Los Angeles in the 1920s
Kings Road House
Rudolph Schindler started building the house at 835 Kings Road in 1921-1922 with engineer Clyde Chace. At the time, the area of West Hollywood was sparsely populated, but Los Angeles was rapidly expanding throughout the 1920s and the population in this area increased exponentially by the end of the decade. The 100 x 200 foot lot was laid out with seven different outdoor areas, including multiple patios, gardens, and a driveway with service area near the garage.
As David Gebhard states: "The roofed enclosed space expressed Schindler's view that each of the four occupants of the house should have a private retreat. A design studio (labelled R.M.S on the plans) was provided for his use; his wife's retreat (labelled S.P.G) was in the centre; and two retreats for the Chaces were placed in the northern part of the building. Each pair of retreats formed an L and opened on to an outdoor living room through sliding canvas doors which during the summer months could be completely removed. The two main outdoor living rooms were provided with their own fireplaces. A common kitchen was to be used jointly by the Schindlers and the Chaces, the wives taking turns to cook so that household tasks would not become repetitious for either. No bedrooms as such were provided, for the occupants were expected to sleep in the open in 'sleeping baskets' (i.e. sleeping porches) placed over each of the entrances." Gebhard, p. 34
Today, the house is the main exhibition and educational space for the non-profit group Friends of the Schindler House, and their partner, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture.
Philip Lovell
Phillip Lovell, a homeopathic doctor, and his wife Leah, a modern educator, were friends with Schindler and his wife Pauline, and shared many of the same acquantances in the West Hollywood area. Lovell was well known for his column in the Los Angeles Times, "Care of the Body" and he was a major proponent of a healthy lifestyle. He commissioned Schindler to design a beach house in Newport Beach and a cabin in the mountains of Wrightwood.
Lovell also commissioned Richard Neutra to design the first steel-frame house, the Lovell Health House in the Hollywood Hills. Neutra and Schindler were friends, briefly business partners, and Neutra and his wife Dionne lived in the Kings Road house with Schindler in the late 1920s.
"Life in the open was to be the theme of the beach house; it was to be an argument (repeated in the Neutra design) for health and modernity combined. The house was placed on stilts, not only to provide some privacy from the public beach and to obtain a view of the ocean, but so that the beach could penetrate under the house, forming an outdoor sheltered living space equipped with its own fireplace." Gebhard p.58
By raising the house on five figure-eight shaped piers, Schindler created an instantly recognizable and modern facade. A double stairway leads to the second floor, which contained a double-height living room, kitchen, and space for dining. On the next level were private dressing rooms and sleeping porches for the inhabitants. A roof deck provided space and privacy for sunbathing.
This cabin in Wrightwood was to be a simple weekend getaway cabin for the doctor and his wife Leah and their family. The cabin was assembled using prefabricated panels with a flat roof and the structure only withstood one year of snow at its high elevation before it collapsed.
Additional Projects
While the Kings Road house and his commissions for Phillip Lovell are some of Schindler's most famous works from this time period, he was also working on other projects for residential and commercial commissions.
The Photoplay building for the Frank Meline Company, is also known as the Playmart skyscraper. It is one of only a few designs by Schindler in the high-rise format. This was an un-built project.
This cabin for Paul Popenoe was located in the sparsely populated Coachella Valley, a small desert community approximately 150 miles east of Schindler's residence on Kings Road in West Hollywood. The cabin did not contain insulation or climate control, so was not to be inhabited during the very hot summer.
The reception room / salon interior design for Helena Rubinstein by Schindler was for a building on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Helena Rubinstein, the cosmetics entrepreneur, also commissioned Shindler to design a salon in New York City, as well as alterations and additions to a house in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1923.
The How house utilized slip-form concrete and redwood walls attach the house to its steep hilltop site. The use of horizontal redwood boards with battens still shows an influence of Frank Lloyd Wright.
In 1927, Ailine Barnsdall asked Schindler to design a house for her on the Palos Verdes peninsula, just south of downtown Los Angeles. The Palos Verdes area was known for being cooler year-round, and the location of the house was to be sited along the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Schindler designed a house to block the strong wind off the ocean, while also allowing light to enter through the use of translucent glass along the top of the walls and panels of glass on the roof.