Mid2Mod: Case Study House 12

Showing posts with label Case Study House 12. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Whitney R. Smith

Whitney R. Smith (1911-2002) was born in Pasadena, California. He received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Southern California in 1934. Because there were few positions available in his field, he worked for a time building movie sets. He then worked for several architects, including Harwell Hamilton Harris, an early modernist whom Smith considered a strong influence on his work.

Smith opened his own practice in the early 1940s and was joined by Wayne R. Williams in 1946. Williams became a partner in 1949, and for the next 24 years, the firm of Smith and Williams created residences, schools, community buildings and recreational facilities that won state and national awards.

In 1946 Smith joined the Case Study House Program, designing Case Study House #5, known as the Loggia House, and Case Study House #12. Though neither house was built, they were considered two of the most experimental and innovative in the program.

From 1946 to 1950 Smith joined with A. Quincy Jones to design and build the Mutual Housing Association development, a large tract of houses in the Crestwood Hills neighborhood in Brentwood, a district in western Los Angeles. Also participating were architects Doug Honnold, John Lautner, Francis Lockwood, engineer Edgardo Contini and landscape architect Garrett Eckbo. However, because of their exposure in Arts & Architecture magazine while participating in the Case Study House Program, Jones, Smith and Contini eventually received full credit for the project.

Some of the projects of Smith and Williams were the Unitarian Church in Pasadena, the UCLA north campus student union and the UCLA Canyon Recreation Center, the central power building at Caltech, the dining facility and ancillary facilities at Camp Curry in Yosemite, the Griffith Park Girls Camp, the Santa Ana government center, the Buena Park Civic Center and the Japanese teahouse at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge.

In 1973 Smith left the firm of Smith and Williams and opened a private practice, designing the entrance complex and auditorium for the Huntington Library in San Marino, the Pasadena Neighborhood Church and the science building and the art studio and gymnasium at Westridge School for Girls in Pasadena. He retired in the mid-1980s.
Smith also taught architecture at USC and Scripps College in the 1940s and 1950s.

From latimes.com, housing.com, dwell.com