The houses that never were

We devotees of mid-century design spend countless hours looking at photos of famous Case Study Houses, many of which were immortalized by photographer Julius Shulman. But what about the Case Study Houses that were never built? These were designs architects spent months, even years, planning, drawing and promoting...time spent away from their families and putting other projects on the back burner, ultimately for naught, because they were unable to secure financing.

This happened more times than you might think. Of the original eight homes that were planned, three were never built. Case Study House #1 was designed in 1945 and remained unbuilt for three years, at which time the plans were drastically altered, resulting in a structure that barely resembled the original plans. So, in effect, half the original plans never came to fruition. Thirty-eight homes and apartments were finally designed for the project. Of those, only twenty-seven made it past the planning stage.

The chart below shows the Case Study Houses that were not built. Nevertheless, Arts & Architecture magazine ran articles about each one, to which I've provided links. You might enjoy taking a look at plans and photos of these houses that never came to be.

Number	Name	Architect(s)	Publication	Status
1		J. R. Davidson	February 1945	Unbuilt
4	Greenbelt House	Ralph Rapson	September 1945	Unbuilt
5	Loggia House	Whitney R. Smith	April 1946	Unbuilt
6	Omega	Richard Neutra	October 1945	Unbuilt
12		Whitney R. Smith	February 1946	Unbuilt
13	Alpha	Richard Neutra	March 1946	Unbuilt
19A		Don Knorr	September 1947	Unbuilt
21A*		Richard Neutra	May 1947	Unbuilt
24		A. Quincy Jones,  Frederick E. Emmons	December 1961	Unbuilt
27		Campbell and Wong	June 1963	Unbuilt
Apt 2		Killingsworth, Brady, Smith & Assoc.	May 1964	Unbuilt

* In Arts & Architecture, this is called Case Study House #20. (The numbering of the Case Study Houses is so inexplicable that Esther McCoy, an undisputed expert on the subject, omitted them in her book Case Study Houses: 1945-1962.)

From artsandarchitecture.com

J. R. Davidson's Case Study House #1 (unbuilt)
thedesigncoop.com

Scale model of J. R. Davidson's Case Study House #1 (unbuilt)
artsandarchitecture.com