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Thursday, June 21, 2012

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
Unbuilt
4
Greenbelt House
Ralph Rapson
Unbuilt
5
Loggia House
Whitney R. Smith
Unbuilt
6
Omega
Richard Neutra
Unbuilt
12
Whitney R. Smith
Unbuilt
13
Alpha
Richard Neutra
Unbuilt
19A
Don Knorr
Unbuilt
21A*
Richard Neutra
Unbuilt
24
A. Quincy Jones,
 Frederick E. Emmons
Unbuilt
27
Campbell and Wong
Unbuilt
Apt 2
Killingsworth, Brady,
Smith & Assoc.
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

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for this post, what a lot of work! I will enjoy spending time reading the articles and viewing the marvelous pictures!

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    Replies
    1. I think you'll really enjoy looking at the plans and sketches and beautiful scale models of the homes. It's a shame they were never built.

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