Modern Architecture in L.A.

Wayne Williams and Whitney Smith, Smith and Williams. Community Facilities Planners office (South Pasadena, Calif.), 1958. Photograph by Jocelyn Gibbs, 2012. 

The Getty's Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. initiative focuses on Southern California's built landscape through a series of 11 linked exhibitions running through July. Exhibitions appear at Los Angeles area museums and explore a range of modern and postmodern building types--a regionwide overview of architecture, practitioners and design culture from 1940 to 1990. 

A few of the exhibitions:

The Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UCSB looks at the Pasadena-based team Whitney Smith and Wayne Williams, a firm that developed a modernism that integrated indoors and outdoors. Outside In: The Architecture of Smith and Williams (through June 16) examines the associations between buildings, environment and building to site. Their Community Facilities Planners office (above image) built for their own collaborative of five small firms was designed as four interlocking one- and two-story buildings woven into landscaped outdoor rooms. Smith often designed residential and commercial entrances through greenhouses, visible from areas of the living/working space. 

Booth house by Smith and Williams, 1956. Gelatin silver print by Julius Shulman. Copyright J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute (2004.R.10). 

The partnership commissioned the Los Angeles architectural photographer Julius Shulman for several assignments in Pasadena and Los Angeles County between 1947 and 1964. Shulman photographed certain architects and firms, documenting the modern movement over several decades.

Shoreline house by Smith and Williams, 1958. Photo: Julius Shulman. Copyright J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute (2004.R.10).

Modernist interiors introduced a spatial reconception, more flexible with sliding and moveable parts that allowed for flowing space and shifting axes. This expansiveness was influenced by Japanese vernacular architecture, opposite to compartmentalized rooms. 

Wayne Williams and Whitney Smith, Smith and Williams. Shoreline house for Orange County Home Show, Costa Mesa, CA, 1957. Photograph of a drawing by Al Spencer mounted on board. Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara. Copyright Regents of the University of California. 

The right-angled architectural box was dissembled into staggered volumes of differing sizes and shapes. Structures were intended to extend out from their actual footprint with an elastic consideration of space surrounding a building, maximizing air and sunlight. 

L.A. School: Seven of the architects who participated in the initial Architectural Gallery, from left to right--Frederick Fisher, Robert Mangurian, Eric Owen Moss, Coy Howard, Craig Hodgetts, Thom Mayne, Frank Gehry at Venice Beach, 1980. Photograph copyright 1980 Ave Pildas. 

A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture Gallery, Venice, 1979 exhibition at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (through July 7) examines the  role of the temporary gallery held in the home of architect Thom Mayne for several months in 1979. Mayne staged weekly exhibitions on emerging and established Los Angeles practitioners. 

"The show documents a crucial turning point in Los Angeles architecture, a time when Angeleno architecture culture shifted from working local variations on imported themes, to exporting highly original disciplinary innovations with global reach," says curator Todd Gannon. The exhibition highlights architects of the L.A. School, as they were occasionally described. Many ran alternative design offices in Venice Beach, noted for its experimental architecture culture that thrived in the 1970s and '80s. Displays include models, drawings, video recordings, and other materials shown during the original 1979 exhibitions. 

Ray and Shelly Kappe house, living room, by Ray Kappe, 1966-68. Photography by Timothy Sakamoto, copyright 2013 Timothy Sakamoto. 

The Southern California climate and varied natural terrain provided architects with opportunities to rethink the configuration of the conventional residence. Unique domestic forms emerged through the implementation of new fabrication techniques and materials, which had been tested by industrial labs during World War II. Technology and Environment: The Postwar House in Southern California exhibition at the Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design (through July 12, Kellogg University Art Gallery) examines new design forms made possible by innovations in lightweight materials and construction technology. "We're looking at how architects used a variety of materials and methods and an interest in new technology and the environment to develop a wide range of approaches to form and site," says curator Judith Sheine. 

Located in a canyon in Pacific Palisades, the Ray and Shelly Kappe house by Los Angeles architect Ray Kappe (above image) was designed to accommodate the site's running stream and steeply sloped hillside. Kappe created an experimental tower system that extended down to the bedrock, leaving the creek, trees and topography undisturbed. The house is distributed across seven levels with a bridgework of beams attached to the towers. A 50-50 glass/wood proportion and integration with its site create a treehouse effect. 

David and Riva Schrage house, dining and living room, by Raphael Soriano, 1952. Photography by Timothy Sakamoto, copyright 2013 Timothy Sakamoto. 

Architect Raphael Soriano, based in Marin County, constructed the Schrage house in Los Angeles in his trademark one-story pavilion form. One of the first architects to utilize prefabricated modular steel and aluminum frames, his work expresses a highly-machined aesthetic. Lightweight materials allowed architects to eliminate interior walls, create open floor plans and substitute sliding doors for exterior walls. 

 Apartment house for Lucille Colby by Raphael Soriano, 1949. Raphael Soriano Collection, ENV Archives-Special Collections, Cal Poly Pomona.

Case Study House No. 22 by Pierre Koenig. Photo by Julius Shulman, 1960, gelatin silver print. Copyright J. Paul Getty Trust.  Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. An image from the PSTP anchor exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum--Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990 (through July 21). 

The Stahl house, also known as Case Study House No. 22, was designed by Los Angeles architect Pierre Koenig for the Case Study House Program initiated in 1945. The program, sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, sought to offer the public building industry models for affordable housing in the modern idiom during the immediate postwar years. By 1966, the 25 experimental modern prototypes built resulted in the most significant works of residential architecture of the time. Koenig's house was built on a cliffside with a cantilevered frame. Photographer Shulman's image reveals the balance and elegance of the mid-century modern home. 

A full list of PSTP exhibitions and programs.