them suggested a home. They do not seem to be built for real people leading real lives.” He further chastised the editorial advisory board’s AIA members for their involvement. (McCoy SG, p. 42). Modernist architect Irving F. Morrow whose work was also included in the January issue penned a full-page rebuttal to Magonigle’s on-going tirade against modern architecture in the June issue.

Harris gained much favorable publicity when his Lowe house design was plagiarized as an entry in the 1934 General Electric Small Homes Competition by architects R. Paul Schweikher and Theodore W. Lamb who won the $2,500 first prize. After seeing the news of his stolen design winning the competition in April 1, 1935 issue of Time Magazine Harris convinced California Arts & Architecture publisher George Oyer to run an expose in his May issue. The article, “Concerning Competitions” compared the almost identical floor plans and nearly verbatim descriptive language and concluded, “While Messers. Schweikher and Lamb win the money, we still insist that a “Californian Wins HONORS in National Competition.” Oyer concurrently sent his article to other publications and Architectural Forum (“California Charges“, June 1935, p. 42) and Aperitif (“What constitutes Plagiarism?” by Pauline Schindler, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1935) published similar pieces garnering overwhelmingly favorable national publicity for Harris over the scandal.

From that point on, Harris was the fair-haired boy of California Arts & Architecture which thereafter was the first to publish all of his work. (UCLA, p. 130). The November, 1935 issue featured Harris’s Graham Laing House under the title, “A Frank Lloyd Wright House with a Hat On.” (See below). Oyer died shortly thereafter and Harris and fiance Jean Murray Bangs, also an occasional contributor to CA&A, became very close friends with his former assistant and successor, Jere Johnson who became publisher in 1936. It didn’t hurt that their offices were by then on the same floor at 2404 West 7th St., Los Angeles. (UCLA).

It was also about this time that a young writer named John Entenza stopped by Harris’s office to meet him, intrigued by the Lowe House and subsequent scandal he read about in the pages of CA&A in January and March. (Germany, p. 53, UCLA, p. 129). Coincidentally, during 1935 Harris was also designing a house for Stella Gramer, law partner of Entenza’s father Tony.

Harris’s personal residence, the award-winning Fellowship Park House completed in 1935, won the 1936 House Beautiful Small House Competition, First Prize in the 1937 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Institute Competition (outdoing two houses by Neutra), and received an Honor Award from the Southern California Chapter of the AIA firmly establishing his reputation in California. The house was first published in the March, 1937 issue of CA&A seen below and was thereafter widely publicized in the local and national press.

John Entenza, still impressed by the Lowe House and possibly having received positive feedback on Harris’s design skills from Stella Gramer, came back a year later to commission Harris to design and build him a house. In the interim, the house Harris had designed for Gramer, was not built as she instead won in a raffle former Harris mentor Richard Neutra’s “Plywood Demonstration House” which was on display at the highly publicized 1936 California Home and Garden Exhibition on Wilshire Blvd. The six houses exhibited were given away at the end of the show with the winners only having to own a lot to move their house onto. Gramer had Harris oversee the movement of the house to her lot at 427 Beloit Ave. in Westwood, design the foundation, rebuild the fireplace and make other adjustments necessitated by moving a house. (UCLA, p. 130, Germany).

Coincidentally, Neutra’s house was the subject of Julius Shulman’s first published architectural photograph which appeared in the July, 1936 issue of Architectural Forum. See my related blog post at http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/julius-shulmans-first-published.html

Harris’s Helene Kershner House appeared a month later in the August, 1937 issue of CA&A (above left) followed by the Marion Clark House (above right) in Carmel-by-the-Sea in the March, 1938 issue. (Both from my collection).

The completed Entenza House made it’s CA&amp;A debut in the May, 1938 issue. (See above left and right from my collection).

Harris’s house for Greta Granstedt appeared in CA&A in July, 1938 and his Mr. and Mrs. George C. Bauer Residence in August, 1939 (above left (renderings by Whitney Smith) and right from my collection).

California Arts & Architecture, January, 1940. (From my collection).

The January, 1940 number, an extremely important issue in editor-publisher Jere Johnson’s legacy, featured the Kershner House living room lighting (above left) and also had the distinction of being Julius Shulman’s first cover photo (above right). Johnson was by then beginning to recognize the value of Shulman’s eye in enhancing the magazine’s image and gave the fledgling photographer his first opportunity to appear on a cover, no doubt providing a huge boost to his confidence and marketing ability for future work. See my related post at the following link. http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/julius-shulmans-first-cover-photo.html Harris’s work was also included or mentioned in a few other miscellaneous issues in 1939-40. Having learned Neutra’s publicity lessons well, Harris by this time was quite established and well-known through his articles first appearing in CA&amp;A and then being picked up by the editors of other regional and national publications which had reciprocal subscriptions.

Ironically, January’s issue was also to be the last under Johnson, who was by then very close friends with the Harrises. Johnson named frequent contributor Harris to the magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board beginning with the October, 1939 issue based on his rapidly growing national reputation. She was pregnant and needed someone to run the magazine temporarily for her while she went on maternity leave. She asked the Harrises to recommend a substitute and they suggested John Entenza. (Germany, p. 217, note 9). Entenza’s name first appears on the masthead as editor in the February, 1940 issue.

The March, 1940 issue, again pictured below right, Entenza’s second as caretaker editor, has on the cover a cross-section of Harris’s most renowned project, the Weston Havens House in the Berkeley Hills. Little did Harris know at the time but this would be one of his last CA&A appearances as he and Jean would within a few months have a falling out with Entenza over the way he was to gain control of the magazine from their dear friend. The Harrises sincerely believed Johnson had been cheated by Entenza’s lawyer father and his aforementioned partner, Stella Gramer who they believed had put undue pressure on Johnson to sell. (Germany, note 2, p. 217). In the interim, they introduced him to east coast magazine editors at Architectural Record and Architectural Forum and the directors of the Museum of Modern Art in an effort to get him started on the right foot. (Germany, note 4. p. 217).

The March cover reflects a new masthead design with new font. Also never before had a CA&A cover included a cross-section of a project. Comparing with the January, 1940 issue below left with the Julius Shulman first ever cover photo of Paul Laszlo’s Rosenson House illustrates that Entenza’s influence was quickly having an impact on the magazine. Entenza would stick with this masthead until hiring Alvin Lustig in early 1942 to design a makeover which first appeared on the April, 1942 cover. (See later in this post).

The intervening February issue, Entenza’s first at the helm as supposedly the temporary editor, contained a more boldly structured title page (see later below) and also the first appearance of his monthly editorial column “Notes in Passing” which opened with his strength with insightful reviews of recent new plays debuting in Los Angeles. Entenza worked in an MGM experimental film production unit from 1932 until 1936 when it folded due to the depression. (Goldstein). Also a playwright before accepting the CA&A post, he had limited success on the Hollywood stage with his comedy-drama “A Notorious Lady” starring Laura Treadwell having a nice run at the Vine Street Theater in the summer of 1935. (‘Notorious Lady’ Player Has Three Varied Careers’, Los Angeles Times, Jun 15, 1935, p.5).

Entenza’s changes to the title page, creation of his “Notes in Passing” column, and his new cover masthead design his first two months on the job as custodial editor were quite remarkable in my opinion and presaged his ambition and desire to find a way to acquire the magazine. He was like a dog marking his territory and signaling that he was ready, willing and able to take over, not only as editor, but also as publisher and as quickly as possible.

Harris stated in his 1985 oral history, “[Entenza] acquired [CA&A] with very little money, just as he built his house with very little money. Largely on account of the pressure that his father, and particularly his father’s partner, a young woman, I’ve forgotten her name for the moment, [Stella Gramer] for whom I also designed a house which wasn’t built. For her I did move a house that Neutra had built as an exhibition house. Anyway, they were able to put pressure on various ones, whether it was on a contractor to build a house for John or on others to acquire the magazine for him. It was our feeling that Jere had really been cheated in this. That caused our break with John. So when a little bit later he was starting his Case Study program and asked me to design a house for the magazine, I refused to do it.” (UCLA, p. 129).

The apparently unsavory (to Harris and Johnson) takeover was complete by the June-July issue when Johnson’s name no longer appears on the masthead. By August the physical separation was also complete as Entenza had moved the magazine’s offices from the same floor as Harris’s in the Elk’s Club Building at 2404 West Seventh St. to 3305 Wilshire Blvd. where he held court until he sold the magazine to David Travers in 1962. Entenza first offered to sell the magazine to Harris most likely because of his initial recommendation of him for the editorship and expressed interest in the magazine’s continued well-being at the time of the ownership change. (UCLA, p. 132).

Harris’s by now considerable national reputation, soon to be further enhanced by his March, 1940 profile, “Houses by Harwell Hamilton Harris” in Architectural Forum and global Havens House publicity, prompted Entenza to keep him on the masthead as an Editorial Advisory Board member. Harris’s name was finally removed in the May, 1946 issue when his refusal to participate in the Case Study House Program probably became apparent.

Excerpt from an 05/18/1989 Harris letter to McCoy, “Jean and I were good friends of Jere Johnson who was the owner and editor of C.A. &amp;A. My office and the C.A.A. offices were on the same floor of 2404 West Seventh Street (across from Westlake Park (later McArthur Park), and each of my houses was published in C.A. & A. before it appeared elsewhere. At length Jere told Jean she was expecting a baby and she didn’t know who to get to run the magazine while she was out of the running. Knowing that John could at least write and probably edit, we immediately suggested him for the job. At the time John knew very little about Architecture, so his only contribution at the very beginning was “Notes in Passing.” John took it over and Jere never got it back. We never knew the details of the takeover. I suppose Jere was too chagrined at her foolishness to want to talk about it. Stella was very sharp and undoubtedly directed John’s maneuvers. This ended John’s and our friendship.”  (Source: Author Susan Morgan).

Despite having all of his previous work published first in CA&A, Harris never again submitted material to Entenza for publication. His reputation secured, from that point on he focused his considerable Neutra-taught publicity skills on national and international publications.

Virtually every source since McCoy’s citations has used 1938 as the beginning of the magazine’s “Entenza Years.” Barbara Goldstein in her introduction to her “Arts &amp; Architecture: The Entenza Years” states that “Entenza published and edited Arts &amp; Architecture from 1938 until 1962.” She later confusingly writes, “…and later, through his father’s law partner (Stella Gramer), he began working as an editor of California Arts & Architecture magazine, a rather stolid provincial publication…” Later in the introduction she states, “By 1939, it was beginning to publish a substantial amount of modern architecture…” McCoy also contributed the essay “Remembering John Entenza” to this publication as well as authorship to some of the anthologized articles and was also a frequent contributor to, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of, Goldstein’s valiant four-year attempt to resuscitate Arts + Architecture in the early 1980. The pair also collaborated on “Guide to U.S. Architecture: 1940-1980″, by Esther McCoy &amp; Barbara Goldstein, Arts + Architecture Press, 1982. See my related post at http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/02/publications-of-esther-mccoy-patron.html

Elizabeth A. T. Smith is clearly disingenuousness in the opening two pages of her otherwise excellent essay “Arts &amp; Architecture and the Los Angeles Vanguard” in the essential 1989 MOCA exhibition catalog Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses which she also edited and which also contains McCoy’s aforementioned essay “Arts &amp; Architecture: Case Study Houses.” She states in her opening paragraph, “From 1938 until it ceased publication in September 1967, Arts & Architecture encapsulated a world view that was intensely modern in all areas of the arts and social sciences.” She starts the next paragraph with, “Upon purchasing California Arts &amp; Architecture in 1938, publisher John Entenza gradually began to change its direction.” The next paragraph begins, “A look at California Arts & Architecture of the pre-1938 era is instructive to better appreciate the changes wrought by Entenza.”

Smith juxtaposed the below two covers on her opening page to accentuate her point that CA&A up until 1938  “Featured for the most part luxury homes, traditional in style, it included only a smattering of modern work.” This statement would have been correct had she used 1935 instead of 1938.

From “Arts & Architecture: The Vanguard Years” by Elizabeth A. T. Smith, in “Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses“, p. 144.

Smith’s next paragraph includes,  “Between 1938 and February, 1939, the date as Entenza’s formal listing as editor on the magazine’s masthead, Arts & Architecture began to address modern subjects, particularly architecture and interiors, more extensively, albeit alongside traditional work. In November 1938 the magazine announced a new departure, of publishing lower-cost houses, with the first of a series of features on “Small Homes of the West.”

Unfortunately Smith was a full year early on the date of Entenza’s editorship and appearance on the masthead so credit rightfully belongs to editor and publisher Jere Johnson for the “Small Homes of the West” series announced by future Case Study House architect Sumner Spaulding who was a long-time member of the publication’s editorial advisory board. If Smith had only gone back a couple more years she would have also seen the “Small House Series” begun by editor Mark Daniels in April of 1936 which ran the rest of that year. Below are the articles announcing the 1936 and 1938 series.

California Arts & Architecture, April, 1936 and November, 1938. (From my collection).

Smith muddles matters even further by then stating, “The presence of new editor John Entenza was strongly felt in the February 1940 issue of California Arts &amp; Architecture, which featured a bolder, restructured title page and the first lengthy article published on art. The issue also contains the first of Entenza’s “Notes in Passing” columns which were to become a regular feature…” Firstly, this was in no way the first lengthy issue on art in California Arts & Architecture. Secondly, what she also disingenuously fails to mention is that this new and improved title page also boldly lists “Publisher, Jere Johnson” directly above Entenza on the masthead and lists her again as “Published by Jere Johnson, 2404 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles, California” elsewhere on the page and that this issue is the correct first appearance of Entenza on the masthead as editor, not February 1939 as she mentions earlier. (See below title page). This also contradicts her earlier statement that Entenza purchased the magazine in 1938. These totally unnecessary manipulations of the facts do not do justice to Entenza’s otherwise truly remarkable and legendary achievements.

California Arts & Architecture, February, 1940, title page. (From my collection).

David Travers, who purchased the magazine from Entenza in 1962, writes in his introduction to Taschen’s “Arts & Architecture: The Complete Reprint 1945-1967″, “By 1933 the Great Depression had starved it down to 30 pages and subsequently into bankruptcy, where John Entenza found it in 1938. Modern had yet to touch the magazine.” In rebuttal to this misinformed statement, an average page count from 1935-39 reveals: 1935-36 pp; 1936-40 pp; 1937-42pp; 1938-42 pp; and 1939-40 pp.. Comparably, the page count under Entenza grew to the high 50s during the height of the Case Study Program advertising bonanza between 1945-50 and then quickly tapered off to slightly less than CA&A prior to his takeover in early 1940. Below I will refute once and for all the apparent historical revisionism that “Modern had yet to touch the magazine” stated by Travers and implied by Smith.

Travers also writes “Although aware of it, the East Coast professional and trade press – Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, Architectural Forum, AIA Journal, House &amp; Garden – had largely ignored the West Coast Revolution in residential design until the 1950s.” This is also a confusing statement as in Harris’s and Shulman’s experience, having their work appear first in CA&amp;A opened doors to this same East Coast press (see citations elsewhere in this post). Until 1940 when he cut ties with Entenza, all of Harris’s work first appeared in CA&amp;A and virtually all of the same work was shortly thereafter picked up by the East Coast editors. Shulman also had close to 150 articles with his photographs published in CA&A-A&A prior to 1950, 100 in Pencil Points-Progressive Architecture, 75 in Architectural Record, 110 in Architectural Forum, and 60 in House &amp; Garden with a significant portion of the East Coast articles first appearing in CA&A.

Both Harris and Shulman (and many others) have Neutra to thank for sparking the initial interest of East Coast editors in West Coast modern residential architecture. Neutra’s pioneering publicity efforts of the early 1930s resulted in prior to 1950: 100 articles appearing in CA&A-A&A, 50 articles in Pencil Points-Progressive Architecture, 80 in Architectural Record, 125 in Architectural Forum, and 40 in House &amp; Garden. CA&A more than any other regional publication in the country kindled East Coast editor’s (and architects) love affair with West Coast work.

Lisa Germany, who must be given credit for bringing the apparently distasteful circumstances surrounding the change of ownership of CA&A to light in her Harris monograph, cited 1938 as when the takeover occurred. (Germany, P. 127).

Noted architectural historians David Gebhard and Harriette Von Bretton wrote in their excellent “L.A. in the Thirties: 1931-1941″, Peregrine Smith, 1975, “In February 1941 John Entenza took over as editor of California Arts &amp; Architecture, and by 1943 he had recast the magazine into an open propoganda vehicle for the new architecture. A similar change occurred in architectural photography with the  emergence of Julius Shulman as dominant interpreter of the new architecture.” (p. 153). Also in note 103 on p. 157 they state “For the February 1944 issue, Entenza dropped “California” from the magazine’s name, suggesting that it had fully attached itself to the Modern International Style.” Many authors must have been confused with so many conflicting dates present in the literature from so many respected historians.

I have found only one source to date which correctly identifies the month of Entenza’s ascension to the masthead which is Victoria Dailey’s well-researched essay “Naturally Modern” in the highly recommended L.A.’s Early Moderns. She states in end note 72 on p. 99 that “after careful examination, I did not find Entenza listed as editor until the February, 1940 issue.” I personally have in my collection a complete run of the magazine from 1935 through 1940 and I concur with her findings that February, 1940 is indeed Entenza’s first appearance on the masthead. There is also much material on Neutra and Harris in Natalie Shivers’ essay, “Architecture: A New Creative Medium” in the same book. Harris was indeed one of  “L.A.’s Early Moderns.”

Dailey also favorably and accurately discusses the evolution of CA&A from a luxury magazine aimed at a genteel reader to a journal advocating modernism in all its forms beginning in 1935-36 under the editorship of architect Mark Daniels who remained until 1938. Beginning in 1935 the magazine took a marked turn towards featuring the small, modern house. Dailey writes, “California Arts & Architecture underwent a redesign in 1936. The change in appearance was striking.” She likened CA&amp;A‘s conversion to the one taking place at Touring Topics under Phil Townsend Hanna’s editorship attributing the makeover possibly to modernist art collector and book designer Merle Armitage’s membership on the CA&A‘s Editorial Advisory Board from 1933 to 1938. See my related post “Touring Topic/Westways: The Phil Townsend Hanna Years” for much on Merle Armitage’s positive influence on that publication as well. http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/03/touring-topics-westways-hanna-years.html.

The above are a sampling of CA&A covers from 1935 through 1937. CA&A was ahead of the national editorial pack in terms of “modern” graphic design, layout and content. The use of cover illustrations and photos of modernist architecture began in 1935. It would be years before such national journals as Pencil Points, Architectural Forum and Architectural Record began using cover illustrations and/or photos. See the examples of their “plain wrapper” period covers below.

The below right July, 1937 Pencil Points Neutra Issue cover was it’s most progressive design to date undoubtedly influenced by Neutra himself. Ironically, Pencil Points had progressed from publishing the Magonigle diatribe against the modern architecture presented in CA&amp;A‘s January, 1935 issue to running an an entire issue devoted to Neutra’s hard-edged “International Style” work only two-and-a-half years later. A year-by-year comparison of the national journals and CA&amp;A during this period clearly shows that CA&amp;A led the way in providing coverage of the modern small single family home and the percentage of its pages devoted to same. Again, Harris’s work was influential in this being the case.

Above left, Architectural Forum, July, 1936. Above right, Pencil Points, July, 1937. (Both from my collection).

What critics of the pre-Entenza CA&A are usually guilty of is not comparing apples with apples, i.e., publications of the same time period as I do above. Graphic design evolves just as does architectural design and architectural photography for that matter and comparisons must be made within the context of these evolutionary processes. Another consideration critics don’t always take into account is that there just wasn’t a whole lot of modern architecture to publish in the mid-1930s. It took a while to catch on as they say. The true test of a publication is in the courage of its editorial staff to publish material that will influence the direction of cutting-edge work which CA&amp;A certainly began to do with the January, 1935 issue. The fact that the East Coast press always wanted to publish Harris’s work after it first appeared in CA&A is a good case in point. (Germany, note 3. p. 217).

Following is a year-by-year look at the “Modern” small house content of CA&A. Besides the January Special Issue on Modern Architecture & Design, 1935 also featured Harris’s Graham Laing Residence, and other smaller modern houses by Case Study Architects William Wilson Wurster and Richard Neutra, Edgar Bissantz,  Eugene Weston, Jr., Milton J. Black, Cliff May, H. Roy Kelley, Erle Webster &amp; Adrian Wilson, Winchton Risley, Miller &amp; Warnecke, Donald McMurray, Thomas D. Church (landscape), Frederick L. Confer, Lilian J. Rice, Kenneth Wing, John Byers &amp; Edla Muir, and others.

In 1936 editor Mark Daniels embarked upon “The Small House Series” in April which featured a different aspect of small, affordable, modern house design in each issue for the rest of the year. Architects whose crisp, contemporary, non-revivalist smaller homes were featured included: H. Roy Kelley (A House of New Ideas), Earl T. Heitschmidt (Las Palmas Demonstration Home), Eugene Weston, Donn Emmons, editor Mark Daniels, Donald D. McMurray, Charles O. Matcham, Milton J. Black, Edgar Bissantz, Roland Coate, Miller &amp; Warnecke, Ralph C. Flewelling, Donald B. Kirby, Kenneth S. Wing, Winchton L. Risley, Kenneth A. Gordon, Earl R. MacDonald, Erle Webster &amp; Adrian Wilson, Frederick L. Confer and others. Future Case Study House architect Sumner Spaulding and furniture and interior designer Paul Frankl were by then on the magazine’s editorial advisory board.

Besides Harris’s Fellowship Park, John Entenza and Helene Kershner Houses, CA&amp;A in 1937 featured contemporary small homes of modernists R. M. Schindler (with Julius Shulman photos), future Case Study House architects Richard Neutra, William Wilson Wurster and Kemper Nomland, Milton J. Black (with Julius Shulman photos), Paul Frankl, Paul Laszlo, Douglas Honnold, Van Evera Bailey, Mario Corbett, John Byers &amp; Edla Muir, Garrett Eckbo, Thomas D. Church, Harold J. Bissner, Leo Bachman, Harold G. Spielman, Charles O. Matcham, Garrett Van Pelt &amp; George Lind, Eugene Weston, Jr., Floyd Brewster, Edgar Bissantz,  H. Roy Kelley, John Ekin Dinwiddie, Manfred De Ahna, Charles A. Hunter, Carleton Winslow, Wesley Eager, Harold G. Elwell, Arthur L. Herberger, Winchton L. Risley, Lyle Nelson Barcume, Curtis Chambers, Miller &amp; Warnecke, Palmer Sabin, Erle Webster &amp; Adrian Wilson, Alexander Levy, Edward Weston photo of Robinson Jeffers, and much more.

CA&amp;A‘s 1938 issues featured Harris’s Marion Clark House in Carmel and John Entenza House, and other contemporary small house designs by Case Study architects Sumner Spaulding, William Wilson Wurster, and Richard Neutra (with Julius Shulman photos), Paul Frankl, Kem Weber, Paul Laszlo, William Lescaze, John Porter Clark, Douglas Honnold, George Vernon Russell, Cliff May, Theodore Criley, John Hudspeth, Garrett Van Pelt &amp; George Lind, Erle Webster &amp; Adrian Wilson, Charles O. Matcham, Cliff May, Harold J. Bissner, Eugene Weston, Jr.,  Edgar Bissantz, Hart Wood, Homer Rice, H. Roy Kelley, Ralph Flewelling, Milton J. Black, Meyer &amp; Holler, Wesley Eager, Pacific System Homes, Leo Bachman and “Small Homes of the West Series.”

1939 featured Harris’s essay on his most important design element,”Wood,” his George C. Bauer Residence and a photo of the fireplace in his Campbell House, a continuation of the “Small Homes of the West” series, a special Small House Issue in July, and small contemporary homes by Case Study architects Richard Neutra (with Shulman photos), William Wilson Wurster, Kemper Nomland and Sumner Spaulding, Lutah Maria Riggs, Paul R. Williams (prefabricated model home and furniture), Alvar Aalto furniture, Paul Laszlo (with Shulman photos), Kem Weber, Paul Frankl, Cliff May, John Porter Clark, James R. Friend, John Byers &amp; Edla Muir, Francis Joseph McCarthy, Mario Corbett, Douglas Honnold &amp; George Vernon Russell, Donald Beach Kirby, Ralph Flewelling, Wurdeman &amp; Becket, Gardner Dailey, Theodore Criley, Joseph Weston, Harold J. Bissner, Frederic Barienbrock, Lockwood de Forrest, Ralph Cornell, Arthur T. Raitt, Adrian Wilson, Winchton Risley, Theodore Criley, Arlos Sedgley, Robert Dennis Murray, Wesley Eager, Carroll Sagar, Clarence W. Mayhew, Paul L. Burkhard, Kersey Kinsey, Meyer &amp; Holler, L. B. Scherer, John Knox, Warren Vesper, William Allen, Vincent G. Raney, L. Frederick Richards, Brewster &amp; Benedict, Charles A. Hunter, Robert H. Ainsworth, Allen G. Siple, Doris Suman, Chester J. Carjola, Allen G. Siple, H. Roy Kelley, Henry W. Howell, Ulysses Floyd Rible, William Mellenthin, Kenneth A. Gordon, Georgius Y. Cannon, Raymond M. Kennedy, Paul Hunter, Caro M. Brown, Paul D. Fox, Kenneth A. Gordon and others.

Thus, early 1940 was a distinct parting of the ways between the Harrises and John Entenza. Thanks to CA&amp;A‘s George Oyer, Mark Daniels and Jere Johnson, Harris’s reputation was already firmly secured. The Weston Havens House seen in the opening cover and below soon became Harris’s most publicized project and opened doors for him everywhere. The preliminary cross-section on the cover was its only CA&amp;A appearance. When his inverted-gabled tour de force was completed in 1941, Harris took a page out of Neutra’s publicity book and began sending off the iconic Man Ray (see below), Maynard Parker and Roger Sturtevant photos of the house to a plethora of global publication editors. Multiple photo layouts of the house soon began appearing in publications such as Life Magazine, House Beautiful, Architectural Record, Architectural Forum, AIA Journal, Magazine of Art, American Builder, Architectural Design, House &amp; Home, Revista de Arquitectura, Nuestra Arqiuitectura, Byggmastaren, Studio, Pageant, Household and many others. For more information on the house and its now iconic and National Register of Historic Places status go to the following link http://www.havenshouse.org/family_history.html

Weston Havens House, Berkeley, 1941. Man Ray photo. http://twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=145774

Later Harris projects continued to appear in the above publications and others including Sunset, Pencil Points, Progressive Architecture, Practical Builder, Interiors, New Republic, Harpers, Mademoiselle, Ladie’s Home Journal, House &amp; Garden, Better Homes &amp; Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Home Companion, Time, Holiday, Costruzione Casabella, Kentiku Sekai, El Arquitecto Peruano, Architects’ Journal, Architectural Review, and many others. Harris also had his work anthologized in most of the important period books compiling modern architecture and interiors and exhibitions and catalogs of same. It is interesting to note that Harris’s name does not appear once in the index to Taschen’s “Arts &amp; Architecture: The Complete Reprint 1945-1967″ despite A&amp;A contributing editor Esther McCoy’s championing of his career in “The Second Generation.”

Harris’s CA&amp;A ending was Entenza’s beginning. When Entenza became caretaker editor in February, 1940 he must have immediately seen the potential of what the magazine could become. Even though it was already ahead of the editorial curve modernistically speaking, he more than likely envisioned taking the magazine to new heights. He obviously knew the “modern” pedigree he was being entrusted with as he had met Harris a couple months after the seminal January, 1935 modernism issue was published. He must have felt a sense of pride to see his Harris-designed house featured in both 1937 and 1938. It was thus probable that he had subscribed to the magazine and knew quite well the direction it had been taking from 1935 onward.

Building upon his predecessor’s foundation Entenza immediately began imposing his modernist sensibilities and taste to take the magazine to the next level. CA&A provided the outlet his creative talents needed to blossom. He had clearly found his calling and made the most of the opportunity Jere Johnson, through Harris, had provided him. No matter the circumstances surrounding the change of ownership, with the ends undoubtedly justifying the means in his mind, CA&A was clearly headed on a path to immortality. The above covers are a sampling of Entenza’s strong first year’s editorial output. One of his earliest covers, September, 1940 (top left) featured an Arthur Luckhaus photo of Richard Neutra’s 1938 Lewin Beach House in Santa Monica which shares similar design elements with his Harris-designed personal residence less than a mile away.

Recognizing early on that the powerful visual language resulting from the combination of Neutra’s architecture and Shulman’s photography would facilitate marketing his notions of modernism and help increase circulation, Entenza started to feature their work on a regular basis. The August, 1941 issue (top right) features an Anikeef cover photo of Neutra’s Davey Residence on the Monterey Peninsula.  The back cover Klearflax Duluth carpet ad in the February, 1941 issue (middle left) with a Shulman photo of Neutra’s Ward Residence at Lake Hollywood illustrates how Entenza began parlaying their work to generate much-needed advertising revenue. The November, 1941 issue (middle right) features a Shulman cover photo of Neutra’s Emerson Junior High School in West Los Angeles. The December, 1941 issue (bottom left) features a Shulman cover photo of a Paul Laszlo-designed interior.

I have included the November, 1942 cover of the Architectural Record to illustrate how Entenza, like his predecessors, kept California Arts & Architecture in the forefront of graphic design by influencing respected national publications to finally start including photos on their covers. Shulman, like Harris, found that appearing first in CA&amp;A opened doors to the east coast establishment journals as this cover photo of Raphael Sorianos’ Glen Lukens House had previously appeared in CA&A‘s August, 1940 issue. Apparently the Architectural Record editorial staff concluded that it was still too risky in 1942 to start with more than a thumbnail image.

Reminiscing to his biographer Lisa Germany, Harris, generally liked what Entenza had done with the magazine and admired the Case Study program but thought dropping “California” from the masthead was a mistake. “Jean and Harris believed the magazine’s strength had been its regional bias – the way it showcased the distinctive aspects of California design.” (Germany, p. 128).

California Arts & Architecture, February, 1942. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/searchimages/images/image_8654_22633.htm

Ray Eames’ whimsical, abstract artistic cover designs also began to appear in 1942 through 1944. Note in the above page from “Eames Design” an example of how ubiquitous the attribution of Entenza’s ownership of the magazine as 1938 has become.

Another fortunate circumstance of Herbert and Mercedes Matter moving to Los Angeles in late 1943 for wartime employment with the Eamses was like manna from heaven for Entenza. Herbert was also immediately put to work at CA&A on article layouts and cover designs. My related post “Herbert and Mercedes Matter: The California Years” http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/03/mercedes-and-herbert-matter-california.html goes into great depth about the happenings at Arts & Architecture from the early 1940s through 1946 and the beginnings of the Case Study House Program, the advent of which would cement Entenza’s place in history as the visionary that he was. Entenza’s greatest strength as an editor was his keen ability to recognize talent and charmingly cajole that talent to further his particular modernist vision at a very economical cost. His recruits such as Shulman, McCoy, Ray and Charles Eames, Alvin Lustig, Herbert Matter and the Case Study House architects were rewarded with listings on the masthead,  the prestige of  being published in one of the most cutting-edge publications in the country and future commissions for work by others. In my opinion, John Entenza and George Nelson were the two most influential editorial tastemakers of the twentieth century.

Readers steeped in the lore of modernist literature might be left then with the question, “Why does virtually every article on the Case Study House Program and/or Entenza and Arts & Architecture magazine published to date cite Entenza’s era at A&A beginning in 1938?” I theorize that Entenza was probably guilty of historical revisionism by implying to McCoy over their close 52-year friendship that his magazine ownership coincided with the publication of his Harris-designed house in 1938 and she probably took him at his word when penning her 1962 “Modern California Houses: Case Study Houses 1945-1962.”  This is puzzling since McCoy was normally a stickler for accuracy on dates in her work. As an example, she was extremely frustrated and almost had a major falling out with Neutra while working on her 1960 Brazillier Neutra monograph. “Well, he wanted–now, for another thing, he wanted me to put the date of the Lovell house in 1927, and I said, “That isn’t true.” I told him I’d had a check through the records at City Hall and got the date of when the drawings were filed and when the building permit was issued, and this was 1929. And then, finally, he said, “Yes, but I like 1927, that was the year that the Barcelona pavilion…” And then a couple of other things, too. He wanted it to be that yea.” (McCoy Oral History, Archives of American Art, http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/mccoy87.htm ).

Elizabeth A. T. Smith’s “Arts & Architecture and the Los Angeles Vanguard” essay in “Blueprints for Modern Living” is even more troubling since a more thorough analysis of CA&A‘s evolution, I believe, would have altered her impression of the years leading up to Entenza’s involvement, despite the seemingly purposeful inaccuracies in the dates of her Entenza editorship and ownership attribution. Her disingenuousness appears intended to enhance the aura surrounding the extent of Entenza’s makeover of the magazine. The Entenza story is quite compelling enough, in my opinion, without her revisionist spin, which results in the total dismissal of the courageous editorial work Oyer, Daniels and Johnson had performed between 1935 and early 1940, well ahead of the national editorial curve, chronicling the evolution and growth of our modernist regional architects and their designs for affordable contemporary single family residences.

David Travers’ statements in his Taschen “Arts & Architecture: The Complete Reprint” introduction are equally mysterious. His misinformation could only have come directly from the mouth of Entenza. Why else would his successor disavow the rich heritage and forward looking modern legacy which California Arts & Architecture epitomized from January, 1935 until the May, 1940 change of ownership? It is unfortunate that Travers had evidently not seen any issues from the late 1930s for virtually every month delivered something of interest for modernistas. In any event, we are all the richer for this wonderful publication having the glorious run that it had.

It is my intent with this post to increase awareness of the important role California Arts & Architecture played in our state’s rich architectural legacy and to begin to set the record straight as to when and how the magazine changed hands. CA&amp;A between January, 1935 and the actual beginning of the Entenza Years in early 1940 is a treasure trove of modernist material ready to be explored and written about. These early issues truly show that California was indeed leading the nation in the production and publication of modern, affordable residential architecture. Recognizing the notable accomplishments of Entenza’s predecessors in no way detracts from his legendary, iconic achievements from early 1940 onward, on the contrary it enhances them. I also hope that authors who have previously published work unwittingly using 1938 as their nexus for Entenza’s canonization help try to correct the record in future work.

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Neutra inquired about Shulman’s background and his work and purchased the Kun House photos from him on the spot. He asked Shulman if he would be interested in other assignments and the rest as they say is history. Neutra obviously recognized the young photographer’s potential and likely relished the opportunity to influence his evolution in the field, and probably at a rate that was initially much less than he was currently paying for Arthur Luckhaus’s services.

Neutra gave Shulman a list of other projects to take a look at which included recent Neutra apprentice Raphael Soriano’s nearby Lipetz House which Shulman visited the same day meeting Soriano at the site. (Wolgang Wagener, Raphael Soriano, Phaidon, 2002, p. 79). From Shulman’s Oral History, “Neutra said, pointing up at the hill above the lake, at the south end of the lake, “Why don’t you drive up there and meet Soriano, who is there every day supervising the construction of the house?” I drove up that afternoon, met Soriano for the first time. We became good friends. And strange, we started our respective careers that same year. And I did pictures of the house when it was completed.”

Soriano recalled the March 5, 1936 meeting with Shulman in his oral history  “Substance and Function in Architecture Oral History Transcript” “You know, Shulman started out photography when I started my first house. He came in with a Brownie one day, said, “Oh Soriano, look! I’m Julius Shulman, a photographer, and I’m just starting out, too; can I photograph your house?” I said, “Sure.” He had a Brownie.”

Julius Shulman’s 1933 birthday gift, a Kodak “vest pocket” camera. From “Julius Shulman in 36 Exposures” by Mary Melton, Los Angeles Magazine, January, 2009. Dan Winters photo. http://www.lamag.com/article.aspx?id=12432

Shulman writes in his autobiography, “At the location I met Soriano, sitting on the newly carpeted living room floor eating lunch. I shared a sandwich with him, and described my meeting with Neutra, which surprised him. Neutra, he stated, was a tyrant with photographers. That utterance was followed by him asking, “Would you photograph this house when it is completed?” Not only did I photograph the house several months later, but subsequently its publication in this country and abroad served to showcase Soriano’s design and my talents.”

Lipetz House, Silverlake, Raphael Soriano, 1936. Julius Shulman photos, 1936 (From “Raphael Soriano” by Wolfgang Wagener, Phaidon, 2002

Left, National Steel Housing Corp. Exhibition House, 1934, Richard Neutra from Pencil Points, July Special Neutra Issue. Right, John Entenza House, 1937, Harwell Hamilton Harris from “Harwell Hamilton Harris” by Lisa Germany, University of Texas Press, 1991.

Soriano’s Lipetz House above exhibits the same semi-circular design elements as Neutra’s above left 1934 National Steel Housing Corp. Exhibition House (unbuilt) and recently completed Sten-Frenke and Von Sternberg Houses in Santa Monica and Northridge. Harwell Hamilton Harris, another former Neutra apprentice, would echo this same semi-circular pattern in his above right 1937 John Entenza House near Neutra’s 1934 Sten-Frenke and and 1938 Lewin Houses in Santa Monica. (See my related post http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/california-arts-architecture.html).

Neutra’s unbuilt “Skyline Apartments” seen below in a 1934 Westways article was the most obvious influence of all on Soriano’s design for the Lipetz House, down to the grand piano in the semi-circular living room.See my related post at http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/06/neutras-skyline-apartments-penthouse.html.

Westways, 1934. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

Most likely through his association with Neutra, Soriano’s Lipetz House was chosen as one of the buildings to be presented as representative of American modern architecture in the American Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition which ran from May 4 through November 25th. (Wagener, p. 41). Neutra did not pay his apprentices much but he did help them get published and exhibited early in their careers as he did for Harwell Hamilton Harris in the seminal January 1935 Modern Architecture issue of California Arts & Architecture and Soriano in the Paris Exposition and later group articles. (http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/california-arts-architecture.html).

Neutra was quoted in the July 1937 Special Neutra Issue of  Pencil Points article with the byline of one of his then assistants, Henry Robert Harrison, “You know yourself that I am proud of whatever a young man gets out of an association with me as: Peter Pfisterer from Switzerland, Gregory Ain and Harwell Hamilton Harris from Los Angeles, Stanley Vallet from St. Louis, Raphael Soriano from Greece, Elbert Brown from Texas, Carl Conrad from Pennsylvania, Marshall Shaffer, and yourself.” (Henry Robert Harrison, “Richard Neutra: A Center of Architectural Stimulation”, Pencil Points Special Neutra Issue, July, 1937, pp. 410-438).

Note that the same semi-circular design element is present in the U.S. Pavilion postcard below. Neutra’s Scholts Advertising Agency, Bell Avenue School, Beard and Kun Houses were also on display. He was awarded Bronze Medals by the French Government for the latter three projects.“California Architects Receive High Honors from France”, Los Angeles Times, Sep 18,1938, p. V-2.

Not only did Soriano thus have the distinction of his first project being exhibited in the same venue with his mentor Neutra but also alongside Alvar Aalto’s Finnish Pavilion, Albert Speer’s German Pavilion and Pablo Picasso’s iconic “Guernica” to a paid audience of over 35 million people, heady stuff indeed for the fledgling architect. (See postcards below). There is a good chance that selected Shulman’s photos of the Soriano’s Lipetz House and Neutra’s Kun House were also on display in the exhibition although I have yet to verify this. If they were, it was probably unbeknownst to Shulman as he does not mention this in his autobiography or oral history.

U.S. Pavilion at 1937 Paris International Exposition, Paul Lester Wiener, Charles H. Higgins and Julian Clarence Levi, Associated Architects. http://lartnouveau.com/art_deco/expo_1937/pavillons_pays2/pav_usa.htm

Entrance to the 1937 Paris International Exposition.

In the following weeks Neutra introduced Shulman to other like-minded modernist architects including his former partner R. M. Schindler, fellow European emigre J. R. Davidson, and another former apprentice Gregory Ain.(Rosa, p. 42).

Thus, Shulman’s assignment log book was quickly becoming a virtual listing of the eventual pantheon of modernist Southern California architects. Neutra and his circle were clearly the vanguard for the wave of modernism beginning to break in Southern California in the mid to late 1930s. Shulman was about to become a prime member of the group as they doggedly proselytized their gospel of modern architecture through the editorial pages of California Arts & Architecture, Architectural Forum, Architectural Record, Pencil Points, and through their messiah Neutra’s hard-earned contacts with the European and global architectural press, to the rest of the world. (See my related post http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/california-arts-architecture.html).

Architectural Forum, July 1936. Plywood Demonstration House, 1936, Richard Neutra. Photo by Julius Shulman, circa April 1936. (From my collection).

Shulman’s first published photograph was of Neutra’s Plywood Demonstration House designed for the California House & Garden Exhibition located at 5900 Wilshire Blvd. which I documented at the following link. (http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/julius-shulmans-first-published.html). The house design won the $1,250 second prize in the 1935 General Electric Competition. This top image above right by Shulman appeared with the bottom Mott Studio photo and 2 Arthur Luckhaus photos above left in the July 1936 issue of Architectural Forum and this photo and/or others also appeared later the same year in the September issue of American Architect & Engineer and the October issue of the Japanese architectural journal Kokusai Kenchiku.

My 5,000 item Neutra Annotated Bibliography indicates that he had already published at least 500 articles all over the world by the time he met Shulman, mostly with photographs by Willard D. Morgan until circa 1932 when Morgan moved to the east coast, and then by Arthur Luckhaus. Shulman’s first year ended with the 3 known assignments and 3 documented publications mentioned above. He may have photographed some of the work that was published in 1937 in 1936 which I will speculate upon in future posts.

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For all you legions of Julius Shulman fans the long awaited DVD of “Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman”  is now available. Go to the following link and place your order now.
http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/store/

While at the site also check out film maker Eric Bricker’s excellent blog at http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/blog/ to get the latest news on the film. I was fortunate enough to have met Eric while researching a book I was working with Julius on which will capture all of the covers his images have graced over the years. I have found 800 to date. Eric included half a dozen covers in the film and gave me a nice credit as “Image Consultant.” The film, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, has won numerous Film Festival Awards and just aired on Sundance Channel Monday evening. This is one of those classics that you will never tire of and will watch repeatedly over the years.

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Life Magazine, April 11, 1949, pp. 146-7. Richard Neutra, Kaufmann House, 470 West Vista de Chino, Palm Springs, 1947. Julius Shulman Job No. 093, 1947. From the Journal of Architectural Education, November, 1993, “Glamourized Houses”: Neutra, Photography, and the Kaufmann House by Simon Niedenthal. From my collection.

The above iconic 1947 Julius Shulman image of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House presaged the dynamic duo’s entree into the Pantheon of modernist architecture and photography. Arguably the most iconic architectural photograph ever taken, it is by far both men’s most published work.

Shulman and Neutra circa 1950. From “A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman” by Joseph Rosa. From my collection.

The following February 3, 1947 Time Magazine article (excerpt) was the first significant publicity referencing Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs and was a harbinger of the impending global publicity blitz orchestrated by Neutra and his primary photographer, Julius Shulman.

“Art: Homes Inside Out”

Excerpt from the February 3, 1947 issue of Time Magazine

“The name Richard Joseph Neutra means nothing at all to most Americans. Of all architects who have made their reputations in the U.S., Richard Neutra ranks second only to lordly Frank Lloyd Wright. Last week publishers in Italy and South America were planning books about Neutra. And an issue of the French magazine L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, devoted almost entirely to him, had reached the U.S. Neutra has done as much as any modern architect to prove that glass, steel and concrete are practical, if not cozy.

His wide, white houses perch perkily on the hills around Los Angeles where he lives, and they alter more distant landscapes too. He is versatile enough to have designed both a moated desert mansion for Movie Director Josef von Sternberg and an elaborate system of low-cost schools and hospitals for Puerto Rico. Neutra’s buildings are pondered and imitated (especially in technical details of construction) by architects around the world. Says noted French Architect Marcel Lods in L’Architecture : “[He] is already a classic and will be more so tomorrow. Neutra offers us an infinitely precious message.”

Inside-out House. To deliver that message, Vienna-born Neutra (pronounced Noytra) had come a long way from his first assignment in 1915: a tea house for the fortress of Trebinje, Herzegovina. Neutra came to the U.S. in 1923, sat at the feet of famed Skyscraper Architect Louis Sullivan, the father of modern, functional architecture and the teacher of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Neutra met Wright at Sullivan’s funeral in 1924. Soon afterwards, with his wife and mother-in-law, he paid a long visit to Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin. Neutra named his eldest son for Wright, went forth to preach the gospel of modern architecture on lecture tours which took him from Rome to Tokyo. He long ago fashioned a style of his own, and made mass housing his main interest.

Now, at 54, Neutra is designing a Palm Springs desert hideaway for Pittsburgh Millionaire Edgar J. Kaufmann, whose famed house in Bear Run, Pa.—designed by Wright—overhangs a waterfall. Compared with Wright’s cantilevered castle-in-the-air, Neutra’s Kaufmann house will be down to earth, with the low-flying flat roofs, glass walls and furnished terraces of a house turned inside out. To make life as smooth outdoors as in, the four courtyards will have walls and floors piped for summer cooling and winter heating.”

Courtesy Neutra Archive, Dept. of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. From Christie’s Auction Catalog below.

After reading the above letter from Neutra’s most famous patron, Pittsburgh department store magnate Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., one would not think that the Palm Springs desert house Neutra designed for him would end up being one of the most publicized in architectural history, but that is exactly what happened. Architectural Forum editor Henry Wright also penned Neutra a self-serving letter dated June 17, 1947 stating that Kaufmann had agreed with him that the house only be published in Life and Architectural Forum domestically. Neutra knew that this commission was his best work yet and wasn’t about to let his client’s wishes stop him from launching the most ambitious publicity campaign of his career. For a more in-depth analysis if the early publicity of the Kaufmann House see the Journal of Architectural Education, November, 1993, “Glamourized Houses”: Neutra, Photography, and the Kaufmann House by Simon Niedenthal.

Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, June 15, 1947. Fist publication with Shulman photos. From the Journal of Architectural Education, November, 1993, “Glamourized Houses”: Neutra, Photography, and the Kaufmann House by Simon Niedenthal. From my collection.

To counteract this slow roll-out in the U.S., Neutra devised a campaign to publicize the house heavily overseas, drawing upon the dozens of editors he had courted with his previous projects. Per an agreement with Kaufmann, he did not mention the owner’s name and disguised the location as being in the “Colorado Desert.”

Beginning in June, 1947 through 1950 the Richard Neutra Kaufmann House with Julius Shulman photos was featured in Architects’ Journal and Architectural Review, (Britain), Metron, Casabella and Domus (Italy), Marg (India), Arkitekten (Denmark), Architekt (Poland), L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and L’Architecture Francaise (France), Baumeister (Germany), Revista de Arquitectura (Buenos Aires), Kokusai-Kentiku (Japan), and Arquitectura (Mexico), not to mention numerous articles with which it was grouped with other Neutra projects. Including the opening Life Magazine spread, Neutra’s publicity quest was so successful that it catapulted him to the cover of Time Magazine‘s October 15, 1949 issue.

Time Magazine, Oct. 15, 1949. Richard Neutra and preliminary floor plan of Kaufmann House. From my collection.

Sidebar:

Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr. was in the U.S. Air Force Intelligence Service at the time the senior Kaufmann commissioned Neutra to design the house in 1946. When he returned from the service he was ‘outraged’ that his father had turned to an architect other than Wright.

In his book Fallingwater, Kaufmann, Jr. states with the benefit of many years of detachment, “It fell to me to talk of the way this would appear in relation to Fallingwater. The Neutra house would be interpreted as a rejection of Wright, and Wright would be the first person to react. My father agreed to withhold his name from publication of the new house, and during Wright’s lifetime it was known merely as “a house in the [Colorado] desert”, as the local area, curiously, was called.”

In his essay text for the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition catalog “The Kaufmann Office: Frank Lloyd Wright” Christopher Wilk cites Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer’s “Master Drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives”, “Despite harmony between Neutra and Kaufmann and the bestowal of several awards upon the new house, the large number of unprotected windows and plate glass walls left the house too exposed to the desert sun. The Kaufmann’s therefore turned to Wright for an alternate scheme in 1951.” (See below).

Aerial perspective, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Boulder House (unbuilt) for Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufman, Sr., Palm Springs, 1951. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. From Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect edited by Terence Riley, Museum of Modern Art, 1994. From my collection.

In the above Boulder House rendering, Wright condescendingly contrasts his bold grand organicism with Neutra’s seemingly much smaller “International Style” footprint seen in the upper right corner. Hoffmann writes, “The house of boulders was never built, and perhaps was more nearly intended as a chance for Wright to show what he might have done had E. J. Kaufmann not gone to Neutra: the difference, that is, between “organic” architecture and the International Style, or what Neutra chose to call his “biorealism.”Wilk states, “His ‘Boulder House’ surrounded by desert rocks and with a plan based upon circular motifs (including a moat-like swimming pool) was not built, perhaps owing to Edgar Kaufmann’s ill health – a prime reason for his spending more time in the desert climate – or difficulties with his marriage. Wright referred to the design as a rare and beautiful thing. One of my very best.”

Bibliography Introduction

(excerpted from the bibliography retrievable at the link below)

All photos by Julius Shulman unless noted. Click on image to enlarge. Full credits given in the bibliography at the bottom link.

I would like to acknowledge Julius Shulman for the inspiration to create this bibliography. As I gradually became an avid fan and collector of material pertaining to Southern California modernist architecture over the last few years, I grew to appreciate the great importance of Shulman’s legacy in chronicling its evolution and growth. I also started to realize the ubiquitousness of his images in the architectural literature and on the covers of same. I approached him a few years back and asked if he had ever thought of doing a book which would collect all of the covers from books, shelter magazines, and architectural journals that his photos have graced. He liked the idea and invited me up to his idyllic Raphael Soriano-designed studio in the Hollywood Hills. After an introductory chat he told me to open the doors to his closet and pull down some of the dusty old 8X10 Kodak film storage boxes from the top shelf. They were stuffed to the gills with clippings and tear sheets he had saved over the years from various articles containing his photos. As we rummaged we found numerous covers he had long forgotten about and which I had never seen.

Thus began a journey on which there seems to be no end. Julius gave me much encouragement and allowed me free reign to browse, and catalogue his studio archives. He also graciously shared with me his assignment log book which contains over 7,000 records and counting as he continued to work beyond his recently-celebrated 98^th birthday. He introduced me to important historians, film makers and archivists and regaled me with anecdotes on his assignments and clients. To date we have uncovered over 800 covers on which his photos have appeared. Julius has chosen the title “Julius Shulman Covers Up” for this effort and uses it with an impish twinkle in his eyes. While conducting my exhaustive search for Shulman covers I began compiling an annotated bibliography of all the publications his work has appeared in. It has become a labor of love which now approaches 8,000 items. It has also provided focus to, and facilitated, my collecting efforts.

Slim Aarons photo, 1970.

The history of Shulman’s relationship with his first and most important client, Richard Neutra, is well-known. Neutra was eminent in international architectural circles prior to his introduction to Shulman but it was Shulman’s artistic style that exhibited Neutra’s work in a way that truly focused a viewer’s attention on the evolution of modern residential architecture in Los Angeles and Southern California. Their collaborative body of globally-published work greatly enhanced both their reputations and established Southern California as a modernist Mecca for American and foreign architects alike, as well as critics, journalists, historians and enthusiasts of the genre.

Neutra and Shulman’s careers are so intertwined that one really cannot be researched without the other. Therefore, while I was assembling Shulman’s bibliography it made sense to me to concurrently create another for Neutra. This has led to a Neutra annotated bibliography comprised of over 5,000 entries to date, about 40% of which contain Shulman photos. Likewise, roughly 30% of Shulman’s bibliography items contain photos of work by Neutra. Neutra’s proficiency at self-promotion is evidenced by the over 2,000 articles containing Shulman photos resulting from only about 225 assignments. Neutra always ordered 10 sets of prints, split them up and distributed them to editors all over the world and ordered many reprints of selected projects.

Neutra’s Kaufmann House is one of the most important icons of Southern California Modernism. It is arguably exceeded in significance by only Neutra’s Lovell Health House and/or R. M. Schindler’s Kings Road House. Julius Shulman’s photographs have played a momentous role in establishing the house’s iconic status and it is both men’s most published work. The reader is referred to an excellent essay by Simon Niedenthal which appeared in the November 1993 issue of the Journal of Architectural Education “Glamourized Houses: Neutra, Photography, and the Kaufmann House” to obtain a sense of Neutra’s early eagerness to broadly publicize his masterpiece balanced by Kaufmann’s desire for a slow roll-out in the national press and journals. The article goes into depth regarding the creation of Shulman’s “glamorous” image and the importance photography plays in an architectural monument achieving iconic status. Also noteworthy is Christie’s “Richard Neutra: The Kaufmann House” May 13, 2008 auction catalogue for its photos and illustrations and contextual historic background information.

My bibliographic software is easily searchable and sortable. Recent searches of my Shulman and Neutra bibliographies for the Kaufmann House turned up over 500 hits which segued into this publication. Neutra’s relentless and strategic efforts to universally publish all of his work resulted in over 150 articles referencing the Kaufmann House (almost exclusively with Shulman photos) from its completion in 1947 until his death in 1970. Only 70 articles are documented from then until the purchase of the house for restoration by Beth and Richard Harris 25 years later. From 1995 to date there have been close to 275 articles resulting from the publicity surrounding the restoration efforts by the Harrises and their restoration architects Marmol & Radziner, and the rekindled interest in Neutra’s work by architectural historians, Palm Springs Modernism, architectural preservation and modernism in general, and publicity surrounding the recent Christie’s Realty International auction.

No bibliography is ever truly complete, especially one involving the work of publishing dynamos of the likes of Richard Neutra and Julius Shulman. This bibliography collects Kaufmann House-related items from all existing Neutra bibliographies and books by or about Neutra and countless modern architecture histories and anthologies. Despite my exhaustive on-line database searches, cover-to-cover journal and magazine searches at local research institutions and libraries, Neutra and Shulman archival searches at the UCLA Charles Young Research Library and Getty Research Institute, respectively, there is yet much material to be mined on these two idols of modernism in the research libraries of the world. Consequently this document should best be viewed as an attempt to stimulate further in-depth research on the Kaufmann House and possibly provide a starting point for a book on the subject. It is my intention to periodically update this compilation as new material continues to be uncovered. Internet searches for the Kaufmann House uncover thousands of additional references. Suggestions for improvements and submissions of new items are always welcomed. My contact information is on the title page.

Link to Bibliography:

Kaufmann House Bibliography

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This event a was nice followup to the March 28th Pasadena Heritage Spring Home Tour “Buff & Hensman: The Art of Modernism”, (see tour brochure cover below)

Following is a link to the latest SAH/SCC Newsletter announcing the event http://www.sahscc.org/SAHSCC%20News%20MaJu%202010.pdf.

SAH/SCC organized this very successful event as part of their “Modern Patrons” series which was a very special opportunity to visit the Buff & Hensman King Residence “Arroyo del Rey” adjacent to not so dry Arroyo Seco beneath the monumental Highway 134 over-crossing in Pasadena. (See image below). Built in 1979, the King Residence is a superb example of Buff & Hensman’s melding of architecture and landscape in a most unusual setting in the Arroyo. In March 2009, the Pasadena City Council officially designated the Kings’ home a Historic Monument.

Saturday was a rare chance to experience the house and surrounding gardens, pavilion, and creekside gazebo and also to learn firsthand from Carol how she and husband Richard came about hiring the architects to create a place of serenity and refuge in a spectacular setting. In the monograph Buff & Hensman (USC Guild Press/Balcony Press, 2004), author Don Hensman recalls the King Residence as “a deceptively straightforward floor plan (that) is balanced without being superfluous.

Neutral stucco walls complement the natural wood trim of the sunken living room. In fact, the home feels more like sculpture than structure. We designed the artscape and landscaping to connect three structures, blending them into the natural surroundings.” (The above monograph contains a nice 6-page spread on the King Residence). Carol informed the intimate group attending Saturday’s event that their 1.5-acre compound was executed in three phases during which the undertaking led to a very close friendship with Conrad and Don.

Also major USC patrons, the Kings hosted a memorable symposium “The World of Buff & Hensman” on November 16, 2008 at which the formal announcement of the donation of their fabulous home, “Arroyo del Rey”, a prime example of Buff & Hensman’s work, to USC School of Architecture for use as an events center and the acceptance by School of Architecture Dean Ma were made. The Kings are also providing a generous endowment for the compound’s maintenance. Thus, the home and surroundings will be preserved in perpetuity and in the future will be known as “The Carol Soucek King and Richard King Center for Architecture, Arts and the Humanities/University of Southern California.”

 

Above is the title page for Carol’s soon to be released “Under the Bridges at Arroyo del Rey”. Illustration by Miller Fong. The following link connects you to her impressive Author’s Page at Amazon where you will see that most of these titles are becoming quite scarce. http://www.amazon.com/Carol-Soucek-King/e/B001HMQQPI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1273609216&sr=1-3

 Designers West, Vol. 30, No. 12, October, 1983. Modesto Lanzone’s San Francisco Restaurant, Interior Design by Teresa Pomodoro, Russell Abraham photo.

Back issues of Designers West edited by Soucek King are also becoming increasingly rare and quite collectible. The above issue contains a spread of Beth Kudlicki and my Buff & Hensman home in Playa del Rey, the 1983 Harry Dorsey Residence with Julius Shulman photos. We also have a 6-page spread in the above “Buff & Hensman” monograph.

For a related post I did last January on Buff, Straub & Hensman go to http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/01/three-amigos-conrad-buff-iii-calvin.html

I have an Annotated and Illustrated Buff & Hensman Bio-Bibliography in the works which currently contains over 500 articles. Also under way, with the assistance of remaining firm partner Dennis Smith, is a Buff & Hensman Project Database. Stay tuned.

For a related link to John Berley, Project Manager of Frederick Fisher Partners Annenberg Community Beach House project in Santa Monica see http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/annenberg-community-beach-house-at.html

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