Los Angeles: The Sun-kissed City

Los Angeles is a modern, sprawling urban expanse. With a population of almost eighteen million in the Greater L.A. Area, the city is the second largest metropolitan in the United States, only taking a back seat to New York. (http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/csa2005.htm) R.M. Schindler's home, as part of the Los Angeles Area, is blessed to embed itself in a spectrum of landscapes. Southern California is a land of inviting beaches, expansive coastal plains, verdant foothills, tortuous canyons, rugged mountains and endless valleys, all under the sun. (Kaplan, 19). In terms of landscape, few regions of the world can match to the variety of terrain within Los Angeles; a semiarid desert facing an ocean coastline encircled by four mountain ranges. (Kaplan, 19) The city is surrounded by the San Gabriels, San Bernardinos, San Jacintos, Santa Susanas, and peirced by the Santa Monicas and Santa Anas. (Kaplan, 19). These mountain ranges, although scenic, also perform tasks far more important than appearing in Hollywood films. It is because of the city's many highlands that L.A. is fortunate to have a rare micro-climate. Winter storms are blocked from the north, and sea breezes from the west are contained. (Kaplan, 21) As a result, L.A. has a semitropical climate, appropriately compared to the Mediterranean. In fact author Lorin Blodget stated in 1859 that the climate of Southern California can be compared most easily to Italy, its warm hospitable conditions were perfect for those suffering from asthma. (Kaplan, 39) Ironicly, the smog that has since settled in California is quite detrimental. Despite the micro-climate's presence, Los Angeles surprisingly contains even smaller climate zones. Any news report in the city will reveal different forecasts for the beaches, financial district, east and west sides, the low and high deserts, and of course the mountains. (Kaplan, 23). Meteorologists have noted the distinct regions' unique smaller climates, in total, they've recognized over two dozen distinct climate zones within the city's immediate area. (Kaplan, 23) In fact, it is common for citizens in two different neighbourhoods to experience large temperature differentials. While someone at home may be sitting in a sweater, a neighbour at the bottom of a foothill may be swimming in a backyard pool.

Overall, Los Angeles is warm year round. It's the sun that attracts the masses to visit and often move to the metropolis. If it weren't for the sun, L.A. would not be the same, and definitely it wouldn't have boomed the way it did. Schindler took advantage of Los Angeles's unique climate. It allowed him to plan a space that could incorporate the outdoors more seamlessly than previous cities he'd worked in such as Vienna and Chicago. The opportunity allowed Schindler to create a new style of architecture in his house, one that better reflected California's unique conditions. His "California Scheme" was evident in the studio rooms, where "concrete walls on three sides" were accompanied by "a front open (glass) to the outdoors." (Kaplan, 21)
Take a look at the lack of mechanical heating and the placement of outdoor sleeping baskets and it becomes easy to see that Schindler fully embraced the California heat.

The following graph displays daily temperature ranges in central L.A.

Population Explosion of Los Angeles

Footage of Hollywood in the 1920's

Nature as Inspiration

Yosemite redwoods

Schindler became deeply inspired by the American wilderness after a visit to the mountains of Yosemite. The Schindler Chace house became a reflection of the experience of camping in both the literal and metaphorical sense. The features of the home are a manifestation of the ambiance of the wild, and the lifestyle one adopts in that environment.

Only two weeks after the 1921 visit to Yosemite, Schindler finalized his design for his new house in West Hollywood. (Smith, 20) In a letter to his wife's parents, Schindler described how the experience of the wilderness was captured in his future home. (Smith, 20) He wrote, "The basic idea was to give each person his own room - instead of the usual distribution- and to do most of the cooking right on the table, making it more a social 'campfire' affair, than the disagreeable burden to one member of the family." (Smith, 20) The house's design eliminated a conventional kitchen for each couple and thus eliminated a housewife's drudged routine. In exchange for a kitchen, many fireplaces were placed throughout the home. (Smith, 21) The utilities were paired with the fireplaces so that cooking and cleanup could take place in studios, quickly and easily. (Smith, 21)

Installing the redwood framing on the Clyde Chace studio
(Smith, 22)

The Schindler Chace residence was unique in the sense that it could handle crowds of varying magnitudes. During the house's lifetime, many extravagant parties were hosted. In order to accommodate up to one hundred guests, the interior partitions filled with Insulite -conceived as non-load-bearing frames - were removed. (Smith, 27) The plan of the house essentially adapted to the people inside, just as nature adapts in order to thrive. Even the parties were characteristically wild. Especially when John Bovingdon re-enacted symbolic rituals from Bali with his bare-breasted partner. (Smith, 29) The gardens on the outside further provided a backdrop for haunting dances because of the smooth transition between indoor and outdoor spaces, made possible by the warm California climate (Smith, 29)

Schindler at his campground in
Yosemite National Park

Schindler's plan was essentially based on austere abstraction. (Smith, 30)  There was no living room, dining room, or bedroom anywhere in the house. Instead, four studios were separated for each member of the household.  The four independent studios represented Schindler's interpretation of the family as a group of individuals with common goals, implying that the members were artists whose lives were an expression of creativity. (Smith, 21) Interestingly, the studios had no beds so they didn't double as a bedroom. Schindler designed what he called sleeping baskets, planes supported on what looked like spider legs on the roof of the studio space. (Smith, 30) As a whole, the house's rooms existed as voids that derived meaning based on furniture arrangement. (Smith, 30) The furniture was easily moved as different uses for rooms became more desirable. (Smith, 30) In essence, the versatility of each space to be free of a permanent program was a priority. It is a concept that was directly inspired by the adaptability of nature.

R. M. Schindler designed the house with a vivid memory of his shelter in Yosemite. (Smith, 21) He intended for the SCH to be a reflection of the same freedom and celebration of life he experienced in the wilderness - the psychology of a uninterrupted vacation where the irritations of the workday were evaded. (Smith, 21)
Right before his death, Schindler reflected on the origins of the house. He stated, "I camped under the open sky, in the redwoods, on the beach, the foothills, and the desert. I tested its adobe, its granite and its sky. And out of a carefully built up conception of how the human being could grow roots in this soil - I built my house. And unless I failed, it should be as Californian as the Parthenon is Greek and the Forum Roman." (Hines, 245)

The tent consists of three solid walls...

...with a movable partition in front.

This wall is openable to the outside...

...to the green space extending the house. 

Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright

“His freedom is perfection. It had no tradition to overcome or prejudice to fight. His work grows quietly out of itself. He is the master of each material, and the modern machine is the base of his form-giving.” 
R.M. Schindler to Richard Neutra on Frank Lloyd Wright

Schindler was first introduced to Wright through the Wasmuth Portfolio in 1910 while he was still in Vienna. He immediately wanted to work for him, and in 1914 moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin. He took an unpaid position as a draftsman for Wright in 1918. This was when Wright was working on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Here Schindler was largely introduced to Japanese architecture. Wright was frequently away, in between Japan and his office at Taliesen. During these times he left Schindler in charge of his office, though he would later deny this fact. While working on the Hollyhock house, he considered moving to California, where he eventually started his own practice. He was influenced by Wright’s adaptation and incorporation of Japanese architecture, as evident in the light, moveable partition walls in the Schindler House and the Japanese timber frame. 

Wright found space in the Japanese print which, he wrote in his autobiography, “lies a the bottom of all this so-called modernism.” Schindler found it first in Cubism; in his own work he saw into space (McCoy, 152).

Though he was heavily influenced by Wright, Schindler never intended to follow him. He saw that none of Schindler’s draftsmen had “found anything to say for themselves” (McCoy, 151). Schindler took what he did from Wright, but strove to make his own mark. 

Schindler's Instructors

Schindler's Viennese background allowed him to study among great Austrian architects. He was fascinated by his instructors: Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos. 

Adolf Loos (1870 - 1933)

Birthplace: Brno, Moravia 

Adolf Loos   

Villa Muller interior
Spacial planning (Raumplan)

Fellow Viennese architect Adolf Loos believed that ornament was a crime. He even went as far as stating, "It would be greatly for own aesthetic good if we would refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude." Loos had a very radical approach to architecture and was highly opinionated. His personal charisma drew students to his lectures. During these lectures, Schindler took away an appreciation for Loos's Raumplan complexity of interior spaces. Loos had an overwhelming passion for the people, culture and architecture of the USA. Loos's faith in the promise of US life propelled Schindler to practice in the USA, especially after the mutual discovery of Frank Lloyd Wright after seeing  the 1910 publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio.

Source: Architecture of the Sun By: Thomas S Hines

Photographic sources noted in bibliography.

Postal Savings Bank interior

Otto Wagner (1841 - 1918)

Birthplace: Penzing, Austria

Wagner studied at the Imperial School of Technology and the Academy of Fine Arts between 1857 and 1863. He was later appointed professor of the Academy of Art in 1894. Eventually he established the Wagnerschule, a studio based education system that only accepted 12 incoming students a year. The schools ideas managed to reach far beyond its' participants, though the actual alumni were some of the most influential architects of the first half of the twentieth century. 

Wagner believed that other architecture of his time considered form, style and beauty as mere by products of the building program when they should be the primary concern in developing a design for modern life. With that in mind, Schindler marveled at Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1905). It was the first modern building placed in the historicist Ringstrasse. The structure was remarkably different in not only in style, but in its use of materials: concrete, steel, aluminum and glass. Wagner even designed the furniture and fixtures because he believed in the Germanic concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (all embracing art). The model inspired Schindler's future mentor Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Source: Architecture of the Sun By: Thomas S Hines

Photographic sources noted in bibliography.

Esther McCoy on Schindler, Space Architect

“Isn’t there anyone who understands that the main purpose of socialization is to eliminate any kind of profit? … Can any technician or artist overlook what it would mean for mankind if any act, any work, were to be only the result of a wish simply to fulfill this act for its own sake and not to earn anything from it? … As if the wish to express one’s self were not the strongest urge of a free human being, and as if it were beneath the dignity of man to do work which was not the direct expression of the individual! … Only when words like compensation, wages and competition become unknown, and only then, will true socialism begin.” 

Chicago, April 14, 1920. An excerpt from R.M. Schindler’s letter to Richard Neutra.

Schindler was an architect’s architect. While Wright may have been the most influential, Schindler was the most borrowed from. His conception of space and the construction methods that he developed was what set him apart. He was always looking for a more economic way to build, and did all of the contracting himself. He included (albeit in the former half of his career) very little detail and dimensions in the final blueprints; most of which was roughed in with a no. 1 pencil. However, he was incredibly meticulous. He spent most of the afternoon on the job site overseeing the construction. This allowed him the control of and to refine every last detail, and to make decisions on the spot. While designing, he works with two things, the contour map of the lot and the Los Angeles building ordinances. His reference books collected dust and he owned very few magazines. 

He was dismissed by many at the time because they saw him as only playing with architecture. He could not be serious about architecture, spending every afternoon at the job site. In fact, however, he was serious about both architecture and playing with it. His system was based on the building code, use, and necessity. He praised his draftsmen, but redrew their work on a new premises, and “playfully brought the spaces into dissident agreement” (Morgan, 123).

Schindler’s approach was primarily concerned with space. He developed this strategy as a student in Vienna, and incorporated it in all of his works. 

He designs and builds in terms of space rather than mass forms. His houses are wrapped around space. You can quickly see in his space forms how he has created a new definition for space; a Schindler house is in movement, it is in becoming. (Morgan, 73)

His style was dubbed Space Architecture, and was rooted in the character of the land and the client’s way of life. It was coloured by its surroundings. He had dug into Los Angeles and there his architecture settled.