Case Study Houses: 1945-1962

by Esther McCoy

Since the popular Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit of 1989, Blueprint for Modern Living, much attention has been paid to the pioneering work done by the architects of the Case Study Program. Sponsored by John Entenza's Art & Architectue Magazine, the Case Study Houses program brought new thinking, techniques, and materials to post-war California house building. Contains the work of Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, William Wurster, and others.

Genres: Architecture

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

Reviews

[jw468]

For some reason I always pictured this book as being larger in size. It’s really quite small, being just 10.5” by 7.2”. Perhaps the increasingly large format of the books that have examined the Case Study Houses (first the large Blueprints for Modern Living, then Taschen’s immense Case Study Houses) made me think that they were taking their cue from it.

The Case Study Houses are often cited as one of the most important developments in American modern architecture. Esther McCoy’s 1962 Modern California Houses was the first book to compile those efforts and has since become very collectible. In 1977 Hennessey + Ingalls reprinted it with a new title, Case Study Houses: 1945-1962, the subtitle of the original book.

Other than brief introductory material, a conclusion, and biographies of the involved architects, McCoy’s sole focus is the buildings and projects, which she divides into three categories: “The First Five Years: 1945-1949,” “Steel Takes Over: 1950-1960,” and “Toward Community Planning: After 1960.” Not all entries receive the same amount of coverage. Information given for the houses includes the designer(s), location, lot size, square footage, number of rooms and room types, materials, photos during construction and after completion, plans, detail drawings, and written explanations. The photos make up the bulk of the book. Most of the construction photos show the steel-frame houses. Nothing is printed in color, except for the jacket. For this reason, if you’re not planning to buy Taschen’s big book, you might want to buy the 96-page book as a companion.

A digital copy of this book is available at http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id.... If you enjoy it, you’ll probably also like Herbert Weisskamp’s Beautiful Homes and Gardens in California.

[Danette]

This book was highlighted in a documentary called 'Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman'. Julius was a photographer of architecture and he was the best during his time. So I wanted to check out the book that had many of his photographs. Also, architecture is my profession, so this was a very easy book to enjoy. The architecture highlights California's climate which creates the dream indoor outdoor floor plan. But, I believe many of the elements could be implemented any where in the country. One of my favorite was by Architect, Whitney R. Smith, with a X-shaped floor plan. Though it was a picture book in still supplied plenty of information about the project, biographies of the architects, and design explanations.

[Mark Einselen]

While not necessarily an academic review of Case Study Houses, this is a great resource for anyone who wants read more broadly on the program. The floor plans and illustrations are good, too.