Browse Items (856 total)

This house for poet Ellen Janson, is perched on the edge of a cliff, high in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles. Janson was a modernist poet, and is widely considered Schindler's last girlfriend.

The house for Milton and Ruth Shep was designed to sit on a steep slope in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Ruth Shep also commissioned Schindler to design furniture for the house.

This house alteration for J.B. Lee was in the Chicago suburb of Maywood. The project was completed by Schindler when he worked for the architecture firm Ottenheimer Stern and Reichert.

The house Schindler designed for Ralph G. Walker overlooks the Silverlake reservoir on a steeply sloping site. The three bedroom, two bath house is a series of interlocking planes and cubes, with clerestory windows and expansive views. Schindler…

Roxy Roth was a screenwriter and actor who commissioned Schindler to design a house in the Studio City area of Los Angeles. The house is on an irregular-shaped lot, with a curved driveway/covered garage with an entrance and exit. The house is sited…

This house in the Studio City area of Los Angeles, was built in 1941 for Samuel and Yolanda Goodwin. The two-bedroom plus den house is sited on a street-to-street lot, with views of the valley.

This hillside house in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles was built for Elizabeth Van Patten and two other women, as three separate apartments with communal areas. Schindler also designed the furniture for the house.

The beach colony with semi-circular beach cottages was planned for Santa Monica and possibly named the "Cabania City Project" by A.E. Rose. One prototype beach cottage was built, but the rest of the colony was not constructed.

The house for William Oliver in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles is set on a steep lot, with views to the ocean and mountains. The garage is at street level, and the house is above, at a 45 degree angle to take advantage of the views and access the…

The Adolphe Tischler house, on a sloping hillside in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, has a street facade that is reminiscent of the prow of a ship. The street level contained a carport and artist's workshop, while the main entrance and living space…

The house designed for writer Rose Harris was built on top of a rocky ridge in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. The steep hillside site provided an unobstructed view down the canyon, but the footprint of the house was small, due to the…

The beach house for Henry Braxton and his wife Viola Brothers Shore was to be sited along the ocean in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles. The three story house (with sleeping porch and deck on the roof) was never built. Braxton was an art dealer…

This "Country house in adobe" for Dr. Thomas P. Martin was one of Schindler's earliest designs in the United States. After spending one week touring Taos, Schindler was influenced by the adobe and pueblo structures in the town.

Rudolph Schindler first worked with Aline Barnsdall on the Hollyhock House, when Frank Lloyd Wright sent Schindler to California from Illinois to supervise the construction while Wright went to Japan to work on the Imperial Hotel. Schindler continued…

The Manola Court apartments were designed by Schindler for his friend Herman Sachs, on a steep hillside in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Sachs was the muralist and painter of the interiors for LA landmarks such as City Hall, Union Station, and…

The Mackey apartments were designed in 1939 for Pearl Mackey. Three apartments were rented out, with the fourth, a two-story penthouse, was for Mrs. Mackey herself. Each unit had a different layout, and included built-in furniture, outdoor spaces,…

Schindler designed preliminary sketches for this high-rise office tower for the Frank Meline Company. The Photoplay building featured a top floor clubhouse for the Photoplayers, which included a ballroom/dining room, men's and women's lounges, a…

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…

Cliff May house 5 represents the final stage in his design of the custom ranch house in its scale, large areas of glass, and high ceilings. The large central living space (over 1,600 square feet and 53 feet long) was a combination of living room,…

Cliff May house 4, or the Skylight house, illustrates May’s eagerness to experiment, something he was particularly willing to do in the houses he designed for his family. Christian (Chris) Choate and May together designed it, with landscaping by…

This promotional image highlights the suburban nature of the Cliff May Homes tracts, with lush landscaping and ample parking.

Cliff May Homes rationallized the building process and used elements of prefabricated building parts to lower costs. This very colorful presentation drawing highlights the attractive exterior of the home.

As the Cliff May Homes distribution of prefabricated housing supplies expanded across the nation, the speed with which a house could be constructed was still a major selling point. In this series of photos, a clock is prominently displayed to show…

The house plans for the "Magic Money" ranch houses could vary between two and three bedroom models, as well as with or without two-car detached garage. The emphasis in these plans is on indoor-outdoor living, as exemplified by the large patio areas…

The idea for Cliff May Homes, a business of selling designs for prefabricated tract houses, was born in 1950 out of discussions between Cliff May and Chris Choate, an architect working in May’s office. May and Choate did field research, visiting…

May first took the plans for his postwar demonstration house to Sunset, asking the magazine to sponsor the building of the house. When Sunset declined, House Beautiful agreed to partner with May on the house. First National Finance Corporation…

In 1950 Cliff May partnered with Chris Choate to form Cliff May Homes to distribute ranch house plans to developers throughout the country. In Long Beach, they partnered with Ross Cortese, who built Lakewood Rancho Estates. Over 17,000 homes in 36…

May worked on his postwar demonstration model home intended for the Woodacres development, with Elizabeth Gordon, the editor of House Beautiful, who designed these interiors. This model was to be a U- shaped plan. Rooms were to be arranged around a…

The plan that evolved into May’s widely publicized Pace Setter house for House Beautiful was first designed by May during the war as a Postwar Demonstration house, in anticipation of an expanding upper middle-class housing market. He wanted to…

In 1947, Good Housekeeping magazine published May’s design of a small ranch house for a 60 x 120- foot lot, with the tag line, “Five rooms indoors—five outdoors.” The article boasts that the house is only 42 feet wide and “[t]here is no…

May designed these unbuilt minimum houses, a large set of model plans for low-cost ranch houses, for Sunset magazine. May’s strategy was to create garden-oriented, two-wing plans. The entrance was indirect and understated. Thin partitions defined…

This wartime emergency housing tract was Cliff May's first development to use production-line and prefabrication of materials to construct a large number of houses in a short amount of time. Originally planned with developer John A. Smith and his…

When the house was built in 1938–1939, the interior was connected to the outdoors visually through windows facing a sun terrace. In 1949, May changed some of those windows to glass doors. He also added heating under the concrete floor of the…

These unbuilt entrance gates indicate May’s vision for Riviera Ranch as a secluded world. The imagined landscaping is a fanciful mixture of cacti and palm trees. The building on the left is an architectural office with drafting and reception rooms.…

May evoked the mystique of California’s past and the proximity to the Riviera Country Club’s polo field to market his houses, as seen in his ideas to promote his Riviera Ranch development. He named his model house the “Urban Ranch.”

Though…

His second house for his family, Cliff May house 2, was built in Mandeville Canyon. This area of west Los Angeles would remain the epicenter of May’s work and life for the rest of his long career.
The wings of Cliff May house 2 enclose the outdoor…

Cliff May and John A. Smith formalized their relationship in a contractual partnership to “jointly undertake the construction of dwellings for sale in the vicinity of Los Angeles,” naming May as builder and designer and Smith as financier through…

The Hollywood Citizen-News reported that though the grand speculative house May built for John A. Smith resembled an “ancient ‘dobe ranch house,” the walls were actually hollow tile and filled with plumbing, electricity, and other modern…

Hiram and Violetta Lee Horton built four of the six speculative houses May designed for them on Hillside Drive in La Jolla, a seaside community in northern San Diego. Violetta Horton also commissioned May to build the Sweetwater Women’s clubhouse…

Cliff May’s future father-in-law, Roy C. Lichty, gave May a lot in the Talmadge Park subdivision, where Lichty was general manager, and financed his first speculative house, which May designed and built in 1931–1932 with the help of master…

Cliff May built his first speculative house in Talmadge Park in 1931, and his second in 1933, bought by Captain William Lindstrom. The Lindstrom house and furniture cost $7,710.42 to build. The $1,636.65 profit was split evenly between Cliff May and…

For Cliff May's first house for himself and his wife, Jean Lichty, he designed a house which surrounds a courtyard in an asymmetrical fashion. Cliff May house 1 is a modest hacienda house in the Talmadge Park neighborhood and the first of five houses…

At the time Schindler submitted a design for the Bergen Branch of the Free Public Library Competition in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was working for Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park, Illinois.
Schindler did not win the competition, and was not even…

The Bethlehem Baptist Church on South Compton Avenue in Los Angeles is Schindler's only religious structure. It is one of very few examples of modern architecture in South Los Angeles. The African-American church congregation commissioned Schindler…

The Laurelwood Apartments were the last grouping of apartments Schindler designed before he died. The complex of twenty two-bedroom, one-bath apartments is set on a sloping lot, with each apartment having either a private patio or terrace and a…

Dr. Philip Lovell was a doctor who commissioned multiple projects from Schindler, including his beach house in Newport Beach. This cabin in Wrightwood was to be a simple weekend getaway cabin for the doctor and his wife Leah and their family. The…

The small, square house for Paul Popenoe and his wife contained two bedrooms, a bathroom, and the exterior walls were ringed with porches that could be covered to act as sleeping porches and an extension of the living space. A central living area…

The Walter White archive contains a few photographs of White at various stages in his career.

Portraits of both Whitney Smith and Wayne Williams can be found in both the Smith and Williams collection as well as the Wayne Williams collection.

Whitney Rowland Smith was born in Pasadena in 1911 and lived there most of his life. He entered the…

The Cliff May archive contains many personal and professional portraits and publicity images of Cliff May.
The second image was published in House and Garden in February 1957 and shows Cliff May, daughter Marilyn, son-in-law Lawrence Philips,…

The Kem Weber archive contains quite a few photographs of Weber in meetings and posed for portraits.

The Woolf archive contains quite a few portraits of John Elgin Woolf, including these color photos.

The George Washington Smith portraits are archived in the Lutah Maria Riggs collection; since she was his protege who worked in his firm up until his death in 1930.

The Thornton Abell archive contains a number of studio portraits of the architect.

The Killingsworth collection contains many photographs of Edward Killingsworth at job sites, ground breaking ceremonies, and discussing projects with groups of people.

The de Forest archive contains a large amount of personal papers, including many photographs of Lockwood and Elizabeth de Forest. The photos document their extensive camping trips in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the 1930s.

Robert Stacy-Judd was an architect, archeologist, and tireless promoter of himself and his work. These portraits exhibit how his persona of Mayan explorer informed his architectural explorations.

This grouping of portraits shows the serious nature of Winslow.

These photographs capture Schindler at the construction site for the Walker house and in a more composed setting later in life.

These undated portraits of Peters highlight his personal style and attitude in line with his interior designs.

These two photographs, taken approximately 30 years apart, show Lutah as a student at Berkeley and as a well-established architect at her drafting table.

In 1954, the University of California opened a new campus on a former Marine Air Base, about ten miles west of Santa Barbara. This sparsely populated area, called Isla Vista, did not have the housing or infrastructure to support the influx of…

This medical office building was one of three commissions by dermatologist Lawrence Nelson. It is a typical small medical office building, with parking in the rear of the property, and access from the street. The present occupants of the building are…

The alterations to the Herman Baer house in rural Lompoc show the modern style of architecture that Riggs was moving towards in the late 1940s. A marked departure from her Spanish Colonial Revival work of the 20s, this house shows her growth as an…

The large, multi-story commercial and retail building on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara had exterior alterations by Riggs. The T.C. Suski Building was a Joseph Magnin department store in the 1960s and is currently retail and offices.
The…

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was started in 1926 as a partnership between the Carnegie Institution and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, with land in Mission Canyon donated by Anna Dorinda Bliss. The Garden grew from the initial 13…

Riggs designed this house on Middle Road in Montecito for herself in the mid-twenties; she lived there until her death in 1984. The house, named Clavelitos or "little carnation," contained two bedrooms, ample outdoor space, and large fireplaces. The…

The James B. Irving house was a temporary home designed by Schindler while he was employed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Schindler designed the home quickly, after Irving requested a temporary home since his had been destroyed by a tornado.
The Irvings…

This very early work of Schindler was done while he was still in the employ of the Chicago architecture firm Otternheim, Stern, and Reichert, just prior to Schindler leaving to work for Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. Built at Buena Avenue and…

This desert house for Maryon (also listed as Marian) Toole, is located in Palm Desert, which at the time was an unincorporated area known as Palm Village. It features stone walls with wood framing, large glass walls and clerestory windows to let in…

This twelve unit complex of duplexes, built for San Diego dentist W.L. Lloyd, showcased how Schindler was able to incorporate many of his modern plans into a multi-unit complex. Each unit had a ground floor living area, outdoor garden space, and an…

The Charles H. and Ethel Wolfe house was a single-family house with views of Avalon Bay, ocean, and natural landscapes. The mezzanine level was the street level and included the garage, small bedroom with full bath, kitchen, terrace, and living room…

Schindler designed the interior of the restaurant for Adolph Edward Brandstatter, including the furnishings. The restaurant, on Hollywood Boulevard near Vine, was popular with the Hollywood movie stars. It was originally open 24 hours per day and…

The industrial designer Raymond Loewy commissioned Frey to design a bachelor pad and winter getaway in 1947, in Palm Springs. The small (1100 square feet) house features walls of sliding glass doors opening onto a patio and pool. The outdoor living…

The Salton Sea was a formerly dry lake bed located southeast of Palm Springs. The area was flooded as part of an effort to irrigate the surrounding area in the early 1900s, and is one of the largest lakes in California. It is also one of the saltiest…

The Bel Vista affordable housing tract was built in 1945 as housing for War workers. The subdivision of 15 homes was designed by Albert Frey and John Porter Clark for the developers Sallie Stevens and Culver Nichols. This was the first subdivision…

Architects A. Lawrence Kocher and Albert Frey worked together in 1933-1934 to design low-cost structures, like the Aluminaire House. Kocher was the managing editor of Architectural Record, faculty at the University of Virginia and Black Mountain…

In 1934, Frey was sent to Palm Springs to design and build an office building, with an apartment above, for Dr. J.J. Kocher, the brother of A. Lawrence Kocher. The building was designed to take advantage of the climate and featured a courtyard…

Frey and Chambers designed the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway station house (the building at the base of the mountain) in 1963. The Tramway Gas Station, at the corner of Tramway Road and Highway 111, was constructed in 1965 with a distinctive hyperbolic…

The architect A. Lawrence Kocher was asked to design a house for the Architectural League of New York City and the Allied Arts of Industries bi-annual exhibition. Kocher hired Frey to help design a house that used new materials, like steel and glass…

The Bullocks Wilshire department store was one of the first to cater to customers in automobiles. The large Art Deco edifice was easily recognizable, and customers were able to drive up, have a valet securely park their car at the rear of the…

After working with an architect in Germany, Peters emigrated to the United States in 1922 and settled in Los Angeles. By 1924 he was working with Famous Players- Lasky Corporation, one of the largest silent film production companies in the city.…

After working for the movie industry for a few years, in 1927 Peters began working with his brother George as Peters by Jock, Brothers Modern American Design Office. They designed furniture and other interior pieces.

The renderings for a proposed Jock Peters residence along College View Avenue in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles show a very modern house, sited on a hill, with a studio and garage at street level. As with his other residential works, this…

This two-story modern house for the cinematographer Alfred Gilks is in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, just a short distance from Griffith Park. The house features multiple decks, an outdoor fireplace on the patio, and a mural in one of…

This house for L.E. Shepard in the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino is one of the few houses designed by Peters. The style is a Streamline Moderne, with some hints of International Style and Art Deco. The images highlight the indoor-outdoor living,…

Jock Peters worked with Eleanor LeMaire on the interiors of the women's clothing store. The architectural firm who designed the building was Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, and it is located on East 57th Street in Manhattan. The store was laid out 'boutique…

The apartment complex for Ted Falk at the corner of Lucile and Carnation avenues in Los Angeles, is one of the more complex designs for a Schindler apartment building. The four apartments are set on an irregular-shaped lot, on a steeply sloping hill.…

In the 1920s the 'bungalow court' was a common form of affordable housing in the Los Angeles region. With small units lining the sides of a city lot, perpendicular to the street, a courtyard is formed between the units. This style allowed each unit…

This rendering of Harriman's Colony is a birds-eye view of a planned community, possibly in San Gabriel. The client, Job Harriman was a lawyer and ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 1911 as a socialist. After his failed mayoral bid, Harriman started a…

The housing development for Gould and Bandini was a series of small houses for single workers or small families. This project was never built.

The distinctive A-frame shape of the Gisela Bennati cabin is possibly one of the earliest uses of the style as a residence in the United States. The steeply pitched roof is a very good choice for the Lake Arrowhead region, since the lake is at a high…

In 1914, the Chicago Architectural Club held a competition to design a neighborhood civic complex. This was Schindler's entry, featuring a very clean lines and a rectilinear plan.

The Los Angeles Central Library was one of Bertram Goodhue's final projects, which he was working on when he died in 1924. Winslow took over and finished the project in 1926.
The early Art Deco building featured Egyptian friezes and inscriptions on…

The Valley Club is a golf course originally designed by renown course designers Alister MacKenzie and Robert Hunter and the American Golf Course Construction Company. The main club building featured a main dining room, men's and women's lounges, as…

Winslow altered the Chapman Park Hotel and Bungalows, which were located on Wilshire Boulevard, in 1936. The hotel had been in business since the early 1900s, and Winslow added details to make the walled garden with bungalow cottages feel more like a…

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History was designed in a Spanish Colonial Revival style and built along the banks of Mission Creek, just a few blocks from the Santa Barbara Mission. Winslow designed a series of buildings interconnected with…

The Bliss house was one of Winslow's largest private commissions. The 80 room mansion for William and Anna Dorinda Bliss, at the corner of Olive Mill and Hot Springs Roads in Montecito, was to be their summer residence. The 45 acre estate, named Casa…

The Panama-California Exposition opened in 1915 in Balboa Park, San Diego, as a celebration of the opening and of the Panama Canal a few years prior. The Expo originally picked architect John Galen Howard to design the site, but due to his…

The small community of Lake Sherwood is situated in the mountains of Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles. The man-made lake and surrounding forest land was used in the 1922 filming of Robin Hood, and as the setting for many subsequent movies.…